#vivaciousdoe

“Evans,” Sirius says pleasantly, dropping down next to her without asking, and without moving the cloak on the chair that’s presumably hers. After taking a moment to make himself comfortable ---- chair tipped back on two legs, hair swept artfully back from his face ---- he finally focuses his gaze on her.

          « no, it’s fine. » his smile was warm, though he still looked a bit baffled. this had been a lot, he could not deny that, and especially with the amount of sleep he’d missed mending people’s wounds all night long he felt like he would take a while to respond to all of this. but, the thing was, he got it— he got her. so much it almost hurt.

          he brought his cup to his lip and took a sip of the tea he’d made for the both of them. only then he spoke again. « i get it— i mean, this is the only break i’ll get for hours. » not that he could complain— it was mostly his fault he was this restless, and he was fairlysure lily must feel somewhat similar. « iand t’s tiring trying to find people who listen to these things when everyone’s busy trying to prevent your woes from happening in the first place— right?unfortunately there isn’t a cure against it, just— enjoying the moments of calm, i suppose. and drinking your relaxing tea. »

way back in july 2012, i was scrolling through the crystal reed tag — teen wolf was on, and allison argent was the love of my life. and i found a bio posted for an RPG that had crystal reed as astoria’s face claim, and i figured, why not? i was in a rough spot at that moment; my grandfather was very very sick, and i was coming up on a year anniversary of a major trauma. i needed a creative outlet to latch onto, and i’m glad i found that when i did. so, under those circumstances, when things started to go from rough to unbearable, i’d found a way to channel my creative energy into something that not only distracted me from how awful things were, but let me process what, exactly, was happening, and that kept me in close contact with multiple people, so i wasn’t alone. 

     i left the group for about six months when things got worse, because i was barely functional, and i panicked and threw myself into something else, but coming back to the group, and to astoria, was like... this moment of immense healing. i’m still really, really good friends with a lot of the people from that group. ( one, my first actual ship partner, spent christmas with me & my family one year, since they couldn’t afford to go home to england during a year abroad. another recently reconnected with me after a few years of us falling out of touch, and he and i have discussed writing together again. moni was one of the original members; that’s how rachel and i connected, how amethyst and i connected, and how marta and i connected. it was a good group. it was a really good group. ) 

     part of why she appealed to me beyond the circumstances that created her: i got to do detective work. then, we only knew her name & year, her sister’s name & year & house, and that narcissa and lucius didn’t like her. so i had to reverse engineer this character based just on that. we knew astoria had gone through a frightening & violent conversion that jerked her out of blood supremacist ideology, so astoria became the carrow protege. we knew draco loved her enough to remain with her despite his parents disliking her, so astoria became someone he could share that trauma and shame with, who would be a partner rather than a babysitter, or an emotional rehab.

     a really fun piece of work i got to do was around scorpius’ name. i have the post on an old blog, but can’t find it, but basically — malfoy naming practice involves naming the son after the father, through the middle name. ( draco lucius, lucius abraxas... ) black naming practice involves using heavenly bodies. ( sirius, cygnus, bellatrix, andromeda, nymphadora, draco ) and apparently, the greengrasses name their children after figures in greek mythology. ( astoria, daphne ) scorpius hyperion utilizes both the black and the greengrass naming traditions, and deliberately usurps malfoy naming traditions in favor of greengrass naming traditions. the son is named not after the father in his middle name, but after the mother: hyperion, like astoria, was a titan. that tells me that draco values astoria’s influence in their son’s life more than he values lucius’. that tells me that astoria is someone draco genuinely respects in addition to loving her. that tells me that astoria presents a safe place for draco to turn away from a father who is, arguably, pretty abusive. 

     so i got to build an OC around a canon name and a few canon clues. and, considering how, uh, wildly sexist CC was with astoria especially, i felt very comfortable ignoring the canon we did get: astoria dying for the sake of having a son, astoria whose only role is to make everyone feel better, astoria who was just kind and gentle and who didn’t have any complications of her own history, any shared trauma. and, because astoria was so wholly my own creation, i was able to move her from one canon to another with ease, so when i decided to make her crossover-based in dragon age, i got to take a character that canon spat on and instead make her, quite literally, the center of the universe in an inquisition timeline. 

due some shit that i am not going to name and i had my fair share of guilt too, i have struggled to continue writing sara lance. she was one of my dearest and longest running muses but it’s hard getting back into her, which is a shame because she means the world to me and helped me rediscover myself.

@vivaciousdoe​​  said  :  Hey! I just wanted to pop in and say how it was an absolute pleasure to see you were still active, coming back after such a long hiatus. Not sure if you remember me/my blog from years back but when I managed to log back in here I was like, oh my god Cat is still here! Missing the old days with you and Liz when the marauders rp community was thriving. But anyway, just wanted to share my excitement that you and Dorkass were still doing your thing.

RANDOM LOVE

       it wasn't that he didn't love his mother's stories. of course he did. it gave him a sense of connection to her past, to HIS past. nevertheless, hearing the same one over and over again tended to prove TEDIOUS.