#cecenyss

[cecenyss]

I wish I was a muppet so I could flail uncontrollably with no consequences. And for the scrunch

[noir-renard]

I’m sorry if you’ve answered this and I just couldn’t find it but what is the current status of IYGABAB chapter 16? I just reread it and it’s somehow better than I remembered T.T

hi there! the current status of chapter 16 is: imminently going to be posted! I'm just finishing up the edits and formatting, so hopefully I'll have it up by this evening or tomorrow!

[darkfromday]

Okay this might be kinda weird but don’t judge me.

So I have this fic (it’s a pjo crossover) with an oc and she’s talking to Dumbledore right now and I am struggling So Goddamn Hard with characterizing him. It’s not even funny this has been in my docs for months. As someone who does not bash him, do you have any advice for writing Dumbledore well? Just general stuff I don’t really wanna bombard you with my crossover lore because I will be insufferable about it

You are more than welcome to be insufferable about lore in my inbox, always. ^^

Okay first off, I'm very flattered that you're asking for my advice at all so thank you for uh... thinking my Dumbledore sounds like our beloved old man. Getting him right matters very much to me. :')

I can also sympathize with having characterization issues that keep things in the docs for ages (this is happening to me with Harry right now). What can I say about my Albus...

When I write Albus, I usually try to draw from his core personality traits and then extrapolate those to new scenarios. So: Albus is very compassionate. Albus can also be very cold/closed off, so that compassion wouldn't necessarily translate to public Fatherly Behavior. But he's old and formal and well-bred and would never be openly rude where someone could call him out on it. Albus has a soft spot for protecting children and doesn't countenance them being harmed in front of him. Albus is very hands-off in his approach to child-rearing, though, so his idea of "protection" doesn't mean 'wiping their face with a napkin and making sure they don't trip on the sidewalk'. No. Never. He doesn't trust himself to get that close and not fuck someone up. He can make sacrifices, and ask entirely too much of his confidants and allies, but by golly he is going to feel guilty as fuck about it even as he demands it.

So from that, if I wanted to write "Albus Dumbledore gives a student a challenge" for example, I'd say "Albus is more likely to be the type of person to set up an elaborate scavenger hunt on the grounds to help a student answer a question, so that said student gained 1) the answer, 2) whatever skills they learned and used in the quest to get that answer, and 3) perhaps a motley collection of ride-or-die friends involved in the answer-getting. This keeps things consistent to me with how Albus is portrayed in both years 1-3 (Harry is getting involved and solving things he really shouldn't be solving, but Dumbledore is still either on-site or able to return for protection's sake relatively quickly) and years 4-6 (okay yeah, we're off the rails here and Harry is getting involved in far more dangerous shit that Dumbledore really doesn't want him tackling, but Voldemort is not going to dial it back and so now he has to balance Protecting Harry with Arming Harry for Murder).

What else...? Albus likes using people's first names. The whole devotion to him always calling people "Mr./Miss [Last Name]" thing in so many fanfics is kind of weird to me, because he very rarely does that. Albus has never to my recollection called Harry "Mr. Potter" in canon. Definitely not to his face. He is always 'Harry', with more frequency/nuance the longer they know one another and the closer they become. And Harry's friends, whom he doesn't interact with as much, still get "Ron" and "Hermione" after one courteous "Miss Granger" in one of the scenes I frequently use as reference for "how Dumbledore acts around multiple people he likes at the same time":

"More tea, I think," said Dumbledore, closing the door behind Harry, Ron, and Hermione, drawing out his wand, and twiddling it; a revolving tea tray appeared in midair along with a plate of cakes. Dumbledore magicked the tray onto the table, and everybody sat down. There was a slight pause, and then Dumbledore said, "Did you by any chance hear what Miss Granger was shouting, Hagrid?" Hermione went slightly pink, but Dumbledore smiled at her and continued, "Hermione, Harry, and Ron still seem to want to know you, judging by the way they were attempting to break down the door." "Of course we still want to know you!" Harry said, staring at Hagrid. "You don't think anything that Skeeter cow - sorry, Professor," he added quickly, looking at Dumbledore. "I have gone temporarily deaf and haven't any idea what you said, Harry," said Dumbledore, twiddling his thumbs and staring at the ceiling. {Goblet of Fire}

So yeah. Albus Dumbledore may feel very isolated from others, but you would never know it in the way he talks to people. Everyone who speaks with him that likes/trusts him would (imo) get the impression that for the time they're speaking with him, they are the most important person in the world to him, and he is currently bending his brilliant brain toward fixing whatever problem they have. Which means it's as good as solved, because this is Dumbledore.

(of course, if they dislike Albus, this may be twisted into "thinks he's sooo smart when really he's just a [trait they hate about him, whether that's uplifting the downtrodden or being a little kooky]. so if your OC doesn't like Dumbledore, they may bring a guardedness to their conversations with him that Albus notices and has to maneuver around.)

What else? Albus is brilliant. He's not afraid to take a compliment on his mental or magical prowess, though he will verbally shrug it off or downplay it to seem humble. Doing effortless magic in the middle of conversations might be something you could do to showcase this. It doesn't have to be conjuring tea from the kitchens, but maybe he notices your OC (is your OC a student/child or an adult?) looks a little cold and so he twitches his wand toward the fire and makes the room a bit warmer.

Albus likes to make jokes and kind of poke fun at people, in a way that just skirts the edges of being mean. That's more a staple of all That Woman's humor than just being specific to him, but there's a clear difference between the way Albus talks about his brother's intelligence or hits the Dursleys with tea cups and the way Voldemort bullies the Malfoys after springing Lucius from jail.

So all of that to say, how Albus speaks and acts kind of depends on who your OC is to him. If they're a child, whether under his protection or not, he's going to be very polite and funny, while also making them feel like equal partners in a conversation. He doesn't infantilize anyone. Even if they're unpleasant kids, Albus is a big believer in second chances for young people, so any scolding is going to be from the mindset of "this character growth is for your own good so you don't end up like me".

Albus' plans have plans, so there may be things he says or does while speaking with your OC that only have payoff later in your story.

Last thing: he is very silly. This one I forget a lot, but he's notable for acting so weird that even people who LIKE him are often like "uh. is the old man Okay or....." But to balance this, I try to only give him one silly or funny line and not oversaturate. If you do TOO much "haha the old man says such weird things!" then you get fics where Albus offers Every Single Person He Comes Across a sherbet lemon and an OOC Wise Old Man Saying, which...... no. Blorbo would not do that.

So in your situation, OC talking with Dumbledore, the setting would matter (are they in a place where Dumbledore has power or responsibility? if so does he have responsibility for OC's safety/well being? are there things he should be telling them, like PJO!Chiron or Dionysus?); the stakes would matter (is this just a casual convo where Dumbledore might drop some advice/reassurance, or a debrief after a Big Event?); and the desired outcome for both parties would be somewhere under all that.

That was a LOT of words, but I hope some of them were helpful!

[thegreateventof1928]

stop fucking stalking me >:(

Hi Katy

(I say, half behind a wall, staring at you)

[cecenyss]

I think my favorite thing about Kinger’s insanity is that he doesn’t forget people. Just moments after Pomni joins he calls her by her name. He knows who’s there and who’s gone. He knows what the adventures are, at least enough to always try his best.

He’s not present, but he’s there enough to participate. He doesn’t know where he is, but he always knows who’s with him. You get the sense there’s a logic to the world as he sees it, even if it doesn’t always sound right to the people around him.

[cecenyss]

‘There’s no platonic explanation for this’ and it’s just two people caring about each other’s wellbeing

[cecenyss]

nooo don’t go down for maintenance ur so sexy haha

[cecenyss]

Bad With Us really hammered in that the Vees aren’t a big deal in terms of overlords. All the other overlords were so surprised that Vox ‘defeated’ Alastor and they all blatantly said they thought he was full of shit.

But I think that because they’re so media-focused, they’re a big deal in terms of your average sinner. They’re not powerful as themselves, they’re powerful in numbers. Because they have the media, the technology, the crowd on their side.

But if they lose the crowd, they won’t have anything.