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In her magnificent 2023 book Doppelganger, Naomi Klein describes the "mirror world" of right wing causes that are weird, conspiratorial versions of the actual things that leftists care about:
For example, Trump rode to power on the back of Qanon, a movement driven by conspiratorial theories of a cabal of rich and powerful people who were kidnapping, trafficking and abusing children. Qanon followers were driven to the most unhinged acts by these theories, shooting up restaurants and demanding to be let into nonexistent basements:
And while Qanon theories about children being disguised as reasonably priced armoires are facially absurd, the right's obsession with imaginary children is a long-established phenomenon:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-53416247
Think of the conservative movement's all-consuming obsession with the imaginary lives of children that aborted fetuses might have someday become, and its depraved indifference to the hunger and poverty of actual children in America:
Trump's most ardent followers reorganized their lives around the imagined plight of imaginary children, while making excuses for Trump's first-term "Kids in Cages" policy:
Obviously, this has only gotten worse in Trump's second term. The same people whose entire political identity is nominally about defending "unborn children" are totally indifferent to the actual born children that DOGE left to die by the thousands:
As for pedophile traffickers, the same Qanon conspiracy theorists who cooked their brains with fantasies about Trump smiting the elite pedophiles are now making excuses for Trump's central role in history's most prolific child rape scandal:
This is the mirror-world as Klein described it: a real problem (elite impunity for child abuse; the sadistic targeting of children in war crimes; the impact of poverty on children) filtered through a fever-swamp of conspiratorial nonsense. It's world that would do anything to save imaginary children while condemning living, real children to grinding poverty, sexual torture, starvation and murder.
Once you know about Klein's mirror-world, you see it everywhere – from conservative panics about the power of Big Tech platforms (that turn out to be panics about what Big Tech does with that power, not about the power of tech itself):
To conservative panics about health – that turn out to be a demand to dismantle America's weak public health system and America's weak regulation of the supplements industry:
But lately, I've been thinking that maybe the mirror shines in both directions: that in addition to the warped reflection of the right's mirror world, there is a left mirror world where we can find descrambled, clarified versions of the right's twisted obsessions.
I've been thinking about this since I read a Corey Robin blog post about Mamdani's campaign rhetoric, in which Mamdani railed against "mediocrity" and promised "excellence":
Robin pointed out that while this framing might strike some leftists as oddly right-coded, it has a lineal descent from Marx, who advocated for industrialization and mass production because the alternative would be "universal mediocrity.”
Robin went on to discuss a largely lost thread of "socialist perfectionism" ("John Ruskin and William Morris to Bloomsbury Bolsheviks like Virginia Woolf and John Maynard Keynes") who advocated for the public provision of excellence.
He identifies Marx's own mirror world analysis, pointing out that Marx identified a fundamental difference between capitalist and socialist theories of the division of labor. While capitalists saw the division of labor as a way to increase quantity, socialists were excited by the prospect of increasing quality.
(There's a centaur/reverse centaur comparison lurking in there, too. If you're a centaur radiologist, who gets an AI tool that flags some diagnoses you may have missed, then you're improving the rate of tumor identification. If you're a reverse centaur radiologist who sees 90% of your colleagues fired and replaced with a chatbot whose work you are expected to sign off on at a rate that precludes even cursory inspection, you're increasing X-ray throughput at the expense of accuracy):
(In other words: the reverse centaur is the mirror world version of a centaur.)
After the mayoral election, Mamdani doubled down on his pursuit of high-quality public services. In his inaugural speech, Mamdani promised a government "where excellence is no longer the exception":
Robin was also developing his appreciation for Mamadani's vision of public excellence. In the New York Review of Books, Robin made the case that it was a mistake for Democrats to have ceded the language of efficiency and quality to Republicans:
Where Democrats do talk about efficiency, they talk about it in Republican terms: "We'll run the government like a business." Mamdani, by contrast, talks about running the government like a government – a good government, a government committed to excellence.
Writing in Jacobin, Conor Lynch takes a trip into the good side of the mirror world, unpacking the idea of socialist excellence in Mamdani's governance promises:
During the Mamdani campaign, "efficiency" was just one plank of the platform. But once Mamdani took office, he learned that his predecessor, the lavishly corrupt Eric Adams, had lied about the city's finances, leaving a $12b hole in the budget:
Mamdani came to power in New York on an ambitious platform of public service delivery, and not just because this is the right thing to do, but because investment in a city's people and built environment pays off handsomely.
Maintenance is always cheaper than repair, and one of the main differences between a business and a government is that a business's shareholders can starve maintenance budgets, cash out, and leave the collapsing firm behind them, while governments must think about the long term consequences of short-term thinking (the fact that so many Democratic governments have failed to do this is a consequence of Democrats adopting Republicans' framing that a good government is "run like a business").
The best time to invest in New York City was 20 years ago. The second best time in now. For Mamdani to make those investments and correct the failures of his predecessors, he needs to find some money.
Mamdani's proposal for finding this money sounds pretty conservative: he's going to cut waste in government. He's ordered each city agency to appoint a "Chief Savings Officer" who will "review performance, eliminate waste and streamline service delivery." These CSOs are supposed to find a 1.5% across-the-board savings this year and 2.5% next year:
Does this sound like DOGE to you? It kind of does to me, but – crucially – this is mirror-world DOGE. DOGE's project was to make cuts to government in order to make government "run like a business." Specifically, DOGE wanted to transform the government into the kind of business that makes cuts to juice the quarterly numbers at the expense of long-term health:
But Mamdani's mirror-world DOGE is looking to find efficiencies by cutting things like sweetheart deals with private contractors and consultants, who cost the city billions. It's these private sector delegates of the state that are the source of government waste and bloat.
The literature is clear on this: when governments eliminate their own capacity to serve the people and hire corporations to do it on their behalf, the corporations charge more and deliver less:
As Lynch writes, DOGE's purpose was to dismantle as much of the government as possible and shift its duties to Beltway Bandits who could milk Uncle Sucker for every dime. Mamdani's ambition, meanwhile, is to "restore faith in government [and] demonstrate that the public sector can match or even surpass the private sector in excellence."
As Mamdani said in his inauguration speech, "For too long, we have turned to the private sector for greatness, while accepting mediocrity from those who serve the public."
Turning governments into businesses has been an unmitigated failure. After decades of outsourcing, the government hasn't managed to shrink its payroll, but government workers are today primarily employed in wheedling private contractors to fulfill their promises, even as public spending has quintupled:
After Snowden broke both his legs during special forces training and washed out, he went to work for the NSA. After a couple years, his boss told him that Congress capped the spy agencies' headcount but not their budgets, so he was going to have to quit his job at the NSA and go to work for one of the NSA's many contractors, because the NSA could hire as many contractors as it wanted.
So Snowden is sent to a recruiter who asks him how much he's making as a government spy. Snowden quotes a modest 5-figure sum. The recruiter is aghast and tells Snowden that he gets paid a percentage of whatever Snowden ends up making as a government contractor, and promptly triples Snowden's government salary. Why not? The spy agencies have unlimited budgets, and will pay whatever the private company that Snowden nominally works for bills them at. Everybody wins!
Ladies and gentlemen, the efficiency of government outsourcing. Run the government like a business!
As bad as this is when the government hires outside contractors to do things, it's even worse when they hire outside contractors to consult on things. Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Canadian government spent a fortune on consultants, especially at the start of the pandemic:
The main beneficiary of these contracts was McKinsey, who were given a blank cheque and no oversight – they were even exempted from rules requiring them to disclose conflicts of interest.
Trudeau raised Canadian government spending by 40%, to $11.8 billion, creating a "shadow civil service" that cost vastly more than the actual civil service – the government spent $1.85b on internal IT expertise, and $2.3b on outside contractors.
These contractors produced some of the worst IT boondoggles in government history, including the bungled "ArriveCAN" contact tracing program. The two-person shop that won the contract outsourced it to KPMG and raked off a 15-30% commission.
Before Trudeau, Stephen Harper paid IBM to build Phoenix – a payroll system that completely failed and was, amazingly, far worse than ArriveCAN. IBM got $309m to build Phoenix, and then Canada spent another $506m to fix it and compensate the people whose lives it ruined.
Wherever you find these contractors, you find stupendous waste and fraud. I remember in the early 2000s, when Dan "City of Sound" Hill was working at the BBC and wanted to try an experiment to distribute MP3s of a radio programme.
The BBC – an organization with a long history of technical excellence – had given the exclusive contract for web delivery to Siemens, who wanted £10,000 to set up a web-server for the experiment. Dan rented a server from an online provider and put it all on his personal card, serving tens of thousands of MP3s for less than £10. It turns out that letting your technical personnel do your technology development costs 1/1000th of what it costs to have contractors do it.
Running your public institution "like a business" is incredibly inefficient. Back when Musk and Ramaswamy announced their plan to cut $2t from the US federal budget, David Dayen published a plan to realize nearly that much savings just by attacking waste arising from running the government "like a business":
The US government's own estimate of the losses due to contractor fraud comes out to $274b/year – roughly the size of the entire civil service payroll (the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which Musk sadistically destroyed, accounts for 0.012% of federal spending).
Medicare "upcoding" – a form of fraud committed by companies like United Healthcare, the largest Medicare Advantage provider in the country – costs the public $83b/year:
Congress has banned Medicare and Medicaid from bargaining for pharma prices, which is why the US government pays 178% more than other governments, for the same drugs, which are often developed at public expense:
The Pentagon is a cesspit of waste. It's not just firing spies and rehiring them as contractors at a 300% markup – that's just for starters. The Pentagon receives $840b/year and has failed its last three audits:
The conservative version of "efficiency" cashes out to "efficient at extracting value from public institutions, workers and customers." Mamdani's (good) mirror world "efficiency" means providing great public service through investing in public excellence.
New York City is overdue for this kind of overhaul. Everywhere you look in the city, you find high price consultants making out like bandits and starving the city of the funds it needs to deliver. The Second Avenue subway spent more on consultants than it spent on digging tunnels:
Mamdani has pledged to audit the Department of Education's 25 largest contracts (the DOE spends $10b/year on outside contractors). He's rolling out "fiscal training and certification" for any government employee involved in procurement.
Mamdani isn't pretending he can bridge the gap that Adams left in the city's finances through efficiency alone: to make up the difference, he is going to tax NYC's millionaires, and ask the state to "rebalance" its relationship with NYC's taxpayers (NYC contributes 54.4% of the state budget, but only gets 40.5% in return).
As Lynch writes, NYC was the birthplace of austerity-driven outsourcing, following from the city's bankruptcy in 1975. 50 years later, Mamdani is bringing that age to a close.
Mamdani knows what the stakes are, too. He called efficiency "the most paramount left-wing concern, because it is either the fulfillment or the betrayal of that which motivates so much of our politics":
Mamdani is reviving the tradition of "sewer socialism," a governing philosophy based on "bringing people into your politics by improving their lives in obvious ways":
Sewer socialism, public excellence, real efficiency: these are the (good) mirror world versions of the right's obsession with "government efficiency." On the conservative side of the mirror, "efficiency" is an excuse for hamstringing government employees and turning their budgets over to lazy, crooked contractors. On the left's side of the mirror, "efficiency" is building capacity in democratically accountable institutions that care about helping every person, and who deliver tomorrow's excellence by making long-term investments today.
Image:
DAVID ILIFF (modified)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_York_Midtown_Skyline_at_night_-_Jan_2006_edit1.jpg
CC BY-SA 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
CONOR RYAN LYNCH (b. March 29, 1900) is the only child of Cillian Lynch and Orla O’Rourke, a Hufflepuff, a healer, and the maternal grandfather of Cian, Ryan, Cara, Sara, and Conor O’Donnell. In some ways, Conor Lynch is one of the my first fankids… if only because he existed as the quads’ grandfather before Cillian and Orla even took shape. Despite this, Conor is still the eldest of his generation and the eldest of all my legacy/Victorian era fankids, with his first cousin coming seven years after he was born. He is also my only fankid with a truly rocky relationship with both of his parents.
KEIRA WILLOW KHANNA-O’DONNELL (b. February 22, 2003) is the firstborn daughter of Akio and Hana Kishi, the adopted daughter of Cara O’Donnell and Rowan Khanna, a Gryffindor, and a historian. Keira might not appear the firstborn, as she was tragically orphaned as a young infant and was adopted a few months later. She’s also not the oldest amongst the O’Donnell cousins, but Keira’s an only child. She’s a sweet kid with influence from all four of her parents.
↳ for @endlessly-cursed’s fankid appreciation event
Favorite Subjects: Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Study of Ancient Runes
Least Favorite Subjects: Flying, Potions
Extracurriculars: Prefect, head boy
Hobbies: Reading, gardening, playing the piano, stamp collecting, coin collecting
Personality: Reserved, loyal, hardworking, has a sarcastic side, kind, friendly, gregarious, a slightly skittish nature, intelligent, stubborn, introverted, loving, cautious
About Conor: The first Lynch to be sorted into Hufflepuff in over a century, Conor is both very similar and very different to his parents and has a very complicated relationship with them, as they both overcorrected in their attempts to not be like their own parents. This means that Conor learned to be independent at a younger age than most of his peers. However, that never affected him too much as Conor has always had a rather serious bend. He’s quite a private person, but he is very kind, friendly, and has a gregarious nature around people that he is comfortable with. He does enjoy being around people, even though he’s got a slightly skittish nature. He’s also quite intelligent, stubborn, and cautious.
Conor never really has a good relationship with either of his parents and in the Tadhg Lives AU, he runs away at the age of 12 and begins living with his uncle and aunt. His relationship with his parents never gets the chance to heal either, as they both pass away before they could. However, in the Tadhg Lives AU, he does reconcile with his mother shortly before she passes away and he gets the opportunity to introduce her to his two children, Doyle and Ailis.
After graduating from Hogwarts, Conor becomes a healer like his daughter and youngest granddaughter. He also marries Ciara Mallon, a muggleborn from Derry in Northern Ireland. He falls for Ciara quite quickly and is surprised that they never ran into one another while at Hogwarts. He has two children with Ciara, a son named Doyle Brannigan who was born on December 13, 1925, and a daughter named Ailis Ciara who was born on March 24, 1936. Conor loved both of his children, but he ended up feeling quite wary about the direction his son was heading. The boy was acting much like Conor’s father had and he found that concerning, but his son ignored everything that Conor said causing a rift to form between father and son. His relationship with his daughter was much better and he was quite happy to give her away to a muggleborn man from Donegal named Seán O’Donnell. Sadly, Conor never gets the chance to meet any of his grandchildren as he contracted a fatal case of dragon pox in 1964, while his daughter was pregnant with his first grandchild.
Trivia:
Conor’s youngest grandson is named after him. His middle grandson is also named after him, but more indirectly and it also honors his grandson’s paternal grandfather.
Conor’s relationship with his son went downhill after an argument during the Christmas holidays of 1943. It was bad and nothing was ever the same again. Conor was very heartbroken by their falling out and did try to reach out to his son a few times, but Doyle never replied.
Conor’s relationships with his parents were always rather rocky. They didn’t always get along and well, Conor found himself being a bit of a black sheep in the family. In fact, Conor pretty much sets a new precedent for the Lynch family and it’s his children that end this particular branch of the Lynch family.
About Saoirse: As the younger daughter, Saoirse has always felt like she needs to compare herself to her older sister, which couldn’t be further from the truth. She might be similar in personality to her sister, but she’s also very different and her parents have always avoided comparing their children. In fact, Saoirse takes after her mother more so than her sister does, although she does have a lot of her father’s impulsivity and spontaneous nature. She’s an outgoing girl with a lot of intelligence and is quite fond of quidditch. She also has a very close relationship with her twin brother, Oscar, and her relationship with her sister is occasionally contentious.
Upon starting her education at Hogwarts, Saoirse was sorted into Gryffindor just like her father had been and found herself right at home there. Perhaps it was because she had grown up around a lot of different Gryffindors and had a lot of good role models to look up to from that house. She also discovered a true passion in quidditch, earning the position of chaser in her fourth year after she spent the summer practicing with her father and some of her “cousins.”
Despite her passion for quidditch, Saoirse’s ambition had always been to follow in her mother’s footsteps to become an auror. As a child, she had grown up listening to stories about what her mother had done during her early years as a field auror and she had always been completely fascinated by the stories. After graduating, Saoirse made that dream a reality, joining the auror training program as one of five girls in the class of thirty-five.
Trivia:
Saoirse’s middle name is after her godmother, who is basically the closest her father has to a sister.
Saoirse loves to hold it over Oscar’s head that she’s five minutes older than him.
𝙾𝚜𝚌𝚊𝚛 𝙾𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚗 𝙻𝚢𝚗𝚌𝚑
Nicknames: Os, Oz
Name Meanings: Oscar → Irish, “god spear or deer lover or champion warrior” ; Theodore → Greek, “gift of God” ; Lynch → Irish, “mariner.”
Date of Birth: October 10, 1912 (at 5:14 pm)
Gender: Male ; he/him
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw
Faceclaim: Iain Armitage
Parents: Tadhg Lynch and Niamh Kelly
Sisters: Aisling Maeve and Saoirse Brigid Lynch
Patronus: Irish wolfhound (like his father)
Favorite Subjects: Flying, arithmancy, study of ancient runes
Least Favorite Subjects: Herbology, potions
Extracurriculars: Seeker on his house quidditch team in his third year ; prefect
About Oscar: As the only son, Oscar tends to take after his father more so than his mother. However, he lacks his father’s interest in mischief. He’s a quiet, reserved person with a logical and rational nature that’s accompanied by a kind and curious nature as well. He’s always felt like an individual, likely because he is the only son and that he’s never felt a desire to compare himself to his sisters… aside from in a competitive sense but that’s mostly reserved for the quidditch pitch. He has a close relationship with his twin sister, Saoirse, and a good relationship with his sister, Aisling, and his parents.
Upon starting Hogwarts, Oscar was sorted into Ravenclaw, where he excelled in many of his classes and found himself at home in the house. He liked the connection to his mother and he also had a few “cousins” in the house, so there were some familiar faces to turn to. He also truly found quidditch and fell in love with it, just like his sister did and like his sister, he didn’t devote his life to quidditch. Unlike his sister, though, Oscar became a prefect in his fifth year and he found the position to be interesting. He learned that he preferred to work by himself and he didn’t want to be one to have too much power. Instead, after graduating, Oscar found himself inheriting the Kelly farm after his grandfather passed and he became quite the magical farmer… something no one ever expected from him.
Trivia:
Oscar is named after his mother’s late older brother, Ronan Oscar Kelly who passed away as a very young child. His middle name is after family friends.
𝙷𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚢 𝙶𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚑 𝙿𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚛𝚘𝚔𝚎
Nicknames: Harry, Hank
Name Meanings: Henry → German, “estate ruler” ; Gareth → Welsh, “gentle” ; Pembroke → Welsh, “from the headland or rocky hill.”
Date of Birth: January 1, 1906
Gender: Male ; he/him
Sexuality: Demisexual
Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw
Faceclaims: Cory Gruter Andrew & Nicholas Ralph
Parents: Maxwell “Max” Pembroke and Ivy Anders (@kc-and-co)
Siblings: Colin Jeremiah, Andrew Lucan, and Margo Francine Pembroke
Favorite Subjects: Astronomy, charms, transfiguration, history of magic
Least Favorite Subjects: Study of Ancient Runes
Extracurriculars: Astronomy club
Hobbies: Reading, chess, star gazing
Personality: Reliable, reserved, kind, intelligent, competitive (mostly with his siblings), sarcastic, curious, well spoken, hardworking, stubborn, quiet, dry wit
About Harry: As the eldest son, Harry generally has a rather serious demeanor. He takes after his father a lot in temperament and demeanor, although Harry has never felt the weight of the world on his shoulders. He’s much more uptight than his siblings, although he does have a close bond with his younger brother, Andrew. In addition, Harry is a bit closer to his mother than he is his father. There’s no real reason, aside from the fact that Harry spent a bit more time with his mother than he did his father.
Upon starting his education at Hogwarts, Harry was sorted into Ravenclaw. He was a hatstall between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, though. He didn’t join the quidditch team, though, as he had a slight desire to rebel against his family’s quidditch passions. It wasn’t big, but he found his own passions and interests, although he did continue to support quidditch teams.
After graduating from Hogwarts, Harry became an astronomer. He had always been fascinated by space and paid close attention to the advancements that the muggles were making. In addition, Harry fell in love with Lucy Devlin, a magiczoologist and fellow Ravenclaw alumn. Together, they had three children: Dorothy Josephine “Dot,” Eamon William, and Rosemary Ivy Pembroke.
Trivia:
Harry’s middle name is after his late paternal grandfather, Gareth Rhys Pembroke.
Like all three of his siblings, Harry knows the sign language that his Aunt Aoife uses and has learned it since birth, more or less.
Harry doesn’t really respond to the name “Henry.” He mostly hates being called it. Lucy is the only one he really allows to call him “Henry,” though.
Harry is the great-grandfather of Sophia Josephine “Sophie” Pembroke and her two siblings, Rhys Andrew and Emmeline Daisy “Emmy” Pembroke.
𝙼𝚊𝚛𝚐𝚘 𝙵𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝙿𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚛𝚘𝚔𝚎
Nicknames: None
Name Meanings: Margo → French, “pearl” ; Francine → French, “from France or free man” ; Pembroke → Welsh, “from the headland or rocky hill.”
Date of Birth: June 8, 1911
Gender: Female ; she/her
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff
Faceclaim: McKenna Grace
Parents: Maxwell “Max” Pembroke and Ivy Anders (@kc-and-co)
Brothers: Henry Gareth “Harry,” Colin Jeremiah, and Andrew Lucan Pembroke
Patronus: Borzoi
Favorite Subjects: Charms, herbology, potions
Least Favorite Subjects: Transfiguration, astronomy
Extracurriculars: Seeker on her house quidditch team
About Margo: As the only daughter and youngest child, Margo takes after her mother a lot. She has her mother’s warm and friendly nature, but it’s coupled with her father’s reserved and anxiety-prone nature. These balance each other out, though. In addition, Margo has a close relationship with her father and with her brother, Colin. Colin is her favorite person to prank, because Colin will get involved and enjoy them.
Upon starting her education at Hogwarts, Margo was sorted into Hufflepuff, just like both of her parents had been. She found her footing in Hufflepuff quite quickly, feeling at home early on in her first year. In her third year, she made the Hufflepuff quidditch team with the position of seeker. She enjoyed the position, but hated the way everyone immediately compared her to her father. Therefore, when the opportunity to play other positions emerged, Margo jumped at the opportunity, but she always came back to seeker.
Despite her passion for quidditch, Margo never went professional. She enjoyed it as more of a pastime or hobby. Instead, she went on to become a quidditch journalist, reporting on the different games throughout the British and Irish league. She also dabbled in other writing pursuits like fiction, but never took them professional during her lifetime.
Trivia:
Like her father, Margo is allergic to cats.
Margo inherited her mother’s ability to change her hair color. However, she also inherited her mother’s limitations, meaning that the only colors she can change her hair to are blonde and brunette.
One of Margo’s favorite pastimes is pranking her brothers. She loves to mess with them, especially when they start getting on her nerves. She has started more than one prank war with Colin, as he’s the brother that willingly goes along with it.
𝙻𝚞𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚊 𝙹𝚘𝚜𝚎𝚙𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝙳𝚎𝚟𝚕𝚒𝚗
Full Name: Lucretia Josephine Devlin
Nicknames: Lucy, Lu, Lucy-Lu
Name Meanings: Lucretia → Latin, unknown meaning ; Josephine → French, “Jehovah increases” ; Devlin → Irish, “unlucky.”
Date of Birth: April 7, 1909 (at 7:38 pm)
Gender: Female ; she/her
Sexuality: Bisexual
Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw
Faceclaims: Kyla Matthews & Clemence Posey
Parents: William Devlin and Josie Edwards (@slytherindisaster)
Siblings: Samuel Oliver, Emmeline Shannon, Sebastian Liam, and Matilda Grace “Mattie” Devlin
About Lucy: As the younger twin and middle daughter, Lucy struggles to find her footing. She’s the middle child, in every way, and while she definitely doesn’t feel like a middle child, Lucy struggles to understand her own role in the family. She is her mother’s daughter, though, and they share many similarities in personality. Lucy takes great pride in their similarities. Aside from her twin, she’s closest to Mattie, although she has never truly shared her sister’s desire for creative pursuits.
Upon starting Hogwarts, Lucy is sorted into Ravenclaw after ten minutes of the hat debating if she would fit better in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. She became comfortable in Ravenclaw quite quickly, which was likely helped by the fact that her twin had also been placed there and so, Lucy had a familiar face to turn to. Luckily, the students and people around them were able to understand that Emmeline and Lucy were different people, even if they were quite similar.
After graduating from Hogwarts, Lucy followed her mother’s footsteps into the field of magiozoology. She became fascinated by moon calves and augries, in particular. In addition, Lucy also fell in love with Harry Pembroke, an astronomer and a fellow Ravenclaw alumn. They had three children together: Dorothy Josephine “Dot,” Eamon William, and Rosemary Ivy Pembroke.
Trivia:
Lucy’s family are the only ones who call her “Lucy-Lu.” Harry Pembroke is the only one who calls her “Lu.” Everyone else calls her “Lucy” and that’s the way that she likes it.
Lucy’s middle name is in honor of her mother.
As a child, she would bring home all sorts of injured animals that she found while exploring the land surrounding the family’s home.
As an adult, the Devlin-Pembroke house is home to many different creatures, most of which Lucy had brought home.
Lucy is the great-grandmother of Sophia Josephine “Sophie” Pembroke and her siblings, Rhys Andrew and Emmeline Daisy “Emmy” Pembroke.
𝚂𝚎𝚋𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚊𝚗 𝙻𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳𝚎𝚟𝚕𝚒𝚗
Nicknames: Seb, Bastian
Name Meanings: Sebastian → Latin, “person from the ancient city of Sebastia” ; Liam → Irish, “resolute protection” ; Devlin → Irish, “unlucky”
Date of Birth: November 22, 1916 (at 1:12 am)
Gender: Male ; he/him
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff
Faceclaim: Will Tilston
Parents: William Devlin and Josie Edwards (@slytherindisaster)
Siblings: Samuel Oliver, Emmeline Shannon, Lucretia Josephine “Lucy,” and Matilda Grace “Mattie” Devlin
Patronus: Great Grey Owl
Favorite Subjects: Charms, history of magic
Least Favorite Subjects: Potions
Extracurriculars: Seeker on his house team, starting in his third year
Hobbies: Quidditch, fencing, reading
Personality: Reserved, cautious, compassionate, kind, loyal, hardworking, intelligent, strong sense of fairness, practical, athletic, modest, reliable, humble, helpful, stubborn, conscientious
About Sebastian: As the younger son, Sebastian is the child that takes after his father the most… at least in terms of personality. He also is, perhaps, the closest to William as well. They just click quite well. In addition, aside from his twin (of course), Sebastian is probably the closest to his big brother, Samuel. He absolutely adores his big brother, in a way that happened due to their ten year age gap. He doesn’t feel the need to rebel against their parents the way that Samuel does, though.
When he started his education at Hogwarts, Sebastian was sorted into Hufflepuff. For the first time in his life, Sebastian found himself separated from Mattie, which left him panicked for the first few weeks. Slowly, though, Sebastian found his place within Hufflepuff house. He joined the quidditch team in his third year, earning the position of seeker. He wouldn’t pursue it as a career, but he quite enjoyed the sport.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given his similarities to his father, Sebastian ends up becoming a wandmaker after he graduates from Hogwarts. He never became a big name like Ollivander’s or Gregorovitch. Instead, he kept a small practice and preferred it that way.
Trivia:
Sebastian is ten minutes older than his twin sister, Mattie.
His middle name is after both his father and great-grandfather. His great-grandfather was named Liam, which is an Irish variation of William.
Born seven years after Emmeline and Lucy, Sebastian (and his twin sister) was a surprise baby.
His siblings are the only ones who really call him “Seb” or “Bastian.” He prefers “Bastian,” but would really just like to be called Sebastian.
He is a very good fencer, besting all four of his siblings quite often.
𝙼𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚕𝚍𝚊 𝙶𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚎 𝙳𝚎𝚟𝚕𝚒𝚗
Nicknames: Mattie, Tilly
Name Meanings: Matilda → German, “battle mighty” ; Grace → English, virtue name ; Devlin → Irish, “unlucky.”
Date of Birth: November 22, 1916 (at 1:22 am)
Gender: Female ; she/her
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Hogwarts House: Slytherin
Faceclaim: Florence Hunt
Parents: William Devlin and Josie Edwards (@slytherindisaster)
Siblings: Samuel Oliver, Emmeline Shannon, Lucretia Josephine “Lucy,” and Sebastian Liam Devlin
Patronus: Basset hound
Favorite Subjects: Care of magical creatures, astronomy
About Mattie: As the youngest daughter, Mattie is the only one of her siblings to have a creative passion. She is quite fond of the piano and can often be found playing a piano during gatherings. In addition, she’s quite fond of painting, although she’s not interested in making a career out of it. Aside from her creative passions, Mattie has a close relationship with her siblings. Besides her twin, Mattie is probably the closest to her sister, Lucy.
When she started her education, Mattie was sorted into Slytherin. Finding herself separated from Sebastian for the first time, Mattie found her footing surprisingly quickly. She joined the Slytherin quidditch team in her fourth year, earning the position of keeper. She enjoyed the sport, but not as much as either of her brothers.
After graduating from Hogwarts, Mattie became a tutor/governess. She wasn’t thrilled with the job, struggling to find things that felt fulfilling. She found fulfillment, though, when she began to teach music to young girls. It was a satisfying move.
Trivia:
Mattie is ten minutes younger than her twin brother, Sebastian.
Her siblings are the only people who ever call her “Tilly.” They only do it when they want to get on her nerves. Sebastian tends to do it the most often, but she’ll call him “Seb” in return.
Born seven years after Emmeline and Lucy, Mattie and her twin brother were surprise babies.
