Wolfstar Pretend They Aren’t, But They Are The Most Physically Affectionate Couple In All Of Hogwarts

this is an interesting discussion to have tbh and i like getting to hear other chronically ill people’s thoughts on it! same thing applies for my rambles here, not saying this to invalidate your experiences or your perspective, just want to share my own thoughts on it since i didn’t rly add anything to it before haha

i think a lot of this honestly just depends on the person and the chronic illness. different illnesses obviously have different symptoms and different people experience things to different levels of severity. so i’m def not by any means saying no chronically ill person can or does have good grades, bc that would be factually false and ableist.

i’ve had almost perfect grades up until this point in my college degree, to the detriment of my own health like remus may have, but this academic year is honestly a lot harder on me for reasons im unsure of—i think some of it is a cumulative effect though, and im only doing a 4-year degree compared to the 7 years of Hogwarts. plus, this is not mentioning my high school career, in which i got Ds in most of my classes and missed so many days of school i nearly didn’t pass high school at all just based on attendance. we don’t even know if there’s an attendance requirement at hogwarts! but in a modern day college or high school au there might be.

there’s also the fact that hogwarts is huge, and has a ton of stairs with, canonically at least, no elevators or ramps, meaning he’d have to use more energy on a daily basis than a lot of us in the modern real world have to with ADA (this is not to say all campuses are accessible, but a lot are at least partially so). there’s the fact that some of the classes, like DADA, are a lot more physically involved than the classes many college students are taking in the real modern world. and going back to the attendance itself, we don’t know if hogwarts grades on attendance but a lot of modern day public schools require attendance and if you miss too many days you cannot move on regardless of grades. as for college, a lot of professors at smaller universities grade on attendance and hogwarts seems to have relatively small class sizes. so if professors aren’t willing to be flexible on that? his grades would be shit just from sheer number of absences.

then there’s the fact that remus may not be old but he has been ill for a very long time, having been bitten so young. if we think of lycanthropy as a progressive illness, which seems likely based on various canonical descriptions, it will have had a lot of time already despite his young age.

also what makes lycanthropy different from a lot of real illnesses is the routine nature of the flares. he will have at least one flare every single month. with a lot of real illnesses people can go months without flares when they’re on proper treatment. they’re unpredictable and randomized, you might have twelve one semester and two the next. lycanthropy guarantees he will be sick for at least a day every single month, but likely more (because i don’t think there’s a lot of detail on this in canon but i find it immensely hard to believe that the full moon would only affect him the night of).

and lastly for many chronically ill people success in academia depends quite strongly on how accommodating and flexible professors are. we don’t know much about the marauders era professors iirc, so we don’t know if they’re decent people who would allow him flexible deadlines when he’s ill or not. we don’t know if they’re prejudiced against werewolves and refuse to accommodate one. i might be forgetting some details bc i haven’t read the canon series in many years but even if we meet some of them i know for sure we don’t know them all. plus just because someone seems nice from a 2-minute flashback doesn’t mean they aren’t ableist etc. and depending on the illness, the severity, etc pushing through just is not always physically possible! yes there is a certain extent to which you can ignore your needs and overuse energy you don’t have but it’s not always possible. my brain fog has been really bad this semester. i can force myself to do all the readings for my classes, but i physically cannot force the information to stick in my brain, so going through the motions does shit for my grades. we don’t really know what kinds of symptoms he has but if remus is injured and physically cannot, say, go gather plants from the forest for herbology, or he gets dizzy/lightheaded and cannot brew a potion bc the steam/heat will actually make him pass out, or whatever else, it won’t really matter how hard he tries or wants to push through. to be completely candid about something i’ve not even said out loud yet, i’ve had to give up on my dreams of going to law school because i am physically unable to maintain the grades necessary to get into a decent school, or to do the amount of reading law school entails, despite my best desperate attempts at pushing through even when it’s destroying me mentally and physically.

anyways, as i said this isn’t to negate anything anyone else said, it’s just my own interpretation of things! ultimately we’re working off of very little canon information about this and i’m not here to tell anyone their experiences are wrong. i think it’s a really interesting conversation to have though.

people who think rjl would have really good grades have never been chronically ill and had to miss school consistently because of it. I'm sure he was smart! I'm sure he did really well on tests! but there has never been a character I'm more sure struggled to achieve the academic success that he was capable of.

If you listen closely you can hear moony go mmmhhrhhrr

silly wolfstar

Little moony doodle for the soul <33

the eighth and final chapter of BRTC is up! a huge thank you to everyone who has been so enthusiastic and encouraging on tumblr and on ao3 :)

it’s so bittersweet to be saying goodbye to this version of Remus and this little universe but i’m really happy with where it ends and i’m very proud of it. and i have more fics in the works! i have several ideas planned out and have already begun drafting the next one

okay big talk time. in light of the UK Supreme Court ruling, i'm seeing a lot of posts about fandom spaces. i woke up to see a tiktok that says "if you write fanfic, there's blood on your hands too",,, so let's talk about it.

because there is no refuting that fandom spaces keep JKR relevant. there is no refuting that by producing any kind of media based on this franchise, we are engaging with her and we are keeping her universe relevant. we cannot deny that.

we often see people turn around and say "jkr would hateee what we write!" and that's true. that's so very true, but it isn't enough. your headcanons and your stories and your art Are Not Enough. particularly over on tiktok: if you post HP content over on that platform, you are promoting JKR. my existence in this space as a trans man is NOT an act of protest. everything else i do is, so what do we do about that?

we NEED to be talking about these things. about jkr, about her money, about her actions, about the bigotry in the source material, and if you are not in a position where you can have those conversations, then you need to be listening. because engagement with jkr is infact life of death.

and we carry that guilt. we do, of course we do. if you are somebody who hasn't yet been able to let go of this series like me, then we carry that guilt. even more so if you are a member of any of the communities that jkr has harmed - the guilt is heavy.

but,,, let me make one thing clear: this is not your guilt.

if you are not profiting her. directly, then you are carrying guilt that is not yours to carry. that guilt is hers to bear, and the lives we are about to lose are on her conscious. we have been forced, time and time again, to carry the weight of her bigotry.

but,,, we're carrying it. and i think there's a certain amount of guilt that makes us better. i think there's a certain amount of guilt that makes us more conscious human beings, and that makes us more receptive to these discussions.

you can use that guilt, you really can. you can talk. you can listen. you can educate. you can step away if the guilt gets too much. you can use that guilt for something good.

do NOT push it away. whilst it isn't ours to carry, we are not in a position where we can throw that guilt away and wash our hands of it - we are here, we are engaging, we have to accept that. if we simply pretend as though we are not, then all we do is cause harm.

because fandom spaces can do a lot of good, especially for those that jkr has harmed. fandom spaces can do so much good, but only if we are conscious of the ways in which we are engaging, and we are willing to sit and have these difficult conversations.

if i were not in the position i am in now, i would leave. i would leave this fandom space and at this point? i am in fact urging those of you are able to, to go. for your own sakes and the sakes of everyone around you.

but as someone who has been having conversations about JKR for ages? i am in no position to step back. i'm in no position to turn away and give up. not when there are so many people who benefit from these discussions and who benefit from safe spaces.

and the reason it's a safe space? it's because I Talk. because i Have These Discussions. and no matter how much i do, i am still promoting her when i go on to post a headcanon or update my fics. i am still promoting her when i engage in this space.

and there's still guilt.

don't chuck that guilt aside, let it fuel you in making safe spaces safe again.

there is absolutely no refuting that by being in this space we are causing harm. so if you are not in a position to leave this space, here's some things you can do to make it easier for everyone both in and out of it:

Listen. if you are not in a position to talk about JKR, then actively listen. actively listen, understand, process, and adapt.

Merchandise: stop posting your merch, secondhand or not. you know that you get comments asking "where did you get this!?", stop posting it. makes that small adjustment for wider good

Keep educated: on the bigotry in the books so that you aren't perpetuating it, on jkr's actions, on politics. keep educated as much as you can to make sure that you are not unwillingly causing harm in what you are doing

Block: block those who are going to the studios, who are posting merch, who are talking about the reboot, who are doing ANYTHING to support her. if you see a video? comment on it. the continued relevance of people in this space who have supported a bigot is Immense. do not allow for complacency - bigotry is bigotry no matter how many views it gets you.

and above all, hold that guilt. hold it. feel it. utilise it.

and if you are in a position where you can leave this space? then i encourage you to do so. i encourage you to Move On, and find new ventures. i encourage you to do that if you can. and if you can't, then i'll still be here to guide you through it all and keep having these difficult talks.

periodical reminder that if you are in the marauders fandom, and you consider yourself anti-jkr + anti-transphobia, you cannot ethically engage with any form of official content, merch or ‘experiences’ (i.e studio tours etc).

any money that you spend on jkr’s IP could legitimately be used to fund transphobia through her donations to anti-trans charities.

you may consider yourself anti-transphobia, but by voting with the money in your pocket, you show where your true affiliations lie. you show whether or not you value your entertainment over trans lives.

supporting jkr in a ‘marauders way’ or an ‘atyd way’ means nothing when that money all just ends up in her pocket.

so please. you don’t need a reboot. you don’t need a marauders series. you don’t need that official hp merch.

there’s a whole world of free fan created content out there to explore. enough for a lifetime.

perhaps start there.

just to add on, this is absolutely true when it comes to people shitting on fics just to shit on them (eg not liking characterizations). this does NOT apply, however, when people are calling out racism and making other such important and valid criticisms. (this is not directed at op, they didn’t say anything about this! i just wanted to say it because i’ve also seen some people yelling at people for calling out racism and that is not okay)

Yall need to remember that no matter how popular a fic gets (even if it’s literally the most popular fic on ao3) it still goes against fandom etiquette to publicly hate on it or say that it’s bad. Those opinions belong in private conversations or in your private bookmarks, nowhere else. Fanfics are gifts that we aren’t entitled to, and we have to treat them as such.

remus lupin with his large brown eyes and long, light brown eyelashes that rest on his freckled cheeks as he naps with his head on sirius' chest who has his arm around remus' waist to hold him to close to him SEND TWEET

Writing Tips

Punctuating Dialogue

✧

➸ “This is a sentence.”

➸ “This is a sentence with a dialogue tag at the end,” she said.

➸ “This,” he said, “is a sentence split by a dialogue tag.”

➸ “This is a sentence,” she said. “This is a new sentence. New sentences are capitalized.”

➸ “This is a sentence followed by an action.” He stood. “They are separate sentences because he did not speak by standing.”

➸ She said, “Use a comma to introduce dialogue. The quote is capitalized when the dialogue tag is at the beginning.”

➸ “Use a comma when a dialogue tag follows a quote,” he said.

“Unless there is a question mark?” she asked.

“Or an exclamation point!” he answered. “The dialogue tag still remains uncapitalized because it’s not truly the end of the sentence.”

➸ “Periods and commas should be inside closing quotations.”

➸ “Hey!” she shouted, “Sometimes exclamation points are inside quotations.”

However, if it’s not dialogue exclamation points can also be “outside”!

➸ “Does this apply to question marks too?” he asked.

If it’s not dialogue, can question marks be “outside”? (Yes, they can.)

➸ “This applies to dashes too. Inside quotations dashes typically express—“

“Interruption” — but there are situations dashes may be outside.

➸ “You’ll notice that exclamation marks, question marks, and dashes do not have a comma after them. Ellipses don’t have a comma after them either…” she said.

➸ “My teacher said, ‘Use single quotation marks when quoting within dialogue.’”

➸ “Use paragraph breaks to indicate a new speaker,” he said.

“The readers will know it’s someone else speaking.”

➸ “If it’s the same speaker but different paragraph, keep the closing quotation off.

“This shows it’s the same character continuing to speak.”