In the Potterverse, Squibs are essentially the inverse of a Muggle-born; essentially Muggles born within a family of arcane practitioners.
How often does something like this happen, in the Hopeverse? I'm guessing family life's gotten easier since the discovery of arcane exclusion fields, but what about before?
To the mages in town...
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IamLEAM1983
- Site Admin
- Posts: 3710
- Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2013 4:54 am
- Location: Quebec, Canada
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IamLEAM1983
- Site Admin
- Posts: 3710
- Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2013 4:54 am
- Location: Quebec, Canada
As Amazo
"Before? From personal experience, I can tell you it's painful.
Imagine being one hard-working mundane man, and marrying a mundane anthro in circumstances as hard as the American Industrial Era. People crawled out of the countrysides to earn a living in the cities, and they choked in slums that were connected right next to their employing factories. No pay was ever good, and you often had several mouths to feed.
Now toss in a young firestarter, someone who's prone to bursts of pyromancy when angry or scared or anxious. That's me. That's me, surrounded by a highly flammable wooden house that'd be worth about five bucks on today's market, which it itself packed against more and more of its kind. I barely avoided turning my parents' employing factory into a smoldering crater. If you'd been my dad, choosing between love, continued employment and safety would have been torture.
Praetorius came at the right time. That's all I can really say. He put food on my table and knowledge in my then-dangerously vapid noggin - and he saved my parents. None of them had any training or preparation, none of our neighbors knew what to do. This wasn't the Middle Ages and the local parish priest didn't call me a Hellspawn or anything, but he talked to me like someone who needs to get some introspection done, as if getting my head shrunk would make my initial pyromancy go away.
Being surrounded by people who can do scarier things than you is tough. It makes people turn brittle and insensitive, when they don't turn into judgmental assholes. I spent a little while with Praetorius before leaving for good, and my goodbyes were cold and strange. I stayed in America for a few months, but I already knew more than my parents had ever learned. I'd get to do things they'd never do, even without magic entering the equation. I had my ticket out and Dad didn't.
I left on good terms with my mother, but there's a reason why I go back to Chicago for a few days, once every year. My father's grave needs tending-to."
Imagine being one hard-working mundane man, and marrying a mundane anthro in circumstances as hard as the American Industrial Era. People crawled out of the countrysides to earn a living in the cities, and they choked in slums that were connected right next to their employing factories. No pay was ever good, and you often had several mouths to feed.
Now toss in a young firestarter, someone who's prone to bursts of pyromancy when angry or scared or anxious. That's me. That's me, surrounded by a highly flammable wooden house that'd be worth about five bucks on today's market, which it itself packed against more and more of its kind. I barely avoided turning my parents' employing factory into a smoldering crater. If you'd been my dad, choosing between love, continued employment and safety would have been torture.
Praetorius came at the right time. That's all I can really say. He put food on my table and knowledge in my then-dangerously vapid noggin - and he saved my parents. None of them had any training or preparation, none of our neighbors knew what to do. This wasn't the Middle Ages and the local parish priest didn't call me a Hellspawn or anything, but he talked to me like someone who needs to get some introspection done, as if getting my head shrunk would make my initial pyromancy go away.
Being surrounded by people who can do scarier things than you is tough. It makes people turn brittle and insensitive, when they don't turn into judgmental assholes. I spent a little while with Praetorius before leaving for good, and my goodbyes were cold and strange. I stayed in America for a few months, but I already knew more than my parents had ever learned. I'd get to do things they'd never do, even without magic entering the equation. I had my ticket out and Dad didn't.
I left on good terms with my mother, but there's a reason why I go back to Chicago for a few days, once every year. My father's grave needs tending-to."