Aliens have invaded and are taking over. Their technology, intelligence, and power is unstoppable. They just didnt plan on one thing: The old gods returning.
When they first arrived, we were overjoyed. Proof that we weren’t alone
in the universe, that there were other races to share and exchange technologies
with! Their arrival brought about world peace – with other life forms out
there, we needed to present a united front. World hunger and poverty was solved
within a decade, a demonstration to our new friends that we were worthy of the
responsibility of exploring the galaxy.
They disagreed.
They accessed our histories, they saw everything, and they recoiled in
horror. They could not fathom the world we had created, and the solutions we
had brought about not because it was the right thing to do, but to impress
them.
They were not impressed. They told us, regret tinging the translators,
that we could not be trusted as keepers of this world. The damage we had done
was coming close to being irreparable, and for our own good they’d need to take
over.
I have to say, I agreed – humans are terrible. But the funny thing
about humanity is, even if something is right, if it means giving up our
control, it is wrong.
We fought back.
At first we fought back democratically. This race that had descended
from the stars was peaceful, never seeming to favour violence. We didn’t think
they’d start killing indiscriminately. We didn’t think they’d take inspiration
from our own history books.
As with so many other things, we were wrong.
An extreme group of humans succeeded in ambushing and killing several
of their high-ranking Xenos. Human lives were lost in the process, but the
extremists saw that as a necessary sacrifice, a means to an end. The Xenos had
been shown that we wouldn’t tolerate their kind here, that they should leave
and let us get on with things how we always have.
Within days, war had been declared, and we learned why we should have
tried harder. Had they decided to simply fight the moment they touched down, to
systematically advance and wipe out every human life they came across, we
wouldn’t have stood a chance. Their weapons, armour, tactics, the sheer
firepower and the size of their armies were beyond comprehension. Out of rage
and grief, they marched over us, and began the slow process of wiping us out.
Bullets couldn’t pierce their armour and shields, rockets fell to the ground
lifeless, and even nuclear devices were somehow disabled mid-flight.
Still we fought back. Humans never have figured out how to give up when
all hope is lost.
There was no formal resistance of rebellion, we simply gathered,
fought, and survived where we could. When something new happened, it took
weeks, months, to reach every last survivor.
And then, something unbelievable happened.
Stories started filtering through to the pockets of us in hiding, strange
stories – a freak electrical storm in Greece that appeared from a clear blue
sky and wiped out a thousand of them in less than 15 minutes; Xenos impaled on
braches of rare trees, some kind of grisly warning that we chalked up to particularly
violent survivors in that area; whole armies frozen to death because the
temperature around them had dropped too quickly for their environmental suits
to keep up with. Freak weather patterns that worked in our favour, violent
survivors, terrain they couldn’t navigate. That’s what we told ourselves when
the stories filtered through.
But then they got weirder. There were stories of Xenos being swallowed
by the ground itself. A pack of wolves, larger than anything ever before seen
appeared from a crack in a mountain range to storm through an encampment and
kill every last Xenos. There was a massive surge in the number of corvids
around the world, and they always seemed to congregate where the Xenos were
thickest… days before something killed everything. Then they’d vanish, and more
corvids would appear somewhere else. Harbingers, just like the old tales.
One day a massive seafaring vessel chasing a fishing trawler was pulled
under the water – no reefs or icebergs in the area, and the sea mines had long
been disarmed and deactivated. I spoke to a man who had been in the sloop
running from the Xenos ship, and he swore blind the Kraken had got it, the
tentacles alone bigger than the tiny boat he’d been huddled on. He shuddered
and drank too much, and I put it down to hallucinations caused by a bad batch
of moonshine. There was no such thing as monsters.
Then we heard about warriors. We heard about chariots, of all things,
chasing down whole platoons of Xenos in Egypt, chariots so bright it felt like
staring into the sun; a huge hound with three heads was spotted in Greece, a
man in shadows and a woman of light removing the leash as Xenos advanced on
them; a woman showed up in Iceland standing head and shoulders above the
tallest man there, with an army of her own. They didn’t seem to fall in battle,
and pushed the Xenos back, fighting with sword and shield and spear, a fury
that our alien invaders couldn’t match.
Humanoid creatures with eyes of fire supposedly began granting wishes
over in Syria, as long as your wish was for them to kill your enemies. There
were sightings in Ireland of pure white horses, horses that once ridden wouldn’t
let you off, that dragged people into bogs and rivers. Tales came out of brazil of monstrously large snakes, sometimes
with the faces of women, dragging aliens into the gloom of the rivers and
rainforests.
But there’s no such thing as monsters.
I finally believed when I saw three women facing down the largest army
of Xenos I’d ever come across – at least twelve thousand by my counting. I’d
been running from a scouting party, and when I stumbled out of the treeline onto
a road I realised they’d chased me right into the path of the oncoming horde.
The moment you face your death is a strange one. Everything felt calm
except the thundering of my pulse in my ears, and the crows that seemed to come
from nowhere to blot out the sun.
Then three women strolled into the road in front of me, placing
themselves between me and the advancing army. A young woman, barely out of
girlhood; someone who could have easily been my mother; and a woman so old she
was almost bent double. It was the oldest who strode towards the mass of Xenos
without any fear, leading the other two towards their deaths, and the din of
the crows got louder.
The youngest one glanced my way and smiled playfully, and something
from my grandmother’s tales made me flatten myself to the ground, hands clamped
firmly over my ears.
The scream started low, in the back of the old woman’s throat,
travelling through the ground and making every bone in my body shudder with the
vibration. Realisation began to dawn on me as Maiden and Mother joined in with
their Crone, and the scream climbed to a crescendo that could have shattered glass.
Even with my hands tight over my ears it pierced me to my core, a screaming
agony that made me want to curl in on myself and die.
I survived because it wasn’t meant for me.
The Xenos, however, felt the full force of the rage these women contained.
An entire planet’s worth of grieving poured out of them in this shriek, rooting
their enemies to the ground with the difference in tone and pitch between these
three women telling their stories.
The mother stood tall and resolute, screaming her grief at these
invaders, a mother mourning all of her children.
The crone’s low snarl was that of war. Weary of the fighting but always
ready to defend what’s hers, she growled her challenge, and the Xenos couldn’t
stand against it.
The maiden was hope, the only act of defiance in a world on the edge of
ruin. When everything was dust, when the last stragglers of humanity were
contemplating giving up, she was the hope that kept them fighting.
Part of me wondered how many shirts they’d washed, how many rivers they’d
wept together, before standing up and saying “no more.”
The scream stopped abruptly, leaving me feeling like the breath had all
been sucked out of me, a void in the air around me that rushed back in and
filled my lungs with a long, shuddering gasp.
I opened my eyes to carnage. The Xenos had died where they’d stood,
their organs haemorrhaging, what passed for blood pouring from every orifice,
their eyes turning to liquid in their skulls. Bodies were everywhere, and the
crows circling overhead had fallen silent, uninterested in the feast this must
have surely been for them.
The Morrigan was one woman now, ageless and terrifying.
“Get up, child.” She commanded, and I had no choice but to obey,
trembling legs pushing me to my feet. She reached out a hand, and gently wiped a
trail of blood away from my ear. “Did you really think we’d abandoned you?” She
murmured, and the crows descended, carrying her to the next battle.
Monsters are real, and some of them look like people. But the Gods are
also real, and they still believe in us.
So I’m still fighting, and my battle cry is full of hope.
My Friend, I both hate you and love you for this prompt. Because I am so very very torn. But let me give it a go.
Naboo is a debacle. No one debates that. Qui-Gon Jinn comes back to the Temple barely alive, accompanied by his Padawan – the first Jedi in a millenia to have slain a Sith – and the powerful young boy they found on Tatooine.
At first they wait – while Obi-Wan Kenobi is considered more than deserving of Knighthood, they hold out hope that Qui-Gon will wake and perform the ceremony himself, and take Anakin on as he originally intended. It is not to be.
Obi-Wan is knighted and sent off on missions, Anakin remains in the creche – as Qui-Gon lives, it seems presumptuous to have any other Jedi take him on. But Qui-Gon may never wake, and so the more senior Masters take it upon themselves to get a feel for the too-powerful boy. Just in case.
Months later, Qui-Gon wakes.
He is in no shape to do anything more than argue with the council, but he is awake. Still, the matter of Anakin Skywalker is put off a little longer, until Qui-Gon is in a better position health wise. Besides, while he is not completely at ease in the ranks of the initiates, Skywalker has settled in somewhat – it will do no harm to wait a little longer. And it also gives some of them a bit more time to try an mitigate Jinn’s eventual bad influence.
A year after Naboo, the council requests the presence of Initiate Skywalker. The boy who faces them is so very similar and yet so very different from the child they interviewed a year earlier. Still far from emotionally balanced, but much less fearful. After all, by this stage he knows them all somewhat, and he has begun to accept that he is not going to be turned out – over the last year it has become very apparent that he cannot remain untrained, and as such the Creche Master had taken the time to explain the notion of a Padawan accepting a Master.
(They will never know how how much that notion affects Anakin. Because what slave chooses their own Master?)
And so they ask him. “Who would he choose as his Master?”
And Anakin is torn. Because this is a huge decision, and he knows it. Never before has he had the power to CHOOSE. He has to do this right. Qui-Gon Jinn freed him and brought him to the Temple. He is Anakin’s hero. It would make sense to accept him. And yet… What of the other Masters?
What about Master Billaba, who so patiently walked him through the First Forms when he worried about being so far behind his classmates? Or maybe Master Fisto, who laughs and smiles and pats him on the head and tells him not to worry, he will get the trick in time – has he considered a moving meditation, like this? Or even Master Windu, who is stern and forbidding, but UNDERSTANDS the anger that coils in his chest? And Master Koon – he’s kind and an absolutely WIZARD pilot. What should he do?
But Anakin Skywalker is a child of the Force. And all of the Masters he has encountered over the last year have told him the same thing. So he reaches out and…
The council watches as the boy raises his head and looks up at them with an unassailable sense of certainty.
“I’m sorry Masters, but I can’t choose. Not yet. It’s not the right time.”
And it takes everything in him not to back down in the face of Qui-Gon’s sadness and the Council’s impatience, but Anakin stands firm.
The Force is speaking to him. Loud and clear.
“Not Now.”
In the end it is Yoda who breaks up the raucous arguments with a few firm taps of his gimmer stick. If the Force tells young Skywalker that now is not the time then so be it. The boy is still younger than the average new padawan, and still has some catching up to do. There is no hurry. Let him remain in the creche they shall, until the time is right.
And so they do. Except Anakin’s little demonstration along with the general increased interaction during Qui-Gon’s convalescence means that several of the Council members are seriously considering the merits of taking him on themselves. And Qui-Gon? He is determined to regain little Ani’s regard.
You can imagine the result. Anakin Skywalker becomes the envy of his classmates, as multiple senior masters court him to be their padawan. Plo Koon in particular seems to take great delight in tweaking Qui-Gon’s ire by allowing Anakin to learn to pilot the Temple ships, and Mace has spent a lot of time showing Anakin how to control his darker impulses. Kit sneaks him sweets but both he and Depa have the suspicion that they are not seriously in contention. Ironically all the attention has done wonders for his attachment issues.
Still, every time he is asked if he is ready to take a Master, Anakin will close his eyes and reach into the Force, before saying. “No. Not yet.”
Incidentally, his lack of Master has very much impeded the Chancellor’s efforts to spend time with the boy alone. After all, a Padawan is very different from an Initiate from a Jedi perspective – one is considered a semi-adult capable of assisting in basic mission duties while the other is not. The Chancellor may be their direct superior, but even he cannot order them to facilitate private audiences with a CHILD under their care. For now, he must make to with infrequent and supervised visits in which he must take care not to overstep the role of a genial man interested in the welfare of the child who saved his planet.
It infuriates him.
But anyway.
Time passes, and Anakin’s classmates start to dwindle, as they are either apprenticed (Anakin feels smug at having facilitated one of two of the matches – having Knights and Masters watching him keenly means he can try and push others in direction the Force suggests) or drawn towards alternate pathways. Anakin is nearing thirteen years of age, and he knows the time for a decision is coming soon.
But there are things he needs to make sure are in place first. Luckily, he knows who to speak to about that.
“Time then, it is, Young Skywalker?”
“Yes Master Yoda.”
“Hmm. Certain, you are?”
“Yes Master Yoda.”
“Good. Done well, you have, to follow the Force in this. Who is it, you have chosen?”
Anakin tells him.
And the old Jedi starts cackling.
It is not long after that Anakin Skywalker stands before a large crowd of Knights and Masters (Because this? The apprenticeship of Initiate Skywalker? This is going to be the thing of temple legends and NO ONE wants to miss out.) and asked who he would take as his master.
And Anakin Skywalker looks his choice straight in the eye as he speaks their name.
Obi-Wan Kenobi nearly faints there and then.
.
Let’s take a step back.
When Obi-Wan Kenobi first accompanied his comatose Master back to the Temple, he had been consumed by their last conversation. The one in which he had promised Qui-Gon to train the boy. Except, those were obviously the words of a man who thought himself dying, and Qui-Gon still LIVED. When the council decides to put Anakin into the creche until things are more certain, Obi-Wan is so RELIEVED. Because while he would if he had to, Obi-Wan doesn’t feel READY to take a padawan just yet, not while he is still processing the end of his own apprenticeship, and Anakin is meant for Master Qui-Gon – Obi-Wan would never wish to steal that role while the possibility remains that the man will wake one day.
Still, he made a promise. And there are many ways to teach.
So Obi-Wan makes an effort to check in on Ani, make sure he’s settling in ok. It’s a big culture shock for the boy from Tatooine, and Obi-Wan does his best to help explain some of the things Temple raised initiates take for granted. Anakin’s glee when he finally gets the hang of something is infectious, and Obi-Wan finds himself enjoying the time they spend together.
When he starts taking missions as a Knight, Obi-Wan makes the effort to farewell Anakin every time he leaves, and if he can, brings him back some toy or trinket from wherever he ends up. Nothing major, but Anakin has often expressed his desire to visit every world in the galaxy one day, and he gets so excited even if all Obi-Wan has to show him is a rock he found while running for his life from upset dignitaries…
Obi-Wan thought his missions might be less exciting now he wasn’t partnered with the most infuriating diplomat in the Order. He was wrong.
When the Masters begin paying more attention to Anakin it is Obi-Wan he contacts for reassurance he is doing the right thing. After all he is listening to the Force, but what if he’s listening wrong? And Obi-Wan tells him he’s doing fine, to follow his instincts, and sorry he has to go now due to potential pirates, but maybe to take time with each of them to work out how well they connect, just in case the Force changes its mind? And it is Obi-Wan who tells him he should just confess about the incident with the door chimes, and reassures him that no one will hate him over the accident with the speeder.
As time goes on, Obi-Wan becomes known in the Temple as the BEST source of information on the Skywalker Situation, because he has THE most up to date gossip on what Masters Jinn and Windu have decided to challenge each other with this time, or which Knight has decided to throw their hat into the ring most recently, only to find the kid too much to deal with. Obi-Wan finds himself feeling a little protective over Anakin, rolling his eyes at the latest stuff up on the part of Ani’s potential masters, and during one of his morning meditations he comes to the startling realisation that he is well and truly Attached to his young friend.
Well then.
So of course when it comes time for Anakin to make his final decision, Obi-Wan Kenobi puts on his best face and mentally tries to work out which master will have the honour of training the Chosen One. The selfish part of him hopes it’s not Qui-Gon. He adores his former Master, but time has convinced him that he would be a poor match for Anakin. And he wants what is best for the boy.
Maybe once Anakin is safely matched to a Master of his own Obi-Wan might consider the merits of a Padawan himself. Certainly he is feeling a lot more confident in his skills that he was a few years earlier…
But then Anakin gives his name.
His.
Obi-Wan Kenobi.
So many faces are turned to face them and he can feel them all asking “Why him?” and he doesnt have an answer and…
Anakin is looking at him. Waiting. For his response.
His heart gives him his answer, but he has to be SURE this is the boy’s decision.
“Why now Anakin?”
And Anakin smiles, bright and sure.
“Because you weren’t ready before.”
Oh.
Obi-Wan Kenobi laughs then, in joyous wonder and kneels to look the boy (his student!) in the eye.
“In that case, Anakin Skywalker, I would be honoured to be your Master, if you would agree to become my Padawan.”
And the Force sings.
~~~
I hope you’re not too disappointed! I was tempted to write a Plo Koon is Anakin’s Master AU, but in my heart of hearts, I just can’t keep the Team separated! 🙂
Why do you sound so surprised???!!!! I can totally write fluff!
Just for that I’ll prove it by writing a bit more. And especially for @letslipthehounds and @princesspotpourri I’m going to see how this might have changed the universe in terms of a certain Sith.
When Chancellor Palpatine hears that Anakin Skywalker has taken a Master, he can hardly contain his joy. Oh he hides it as relief that the boy will at last progress in his chosen vocation, but in truth he is eager to take advantage of the opening the Jedi have finally shown him.
He has prepared a number of different contingencies depending on which of the esteemed Masters has won young Skywalker’s approval – should it be Windu, then he has a multitude of sly insinuations designed to make the boy buck at authority, if it is Koon then a few well placed comments about his non-human nature possibly making it difficult for him to understand a young boy’s passions would be a good start. As for Jinn.. well he need only pass on certain personal truths to raise the spectre of abandonment. In fact, he has considered the possibilities involving every member of the council, up to and including the tiny green troll.
Which is why he is completely unprepared for the announcement that Skywalker has chosen not one of the many Masters vying for his attention, but the relatively inexperienced Knight Kenobi instead.
It is… not something he had ever considered. Oh he was aware of Kenobi’s movements in the general sense – he was after all responsible for the disappointing demise of his former apprentice, and it was always a good idea to keep an eye on promising young Jedi showing signs of disaffection – but the for the most part the Knight had not done anything truly worthy of his attention. He had managed to disrupt one or two of Sidious’ less critical schemes and generally caused an inconvenient ruckus or three, but for the most part his actions had been of little consequence. Just your average new Knight undertaking their first few solo missions.
Well then. All the better. If the Jedi wish to entrust the training of the Chosen One to an untried young man unused to detecting the subtle machinations of a Sith Lord, then who was he to argue? It would just make his life easier.
It won’t take long for him to realise just how wrong he is.
Knight Kenobi is not a grief stricken young Jedi burdened with responsibilities far to early, or a callow youth burning from the sting of rejection. Knight Kenobi is a man who has spent the last three years working out who he is in the absence of his teachers. And as it turns out, he is still fundamentally the same Obi-Wan Kenobi as ever – determined, principled and self sacrificing to a ridiculous extent. All those three years have done is give him the self confidence to trust his own decisions and the skill to hide the fact that he’s about to do something reckless in the name of what is right.
As a side note, Qui-Gon’s close call with the Sith still has Obi-Wan switching his sabre style to Soresu – he has had ample practice with his new forms thanks to several missions gone wrong. Just HOW good he his isn’t yet known to the Temple. Nor is his growing ability to talk his way in and out of problems with ease.
Which is why the Jedi Order takes the news of Anakin Skywalker’s choice with a growing sense of bewilderment. Why him? Why a newly fledged Knight? Yes, they were friends but Kenobi was barely on the books as an outside chance!
(Yes, there was betting involved in the whole situation. Nothing monetary, favours are the currency of the Temple, but the pot was still substantial. Quinlan Vos cleaned up in the end – he put two and two together and got “Force ordained bond” after accidentally picking up one of the souvenirs Obi-Wan gave Anakin. He will never have to do senate duty again!)
But any muttering over Anakin’s decision is soon quashed by Yoda firmly announcing that he supported the match. After all, moved by the Force young Anakin was yes? Who are they, to question this? Also, he admits privately to his fellow Masters, Obi-Wan is far too careless with his own life. Even if Anakin hadn’t made the decision he did, Yoda would have done his best to push a Padawan his way in the hopes of mitigating his more reckless decisions.
Which is exactly what happens. Obi-Wan may be willing to risk his own life on a plan with only a slim chance of working, but he is not willing to risk Anakin in the same way. Anakin meanwhile, for all his extra training to deal with his emotions, is still a possessive little ball of attachment (he’s just expanded his range of Jedi he considers HIS in some form or another) and refuses to let his Master leave him behind to do stupid things. Obi-Wan is HIS Master! He CHOSE him, and nothing is going to part them now ok?
(Obi-Wan melts every time because ANAKIN chose HIM. It is hard to hold on to your low self esteem when you are reminded every day that the Orders most desired Padawan turned down half the council to become your student. He vows to live up to the task – Anakin deserves the best after all.)
This incidentally, means Palpatine has one hell of a time to even to get to see Anakin because as a thirteen year old he is considered old enough for most missions and there is no way Anakin is letting Obi-Wan go on missions alone.
And when the Chancellor DOES get the opportunity to talk to him, he finds it nearly impossible to drive a wedge between the pair because Obi-Wan is neither the hide bound traditionalist nor the radical maverick, and will openly admit his lack of knowledge. Also Anakin’s continued relationships with assorted council members mean that he is used to the idea of there being no one answer – Master Mace and Qui-Gon could and would spend hours arguing the finer points Jedi philosophy, and Obi-Wan was very helpful in explaining how they could both be correct, and wrong, at the same time.
Similarly his hope of using the “Jedi don’t care about the slaves/people in need” is undermined not only by Master Koon’s clear and educational lecture on how the Order because subordinate to the Senate, but also by the fact that Obi-Wan persuaded Quinlan Vos into taking a detour into Tatooine to check on Shmi Skywalker. Blackmail was involved. Either way Vos returns to the temple able to reassure Anakin that his mother is free and in good health, and with an extra comm code that he surreptitiously hands off to Obi-Wan. Attachment is one thing, but Shmi was a nice lady and deserved the occasional message. It’s not like he’s at all sympathetic to the kid and his fears. Not at all.
And so in next to no time everyone knows. Kenobi and Skywalker? They’re going to be legendary.
You won’t know that the Elder Wand was also called the Deathstick
Ron was actually a Prefect
Harry, Fred and George got a “life-long ban” from Umbridge after they attacked Malfoy on the pitch
Dumbledore hired a centaur named Firenze to teach Divination
Neville Longbotton could’ve been “The Chosen One” but Voldemort chose Harry
Fenrir Greyback was the werewolf who bit Remus Lupin as a child
Harry attended Bill and Fleur’s wedding disguised as Barny Weasley, a red-headed Weasley cousin
Lily was actually a few months older than James
While still alive, the Bloody Baron, who became the ghost of Slytherin House, was sent by Rowena Ravenclaw to retrieve her daughter, Helena, whom he was in love with. When Helena, who became the ghost of Ravenclaw House, refused to go with him, he became angry and stabbed her. Then, distraught with having killed her, he killed himself
Harry mended his own wand with the Elder Wand before he got rid of it
Harry, Ron and Hermione met Neville in St Mungos, who was visiting his parents and his Gran told them what happened to Alice and Frank
The Potters’ had a cat
Harry got miniature broom from Sirius for his first Birthday
Bathilda Bagshot was a friend of the Potters’
• Peeves was a poltergeist who haunted Hogwarts and frequently harassed students • A house elf named Winky was an integral part of the plot of Goblet of Fire, she was Barty Crouch’s elf • Dobby worked in the Hogwarts kitchens, Dumbledore paid him a wage and he gave Harry the gillyweed • Harry and Ginny’s first kiss wasn’t creepy or in the Room of Requirement, it was in the Common Room after winning a Quidditch game • Snape had his own challenge on the quest for the Philosopher’s Stone that was a test of intellect and included drinking potions • McGonagal protects Hagrid and takes FIVE spells to the chest in order to let him escape when Umbridge tries to get him incarcerated • Sir Cadogan! Fantastic painted Knight • That random piece of glass that Harry looks through and sees Alberforth in, was actually a mirror given to him by Sirius who wanted to keep in contact with him while he was at Hogwarts, it was also what he used to keep in contact with James over the summer and during classes • Harry has a complete break down after the Sirius’ death and trashes Dumbledore’s office – it’s super cathartic and heartbreaking
• RON WAS ACTUALLY A REALLY GOOD FRIEND. • Harry and Dumbledore seeing Voldemort’s mother and the abuse she went through.
ooooo boy okay
the triwizard tournament maze was actually WAY more interesting than the movie version: Harry straight up ran through some fog which turned the whole world upside down, he answered a riddle for a sphinx in order to get past her and actually encountered a blast-ended skrewt
blast-ended skrewts were hybrids of a manticore and fire crab, bred by hagrid which he introduced to the students during classes. they had sparks flying out of their rear ends which would explode. females had suckers and males had stingers.
not all of hagrid’s lessons were disasters!!! he once buried leprechaun treasure in his back garden and gave each student a niffler and set them loose to see whose would catch the most gold (the winner won a bar of honeydukes chocolate)
fred and george’s pranks against umbridge didn’t only involve the massive fireworks display: they placed nifflers in her office on more than one occasion and it nearly bit her fingers off trying to get at her gold rings and they even created a portable swamp which sealed off a whole corridor and didn’t give anyone instructions on how to remove it
they left Peeves with a command to ‘give them hell’ and the poltergeist, who never listened to students ever, took the words to heart and started pretty much wrecking the entire castle
the teachers kept coming to umbridge with all of their problems because they didn’t have the ‘authority’ to deal with it themselves (even though they could totally fix it) which resulted in umbridge running herself ragged trying to keep up with each new disaster.
at one point harry witnessed peeves trying to undo the fastenings for a chandelier and saw mcgonagall say out of the corner of her mouth as she walked past ‘it unscrews the other way’
when snape demanded to see harry’s potion book after he injured draco in the bathroom, he went and retrieved ron’s book instead, who he didn’t realise had signed it with a spell checking quill. The magic had worn off and read ‘roonil wazlib’ instead and when snape asked who that was harry lied and told snape that was his nickname.
in the second book, during valentine’s day, lockhart hired dwarves to carry harps, wear gold wings and pretend to be cupids while they read out love letters. Harry received one from Ginny in front of a crowd of people and was so embarrassed he tried to run, but the dwarf caught him around the legs and then sat on him so he could recite the rest of the love poem.
percy weasley moved out of the house after the fourth book when harry said voldemort was back, choosing to side with the ministry and his ambition over his own family whom he stopped talking to for several books. he arrived back just in time to fight in the battle of hogwarts, reuniting with his family and apologising for his behaviour right before fred was killed.
cho never sold out dumbledore’s army to umbridge. it was her friend marietta edgecombe.
in the sixth book when harry was obsessed with finding out what malfoy was up to, he sent kreacher and dobby to spy on his whereabouts
ginny actually had a personality??? her and harry’s relationship didn’t feel weird or forced (and there was definitely no strange shoe tying incident)
it was actually tonks who found harry on the train in the sixth book after malfoy broke his nose and left him there. her patronus had changed so much (to resemble the shape of a huge hulking creature) that for a while harry thought she was in love with sirius and was mourning his death
pettigrew hesitated when harry and ron tried to overpower him so that they and the rest of the prisoners could escape the cellar at the malfoys. the silver hand voldemort crafted then turned on him for this small act of humanity and strangled him to death, even with ron and harry attempting to save him.
– Draco had a severe existential crisis beginning in book six when he was ordered to kill Dumbledore , and was so distraught that despite having plenty of chances , he deliberately sabotaged himself. One of his attempts resulted in Katie Bell being harmed and soon after Harry spies on Draco and sees him in Myrtle’s bathroom , crying and throwing up and looking disgusted with himself.
During the Battle of Hogwarts , when Crabbe dies , Draco is completely inconsolable and nearly throws himself into the fire that killed his friend out of grief
– Also in “ The Cursed Child ” Draco is a very loving father to Scorpius and is working really hard to help mend the damage done by the Death Eaters and it’s pretty well implied he’s been cast off by much of his family
“ I have come to you because my son is crying and hurting and you’re keeping him from his best friend ” – Draco lecturing Harry because Harry ( super OOC btw ) wasn’t letting Albus hang out with Scorpius
– SIRIUS WAS ABUSED FOR BEING A GRYYFINDOR IN A SLYTHERIN FAMILY AND THAT’S WHY HE HATED GRIMMAULD PLACE
– Sirius and James were pretty much brothers, and Sirius often hid at the Potter home in his Hogwarts years
– Thinking of Harry and just knowing James’s son was alive gave Sirius enough strength to handle TWELVE YEARS of Dementor torment
– Hagrid was always feeding Harry and inviting him over for tea and just generally treating him like a son and was entirely a mess when he thought Harry died
– Fred and George memorized all the hidden secrets of Hogwarts in their first year , the bloody geniuses
– Once when Draco called Hermione a Mudblood in front of the Gryffindor Quidditch team , Fred and George got so furious it took the whole team PLUS onlookers to hold them back and George was straight up about to just ditch wands and throw fists
– Fred had a crush on Katie , Angelina , and possibly Lee Jordan ( I mean if you read it again and pay attention you can see the gay crushing )
– It’s implied that George is the technical guy in their plots and Fred is the idea guy , but they both have a knack for design and tricky magic
– Fred and George created a secret underground radio system designed to help people hide from Death Eaters and not ONCE did they get found out , they were war heroes
– George was also possibly bi? I mean he definitely seemed to have a thing for Oliver Wood , and Katie
– RON IS A GREAT GUY IN THE BOOKS AND HIGH KEY CRUSHING ON HERMIONE FROM THE START AND HIS BIGGEST FEAR IN BOOK SEVEN WITH THE HORCRUX NECKLACE???? THAT was real and raw and emotional af for Harry to witness
Ron’s biggest fear was losing his crush to his best friend and both of them leaving him behind I MEAN
– DURING THE BATTLE OF HOGWARTS RON IMITATED PARSELTONGUE SO WELL HE MANAGES TO GET INTO THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS TO STEAL BASILISK FANGS AND HERMIONE WAS SO IMPRESSED
– Flitwick was so impressed by the twins swamp prank that he REFUSED to take it down for like a month and then took down some of it , leaving a section as a monument to the twins groundbreaking magic AND a giant fuck u to Umbridge
He never reveals how he removed it and it’s implied that over time the swamp just grew back completely anyway???
– Fred and George created both actual love potions AND daydream potions that allow the user to pretty much experience a dream for real
– Fred and George deliberately hire people that are discriminated against ???? HEROES????? No but like they hire delinquents and werewolves and Muggle-borns and even give poor kids discounts ??? And they probably got hate for it but just keep on going ???
No but really the twins would be the nicest employers I love them ???
– DUDLEY
Dudley started being nicer to Harry In like book five and in book seven he was very distraught to learn that Harry had an army of murderers after him and got super indignant about the way his parents didn’t seem to care
– PETUNIA WAS REALLY BITTER THAT SHE WAS A SQUIB AND IT DROVE A WEDGE BETWEEN HER AND LILY BECAUSE ALL PETUNIA EVER WANTED WAS TO BE A WITCH
Aggggggggghhhh I’m just so sad about Draco in the movies he’s so much realer in the books
Ron and Hermione’s kiss was also way better and not soaking wet and just like “oh hey we got the fangs” but instead was because mid battle Ron was like “oh shit the house elves” and Harry is like “what we should get them to fight?” And Ron is like “what fuck no we need to evacuate them so they don’t get hurt” and then Hermione just jumps the guy and starts making out with him
and then harry yells “OI THERE IS A WAR ON”
Can we talk about Peeves’ song in the end of book seven? I never got over that
every time I see more of the ‘ao3 is evil’ crap circulating I think, ‘well, tumblr is evil too and I don’t see you stop using it’
You know, the more I think about this, the more I think the real complaint isn’t that AO3 hosts “evil” content, it’s that it doesn’t allow harassment/dogpiling of “evil” creators as easily as Tumblr. Abuse won’t remove or even re-tag a work except in a handful of very specific cases, but they will suspend or ban users for harassment, including filing repeated unfounded Abuse reports. Authors also have at least some ability to screen/block comments on works, and there’s no direct messaging system outside of commenting on works through which to pursue harassment. You can follow a creator but you can’t block them (much less encourage others to do the same).
Tumblr, by contrast, generally ignores any abuse report that doesn’t involve the DMCA, and aggressive anons can and have driven bloggers off the site entirely. The fact that the same tactics are used by social justice bloggers and neo-Nazis (for instance) doesn’t matter – they’re the affordances of the site, by accident or design, and an entire fannish generation have gotten very used to performing their fannish (and moral) identity in this fashion.
(I thinks it’s relevant that AO3 was designed by fandom’s LJ generation and in some respect mirrors the affordances of LJ circa 2010. Tumblr is a very different site and that, moreso than age differences, seems to be at the root of this – though of course age intersect with site experience in a non-trivial way.)
ding ding ding ding.
Ao3 requires you to police your own consumption of content. Ao3 won’t let you destroy someone’s online presence simply because you don’t like it. Ao3 won’t let you impose your own morality on other without cause.
If you have issues with this, and the fact that Ao3 requires you to have responsibility and agency, then you seriously need to sit down and have a damned good long hard look at yourself.
The question I usually fail to see being answered when people bitch about the content on AO3 is – so who gets to decide?
You? Me? A committee of my friends? Of yours? Of those who have the most kudos? Of those who have no interest in fandom, but want to protect other people from dangerous content, whatever it may be? Who gets that power, and how long will they have it?
Who are you comfortable with giving the power of regulating all the content? What happens in grey areas? What happens when something you like isn’t liked by the Decider? Is there an appeal? Who gets to make the arguments for and against something?
The world is complex and there are no easy answers.
The impossibility of creating a censorship board that curates based on content is a great reason why those things don’t exist, and shouldn’t.
Certain people are screaming that AO3 is bad because it’s not a “safe space.” The real problem they have, though, is that AO3 was created to be a safe space – for writers. And it does a pretty good job of that. It was designed to be a place where writers are safe from arbitrary content rule changes, random and unwarned deletions, and abuse-report abuse (which is common on ff.net). The Four Big Warnings + CNTW system is beautiful in its fairness and simplicity.
Antis can’t take control of it. And because control-freakdom is at the heart of their “movement,” this drives them into frenzies. Good. It motivated me to dig a little deeper into my pocket to donate on the last drive. For all the pleasure AO3 has given me over the years, that’s money well spent.
The real problem they have, though, is that AO3 was created to be a safe space – for writers.
Preach it loud and hard!
I’m a member of the LJ generation, and when I first came to Tumblr (grudgingly and out of desperation, I might add, since it tragically seems to be the only place to really connect with other fandom peeps) I was horrified at how people here had established this sort of fucked up bully culture, where nobody is responsible for monitoring their own consumption, and rather they expect everyone else to custom tailor content to the whims and desires of the Shrieking Banshee Masses. And woe be to the person who doesn’t bend and break! “I’m going to bully you while accusing you and your Big Mean Poopie Content of being the actual bully, so I can hopefully distract you and others from realizing I’m being a royal intrusive asshat who failed Astronomy 101 b/c I clearly believe the world revolves around me.”
The irony here is that this in itself is an abuse tactic – victim blaming with a side of gaslighting. Pot, meet kettle.
And it’s the exact same mentality that drives right-wing lunatics to kick up a fuss about the existence of icky cootie gay people in media because we need to “protect family values”, or who take to screeching at Starbucks because their particular religious symbolism isn’t portrayed on the winter holiday cups and OMG WAR ON CHRISTMAS, STARBUCKS STOP OPPRESSING ME BY NOT CATERING TO MY PERSONAL TASTE.
The mentality is one and the same – “Cater to ME ME ME or FACE MY DIVINE WRATH even if it means taking away other people’s freedom!” while hiding behind a flimsy-ass shield of faux righteous anger.
And when these bozos find an environment or situation where they’re unable or not allowed to bully people into silence and submission, they stomp their feet and pitch a tantrum and claim that they’re the ones being oppressed. Identical shit, different pile, and it’s the exact same infantile, schoolyard rubbish no matter which side it’s coming from.
This was a really interesting read. The last poster in particular but all of it.
Okay, so I find the history behind this discussion really interesting, because there are two things that stand out to me. One is the thought AO3′s culture is equivalent to LJ circa 2010. This is almost true, except you actually have to go back further. Ao3 and Dreamwidth are both specifically trying to recreate the fan culture of Livejournal from 1999-2007, and I can say that with some authority because A) I was there (olllld) and B) both were founded in 2008/09 as a direct response to the shit happening on LiveJournal and Fanlib.
The other thing is the idea that anon-harassment culture started with Tumblr. Because, kiddos, did it ever not. Tumblr is very much Fanfiction.net circa 1998-forward. (That’s right, FF.N was basically always awful.) But how we got from there to here is actually really interesting And tangly. And long.
Up to the late 1990s, fan communities were often small and decentralized because there was a huge fear that fans would be targeted by content creators if they drew too much attention. Since several authors (Anne Rice, Mercedes Lackey, Anne McCaffery) actually DID issue cease&desists to fan creators, it’s kind of understandable where the fear came from. It’s also why you still see fanfic floating around with disclaimers, something young!tumblr loves to mock.
Harry Potter changed *everything*. Like, I really can’t emphasize how much. Fanfiction was always there, being shared on email lists or privately hosted or literally mailed cross country. But Harry Potter hit BIG in 1997. It had a massive crossover appeal that hadn’t been seen since probably the original Star Trek, and the baby Internet was all. over. it. If you weren’t there, imagine Twilight. But bigger. And J.K. Rowling stood out from other creators by condoning fanfiction in her very early interviews. Not to mention there was a lot of down time between books and, as you might know, the fans do not do well unpoliced.
This led to, I’m not kidding, an explosion of sites like FF.N. I don’t think a lot of younger users get how revolutionary AO3 is: not just because it created a safe space, but because of how much it’s done to centralize fanfiction on the internet. We used to get our fix through webrings and e-serves, so in the late 90s/early 00s we thought nothing of having dozens of scattered fanfic sites.
At the same time, the Digital Millennium Copywrite Act was coming down. The legality of fanworks was getting more and more complex. And no one knew how to handle these questions, because they had literally never come up before. When it was just authors going after individual fans, things usually went quick and brutal. Fans had neither the money nor the legal teams to stand up to creators, even if (as we were slowly beginning to realize) we had a strong case to create and share fanworks. So, if you got hit with a takedown notice, you took your fic down and laid low, hoping to avoid any further interest.
But now the legal burden was shifting from individuals to well-funded corporations. Fanfic.net and LJ didn’t want to shut down their fan-contributors, who were creating a huge stream of free content and bringing in advertising revenue. At the same time, they didn’t want to get shut down by a lawsuit if Lucasfilm found Han/Chewie smut and decided to go after the real money. The next 10 years were basically all of us – authors, fan creators, website executives – stumbling through brand new legal territory and figuring it out by trial and error. FF.N erred on the side of caution by becoming more and more restrictive. They shut down the entire Anne McCaffrey and Anne Rice sections, and eventually banned “pornographic” fanfiction from the site in an attempt to cover their legal rears. (It backfired, unsurprisingly, because say what you will about fandom: we like our smut. Also, FF.N had other issues that we won’t get into here will discuss shortly.) A bunch of other sites folded or waned in popularity as fandom wars divided the fan population. Authors scattered to the winds, and a lot of them ended up on LJ.
LJ started out very user friendly. We’re talking an open source code, an almost entirely volunteer staff. Even after it was sold to 6Apart in 2005, LJ was pretty permissive. A lot of that had to do with the aforementioned DMCA, which protected ISPs and hosting corporations. Like I mentioned above, a lot of the migration from FF.N to LJ (as a place for fanfiction SPECIFICALLY) came when FF.N started banning explicit fanworks. Why? Because FF.N targeted these fanworks based entirely on user reports. “Tell us if you find porn,” FF.N said, “And we’ll take care of it.”
Backup real quick. LJ, in many ways, set the standard for online privacy in a way that was far ahead of its time. Friendslocked journals were the norm rather than the exception and many, many communities disallowed anonymous commenting. (I’m not saying LJ wasn’t toxic as fuck, by the way. It is 2017 and let’s all have a moment of acknowledgement for how terrible LJ culture actually could be.) But LJ, on the whole, was much, much better at self-policing than FF.N. On FF.N, all of your stuff was out in the open. It was just there. Anyone could read it, anyone could report it.
And these two sites coexisted. All BNFs had a private journal and a public FF.N page. So if I hated someone and I wanted to harass them off the internet, on LJ, I’d have to make multiple sock puppets and concoct elaborate multi-journal ruses to do it on LJ (haha, who would do THAT?). What am I to do? Simple: Head off to FF.N and anonymously flame them there!
FF.N became synonymous with anonymous hate long before the anti-smut censorship came down. But once those rules were in place, the system was rife for abuse by the Purity Police or grudgewankers. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay before it was cool to dm “kill urself” to someone on tumblr, it was happening on FF.N. All you, the early internet user, had to do was post a report link for your rival’s FF.N account on your LJ. Hate a pairing? A kink? Why not post a scathing rant, link included, to this captive audience of ALL YOUR FRIENDS.
Yeah, this system had no room for abuse.
So. FF.N opened the door and fandom came rushing through like the raging assholes we are. Certain Fandoms Alluded To Previously got so deeply divided that they split and formed their own fanfiction archives that occasionally rained hate on each other. Everyone else slowly withdrew to LJ, where locked communities offered some level of protection. Then, irony of ironies, fandom as a whole got targeted by the purity wankers. And of course, of course, it came back to Harry Potter.
It’s 2007. Things have quieted down since 2001, when certain unnamed people’s fics were targeted for plagiarism and deleted from FF.N even though, just to be clear, they actually were plagiarized and, while there was an element of mob persecution, the actual fact remains that the work in question was legitimately in violation of FF.N’s TOS.
Ahem. It’s 2007. And everyone’s fairly chill. Creators are far more comfortable with fanfiction and fan creators are confident in posting their work so long as they aren’t profiting directly from it. Hosting sites, meanwhile, are profiting from fanworks, but they’ve got the legal shield of the DMCA to hide behind, so they’re feeling A-OKAY. And then Warriors for Innocence appears. WfI existed before strikethrough, and they existed after, but they made their mark on fandom when they reported upwards of 500 journals, most of them fan journals and communities, to LJ. The theory runs as follows: 6A, the company who’d bought LJ 2 years prior, realizes that the DMCA didn’t protect them if the fan works in question are “indecent”. Compounding this, 6A is already trying to clean up the famdomier aspects of LJ. Either they’re looking for a sale, or sites like ONTD are bringing in massive amounts of hits. WfI brings 6A a perfect hit list, and 6A goes to work.
So one morning we all wake up and find that hundreds of journals, including the pornish_pixies community and several BNF’s personal journals, have been deleted. Literally gone: a lot of the media stored on these communities has been purged forever. Hope you had backups. Also gone: large swaths of the Pretty Gothic Lolita community, Lolita book discussion groups, and rape survivor communities.
In a quest to rid LJ of “pedophilia,” 6A wiped out a large swath of ethically questionable fanfic, and woke a beast. Again: We like our porn. 6A took a step back and restored some of the deleted journals, but the damage had been done. AO3 was already being discussed as a response to Fanlib, a hosting site that wanted to charge for access to fanfiction. (Yes, if you’ve been following along, that was a terrible idea. But that’s a post for another day.) But as AO3 began to change and grow, creators specifically wrote provisions into the TOS that guaranteed a strikethrough-esque event could never happen on the site. A specific kink or pairing would never be considered a violation of the TOS. The onus was on the reader, not the author, to protect themselves with the information given. Basically, AO3 took the early fandom nugget “Don’t like, don’t read” and made it policy. When peole say AO3 grew out of Livejournal, they’re specifically referencing this. One event that proved ALL OF OUR LONGSEATED FEARS WERE TRUUUUUUUUUE.
Rising from the ashes of LJ, you also had Dreamwidth. I’m actually kind of surprised DW wasn’t mentioned in the OP, since it grew out of the same ideology as AO3. Run by fans, for fans, because LJ (which at this point had been sold to SUP Media) had no idea what it was doing. Also like AO3, DW went to extreme lengths to make a safe fan culture inherent to the structure the site. Stay within the law, and DW and AO3 will back you up.
It’s worth noting that Tumblr actually predates Strikethrough. But Tumblr, unlike DW and AO3, wasn’t designed for fans. It didn’t carry the legacy of Strikethrough with it the way AO3 and DW did. So I guess– I have no evidence, but I’m surmising – that’s how it fell into the role of Natural Successor to Fanfic.net and Livejournal. It’s kind of inevitable, actually, that since neither LJ nor Tumblr was made for fans, they ended up falling into the same black hole of fandom collision. Kinkshaming people off the internet for literally as long as there’s been an internet. And then, on the other hand, you’ve got DW and AO3, who’ve watched fandom rip itself apart AT LEAST 3 times and are determined not to let it happen again. DW and AO3: We haven’t cared about the filthy shit you’re into since 2008.
That’s it, folks. Fandom mom wrote almost 2k words on early fandom and now she needs a nap.
i took the american dialect test and i hate this i hate because it doest just group me into new jersey but SPECIFICALLY northeast new jersey. which is exactly where im from. like its concentrated only in that exact area
ive lived in florida for almost 5 years now and i still talk like im from new jersey fufckfuc k
how can it be that obvious like nobody else calls typical athletic shoes anything other than sneakers but apparently the site said thats what gave me away
It pin pointed where my parents are from and then two areas with heavy foreign populations. So basically accurate.
It got me exactly haha Miami/Hialeah! but also it gave me some random town in Massachusets
Weird. I got Corona, Ca which is oddly specific if completely inaccurate. I’m from LA. Corona is not LA.
I literally got Chicago/Rockford
I was born and raised in St. Louis, MO and lived about 10 years in Florida and the last few in California. But I got none of the above. According to this I sound like I could be from Milwaukee, WI, Buffalo or Rochester NY.
Now both my parents are from New Jersey but that’s the only reason I can think of for me to sound more like a New Yorker then a Midwesterner.
Milwaukee, GR, and Detroit. Which is about as close as I expected them to get, since as we all know, Michigan ceases to exist north of Lansing.
(Weirdly, I took this a couple of days ago and got mostly West Coast cities, but I also didn’t see all the questions, so there must’ve been a glitch somewhere. Pretty sure I pegged as Michigan purely due to the Devil’s Night question.)
I got Detroit, GR and Buffalo. The Buffalo one actually makes perfect sense as many of the folks who originally crossed the Erie Canal and ended up settling in Michigan were from Buffalo and Northern/Western New York. The dialect of Michigan and that portion of New York is incredibly similar.
Detroit, Vegas, and Spring Valley… which is spot on
I it really put me in Pittsburgh and I don’t even use most of the terminology that it’s known for.
it put me in alabama and I’m from tx
My speech team coach would be sooooo proud! The entire country, save the extreme northeast, was colored as extremely similar. Nonregional dialect for the win!
Northeast New Jersey and Chicago, Illinois. Shocked, SHOCKED I tell you.
It can’t decide if I’m from New York of Philadelphia. Which makes sense since I’m actually smack dab between them.
It put me in the Carolinas, which is pitch perfect as my parents hail from those states (mother-North; father-South).
Arlington/Fort Worth for 1000% accuracy.
Philadelphia.
12 miles from my home town. ON THE MONEY.
It was a thousand miles off for me in any conceivable direction.
But I came from Michigan, moved to Oregon, and have spent the majority of my life picking up random dialogue smidgens from people.
So my maps were all over the place. I had answers solely dedicated to a single state and it was hilarious to see all red Cali, then New York, then Florida, and then Washington.
Now, I took the quiz twice and had different answers both times because they had 7 different questions the second time I took it.
TEST 1:
3 cities in close proximity to Richmond Virginia.
Nope!
TEST 2:
New York City and two small towns close to it. One in NJ and the other in PA. I was born and raised in Scranton PA, which is about 100 miles from NYC, so it was much closer.
Still, I use certain words because they sound better than the ones I had learned. I pronounce certain words a certain way because they sound more fancy than what I was taught. I know the dialect of my region, I just don’t like the sound of it which is why I adopted terms from other regions.
I got Worcester, MA which is about 400 miles north from my actual location. I have also never been there
I got Jacksonville, Springfield, and Wichita. I’m about a 3 and a half hour drive South of Phoenix, Arizona. Wow.
It put me in Fresno CA, Boise ID, and Salt Lake City UT.
I’ve lived my entire life in the Boulder area of Colorado. None of my extended family have lived in any of those cities, and I’ve never been to any of them. Okay then.
konekorambles 