Loony Lovegood's Lore

no one:

me: here’s a flow chart of 41 lgbtq+ book recommendations, have fun!

“What? No, I’m Edward. Y'know, Slytherin’s resident Weasley?”

“Wh…huh???”

“Next you’ll be telling me you don’t know Hubert!”

When I started, I didn’t yet identify as asexual or aromantic spectrum. I hadn’t really heard of them before. But in the first few years I was on Tumblr, there were so many ace and aro people, proud, talking about their experiences, sharing jokes and puns, inventing terms for their experiences (squish, zucchini, WTFromantic, etcetera, etcetera). It was wonderful. I learned that I wasn’t alone and what I was feeling wasn’t freakishly unique. I started identifying as ace and arospec. I started an ace/aro humor blog, which got very popular.

Then exclusionists suddenly started appearing. They attacked everyone with a wiff of non-alloness and attacked anyone who defended them. They threw around accusations of homophobia, pedophilia, racism, anything they could think of. There was massive discourse. Everyone was in turmoil.

Ace/aro people stopped talking about their experiences because they knew they would be jumped on. We stopped using our words because we knew they would be used against us. We shut down our blogs to desperately try to escape the hate, anonymous and personal. I shut down my humor blog which had given so many people innocent laughter. People took their identities out of their descriptions - including me - because we knew they would be quoted and used as weapons in debate.

Then, the exclusionists died down.

I want to make this very clear. You don’t see less exclusionist debate now because the exclusionists died off. You see it because the ace and aro people did - or at least pretended to. We stopped being proud, and laughing, and using our words. They’re not attacking us anymore because we’re in hiding. I can’t remember the last time I heard someone happily talking about their squish or their zucchini. (And I bet you’re thinking, right now, how silly those words are, aren’t you? That’s what they’ve done. They’ve taken our playfulness and used it to belittle and demean us.)

Exclusionists have moved on to the “queer is a slur” battle because they already won this one. They already beat ace and aro people into submission and now they’re moving on to queer people.

I’ve seen the rise and fall of ace and aro people on Tumblr. This is not our rise. It is our fall.

I’m in a queerplatonic relationship with an aroace person and a demiaro ace person and I love them both so much.

I will not tolerate any sort of aspec hate on my blog, I’ve never felt more at home than with the aspec community, for this community is so full of wonderful people.

Valentine’s Day, 8th year 💖

The Owlery Exchange is an anonymous penpal exchange where one correspondent writes as Harry and the other writes as Draco. 

It runs concurrently with the Game of Drarry game/fest Drarryland,  is a bonus opportunity to earn points for Drarryland players, however, you do NOT have to be a Drarryland player to participate in the Owlery Exchange!

Signup for the Owlery here!

Read more about it below.

Hi!

First I want to be prefectly clear that everything I say in this post is 100% subjective. If you disagree with any of it, you’re right. I’m right too, but only as far as my own perspective is concerned. There’s no objective way to determine whether or not porn is “good”-it either works for you or it doesn’t. And what works for one person will leave another person flat, and both reactions are valid.

That said, I’m still going to give my opinion on how to write what I personally think is an effective sex scene. 😁 Take it with a shaker of salt if you like.

For the sake of propriety and my own peace of mind, I politely request that if you’re under 18 you scroll on by.

So.

A lot of people are intimidated by writing sex scenes. The thing is, they’re just scenes, no different than a scene in which characters are eating or fighting or doing anything else. I think they work best when approached this way.

What makes a good scene, then? Ideally, a scene should a) reveal characterisation b) provide information and c) move the plot forward. If you can give it a narrative arc including conflict, then even better.

If you can cut the scene without impacting the story at all, you’re missing an opportunity. If you could substitute any random characters with the one’s you’re writing, same. If you could cut and paste the scene into a different story with different characters… You get it. Sex scenes should be intentional and specific.

I personally get frustrated (in several ways) when reading porn that might be very detailed as far as mechanics are concerned but which neglects emotion, characterisation and story. I’m a huge UST junkie, I crave it, but only when it’s properly paid off. I’ve read too many fics that create gorgeous sexual tension between the characters, beautifully written fics suffused with emotion that winds you up to the point where you’d sell a child (yours or someone else’s) just to finally see the characters get it on, only to see all that lovely suspense disintegrate into a mechanical description of various body parts doing various things and eventually spurting various substances. 🤨 And then I want to punch a wall.

The emotion and psychology is so, so much more important than the explicitness or the mechanics. Especially as there’s only so much variation possible in the mechanics and once you’ve read your first 300 explicit fics it all starts getting old and boring and not hot. Additionally, it’s the emotion and psychology that draws us into the characters’ heads, getting us to feel what they’re feeling, and thus producing hotness.

I’ll give some examples of sexy scenes that I think work particularly well and then explain why.

The first scene from The Light More Beautiful by @firethesound is a good example.

(Warning for gentle dub-con: Harry accidentally creates lust potion and antics ensue.)

There’s some pretty amazing description of the mechanics, but also running commentary of what Draco is experiencing emotionally and psychologically, and it’s very specific to who he is as a character and what’s going on in his life at that moment. The scene has a beginning, middle and end and once it’s over things have changed for both characters and the story has progressed. So: 👍👍💯🔥🔥

I’m certain that many people will passionately disagree with my next point, and that’s totally cool, but I honest to god think you can write a great sex scene without going into the details of body parts and what they’re doing at all.

Here’s a bit from Such Great Heights by softlyforgotten: (I’m noticing that out of context the scene might not look entirely consensual, but I promise you, it very much is.)

It’s not explicit at all. The word “cock” never appears. And yet It’s one of the most memorable and effective sex scenes I’ve read, because I’m deeply in Harry’s PoV and carried alway with what he’s feeling enough that I can feel and picture it clearly. I don’t need the specific details.

I think that sometimes too much detailed description of cocks and assholes and balls and fluids can make a sex scene boring and generic, especially when it’s not laced through with plot, psychology and emotion. I’m not saying don’t include them! I’m saying, balance is a good thing and sometimes less is more. And that while describing cocks, arseholes, balls and fluids is all well and good, seeing those bits through the specific perspective of a character is better.

Like: “Harry’s huge cock hardened and began to leak at the tip” vs “Fingers trembling, Harry unzipped his fly and pulled himself out. Draco dug his fingernails into his palms, going a bit dizzy. Potter was huge. And he’d gone pink-faced as Draco stared at him, deliciously bashful.”

Do you see what I mean?

But to add on to the perspective of feeling vs explicit sex: While I T O T A L L Y agree that emotion should be present (any, all: adoration, confusion, rage, need, longing), I do have trouble reading fics or books that over-emote during the sex. It never feels like a satisfying resolution of the UST to me. That balance can be a hard one to structure, to be sure — you have to find a way to make it feel urgent, even when it’s slow, to make it feel important even if both of the characters insist that it isn’t, to establish feelings while rarely making direct reference to them. Personally, I dislike the immediate spelling out of feelings during sex (at least until the climax of the fic, if it’s not a previously-established relationship), and there’s a difference between something like, “Draco’s voice in his ear made him shudder. He could feel it throughout his whole body, his chest aching and growing tight, and his cock growing harder in Draco’s hand at the sound of his own whispered name,” and something like, “Draco whispered Harry’s name in his ear as he thrust and Harry loved him so much, his sudden orgasm was like floating through the clouds of pure emotion.” (Or whatever.)

Which Hogwarts house are you? 

Who is your favourite professor at Hogwarts?

Would you have an owl, cat, or toad?

Favourite character and why?

Pro or anti Marauders? 

Avada Kedavra, Crucio, or Imperio?

Favourite book and why?

Who do you think was the best father figure towards Harry?

Favourite movie and why?

Which character do you relate to most, and why?

Who was the most evil character?

Thoughts on Severus Snape?

Who was the bravest character in Harry Potter and why?

Best subject at Hogwarts?

Worst subject at Hogwarts?

Who would be your enemy or enemies at Hogwarts?

Who would be your best friend at Hogwarts?

If available, would you use a love potion on someone?

Favourite Weasley?

Favourite Death Eater?

What would your boggart be?

What is your patronus? 

Fuck, marry, kill *Insert 3 characters*

How do you feel about Cursed Child?