#atfhv worldbuilding

[birlwrites]

Hiii! Your description of robes sounds a lot like abayas or thobes!!

Idk if this is exactly what you had in mind but its always how i imagine whenever im reading

Idk if this was what you were imagining

yeah that is very similar to what i'm thinking of!! i think the only real difference is that in my version of robes, they tend to be tailored to fit closely from the chest through the waist and then flare out a little below the waist, as opposed to being loose and being cinched with some kind of tie (or just being a totally straight line), like this early 19th-century european riding habit:

plus fabric texture and ornamentation - i'm drawing from european aristocratic fashions from the 18th-19th centuries (especially victorian england for the blacks and rococo for the rosiers), so stuff like this but in the robes cut:

men's rococo fashion was actually where i got the idea for a lot of the aesthetics of formalwear in lachrimae!

#atfhv worldbuilding #should i make an inbox tag #dark lord wip

[birlwrites]

can i ask which families are in the sacred 28? and if they're light/dark and what their specialties are? and also their lords and ladies' names (if you've come up w them) because you've been breaking out names i have never heard before

i don't have them for everyone as that would be a lot of names and i've devoted most of that energy to making up hogwarts students, but i have. far more of them than would ever be necessary for this story! bolded the given names i know i made up, entirely possible some of the other ones are fanon. also bolded the dark families. 'light' families aren't really a thing, as there's no such thing as light magic in atfhv - only dark

also this list of the sacred 28 is from my brain and i know for a fact it's not consistent with canon, we're vibing

list of specialties

ok families. hoo boy here goes

MOSTE ANCIENTE

BLACK: lord orion black, lady walburga black

ANCIENTE

BULSTRODE: lord [maeve's dad] bulstrode, lady [maeve's mom] bulstrode

MALFOY: lord abraxas malfoy, lady sabine malfoy

ZABINI: lord valentio zabini, lady ortensia zabini

PARKINSON: lord peregrine parkinson, lady lavinia parkinson

WEASLEY: don't even claim their wizengamot seat smh :// how dare they not be part of the idle leisure class

ROSIER: lord william rosier, lady aurelia rosier

BROWN: lord hawthorn brown, lady eleanor brown

NOTT: lord [theophania's dad] nott, lady [theophania's mom] nott

GREENGRASS: lord [???] greengrass, lady [???] greengrass

LESTRANGE: lord [bellatrix's father-in-law] lestrange, lady [bellatrix's mother-in-law] lestrange

NOBLE

OLLIVANDER: ?????

POTTER: fleamont and euphemia baybeeeeeeeeee

YAXLEY: lord [charlotte's grandfather] yaxley, lady [charlotte's grandmother] yaxley

MACMILLAN: lord [arnold's father] macmillan, lady [arnold's mother] macmillan

SMITH: ?????

SHAFIQ: ?????

SELWYN: lord [larissa selwyn who was mentioned like one time's grandfather] selwyn, lady [larissa selwyn's grandmother] selwyn

VANITY: lord jacob vanity, no lady vanity, emma's mom basically has that role, she does not have a given name

MCKINNON: lord martin mckinnon, lady benceline mckinnon

PRINCE: died out

CARROW: ?????

LONGBOTTOM: ?????

GOYLE: ?????

SHACKLEBOLT: ?????

MARCHBANKS: lord [pandora's father] marchbanks, lady [pandora's mother] marchbanks

CRABBE: ?????

PREWETT: lord ignatius prewett, lady lucretia prewett

the other dark families are duncan, avery, flint, goodwin, young, lovett, hooper, and archer

#atfhv worldbuilding #canon and i are engaging in parallel play #dark lord wip #should i make an inbox tag

[birlwrites]

I absolutely love all the lore you created around the Black family and really hope we'll get to see more interactions with the older generation (Cygnus, Alphard etc).

Though I've noticed that besides a single mention in ttdl Lucretia isn't really present. I would love to know how does the Black family actually go about her in ttdl universe since she's not disowned but also married Ignatius Prewett, so what seems to be a fairly Light and pro-Dumbledore family. Also you've mentioned how Regulus would spend time with Cygnus as a kid, so would the same be true for Lucretia? She is his father's sister so a fairly close family after all.

*laughs awkwardly in 'sometimes filling in everything i don't remember with headcanons means the blacks are related to each other in slightly different ways from whatever the hell is canon'*

i feel the need to state that i read the harry potter series like, 14-15 times in elementary school, with a few rereads later on, and have read a lot of fanfiction, but i've never in my life consulted a wiki or really engaged with extra content/canon. so very specific things are burned into my brain, but don't expect full accuracy to canon, between that and the fact that i do just change things sometimes if i think something will work better for my story

ok now that we've gotten that over with, lucretia is regulus's great-aunt in atfhv! this is very important to contextualize her marriage to ignatius prewett because it was not long after her brother arcturus married melania macmillan, in the mid-1930s. (arcturus and melania got married in 1936 and i haven't come up with a specific year for lucretia and ignatius)

this was a high point for house black's friendliness with non-dark families, in which the weasleys were mainly looked down upon for being poor and not so much for being accepting of muggleborns (although, to be clear, house black never reached that point, and house macmillan was and is really socially moderate, as opposed to progressive. house prewett is a little further down that spectrum, but was still in house black's acceptable range, especially as lucretia was marrying out instead of bringing a new person in

ignatius is lord prewett, but in the BCU (this is why the phrase 'birl's cinematic universe' exists LMAO), he and lucretia never have kids. the lordship passes to ignatius's brother after his death, who is molly and fabian and gideon's father

(timeline on that - ignatius is born mid-late 1910s, his brother early 1920s. molly, the eldest, is born in 1956, and fabian and gideon 3 years later. i have most of house black getting married and having kids very young - walburga's actually one of the older ones when she gets married, at 22 - so someone not having kids until their 30s is how house prewett kind of skips a generation compared to the blacks)

all that means that lucretia, as lady prewett, has all the social affairs of house prewett to manage, so she's not as around as most of regulus's family is (cassiopeia, having never married, is around more)

it also means that once either ignatius or lucretia dies, but especially once they both die, the black-prewett alliance is dead in the water, b/c there are no kids and also house black is pulling away from families like the prewetts so they're not going to want to keep up relations

so regulus certainly knows lucretia, and lucretia and walburga will meet up for tea and such, but lucretia wasn't at black manor over the summers, which is where regulus really spent time with and got to know most of his extended family. that being said, she is still accepted among them, she's just not there a lot. kind of like if most of your family lives in roughly the same area and then you have one family member who lives a plane flight away, but emotionally instead of physically

oh also agjhkghlsjkdf i just remembered a conversation i had w my friend about regulus and lucretia that i'm going to make ttdl canon now because i think it's amusing - so, regulus picks up other people's mannerisms like a crow picking up shiny objects, right? he ESPECIALLY did this when he was little. like it was something he did (and does) on purpose, watching people for cool/clever things they do and then copying them

at one point when he was 5 or so, they were having dinner and lucretia was there, and she like. spun her spoon in her hand at one point, and regulus (like, all the way at the other side of the table) tried it, couldn't do it, dropped his spoon, and was mad at her for months. how dare she do something regulus couldn't copy. clearly it was a Cruel Trick (lucretia didn't even know he was watching)

but yeah lucretia isn't very present compared to most of regulus's family, and she never has been in regulus's lifetime, so even though she's as closely related to him as cassiopeia and alphard are, cassiopeia and alphard Feel more closely related

#dark lord wip #should i make an inbox tag #atfhv worldbuilding #(for the bit about house black and moderate families)

[birlwrites]

And the underwear. What is the underwear like?

I'd also like to know what pajamas are like.

And it's probably a silly question, but I'd like to know if, for example, a girl was to wear a short dress, a short skirt or shorts, would it be indecent? Like if they were in their underwear? (The same if a boy were wearing shorts and a tank top).

What would be considered indecent or scandalous to wear?

i generally consider underwear and pajamas to be basically the same for both muggles and magical folks - it does depend a little on how close you are to muggles and where you're likely to get clothes. magical clothing ('magical' in the sense of 'magical people made it', not necessarily in the sense that the clothes have magical properties) tends to not really use elastic, so pajamas are going to have drawstrings or ties instead of elastic waistbands, and of course regulus isn't going to do the 'use an old t-shirt as a pajama shirt once it is deemed unsuitable to be worn in public' thing because he only has the vaguest awareness of what a t-shirt is and certainly one has never graced his wardrobe. he has pajama sets. like so:

he'd never have them in this color but you get the idea

as for clothing that leaves a lot of the legs/arms uncovered: it's like, an immediate signal of 'Muggle Clothing' - people who have a lot of contact w muggles in daily life won't bat an eyelash, and it's not exactly considered *indecent* by those who are pretty isolated in magical-only communities, but there'll be reactions ranging from 'oh yeah i forgot muggles wear that' to 'i can't believe people just... go out in public like that...' to '🤨you are calling That an outfit🤨' to *insert blood purist rhetoric about muggles having no sense of decency* - but like, people wouldn't really *confront* that person about it, unless they were like, a Really fanatical death eater, or like, a teacher talking to a student who's out of uniform when they shouldn't be

in a Very isolated magical community that had *no* interaction with muggles, muggleborns, or half-bloods raised in the muggle world, it would be pretty shocking to have your knees/shoulders uncovered, but this community does not really exist. anyone who attends or has attended hogwarts is going to be familiar with the concept of knee-length and sleeveless clothing, as that's been more or less acceptable in the muggle world for the past 50 years. it might be jarring to see it, but it's considered less 'scandalous' and more 'How Muggles Dress Sometimes'

so standards for scandalous clothing would be pretty similar to where they are for muggles. maybe 10-15 years behind, because it takes a while for those clothes to bleed over from muggle settings to magical ones - nobody's going to go to hogwarts (or to king's cross to pick up their kid from school) dressed like they're going to the club, for example

#atfhv worldbuilding #dark lord wip #should i make an inbox tag

[birlwrites]

What is your version of Hogwarts' uniform like? (The everyday one and the Quidditch one)

okay SO

i think of the everyday uniform as having a few layers, but the ESSENTIAL elements are the shirt, tie, and robe. shirt is just a white long-sleeved button-down, tie is striped tie with house colors, and the robe resembles a graduation gown (picture of one that's not black so you can see the seams better):

it's a workrobe, which means it's ankle-length (often a little longer for first and second years, as they'll grow, but they can't be too much longer or they'll be an inconvenient length, so it's common for people to have robes that are kind of short on them by the end of the year (which would be, like, hitting slightly above the ankle), sleeves hit at the wrist, and the fabric isn't at all tight but it's relatively closely fitted (despite the pleats) to minimize the chances of fabric swinging around and getting in the way/getting splashed with dangerous substances/attacked by plants/etc

shoes: no particular dress code there, although certain classes may require close-toed shoes/shoes you don't mind getting dirty. i think leather shoes are common for kids from magical families - dragonhide or something else Fancy if you're rich. canvas shoes are something creeping in from the muggle world so only really seen on people who live in non-magical neighborhoods (and actually go out into those neighborhoods lmao). i haven't thought very much about socks

people will often wear trousers (or sometimes a skirt) under their robe as well, for warmth and/or modesty, as even though the robes aren't super loose, they are still loose and something like wind can cause issues for both temperature and 'blowing your clothes all over the place' reasons. first-years need trousers for flying lessons, as attempting to fly in a robe will hamper your ability to move your legs unless it's only fastened over the chest (or not at all, but it would probably slide off your shoulders as you flew). they're also considered a basically-essential component of attending potions and astronomy, for temperature reasons

wearing your school robe open over the rest of your uniform would be kind of like... not unacceptable, but mcgonagall would tell you to button it up the second you set foot in your classroom. kind of like walking around in your workout clothes - it's not a question of modesty (provided you're wearing trousers/a long skirt), but rather of formality

quidditch: long-sleeved shirt and... hm how do i describe my mental image of this. ok so like, trousers that are fitted but also pretty thick. you need to be able to move your legs freely, but sitting on a broom isn't all that comfortable, and it's also a (very minimal) layer of protection in case you get hit by a bludger. it also has that strap to go under the arch of your foot to keep it in place

the real protection is over your torso, because that's where your vital organs are - leather armor w a front and back piece, going from your waist up to your neck. sides aren't really covered for freedom of movement, so you've got like... let's say a 4-inch-wide strip on either side that doesn't have armor. (limbs don't get this protection because eh, who hasn't broken a limb playing quidditch, it's totally fine)

players also need leather gloves - these are meant to protect your hands from the broom handle in case of long matches, but seekers Must have fingerless gloves bc of snitch flesh memories, and chasers and keepers usually have fingerless gloves as well so they can grip better. beaters often have their whole hands covered bc they have to wield a bat for the entire game

and then over all of that you have your team robe. shirt and trousers will generally be in your team's base color, and people don't always wear the robe for practice (except just to calibrate for flying with it). team robe has both your team's colors and a number and surname. numbers are always 01-07 at hogwarts, with any reserves (which are uncommon) starting at 08. chasers are typically 01-03, keeper is 04, beaters are 05 and 06, and seeker is 07. this pattern continues for the reserves. in the pro leagues, numbering is more like 'you pick Your Number and you Keep It', but at hogwarts they don't want to deal with that shit

it makes perfect sense for players to wear helmets but i simply cannot see it in my mind's eye so they don't. this is why concussions are so common in a sport that is not, strictly speaking, a contact sport. it also makes perfect sense for players to wear goggles but again i simply cannot see it so they do not. something something can't obstruct vision something something snitch

quidditch robes are fairly different from a normal robe: they cut away below the waist, and they hit at about the back of the knee, rendering them more like a jacket with a train (that begins to taper inward about mid-thigh and then ends in a point). they're very closely fitted, and made of a very flexible fabric so they don't impede movement.

last component is shoes - leather again, low-top, with a low block heel. this is so that you can brace against the broom - there's a small crosswise bar at the back, right before the... i don't know what that's called. the bristles? the sweepy part? you know, the end bit. ANYWAY there's a bar in front of that part where people can brace their feet, makes it a lot easier to steer and stay on your broom esp when you're going fast. this is why it's important to calibrate broom size to your height - if the broom is too big for you, then you can't comfortably brace your feet and keep a grip at the end of the handle, and that'll make your steering awkward since you'll be trying to steer from the middle of the broom

shoes, gloves, and armor generally don't vary from team to team, and they're normally brown. pro teams might sometimes have them made in team colors, but at hogwarts they are brown. and they're similar to the brooms in that hogwarts has them on hand and can issue them to you, but people will buy their own if they can so they can get new ones - gloves are by far the most common thing to buy yourself, followed by shoes, and then armor. it depends on a) how serious you are about quidditch or b) how much money you have for random shit like that

the newer the gloves and shoes are, the thinner the leather tends to be - the goal is always maximum protection with minimum bulk and also minimum break-in time. so some people do upgrade. in the pro leagues, they'll probably go through a pair of gloves a season - at hogwarts, the standard for 'functional quidditch gloves' is very much at 'functional' rather than 'high-performing,' and the practice and game schedules are also much less intense, so most people wouldn't have any reason to get new gloves more than every few years. (also, if your gloves are older, they're probably thicker and won't wear out as fast.) the main reason to get new ones would be 'i am a tween who is not done growing and my gloves/shoes don't fit me anymore' (shoes don't wear out as fast as gloves do since they're really just there to cover your feet and provide a heel to use to brace, plus they're low-top so they don't need to be as flexible as the gloves do since your ankles aren't covered by them)

#atfhv worldbuilding #dark lord wip #should i make an inbox tag #most of this also applies to lachrimae #the only real difference is the 'open robe over shirt and trousers' thing #which is much more normal everyday wear in lachrimae

[birlwrites]

my mind took "you're a mckinnon now" and ran and i've spent the last 3 days trying to make my thoughts into somewjat coherent, okay, i'm going to try to explain it now:

the mckinnons sort of… absorb families/bloodlines. that's why it's not very common for other sacred 28 purebloods to marry a mckinnon, and if they do, it's always a woman bc she's expected to give up her family name when she marries anyways

what i mean by absorb is that many of their spouses—both husband's & wives—are either only children (so the bloodline & family name continues thru them) (ends w them) or (esp for the men) don't mind giving up or don't want to keep their fam name

it isn't meant malicious now, when the mckinnons aren't sooo idk. extreme? but a few centuries ago? maybe their spouses weren't so cool with their kids being mckinnons…with being the last of their family (bc we know names & bloodlines are really important in wizarding britain)

and their family magic is spiritual, right? idrk how you mean by that, maybe you'll expand further as marlene gets a bit more involved in ttdl? but rn i've sort of related it like spirit→magic→blood. so if they're like, collecting? magical bloodlines? maybe that'd influence some magic & rituals. + old-age ideas of like absorbing magical bloodlines into your own

did that all make sense? i'm sending this to you because it won't leave me alone and ive got no one else to tell it to, sorry

ajglshkdjfsd ive been trying to think of like, a Deep and Intelligent response and i s2g the only image in my brain is the mckinnons' house opening its front door and going 'om nom nom' whenever one of the mckinnons brings their s/o home to meet the family

one very important thing about the mckinnon family specialty is that it is large-scale. on the most fundamental level, the more people they have, even if not all of their people were born with an affinity for their specialty, even if not all of their people have ties to any other important people, the more powerful they are as a family. the mckinnon specialty doesn't really require a powerful innate affinity in order to be used, although that helps - what it does require is LOTS OF PEOPLE

dark affinities will... decline if they're not used, if that makes sense? it's a combination of the dilution of successive generations having a smaller and smaller share of that affinity, and the lack of usage meaning that the body's capability for that magic decreases over time. this is why the specialties are still so distinct between different families, even after generations of intermarrying - you have to practice your specialty to keep your affinity for it strong and ensure that you'll pass it on to your kids. that's only passingly related to what you were talking about but since you mentioned collecting bloodlines i thought i'd mention it

the mckinnons are collectively like one enormous sponge for magical knowledge as well afjshglksjdf - oh you want to marry a mckinnon but you also want to keep the details of your inherited specialty secret from them because of loyalty to your original house? Too Bad. They're Gonna Find Out One Way Or Another And You Probably Won't Even Regret Telling Them

#dark lord wip #should i make an inbox tag #atfhv worldbuilding

[birlwrites]

This is sort of what I imagined the quidditch uniform to be like when u described it

Sort of maybe kind of sometimes

I dunno if it's accurate

Sorry? It won't let me ask anonymously :/

YESSSSS YOU READ MY MIND i was not at all sure whether i was successfully communicating my vision of the team robe and THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS PICTURING AAAAAAAAAAAA

#you can't send an ask on anon if it has images in it #idk if u already knew that or not but in case u didn't #atfhv worldbuilding #atfhv art #dark lord wip #should i make an inbox tag #i Thiink my mental image of the quidditch uniform is at least inspired by the movies #but i haven't watched those in. years. and cannot really remember what they looked like

[birlwrites]

Hi, if it's not a bother to ask, could you show me what the robes of the characters look like? In Harry Potter, I only remember Dumbledore wearing a long gray one. And the robes you describe seem to be very stylish, and every time I google 'robes' to get an idea of what they would look like, I usually get those familiar long, unstylish robes with no silhouettes or patterns that the monks wear, and I'm having a hard time imagining the characters without those robes...

I had to cut because I exceeded the number of characters, so I continue... I'd also love to get an idea of which tunics are considered formal and which are considered casual. It would be great if you included images as an example, but most likely it would be too much trouble, so you don't have to if you don't want to.

-

so unfortunately the robes come from my brain and i can't draw for shit afjskghskjdf, but i can try with words!

the basic details of what robes look like (in the Birl Cinematic Universe lol):

full length (the EXACT length depends on formality, but ankle length or longer)

long sleeves

relatively high-necked (showing more than a bit of collarbone would be rare)

no clear division or seam between 'top' and 'bottom'

it's the last that's most important to distinguish robes from dresses. dresses will often have a very clear Top and Skirt, even if they're joined into one garment, with a distinct waistline (regardless of whether that waistline is at the natural waist, or if it's an empire waist or dropped waist situation)

robes (again, BCU robes), on the other hand, don't have that so much. the top part and the bottom part kind of flow into each other. similar to a bathrobe or dressing gown/housecoat - it's all just kind of one continuous thing with no seam at the waist (although you can use a sash or tie to cinch it at the waist or hold it closed, in the case of the bathrobe etc)

there's a lot of variety in the specific cut of the sleeves and neck, fullness of the skirt(s), and things like sashes, where the closures are, and accessorizing - i can go into more detail on that if anyone wants me to, but i'm trying to just hit the summary level here afshkglsjkdf. there's ALSO a lot of variety in fabric color, type of fabric, and ornamentation. at the moment in ttdl, embroidery and layering a sheer fabric over an opaque one are in, as are ornamented cuffs and wide sleeves.

as for what determines formality:

number of layers - much like how a 3-piece suit is considered more formal than a shirt and trousers, the more pieces a set of robes has, the fancier it is lol. my version of a 'full set' of robes includes 3 pieces (kind of inspired by 3-piece suits), although tbh that's more of a thing in lachrimae than it is in ttdl. in ttdl it's slightly more ambiguous and 1-piece dress robes are much more common

hem length - floor length is formal, ankle length is casual

ornamentation - like wearing your best jewelry for special occasions, if a set of robes is decked out with ornamentation (embroidery, jewels, lace, etc), it's going to be considered formal

structure - stiffer fabrics tend to be considered more formal, and flowier, drapier fabrics tend to be considered more casual, so more structured robes are more formal

tailoring in torso area - looser tends to be more casual. this goes hand in hand with structure. formal clothing will be very carefully tailored to fit closely to the torso without being tight (at least, in regulus's socioeconomic class) - casual clothing can be looser

all of that applies to all robes regardless of the gender of the person wearing them. there are, as i said, far more specifics i could get into, but there is simply So Much that i want to keep this answer focused on the basics afjslghskfjs. hope that's helpful!

#dark lord wip #atfhv worldbuilding #should i make an inbox tag

[birlwrites]

hello! I saw in one of your responses to a comment on the newest chapter of ttdl that the McKinnon house is full of every living McKinnon and also a few dead ones and my first reaction was something like That's so cool!! but then I thought about it more and like. how big is their house? because that sounds like a whole lotta people in one place and idk personally if I lived in a house that crowded/busy I think I'd lose my mind

their house is HUGE, they just keep adding more sections as needed, it has a cobbled-together look that some people find charming/cozy and some people find HORRIBLY disorganized. since the mckinnons all grow up there they're used to it

people do generally have their own spaces so they're not just all packed in together all the time, but it does mean that their house is absolutely labyrinthine as a result of constantly being like 'well, time to add another room somewhere.' mckinnon kids are accustomed to Confusing Magical Building Layouts so when they get to hogwarts they don't have the same 'wtf where is everything this is so confusing' adjustment period that most people do, they're just like 'oh so the stairs go to a different place today. sure yeah that seems reasonable, they probably got bored'

but yeah it is chaotic and busy - there are plenty of places to escape the chaos, but there's always chaos sOMEWHERE in the mckinnons' house

#lily visits and is like wow. i thought the marauders were bad #dark lord wip #atfhv worldbuilding #i guess?

[birlwrites]

I was wondering what Dumbledore's role as chief warlock of the wizegamot means in this universe?

ok the short boring answer is that i forgot that was a thing 😬

the LONG MORE INTERESTING answer is going to be me talking through how i can retcon that - which i absolutely can because we haven't really gotten into wizengamot politics in ttdl yet!!! so the only people who will know that i totally forgot will be the people who see this post afhslgkshkgjskhldjfs

SO. my immediate thought with 'chief warlock' is that dumbledore is kind of a master of ceremonies. he's not a wizengamot lord - his job is to introduce bills, hold the votes, and all sorts of things like that which are mainly ceremonial/logistic but in the hands of someone particularly motivated CAN be political tools. once again taking inspiration from the united states congress because i know how that works and i don't know how other governments work, dumbledore can control what order bills get introduced in, whether they get introduced in the first place, etc.

now, there's definitely a failsafe. the wizengamot would not stand for some plebeian controlling what they get to vote on. so if they can get together a critical mass of lords, they can force through a vote even if dumbledore doesn't want to introduce the bill. it means there's a tug of war between dumbledore and the dark lords for power

next question: how did dumbledore BECOME the chief warlock? my guess is that it's an appointed position by the minister of magic. at the moment, that's harold minchum, i believe, soon to be replaced by millicent bagnold (probably as the war gets worse). idk when exactly that will happen, i'll figure out a moment that works with the plot

dumbledore's been chief warlock for a WHILE, though. minchum reappointed him because he's functionally an institution. once he defeated grindelwald, plenty of people were calling for him to run for minister - he didn't do that because he's smarter than that, but he did accept the position of chief warlock when it was offered to him several years later, and that's a big part of how he stays in the public eye. (i think he probably also writes op-eds whenever there's something Sufficiently Important to write about)

in atfhv, wizengamot sessions happen twice a year, in fall and spring, and they run for exactly 2 months each (march 7 to may 7, september 7 to november 7). in that time, dumbledore's quite busy, seeing as he has that AND a school to run. plus a war to fight.

and that means that orion knows dumbledore PERSONALLY. as does pretty much the whole wizengamot, and not just because they were students when dumbledore was a professor

which now makes me really want to have orion do a take your child to work day in which regulus casually shows up to a wizengamot session and stares dumbledore down the entire time. the dark lords are pleased with this behavior. he clearly knows who the enemy is

#dark lord wip #should i make an inbox tag #atfhv worldbuilding

[birlwrites]

I was looking thru ur athv worldbuilding tag and was wondering if surrogacy was a thing in sacred 28 circles (or families that care about legacy/continuing their line)?

ik you mentioned that being queer is pretty much acceptable as long as you can pass down the bloodline (aka acceptable for everyone but the heir or lord). surrogacy or a drawn up agreement with someone where “you make/carry my heir and then we never interact again” would fit those needs and was wondering if it would even be on high society’s radar to try something like this.

I could see it as something that’s very scandalous or not good for alliances maybe as an argument against it but I love your worldbuilding and wanted to know what your thoughts are on it (if you have any ofc! if you dont/havent thought of it no worries lmao)

- A

i have indeed thought about this!!

so the thing about marriage, as an institution, is that it is fundamentally about property and resources. marriage among nobility is about forming alliances so that you can use your combined resources to do stuff that benefits you both. then having kids cements that alliance - can't annul it when there are people with both bloodlines. they literally represent the tie between your families

and in the dark network, those bloodlines are especially important, so your kids would Have to have parents from both families - now, let's say of the people who got married, one of them can't/shouldn't have children for whatever reason. a surrogate from that family, ideally/almost necessarily a full sibling for bloodline reasons - either as a donor or someone to carry the pregnancy to term - would be an acceptable substitute. it's not like, *venerated* really, because you're like. Supposed™ to be able to procreate with whoever you married. but sometimes shit happens. so it would be like, tolerable but kept on the DL. you don't want to admit you had fertility troubles, especially because that might make *your* kids seem like bad prospects (within the dark network where bloodlines Really Matter)

so yes surrogacy exists, but the marriage aspect is important as well for the sake of the power struggles within the sacred 28 - it's not purely about reproduction. and nobody wants to admit they had trouble conceiving. it's not something that's discussed or raised out of thin air as an option. more as a last resort if you're unable to have children the "normal" way (envision me saying that with a massive eyeroll)

#but having a bunch of kids means cadet branches and cadet branches mean infighting #i mean look at the rosier siblings and there are only two of them #atfhv worldbuilding #should i make an inbox tag #dark lord wip

[birlwrites]

some music artists i just made up for atfhv

we're throwing historical accuracy out the window for some of these genres

iphigenia teare - lucy-dacus-esque sad indie singer/songwriter

the maenads - all-female angry punk-rock-emo band (barty and maeve love them!!)

the sunset warlocks - glam rock band creeping towards mainstream

thalia pryde - pop diva (lucinda's go-to)

maisy and the moon - laid-back folk duo

ursula rivers - renaissance-influenced folk singer

bobby starlace - your generic pop Teen Heartthrob

eurydice and the wanderers - often depressing pop-rock band

the bricks - exactly the sort of hypermasculine rock band that glam rock seeks to fuck over

odysseus hewitt - folk singer-songwriter, sometimes collaborates with ursula rivers; they're both popular with somewhat older demographics, whereas most of the other artists on the list are what the Youths are listening to

the sour sirens - girl group known for upbeat pop songs with incredibly sharp lyrics

sweet aconite - metal-adjacent emo band

#also why won't tumblr bold the first letter after a bullet point #it let me do it and then i added smth at the beginning and all of the first letters un-bolded??? #that is a weird bug #atfhv worldbuilding #dark lord wip #should i make an inbox tag

[birlwrites]

what's wizarding music like in the ttdl universe? i've almost always got music on in the background and especially when i'm studying, but all of your characters are just. they're just sitting there studying and doing homework in silence! that would drive me insane!! so i was wondering what wizarding music is like, how available (? accessable? idk) it is in day-to-day life, and if you know, what are the 5th year slytherins' musical preferences? :)

anon you have hit on something that i think about a LOT and still don't have a totally developed 100% this-is-ttdl-canon answer for, so you're going to get a ramble!! and also INFORMATION ABOUT JOHN DOWLAND

(note from the birl who has completed her ramble - actually, less about john dowland than i anticipated, because i had Restraint because there was too much other stuff to talk about. i also haven't really read anything about dowland in like 2 months so WHAT IF MY INFORMATION ABOUT SOMEONE WHO DIED IN 1626 IS OUTDATED)

i generally think of wizarding technology as being behind muggle technology, for the obvious reason that it is. in the 1990s, they've got radio, but they don't have telephones, television, CD players, or computers

some of this is explained by the 'magic and electricity don't mix!!' principle but i'm a little suspicious of this principle bc... well, because i am afjslkghsjkdf. mostly because of 'how do the radios work then'

so imo the REAL reason wizarding technology is behind is because of, as with many things, Blood Purity Mentality. they're not really inspired to figure out how to adopt these things

so, where are they at in the 1970s? there's still radio - it operates on a ~magical frequency~ that manages to get down into the dungeons of hogwarts, so go magic. i think they have gramophones and even vinyl (just in time for muggles to figure out cassette tapes ajfslkghkjldsf), but a certain class of pureblood will sometimes sneer at vinyl for being Too Muggle.

if we think of wizarding culture as being, say, 15-20 years behind, then vinyl's been around for about 10-15 years, so it's been adopted pretty successfully in wizarding culture, but it's viewed as inferior to live performance (create an idea of scarcity and exclusivity!!!!)

like, with things like pensieves and enchanted art, the idea of recording a song so you can play it again without needing to go to a concert where they happen to play it is less special. can you afford a reasonably-sized enchanted oil painting of a string quartet? if you commission one with a list of your favorite pieces etched into the back of the canvas so it's guaranteed that they'll know the pieces you want to hear, you're good to go, no record player needed

so record players definitely aren't ubiquitous, and they tend to be a little unwieldy, so the only people who are going to be lugging those to hogwarts are people who really care about being able to listen to Specific Music. radios are more common. (people also generally aren't lugging oil paintings of musicians to hogwarts ajfskhgskf - wealthy students interested in music might have a miniature- to medium-sized painting with one to three musicians and up to 8 pieces on their 'setlist')

the rosiers have like. over a dozen small portraits of john dowland with his lute the dream and OH MY GOD i don't have room to talk about this on this post this post is already long and hhhhhhhh ANYWAY. if your family ever acted as patrons for a musician, you've probably got at least a couple of paintings of them lying around

but live music is still definitely viewed as Elite. ghost ensembles are popular to hire for events - they have basically infinite time to practice and learn new pieces, and they really don't ask for much in return beyond an audience and applause. live music performed by live people is Especially elite, bc exclusivity mindset

lucinda grew up listening to popular music on the radio and she got maeve into pop with her - there's definitely a radio in the girls' room, i just can't decide which of the two of them it belongs to ajfslkghlksjdf. charlotte will start pulling her hair out if people are playing music while she's trying to think, so they have a lot of Quiet Hours, but charlotte does a lot of her homework in the library anyway so it's not a huge restriction. emma will beg and plead and bribe people with candy to listen to as many quidditch matches as she can possibly manage - lucinda's usually down to listen to pro matches, but sometimes she'll go 'emma i have literally never heard of those teams' and emma goes 'THEY'RE THE FARM TEAMS FOR THE BRITISH LEAGUE' and that's usually when the bribery starts happening, because lucinda likes quidditch but she doesn't like it That much

(maeve gracefully avoids being dragged into those discussions. she's down for whatever :) which means she does not actually want to listen to an exhibition match between farm teams but emma does so)

evan's got a radio stuffed into his wardrobe somewhere - he usually listens to quidditch matches in the girls' room with emma and other than that he doesn't really care ajfslghsjdkf

barty's family has a ton of records thanks to his mom, spanning a wIDE range of genres - he doesn't really bring any of that with him to school (his trunk is already full of books and, you know, unimportant things like his uniform) but he knows a surprising amount about random things here and there. lots of information from liner notes his mom read aloud. he's a mars the bringer of war basic bitch but i forgive him because it is a banger and aren't we all, and also mars the bringer of war is significantly less basic in wizarding culture because it's a Muggle Composition

and regulus fjslghslkdghjsljk. regulus LOVES his peace and quiet. there's a reason he used to do almost all of his work in their dorm room and only moved out into the common room to be Seen. like charlotte, he would lose his mind a little if he was trying to listen to music and do work at the same time - he'd have to block the music out. no radios or enchanted oil paintings for him

so for regulus, listening to music is an Activity all by itself. he's been to a handful of (classical) concerts, and heard plenty of live music at the more salon-y high society gatherings, but his education in pop music (or other genres of commercial music) is,,,, sub-minimal ajglshkgjsldf. (evan's not much better tbh - lots of those salons are In His House, he's just as immersed in art music as regulus is, except for when he happens to be in the girls' room when they're not listening to quidditch)

i haven't put much thought into the development of magical instruments or techniques, because tbqh i am a singer and things like the mechanics of instruments often totally fail to enter my mind as a thing that should be thought about - now i'm having thoughts about dark arts applied to vocal abilities to build quite literally superhuman voices

but i think that one of the reasons that regulus doesn't listen to a lot of music is because it affects him too much. that boy is repressing so much shit and if he listens to too much beethoven or tchaikovsky or dowland or god forbid a REQUIEM MASS (other than like. fauré's) it's all going to come out

#atfhv worldbuilding #dark lord wip #should i make an inbox tag

[birlwrites]

about family magics… How have they all remained a secret for so long? the families in the Dark network are obviously pretty insular, but there are occasionally people who leave or are disowned, so what stops them from telling the world if they were upset enough at their family or pureblood society? there's always someone who is willing to destroy themselves if that's what it takes to also destroy someone else, so what has stopped any rivalries or hatred from one petty lord from ruining another family at the cost of their own?

and related: do people marrying into a family just stop using their family magic? because they're obviously going to learn about their spouse's family magic, especially if they have kids, but does their spouse ever learn about theirs? what's to stop the spouse that married in from telling their blood family about their partner's family specialty?

the short answer is: those petty lords can try! but it will backfire tenfold and it's far more likely that they're just going to destroy themselves for nothing

because the dark network is not actually, when it really comes down to it, a secret! consider this passage from ch 7 of ttdl:

The group is simultaneously a poorly and well-kept secret. Rumors about Dark Arts have swirled around Slytherin for hundreds of years—long enough that most people not in-the-know respond with eyerolls. (It seems like a tired, fear-mongering story, if one isn't already aware that it's true.) It helps that most people also don't exactly have a good grasp on what Dark Arts are, beyond some sort of shadowy, nebulous area of magic that is inherently evil. Similarly, there are murmurings about exclusive clubs, mostly populated by scions of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, in which the members form secret social and political alliances that will control magical Britain in twenty or thirty years. Both of these are exaggerations, but Regulus likes the efficiency of how neatly they combine into one study group. Many Dark families are also Sacred Twenty-Eight; the Wizengamot and the families represented within it do in fact mostly control Britain; and nearly every important family, whether they're Dark or Sacred Twenty-Eight or both, takes note of who their children befriend. That makes both rumors basically true, and yet the specifics make them practically unbelievable. The important thing is that most students at Hogwarts consider themselves far too sensible to fall for a story that outlandish. Who on earth would practice Dark Arts at Hogwarts, right under Dumbledore's nose, of all places? Nobody could possibly be that foolish.

like, sure, there's nothing really stopping someone from trying to expose their family or the dark network - but they're not going to succeed. here's regulus from chapter 8:

Any sort of spy or informant would be blackmailed and smeared and coerced and discredited in a thousand ways before they could do something like testifying before the Wizengamot, or rather, the tiny subset of it that isn't Dark. I wouldn't be surprised if a would-be informant met with a terrible accident before they could do real damage.

many of these families have reputations for practicing dark arts that verge on ludicrous - it's just really, really hard to get the charges to stick, and anyone trying to be a whistleblower is almost certainly going to get caught fast and uh. Disincentivized. by force if necessary

within the dark network, everyone's far too intertwined - you could try to ruin one other family by exposing them, but you're not going to get anywhere. the entire rest of the dark network is going to see that, know that you're not trustworthy, and unite against you instead

and like, if you consider canon, arthur weasley is MORE than aware that malfoy manor is packed full of dark objects - the problem is in the doing something about it. even if a family does get exposed, they have the resources (money, connections, etc) to smooth it all over, especially since the rest of the dark network has a vested interest in ensuring nobody gets caught as well

so, like, nothing's stopping them from exposing each other, but that doesn't mean it's going to work - and they'd be shooting themselves and probably their entire families in the foot as well. nobody wants to be the next weasleys. and if you've been disowned or you're estranged from your family, you're in an even worse position

re: marrying into other families: discussed in this post about the culture around family specialties, this post about magical inheritance, and this post about women in pureblood society!

#basically the dark network is a huge clique with shitloads of resources #should i make an inbox tag #dark lord wip #atfhv worldbuilding

[birlwrites]

You mention mind magics sometimes, and how some family specialties are mind magics, but how well known/practiced are things like Occlumency or Legilimency practiced by the general public?

I don't know if Dumbledore being a Legilimense is well known, but even if it isn't, Occlumency is very useful for keeping secrets, especially ones as important as a Dark Arts study group at Hogwarts. Does every member have to learn at least the basics before they can really start studying anything? Or how does that work?

okay i was JUST talking about this so i'm going to copy-paste something from the comments of ch 58 of ttdl, then elaborate a little

(this originated as responding to a question about how much mind magic barty knows, the post shall get long so putting in a cut!):

he knows the basics, although he's no master - with the kind of dark arts that he's interested in (see nonsense abstruse) regulus figured it was a good idea to make sure he knew what he was doing on at least an intermediate level (if you think of it like. beginner, intermediate, advanced, expert)

how much mind magic someone knows in the dark network really depends on what sort of magic they're doing - obviously there are the mind magic families who are experts, but other than that it tends to be on an as-needed basis. the blacks learn it Very aggressively as a proactive defense measure against their specialty, but most families aren't like that, because most families have nice specialties that don't kill them oopsies

there is one thing mind magic is always great for, though, and that is lying to law enforcement! so barty was definitely going to learn it anyway - the fact that he went 'hm, i think i'm interested in brain-altering dark rituals' just doubled the importance (and meant that regulus held him to a much higher standard re: the skills he did learn, lmao)

but barty only really knows a very internally-focused occlumency - like, he's not prepared for a mental attack the way regulus or theophania nott are, but that's not out of the ordinary. occlumency takes a lot of work to learn and to be good at, so people generally learn it in a targeted way - focusing on exactly what they need to know and getting good at that. and barty's focused on keeping his mind in order, so it's a good thing he had regulus around to teach him, because that's also what regulus learned to do (just to a much more intense and flexible degree)

outside of the dark network, mind magic is significantly less common, because most people just have no reason to learn it (or at least, not one that's good enough to merit the boredom of it aghjslfkshdj). legilimency isn't a common tool for the DMLE, because it relies a lot on interpretation on both sides, and memories can be altered - even if they're altered poorly (like slughorn re: horcruxes), such that it's obvious that changes were made, that doesn't mean you know the truth about what happened

so crouch sr has no reason to know anything about mind magic, really, beyond the fact that it exists and it's annoying

in general anyone studying dark arts will pick up bits and pieces of occlumency as they go - being able to clear your mind is very important if you're doing any sort of elemental casting, for example, because otherwise you're gonna fuck some shit up the second you get emotional. but most dark arts don't fuck with you yourself on that level, so most people don't devote a lot of time to learning occlumency/mind magic for the sake of learning mind magic. it's definitely not unheard of, and it's not even all that unusual, but it's just more common for people to focus their time on something else since mind magic is a time-consuming skill and clearing your mind alone takes a lot of boredom and frustration and practice

OKAY END COPY PASTE. NOW MORE THOUGHTS

occlumency is good for keeping secrets *when confronted with a mental attack,* which is a very rare experience - mind magic in general just doesn't seem that common in canon, and it's difficult on top of being obscure

mind magic is VERY well-known in the dark network and generally considered to be basic best practice when you're fucking around with dark magic, but outside of the dark network it's very uncommon - note that there's no mind magic class offered at hogwarts (and, in general, no really self-focused magic is taught there)

so i'd say, sure, knowing occlumency definitely doesn't *hurt* your ability to keep secrets, but most people aren't in the sort of situation where they'd need it. legilimency isn't admissible evidence in court, and most people never make eye contact with albus dumbledore or even stand particularly close to him ajflsghljksdfd

so the focus within the dark network with mind magic is on how it protects you from the dangerous magic you're messing with, as opposed to law enforcement (unless you're barty who lives with crouch sr and must become a Flawless liar)

the general public doesn't really know much about mind magic (which has one foot on the side of 'illegal' already), and dumbledore being a legilimens is not well-known - IMO it's something he learned in his grindelwald days, and then kept honing when he realized how common it was for dark arts practitioners to learn occlumency

TL;DR:

people normally learn occlumency as needed to protect their minds from whatever magic they're practicing, as opposed to needing to learn occlumency before they can start practicing dark arts at all. outside of the dark network, it's not a well-known branch of magic

#dark lord wip #atfhv worldbuilding #should i make an inbox tag

[birlwrites]

heyyy pls can you elaborate on the sacred 28 being established/codified at the onset of the eugenics period? (you mentioned it yesterday and now i'm v curious abt it lmao)

(got another ask about this - anon i saw it, here you go!)

SO. this hit me in the middle of a lecture and i was not in a situation to pull out my laptop and start duckduckgoing, and i also have basically never checked my memory against hp canon ever, so this is all courtesy of birl's brain, BUT. i think there's a connection here worth exploring

from what i remember, the list of The Sacred Twenty-Eight was created by some dude named cantankerous nott, who excluded the potters from the list due to some quibble, and it was RECENT. like, 1920s recent. i don't remember the exact year so i'm calling it 1928 because why not. before this point, pureblood high society was a little more permeable - people with a new shitload of money (thanks industrial revolution) were able to sort of muscle their way in due to aforementioned shitloads of money, and there was less of a clear distinction between The Old Families and The New But Respectable Families. like, there was a *distinction,* but it was similar to the current distinction between the anciente families and the noble families in the sacred 28 - we're different, some of us are Better™, but we're both the Good Sort™.

so, 1928. hold that number in your head, because making a list of Twenty-Eight Sacred Families Who Are Super Important And Amazing did not spring out of cantankerous nott's head fully formed. like, that shit had to be researched and decided by someone. who was good enough to be on the list? and why was cantankerous nott in charge, anyway?

here is my argument: by the time that the list was made, the only real surprise was that the potters weren't on it.

the eugenics movement began in the late 19th century - the term was coined in 1883 by sir francis galton, a british guy. this is fact this isn't from my brain. i mean it is but i looked it up first. by the time the 20th century hit, eugenics were an established Thing in britain (not just in britain, but we're keeping a narrow focus here)

what eugenics cares a LOT about is 'breeding.' encouraging the Right Sort of people with certain Desirable Qualities to have a bunch of kids, and discouraging the Wrong Sort of people with Undesirable Qualities from doing so. that's obviously incredibly morally questionable and gets into really quite a lot of human rights abuses, which is not the point of this post so i'm going to move on. but the point is - if the Right Sort of people procreate, and the Wrong Sort don't, then eventually the Wrong Sort will all die off and society will be only composed of the Right Sort and everything will be better

now, this doesn't *perfectly* fit in with the blood purity mindset IN BRITAIN - blood purists know that muggleborns will just keep appearing (barring some very shady experimentation to figure out how to Stop them from appearing, see ttdl chapter 51 near the end, but even that's more about taking away their magic and less about preventing muggleborns from ever *being* born)

but! brief diversion into continental europe and grindelwald here - what's the way to stop muggleborns from ever being born again? kill all the muggles. okay diversion done. WAIT NO I'M NOT DONE ACTUALLY ONE MORE THOUGHT - voldemort plays into that rhetoric by having the death eaters kidnap and murder muggles, but he doesn't state it as his all-out goal because a) it's not, and b) that's a great way to unite *multiple* countries who are all working to bring you down. after grindelwald, voldemort looks... well, not great, but only moderately genocidal, so he's britain's problem as far as the rest of the world is concerned, unless things get worse/change

okay NOW the diversion is done. BACK TO EUGENICS. i said in this post that some muggle culture things do creep into magical britain relatively quickly - philosophy does, and so as a result, i think the eugenics mindset does too. big focus on purity, saving your society from degradation, that's going to appeal to a lot of the more insular families

so! eugenics, the term, coined 1883. the sacred 28 codified 1928. that gives us 45 years in the middle for eugenics to seep into magical britain, take root in the upper classes, convince them their culture will Backslide and become Depraved unless they Do Something, and there's nobody actually whipping them into a frenzy here (seeing as grindelwald is, again, focused on the continent, and also his rise is around the same time as that codification in the first place) so really what happens is that this mindset becomes normalized. they're not being *violent* about it, they're being perfectly civilized, and therefore there is no problem

but the thing about encouraging the Right Sort to reproduce is that you have to know who they are! and so i think the increased social mobility of the industrial revolution starts to decline again here. a handful of families got into the wizengamot via money, but now the old families are growing concerned. they can't just be letting *any* ruffian with money into the wizengamot or their high society events, after all. they have Manners and they have Class and being one of them is about *more* than just having a wizengamot seat - it's about who they are.

high society begins to re-stratify, starting around the turn of the century. if you managed to nab a wizengamot seat recently, you can stay, but you'd better brush up on your deportment because you are on THIN ICE. and things get more exclusive - people start weeding out Certain Others from their guest lists, and so on. if you can still wrangle an invite to the rosiers' summer solstice ball, you're *respectable,* but that's the biggest event of the season - everything else has smaller, more curated guest lists. (well, the rosiers' guest list is definitely curated, but like, it's BIG.)

so the group that *becomes* the Sacred Twenty-Eight (And Also The Potters) have already become cliquey before that list is actually created. cantankerous nott has some grudging, baseline respect for the weasleys, for their tenacity in not dying out if nothing else, and they do have proof of their existence centuries ago because that was when everyone else started to hate them and it's very well-documented, so fine, cantankerous nott adds them to the list to be the designated losers so the rest of the group doesn't start turning on each other looking for targets.

and thus, the list of the sacred 28 is really a delineation of what everyone already kind of knows - it's just that it wasn't spelled out so explicitly before. but that group probably wouldn't have been as tight-knit as it is if not for the eugenics movement

(i also figure that the eugenics movement drove people to reduce their pools of marriage options, constraining the eligible people by quite a bit - earlier in the 19th century, they were somewhat more chill about marrying people who weren't aristocratic, as long as they could adapt well and fit into the aristocracy. i say 'somewhat' because, like, there was still definitely an element of judgment involved, it just was less extreme. so eugenics also contributed to the rise of inbreeding in the magical aristocracy)

as for why cantankerous nott was in charge, it was probably his idea, and many of the other aristocratic families Loved the idea of having this very distinct line creating an Us and a Them, and so they let him go ahead with it, with checking in about what exactly he was thinking and how many families he would include and what the criteria were anyway and--

#atfhv worldbuilding #dark lord wip #should i make an inbox tag