We're All to Blame - Sum 41, and one-shot thoughts

Am terribly sleepy, but determined to write.  Too many good scenes running through head of everyone dying.  Story shall be morbid and depressing.  Good.

I'm going to paint the average mean of Siriuses - the total, murderous bastard I made in my story (...which I now find entirely irking), and the much more innocent and guilt-ridden one Arabella designed.  I'm going to make a Sirius in between those.  After all, twenty years later he still showed so little regret.

Heard a perfect, perfect song in the car on the way to karate, and I'm going to use a version of the chorus for the opening lines of one-shot, though it won't be a songfic, exactly.  It'll be the same as Cassie does, you know.

We're All to Blame

Take everything left from me
How can we still succeed, taking what we don't need?
Telling lies, alibis, selling all the hate that we breed.
Supersize our tragedy!
Bought in the land of the free!

And we're all too blame,
We've gone too far,
From pride to shame,
We're trying so hard,
We're dying in vain,
We're hopelessly blissful and blind
To all we are,
We want it all with no sacrifice!

Realize we spend our lives living in a culture of fear.
Stand to salute; say thanks to the man of the year.
How did we all come to this?
It's greed that we just can't resist!

And we're all too blame,
We've gone too far,
From pride to shame,
We're trying so hard,
We're dying in vain,
We're hopelessly blissful and blind
To all we are,
We want it all.
Everyone wants it all with no sacrifice!

Tell me now, what have we done? We don't know.
I can't allow what is being done to tear it down,
Believe me now, we don't know just what
With our backs against the wall.

And now we're all too blame,
We've gone too far,
From pride to shame,
We're hopelessly blissful and blind
When all we need
Is something true
I do believe,
Don't we all?
Everyone, everyone,
We will fall.

'Cause we're all to blame
We've gone too far,
From pride to shame,
We're trying so hard,
We're dying in vain,
We want it all,
Everyone, don't we all?

- Sum 41

It has an interesting tempo; the verses are so fast and intense, almost like rap, and everything slows down so much for the chorus, the music almost stops completely for the "And...we're all...to...blame; we've gone too far...."  You just have to hear it.  It's going to be so excellent for my story.

It's hard to think at the moment...I'm considering making it agree with my story or not.  That is, the whole factor with Lily dating Severus at the time.  Probably, I will.  Add to the angst, naturally.  But it really means I'll have to do a bit of serious rewriting now for my actual story.

Oh, and adding in Rose, David, and Mary.

So no, I still have many details to work out...

One-shot progress

You will be blessed by an almost minute-by-minute record of the writing.

• Six words in - not including author notes and lyrics - and I love it.  This is going to be brilliant.


• Finished first sentence!  And have gone back up to add disclaimer.


• Finished disclaimer, am now working on second and third sentences, which are each their own paragraph, though that is being debated heatedly.


• Aha.  The first writer's block.  Cannot find appropriate verb after "blood" that does not belong in a horror movie/story.  Spurts, coats, splatters, splashes, flies...


• Have left blank for verb.  Prologue (for indeed, that was a prologue) is done: on to main story.


• Went back to decide verb anyway, and fine, the story shall sound rather horror-story-ish.  So be it.


• Having serious doubts.  Story is bad idea.


• Will write it anyway, though am now debating title, if it should be "Won" or "Succeeded."


• Story sucks.


• But is growing anyway.


• Story is still growing to unexpected lengths. 


• Story has reached good stopping place.  I'll pretend, anyway.  I retire.

Freedom and Unity

Why haven't I mentioned Freedom and Unity yet?

It's difficult to come up with an adequate description.  For one, it's not the plot that draws you in.  It's the setting, the background, the circumstances, the situation.  It's placed in America, the year 1959.  One main character is a congressman for Magical Vermont. 

The story...it's more realistic than the books themselves, and that is no exaggeration.  It's about the politics, how everything works, the controversies...what a challenge.  I highly respect the author, Narcissa Malfoy, and only wish she had given us a better penname.  It's about a woman of the time being thrown into American wizarding society, the political battles, and with references to how wizards came and started in America. 

i.e.  Ever wondered what really happened with Roanoke?  The Salem witch trials?

In essence, it's such a real insight on how the wizarding world works.

Now for an appropriate review someone gave:

I'm completely blown away.

One can tell that a tremendous effort has been put into this fic. The background and historical references are so diverse and realistic that the story takes on a life of its own.

It's so refreshing to find a story that takes such leaps and bounds away from the conventional HP settings, making it fit within JKR's frame and yet exploring the picture you've created so thoroughly.

I love it.

And now, quotes that basically give a shortened version of the story:

She looked about the apartment desperately. "All right," she said. "Do you have a flying carpet up your sleeve?"
"Flying carpets are illegal in the District of Columbia," he said. "We'll go by portkey."

"My great-uncle used to live here," said Quentin. "He was a Squib. Squibs are wizard-born people who can't do magic. Anyway, Uncle Lewis prided himself at being at home in both worlds. Until the automobile ran him over."

"When were you here last?"
"Two months ago."
"The food will have rotted!"
"No... preservation charms."
"I'm not eating anything that's been here two month," she protested.
"Oh good. Don't eat. We'll write on your death certificate: Cause of Death: Muggle Stupidity."

"I'm not bigoted, Alexia. I'm just telling you what others think. You have to know. You'll meet people like my father."
"Your father thinks we're vermin?"
"No. He thinks you're powerful enemies bent on destroying us. He's a little senile."

"This is real life, Alexia. Not a romance. The Douglases have one of the few truly pure lineages in North America. Not a single Muggle among my ancestors for five centuries."
"Five centuries ago someone married a Muggle?"
"No," he said sharply. "Lack of records. Anyway...."

"Or there weren't until now, Theo. I'm going to be remarrying."
Theo's stare grew more intense.
"I'm very sorry," said Quentin quickly.
"No! You don't have to be! It's... Congratulations!" Despite his hasty assurances, Theo looked ready to faint.

"Well, you can't wear Muggle clothes anymore. My father would take it as a declaration of war, for one thing."
"He'd take me in these clothes as a spy then, don't you think?"

"And who is Alexia?" demanded his father.
"She's a Muggle woman from..." he began but was cut off.
"MUGGLE?" shouted his father.
"Yes," said Quentin, focusing on a flower arrangement near the middle of the table.
"Have you gone mad, boy?" demanded his father.
"Dad, considering I'm forty-seven, you might want to reconsider calling me boy," said Quentin.

"What will Fanny say?" cried his mother.
"Mom, if you will notice, Fanny divorced me. I fail to see how her opinion matters."

The door opened to admit his mother. "Your wife is arguing with your father," she announced.
Quentin rubbed his eyes and sat up. "Who's winning?"

The library lacked the character and history it had once had, Quentin thought. He had nightmares from time to time about missing his mother's funeral because he was too absorbed in tearing down the wallpaper.

Return to If Sirius Had Won

This is going to be a very morbid story.  I'm reminded of And Just Plain Wrong, which, just to let everyone know, was written in response to a challenge of what would happen if Voldemort won and he and the Death Eaters took over Hogwarts.  The author took it very, very seriously, and the result was a story so unbelievably depressing and horrifying it completely killed my sex drive for some time.

That's okay, though.  Now that I have accepted this story's potential morbid-ity I can write it well.  Or better, at least.

But yes, this is not one of Sohara's one-shots.

Yay.  Maybe this means I am original.

• Haha, this is going to be so suspenseful.


• Have reached second, and slightly bigger writer's block.  Truly, this story is the least planned of any I've written.  I have many decisions to make.  But may have to take a break to go places.