#wip meme

this is my & my good friend sufferbot's meta essay that attempts to answer the question: why does fan content, including fan content written by self-identified progressives ("trans lives matter!" often features in the a/ns), often independently come up with ideas more conservative than the source material?

so like. why does hp fandom keep independently reinventing cultural genocide (like, the full 60s scoop) as its proposed sensitive/progresssive solution to the muggleborn question. so on. this snippet is i believe by my cowriter, who is very funny.

we have been picking at this thing for fucking years, in part bc it is impossible to write it without choosing violence (calling out specific fanfictions by name). and also because for obvious reasons thinking about hp is more fraught now than it once was. but we will fucking finish it one day.

Tagged by the lovely @philtstone to share what I’m working on and I just wrote a bit last night for the soulmark au that I’m excited about! It’s also already at 6k and I was envisioning this as a one-shot so stay tuned if this develops into more 💀

Years ago — back in her own time — Claire had lost Uncle Lamb during The Blitz. At the time, she had been stationed in France and it wasn’t until the end of the war that coming home to England felt like opening the floodgates of her grief. There had been the contents of his flat to sift through and a lawyer to meet with, all while trying to reconnect with her husband who felt more like a stranger after their years apart. It had been easier to think of him as gone while in the midst of a war, but coming home to where her uncle should be… she hadn’t handled it well.

And then there had been the letter, written in her uncle’s hand and addressed to her. Postmarked, but never sent. She had known, somehow, that it should be read in private and tucked the letter into her bag.

My dearest Claire, it had said, you’ll forgive an old man for being sentimental, I hope. You are — as your father once was — in the thick of the war, and even here in London, I know we are not safe from attack. It makes one think about everything he hasn’t said and perhaps should. My dear, I haven’t felt it was my place, after your wedding to Frank, to say anything of my research on unusual soul marks. I know you’ve made peace with yours, and I would never suggest you would forsake your vows. But who can say what the next few years will bring for any of us? And I suppose, in my heart of hearts, dear girl, I simply wish you every ounce of happiness you can wring from this life or any other. I’ve enclosed something from my research. Perhaps we’ve had it wrong, all along? Perhaps, as it so often is the case in this grand adventure that we call life… things will unfold in ways we never dreamed.

Claire had not thought about that letter or the enclosed contents in the months since she’d come home from France, before she and Frank took the trip up north. Her grief was too fresh and things between her and Frank too tenuous to let herself agonize over its meaning.

But now…

Now, Claire laid on her back in the shoddy tent the MacKenzies had given her and listened to the crackle of a nearby fire and Rupert’s loud snores that would probably keep any wildlife away from camp better than any of the men posted on watch. Now, she thought of the letter.

What she had thought was simply the love of a father — for that was what Lamb had been to her — wanting to impart some hope to her in the face of uncertainty, she now looked upon it in a new light. Had he known more than his research had suggested?

Had he known that she would stumble back through time?

“You could be wrong, you know,” she whispered — to herself or to Lamb, she wasn’t sure. “His birthday might be May 1st, but there’s no way on earth that man is only twenty-two. For heaven’s sake, Beauchamp.”

@starcityrebels got me again! 😂

Lyonel stands suddenly, pushing back from the table so violently that it sends his empty cup clattering to the floor. “Fuck off, then, if that's what you think,” he says, thick and barely intelligible. “Leave me.” It’s tempting. Duncan's pride and feelings are nearly hurt enough to do it. But Lyonel’s steps to the bedchamber door are the most unsteady he has ever seen from him, and he is up out of his own chair before he even realizes his body has moved, grabbing Lyonel about the waist just as he nearly falls. “Shut the hell up,” he mutters, pulling Lyonel's limp arm over his shoulders to hold him upright, help him walk, heedless of the man’s pitiful attempts to pull away from his grasp. “I'm not going anywhere.”

tagged by the loveliest @flyinghome-againstthewind! great motivation for me to continue chipping away at birds chapter 4, rip. i debated between posting this or a snippet of a sex scene (lol) and this won out

“I’m doin’ the job, no doubt about that. But I willna have the man near ye. Murtagh’ll handle the accounts, and if he asks tae see ye I’ll break the contract.”

Claire feels her eyebrows crawl incredulously up her forehead of their own volition.

“I beg your pardon?” she asks, crossing her arms and tilting her head at him as if to better divine the brain-cogs that would inspire this reasoning. Jamie looks up at her from his paperwork, nonplussed.

“Aye? Is there a problem?”

“On what grounds am I to be caged away from the malicious specter of my ex-husband, pray tell?” She knows her tone is more disparaging than helpful. Too late now; Jamie looks taken aback, and she adds, “I left him, if you may recall.”

“Ach, it isn’t like that. Ye can do as ye please, of course. It’s him I dinna trust.”

“Very original,” Claire says. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That you have no reason to dislike the man I divorced for you.”

Jamie frowns. “Dinna put yer decisions on me, Sassenach. Why ye left the man was between you and God, and I’ll –”

“Me and God!”

“Aye! I never asked ye to do so! I never asked for anything. But now I am trying to be practical about the outcome of your choices, and I dinna understand why ye kick so at the prospect.”

“My choices. Oh I see. I got pregnant independently, then. A veritable Virgin Mary.”

Jamie sets down his pen sharply on the desk and swears in Gaelic, giving her a frustrated look that would usually spark under her skin. Unfortunately, just now Claire is offended by the recent implication – however objectively apt – that she can sometimes buck like an ass, and it only makes her jut her jaw out stubbornly.

The lovely @philtstone tagged me, and I did just recently come up with a plan for chapter two of this WIP!

Basically, it’s a modern AU with a similar concept to my Take Me There series: imagining Jamie and Claire’s relationship through a series of loving prank wars, from the meet cute to the courtship into the years of marriage beyond.

Here’s a good bit more than seven sentences from chapter one of what I’m calling Count On Me ‘Cause I’ll One Up It:

“I didna fall out of a tree this time, Sassenach,” he announces, as if they are resuming a conversation they only had yesterday. “Only fell off my bicycle.”

Professionalism and rationality desert her even faster than Frank did. “You should have called me,” she says, aware how absurd this sounds. They’ve met once. She doesn’t even know if he likes coffee or tea.

Unflappable, he grins back. “I would have, but I didna have your number. Or know your first name, come to that.”

“I’m Claire Beauchamp,” she says. “Dr. Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp,” she adds, as if they are filling out paperwork together and this is information he needs for the sake of completeness.

“James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser,” he says, with that grin she hopes will become familiar. “At your service. As much as I can be wi’ the one good arm. Most folk call me Jamie, though.”