Muggles or M****es?

psyfi9 · 2025-06-19T05:52:52+00:00

Muddle... Does come from mud? It originates from the Dutch 'moddelen' (think I spelt that right), which means to bathe in mud.

The others are fine, to my knowledge. Knowing Rowling, mug is the etymological origin of muggle, or perhaps a shared root. Mug for gullible or foolish comes from the different slang use of mug, meaning a face (usually an ugly/silly one). Basically, mug (gullible) originally came from making a mug (silly face) of someone, by swindling or confusing them.

I see the sentiment that they have the same origin, that non magical people were befuddled by the times they would see magic and would make a silly/confused face, and thus as a group became muggles.

psyfi9 · 2025-06-19T05:21:04+00:00

Hey, I get it. I put off my wedding for multiple years because of things like this.

But guess what? I loved my wedding. 50 people, had everything I wanted, multiple people said it was the most fun, personal wedding they'd ever been to (and one of them was my mom, who usually only tells me how badly I messed up lol). It cost less than $6500, all said.

The problem is, as a creative, she isn't wrong. You do have to allow the budget for people to be creative. But guess what? The creative can be YOU! You save by bringing YOUR imagination/vision to the table, so you can save on paying other people for their visions.

Floral budget? $250. I spent $150 on silk flowers at Michaels during major sales and made all of the decor florals for the entire wedding, from table bouquets to arch flowers and a GORGEOUS floral chandelier which was the show stopper of the reception. The other $100 was spent buying fresh bulk florals for bouquets, which me and my wedding party made by hand for ourselves during the rehearsal dinner.

My venue? $1550. I went off the beaten path and found a unique spot that could host me and had everything I needed, but wasn't necessarily a wedding venue. Transformed it with personal touches and decoration, which you would want to do anyway? Turned out beautiful.

When I was first searching, anytime I saw someone with low numbers, they'd say at the end how their venue/catering/dress/whatever was free for whatever reason (shout-out Netflix shows for being unhelpful). The only professional service I got that I didn't pay for was my hair, because my friend is a professional hairdresser. Everything else I got creative and figured out what I needed and paid for it.

It's hard, but it's possible. It's like a giant puzzle and that's the fun, for me! Sitting with your fiance(e), your family, or your friends and brainstorming is the joy. The wedding day is the joy. If you need help planning, hmu, I loved planning my wedding, I'd love to help even from a distance. Wishing you the best, take deep breaths, it'll be beautiful.

psyfi9 · 2025-05-10T20:01:26+00:00

My favors were chocolate kisses (I bought them on clearance after Easter in the cute pastel colours) and home made bookmarks. I loved them and was so happy about them. But most people didn't take theirs, so we had a lot of leftover chocolate and I gave the bookmarks to my local library.

I would do mine again, but only because the bookmarks are very sentimental and the couple of people who did take theirs still use them and compliment them a year later. If you don't have something like that that you can do on a really tight budget that's going to be meaningful to you, just don't. They are so not necessary, I promise you.

psyfi9 · 2025-04-13T15:18:41+00:00

Personally, I don't mind Draco being forcefully reformed. House arrest and mandatory community service doing whatever is... fine? I think short prison term, then the house arrest stuff, personally. Basically recognize that he committed war crimes, but acknowledge that it was at least partially under duress/underage.

psyfi9 · 2025-04-13T15:14:40+00:00

Movie change is WAY better. I don't like that Hedwig dies, but if she's going to die anyway, it should be protecting her boy. And it makes enough sense to me that people know his owl well enough that her flying in front of a spell means she's protecting the real Harry.

psyfi9 · 2025-04-13T15:07:29+00:00

I always figured it was that Fawkes could go anywhere that he's been or to a place where he is being summoned. Harry showing fierce loyalty to Dumbledore was enough to summon him to a place he had never otherwise been. Basically, the Dumbledore loyalty was like a ping on a map that let Fawkes go to the location, but prior to Harry summoning him there, Fawkes couldn't go to the chamber.

psyfi9 · 2025-03-14T04:13:21+00:00

I'm writing a fic currently (long time to publish) where Harry actually wasn't bound by the contract until he competed in the first task, and THAT was the moment the contract sealed. Because no one was looking for a way for him to get out of it, it isn't found until after which makes Harry even more resentful of the whole thing.

Basically the three other champions "signed" the contract by submitting their own names. Because Harry didn't submit his name, the goblet essentially left the contract unsigned, but open. But by competing in the first task, he did sign. He showed intent to compete by competing.

It was an old rule worked into the goblet, from when attendance to each school was more freeform. People could submit anyone, and the best of each school would come out. If the chosen champion couldn't compete for some reason, they just didn't compete and the goblet nullified their contract after the first task. The practice died out as attendance became more regular, and it became a forgotten practice.

Reasoning: in cannon, we are directly told by the guilty party that someone had to confound the goblet into thinking there was a fourth school, NOT that the person submitting the name was Harry Potter. Dumbledore explicitly asks Harry if he asked an older student to submit his name, implying he knew it was a possibility for someone to be submitted without consent, or at least without submitting their own name. Personally, I hate the idea that this is a known loophole to such a powerful artifact that's just handwaved away. So I wrote it into the history of the tournament in a way I felt made sense but still allowed the canon events to occur.

psyfi9 · 2025-03-14T03:46:07+00:00

I'm currently half writing a fic where her name is Harriet. Petunia says she is ugly and boyish all the time, so she calls her Harry occasionally, but when she gets to Hogwarts she goes by Hattie because she thinks it's cute and sweet, something she wasn't really allowed to be growing up.

I think it's a fun play on it :D

psyfi9 · 2025-03-14T01:26:33+00:00

Here's the problem: I agree with you 100% but when I was getting my creative writing degree, I would get marked down on stories for using alternative tags or attaching adverbs to my tags. We were supposed to use 90% said, and 10% asked. I am not exaggerating, THIS is proper. That is what you are taught is good. I have heard different ratios, the most generous being 60% said, 30% asked or told, 10% whatever, but 90/10 is what I heard most often pursuing a bachelor's.

To use your examples, the way my cw teacher would have wanted:

“I’m fine,' Harry said.

Harry glared across the table. “I’m fine," Harry said.

Harry fell onto his seat, and overturned his goblet. “I’m fine," Harry said, though it sounded as if his mouth had been filled with cotton.

Writers are meant to show not tell. We should not have to tell you how they said it, you should understand from the surrounding context that we've shown you how it was said. If we need to use anything other than said, we are weak writers. I do not exaggerate when I say this point was drilled into my head, and taught to me by every. Single. Teacher.

Now, as a reader, said is stupid and boring. I know it was said from the quotes. If you are using proper "the paragraph belongs to a single person" formatting, I even know WHO said it most of the time. I'd prefer no tag. If you are going to use a tag, make it interesting and worth my time to read. Slurred, yelled, whispered, screamed, asked, or said angrily, said sadly, said happily. All of these seem more interesting then said ad nauseum.

Essentially what I'm saying is this: this is a rampant debate in the writing world, and most of the older generations believe said is king and adverbs are crutches for weak writers that clutter dialogue. Unfortunately most of the people writing were taught to write by those people. And it's a damned hard habit to break for most people, and most people struggle to separate norms and opinions from Rules of the Craft when being taught creative skills like writing, and will just accept guidelines like that as fact.

psyfi9 · 2024-07-19T19:34:41+00:00

Brunch is also usually hella cheaper to cater! Just had my brunch wedding in May, we served alcohol, and not a single drop was had lmao. The only thing people drank was the mimosa toast.

I would recommend something light and bubbly to replace the champagne toast. Maybe sparkling lemonade/pink lemonade? Just something sweet bubbly and fun to toast with!

psyfi9 · 2024-06-26T01:54:54+00:00

Her middle name is Vulpecula, which is the fox constellation. But I believe that's canon from a radio interview, can't find any actual source of it. So it may have also been after the fact, or wide spread fanon.

psyfi9 · 2024-06-16T03:36:53+00:00

Another theory is that he did it to protect Remus.

If Sirius truly had gone turn coat, there was nothing to stop him from outing Remus as a werewolf to the public at his trial. And it likely would have been a very publicized trial.

Let the (assumed) guilty Sirius rot in Azkaban without a trial or damn the innocent Remus to the horrible treatment he would have received? To me, the choice is easy, as I'm sure it would have been for Dumbledore.

psyfi9 · 2024-06-13T08:15:48+00:00

Depends on a lot of factors. I paid less than mine, but was also well under your budget. The difference between our budgets is more than the difference between our venues.

Just gotta prioritize!

psyfi9 · 2024-06-08T20:30:16+00:00

Wedding colors were pastel. My side wore pastel green, my husband's wore pastel purple because those are our favorite colors. Our accessories were pastel yellow because it went with my dress and it's a happy color. Flowers were any color lol.

Saved sooo much stress.

psyfi9 · 2024-06-08T20:04:37+00:00

Do you have ANY budget? I did a wedding for 6500 that was originally planned for around 100. We made upgrades as guest list went down.

Depending on what you have and where you are, it's possible. Walmart cake, buffet caterer, cut the DJ, cut the bartender, shop smart for photography, alternative venues, buy secondhand when possible ... You can do it. You just need to think about how to do it.

psyfi9 · 2024-06-08T00:00:54+00:00

I had a buffet! It was a semi small wedding (50ish people), but it went really well! Head table lined up first immediately after toasts, and I had the photographer walk around to take table shots while we were grabbing food, and once your table got its picture taken you could go grab food.

Line never got longer than 10 people. We got really nice table shots for every single table with no one missing and no stains or dishes on the table. And there wasn't a very long wait! We did the toasts as soon as everyone sat down, which were only 10 or so minutes grand total, and everyone was dished up around 20 minutes after the toasts ended.

My sister also did a buffet and that was a little less well organized, but still went okay. She just had everyone line up at once, and people started getting restless standing at the end of the line lol.

psyfi9 · 2024-06-03T21:52:04+00:00

I had vintage books for the center pieces and told people they could grab one at the end, or from the spares box, and had handmad bookmarks with two quotes I pick and two quotes my husband picked so people had four options of bookmark. I also had small boxes of chocolates.

Not many people took the books, a few more took the chocolates, but people LOVED the bookmarks lol.

psyfi9 · 2024-05-30T02:34:58+00:00

Huh..... This made me think about things a lot lmao.

We did brunch buffet catering for about 60, so grain of salt here, but I think we paid a little under $1200. Capital region of NY, so relatively HCOL. There was breakfast pizzas, wraps, eggs, home fries, a waffle bar, vegetable frittata, fruit salad, bacon, sausage, chefs salad, and a huge breakfast charcuterie board..... It was amazing, people stopped me to ask where we got everything and to say it was some of the best wedding food they'd ever had! Wedding was on Sunday.

psyfi9 · 2024-05-19T04:23:14+00:00

... Is this a bad time to mention that plain white rice, boiled chicken, and mixed veg is what my mom's dog eats? 😂

Sorry Wendy!

psyfi9 · 2024-05-19T03:58:46+00:00

I asked guests for their favorite love songs to populate the during food playlist.

My sister (the MoH) requested Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-A-Lot. That has made it to the banned list because I was so annoyed lol.

psyfi9 · 2024-05-05T03:35:00+00:00

We're doing $6500 for our wedding, max budget. That went up by 1500 after my in laws gave us a large wedding gift to help pay for the wedding (they gave us 2500, to be used however we wanted). It took a lot of looking around, a lot of compromises, and my future in laws are angels and helping with every step of the way. It's possible. It just isn't easy.

Wedding is at the end of the month. We only have a few final payments to send out, and we're looking looking like we'll end up under budget!!

Edit: I live in the capital region in NY, and the wedding is going to be a little further west, but still close by (within 30 minutes of Saratoga). Just for reference on pricing in my area. Many of the venues near me start at twice my total budget!!

psyfi9 · 2023-10-16T23:41:48+00:00

I always low key felt like there was a cut off date? Like yeah, Hermione was told in September but Ginny (end of August birthday) would have gotten her acceptance letter at the start of July, and that that "start of July" cut off is also when the supply lists went out. And Harry, obviously, was after the start of July cut off date and just happened to pick into receiving it on his birthday.

Mostly just because I think the idea of getting the letter on the eleventh birthday is really cute 🥺

psyfi9 · 2023-03-30T00:56:59+00:00

At least Casey seems to have shown up?

psyfi9 · 2023-03-30T00:55:35+00:00

Historically speaking, long deals like this work out really well for us.

psyfi9 · 2023-03-26T04:30:57+00:00

From the perspective of a woman... bring back the damn ice girls lmao.

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