#Idk were allowed to be crazy on this website I'm told

[brokenstar-s]

All these fools with angst writing-stop giving me people who "never had love and now are so sad without it" crap. If you never had it, yeah you'd think about it but is it your top priority? So no, give me the absent of it. Give me someone who has what they want, their friends, their family their life-and take it away. Make them feel the lost of having it. Because if you had it, you can only focus on the lost and absent of what it left you in.

#stop showing me a barely lit candle struggling to hold on for your angst #instead give me the bright blaze of a fire that was then tossed into the frozen waste and could only dream of the past #when they had been warm #my rambles #do I make sense? #in my own mind I do #Idk were allowed to be crazy on this website I'm told #tumblr writers #fanfic writers #ao3 writer #writers

[desidarling123]

FACT CHECK: Did JKR sue people for writing Wolfstar fanfiction? [FALSE] [with sources]

So, if you're at all active in the HP fandom, and ESPECIALLY if you're on TikTok, you've likely come across a post or video claiming the following:

JKR LITERALLY SUED PEOPLE OVER WOLFSTAR FANFICTION! AND THAT'S ALSO WHY SHE MADE REMADORA CANON -- TO SPITE THE SHIPPERS!

I'm not sure who first started this claim or how its various permutations grew, but it spread at the speed of light across social media. This widely-circulated meme summarizes it:

For the LONGEST time, I didn't know what to make of it. The claims were vague enough that they seemed like they could be true -- after all, JKR is a megacunt and a renowned TERF. You don't need to fact-check either of those things.

But then -- for the first time ever -- I came across a video on TikTok claiming that what was being said was NOT true, and that it was being used SPECIFICALLY to stir up drama. Which was... crazy, to say least.

And that led me, well, to do my own research & fact-check. I've taken the original video's structure and added some exposition as well.

So here's the truth:

That 2003 case the above meme refers to? Not even REMOTELY what the situation was about. Hell, not even CLOSE.

In 2003, JKR sent a cease-and-desist letter to an explicit adult HP fan fiction website, called "Restricted Section". Here's the letter:

As the above letter states, the site was sent a notice because of overarching concerns that minors would accidentally stumble onto the sexually explicit content the site hosted after searching up 'Harry Potter'.

The hand-wringing over minor safety probably seems dated now, but it was, in fact, standard practice in the early 2000s - sexually explicit fan content was being removed across the internet for those exact concerns. In fact, just the year before, in 2002, fanfiction.net was purged of NC-17 content (which would happen one more time, in 2012).

I feel ridiculous stating it, but just to be clear -- in the above letter and all my subsequent research, there's NO evidence she went after Wolfstar -- or any ship, for that matter -- directly.

In fact, the letter goes an extra mile to declare that "our clients (JKR) make no complaint about innocent fan fiction written by genuine Harry Potter fans", but that, "there is plainly a very real risk that impressionable children... will be directed... to your sexually explicit website".

But that leads in nicely to the next point -- the website DIDN'T shut down, as per the letter's request. Instead, they added password protection to ensure only members older than 17 were accessing it.

OK, but why did JKR and Warner Bros go after this site in the first place? Most believe it was because of a widely-publicized article in THE SCOTSMAN that talked about the website. But, once again, this article doesn't go after Wolfstar in particular -- it only goes after Harry x Draco and Harry x Snape. The inclusion of latter was arguably what generated the biggest controversy -- the pairing of Harry, a fictional minor, with an adult character, in slash stories largely written by adult heterosexual women, was not one that could be cast in a good light to the general public. It's hardly a surprise JKR's lawyers sought to do something before the controversy got out of hand and worried parents started to make calls.

What I said before still goes, though. The legal core of the issue was ALWAYS to do NOT with the ships, but the EXPLICIT NATURE of the work -- and the (very real) concerns that the series' then-mostly-under-18 readership could find said works with very little as far as guardrails were concerned. (I know, because I was one of those kids)

TLDR; JKR did NOT sue people over Wolfstar fanfiction, she sent a cease-and-desist notice to a website that was not taking adequate precautions to prevent minors from accessing the explicit adult content on the site.

To be clear -- this is not meant to be a statement on what to ENJOY in your fandom ships. You can ship Wolfstar, Remadora, both, neither -- it really doesn't matter. I think the fandom is critical enough of the author to have reclaimed her work on our own terms, and people should be allowed to just, idk enjoy things.

But propagating straight-up falsehoods is dangerous, especially when it comes at the expense of 1) a safe fandom environment (see: the current fandom ship wars between Remadora and Wolfstar, which are difficult to watch) and 2) serves as a distraction from the ACTUAL garbage JKR engages in (of which there is plenty -- no need to make it up lol).

Also, truth be told -- inter-fandom ship wars don't generally add anything productive to the necessary conversations that need to be had about her works. The thought that dashing fan ships was a key motivator in her writing rather than, I don't know, plot concerns, is ludicrous on face, and gives fans a level of control over the original writer that just... doesn't exist IRL? And certainly didn't back then?

And again -- the books would have been VERY different series, plot-wise, if Sirius Black HAD lived. Him being in a relationship with Remus, confirmed or implied, has no relation to that decision.

If we have talk Harry Potter, I'd rather talk about just about anything else -- the racism, the misogyny, the lack of any sort of organic queer rep and JKR's inability to just own up to the problems in her works. But the minutiae of ship wars -- and the inevitable stream of disinformation that comes with it, sans any kind of concrete evidence -- is one I'd prefer to pass on.

SOURCES:

Cease-and-Desist Letter Copy: http://archive.is/HTLsq

THE SCOTSMAN Article: http://archive.is/VdEaY

Restricted Section Updates Page:

https://web.archive.org/web/20030815233612/http://www.restrictedsection.org/news.php

BONUS: The original TikTok video I came across whose structure and sources I shamelessly stole to read and build out my argument. I copied a lot of their wording because it explained it better than I could, you just get some bonus snarky commentary from yours truly

#wolfstar #remadora #atyd #all the young dudes #jk rowling #harry potter #fandom meta #fandom fact check