05-17-2025, 5 AM

I have buried myself in desire

sketchbook spread

Gillian Anderson for Melody Maker Magazine.

FLW video bts @mothercain 🤍

the day you were sentenced to azkaban

When I saw this fantastic piece by @longdaytogo I couldn't stop myself from writing - look at Harry's face! Draco's tension! The hands! So, here's 1.3k words of artsy, self-indulgent angst wrapped up with a hopeful ending. If you like it, thank my betas, @wecanthavenicethingx and @starlitsilvereyes for making it so much better, and being so encouraging that I was able to share it 💜 Read on ao3, or below!

The day you were sentenced to Azkaban, you were all alone. Your father had already been taken away to a life in prison, starting with a year of solitary confinement; and your mother had been sent back to the Manor to begin her house arrest. You were on your own, stoic and pale and thin and drawn in the chair in the center of the room, darting glances around the court and staring at the floor in turn. You flinched when the Wizengamot announced your fate; five months in Azkaban, a strict parole after that. You were silent, just bowed your head and trembled, but the Wizangemot chastened you anyway, reminding you of your crimes, and outlining exactly how severe your punishment would have been if you had been a year older when you took the Mark, one of them shuffling their papers and mockingly wishing you a happy birthday a day in advance; you didn’t say anything, so I did, standing up because I couldn’t stay seated anymore and trying to protest, so tired of all the hate and vitriol that hadn’t stopped even after everything.

Hermione stopped me, of course. She pulled me back down onto the bench and she and Ron kept me there until the Wizengamot had all but filed out, trying, I’m sure, to keep me from making any more headlines or forcing the court to give me an official censure. But once the worst of them had left the room, and only a few plum-coloured hats could be seen at the door, I broke free, and reached you before the Aurors coming from the edges of the room did. You were still standing from when you were required to out of decorum for the magistrates, and your hair had fallen across your face, so I couldn’t see the look on your face, but I could still imagine it. I’d seen it on enough other faces during the previous few years, and by that point, I knew exactly what despair and fear and panicked isolation looked like.

We had both been children, caught up in a war from the first year of our lives, and I felt that youth more in that moment than any before. I was so young and powerless, you looked so small and fragile, and I wanted to cry for how tired I was from being angry all the time for all the problems that hadn’t yet been resolved. I don’t even know what I thought I was going to do, why I was approaching you in the first place - you were just all alone, standing there, and looking at you in that moment felt like looking into a mirror, because that was how I felt too, even surrounded by so many people. Everyone else seemed to have their name intertwined with someone else’s; Ron-and-Hermione, Molly-and-Arthur, Bill-and-Fleur. Ginny and I had never really been Harry-and-Ginny, we hadn’t been given the time to forge that link properly, and it fizzled out before we could solidify it; when she moved on to be Ginny-and-Neville, I was left alone as just Harry. And in that moment, when I saw you standing by yourself in the middle of the room, you were just Draco, just like me.

I didn’t go up to you because I wanted to become Harry-and-Draco (although I am so glad to be linked with you now, our names connected on every legal document and letter we sign), I just walked over to you because you were all alone and I was too, and it made sense in that moment that we should be all alone together.

I think I started trying to apologize, for not doing more to help you, for how the Wizengamot treated you, for my part in our petty, schoolboy rivalry; I think I started to tell you that it would be okay, that it would only be a few months, and the dementors were gone now and so it wouldn’t be fun, but you would be alright, but I don’t think I got any of those words out of my mouth.

You shook your head, a small no, and the sight of the tears pooling in your eyes silenced me before I could begin. You were so absolute, so determined to be proper even after everything, and you told me… you told me no. You said, “Thank you, Potter, but you’ve done more than anyone could have asked of you already.” Your lower lip trembled a bit on the last word, despite your best efforts, and I couldn’t stop myself from acting once more, despite my best efforts (although I didn’t really try my best to stop myself).

I hugged you, and you trembled like a leaf, frozen other than the little tremors that wracked your whole body. You kept your arms stiff at your sides, and I could feel you tightening your chin where it pressed into my shoulder, determined not to let your tears or defenses fall.

It took a few moments, but then you inhaled, deep and shuddery, and you grabbed onto me like we were still fleeing the Fiendfyre, and I held you back, just as tight. I saw the Aurors start moving in again, coming to take you away, and I pulled you even closer, watched them falter with uncertainty as I held you and let you cry out your tears and put yourself together again.

I didn’t cry, but I did a good deal of self-repair for myself while we stood there. You were holding me like I’d never been held before, like you needed me, like you wanted me to be there, like you cared about me and wanted to give as much comfort as you were getting. I thought, at the time, that might have been wishful thinking on my behalf, just more of my loneliness striking out at an empty void, but I was so glad to hear you tell me, later, whispering under cool linen sheets on a hot summer night that you felt the same way then. I just wanted to comfort you, and be comforted myself, in a way I hadn’t previously known.

A few moments more, and I started to think too much. I could see the Aurors moving again, and their motion in the corner of my eye made all my thoughts come back, moving too fast and looming too big to focus on them. I didn’t want to let you go, and yet I was going to have to, I would have no choice in what happened yet again. I wanted to keep giving you comfort, I wanted to let you take everything you needed, while you held me right back, and that was warm and safe and terrifying, because you were Draco Malfoy and I was Harry Potter, and I didn’t know what that meant anymore.

(I know what it means now. But we weren’t Draco-and-Harry then. There were still two more years ahead of us before we got the first letter addressed to Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy, together, and it was another ten months after Luna’s baby shower that we even talked about making that link permanent. It took us five years from that first hug in the Ministry for us to return there to sign our names on the license that made us legally Draco-and-Harry Malfoy-Potter.)

I held you, and I held you, and I held you. I didn’t figure anything out then, and I don’t think I fixed any problems in those too-short seconds either, but I felt better, even as we clung to each other tighter still in the moments when the Aurors reached us and started to gently pull us apart.

The day you were sentenced to Azkaban, I watched you walk away between crimson-robed Aurors, and I started counting down to December, when I could see you again, and when things might start to feel alright.

oh so when vampires have heightened sensory awareness it’s cool, but when I have it it’s ‘autism’

Hello very much :)

I thought about making a video on this topic but I decided to just write it out in a post instead. Either way, I'd like to speak a bit more specifically about a drunk rant I made on a separate account the other day that was not as well put together as I'd like to stand as my viewpoints on the subject.

tl:dr, I just feel as though there's a lack of sincerity in the world these days. I speak from personal experience as an artist putting things out into the world, yes, but also as a human being interacting with other human beings on the regular, and I have had my sentiments echoed by many other friends of mine over the past year or so, both artists and non-artists alike. Most of this will be framed through the consumption of art, because that's my own personal passion in this life of mine, but also the way we interface with each other and process the world around us. Now, don't get me wrong, I love to laugh. I love a good joke, and I love lightheartedness as much as the next person. But I saw someone this morning put it very succinctly in response to my rant, something along the lines of "don't let the joke about it overtake the source material." It feels as though it's a common occurrence these days to take a pinch of something with a lot more weight to it, often a humorous bit, and then run with it. Everyone then gathers around the pinch to ooh and ahh and consume it as a whole. Context is immediately lost, the legacy of that body of work becomes its own caricature, and anyone discovering that body of work via said caricature may forgo a piece of art they would otherwise love because "there's nothing there". And don't think this is me griping at those making jokes at the expense of my art. I make jokes about my own art. But when the joke dies, yet continues to grow, and spread, and finds its way back to me both on the internet and off for months (or, God forbid, years) to come, I can't help but say to myself; what the fuck is happening. Artists have fled the public and all their outlets for personality and expression outside the medium because they feel ridiculed. It's not even just their art. Katya comes to mind, speaking on how she went on youtube live a few years back in literal tears talking about police brutality and the injustices marginalized communities were facing at the hands of the government. Meanwhile, the entire comment section "yass" and "mother"ed her in barrages, not paying attention to anything she had to say. I get asked about when I'm dropping Preacher's Daughter vinyl en masse in response to my Palestine fundraiser links. It's everywhere and it's inescapable. No one can be serious for even two seconds.

This may all sound obnoxious; so be it. I tie strings from this central problem to many other complaints I have heard repeated ad nauseam the past few years. For example; the death of subculture. Goth, punk, whatever, you name it. People who built an underground counterculture movement with a rich history based on a love of art, community, and otherwise misunderstood worldviews and experiences deemed foul or inappropriate. Now we see bits taken from it, the terms and the looks, without any of the meat, spread thin across society as a whole. Words mean nothing anymore. One can rest on history and say they were a part of it when in fact, they did nothing. No appreciation or understanding to be had for the love and passion that built it. No serious interaction with the culture's very real confines and boundaries, just mindless co-opting. This has just as much to do with late stage capitalism as it does with excessive humor in lieu of sincerity, but it's certainly both. Again, this may sound like a silly complaint, but I don't care. The collective ennui we're all experiencing has a very real reason, whether we're ready to acknowledge or not.

In a twisted thread, it's even tied to our lack of care to change the world around us. People cheer on the idea of communism, but who among us is ready to give up the convenience of society as it stands? Amazon prime, doordash, fresh fruit out of season as I saw someone mention in a similar post last week; the marvels of modern technology. Do we really think these things can last in a society that isn't actively destroying the planet? We talk about the idea of something all day long but have very little to do with the actuality of what we're talking about. And don't think I consider myself exempt from this problem. I couldn't even try to claim to be. It seems nearly silly to be complaining, then, about the way people consume the art around them these days as we creep towards what feels like the end of days. But as long as I still draw breath, I must complain.

I miss genuine passion. As an autistic individual, when I'm alone, sometimes I cannot contain myself with how things make me feel. The music I listen to, the video games I play, the books I read. I almost feel the need to run through the house and scream in everyone's face how I'm feeling. It feels good to love intensely. Now, I won't pretend like autistic people haven't been bullied for this since the dawn of time, but there is surely a noticeable lack of passion in everything these days. Everyone can feel it, everyone is talking about it. Everything now is "cringe", or "doing too much", or "not that serious". Actually, it is that serious. Insecurity in one's own deeper feelings may not be a new thing, but a culture that seems to promote this eschewing of them does seem to be a new evil. The tone of the internet has completely shifted. I spent most of my time here when I first discovered it a little over a decade ago on Zelda forums and other chat-based websites, talking about how much I loved whatever fandom I was in at the time and having genuine and memorable interactions with like-minded individuals who felt the same way I do. Now, you have two options; if you hate media, you rip it to shreds, and if you love it, you word-salad it to death and parrot a joke about it that someone else said. I'm not saying people don't still talk seriously in a heartfelt way about the things they love, but it does not seem to be the initial reaction anymore. Do I have a solution to this problem? Of course not. I'm a 26 year old girl posting on a tumblr blog. If I had a solution, this is not where I would be dropping it. But conversation is God to man, and I believe in the ability to change things from the inside out. We make the rules, and we can change them.

Before I go, I'd like to just clarify that I am very grateful for my career, grateful to anyone who has ever given me and my art the time of day, grateful to anyone who has ever come up to me and connected with me over my work, and grateful for a life where someone making too many jokes is the worst part of my day. I do not think I am better nor smarter than anyone on or off the internet. I am simply a girl with big feelings and I enjoy talking about them with other people with big feelings, and it makes me sad when something avoidable or unnecessary gets in the way of that.

All in all, I love to love, and I love all of you, I love my life, I love this record, and mi amore vo- i mean.... oh, whatever.

(Feel free to sound off in the comments and please be nice to each other)

”Take me to him”

Imagine this, Harry is in trouble and his patronus finds the person he desperately needs in that moment and it is Draco.

I had this thought and had to draw an illustration based on it🌙