This is the second of my blog resources for fanfic writers who want to create a better sense of place by including stuff about London that is relevant to specific areas.
In this case, I’m talking about St James, Westminster and Whitehall,, all three of which add up to the seat of British Government.
Let’s take St James first. Bounded to the north by Piccadilly and Mayfair, to the west by Green Park, to the south by The Mall and St James’s Part and to the east by Haymarket. The home of the Buckingham Palace, St James’ Palace and Clarence House, royal residences to this day. Think aristocrats, think of Savile Row and Jermyn Street. The Mall, and of course, The Diogenes Club.
If you’ve been a tourist in London, this is an area you are highly likely to have been to visit. You may, however, be less familiar with its history.
The area’s name is linked to St James the Lesser (where have we heard THAT name before? Mary’s skip code and John’s bonfire night) It was the name of a leper hospital in the 12th century which was knocked down to build St James’s Palace.
In the 17th century the area developed as a residential location for the British aristocracy. Clarence House, Spencer House, Lancaster House, Marlborough House- these are all masterpieces of English architecture built for the aristocrats to enjoy the “London season” before returning to their estates in the country.
By the mid-19th century, it was the chosen place for a whole slew of gentlemen’s clubs: The Reform, The Travellers, The RAC, The Oxford and Cambridge Club, The Army and Navy Club, The East India Club, etc. Since the re-development of London post WW2, the area has moved from residential to more commercial premises. That said, many of the gentlemen’s outfitters of Savile Row and Jermyn Street have been there for centuries, and Fortnum & Mason’s was their local grocery store.
Whitehall is small but packed with power because this is civil service land. The Ministry of Defence, Horse Guards, etc now, but the history is even more interesting. Ever since the 12th century Whitehall was the route from Charing Cross to Westminster. Henry VIIth built “York Palace” on the route, which Henry VIIIth re-named Whitehall Palace. It was a rather splendid place. He married Anne Boleyn here. It was the palace of the Stuarts, too. By 1680 it looked like this:
If you zoom in, you will notice something interesting.
Yes, that’s SCOTLAND YARD, the very first one. As the Stuarts were Scottish kings, this is what the area was called. And it was the site much later of the very first home of the Metropolitan Police.
When New Scotland Yard moved from Victoria to its new home, it was to a site on the Thames that is on this map, just above the V in River.
So, now you know why it was called Scotland Yard.
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Here’s an old HP meta post about Snape I wrote right after The Deathly Hallows came out. I scavenged it from my deleted LJ and I’m reposting it here. Before you send me nasty asks, remember I wrote this over ten years ago!
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no one asked but i never saw snape's story as a redemption arc, mainly because it turns out that for the entire length of the series he was already working on the side that is meant to be good so more like a revelation arc? not all of his actions were entirely great and they are not supposed to be, but many of the ones that made harry and co. hate him have different meanings when you see them in their full light like always being in the hallways catching harry out when the kid was wandering around (or making a beeline for the exact thing that is trying to kill him), he's not just trying to get harry in trouble but also trying to stop him from getting dead (a sisyphean task if there ever was one) i suppose snape's over-arching narrative must be considered a redemption narrative since it exists in a very strict good vs. evil/black-and-white world, but i don't know something seems "off" about that at least to my very specific brain...
what some players think the occultist is like: -evil -religious extremist -time for my 4:00 human sacrifice brb -praise cthulhu!! -ending the world is cool and good and your confusion about why someone who thinks ending the world is cool and good is even on the team is definitely not a sign of being mistaken what the occultist’s barks and campfire dialogues are actually like: -i’m a university professor with tenure and still haven’t paid off my student loans -who wants to sing some super cool CAMPFIRE SONGS?! - /stupid teacher quips -god is evil, humans rule and monsters drool, come at me you eldritch FUCK i will yeet your malformed ass back to the VOID YOU SPAWNED FROM you little BITCH -oh fuck oh fuck why did i have the hubris to think i could play games with star-satan and win, curse my lack of genre awareness -HELP I’M SEALED WITHIN THIS MORTAL FLESH PRISON AND I HATE IT HERE. STOP SINGING HIS STUPID SONGS! YOU’RE JUST ENCOURAGING HIM! -whoops it got weird for a minute but it’s all out of my system now, brb making dramatic speeches about the united human intellect -i’m too old for this shit :| what the occultist’s hero shrine story is actually like: -yes hello my hubris led me to make only the worst life choices and i’m not allowed to host book club anymore
I genuinely have no clue where this fandom gets the idea that James and Snape were rivals. The definition of rivalry is competition for the same objective or for superiority in the same field.
If James and Snape were rivals, as many like to call them, what were they competing for?
Lily?
No. Snape and Lily were best friends, years before James and Snape even met. And Lily is not a “prize to be won” which many people—including James, as we see in SWM—fail to understand.
Their studies? [I’m including this because I’ve actually seen someone try to use this argument before]
No. That had nothing to do with their feud. And James and Snape excelled in different subjects. Snape was brilliant at potions and DADA. James was highly knowledgeable in transfiguration.
Unlike Harry and Draco (who were rivals when it came to Quidditch), James and Snape had nothing you could argue they were “competing over.”
Another important thing many people seem to forget about rivalries is that it means equality. Rivals’ statuses/dynamics are meant to be balanced. Does that apply to Snape and James?
James Potter: was a rich, well-groomed, spoiled pureblood Gryffindor.
Severus Snape: was a poor, unattractive, neglected half-blood Slytherin.
It can only ever be called a rivalry when both sides are equally powerful, which cannot be said for James and Snape whatsoever.
A huge reason as to why people like to call it that is because Snape apparently “gave as good as he got” (I like how there was not a single time that phrase was ever used in the series). They use a line said by Remus—one of Snape’s bullies, funnily enough—in OoTP as evidence of Snape’s supposed fighting back:
“Snape was a special case. I mean, he never lost an opportunity to curse James, so you couldn’t really expect James to take that lying down, could you?”
To a majority of this fandom, never losing an opportunity (opportunity: a time or set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something, Remus never said anything about Snape succeeding all the time) to curse James—who, in the author’s words, relentlessly bullied Snape for the past six years—in their 7th year (one year) meant “giving as good as he got” and automatically cancels out everything James did to Snape for the six years before that.
Demonising Snape for wanting to get back at James after being subjected to bullying, assault, and even attempted murder (the werewolf prank) for years is complete and utter victim-blaming. If the victim fights back, it is to be called self-defence, not “bullying back” (there is no such thing anyway) or a rivalry. Acting as though in order to be a “good victim”—whatever that’s supposed to mean—you have to take the bullying lying down, and if you defend yourself, you’re reclassified as the bad guy, is genuinely disgusting to me. If a woman were to defend herself against her assaulters, would she be in the wrong, would that negate what the assaulters did to her?
The pro-bullying and victim-blaming attitude that comes from this fandom is revolting. Defending oneself does not alter the dynamic from a person with more power bullying a victim to a rivalry between two equals. When will people learn to understand that.
And besides, there is absolutely nothing to back up Remus’s claim. In fact, there is more evidence that he was lying:
Remus makes it sound like Snape would just come up to James randomly and just hex him there and then. If he did, don’t you think Lily would’ve found out? Or at the very least the Hogwarts staff? That very much suggests that it was James who initiated these fights.
The Marauders had the cloak of invisibility, a map that could track Snape and everyone at Hogwarts’ every move, and the two-way mirror. What did Snape have?
Why would James hide it from Lily? If he was truly innocent and was the one being hexed senseless, he obviously would not have hidden it from her. What would he even have to hide if that were the case? It’s clear that he knew he was in the wrong and that Lily would have never gotten with him had she known what he was doing behind her back.
Remus is canonically a liar, who lied to Harry many times, especially about Snape. Why does this fandom act like his words about the person he used to bully should be trusted?
Moving on, none of the Marauders’ reasons for bullying Snape exactly scream rivalry:
James himself stated that he bullied Snape because he exists.
Remus called it “an old prejudice” when he and Harry talked in HBP, casting the Marauders as bigots (especially when you remember that Snape was a Slytherin whom they bullied because of his existence).
Sirius (in GoF) claimed that “Snape was just this little oddball who was up to his eyes in the Dark Arts.”
In SWM, we are shown that the reason James and Sirius attacked Snape—who was minding his own business—was because Sirius was bored, meaning they had done it for fun.
Lily claimed that James walked down corridors and hexed anyone who annoyed him “just because he can.”
Sirius claimed that “we [the Marauders] were sometimes arrogant little berks.”
Tell me, does this seem like a rivalry to you?
(Part 10)
First
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 11 Welcome to Underfell… UF Dogaressa is my new fav. I also learned that the face shape everyone gives Grillby is a lie. His head is round in the game. I’ve been lied to for years.
DO NOT POST THIS INSTAGRAM, OR ANYWHERE ELSE! YOU DO NOT EVER HAVE PERMISSION!
Dubbing must ask permission, specifically if you monetize.
Jinx : 😠
Silco : you’re my daughter 🥺 , I’ll never forsake you
Jinx : 🥺
Some of…practice
Friendly reminder that Héctor has been dead much longer than he was alive, he was only 21 thats literally around one 5th of his existence since then he has been a skeleton. What if he doesn’t really remember being alive, sure he has his memories of events, he remembers the people in his life but specifically what a living body felt like? Not so much.
One of the twins mentions missing his nose, Héctor shrugs as he touches his fingers to his nasual bone, it’s been so long it feels like he just always never had one.
Rosita watches as he helps her cook one day, accidently spliling a boiling pot of water down himself, she smiles and points out a least he hasn’t got skin that can burn. He can’t really remember what it felt like to be burnt.
Imelda holds his hands in hers, stroking his fingers and comments on how smooth the bones feel compared to his calloused fingertips from years of playing the guitar, he comments on how good her memory is because he had forgotten that before distracting her with kisses.
may i ask? why did odysseus try to kill diomedes?
1) why indeed 2) in the version that story’s from, afair odysseus wanted not just some but All the glory for stealing the palladium from Troy so after diomedes helped him do that he tried to shank him on the way back to the Greek camp lol. (this shady bastard characterization >>> modern bland Pure Good Guy Hero odysseus, for the record) 3) can i just say that i love that their friendship survived this? pictured: diomedes after turning around and seeing his closest ally and bro was about to murder him just for some reputation points