5099: Blood and Magic - Halley Lily Evans-[disowned]/Rheannon "Rhea" Prasinos, Sabrina Prasinos
So, I am focusing on the Blood Adoption theme because it’s such a face palm, but there just might actually be a story in there that actually works. Today’s entry is not one of them, though thinking about it, treating Blood Adoption as a forbidden Dark Art rather than a convenient way to get around the law and pretend that there is nothing wrong with what the person doing the Blood Adoption is doing would work. I can also see it working if someone in the child’s family agreed to said adoption and it was used as a way of hiding said child.
Said theme, I’m only going to do it for a week because in all honestly my sanity won’t handle what amounts to ritualized kidnapping just to make it so the person doing the kidnapping faces absolutely no legal consequences for what they’re doing. This is officially day two.
Title: Blood and Magic
Perpetrator: Lostsouls
Sue-O-Meter: Toxic
Cover/Banner Art: None as this is AO3
Summary: “On Samhain night of 1981, the Potter Cottage was attacked by the Dark Lord Voldemort. Charlus and Dorea Potter died protecting their grandchildren, who seemed to have miraculously survived, leaving a young Henry James Potter with a lightning shaped scar on his forehead. Unnoticed by the adults, little Halley Lily Potter was also marked, hers right above her heart in the form of the rune ᛦ (Norse/Younger Futhark for "Yew"). Dumbledore saw the seemingly dark magic on the girl and proceeded to cut her off from Magical Britain, convincing the Potters that she had no magic and would be happier with the Dursleys. The Potters and all of Britain rejoiced at the apparent death of Voldermort, while a little girl's life would soon be turned into a living hell for 7 long years, until one night, when her world changes for the better.”
Full Name: Halley Lily Evans-[disowned]/Rheannon “Rhea” Prasinos , Sabrina Prasinos
Sueworts House(s): Halley is a Sparklypoo just from the summary and a Bitchiwitch from the tags, but Sabrina is also a Bitchiwitch from her whole “everyone in the British wizarding community is racist towards me despite the fact I’m the real racist” attitude.
Species: The writer wants us to believe that this is a female Harry Potter when in reality all the writer really did was change Harry’s name to Henry and handed a similar name over to Halley.
Hair: n/a
Eyes: n/a
Markings: Just from the summary we learn that Halley has an extra special scar. The writer also tells us to “assume appearances match the movies or the books, unless I describe as otherwise.”
Poessessions: Sabrina wants “bronze haired, blue eyed children” which given the fact she’s from West Germany - I get that they’re not blond haired, blue eyed, but it still has some negative connotations there. Let’s not forget the fact she’s kidnapped a child and decided she’s the best person in the world to care for said child, but uses a Blood Potion to make something that should NEVER be legal be LEGAL. I mean, that’s the PROBLEM with Blood Adoption potions and why I’ve decided to only dedicate a WEEK at post to this trope. Seriously. BLOOD ADOPTION = KIDNAPPING for crying out loud! Oh, and the spell reveals that James also removed the Potter name from Halley’s names, but not Lily’s name - how sexist - but apparently this blood adoption thing is far more important than the importance of Lily’s sacrifice despite the fact there is nothing pure about a Blood Adoption and Lily’s act was done out of pure love. Seriously, the convenient plot device of Blood Adoption does not make this not kidnapping, particularly when Blood Adoption by all counts would be considered Dark Magic and forbidden.
Connection to Canon: James’ parents are substituted for James and Lily completely forgetting the fact Lily dying is precisely why Harry was the Boy-Who-Lived, but we’re supposed to believe going into this that Halley could possibly be the Girl-Who-Lived despite the prophesy saying otherwise, but that Halley is actually Harry rather than Henry who just so happens to actually have Harry’s scar. And of course Blood Adoption is a tag which is how I found this particular story, though looking at the summary I don’t know yet if this actually involved the Blood Adoption trope. Our Sue, Sabrina, is taking issue with how racist British people (I mean British Wixen) are to foreigners because “the bloody Wizengamot had to pass a legislation banning foreigners from running businesses in said areas, without having the backing of a Noble House or higher,” so she runs a herbal business instead. What a convenient plot device! She then wines about how she “knew she would never experience the horror yet absolute miracle that was childbirth. Her family, while long standing and blessed with many branches of healthy sons and daughters, also had a habit of producing sterile members. Unlike the racist pigs of Britian, the Prasinos almost never intermarried specific magical families.” Okay. It’s time for the Racist Sue/Stu tag going forward, because there is no getting around the fact this Mary Sue is indeed racist. Well, she conveniently finds our fake female Harry and fake Girl-Who-Lived all bloody in a London park because the Durlsey family who as I pointed out in the previous entry never physically abused Harry in canon are now a plot device so that our Sue can adopt this other Sue, but she decides she’s capable enough of handling it and she doesn’t have to take the girl to St. Mungos let alone report it to the proper authorities and instead decides to take the law into her own hand because everybody in Britian is racist and she’s not, and not at all because she’s obviously desperate for their own child. Well, Sirius is finally given the trial proving his innocence despite the fact he should never have gone to jail in the first place and rushes off to find his goddaughter which means Sabrina can conveniently get together with him and its not as if she’s a racist and kidnapper. Egads.
Origin: I took the time to look at the profile and saw that the writer joined AO3 in October of last year, but this is likely their first story. Just from reading the summary, I think the writer is making the mistake of thinking bigger is better. By this I mean they think the more dark stuff they add in the more awesome their story will be. I mean, do we have to refer to Halloween as Samhain? The fact the characters are Wizards and Witches doesn’t mean they are of the Wicca religion, but the fact they have magical abilities doesn’t mean they should be forced to practice it either. Then, the first chapter starts off with how the British Wixen are “backwards racist pigs” because they just so happen to be “utterly archaic”. Yes, the writer is American.
Special Abilities: Just from the tags alone we’ve got that annoying Master of Death trope which always ends up with the male character being a Gary Stu and the female character being a Mary Sue, because I certainly don’t remember coming across a writer who proved otherwise. She’s also conveniently a Girl-Who-Lived along with Wrong Girl-Who-Lived, which is rather funny given the fact the prophesy does talk about a male child, not a female one. She’s a convenient heir to at least one of the founders, but adults are idiots because not only do they not notice the scar, Dumbledore is evil manipulative and assumes her scar must be a bad thing while her brother’s is not and that is enough for Lily and James to ship her off to the Durlsey family where she is to be abused by them, which from the looks of the tags includes sexual abuse. There’s also for some reason necromancy involved, though this isn’t explained. This is also a story where female-Harry gets to be smarter than male-Harry, though in this case it’s not really a female-Harry, just because she’s female. I mean, this takes place in December of the same year Harry went with the Dursley’s and before she’s celebrating her first Yule with Sabrina she is already enjoying reading history books, though according to the writer Halley is actually eight, but she lets the eight year old practice with her wands, because not only does she want a child, she wants a child genius as well. There is a talk in the second chapter about magical affinity and conveniently to make her even cooler Halley, I mean Rhea, her kidnapper tells her “you have an affinity for Death Magic.”
Notes: While I understand that for the writer “this is mainly for fun and to gauge interest”, but that nor the fact they’re new at this means they should be given a pass on criticism. The fact they don’t care about “historical or canon accuracy” doesn’t mean they get a pass either, let alone the fact they’re “American and not British”. Given the fact the writer is open to the fact they do have mental health issues, I want to say just in case they come across this - while that also doesn’t give them a pass on criticism - that it’s completely okay that they’re writing this just for fun and not worrying about accuracy.
Don’t let criticism of the work ruin the enjoyment, though do be aware of some of the implications regarding what one writes going forward. For example, not knowing everything about Britain is okay, but lumping all British wizards and witches (not British Wixen) together and calling their society backwards and archaic with the idea that other societies like America are better definitely leans towards Americentrism. That’s not the only negative connotation in this particular story. I mean, there’s no getting around the fact anybody calling another human being pigs regardless of whether the other people are racist or not is themselves a racist. The fact she lumps everybody in Britain whose pureblood in this group makes her racist.
Of course, if this is what the writer actually intended, awesome. However, I think we’re supposed to believe that this character is right regarding her attitude which in turn earns her a place in Sirius Black’s arms because he’s the exception to her rule.
Sample:
Sabrina smashed her shop's door open after unlocking it with her wand, her control over the wards being the only reason the door closes itself behind her as she cradles the body of a little girl against her chest. She did everything she could with her wand at the park, stabilizing the girl's life before rushing her home and the aid of her potions. She delved deep into her Occlumency, desperate to bury her emotions while she did everything to save the little girl's life. Her healer's diagnostic spell had shown her a glimpse of every mother's deepest nightmare; a body rife with scars new and old, an unholy number of broken and poorly healed bones, severe malnutrition and internal bleeding, including deep vaginal and anal tearing. Had the girl been a normal child she would have long since been dead. Even as she ran across her lab, picking and gathering every potion she needed to save her life, she could feel the girls magic. It felt feral, wild and desperate. Instinctually her magic was doing its best to keep her alive, even with the girl's mind being inactive. Sabrina wasn't sure if the girl being unconscious was a good thing or not. She hoped the girl wouldn't freak out as soon as she woke. She had seen and read enough descriptions about the damage an Obscurial could do and she desperately hoped that the girl would be spared such a fate.
The next few hours became a blur in Sabrina's mind as she finished her last bout of dry heaving. Hours of diagnostic and healing spells, countless potions that she had to carefully select and feed the unconscious girl in the correct order, lest she ended up poisoning her. She washes her face safe in the knowledge that the girl would live. Though in what state her mind would be was another question. She thought about taking her to St. Mungos but quickly dismissed it. When she saw the girl was magical, she did what any healer worth their salt should do (not that she had a healers license in Britain, only back in West Germany, and running the shop for almost seven years wasn't the best way to study to update it again) and ran magical trace spells. What she found made any thought of taking her to any official magical healers mute. Traces of parasitic magic in what appeared to be a cursed scar on her chest, an uneven and tattered magical core that suggests someone tried to strip her of her magic and failed, traces of monitoring spells tied to her blood. Someone magical had gone through a lot of trouble to keep the girl away from magic and had clearly known she was living in danger for her life but did nothing. How all the foreign elements of magic were purged out of the girl was a mystery she was happy to leave alone, the traces on the cursed scar alone were enough to make her feel ill. Now all she needed to do was figure ou-
The sound of a whimper and some breaking vials snap Sabrina's attention back to the little girl as she opens the washroom door tied to her lab. Her eyes take in the room until she spots the little girl underneath her desk, her side facing out, hands loose, ready to cover any attempts at hurting her. Sabrina's heart broke further at the obvious signs of abuse. She did her best to bury any signs of anger, she couldn't add more fear to her. "It's ok, I am not going to hurt you little one. You have nothing to be scared of here", Sabrina finally managed to say as calm and gentle as she could.
Said theme, I’m only going to do it for a week because in all honestly my sanity won’t handle what amounts to ritualized kidnapping just to make it so the person doing the kidnapping faces absolutely no legal consequences for what they’re doing. This is officially day two.
Title: Blood and Magic
Perpetrator: Lostsouls
Sue-O-Meter: Toxic
Cover/Banner Art: None as this is AO3
Summary: “On Samhain night of 1981, the Potter Cottage was attacked by the Dark Lord Voldemort. Charlus and Dorea Potter died protecting their grandchildren, who seemed to have miraculously survived, leaving a young Henry James Potter with a lightning shaped scar on his forehead. Unnoticed by the adults, little Halley Lily Potter was also marked, hers right above her heart in the form of the rune ᛦ (Norse/Younger Futhark for "Yew"). Dumbledore saw the seemingly dark magic on the girl and proceeded to cut her off from Magical Britain, convincing the Potters that she had no magic and would be happier with the Dursleys. The Potters and all of Britain rejoiced at the apparent death of Voldermort, while a little girl's life would soon be turned into a living hell for 7 long years, until one night, when her world changes for the better.”
Full Name: Halley Lily Evans-[disowned]/Rheannon “Rhea” Prasinos , Sabrina Prasinos
Sueworts House(s): Halley is a Sparklypoo just from the summary and a Bitchiwitch from the tags, but Sabrina is also a Bitchiwitch from her whole “everyone in the British wizarding community is racist towards me despite the fact I’m the real racist” attitude.
Species: The writer wants us to believe that this is a female Harry Potter when in reality all the writer really did was change Harry’s name to Henry and handed a similar name over to Halley.
Hair: n/a
Eyes: n/a
Markings: Just from the summary we learn that Halley has an extra special scar. The writer also tells us to “assume appearances match the movies or the books, unless I describe as otherwise.”
Poessessions: Sabrina wants “bronze haired, blue eyed children” which given the fact she’s from West Germany - I get that they’re not blond haired, blue eyed, but it still has some negative connotations there. Let’s not forget the fact she’s kidnapped a child and decided she’s the best person in the world to care for said child, but uses a Blood Potion to make something that should NEVER be legal be LEGAL. I mean, that’s the PROBLEM with Blood Adoption potions and why I’ve decided to only dedicate a WEEK at post to this trope. Seriously. BLOOD ADOPTION = KIDNAPPING for crying out loud! Oh, and the spell reveals that James also removed the Potter name from Halley’s names, but not Lily’s name - how sexist - but apparently this blood adoption thing is far more important than the importance of Lily’s sacrifice despite the fact there is nothing pure about a Blood Adoption and Lily’s act was done out of pure love. Seriously, the convenient plot device of Blood Adoption does not make this not kidnapping, particularly when Blood Adoption by all counts would be considered Dark Magic and forbidden.
Connection to Canon: James’ parents are substituted for James and Lily completely forgetting the fact Lily dying is precisely why Harry was the Boy-Who-Lived, but we’re supposed to believe going into this that Halley could possibly be the Girl-Who-Lived despite the prophesy saying otherwise, but that Halley is actually Harry rather than Henry who just so happens to actually have Harry’s scar. And of course Blood Adoption is a tag which is how I found this particular story, though looking at the summary I don’t know yet if this actually involved the Blood Adoption trope. Our Sue, Sabrina, is taking issue with how racist British people (I mean British Wixen) are to foreigners because “the bloody Wizengamot had to pass a legislation banning foreigners from running businesses in said areas, without having the backing of a Noble House or higher,” so she runs a herbal business instead. What a convenient plot device! She then wines about how she “knew she would never experience the horror yet absolute miracle that was childbirth. Her family, while long standing and blessed with many branches of healthy sons and daughters, also had a habit of producing sterile members. Unlike the racist pigs of Britian, the Prasinos almost never intermarried specific magical families.” Okay. It’s time for the Racist Sue/Stu tag going forward, because there is no getting around the fact this Mary Sue is indeed racist. Well, she conveniently finds our fake female Harry and fake Girl-Who-Lived all bloody in a London park because the Durlsey family who as I pointed out in the previous entry never physically abused Harry in canon are now a plot device so that our Sue can adopt this other Sue, but she decides she’s capable enough of handling it and she doesn’t have to take the girl to St. Mungos let alone report it to the proper authorities and instead decides to take the law into her own hand because everybody in Britian is racist and she’s not, and not at all because she’s obviously desperate for their own child. Well, Sirius is finally given the trial proving his innocence despite the fact he should never have gone to jail in the first place and rushes off to find his goddaughter which means Sabrina can conveniently get together with him and its not as if she’s a racist and kidnapper. Egads.
Origin: I took the time to look at the profile and saw that the writer joined AO3 in October of last year, but this is likely their first story. Just from reading the summary, I think the writer is making the mistake of thinking bigger is better. By this I mean they think the more dark stuff they add in the more awesome their story will be. I mean, do we have to refer to Halloween as Samhain? The fact the characters are Wizards and Witches doesn’t mean they are of the Wicca religion, but the fact they have magical abilities doesn’t mean they should be forced to practice it either. Then, the first chapter starts off with how the British Wixen are “backwards racist pigs” because they just so happen to be “utterly archaic”. Yes, the writer is American.
Special Abilities: Just from the tags alone we’ve got that annoying Master of Death trope which always ends up with the male character being a Gary Stu and the female character being a Mary Sue, because I certainly don’t remember coming across a writer who proved otherwise. She’s also conveniently a Girl-Who-Lived along with Wrong Girl-Who-Lived, which is rather funny given the fact the prophesy does talk about a male child, not a female one. She’s a convenient heir to at least one of the founders, but adults are idiots because not only do they not notice the scar, Dumbledore is evil manipulative and assumes her scar must be a bad thing while her brother’s is not and that is enough for Lily and James to ship her off to the Durlsey family where she is to be abused by them, which from the looks of the tags includes sexual abuse. There’s also for some reason necromancy involved, though this isn’t explained. This is also a story where female-Harry gets to be smarter than male-Harry, though in this case it’s not really a female-Harry, just because she’s female. I mean, this takes place in December of the same year Harry went with the Dursley’s and before she’s celebrating her first Yule with Sabrina she is already enjoying reading history books, though according to the writer Halley is actually eight, but she lets the eight year old practice with her wands, because not only does she want a child, she wants a child genius as well. There is a talk in the second chapter about magical affinity and conveniently to make her even cooler Halley, I mean Rhea, her kidnapper tells her “you have an affinity for Death Magic.”
Notes: While I understand that for the writer “this is mainly for fun and to gauge interest”, but that nor the fact they’re new at this means they should be given a pass on criticism. The fact they don’t care about “historical or canon accuracy” doesn’t mean they get a pass either, let alone the fact they’re “American and not British”. Given the fact the writer is open to the fact they do have mental health issues, I want to say just in case they come across this - while that also doesn’t give them a pass on criticism - that it’s completely okay that they’re writing this just for fun and not worrying about accuracy.
Don’t let criticism of the work ruin the enjoyment, though do be aware of some of the implications regarding what one writes going forward. For example, not knowing everything about Britain is okay, but lumping all British wizards and witches (not British Wixen) together and calling their society backwards and archaic with the idea that other societies like America are better definitely leans towards Americentrism. That’s not the only negative connotation in this particular story. I mean, there’s no getting around the fact anybody calling another human being pigs regardless of whether the other people are racist or not is themselves a racist. The fact she lumps everybody in Britain whose pureblood in this group makes her racist.
Of course, if this is what the writer actually intended, awesome. However, I think we’re supposed to believe that this character is right regarding her attitude which in turn earns her a place in Sirius Black’s arms because he’s the exception to her rule.
Sample:
Sabrina smashed her shop's door open after unlocking it with her wand, her control over the wards being the only reason the door closes itself behind her as she cradles the body of a little girl against her chest. She did everything she could with her wand at the park, stabilizing the girl's life before rushing her home and the aid of her potions. She delved deep into her Occlumency, desperate to bury her emotions while she did everything to save the little girl's life. Her healer's diagnostic spell had shown her a glimpse of every mother's deepest nightmare; a body rife with scars new and old, an unholy number of broken and poorly healed bones, severe malnutrition and internal bleeding, including deep vaginal and anal tearing. Had the girl been a normal child she would have long since been dead. Even as she ran across her lab, picking and gathering every potion she needed to save her life, she could feel the girls magic. It felt feral, wild and desperate. Instinctually her magic was doing its best to keep her alive, even with the girl's mind being inactive. Sabrina wasn't sure if the girl being unconscious was a good thing or not. She hoped the girl wouldn't freak out as soon as she woke. She had seen and read enough descriptions about the damage an Obscurial could do and she desperately hoped that the girl would be spared such a fate.
The next few hours became a blur in Sabrina's mind as she finished her last bout of dry heaving. Hours of diagnostic and healing spells, countless potions that she had to carefully select and feed the unconscious girl in the correct order, lest she ended up poisoning her. She washes her face safe in the knowledge that the girl would live. Though in what state her mind would be was another question. She thought about taking her to St. Mungos but quickly dismissed it. When she saw the girl was magical, she did what any healer worth their salt should do (not that she had a healers license in Britain, only back in West Germany, and running the shop for almost seven years wasn't the best way to study to update it again) and ran magical trace spells. What she found made any thought of taking her to any official magical healers mute. Traces of parasitic magic in what appeared to be a cursed scar on her chest, an uneven and tattered magical core that suggests someone tried to strip her of her magic and failed, traces of monitoring spells tied to her blood. Someone magical had gone through a lot of trouble to keep the girl away from magic and had clearly known she was living in danger for her life but did nothing. How all the foreign elements of magic were purged out of the girl was a mystery she was happy to leave alone, the traces on the cursed scar alone were enough to make her feel ill. Now all she needed to do was figure ou-
The sound of a whimper and some breaking vials snap Sabrina's attention back to the little girl as she opens the washroom door tied to her lab. Her eyes take in the room until she spots the little girl underneath her desk, her side facing out, hands loose, ready to cover any attempts at hurting her. Sabrina's heart broke further at the obvious signs of abuse. She did her best to bury any signs of anger, she couldn't add more fear to her. "It's ok, I am not going to hurt you little one. You have nothing to be scared of here", Sabrina finally managed to say as calm and gentle as she could.