Every Time I Listen To Malevolent, I'm Like "oh These Two Are Getting A Little Toxically Codependent,

Old Guard microfic #3

Nile slid up to the table across from Nicky, palms smacking the wood loudly as she leaned forward. “So, Christmas.”

Nicky didn’t even look up from his work. “You’ll have more fun with Andy.”

“Andy?” Nile asked dubiously.

“Mhm.”

“The Andy who scoffs at organized religion because she used to be worshipped as a god, that Andy?”

“The very same.”

“Not that I think you’re lying but you understand why I’m skeptical, right?”

Nicky took a breath and looked up at her, leaning on one elbow. “Andy is a pragmatic hedonist who’s spent lifetimes in the far north—midwinter and solstice celebrations of all sorts are burned into her soul as times for hot food, strong drink, and good company kept around the fire. I, meanwhile, am semi-lapsed medieval clergy with a bone to pick with God.”

Nile blinked a couple times. “…point taken. How’s Booker?”

“Depressed but readily motivated by mulled wine and fonder of festive chintz than he likes to let on.”

“Cool, thanks.”

Hello! So, this might seem like a weird ask. The whole thing is based on the canon world, that is wizards and stuff. Everything that's going on in the books is still happening! I just don't want you to confuse this with a Muggle/No magic AU.

My question is, if Percy—for some random reason please suspend your disbelief here—decided to become an EMT in the muggle world (without using magic that is), how would his family react to it?

Again, the things that happen in the books are still happening, the only thing is that Percy's decided to go into muggle EMT instead of the Ministry.

Like, would they be kinda mad because Percy is putting muggle stuff/outside stuff over the war they're fighting?

Or would they be much more understanding? Maybe think Percy's cooler? Ngl, I'm asking you this for the sake of my daydreams.

Sorry for taking so long to respond! 🙁

Oh wow! That is a very unique idea/question! 😄

Do you mean that Percy became an EMT right after Hogwarts (instead of working for Barty Crouch)?

That would be super interesting!

Hmm... 🤔 You know, I surprisingly don't think most of them would react badly.

Arthur

Arthur is obsessed with muggles. However, he does not seem to see them as equals. In his mind, muggles are poor fools that need to be protected. It's less like fighting for racial equality and more like people fighting for animal rights.

In Book 2, he states:

“Just Muggle-baiting,” sighed Mr. Weasley. “Sell them a key that keeps shrinking to nothing so they can never find it when they need it.. Of course, it’s very hard to convict anyone because no Muggle would admit their key keeps shrinking — they’ll insist they just keep losing it. Bless them, they’ll go to any lengths to ignore magic, even if it’s staring them in the face…"

Then in Book 4, when Fred gives Dudley Ton-Tongue Toffee, he says:

“It isn’t funny!” Mr. Weasley shouted. “That sort of behavior seriously undermines wizard–Muggle relations! I spend half my life campaigning against the mistreatment of Muggles, and my own sons —”

So he probably doesn't think Percy is making a good decision to actually work in the muggle world, but I don't think he gets too upset about it either. If anything, he may see this as an opportunity for him to learn more about a topic that he clearly enjoys, and it could potentially help his cause by having proof (from Percy's testimony) that muggles deserve to be treated fairly.

Molly

I definitely think Molly reacts the worst out of everyone. She doesn't hate muggles, but she certainly isn't overly fond of them either.

She definitely dislikes Arthur's obsession with them (though in her defense, that probably has more to do with him wasting money on it/focusing on it instead of helping her with the kids/house).

In Book 4, Arthur says,

“Ah yes, I can see the plugs. I collect plugs,” he added to Uncle Vernon. “And batteries. Got a very large collection of batteries. My wife thinks I’m mad, but there you are.”

Also, what's even more telling is that in Book 1, when the Weasleys are at King's Cross Station, Harry overhears her say:

"-- packed with Muggles, of course --"

I know that JKR included this line so that Harry could identify another wizarding family, but she should have used something else (like Platform 9 ¾) instead, because they are literally in a muggle train station, so the comment seems unnecessary and rude. Think about if you went to Chinatown and said "packed with Chinese people, of course."

Plus, Molly wants all of her children to work at the Ministry of Magic. This is a comment in Book 4 (about the twins):

“And then there was this big row,” Ginny said, “because Mum wants them to go into the Ministry of Magic like Dad, and they told her all they want to do is open a joke shop.”

This is the same instance where she literally burned all of their order forms. She seems to have (sort of) accepted Bill & Charlie's choices, as well as Fred & George's joke shop (after they make a lot of money), but Percy is the child that she expected to go into the Ministry the most.

There would definitely be a massive row with her.

Fred & George

They likely wouldn't care much, because they clearly don't mind muggles either. In Book 4, after they gave Dudley the Ton-Tongue Toffee and Arthur yells at them, they say:

“We didn’t give it to him because he’s a Muggle!” said Fred indignantly. “No, we gave it to him because he’s a great bullying git,” said George. “Isn’t he, Harry?”

If anything, I think they love that Percy is now the family "disappointment" because they've spent so long getting yelled at by Molly that this is a nice change of pace. Plus, it takes the pressure off them. Even if they open a joke shop in the wizarding world, Molly still won't be as angry with them as she is with Percy.

Suddenly "Perfect Percy" isn't so perfect anymore, and it probably (ironically) improves their relationship.

Bill, Charlie, Ron, & Ginny

They are probably all rather incredulous about the entire thing and think Percy is mental for not wanting to work in the wizarding world (and Hermione encourages this idea because she clearly wants nothing to do with the muggle world anymore), but I really don't think they treat him badly over it.

They probably just think he's finally cracked under all the pressure he puts on himself, and if this gets him to loosen up, then it's not all bad.

I do think Charlie & Ginny would find it a little cool though, and they're both more likely to actually talk to Percy about his new life, whereas Bill & Ron will probably avoid the topic altogether.

Other Thoughts

One of the most interesting parts about this AU is that is has the potential to drastically change the story. If Percy doesn't work for Barty Crouch, then chances are, whoever is in his position doesn't do as good of a job running the department on their own, so people figure out something is wrong with Mr. Crouch much sooner.

Once that happens, they (i.e. Dumbledore) may very well be able to put the pieces together about Barty Crouch Jr., and then his plan fails, Harry never goes to the graveyard, Cedric never dies, and Voldemort never officially returns in a body. So is the war even going on anymore? Possibly not for a few more years while Voldemort tries to capture Harry!

Even if the war continues in the exact same way as canon, I think Percy's job in the muggle world could actually be beneficial. He could be there to prevent some of the damage & protect the muggles, and he could help muggleborns & their families escape through the muggle world in a way that wouldn't be traced back to them.

There's a lot of potential there for a great fanfic! 😉

Thanks for the ask! 😊

hey have i ever told you guys about torisai height difference

saiki- 5'6(changes if he uses transformatio)

tori- 5'10(unsure if thats with or without his shoes)

The thing I love most about the LOTR films is their ability to do storytelling without words. 

Many of my favorite moments in the trilogy are ones that have no dialogue. Wordless storytelling is the one thing the films do that the original books can’t, because books Have to use words.

I argue the vast majority of the films’ depth comes through things that AREN’T the dialogue. So much of the storytelling in LOTR is done through the music, cinematography, visual effects, character/costume designs, prop designs, environment designs, performances, and so on and so on. So some of the most powerful moments in the films are the ones that have minimal/no dialogue  – like the moments after Gandalf’s death, or  the lighting of the beacons, or Boromir dying as he defends Merry and Pippin, or the moment when Frodo wakes up after being rescued from Mount Doom and sees Sam in the doorway, the hobbits in the Green Dragon after their quest ends…..I could go on and on and on. And people joke about how Lord of the Rings is “50 percent landscape shots to pretty music”, because it IS, but I argue those landscape shots are so important and emotional and symbolic and evocative! They convey so much about the world, and the characters, and the tone!  I’ve written essays on it here and here and here –

 One of my favorite moments in the trilogy is the destruction of the Ring. I love how it captures this feeling of like…. relief beyond words. 

There’s just so much beautiful wordless storytelling! The way Sauron’s tower collapses to the musical leitmotif we first heard playing gently at the crossroads when Sam saw the fallen king statue and said “look– the King has got a crown again.” The way that, after Mount Doom explodes, the soundtrack transitions into the musical leitmotif that we last heard at Gandalf’s death.  The elvish in the soundtrack. ;_: And I love Gandalf’s reactions in this scene….the entire trilogy he’s been racked with guilt over “(sending) Frodo to his death.” The villains recognize and torment him over this: Saruman saying “Gandalf does not hesitate to sacrifice those closest to him, those he professes to love” while Gandalf has no response. And then we see that Frodo did it, he actually made it, and Gandalf breaks into tears…;_; and without a single line of dialogue you know exactly what this means for him. I’ve already written an overlong essay on how I love the general “watercolor painting” aesthetic of the films, and I want to add that I love the way the visual effects for Mordor’s collapse are designed– the way broken tower of Barad-Dur BURSTS outward, like a spirit is leaving it– and how initially it seems triumphant until you realize that Mordor is falling apart with Frodo and Sam still trapped there. And then all of the Fellowship breaks down. ;_; And so many scenes in the films are like this….Frodo crawling up the slopes of Mount Doom to a warped broken version of the Shire leitmotif. Eowyn standing on the edge of the Golden Hall as the flag of Rohan symbolically flutters away, and the Rohan theme plays on the Hardanger Fiddle. Frodo waking up in Rivendell and walking out of his room for the first time as the Rivendell leitmotif plays, autumn leaves falling all around him, then reuniting Bilbo to a mature sad verison of the Shire leitmotif. When Gandalf dies, the soundtrack in that scene is the only one in the films where the vocals aren’t in elvish/dwarvish– it’s just cries of pain, wordless grief. 

And I know that’s Basic Film Theory– the vast majority of things viewers will take away are the things that aren’t in the script– but Lord of the Rings does it so well! 

Every element has so much love and care put into it. Every artist gets to add something to the story.

And I don’t actually think it’s because “every artist on Lord of the Rings was uniquely talented in a way no artists have been before or since.”  I actually have….really mixed feelings on LOTR as a franchise, both because there’s so much in them that I think was objectively Bad and wrong (like the horrible lack of diversity/racist use of coding.)But the reason there are so many strong moments in Lord of the Rings despite its inarguable flaws was because the films had an extended pre-production time that a lot of movies don’t get. Howard Shore was given years to work on the soundtrack rather than months. The visual artists were treated like storytellers in their own right.  The difference between the Hobbit and LOTR trilogies wasn’t talent or money– it was time.  

And the problem with a film industry where everyone is trying to churn out as much Content as possible is that time is something you can’t really buy.

i think one of the reasons glass onion is so fun is that it just... loves the audience back.

so many popular movies and shows these days thrive on a sort of bitter engagement with their fans - where the fans are dismissed as being stupid, annoying, and needlessly angry. we are constantly positioned as being less intelligent as the writers.

so much of "spoiler-free" movie-making relies on writers getting away with one twist in their work, regardless of if that twist was earned. the work doesn't actually have any rewatch value or interesting writing - because they think "good writing" is about "pulling one over" on the audience. they don't focus on making interesting characters or storylines or good endings - they focus on fooling you. glass onion, meanwhile, has faith that the audience has figured the ending out, and that we'll watch anyway, because we love the characters.

so many adaptions of older works... kind of seem to hate the original work. they're done without passion. they're done almost as if checking off a box. so many of them openly mock the audience for enjoying the original, almost directly telling us that we are fools for ever having loved something.

but glass onion. loves the audience. it knows that many of the people watching are mystery-lovers. it is an homage that feels love towards the original works it references. it knows we also love those works; and instead of trying to disparage those works, it allows us to celebrate them.

one of my favorite things about it - and maybe why i found it so satisfying - is that this movie isn't trying to tell you it's the smartest, bestest, most-clever detective story. instead, it asks itself what is satisfying and exciting for the audience? and actually gives us that payoff. it's bright, colorful, and fucking fun.

just... more of this please. i'm very bored of nihilism and grittiness and "shock value" writing. put the love back in. let us love unironically. have your work say i love you too. thank you for sharing this story.

Criminal Minds: A Tribute

After having finally watched the season 15 finale last night, I cannot believe that this amazing show is finally over. I haven’t watched this show since it began airing like some people, nor have I ever watched it episode by episode as it slowly came out on CBS, and some would say that that makes me ‘not a real fan’ but I digress. I have been watching this show for over two and a half years now and it has been some of the best moments of my life.

It all started with two episodes I watched on a whim when they were on cable in a little hotel room in white salmon, Washington. I had already gotten a taste of police procedurals at that point through NCIS (which I have still not finished) and had previously seen criminal minds on my recommended list on Netflix so i thought ‘why not?’ and turned it on. This was still one of the best decisions of my life to date. That might seem super dramatic but the two episodes i watched (10x16 ‘Lockdown’ and 10x17 ‘Breath Play’) were amazing to me. They were just the right amount of creepy and haunting with that dash of genius and psychology and action....it was just perfection in every way. 

So I decided to go back to the beginning and start the whole show from the top.

At first I was confused, the cast was different in season 10, and in season 1 there were all these people i didn't know, but I soon caught up and watched the first few seasons with my mom.It was slow going, I admit, I got home form school and had to quickly watch anywhere from 1 to 3 episodes before my stepdad came home as he didn't like the show but I soon watched all 12 seasons available on Netflix. It was the most bizarre moment when i finished them and sat there for a while with no way to access the rest of the show. Months passed, it seemed to me that the heretofore 2 years of watching the show was over, that I would never finish it. But after 8 months of moving around and waiting, I finally got my hands on the remaining 3 seasons. I binge watched 13 and half of 14 before I procrastinated another 2 months, because I was not ready for it to end.

When I think of Criminal Minds, the first episode that comes to mind is an unusual one. Season 1 episode 14 ‘Ride The Lightning’, I barely remember anything from the earlier season but Ride the Lightning sticks out to me as one of the most heartbreaking episodes on the show. The Woman asking to stay on death row and the car driving away at the end hurts my soul. It has been so long but that episode will forever be seared in my brain.

The second episode that always sporadically comes back to me is the season 2 episode ‘North Mammon’. The idea of 3 girls having to choose whom to kill, is one that shoots shivers down my spine. It was an ugly and tragic episode that will always hurt to watch.

I have loved almost every member in the BAU at some point, some more than others, but my favorite is Dr Spencer Reid. This is probably a typical choice but I don’t care at all. His character arc from a shy and awkward sweater wearing genius to a badass and confident agent is one that is amazing, tragic and sweet all at the same time. In season 1 he cant even shoot a gun but in season 15 he get a 100 on his shooting examination. In the same way, he was often a scrawny ‘pipe cleaner with eyes’ early in the show but in season 14 he swiftly takes down a suspect who lightly shoves Tara. I love how he becomes confident and strong willed but most of this is due to torture, prison, drug addiction, and his girlfriend being shot in front of him which makes his character development horrifying but no less satisfying.

This team...they’re a family. They’ve been blown up, shot, tortured, killed, electrocuted, chased by dogs, hunted down, kidnapped, falsely accused, drugged, imprisoned, and psychologically tormented. They would hurt for each other, kill for each other, die for each other. They were each others mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. They were more than friends and family in every way that counted. And now it’s....over.

I’m am so blessed that I was able to go on this journey with this amazing cast of characters and they will forever be in my heart, I will never, ever forget the agents of the BAU and I will always list this show as one of the top ten best of all time.

Wheels Up,

Forever.

I read somewhere you wrote Ares/aphrodite/Hephaestus In a fic, is this true and where is it? I had that same idea, and so happy!!

Thanks for the interest! I did start a PJO reading the books fanfic where they feature and its still only ne chapter even after all this time 😅, but its on my ao3 account also under RaysReads!!!!!

Okay, but really, natural necromancer Stiles would've been so funny.

The Sheriff's success file is actually larger than his failure file because Stiles can just ask dead people who killed them and he can sense where the unburied corpses are so the number of missing persons goes down, too. And that's why he drags Scott out to the Preserve to look for Laura's body bc that's his 'job.'

I can't decide if he'd be besties with Lydia as another being of death magic, or if they'd have a kind of frenemies thing bc Lydia feels the constant need to Scream around him, and Stiles constantly gets a headache from all that goddamn racket.

He would be bros with Peter, tho bc, "you're the first reanimated person I've met that I didn't I raise myself! :D"

Peter: "I'm sorry, what the fuck did you just say?"

Also, he's learned nothing from Jurassic Park.

Stiles: Did you know that most dinosaur skeletons are actually plaster casts?

Scott: Did you learn that from the Internet?

Stiles: Nope, just a lot of very disappointing trips to the museum.

Imagine. 1/2 The war has ended & the Wizengamot are currently holding court & reviewing Dumbledore's memories that he saved. In the span of months they find many containing Death Eater spy Severus Snape, & Ministry spy Percy Weasley. With one dead & the other Missing the British wizarding world is thrown upside down as they review the Memories & realise just how much Percy Weasley was a Mastermind Schemer in saving the lives of many Muggle Borns, Goblins, Half-Blood's and Blood Traitors.

2/2 The Wizarding world are looking for where war hero Percy Weasley is. Especially his family (In this story Percy saves Fred's life & then vanishes). They see that Percy Weasley had worked as an informant during his entire Ministry career, also being the one who thought out Dumbledore's death (Shocking the courthouse) "You're already dying Albus, why not have Severus strengthen his position with the Death Eaters by being your killer?" 'He used every situation to his advantage to end the war'

Ah, the reveal of the wronged hero, what a simple and satisfying trope. It gives us angst, the bitter taste of not being appreciated mixed with the sweet sauce of late recognition and regret.  

But Percy doesn’t care about that or any other tropes because he is exhausted. Winning a war is a tiring job and he was being doing more than winning. So as soon as Voldemort keels over and dies, Percy checks that his family is alive (they all are, good job there, Percival) and he makes himself a portkey and goes away.

One wizard can’t make a portkey, you say? It takes at least four? Barty Crouch Jr had to imperius three other wizards to enchant the Goblet of Fire? And portkeys don’t work in Hogwarts under normal circumstances? Well, these are not normal circumstances, there was a battle and Percy has a lot of practice making portkeys, all right? A lot.

(There are less than twenty goblins in Britain right now and it is all Percy’s doing).

He goes to East Asia because Percy is vaguely aware that a single white man in need of enlightenment and self-discovery should go climb a mountain on Asia. Percy doesn’t climb any mountains, though, because he can never do things as he is supposed to. There must always be a twist. In this case, he gets food poisoning twice and spends over a month trying to learn how to play a plucked string instrument. He is harassed by a flock of geese and meets a talking dragon. He fails to realize that there are no accounts of talking dragons in history (at least the history badly learned and repeated in wizarding Britain). Dragons do not talk nor do they speak. Your brother works in a freaking dragon reserve, for Merlin’s sake, Percy. You should know this.

After that Percy goes to the Caribbean, because he feels that his stress-relief and self-discovery journey should also involve a stay in a tropical beach. He doesn’t particularly enjoy the experience because he is a red-head. Also, sand is annoying. He freckles all over, eats a lot of pork, learns to play the maracas, to the locals’ amusement, and leaves.

By the time Dumbledore’s memories are uncovered Percy has made his way to a Greek island. He dresses almost exclusively with a t-shirt tied around his waist like a loincloth and a pair of trainers. He also carries with him a bag made from a t-shirt like some sort of wild instagrammer. He carries all kind of knick-knacks in his bag that he uses to create himself a house at night, as if transfiguring a nutshell into a bed were a normal thing, Percy, you utter maniac.

From time to time he goes to a wizarding community and offers to do some chores or magic in exchange of goods. If a goblin woman sees him, she will give Percy a loaf of bread. He has no idea why they do that but it’s very good bread, so Percy is happy to take it. One time Percy met a male goblin and he gave Percy some salt, that he still carries with him. It is possible that for the last seven months Percy had been eating goblin bread and whatever fresh produce the Greek witches offer him in exchange of doing chores.

It is at this time that the Puddlemere United goes to Greece to do some pre-season training.

(This is something that football teams around Europe do. Go somewhere outside the country to train for a month or two in different conditions. The Manchester United often goes to Malaga, in Spain, for a warm-weather training. I don’t even like football, I don’t know why I know this.)

When Oliver Wood sees Percy Weasley standing around in little more than a loincloth he naturally assumes that he is having a hallucination, a combination of the relentless training under the hot and punishing sun, the hours spent fighting the wind (they don’t know what it is with the wind there, but it will try to kick you off the broom. They are all coming out of this with iron abs) and the constant stories in The Prophet about yet another plot Percival Weasley had conducted, saving a dozen lives.

“Percy?” Oliver asks, sweaty and thirsty and half mad from training.

“Oh, hi, Oliver!” Percy answers, and then, because Percy is simultaneously the cleverest and dumbest wizard alive, “oh shit”.

*

Percy has not been reading the news. He refuses to. He is on vacation, he is still tired and he has a white hair on his temple. Just the one hair, but Percy is twenty-two and far too young for white hair.

Oliver nods. He gets it. He is still telling the Weasley family that he has seen Percy and that he is not dead at all, only slightly insane. But he will wait until he is back in England. Oliver doesn’t know if all the things in the paper are true, but even if Percy has only rescued one thousand five hundred goblins instead of the fifteen thousand the papers claim, he is still entitled to a nice quiet vacation in which clothes are optional.

Did Percy Weasley stop a goblin genocide in his free time? Does he not realize it? How dumb is this boy?

Come September the owls start to arrive. Letters from the Ministry, from the papers, from his family. Percy watches the owl fly around and doesn’t allow himself to be found. He does read Oliver’s letters and even answers explaining that no, his family is not heart-broken. They were heart-broken five years ago when Percy very publicly acted like an asshole. They got used to it, so there is no need for this new sentimentality now that Percy is on vacation.

Percy might be acting a bit like an asshole now, but he has very complicated and ugly feelings over his family and he would rather not think about them. Mostly, he is irked by the fact that they were so quick to follow Dumbledore’s lead. Perhaps because Percy never worked for Dumbledore, he worked with Dumbledore and had the distinct pleasure of pointing to his face, on multiple occasions, what a sly bastard he was. He has little respect for people who never confronted Dumbledore.

(So basically Percy only respects Aberforth Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall).

Also, Percy always did what he was supposed to: he washed his hands, minded his siblings, got good grades and he yet he was not the favourite son. This is all subconscious, of course, but he resents it.

Oliver keeps writing so Percy keeps writing back.

 “Did you actually side-apparate a family with twelve members?” writes Oliver.

“I have no idea.” Percy writes back. “Wait, do you mean the Johnsons? How are they?”

 “They are going to give you an Order of Merlin, 1st Class”.

“Surely they realise I don’t want one.”

“I think it is evident they realise nothing, Percy.”

 By October it’s getting cold and Percy finds that he doesn’t particularly care about wearing clothes, so he is getting ready to portkey himself to Argentina when Ginny arrives. She has such a driven and purposeful look around her that Percy assumes that she must be in the middle of a very important quest, so he hangs back and follows her as she treks all over the island and vanishes a thousand year old monster. It doesn’t occur to Percy that her quest is finding him and that the monster was merely an unfortunate bystander.

Eventually he reveals himself to Ginny because she is screaming incoherently at the sky and Percy thinks that she might be suffering hypoxia and dehydration. Ginny throws the water bottler at his head.

“I’m not the jerk here.” Percy says. “I needed a vacation and if you hadn’t seen those stupid memories you would have been fine with me being out of the country indefinitely.”

Ginny hexes him seven times, but afterwards she lies on the beach next to Percy and they look at the clouds. They spend a week together, nicely quiet and wild. They go for walks, play on the beach, make a house at night out of random transfigured things (Percy doesn’t notice Ginny’s look of utter bafflement and awe) and eat goblin bread (this time Percy does notice the look but assumes it’s because Ginny loves the taste).

Percy refuses to go back with her but he promises Ginny that he will be there for Christmas. Two days later he does go back to England, the bastard. His correspondence with Oliver has become… heated, to put it some way, and waiting a week for the owl to arrive is intolerable.  

Percy thinks this might be some sort of penance. It’s nippy in England and he can’t be dressed in a t-shirt/loincloth anymore. There is a flock of owls permanently following him, trying to deliver their messages from the Ministry and the papers and maybe, even now, from his family. Worst of all, Oliver writes him all kind of randy letters but refuses to shag Percy, even though he is right there, because of sports. Something about turning frustration into spectacular athletic performance, Percy doesn’t know. He is so frustrated that he goes and stops a plan to assassinate Potter all by himself.

On Christmas Eve Percy goes home and he is yelled at, cursed at, cried at and loved, very loved, it’s embarrassing. He is rescued from the madness by Potter who easily admits he has been fuelling the newspapers infatuation with Percy because that way they left him slightly in peace.

(And on Boxing Day he moves in with Oliver).