Charles Olson

Christian. Husband. Father. Construction worker. Sheepfarmer. Sometime writer. Lover of sci-fi, fantasy, and really awesome things.

[Charles Olson @Sheepfarmer373]

People have been debating the sectum sempra scene heavily, and I believe there needs to be a defense of just what it can accomplish when handled right. https://t.co/h66EntuRKo

[Charles Olson @Sheepfarmer373]

@AbhiroopAg Maybe just a LEETLE less homicidal, but yeah.

[Charles Olson @Sheepfarmer373]

While I was researching and plotting a serious follow up, a rather unhinged version of Malfoid intruded and demanded a brief detour. Not at ALL connected to my Sectum Sempra scene. You were warned. :-) https://t.co/4RdxVlBHYG

[Charles Olson @Sheepfarmer373]

@edu_andy24 That actually IS what Slytherin should be like. Not the evil house, the POLITICAL house.

[DodgerWing @DodgerWing]

Sirius: "Harry, what's wrong?"

Harry: "I... I saw a picture that I thought was myself with Ginny... But it was a picture of my dad and my mum!"

Sirius: "Oooh... Horrifying?"

Harry: "COMPLETELY! I don't want to do my mum! I'm not Oedipus!"

Sirius: "Well in that case, there's only one thing to do: Date Malfoid."

Harry: "I-Are you sure-?"

Sirius: "Hot blonde or your mum, Harry!"

Harry: "HOT BLONDE! HOT BLONDE!"

Sirius: "Good lad."

[Charles Olson @Sheepfarmer373]

@LuinRomestamo lol

[Charles Olson @Sheepfarmer373]

@AbhiroopAg As I warned... it's rather unhinged. :-)

[Charles Olson @Sheepfarmer373]

Excellent thoughts on how to take Malfoid yearning and make it a permanent fixture.

[A Pilgrim Named Dad @GodsBeggar]

If you want to make Malfoid canon, read the following:

The Department of Education's Malfoid has reminded me of the circumstances that made Maid Marian canon to the Robin Hood legend. It may surprise you to know she is apocryphal, i.e. not part of the original story.

She's a "fanon" [lit. a Fan Canon] character, who later gained traction and legitimacy. Robin hood was originally a story about a dudebro (the original Good Guy Steve meme) out with his bros robbing evil clergymen and trying to bring justice back to the Church, in the name of the Virgin Mary.

Now? Marian and Chivalric Love are as inseparable to Robin Hood as the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Here's how that happened.

🧵1/

[Charles Olson @Sheepfarmer373]

After a long time of pondering, and paying close attention to scripture, I came to the conclusion that polygamy is not banned, per se (a man isn't in open rebellion against God if he has two wives) but it IS suboptimal and not the example Christ wants elders setting for the congregation. That's my read from what's written.

[Charles Olson @Sheepfarmer373]

@SimoneHCollins She is the canon now.

[Charles Olson @Sheepfarmer373]

@kasmosd1 This still hurts too much...

[Charles Olson @Sheepfarmer373]

@EveKeneinan Well, Draco DOES spend a whole schoolyear right next to Rowena Ravenclaw's tiara...

[Charles Olson @Sheepfarmer373]

@GaelicSpx Did, but another target got in the way. heheheh. Content incoming, but it's... a different Malfoid. The serious one will follow.

[Charles Olson @Sheepfarmer373]

Relistening to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince so I can get my mind settled into the story for writing a Malfoid Felix Felicis scene. It’s a complex sequence and it’s going to fight me. I’ll do my best to give you all the healing you demanded after the Sectum Sempra scene… and then I’ll use it to hurt everyone more. >:-D

[Charles Olson @Sheepfarmer373]

@ValdrisDuskborn @usedgov LOL

[Charles Olson @Sheepfarmer373]

@LynkFormer Aahahhahahahah! "REEEEEEE!"

[Charles Olson @Sheepfarmer373]

This song is absolutely lovely.

[ANDY 🇦🇷🐍 @edu_andy24]

Of course Luna is the first one to notice whatever's going on between those two

[Historias Impact Eng @AzratemES]

I KNOW, I KNOW! I said I wasn't going to upload anything else! 💀

BUT THEN the U.S. Department of Education posted a Malfoid-related image, and the fandom went absolutely wild again. LMAO.

So, to celebrate, here's one last little SNAKE PEEK! 🐍💚

And this time, I MEAN IT.

SEE YOU IN NOVEMBER! 🎬🔥

#HarryPotter #HarryPotterAU #Malfoid #Malfoy #TheYearnNeverEnds

[Charles Olson @Sheepfarmer373]

Thank you.

[Historias Impact Eng @AzratemES]

I KNOW, I KNOW! I said I wasn't going to upload anything else! 💀

BUT THEN the U.S. Department of Education posted a Malfoid-related image, and the fandom went absolutely wild again. LMAO.

So, to celebrate, here's one last little SNAKE PEEK! 🐍💚

And this time, I MEAN IT.

SEE YOU IN NOVEMBER! 🎬🔥

#HarryPotter #HarryPotterAU #Malfoid #Malfoy #TheYearnNeverEnds

[Eve Keneinan 𝛗☦️ن @EveKeneinan]

You know how much I dislike the George R. R. "Can't Finish a Book to Save my Life" Martin "there are no heroes, everyone is morally grey" trope.

You can err in the other direction, though, and make the hero just too pure.

When a hero falls, I mean really falls, and does something he'll regret for the rest of his life, something he can never take back nor truly make up for, it can become an enduring lesson in moral humility and make him strong.

St. Peter, in his darkest hour, denied Christ. This doesn't make him Judas. It makes him, after going through the fire, the prince of all the Saints.

I think it makes Harry a deeper character if he has done a thing he can never take back, something he has to live with for the rest of his life.

It also makes more sense in the Draconia AU because it creates a degree of balance: she has done some heinous stuff. It's complicated, of course, from her upbringing, her family's expectations, Voldemort's threats and manipulations. But she still did it.

Sectumsempra gives Harry a perspective where he can more naturally forgive her for the various things she's done, because he also has done something he feels to be unforgivable.

There's a lot of talk in the books about Unforgivable Curses, but this is primarily a legal category in HP. They are not actually treated as "curses which are absolutely evil and no non-evil person would ever use them," because that's simply not what the are. Harry uses 2 of the 3 in book 7, and it isn't treated as a big deal or as compromising his moral character deeply.

They're tools. The AK curse is just a gun. They're neutral. It all depends on how you use them and why. Sectumsempra is morally neutral too.

It wasn't the casting, it was the consequences.

In the Draconia/SS timeline, Harry isn't even morally unjustified in casting the damned thing. She is in the middle of throwing a Crutiatus at him, which certainly justifies a Sectumsempra if you know what it does, and justifies a spell that you don't know what it does too.

(I am setting aside that in the Draconia/SS timeline, although she TRIES to cast a Crucio at Harry, she fails, because she can't do it: she doesn't hate him enough to WANT him to suffer. This is true and important, but HE doesn't know that. It happens too fast. He only hears her start with "Cruci—".)

On the surface, Harry hasn't even done anything strictly wrong — stupid and reckless? maybe. But wouldn't you use an unknown spell if it was all you had when someone's aiming a torture curse at you?

People could even tell him this. That he was justified. That he didn't do anything wrong here. He's a hero.

But Harry knows he did something wrong, something unforgivable.

He can't take it back. He can only resolve never to do something like that again, no matter what. He will not hide behind "It was technically justified, because it was self-defense. Her injuries, while unfortunate and more than I meant to do, don't really reflect badly on me."

One of the serious deficiencies in the Harry Potter books is that there isn't very much of a redemption arc. There's Snape, but his loyalties and decisions are complicated. It isn't a clear and decisive turn away from the darkness.

Draconia can do that. She can really repent. That has weight.

Harry needs to be able to meet her there too. And that means he has to understand what it is to have done something unforgivable, and ask for forgiveness anyway.

Preferably done something unforgivable to her. "Preferably" in terms of the story, the narrative.

Contrary to that twatwaffle who was calling the SS scene "torture porn," you don't do this Draconia or to Harry because we enjoy their suffering.

You do it because stories are about human beings, and sin and redemption are at the core of that.

You do this to these two so that later on they can truly unite, the two of them holding a single wand and destroy the dark lord.

You do Sectumsempra so you can have Two Hearts, One Wand.

You show them HERE, at their lowest points, so when you see them much later, married and surrounded by at least 8 kids, you can appreciate more deeply what that MEANS.

[Charles Olson @Sheepfarmer373]

@archeosophy Repeat after me: giggle giggle lol

[Charles Olson @Sheepfarmer373]

I wrote a sectum sempra scene in which Harry and Malfoid had a book 4 secret romance after the ball that goes cold over book 5. Book six, the attraction is still there, but its been buried by effectively being on opposite sides of a war and suffering from paranoia and legitimate misdeeds by Malfoid (who loves her parents and CANNOT blow off Voldemort’s threat to kill her mother if she doesn’t succeed). The sectum sempra happens, resulting in Heroic BSOD for Harry. Resulting in Harry just handing Snape the offending potions book when Snape asks for it. Resulting in… Harry not running across the tiara in the room of hidden things in an absolutely absurd act of providence. Grrr.