#sugarsnapspiels

[sugarsnappeases]

i need to know what u think about jily

hi....... the only way that jily interests me is A) when they try so so hard to make things work for years but ultimately decide they need to go their separate ways or B) when one or both of them dies, like in canon but also esp. when lily kills james and maybe harry too <33

in this essay, i will discuss option A but if you want there is MUCH to discuss for option B........

for me. jily is like. james who is in love with the idealised version of lily that he created when he was like eleven and decided that she was going to be the love of his life and they were going to have their happily ever after forever and ever amen. the lily he loves is one he made up over years of pining and one that ultimately does not exist. lily, similarly, isn't so much in love with james but with what he represents and what that means for her. he's what everyone expects, a good, well-off man who can provide and care for her and who has been loudly declaring his love for her for years. he's something solid and the inevitable next step in her life and their relationship is a kind of wartime whirlwind spurred on by the feeling that maybe they're running out of time (they are) and by the fact that as far as everyone is concerned, they're perfect for each other.

i think a lot about them during those long months in hiding, just them and baby harry and the realisation that maybe they don't actually know each other all that well or have anything to say to each other or all that much in common. they've never really spent a lot of time one-on-one before. i imagine those months as very quiet and very lonely and filled with a lot of revelations about their relationship that they tell themselves they'll deal w when the war is over. obvs in canon that never happens.

in a non-canon context, i think they're both incredibly stubborn, and convinced that they're right for each other and this is the life they want, and, without the isolation that arose from their specific war-time circumstances, it would take them a long time to realise that their marriage is built on the foundation of fundamentally failing to understand and see each other for who they are. and even when they do realise this, it takes a long time for either of them to do anything about it bc, like i said, stubborn, but also. terrified of what it means if the one thing that's always felt certain and inevitable, is falling to pieces around them. they're scared of those uncharted waters, and also a little embarrassed, and also entirely horrified at what's become of them. they're clinging to the broken pieces of the façade that was their relationship.

i think this is also a very internal thing, in terms of like each of them internally, but also mainly in terms of the breakdown of their marriage mostly taking place behind closed doors, in their house, where it's just the two of them (and baby harry) and there's no one to perform in front of. and they argue and they cry and they try to hold things together and eventually they both come to the realisation that they can't do it anymore, no matter how scary and unknown whatever comes next is, and quietly go through the process of a divorce. their relationship begins with bright swirling colours and loud glittering celebration and a kind of manufactured joy and ends with a messy kind of honesty, and closure even if i kinda think they'll never fully understand each other, and horror & guilt & anger & fear about the time wasted and the times to come...... so.........

[sugarsnappeases]

lucissa

except it’s genderbent narcissa (inspired by this post zar made that’s had me climbing walls) AND both of them are trans women <3

been losing my mind about this all day…… secret relationship when they’re both closeted, and they don’t tell each other either. two hopeless romantics thinking they’ve found their grand sweeping doomed love. romeo and juliet but both of them think they’re juliet. swan lake but both of them think they’re odette. but then! the plot thickens! narcissa, as the third born ‘son’, the spare’s spare, has a lot more freedom and agency over her life and eventually, she transitions… this obvs comes with its own problems and now she has to be Married and its a whole thing w the blacks. but there’s lucius, who loves her, who’s been seeing her in secret for years, who can now see her publicly bc she’s a woman, and who has the agency to choose who to marry as the sole malfoy heir - the solution to all of narcissa’s problems! maybe their love isn’t doomed! and so, naturally, lucius marries her… but!! altho lucius can choose a bride, she is her parent’s only son, their legacy, and she doesn’t have the freedom to do what narcissa did and transition too. and ohhhh how the resentment builds. watching narcissa being the woman that lucius so desperately wants to be, knowing that they’ve experienced such similar things but still not speaking about it, the jealousy and hatred and self-loathing that gradually encroaches on their love, on their happiness, on their neat, tidy solution that maybe was neither neat nor tidy in the first place. bc narcissa is fighting with herself too… fighting w her twisted obsession w (genderbent!) bellatrix, and being a Better Son than him, and being more powerful, and more worthy of being heir, and basically just Being him except she NEVER CAN be him bc she’s never been a son in the first place and it makes her resent lucius too for being the ‘man’ version of her and being the malfoy head of house and being able to bear that….. and they end up entirely miserable and angry and lonely and they never!! talk!! about any of this!!!!! ever!!!! yay!!!!!

[sugarsnappeases]

peter pettigrew

mil @static-radio-ao3 and i have been doing some deep thinking about our dear pete.......

primarily, we decided that he grew up w a lot of siblings, in a middle class family who lived on a farmhouse in the countryside with a wood nearby that they all spent a lot of time exploring. constant muddy wellies and scabbed knees from climbing trees and splashing about in the stream. the chaos of a busy house that's filled w love. think nanny mcphee, swallows and amazons, lost boys vibes

peter is the second oldest. and he's basically a mischievous little woodland sprite. like he's incredibly cherubic-looking and generally thought to be a ‘lovely, polite young man’, old ladies loooove to pinch his cheeks, but he's got this glint in his eye that's just a little too sharp, his laughter a little too mean, his pranks a little too cruel. and he's always up to one trick or another, plotting some mischief with one of his siblings.

when he gets to hogwarts and meets the other marauders, he's the one with that trickster experience, like actually who would the others have been pranking before hogwarts yk...... so i like to think that maybe pete was the one who set them off on their mischief and mayhem path, bc he loves having co-conspirators when he plays his silly little tricks on people. (also mil and i've decided that he and peeves got along swimmingly, and that pete was the one to convince the marauders to go into the forbidden forest the first time, and that he was very good at finding hidden corridors and rooms x)

but. at the end of the day. our peter is always more loyal to himself than to anyone else. he enjoys being a part of a group, and really it's all he's ever known (w his siblings, and then the marauders, and then later the death eaters) but when all is said and done, he's always going to put himself first and do what would best serve him.

and we don't think his betrayal of his friends was some huge premeditated thing. it's this kinda spur of the moment, whimsical, childlike impulsivity. and he sees a chance to get in w this new group - a group that's clearly powerful, and let's face it defo winning the war at that point - and be a part of Something and prove a point and Show Them All and he doesn't really fully think through what his actions mean....... which ofc leaves so much beautiful, interesting room for regret!!!!!

like. telling voldemort the potter's address is such an abstract kind of thing. he's not the one physically murdering them. so i think the realisation of what's he's done and what he's lost wouldn't really sink in until after he's cut off a finger and framed sirius and run away to live as a rat. direct quote from mil bc i think it's perfect: he comes down from the high of having won and he doesn't quite know what he's won but he doesn't have anyone to tell, anyone who will pat him on the back and ruffle his hair.

stage w no audience. yk the vibe. he’s won, he's proved Something, but there's nobody left to celebrate w him. he's lost something incredibly vital to him, the best years of his life. he hasn't got a Group anymore... and that's ultimately a part of why he eventually goes to bring voldemort back bc that's the only group he has left after everything. even if mil and i decided that at least one of his siblings should still be alive :)

also, before he brings back voldemort, his stay w the weasleys. a very similar vibe to the pettigrew household growing up and peter chooses to stay there w them for twelve years. bc it's comfortable and painful and maybe a form of denial or punishment or desperate longing for something that has long slipped away.......

anyway, i've only known him for two days but he is infinitely precious to me :))

[sugarsnappeases]

good evening to all sybarty understanders

they’re the only two people left in the world. they’re the saaaame but the opposite. haunted and alone and clinging desperately to their identities bc it’s all that they have left. they both struggle w their control over their own mind - for sybill, this fight is w interior forces in her visions and the way they blur the lines of reality. and for barty, obvs exterior forces ie. the imperius & the dementors etc etc - and this means they can understand each other in a way that no one else really can. it’s specific and purposeful - interactions that remind them of the fact that they are in control of themselves and their environments, that they are real and present (bonus level of fuckery w barty wearing moody’s body btw. all he has is his mind in a way that sybill doesn’t quite ever have her’s…..). they’re grounding each other and unravelling each other and also i cannot stress enough that they are the Only Ones Left. they’re familiarity but also a stark reminder of everything that’s changed, everything they’ve lost. two people that probs should have died a long time ago and sybill is miserable, and guilt-ridden, and wishes she had died and barty is angry, and vengeful, and staying alive out of spite but the important thing is that they are alive. and that they’re alive together….. until they’re not (barty dies xoxox sybill is alone again xoxoxox)

[sugarsnappeases]

bellacissy - the summer after andy leaves

it’s both bella and cissy sneaking into andy’s bed after she’s gone. it’s the room already being stripped bare by their parents, now a guest room that they’ll never use, like andy never even existed. it’s clinging to memories of the three of them tangled up in that same bed, giggling together late at night, andy kissing them both goodnight, a silly, innocent, sisterly routine.

it’s the only traces of andy that they can find being in each other.

they’re desperately trying to fill the gap that andy left behind, the barrier she always was between them - both physically between them on the bed when they were little and in terms of her being the middle sister. she was always between them, balancing them, and without her things just swing wildly into extremes. the oldest and the youngest sister become just the older and the younger sister. the innocent pecks on the lips become something much more than that.

trying to fill the void that andy left by pulling each other closer than ever before, and to them they don’t see it as weird, it’s just like . comfort. they just miss their sister and want her back and don’t know how to express that. bella wants to take care of cissy and be her protector and try to make sure that she won’t leave like andy did. cissy wants the comfort and to be looked after and bella looks so much like andy that, in the middle of the night, when she can feel bella, maybe she can pretend that andy’s still there.

and it’s only for this one summer, in the immediate aftermath of andy leaving, and they never speak about it or tell anyone. it’s insular and intimate and they never even consider that there might be something weird about it. and maybe in public they’re more distant than usual bc they haven’t got andy to tether them together, to be the bridge between them, but in private, at night, in andy’s bed, where they can allow themselves to miss andy, even if they still don’t speak about it, they have this brief, intense, desperate, miserable, twisted closeness that transgresses the boundary that had always been between them when andy was there, when they were sisters like they were supposed to be, the three of them.

[sugarsnappeases]

circus au

brought to you by @quillkiller and i's shared board & text messages, and building on this post

it's all overwhelming glitz and glamour and bright, hot lights that dazzle the audience so they don't realise that there's something Not Quite Right about all of it. they don't realise that the ringmaster is slightly sinisterly Alive, his smiles too wide, his skin too smooth, plasticky and fake and uncanny. they don't realise that the performers have all signed their souls away, the life being slowly sucked out of them even as they stay looking the same age they did when they joined. they're walking corpses, uncomfortably gradually decaying, falling to pieces. unnaturally bendy and eerie on stage but gaunt and rotting when not under the spotlight. eventually they will just be bones (if the circus had lasted that long). tom offers the circus performers everything they've ever wanted, draws them in with his charm and manipulations and endless promises that he twists into nightmares. it's a living purgatory for everyone there (w the exception of the rosier twins who're there On Purpose and walk in w their eyes wide open), endlessly reliving what would be their deaths, or their sins and worst mistakes, in their circus acts. it all burns down in a fire that reg starts.......

[sugarsnappeases]

Can you yap about ritawalburga

hello yes i certainly can!! okay this is all still pretty fresh from the womb and stems from a vision i scribbled down in my notes app a few nights ago when i didn’t have wifi and therefore couldn’t text jen, but it ties in w my mission to make grimmauld place more Fucked Up (can’t remember if i’ve ever spoken about said mission before but. it’s fairly self-explanatory… i want that place haunted and semi-sentient and hungry)

so. basically. we’re post-first war. regulus is dead. sirius is in azkaban (and also disowned so as good as dead, really). orion is deathly ill and then later dead. and it’s just walburga and kreacher living in that big old house.

and grimmauld place is angry.

the wards in grimmauld place have been fed by the blood and the magic and the Presence of centuries of head of houses. lords of the noble and most ancient house of black. and walburga has failed them. sure, she provided the house w an heir and a spare, she did her duty, but then she lost both of them, she Failed. and now there's no heir. no spare. no lord bc orion is dying dying dead. no future for the house of black and grimmauld place is angry and dying and collapsing in on itself, shadows wrapping themselves around walburga's neck and squeezing, filling every crevice with despair and rot etc etc etc

and in canon... one could argue... that walburga's portrait, permanently fixed to the wall in the entrance hall, bigger than any of the other portraits, is her way of trying to assert some control over the house. she can be angry and bitter and hungry too. she is a part of the house too. a part of the legacy of the blacks.

in this au however, there's rita. tenacious reporter going to great lengths to get the scoop on the mystery surrounding orion's illness - he died at 50, he's a wizard, he should've lived a lot longer and it's unusual for illnesses to be incurable in the wizarding world. and she's nasty and determined and she shows up at grimmauld place again and again and again. she tries to ask for an invite to tea, tries to break in, tries to sneak through some sort of crack in her animagus form, tries to spy from outside through windows; she tries all sorts. grimmauld knows, obviously, and is incredibly hostile.

eventually, she asks again if she might visit walburga, and she says yes, because she's lonely or bored or curious or perhaps because she wants to spite the house. they have tea. they talk about nothing for half an hour or so. rita asks if she can visit again. walburga says yes. because rita is interesting and company and she pushes back against the things walburga says in a way that she never gets from kreacher (and she misses that pushback, which left the house with sirius, with orion. not w reg obvs lol). and the house hates it but walburga is angry and bitter and hungry too and she keeps letting rita back in. over and over and over again and they talk and they drink tea and the house is rotting around them, bearing down upon them w it's misery and it's fury, but rita is a spark of life. and maybe she kindles a bit of a fire in the ashes of the hearth. and maybe walburga likes her.

and maybe one day rita says why don't we go somewhere else for a change, and walburga (who hasn't left the house at all in years) says okay. and so she leaves and never comes back.

then, i was texting jen about this, obviously, and she said.... what if the house just completely crumbles when she walks out which is sooooooo sexy. like it just collapses in on itself. slumps down into a lifeless heap until sirius crosses the threshold again later. we also spoke about this ritawalburga happening in the context of the bellareg marriage au which makes me crazy and i would be happy to scream about if anyone wanted. but yes this is my ritawalburga.

[sugarsnappeases]

am i. am i hearing u right. scamandercest?? elaborate pls id love to know more

yes you are indeed hearing me right!!!!! and i would absolutely love to elaborate!!!!!

i think it's a classic case of 'the implications are there', particularly in the third fantastic beasts film. but i like to think that they grew up in a big kinda farm-style household out in the country. a small, cosy cottage with a lot of land surrounding it, just the two of them and their parents and an array of creatures. i like to think that newt spent a lot of time running around and crawling under bushes and wading through the pond looking for said creatures and theseus spent a lot of time running after him and teaching him how to climb trees safely and helping him w his various projects.

i think with their age gap. that theseus is very much an Older Brother, but also that newt has always had a lot of independence. like i think that when theseus goes to hogwarts, newt obvs misses him loads but he has his creatures and he isn't all that lonely even if he's mostly alone. but when newt goes to hogwarts (once theseus has already graduated), theseus HATES IT SO MUCH. SO SO MUCH. even if he's like. fully an adult now and starting his auror training and maybe moving out of the cottage, he always comes back and stays during newt's holidays. he can't stand being in that place when newt's not there but he equally can't stand not being there when newt IS there.

i also think, however, that the main incestuous stuff happens when they're much older. i talked a bit (blathered on somewhat derangedly) the other day about them and leta in the summer after newt and leta's graduation, having an awkward threesome. i think that's the first time anything like physically incestuous happens. and i've since learnt!! that newt actually did go into the ministry for a bit after hogwarts and jen and i were just saying that it was probs the calmest time of theseus' life. like he can have both the people he loves (newt&leta) close to him and safe and i think during this time they all basically live together in that cottage (idk what i want to happen to their parents... will have to ponder them more at some point) but there's a lot of kinda fumbling, not-really-a-relationship but they're all very much in love mess going on there. and they're happy. and it's easy but not forever bc in the end newt can't do it!!!!

he can't stand the bureaucracy of it all. he must be freeeeee. and he's always wanted to travelll and he gets this chance to write 'fantastic beasts' and he takes it and he goes and theseus is trying to hold onto himmm but he'd never try and stop him from going bc he wants newt happy as much as he wants him safe and near. so then there's the separation. and things are strained. and theseus wants him to come home so bad. and he and leta move out of the cottage too. and they get engaged. and newt is meant to be best man. and it's all very tense and they're all a little bit miserable. and then it (the incest) all Properly Kicks Off after leta dies. bc they have no one else left!!!!!!!!!

they have no one else left!!!!!! and theseus has given up on trying to get newt to join the ministry again but he's still determined to protect his younger brother and like. the third film. the entirety of the third film is craaaaazy actually. theseus literally follows newt everywhere and does whatever newt asks him to do, and it's not no-questions-asked bc he's asking questions the whole time but there's never any question about whether or not he would do it. pretty much the only time he's not trailing around after newt is when he gets fucking kidnapped. and then newt comes to SAVE HIM!!! and there's no question about that either. like obviously newt goes to save him. and they hold hands and jen and i screamed. anyway. it's obvious (to me) that they're basically living in each other's pockets. they're both slightly miserable and grieving but they're doing it together and they have each other and they love each other so much and they're sooooo brothers but they're also sooooooo fucking and it makes me insane!!!!!!!!!!