#i feel the need to clarify that i am in fact a draco fan

[bloomeng]

saw the “slytherins are misrepresented” take again today and it makes me sooooo—

no they’re not Rowling herself wrote them to be a cartoonishly evil, straightforward, antagonistic house. nothing in canon supports the idea that they’re supposed to be nuanced with the exception of Snape who is allegedly not bad, but the man literally was still a bigot who bullied an abused kid bc of petty highschool drama that wasn’t even in said child’s control. (but Rowling loved him so maybe her intention was to pin all the houses nuance on him?) you could make an argument for Regulus, who we know very little about other than he was supposedly bad and then he did one good thing then died. and as much as we all like Draco… Rowling fucking despises him. she has gone on record to be like no he’s just supposed to be a cowardly preppy bully.

so no canon supports the idea that slytherin is nothing but bigots and don’t even get me started on the absolute ignorance of hufflepuff and ravenclaw.

i feel like we give Rowling too much credit. i think the issue is we get the fanon sandbox of what harry potter’s world has become and canon mixed up. i personally love when ppl give slytherin nuance, but when speaking purely in canon no they are being misinterpreted we’ve all just spent so much time away from the source material that’s it’s morphed into something completely different. which is normal!!

it’s when ppl starte presenting fanon as canon that my eye begins to twitch. not to go full english professor here but author’s intent matters in you’re going to be analyzing text. ofc as i said text like anything will take on a life of its own once others consume it but you can’t claim something is canon if everything the author writes says otherwise. and Rowling is even more interesting in this case bc she’s stated her opinions (tragically) all over the internet so we know for a fact what “vibes” she was going for.

tldr: no they’re not. stop giving jk rowling credits for something she didn’t do

#i feel the need to clarify that i am in fact a draco fan #and i love the regulus squad #txt #vent #harry potter #the maruaders #slytherin #also i’m a ravenclaw if that means anything to anybody #my ravenclaw bias???

[pebblysand]

Hi. Big fan of your work!

In your post earlier you claimed that “nothing is inherently AU character-wise”. I’m trying to wrap my head around that.

So if Harry spent his summers between books on a murder spree of baby animals…. that is not AU? If Uncle Vernon is caring, compassionate and changes careers to a midwife in between books 6&7 (but you don’t hear about it because Harry doesn’t say it)…. that can be canon too?

Where do you draw the line? How are those examples not out of charactre enough to be AU? Please help me understand because I am confused……

hi anon,

thanks for your question! i’ll address both points below.

so, the thing that i was trying to explain in my post is that nothing in fic really exists in a vacuum. these examples that you have given are wild, i’ll give you that, but for the sake of the argument, let’s conceive them as prompts and see how they fit on the au spectrum.

i. harry potter and the baby animals

so, for harry killing baby animals over the summers, i would need more context on this to determine if this is au or not so i’m going to build it up as i go along.

here, you would be in the we only make tsunamis scenario where you fill the silence of the books that don’t chronicle every single day that passes, and fill that silence with stuff that might have happened but isn’t mentioned in the books (in that fic, it’s the h/hr stolen kisses; in your fic, it’s harry killing baby animals). as i said before, i - personally - don’t think doing that is inherently au. silence is susceptible of being filled with whatever you can make of it as long as it doesn’t explicitly contradict events that are mentioned. here, i think you could make that au, or not, depending on how you write it. let’s build it up. first, is harry killing baby animals a recurring thing or is this just one summer? when does it start? why? is there a reason for his killing of baby animals, or are you just making him into a psychopath?

as a writer, if i were to write that prompt for an individual summer, i would probably set it the summer after fourth year. we know that this is when harry is having the shittiest time at the dursleys, feels survivor’s guilt over cedric’s death, etc. could a very good writer make me believe that to work out his grief/angry he starts killing baby animals without it being ooc? maybe. like, it’s really hard to discuss in the abstract because such a fic has not (to my knowledge) been written, but to me, it really depends on the writing and on the build up to said violence. a little bit like the ballerina!draco example i gave in my initial post, i won’t deny that it would take very good writing to make me buy into that character development, and it would take the right study of the right circumstances but ultimately, i can’t say: ‘ah, harry would never do that.’ i don’t think i would be that categorical. you’d have to explain to me why he makes that choice though.

if we’re talking multiple summers, we may be verging into the concept of psychopathic tendencies. in that case, i think the characterisation is harder to justify as ‘canon’ as you’re not even operating by the same starting point. in my original post, i said i also understood as canon: ‘the characterisation of characters as they are at the start of the fic.’ if you’re going to take make somewhere i don’t expect, we need to at least have the same understanding of facts as a common ground to stand on at the start. as such, if you’re starting your fic upon the assumption that harry is a psychopath, it’s hard to call this ‘canon’ as i don’t think you could really ever find an appropriate starting point in the books to build that character development on. could grief or anger over the dursleys/loss of his parents make him that way? again, maybe. but it would have to be very well researched and argued and imo would be even harder to pull off than the first option.

now, also, the interesting thing is: what is the consequence of that behaviour? as i pointed out initially, nothing truly exists in a vacuum. so, let’s say for the sake of the argument that harry starts torturing baby animals in the summers, without it being mentioned in the books. where does that lead to? as a writer, that’s the question i would ask.

and, you could go two ways about this. you could go: well, it doesn’t change anything. it’s just the way he works through his grief or whatever, it has zero impact on the grand scheme of things or on the story of the seven books in general. now, imo, that would be a) a very hard feat to pull off because that kind of behaviour is bound to have some sort of impact so i don’t really think it would be believable, regardless of canon, and b) a very useless fic to write because, then, why? like, what’s the point of all of this? (unless, of course, you start edging into beckett levels of absurdism, which, like, fair enough). but, for the sake of our discussion then, yes, if you were able to a) convincingly build the character evolution to support this and adequately explain (see first & second paragraphs), and b) keep the rest of the story absolutely identical to the events of the seven books - then yeah, it would be canon-compliant to me. i wouldn’t necessarily adopt it as a headcanon or anything because it might not suit my personal taste or whatever, but it would certainly be ‘compliant,’ if that makes sense. i don’t see why not.

if you decide that harry killing baby animals in the summers will have an impact on the rest of the story, then to me that makes it au because you’re changing the events of the books and going off on a different story (which might be interesting, why not?).

so, tl:dr, unless you make explicit changes to the events of the seven books through the consequences of harry’s behaviour, no, i don’t think this is inherently au.

ii. vernon the midwife

i’ll be quicker on this one because it’s basically the same idea as the above. if vernon adopting a different career is well written enough that there’s a convincing reason behind the change, etc., i don’t think this is inherently ooc/au of his character to do so. that being said, him becoming ‘caring,’ and ‘compassionate’ is au because we see him (albeit briefly) the summer after year six and he’s still a dick to harry. so to me here you’d be explicitly contradicting events of the books, which makes it au.

iii. random additional remarks

i have a couple of things i want to add as a quick note on your question itself:

i just want to clarify: this is my interpretation. i don’t have any ambition to dictate what to think to anyone, it’s just the way i see things.

there is one thing about your question that caught my eye. you asked: ‘can [that] be canon too?’ i just want to clarify that neither of the above are explicitly ‘canon’. they don’t happen/aren’t listed in the books. they could however, as i pointed out, made to be canon-compliant. those to me are different concepts.

anyway, thanks anon again for the question! i hope this makes sense! and thanks for your kind words on my work i appreciate it.

#canon-compliance #further notes on writing #i think this discussion is interesting #I low key want to read the fic in which Harry kills baby animals now

[secondstar-acorn]

My Starkid Musical Ranking

1. Twisted- I love satire, and this musical is full of it. All of the acting and singing is great, the songs are wonderful, and to me all the jokes are absolutely hilarious. Home run!

2. AVPM- theres been several Starkid fans trying to say this show isn’t actually good compared to all the others, and I have to disagree. Every joke is fucking hilarious, the characters are awesome, the songs are incredible, Not Alone especially got the theme of the books, it’s way better than the Cursed Child, and their version of Harry Potter is fun and entertaining to watch. Plus, the nostalgia factor.

3. Starship- I’m gonna say it: I think Kick it Up a Notch is the best Starkid song. The jazziness, plus Dylan and Jamie’s voices together-superb. As for the rest of the musical, the characters are engaging, the set and sci-fi scene is really cool, the jokes all mostly land for me, and Nick Lang as the Egg Harvesting Guy is hilarious. (Also, Kick it Up a Notch reprise is...just the best.)

4. The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals-they did awesome on this show. They got me to care about the unnamed side characters, which is very impressive for a musical. Mariah Rose Faith, Corey Dorris, and Robert Manion really made this show, I felt. This musical is also satirical, which I love. While some of the jokes didn’t quite land, and the cop song annoyed me at first, it was still an overall great show. (What Do You Want and Showstopping Number were hilarious and wonderful.)

5. AVPS- an AVPM sequel? Yes, I love it. Lucius Malfoy alone had me crying with laughter. Their interpretation of Remus and Sirius was also fantastic. I loved all the songs. However, the Draco and the potty plot wasn’t that funny to me, and I didn’t like how they portrayed James Potter. But, I did like the development of Draco’s character and especially appreciated the Red Vines gag.

6. Me and My Dick- I can already feel people getting mad at my placement, so let me explain. There’s only one way to say it: this show is fucking hilarious. Their interpretation of dicks and vaginas and their secret organisations, the Hearts and their insanity, the crying in the choir room gag, DEVIN LYTLE- it is great. The reason it’s low is because the songs and production quality weren’t quite as good, and Winnie as a character annoys tf out of me.

7. Firebringer- the songs, Zazzalil, Keeri, Emberly, Molag, and Tiblyn saved this show for me. I did not think it was funny. I loved the duck is Lord gag, but the other jokes mostly fell flat for me (aside from “emberly, you just shat out a fire). I also didn’t like Jemilla at all. Schwoopsie kind of annoyed me, as great as Jamie is. Sorry!

8. Holy Musical B@man- somehow, someway, this musical not only made me invested in DC characters-BUT IT MADE ME LIKE GREEN LANTERN. For such a strict Marvel fan as me, that’s a pretty incredible feat. Sweet Tooth was a great villain, and That’s the American Way is full of that satirical genius I love. While most of the songs were kind of forgettable for me, I did enjoy Superman and Batman’s feud. Also, Nick Lang was hilarious as Robin and needs more appreciation. The one thing that irks me about it is that they put Spider-Man into a musical about D.C. characters. Little things like that annoy me to no end, but I liked the musical overall.

9. Trail to Oregon- the reason this is so low is because of Act 1. I’ll admit, when I first watched it I couldn’t even make it to Act 2 because I hated the first act so much. The mom is super funny to me, as well as the Bandit King and Cletus Jones, but the rest of the characters and jokes in Act 1 were not funny or entertaining to me. I buckled up enough courage to watch Act 2, though, and I actually enjoyed it. Mouthface was a lot funnier to me and I like her more, and the return of the General Store Guy was superb. I loved the moms determination and the Faster Faster song. Still, I did not find I’ve Gotta Go funny for any character, or Naked in a Lake.

10. AVPSY- it makes me sad that I put it this low, but I know this is where I need to put it for me. Besides the nostalgia factor and the snake joke, plus Dumbledore’s purple suit and the fact that Evanna Lynch was in it, I did not enjoy it. Nothing else about it was funny to me, and I hated the Tom Riddle flashbacks. I did like Ron’s Sidekick song and of course all of the songs that made me cry, especially the Back to Hogwarts reprise. I think part of the reason I didn’t enjoy it was because it was a read through and the cast was too focused on the script to act sometimes. As well as that, the change from Bonnie to Meredith distracted me. To me, Bonnie is the best version of Hermione, though Meredith did a hilarious job in the Gilderoy fanfic scene. But besides the nostalgia, I truly didn’t enjoy it that much, which saddens me.

11. Ani- before I start my rant, let me clarify that I am a gigantic Star Wars fan. I didn’t like the prequels that much, and having an entire musical about it was the wrong choice in my opinion. If they’d done something different along the lines of Space Balls, I may have liked it. I have to say though, I hate this musical. None of the jokes are funny to me, the montages are boring, the songs are forgettable and the fact that the cast doesn’t sing them when I know they can sing annoys me, none of the characters are engaging or funny, and Ani himself is so goddamn annoying that I think I hate him more than the canonical Jar-Jar-Binks. I know they tried to make it funny and engaging, but unfortunately I think they severely missed on this one. Of course it may also have something to do with the fact that I appreciate it less because I’m a Star Wars fan, but from what I’ve heard from other Starkid fans, they don’t enjoy it either.

#starkid #twisted #tgwdlm #firebringer #avpm #avps #avpsy #ani #trail to oregon #starship #me and my dick #holy musical b@man

[solemnlyswearrp-blog1]

I really don't understand how magic can't heal Kai. I feel like that doesn't make sense in the universe. Healers would be able to fix him. I just feel like there wasn't enough research done for that and wouldn't make ANY sense. Y'all should've approved that. And if you did, can you give the reasoning because I really don't get it.

First I want to start this by saying that I cannot stress enough that if you have some issue with anything in the roleplay, your absolute best bet is to come off of anon and contact the main in a mature and private fashion. When you do this, it creates a lot less awkwardness, stress and hostility on the dashboard, and it’s a lot easier for us as admins to address and workout situations when you come to us this way. I also want to apologize for the delay. You were clearly impatient for an answer and thought to go and contact the player about this instead of exercising patience, and for that I am sorry. One of your qualms is that you felt no research went into this decision. I felt the need to do a lot of research into what we know from canon about healing spells and dark magic in order to give you an educated response to something that you have legitimate questions about. 

To clarify, the detail in question was not something approved by the admins. While we do ask that players consider discussing large and ambitious plots and details with us, we also support our players having freedom to make decisions for the sake of character development. In this case, our Kai player had contacted the main about the attack and having their character seriously injured as a result, and this plot was approved. We have since spoken about the situation, and while some details have been changed to better fit canon, overall the storyline where Kai’s wounds are not easily healed is going to stay in place. My reasoning, as you so desire, is under the cut as to preserve space on the dashboard. If you have any more questions, consider coming off anon and we can have a discussion on it. Otherwise I think I explain this well enough in my answer below the cut:

Now onto the actual question that’s being posed here: Is it probable that Kai couldn’t be healed by magic? In short, yes… and no. One thing that is very irksome about the universe that JK Rowling created is that there really aren’t very clear rules and limitations to the magic system in her wizarding world. Before you come at me with your pitchforks and torches, let me explain this. While this is a fantastical universe and is in many respects realistic, there are also portions of this universe that don’t entirely make sense and lack proper laws to explain things. Healing Magic and the limitations of it are a huge example of this. 

We know that healing magic and potions can be used to fix a large number of things, such as: Broken limbs, illnesses like the common cold and the flu, some (and we stress some) instances of memory loss charms, as well as magical illnesses like Dragon Pox, Spattergroit and Vanishing Sickness. But we also know that there are cases of situations where magic couldn’t fix certain calamities and injuries - some of which kind of go with the aforementioned illnesses that are proven to be fixed by magic. 

Confusing? Let me elaborate. 

So we know that Hermione’s parents were obliviated by her in 1997 to protect them from Voldemort and his Death Eaters. We also know sometime after the battle in 1998, that she was able to return their memories to them. This is an example of magic (to some capacity) being able to cure memory charms. However, we also know that Gilderoy Lockhart’s memory could not be cured after he used a mangled memory charm on himself. Magic couldn’t fix that case of a memory charm. Vanishing Sickness is an illness that causes a wizard’s body parts to disappear. We know that this is a magical ailment that can be healed, but then you have characters like Mad Eye Moody and George Weasley who lost limbs and weren’t able to regain them. 

You’re telling me that in a universe where a potion like Skelegro, which can literally regrow a person’s bones, exists it is also not possible for George Weasley’s ear to have been regrown? Or for Mad Eye Moody’s leg and eye to somehow been charmed back into place? Do you see what I’m getting at here? We’re told that magic can cure a lot of things, even fantastical things like vanishing body parts, but then we’re also told that Bill Weasley’s scarring was irreversible, even though Fenrir Greyback was at the time of the attack just a human man with sharp claws. That’s a mundane thing and yet somehow magic could not cure these scars? Or What about the Longbottoms? Frank and Alice Longbottom remain permanently damaged and legally insane because of magical torture, which cannot be fixed. I mean we also know that Luna’s mother, Pandora Lovegood, died because one of her own experimental spells went terribly wrong. Magic went wrong, and it couldn’t be cured. The point is - there are literally no limitations to what magic can and cannot do. In fact, it’s a very conflicting law because some situations are fixable with just a flick of the wand but then some other similar situations are written off as “incurable with magic”. 

But there is a common factor in a lot of these medical cases where magic was unable to fix them - a number of them were caused by dark magic. Suddenly there’s a new factor at play. 

So let’s talk the specifics here. Kai is unable to be healed by magic, following an encounter with a dark wizard who used a severing spell with an incantation we all know well - Sectumsempra. Let’s look at the canon and what we know about this curse. This is a curse that was invented by Severus Snape that operates almost like an invisible sword being unleashed from the wand and slashing their opponent in the motion of the wand movement. In canon, this spell was used two times - once against Draco Malfoy in Half Blood Prince and then again against George Weasley in the Battle of the Seven Potters. (the aforementioned ear-losing incident) Now going off these canon incidents, we can come to some conclusions that do in fact support the notion that Kai’s wounds from the curse are unable to be healed by magic. Let me elaborate on these. 

We know that when George’s ear was lost in the Battle of the Seven Potters that the Order of the Phoenix was unable to regrow his ear, and for two reasons: 

Curse Wounds, especially those in the nature of the Dark Arts, are unable to be healed

The counter curse was unknown

This is a curse invented by Severus Snape, this wasn’t a widely known curse at the time of its use in 1997 - there was no counter curse readily available to them, and wounds inflicted by dark magic are unable to be healed. This explains why magic can’t cure the Longbottoms, why they can’t cure the injuries inflicted by werewolf Greyback on Bill Weasley, and why they cannot cure Mad Eye’s missing limbs - because healing magic cannot heal wounds and injuries that are a result of dark magic. The Sectumsempra spell is dark magic. 

Now we have to look at another case where this was used in canon - when it was used against Draco Malfoy. From this encounter between Harry and Draco in Half Blood Prince, we learn a couple things about the treatment of the curse. First we know that the spell can be cursed by vulnera sanentur. Kind of. I’m going off of what I found online due to not having a copy of the book before me, but what we know about this spell as a counter to sectumsempra is that it works in stages. The first usage will stop the blood flow, the second will cause the wounds to knit and close, and the third will remove the “worst effects of the curse”. While this may appear as the end all to healing it, it’s also known that the victim will require further medical treatment even after this spell has been used three times. Scarring can only really be avoided if dittany is used immediately. 

This is where that conflicting law comes in. So we are told that the curse can be cured… But that certain side effects of it cannot be reversed. This is again because it’s dark magic, and dark magic has a lot of permanent effects. Once again, George’s ear vs. Draco’s body - One effect of this curse was non-reversible, the other was treatable. 

Now comes a question I think a lot of us ask when we discuss these issues - This roleplay is set in 2025 - shouldn’t they have figured out a way to cure it by now? Let’s discuss. This curse was created during Severus Snape’s time at Hogwarts, presumably around his fifth year. That was 1975 for all you Marauder’s Era fans. The curse was used again (twice) in 1996/1997. That’s about 21-22 years later, and at that point, no counter curse was found. Our roleplay takes place in 2025 - that’s 28 years after this curse had been used in those two canon occurrences. Given what we know about dark magic having permanent side effects that are irreversible (remember, the ear) and that 22 years after its initial creation there was still no counter curse…It’s actually not bizarre to assume that a counter curse hasn’t been discovered even in 2025. We’re told 19 years after the defeat of Voldemort that “All Is Well”. Considering this isn’t a well known curse and that shortly after its reemergence in the Second Wizarding War that this community ended up in this peaceful sort of euphoric state, it’s really not a stretch to assume that a counter curse was never created for this. It’s actually pretty accurate to assume this isn’t a very well known curse at all. It’s dark magic, it was invented in the late 20th century and it was rarely ever used. I mean there aren’t really counter-curses for the Unforgivables and they’ve been around (presumably) for centuries. And (once more) we know of occurrences regarding the cruciatus curse where the damage sustained was irreversible. Isn’t it therefore pretty safe to assume that a counter curse and full treatment for sectumsempra hasn’t been found even in 2025? Yeah, I think so. So no, it’s not at all unreasonable to assume that a counter curse hasn’t been found. 

Really, looking at canon alone, it’s not far fetched to believe that someone would have a hard time being healed by magic when attacked with a dark curse like that one. It’s actually canon to assume so. Therefore, it’s totally reasonable for Kai to have a tough time being healed, even by magic, after being faced with a dark curse like this one. Now as to whether or not it’s probable for a character to be absolutely incurable through magic - this is obviously a very different scenario. Magic can cure the mundane, but there are limits in response to illness and injury inflicted by magic.

In this case with Kai, we have spoken directly with the player and have made changes that don’t interfere too much with the established threads going on and still follow canon as we know it. Kai’s wounds are not going to easily be healed due to the nature of dark magic. I hope that this makes sense and clarifies any of your concerns. If you have more questions please consider coming off anon and we can continue the discussion.

#answered #faq #anonymous