Right. Let's Talk About "reading Comprehension". Did My Post Say Anything At All About Me Being Anti

right. let's talk about "reading comprehension". did my post say anything at all about me being anti Dumbledore? did it say anything about him being "some horrid man"? the comment 'go die in a war' was Remus-specific, not a general statement. it was supposed to convey Remus' willingness to fight and die for Dumbledore's cause, not verbatim of what Dumbledore tells Order members or Remus himself. of course he doesn't say that, of course he never orders anyone around. again, did my post say anything about Dumbledore expecting anyone to join him in that war effort? I'm not taking away anyone's free will - they all made their choices - I only analysed their reasons for doing so. because it's very clear from canon text that they had different reasons. your first point about ministry and fascism - that's James, Lily and partially Sirius' reason. probably a lot of other name-only members too. but not Remus' or Peter's. and I never said that Dumbledore manipulated them into joining him or something. plus Voldemort never wanted to destroy the wizarding world - he wanted to rid it of muggle blood and become immortal as a treat. and now that you gave me a reason to think about my post in more detail, I must confess I didn't find anything in it that contradicts canon text or promotes anti Dumbledore rhetoric. I tend to quite like his character actually, exactly because he's complex and not perfect. hope you have a wonderful day.

do I believe any character's trust in Dumbledore could potentially be broken? yes. have I ever seen anybody write it in ways that make sense for those characters' unique perspectives and personalities? no.

and a lot of times it's still compelling as hell when the most devoted characters start seeing cracks early or when they fight for something else in the first place, not regarding Dumbledore as their guiding light at all. it turns those characters into different people though.

but what strikes me more is the immediate shift of the atmosphere of the first war and everything that happens throughout.

because when I think about the first Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore, my first association is, surprisingly, cult of personality. USSR cults, specifically. they were sort of unique, initially crafted to give more power to the Party instead of the Leader.

Order is similar, in a way. on the surface it's just resistance. an organised war effort. a mishmash of people from different backgrounds uniting to fight for personal reasons. James fights for the greater good and his righteous ideals. and James fights for Lily. Lily fights for herself and those marginalised like her. and Lily fights for her muggle family. Sirius doesn't fight for, but against - against his blood family, against Slytherins, against everybody like them. and Sirius fights with James. those 3 are simple. what about others?

Remus doesn't fight for or against. Remus fights with Dumbledore. because Remus' world revolves around Dumbledore and when he says "go die in a war" - Remus goes, no questions asked. he owes Dumbledore that much. Peter doesn't fight for or against. Peter fights with Dumbledore. because Peter wants to be safe and Peter wants to win. Dumbledore promises a win. Peter believes him until he doesn't.

but James also fights with Dumbledore. because Dumbledore is the greater good personified and shares James' righteous ideals. Lily also fights with Dumbledore. because Dumbledore fights for marginalised the loudest. Sirius also fights with Dumbledore. because Dumbledore fights against everybody who's like Sirius' family.

Dumbledore, Dumbledore, Dumbledore. the centre of it all, the bonfire of hope, the beacon of light, the daimon of good. Order is Dumbledore, first and foremost - not Moody, Alice, Frank, Dorcas, Marlene, Prewetts, Caradoc, James, Lily, Sirius, Remus or Peter. not any of the others. it's Albus Dumbledore and the blind, the devoted.

it doesn't fall apart until it's too late. it's only Sirius who gets a chance to notice but he promptly denies it, locked up in a cell for 12 years, carefully tucked away by Dumbledore. he trusts Dumbledore.

he trusts Dumbledore when he escapes, he trusts Dumbledore with Harry, he trusts Dumbledore when he tells Sirius to hide at Lupin's, he trusts Dumbledore when he locks Sirius up in his childhood house of terrors, he trusts Dumbledore when he assembles second Order. he joins Dumbledore, he fights with Dumbledore again, even locked up and angry, and the only time he doesn't trust Dumbledore with either Harry or himself he goes, and fights for Harry, and dies.

others are dead, or tortured, or new, or Remus. Remus who is the blindest and the most devoted. Remus who owes Dumbledore, believes that he owes Dumbledore everything and more. the new don't know any better yet, but Remus does and ignores it. he trusts Dumbledore. trusts him with Harry, and with Sirius, and with himself.

Remus joins Dumbledore, fights with Dumbledore again. sees Dumbledore destroy Sirius - looks the other way, sees Dumbledore destroy himself - deifies him even more in his death, sees Dumbledore's ghost destroy Harry - wants to join him to be destroyed too. because there's nothing left - Dumbledore gifted him his heart at 11, and it died piece by piece in the span of 16 years, and then Dumbledore dies himself, and he can't gift Remus another heart, another life. so Remus blinds himself some more, fights with Dumbledore's ghost and dies. probably for Dumbledore too.

and if all of that can happen when a small group of people simply trusts one mortal man, it's going to take a lot more than a wayward thought in one of those devoted heads to see the cracks. it's going to take a lot of thoughts, a lot of heads, a lot of cracks. a lot of discussions and a fair share of arm-twisting and change of faith. it surely must be a group effort in one way or another, preferably with the help of those who aren't as devoted. if there are any.

because as lovely and as gratifying as it is to read about Remus or Sirius or even Minerva blowing up at Albus - if you don't write them getting to that point after deconstructing their prior canon beliefs... then those characters aren't really Remus, Sirius or Minerva. especially not Remus who was always the most devoted of them all.

Reblog if you also think Toph shouldn’t have been a cop.

I want to see how “unpopular” this opinion really is outside cop-worshipping Reddit.

Listen

So Michael Yew is canonically a ghost.

His body was never found which means he never got a funeral.

In Ancient Greece funerals were kind of a big deal. Greeks didn't hold them just to say goodbye to their loved ones, they believed a funeral was the only way for the dead to get to Hades. No proper burial - no proper afterlife. You're stuck upstairs. Not to mention refusing to bury your dead or waiting too long to do it was extremely disrespectful to the gods. That's why Achilles dragging Hector's corpse around in the Iliad was such a horrifically wrong move on his part. Killing him was righteous revenge but parading his corpse was a terrible insult.

And Michael, the poor lad, never got a proper burial. I guess Rick never thought of the implications of that. He's haunting his siblings as we speak. Maybe Nico can send him down the Bryce Lawrence way though technically this way shouldn't be possible either. Bryce's ghost should have remained upstairs after Nico pulled it out of his body. He should have been required to be buried afterwards. But that's a debate to have some other time.

your perspective on others' involvement is completely valid, I've thought about it as well. perhaps they'd just want them both a little happier with the war on the doorstep, societal expectations be damned.

and with your personal relation to both Tonks and Remus it makes perfect sense that you'd be emotionally attached to their ship. I can completely understand the need to defend them against the frankly ridiculous amount of hate they always get. it must get pretty tiring now that I think about it, which is why I'm very happy we could have such a sweet interaction despite our differing opinions on the matter!

and your last point... yeah, Remus might be one of my favourite characters in the story exactly because he's a complicated morally grey dude with lots of flaws, but he'd be catching these hands in no time if he was real. even though, like you, I understand and relate to and can justify this behaviour. what a dick, indeed!

I've been thinking about how much I adore Tonks and Remus' dynamic but physically cannot ship them because my brain is being weird about their fucking age gap. this is so frustrating. they would have been so lovely for me if Tonks was like at least 27 in 5th book. Ronks (yeah I'm not calling it Remadora, Tonks hates her birth name ffs) would have been my ride-or-die alongside Jily and Wolfstar for sure.

because literally nothing else that Ronks antis consider deal breakers for them matters to me - not the fumbled way they get together in canon, not them getting married so quickly, not Tonks getting pregnant, not the assumed queer-coding of both characters (which I personally see, don't get me wrong. but it's assumed and who the fuck says they can't be queer4queer anyway?). sure, the nuclear family narrative being pushed so quickly and thoroughly onto them is peculiar but who says they didn't want to make the most of their time during a war? I love wartime drama and they would have been my shit if it weren't for... well. Tonks being 22 and Remus 35 when they meet.

I just can't ship big age gaps unless the youngest character is closer to 30 than 20. which is infuriating, because Ronks is objectively more fascinating because of their gap. my fucking loss, don't you think?

anyway, after thinking of ways I can make Tonks older without hurting the story, I began wondering whether her age is narratively important, and yes, turns out it very much is - for Harry.

Tonks being 22 in order of phoenix makes her the closest of Order members to Harry's age (Weasley twins don't count because they're Ron's brothers first, order members second for Harry) and the one Order member Harry can relate to the most in his youth and desire to fight. She almost perfectly parallels marauders and Lily in first war and represents the fun of the fight, the fire of youth, the confidence of a new recruit, the safety of relatability for Harry. She's one of the biggest inspirations for his newfound dream of becoming an auror. Harry needs Tonks among those older, battle-worn, cautious, secretive adults who don't take him seriously and never look him in the eye, because he wants to be what she is even before realising it and only reflects on it after spending time with her.

all in all, Tonks being 22 matters quite a lot for Harry's story.

now, we have no way of knowing whether Joanne came up with Ronks storyline prior to Tonks' introduction, but it shouldn't matter for their relationship, not in Joanne's opinion - Tonks' youth already fulfilled its narrative role in order of phoenix and stopped being an important asset of her character in half-blood prince.

oh, but unfortunately it still matters in the grand scheme of things, Joanne. you don't just introduce a young adult character (I'm 21 myself and gods, 22/23 is barely more mature), chuck their established age out the window and pair them up with a character in their mid-to-late thirties. and of fucking course it makes sense for a 23 year old to be down bad for some scruffy 36 year old man, it's incredibly realistic! this 36 year old man acting upon such crush is a little questionable, but still realistic (and we know Remus is very flawed, so I'm not surprised). but you know what isn't realistic at all?

Molly - a 46 year old woman, married to her high school sweetheart, mother to 7 children, 3 of which are close to Tonks' age - being extremely supportive of actually engaging in that sort of relationship, going as far as reprimanding Remus for not committing to it. I'm sorry, what? Molly might have some flaws as a mother, but she is nothing if not protective of her kids and those in their age range. She genuinely becomes somewhat of a mother figure for Tonks during their time in the Order, and I just cannot for the life of me understand how Molly could encourage her to pursue Remus and vice-versa, instead of consoling Tonks in her tragic crush and making sure Remus doesn't even look at her like that.

Minerva - an even older woman who taught both Remus and Tonks at Hogwarts, witnessed Remus becoming an adult from his graduation in 1978 up until 1981, then saw an 11 year old Tonks start Hogwarts 3 years later in 1984 - chiding Remus for not being "brave" enough to commit to such relationship. first of all, why the fuck is she involved in that narrative at all? it's none of her business??? she's not in any pseudo parenting role for either of them, unlike Molly, so I never understood why she even has a place to voice her opinion about their romance. second of all, even if it was her business, Minerva - a professor who witnessed both Remus and Tonks grow up so many years apart - would realistically feel pretty weird about such relationship.

those aren't problems with the ship itself, but rather the way Joanne implemented their romance in the story. I think it would be more realistic if Ronks was some kind of fucked up forbidden romance from other characters' perspectives. the way everybody is so instantly supportive of them is quite jarring to me.

interestingly, when I read hp for the first time at 11 I was quite adamant in my belief that Tonks was in love with Molly up until that scene in half-blood prince. a very weird belief for a kid, I know. I just only liked girls at the time and was relating to Tonks quite a bit since her introduction, so I guess I unconsciously decided she was a lesbian even without knowing that term yet. I also had a crush on my teacher in 4th grade and she was quite similar to Molly... yeah, this girl was projecting too much. I didn't pick up on Remus' queer-coding until I fell down the rabbit hole of lgbt discourse at 14, but was pretty shocked to read about Tonks falling for a man at 11. she was so like me until she wasn't :) it's pretty funny to think about now.

in conclusion, I'm hella jealous of those of you who don't have weird brains and can enjoy Ronks to their fullest potential. their canon writing has its issues but they're more interesting for it, truly. I'll stay in my no fun corner, headcanoning them as lavender married, queer-platonic, bisexual besties co-parenting Teddy Alastor Tonks.

11 random pjo&hoo headcanons

mostly Will Solace centric cuz I'm hyperfixated on this dork

Will is terrified of birds (which is canon in tsats apparently but idgaf about that book sooo) after he saw vultures attacking a newborn calf on his grandparents' ranch. he didn't know they could do that at the time and was really disturbed by the birds vomiting when they noticed him watching.

literally any song can heal. cue Will bursting into I Can't Decide by Scissor Sisters while healing cabin 5 for the umpteenth time.

Jason is a feral wolf boy (it's not really an unpopular opinion but whatever). he bites, barks and growls when sparring. extremely territorial. doesn't like the feeling of a table edge against his forearms so he eats sitting cross-legged on the ground. doesn't like wearing shoes and only started sleeping on a normal bed at 12 when during a particularly cold winter he kept getting sick from sleeping on the barracks' floor and Reyna manhandled his ass to New Rome's furniture store and got him a thin mattress.

Jason needs to be within touching distance of someone at all times. he'd reflexively comb through and braid Reyna and Piper's hair, play with Dakota and Leo's curls, press his forehead against Gwen and Nico's shoulder blades and side hug Bobby and Thalia.

unmasked Will has murder in his eyes. his pacifism is not an innate trait, but his ultimate choice. a very hard one at times, because his brain's first instinct is always "choose violence". his anger issues are even worse than Percy's, although his self-control is better.

on a related note - grandpa Micah taught Will how to shoot a gun when he was 6. his archery skills are nonexistent, but he's the best shot with firearms. he tries to keep it on the down low however, cuz he prefers to give off a non-threatening sunshine vibe to most other campers, but he occasionally works on his shooting during solitary forest patrols and while at home on holiday breaks.

Hazel becomes a hardcore brony the moment she finds out about MLP. her favourite character is Princess Luna. her bunkspace is now full of merch and creepypastas are her new bedtime stories.

Nico doesn't like peanut butter but absolutely loves cottage cheese. Will finds that interesting. Will himself likes both.

Will loves emo music actually. although he will annoy everybody by always picking the silliest country songs during his shifts at the infirmary. he thinks it creates good vibes.

Nico's hair is thick, kinda wavy and hard to manage so he's constantly caught between craving to grow it out really long and impulsively cutting it chin-length. so in last olympian it's down to his shoulders but during Gaea war he sports a short shag again. after settling at camp he can finally grow it out cuz Drew shows him her cabin's secret weapon - conditioner!

everybody in cabin 7 knows italian (just like cabin 10 knows french. and yes, I know it's another popular one), but only to the extent of their music gift. so while Austin is bilingual, Will's innate italian knowledge is lower intermediate at best. although naturally they can only speak and understand it (just like with ancient greek and cabin 10's french) so they still have to study writing.

lots of those are inspired by general fanon as well as many fic writers' personal headcanons, but off the top of my head I can only tell you that the peanut butter one is from iyncbyhim by @yrbeecharmer

do I believe any character's trust in Dumbledore could potentially be broken? yes. have I ever seen anybody write it in ways that make sense for those characters' unique perspectives and personalities? no.

and a lot of times it's still compelling as hell when the most devoted characters start seeing cracks early or when they fight for something else in the first place, not regarding Dumbledore as their guiding light at all. it turns those characters into different people though.

but what strikes me more is the immediate shift of the atmosphere of the first war and everything that happens throughout.

because when I think about the first Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore, my first association is, surprisingly, cult of personality. USSR cults, specifically. they were sort of unique, initially crafted to give more power to the Party instead of the Leader.

Order is similar, in a way. on the surface it's just resistance. an organised war effort. a mishmash of people from different backgrounds uniting to fight for personal reasons. James fights for the greater good and his righteous ideals. and James fights for Lily. Lily fights for herself and those marginalised like her. and Lily fights for her muggle family. Sirius doesn't fight for, but against - against his blood family, against Slytherins, against everybody like them. and Sirius fights with James. those 3 are simple. what about others?

Remus doesn't fight for or against. Remus fights with Dumbledore. because Remus' world revolves around Dumbledore and when he says "go die in a war" - Remus goes, no questions asked. he owes Dumbledore that much. Peter doesn't fight for or against. Peter fights with Dumbledore. because Peter wants to be safe and Peter wants to win. Dumbledore promises a win. Peter believes him until he doesn't.

but James also fights with Dumbledore. because Dumbledore is the greater good personified and shares James' righteous ideals. Lily also fights with Dumbledore. because Dumbledore fights for marginalised the loudest. Sirius also fights with Dumbledore. because Dumbledore fights against everybody who's like Sirius' family.

Dumbledore, Dumbledore, Dumbledore. the centre of it all, the bonfire of hope, the beacon of light, the daimon of good. Order is Dumbledore, first and foremost - not Moody, Alice, Frank, Dorcas, Marlene, Prewetts, Caradoc, James, Lily, Sirius, Remus or Peter. not any of the others. it's Albus Dumbledore and the blind, the devoted.

it doesn't fall apart until it's too late. it's only Sirius who gets a chance to notice but he promptly denies it, locked up in a cell for 12 years, carefully tucked away by Dumbledore. he trusts Dumbledore.

he trusts Dumbledore when he escapes, he trusts Dumbledore with Harry, he trusts Dumbledore when he tells Sirius to hide at Lupin's, he trusts Dumbledore when he locks Sirius up in his childhood house of terrors, he trusts Dumbledore when he assembles second Order. he joins Dumbledore, he fights with Dumbledore again, even locked up and angry, and the only time he doesn't trust Dumbledore with either Harry or himself he goes, and fights for Harry, and dies.

others are dead, or tortured, or new, or Remus. Remus who is the blindest and the most devoted. Remus who owes Dumbledore, believes that he owes Dumbledore everything and more. the new don't know any better yet, but Remus does and ignores it. he trusts Dumbledore. trusts him with Harry, and with Sirius, and with himself.

Remus joins Dumbledore, fights with Dumbledore again. sees Dumbledore destroy Sirius - looks the other way, sees Dumbledore destroy himself - deifies him even more in his death, sees Dumbledore's ghost destroy Harry - wants to join him to be destroyed too. because there's nothing left - Dumbledore gifted him his heart at 11, and it died piece by piece in the span of 16 years, and then Dumbledore dies himself, and he can't gift Remus another heart, another life. so Remus blinds himself some more, fights with Dumbledore's ghost and dies. probably for Dumbledore too.

and if all of that can happen when a small group of people simply trusts one mortal man, it's going to take a lot more than a wayward thought in one of those devoted heads to see the cracks. it's going to take a lot of thoughts, a lot of heads, a lot of cracks. a lot of discussions and a fair share of arm-twisting and change of faith. it surely must be a group effort in one way or another, preferably with the help of those who aren't as devoted. if there are any.

because as lovely and as gratifying as it is to read about Remus or Sirius or even Minerva blowing up at Albus - if you don't write them getting to that point after deconstructing their prior canon beliefs... then those characters aren't really Remus, Sirius or Minerva. especially not Remus who was always the most devoted of them all.