MASTER POST OF THE EoS WHSMITH EDITION SHORT STORY
First i need to say thank you @paperbackphoenix for sending me these you are a goddess and i love you.
I’m going to tag everyone who wanted to be tagged for the other stories on this one as well. Cheers!
This tweet has changed my life btw
Here’s a guide of what I’ve determined the meanings to be
walking around - self explanatory
fellowship - hanging out with friends
deliciousness - having something tasty
transcendence - feeling that you have reached a different level of some sort; alternatively, when you do one of the other delights to the extreme and feel really good about it. (you know transcendence when it happens)
goofing - having a good laugh at smth
amelioration - working towards the betterment of something, for example, working on a skill you hope to improve
coitus - fuckin’
enthralment - becoming incredibly engaged in something, hyper focusing on something
wildcard - anything that you feel was a delight in your day that does not fit one of the above delights
ive been thinking about this a lot but the hogwarts houses arent chosen by the characteristics you have but the characteristics you value.
that’s why most children are in the house their parents are, because theyve been told and raised by their parents to value these characteristics. and thats also why you get people that get sorted in houses they dont share characteristics with. you get stuff like cowardly peter pettigrew in gryffindor, follower-like and dumb crabbe and goyle in slytherin, and the whole weasley family (who have different personalities) in gryffindor, etc.
in the books, you can see that despite being incredibly dumb, lockhart was in the ravenclaw house. ravenclaw values intelligence; and even though lockhart isnt intelligent we can see he values intelligence. he knows that being intelligent will get him a better life (like making him famous), so if he cant be intelligent himself he’ll fake it bc he knows the value of being smart.
even hermione mentions it at the end of the first book:
even though she is the smartest witch in her year, what she values the more is friendship and bravery, traits of the gryffindor house, where she was placed. you can see it in the way that wormtail admired james and sirius, two people who were brave.
and i think thats one of the reasons you can “ask” the hat to let you be in a specific house. harry could be an slytherin through and through (he shares many traits - he is smart, cunning, etc) but those are not the traits he values, and when he lets the hat know this is when he gets placed in gryffindor.
and you can see in all the books that courage, determination, nerve, chivalry are all traits that harry values in people.
sirius for example, in spite of being raised to value slytherin traits, he disliked his parents and their values even before hogwarts. he values selflessness, putting himself in a place of danger to protect his friends and not understanding how peter could be so selfish and tell the secret, and not the self preservation that slytherin values. therefore, he wasn’t put into that house despite being raised to value that.
you can put this logic to almost every character, if not all characters. draco malfoy, hagrid, remus lupin, any weasley, regulus black, luna lovegood, snape, etc
i think its really interesting, because it makes you share house with someone who you shares values with, so it makes it easier to be friends with i guess. also if you’re surrounded by people who you share beliefs with, and you’re expected to be those traits, it gives you the push to become the traits you value (take neville for example).
As someone recently diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, one thing that’s been helping me grapple with the intense shame I have over all my “wasted potential” is accepting that potential doesn’t exist and never did.
This sounds so harsh, but please bare with me.
I procrastinated a lot growing up. I still procrastinate today, but less so. And yet, I got good grades. I could write an A+ paper that “knocked [my professor]’s socks off” in the hour before class and print it with sweat running down my face.
I was so used to hearing from teachers and family that if I just didn’t procrastinate and worked all the time, I could do anything! I had all this potential I wasn’t living up to!
And that’s true, as far as it goes, but that’s like saying if Usain Bolt just kept going he could be the fastest marathon runner in the world. Why does he stop at the end of the race??
If ANYONE could make their top speed/most productive setting the one they used all the time, anyone could do anything. But you can’t. Your top speed is not a speed you’re able to sustain.
Now, I’ve found that I do need to work on not procrastinating. Not because the product is better, even, but because it’s better for my mental health and physical health to not have a full, sweating, panicked breakdown over every task even if the task itself turns out excellently. It’s a shitty way to live! You feel bad ALL the time! And I don’t deserve to live like that anymore.
So all of this to say, I’m not wasting a ton of potential. I don’t have an ocean of productivity and accomplishments inside of me that I could easily, effortlessly access if I just sat down 8 hours a day and worked. There’s no fucking way. That’s not real. It’s an illusion. It’s fine not to live up to an illusion.
And if you have ADHD, I mean this from the bottom of my heart: you do not have limitless potential confounded by your laziness. You have the good potential of a good person, and you can access it with practice and work, but do not accept the story that you are choosing not to be all that you are or can be. You are just a human person.
Myra McEntire (via thoughtkick)
