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fruitcoops · 3 years

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Hi!! I was wondering if you could do another fic involving jules and coops together? Just like sweet moments between the three? I loved the baby sitting series you did and could not stop thinking about it❤️❤️ Thank you!!

Yeah, of course! I love writing my boy at any opportunity. SW credit goes to @lumosinlove, but the relatives are my ocs!

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Sirius asked under his breath as Remus finally—finally—appeared from the mass of people.

“It’s fine,” Remus said around a forced smile to a middle-aged man across the yard.

Sirius hid his mouth by pretending to look down at the nearest casserole dish. He didn’t even know what was in it; nobody had bothered with labels, and everyone’s dishes were the same basic florals in different colors. “I love you, Re, and I totally get the whole ‘meet the parents’ thing, but this is a bit much if I’m being honest.”

“Honey.” Remus’ shoulder pressed against his own. “I’m sorry you’re not having a good time, but my Aunt Jen would skin me alive if I didn’t bring the man I’m marrying to the family reunion. We can leave tomorrow if you really hate—oh, no.”

“Remus!” a shrill, excited voice called. Sirius felt his fiancé straighten up as a tall, redheaded woman in star-painted jeans hurried across the grass with three other women in tow. She reached up and gave Remus’ cheeks a squish, then leaned in a planted a lipstick-stamped kiss to his forehead. “How are you, my duckling? Was your flight alright? Make sure you stay away from the salt or else your feet will swell.”

“Hi, Aunt Jen,” Remus said, grimacing a little at her rib-crushing hug. “I’m doing well, and our flight was fine. How are you?”

“Peachy keen,” she assured him. Dark brown eyes lasered in on Sirius half a second later and he felt his fight or flight kick in. “And who are you?”

“Aunt Jen, this is—”

“It was rhetorical, honey,” Jen interrupted with a pat to Remus’ arm as she stepped closer to Sirius and immediately hauled him in for a hug. She was as tall as Remus, but broader in the shoulders and hips; he had never felt so engulfed by someone. It was a strangely enjoyable feeling.

“Aren’t you a handsome one?” the shortest of the group cooed, as if she was talking to a particularly small dog in a purse. “Our Remus always knew how to pick them.”

Remus furrowed his brows. “Aunt Lisa, this is the first boyfriend I’ve—”

“But he’s not just a boyfriend!” Jen trilled, giving Sirius’ cheek a pat. “He’s a fiancé, something I learned from your mother. Not from your father—oh, I gave him a talking-to about that—and not from you, duck.”

Sirius bit back a laugh at the nickname and spared a glance to his left, where Remus had gone pink all the way to his ears. “Sorry.”

“Introduce us!” the shortest insisted, taking the other two by the hands as pulling them forward with an eager smile.

“Everyone, this is Sirius Black, my fiancé.” Remus gestured between them, and the four women beamed at him. “Sirius, this is Aunt Jen, Aunt Lisa, Aunt Allison, and Aunt Mary, my dad’s sisters.”

“It’s lovely to meet you,” Sirius said, holding a hand out.

“No need to be so formal,” the brunette grumbled with a teasing grin. “We have heard so much about you from Lyall. After those damned pictures—”

“Allison,” Jen hissed.

“—after the damned pictures,” Allison repeated with a pointed look. “I was about ready to drive up to Gryffindor myself and give that lousy son of a bitch a piece of my mind—”

“Allison!”

“—but Lyall talked me down and I have been waiting to meet you ever since.” She finished with a soft huff and gave his arm a quick squeeze. “Remus is a lucky boy to have you. It’s very exciting to see you in person at last.”

Sirius’ heart gave a happy little ka-thump and he smiled. “I’m glad to be here. Thank you for having me.”

“He is so polite,” Lisa said to Remus out of the corner of her mouth with a wink and a thumbs-up. “Good choice.”

“You know what I just realized? We haven’t said hello to Jules yet. We’ll see you in a few, yeah?” Without waiting for an official answer, Remus wrapped an arm around Sirius’ waist and practically carried him away from the table. Once they were out of earshot—and the aunts had busied themselves with one of the younger Lupins—Remus relaxed with a slow exhale. “I am…so sorry.”

“For what?”

“I had no idea they were going to corner you like that. I mean, I did, but I was hoping it wouldn’t be for another few hours. They tend to move in a pack at reunions, like sharks. Or wolves.”

“They’re really sweet.”

“They are,” Remus said grudgingly, though Sirius could read the affection dripping off him like his favorite book. “My dad’s the youngest of five, and I was the first nephew. You can imagine how that went.”

“Baby of the baby?”

“Exactly.”

“Can I ask one thing?” Remus nodded, visibly confused, and Sirius found he couldn’t keep his grin down any longer. “Duckling?”

“I hoped you didn’t hear that,” he groaned as they headed toward the kids’ play area beneath a large oak. “Long story short, it involved five-year-old me, a pond, and a sinus infection that made me sound like a duck when I sneezed.”

“Oh my god,” Sirius laughed, earning himself a light elbow to the ribs. “And the name stuck?”

“Considering she was the one that had to stay with me while my folks were working, she could call me whatever the hell she wanted. Please don’t ask her about it unless you want a thirty-minute TED talk about the ins and outs of my sinuses.”

“She’s a doctor?”

“No, she just overshares.”

“Sirius!”

Sirius looked up and saw a herd of small children racing toward them, led by his favorite person under the age of eighteen; Jules crashed into his legs and squeezed him tight around the waist. “Hey, I missed you!”

Jules propped his chin below Sirius’ sternum and stared up at him with the classic hazel-gold eyes that were far more common than Sirius believed before they arrived in the Lupins’ backyard. “I missed you, too! How’s the team? How’s Harry? Is he still super small or did he do that weird thing that babies do where their legs grow and the rest of them still looks normal? How was your flight? Did you have turbulence?”

Sirius thought for a moment. “Good, also good, growing normally, and yes.”

“Sweet! Come play cornhole with us!” Jules grabbed his hand and dragged him along the grass at the closest thing he could manage to a sprint with Sirius’ added weight—the pre-teen years had lent him gangly legs, though he didn’t seem quite sure how to use them yet. He looked more like a foal than a sixth-grader.

“What the hell is cornhole?” Sirius muttered as the flock of kids ran ahead to grab armfuls of beanbags.

Remus grinned. “Something I’m about to kick your ass at.”

------------------------------------

By the time the sun set, Sirius was exhausted. He had been introduced to dozens of people who looked just enough like Remus to be eerie, as well as plenty who seemed to have been acquired by one Lupin or another over the course of their life. Jules fluctuated between laminating himself to Sirius’ side and disappearing for an hour at a time, only to return more grass-stained and rumpled than ever as he begged Remus to swing him around by the ankles again. His ass had been thoroughly kicked at cornhole and freeze tag; it was a true miracle he hadn’t already passed out into a food coma. For all of his earlier griping, Sirius couldn’t think of a time in recent months when he had been more content.

“You’re a brave soul,” Remus remarked as they sat in the grass together and watched the fireflies wake. Though it was a warm night, it seemed the citronella candles littering the tables were doing their job of chasing off mosquitoes.

Sirius leaned his head on Remus’ shoulder. He smelled like grass and summertime and sunbaked warmth. “Am I?”

“Mhmm. I’m sure most people would have run screaming by now.”

“I like your family.”

A beat of silence passed; Remus rested his temple against the top of Sirius’ head. “I’m really glad to hear that. They’re weird and loud, but I love them.”

“And I love you.”

“Are you saying I’m weird and loud?”

“On occasion.”

“Asshole,” Remus laughed, giving him a nudge that hardly qualified as more than a gentle sway.

“Language, there are eight million kids around.”

“They’re busy.”

Sirius watched as small group run by in a wave of giggles, all clutching mason jars of fireflies with their names written on masking tape. “Thank you again for asking me to come with you.”

“Like I said, Aunt Jen would—”

“Remus.” He fell quiet. Sirius didn’t remember the last time he said Remus’ full name aloud. “Your family loves you so much. They’re everything I ever wanted growing up, and it means the world that you wanted to share them with me. All they want is to see you happy. It was amazing to finally meet them.”

“They really, really love you,” Remus said softly, his voice a little thick. “I had about twenty people tell me how wonderful you are. They all thanked me for bringing you, and not a single one mentioned the celebrity thing. Even my Uncle Jay didn’t say a word about hockey.”

“He was the one in the jersey?”

“I’ve known him for my entire life and I’ve never seen him without one.”

“Huh.” Sirius tucked his face closer to Remus’ neck and let the sound of the bullfrogs in a distant marsh lull him. “What time is it?”

“Almost eleven. The adults will be up for a while, but the kids will start crashing soon.”

Footsteps on the cool grass rustled to their right and Sirius looked up. “Who wants pie?” Aunt Allison singsonged, breaking their quiet bubble with paper plates and utensils. “This one is blackberry, but we have peach, pumpkin, and a few others on the table if you’re still hungry.”

“Just a small piece, please,” Sirius said.

Allison paused and cocked her head, then burst out laughing. “Oh, you’re funny!”

“I am?”

“Don’t fight it,” Remus whispered.

“You are a growing boy,” Allison said as she cut a thick slice and plonked it onto his plate. “And there’s no such thing as too much pie.”

I’m 26, Sirius wanted to say, though he held it in. “Just a small one for me, as well,” Remus said.

“Ha!” Allison snorted. “You’re already too skinny. Eat your pie or you’ll end up a string bean like your father. The NHL might have given you muscle, but it’s useless if you don’t enjoy some of your favorite aunt’s—”

“—woah, hey now—”

“—pie once in a while.” Allison kissed the tops of their heads once both plates were secure and bowing in the middle. “I’m going to make sure the kids aren’t poking around in the river again. Sleep well, you two.”

Sirius stared down at his plate as she wandered away. “I’m honestly going to die if I eat this.”

“Yeah, please don’t make yourself sick on pie. You really don’t have to eat all of that. The aunts and uncles are convinced that none of us are eating properly once we turn eighteen.”

“Really?”

“I wish I was kidding. You’re going to sleep so well tonight, though.”

As if on cue, Sirius stifled a yawn with the back of his hand and cuddled under Remus’ arm again. A familiar shadow bounded over not two seconds later and he barely held down a groan. “Hey, can I join you?”

Remus shrugged. “ ‘course.”

“Sweet.” Jules settled himself across their laps, staring at the sky with his head pillowed on Sirius’ thigh. “Did you have fun? I’m really glad you could come.”

“I had a great time,” Sirius answered honestly. Now please move on so I can take a nap.

“Mom and dad and me got here yesterday, and Aunt Jen kept checking the door for you guys even though she knew you weren’t coming until today. She was worried you wouldn’t like us, I think.”

“That was never an option, Jules.”

“Yeah, I know.” A devilish grin flickered over his face. “Remus is the weirdest of all of us, and if you want to marry him—”

“Get off,” Remus grumbled, shoving Jules’ legs onto the picnic blanket. “You know, you were a lot nicer before you turned eleven. Can I return you and get a new one? I have the receipt somewhere.”

“Nope.”

“That’s all a birth certificate is, right?” Sirius raised his eyebrows. “If you bring it back in good condition, I hear they give you a ten percent discount.”

Jules scowled. “That’s so not true.”

“How do you think I got Regulus?”

“Isn’t it past your bedtime?” Remus asked with a pointed look. “Run along, problem child.”

“Of the two of us, I’m the least problematic.” Despite his words, Jules clambered to his feet and dusted his hands off over Remus’ head. “I’m not the one that got a secret boyfriend and got engaged in a year. I’m so easy. Mom and dad want two of me.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Remus sighed as he stretched out on the blanket. “They had a second kid because they wanted two of me.”

“You’re adopted.”

Remus cracked one eye open in disbelief. “No, I’m not.”

“How do you know?”

“Because—y’know what, go to bed. Or go find the stampede, I think they’re by the river.”

Sirius whistled lowly as Jules scampered off again. “That was impressive. Isn’t your aunt over there?”

“Yep.”

Realization clicked into place. “She’s going to make him go to bed.”

“Yep.”

“You’re brilliant.”

Remus smiled without opening his eyes, and tugged Sirius down by the sleeve to lay next to him. “You’re just figuring that out now?”

The stars were brighter than anywhere Sirius had ever seen; for a moment, he was struck speechless by the endless rivers of sparkling white overhead. He stared until his eyes burned from dryness, then put his head on Remus’ chest and kept on looking. There was no way he could tear his gaze from it. A few shooting stars streaked across the clear sky and he felt his heart skip a beat in pure amazement when he realized there was nothing else he would wish for in that moment. He could listen to Remus’ heartbeat and the sound of his new family talking against a backdrop of the night, relishing in a full belly and cool wind, and simply stay there for as long as he liked.

#sirius black #remus lupin #julian lupin #coops #lupin family #sweater weather #lumosinlove #my fic #fanfic #family reunion

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uneryx · 4 years

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Renee Gets Salty About Dark Magic

This post got long, and got away from me, so I’ll tl;dr it

1. dark magic is a metaphor for consumption and materialism and is ultimately bad because it harms others unnecessarily and is not a sustainable resource

2. the elves were dicks for banishing humans but (especially if humans sucked all the magic out of the land themselves) they were kind of justified, even if it was an extreme measure

3. Eating meat is not the same as dark magic if you’re looking at things from an animistic point of view, which the elves likely do

4. it’s okay to like problematic characters and you don’t have to portray Ezran as a monstrous enfant terrible to feel okay about thinking Viren is justified in what he does. In fact, pretty please stop doing this, everyone in all fandoms. It’s fine if you don’t like the protags but that doesn’t mean you get to say Ezran or Rayla or whoever is EVIL. It’s called Ron the Death Eater and it’s a fandom trope that has pissed me off for going on fifteen years. Deliberately misreading the text isn’t cute. Stop doing it.

5. The show isn’t over, be patient, you’ll probably get to see some comeuppance for stuff anyway. And if you don’t, there’s always fanfiction.

6. For the love of baby adoraburrs please tag posts that go in the vein of “the writing is bad because Viren is portrayed as a classic villain/elves good humans bad/the protags aren’t held accountalbe” with “TDP CRITICAL” I would greatly appreciate it because I’m getting super annoyed with posts that deliberately misrepresent canon to uphold a favored side and it’s affecting my enjoyment of the show. Now! Actual long and discourse-heavy post under the cut!

Ugh I don’t want to start a big ol’ argument with people because I’m still on vacation and don’t want to spend the rest of today arguing about cartoons on the internet, but this has been on the kettle for a while and I feel QUITE STRONGLY about some of these things, so just... let me express my views here and don’t come for me because I’m about to talk about religion and sociology.

Dark Magic is a metaphor for unchecked consumption and capitalism. 1. The theory i’m seeing floating around that got my dander up is that the elves and dragons drained the western half of the continent of magic to keep magic away from humans. I think that, based on what we’ve learned from canon, this is highly unlikely and would be weaker writing than what I think actually happened. Instead, Dark magic was going on for a good solid 800 years (Rise of Elarion is 2000 years before canon) before Sol Regem faced off with Viard (1200 years before canon). The division of Xadia was another 200 years after that. Humans had a solid honking millennium of unchecked dark magic. It is quite likely that the reason the west is entirely devoid of magic, and that humans were banished there, is because they sucked all the magic out of that half themselves. Poor innocent baby humans nothing. They got a taste of power and progress and, like real world humans, let that get WAY out of control.

2. “But Lujanne eats bugs, she’s a hypocrite for saying Claudia can’t squish bugs for pancakes” I want you to go down to your local new-age/witchy bookstore and find yourself an animist that eats meat. You are going to get glared at SO HARD if you whip out the “you think animals have souls but you eat meat!” chestnut. Because here’s the thing.

Eating meat/animal products is an act of life, necessary to sustain the life of someone else. We don’t vilify wolves for eating deer. You gotta eat to live your life, and the human (or, we can assume, bipedal humanoid) diet includes a need for complex protein chains, quite often found in animal meat.

But the reason that we find cannibalism repulsive in western society is because it’s eating another human, despite the fact that humans are made of meat. It’s eating something that we consider sentient, dignified and possessed of a soul. Of course, the taboo also derives from the fact that you can contract prion disease from consuming human meat, but people in 11th century Normandy didn’t know that. It is quite likely, especially given what we’ve seen of magical creatures and Ezran’s ability to talk to animals, that elves view non-human/elf creatures as sentient and possessed of a soul. If that’s the case, then OF COURSE they would see dark magic as horrific.

But eating meat is not on the same level because, as we see from the assassins, death is a part of life, and sometimes necessary. I imagine that hunting and taking a creature’s life for food is an act that is done with respect. The creatures are honored or thanked before they’re eaten or turned into leather. Highly ritualized to dignify that creature’s life. Dark magic doesn’t do that. Dark magic sucks the whole life out, without so much of a how do you do. It’s treating a person like a thing. It’s sucking all the life and essence out of someone so you can shoot fireballs or make fluffy pancakes. Lets be real - you don’t need to do either of those things, so the creature thus died in vain. 3. “The elves are selfish bastards for hogging all the magic.” I agree. Granted, their attitudes may have cooled in the ensuing centuries. It’s a new dawn, the era of Zubeia. We might see elves getting over their uppity selves and working to help teach humans magic. We might also see the show explore that kind of prejudice as Callum learns more magic. In fact, I hope we do. However, two wrongs dont make a right. If Japan bombs the absolute fuckshit out of Hawaii, that does not make it okay to flash-fry Nagasaki with a weapon that blights the land and its people for years and years afterward.

To the elves (who are magical creatures and therefore totally usable as spell components), that’s what dark magic is. Suddenly, haha oh fuck, the humans have a fucking NUKE that every elf and dragon in Xadia is vulnerable to. If a weapon was devised that ONLY a certain portion of the population was affected by, you better bet your sweet bippy that people would panic and make it forbidden and illegal, and severely punish the people who created it. ESPECIALLY if those people were already marginalized. Sucks, don’t it? Doesn’t mean the writing is bad for portraying people having a realistic reaction to something that is harmful to them. The elves aren’t justified in hogging the magic, and I hope future chapters will explore that. But the elves ARE a liiiiiittle bit justified in freaking out. I hold they could’ve come up with a better solution than BANISH HUMANS, but they didn’t. Makes for interesting story conflict, doesn’t it? 4. “Humans NEED dark magic!” / “Calling dark magic a shortcut is dumb” Did they tho? Did they really? Really really? We, modern day humans, don’t NEED smart phones (which rely on several rare earth minerals and are causing untold ecological disaster in areas where they’re miend). We, modern day humans, don’t NEED coal power (which is controlled by coal companies, who keep telling us that we totally do, despite many scientists saying that renewable energy is ready to go whenever). We don’t NEED blackberries from Mexico year-round, or a whole hell of a lot of the things we have come to rely on and consider part of our every day lives. All of these things are unnecessary and shortcuts to progress.

The only - ONLY! - good, necessary thing we’ve seen in canon that dark magic was required for was using the magma titan’s heart for saving people from famine.

A lot of the complaints about sustainable energy and efforts to heal the planet as climate change become increasingly a crisis stem from the fact that doing things RIGHT, in a way that is sustainable and doesn’t strip every last resource out of our home, is that it takes time. It takes SO MUCH TIME to do things properly. Yeah, we can keep going with our coal and our gas-guzzler cars and our fracking and our rare-earth metals... but we ARE going to run out. And then what? Dark magic is the same principle. Eventually, you’re going to run out of resources.

5. Where I think the show is going My main beef with those (and there’s a lot of ya, so I’m not intending to single anyone out) who say that the writing is lazy for dark magic bad elfs good is that the show is not over. Wonderstorm is doing their damndest to give us the saga. And they’ve said, out right, that there WILL be books, if nothing else.

You can’t judge a story’s merits when it’s only been half told. Right now, what the show has done is it has shown us the worst and best of the elves (for example, Khessa’s purity test vs Rayla refusing to kill Ez so she doesn’t perpetuate a cycle of violence) and the worst and best of the humans (ex: Viren forcibly turning thousands of people into monsters against their will vs Viren risking his life in order to save thousands of people from famine). The show has done well to demonstrate that there is good and bad in everyone, and it’s the choices you make and the respect you show others’ autonomy that makes you a good or bad person. The dominoes are in place. The saga has only begun. Being mad that Ezran burned an army (that he likely knew from Soren was invulnerable to fire) or that Aanya shot Kasef in the face (when Opeli would have told her that Kasef conspired behind Ezran’s back to usurp the throne, which is AN ACT OF WAR btw) means you aren’t looking at the big picture. There WILL be consequences for those actions in later seasons, mark my words.

I’m sorry if you’re a Viren or Claudia stan, but they have made choices that hurt other people, and it is in no way shape or form Ezran or Callum or Rayla or ANYONE ELSE’S fault that they made the choices they did. Instead of being mad at the show for not portraying your fav as an innocent victim, be glad that you got such a wonderfully complex set of villains who, quite likely, will get a bomb-ass redemption arc. In fact, I’ll bet you anything that Viren’s walk back from the edge has already begun. The dude fucking DIED, and he’s not going to be eager to get in there and get all grabby with the power any time soon.

That’s what good writing IS - conflict. Tension. People making morally questionable choices. We like it because every day people are hypocrites and morally questionable. You, and I, and everyone we know. Nobody’s perfect and getting cranky and painting the protagonists with the broad villain brush so you can feel good about liking a problematic fave is... some peak tumblr bullshit, tbh. It’s okay to like characters who aren’t perfect. How fucking boring fiction would be if everyone was perfect.

Now if I can ask my mutuals to please tag their criticisms of the show that go in the vein of “the writing is bad because dark magic is portrayed so negatively/they don’t hold the protags accountable/elves good humans bad” with “TDP critical” I would greatly appreciate it. It’s getting to the degree where things are becoming very not fun and making me cranky. Thank you, Renee out.

#tdp discourse #ftr I feel VERY STRONGLY about point 2 #meat-eating is NOT the same as hunting for sport #and if you disagree with me on an ethical level about this stuff then do me a favor and tag your shit #so that we can coexist in our lanes without getting mad at each other over a damn cartoon

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