#OH MY GOD- HAVE Y'ALL SEEN THIS?! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

firendgold · 9 months

Note

If you're still doing the choose violence ask game: 2 (👀), 9, 10, 22 ?

I got such a rush from finally answering the first ask that I'm doing this for as long as people send me questions. So here we go again!

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

anon, I'm at work. I'm seeing this at work. :'D

Okay, serious face. Albus Dumbledore is probably my fave if I have to choose between him and Harry on this blog. I just have to figure out why he would never...

Bottom. Albus would never, I'm sorry. He won't. He can't. Like, maybe when he was having his whirlwind summer romance with Gellert, he bottomed every single time they fucked because he was so in love and this was his equal and his partner and so what if he was a little rough and distant sometimes in the bedroom, and always wanted to top and tug his hair and hiss out orders? This was The Man The Universe Had Crafted For Him, and he would absolutely bottom for him every time... and then the summer of 1899 ends. And Ariana dies. And Aberforth breaks Albus' nose. And Gellert fucks off to go be a fascist.

And Albus, alone and heartbroken, resolves to never trust someone that completely again, never love someone that same way, and never let anyone get into a position of power over him where they might be able to use his knowledge and talents for ill. That means physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically... carnally. So he has sex with plenty of other people, and even falls in love with a few of them, but he is in control at all times. He never bottoms again.

That's all I've got for that one.

9. worst part of canon

So the first answer that came to mind is posted here, but for fairness' sake I'll try to come up with another worst thing. (That's not related to ships, because I'm trying really hard not to be THAT violent on the violence ask game.)

I think... that if That Woman was going to introduce international schools, students and characters in the middle book of the series, she should have done more with them than having them vanish after Goblet of Fire, only to come back for either fake romantic tension and one line of exposition about the Hitler allegory Dark Lord of the Before-Times (Krum, Deathly Hallows) or to be married off to a Weasley for an aesop of It's Not About His Looks Now That They're Jacked Up (Fleur, Half-Blood Prince). I'm not saying Fleur and Viktor HAD to be best buddies forever with Harry, but it is weird that they have this unique bond that no other young students have had with each other in hundreds of years, they even lost one of their fellow champions, Dumbledore gives this very moving speech about remaining connected and not letting darkness and prejudice sever new ties, and then... nothing. No side adventures in France or wherever Durmstrang is, no communication from either side, nothing.

Feels like a huge letdown in hindsight.

10. worst part of fanon

Oh, no. That's not fair. There's just so many.

If I had to consolidate what I currently don't like about the HP fandom/fanon into a few lines, I think I would say that I hate the pureblood/Dark side apologism. I do believe in nuance in characters. I do believe redemption and/or walking different paths is an important theme in Harry Potter, and I think it's fascinating to explore that with any and every character you can think of, even characters I may not personally like. But I really, really hate the way the fandom has taken that and twisted it into this idea that we were sold a lie at the start: that the British magical government was fine the way it was, and so was the society around it; that Dark magic Isn't All That Bad, Really, and there are actually Good and non-prejudiced things about a few rich bitches passing down their knowledge and secrets and slurs for generations within the Family, and keeping the Family "Pure" is cool actually, and none of this has any relation to real life ideas about miscegenation and classism and racism and eugenics, what are you talking about?

It's just so worrying. As a minority, when I see people on tumblr/twitter/AO3 gleefully agreeing that we need to eat the rich and fix society and eradicate all the horrid -isms and -archys ruining all our lives, then watch them turn around and write a 200k epic where Dumbledore was the evil one for locking the Horcrux books away and championing marginalized members of society, Hermione is just uppity for wanting to make necessary changes to the darker parts of magical society that That Woman was literally pointing out for a reason, and Tom Riddle is only bad because he took the good segregationist pureblood ideas and added murder to them... and when that fic gets thousands of comments agreeing with them full stop with no examination of any of that... it makes me anxious, at a minimum. The same thing is happening now with Grindelwald now that he's actually a figure on the screen and not just some dude mentioned a few times in the book series: same apologism, same justification of atrocities, same good-guy-blame-games, same blorbofication even.

On the one hand... fiction doesn't always directly reflect or affect reality. On the other... this unironic pro-pureblood meta is a pervasive concept that has popped up in thousands of fics written by thousands of fanfic writers. It's happened for years, and it keeps happening, and I see very few fans speaking out against it or even acknowledging it as a problem. So that makes me ask myself, who actually is willing and able to examine the injustices of our society and build a better imaginary society through the lens of HP fanfiction, and who's okay with the prejudice in the HP world as long as it's coming from the faves they're attracted to?

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

Happily, this is a harder question to answer because I've been finding so many like minds in the past 5 years who go feral over the same 20 HP scenes as I do. ^^ But give me a sec, I'll think of something.

...

Okay. Got it.

In order to answer this question, I have to go back to the first time I, young teenager, avid reader, recent reader of the HP series once book 5 was out, realized that Harry and Dumbledore had a much deeper relationship than just headmaster and student. The thing that made me latch on to them and project like crazy, basically.

It's the scene in Goblet of Fire chapter 36 where Harry has been rescued from Fake Moody and he's in Dumbledore's office with Dumbledore and Sirius. Dumbledore asks Harry to relay everything that happened to him once he touched the Portkey in the maze—and immediately Sirius tries to protect Harry from having to relive it now, so soon after it's happened. And then this scene happens.

Dumbledore stopped talking. He sat down opposite Harry, behind his desk. He was looking at Harry, who avoided his eyes. Dumbledore was going to question him. He was going to make Harry relive everything. “I need to know what happened after you touched the Portkey in the maze, Harry,” said Dumbledore. “We can leave that till morning, can’t we, Dumbledore?” said Sirius harshly. He had put a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Let him have a sleep. Let him rest.” Harry felt a rush of gratitude toward Sirius, but Dumbledore took no notice of Sirius’s words. He leaned forward toward Harry. Very unwillingly, Harry raised his head and looked into those blue eyes. “If I thought I could help you,” Dumbledore said gently, “by putting you into an enchanted sleep and allowing you to postpone the moment when you would have to think about what has happened tonight, I would do it. But I know better. Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it. You have shown bravery beyond anything I could have expected of you. I ask you to demonstrate your courage one more time. I ask you to tell us what happened.” The phoenix let out one soft, quavering note. It shivered in the air, and Harry felt as though a drop of hot liquid had slipped down his throat into his stomach, warming him, and strengthening him. He took a deep breath and began to tell them. As he spoke, visions of everything that had passed that night seemed to rise before his eyes; he saw the sparkling surface of the potion that had revived Voldemort; he saw the Death Eaters Apparating between the graves around them; he saw Cedric’s body, lying on the ground beside the cup. Once or twice, Sirius made a noise as though about to say something, his hand still tight on Harry’s shoulder, but Dumbledore raised his hand to stop him, and Harry was glad of this, because it was easier to keep going now he had started. It was even a relief; he felt almost as though something poisonous were being extracted from him. It was costing him every bit of determination he had to keep talking, yet he sensed that once he had finished, he would feel better.

This is one of the best scenes in the entire book, the entire series. It completely refutes the fanon Dumbledore who is often cold, cruel, inflexible and unrelenting in his quest for whatever the author wants him to be inflexible and cruel about at the time. It shows that Dumbledore, the real Albus Dumbledore, is one of the few people who understands what Harry needs and is able to provide it to him, even when others who also care for Harry would rather protect him or shield him from what he needs.

Kid me was particularly taken by how gentle Dumbledore is with Harry here. It made me look back and see how in some ways this scene, this closeness, is the culmination of all the times they've met and spoken before.

(You can imagine how painful it was reading Order of the Phoenix right after this.)

But yeah, that's probably one of my favorite scenes that other people ignore or haven't talked about/drawn/written about much. Which is ironic, because the scene right after that where Harry talks about Voldemort taking his blood and Dumbledore's eyes do the triumphant "lol Voldemort just fucked up" gleam is probably one of THE most talked-about scenes in the fandom (even though to this fucking day in 2023 people still don't realize what the gleam meant, when even That Woman has clarified what it meant in INTERVIEWS).

...And for me, safely at the end of the questions, that's all she wrote.

#fireandgoldposts #thanks for the ask!#choose violence ask game #Albus Dumbledore #not y'all making me put more gr*ndeld*re on this blog :') I forgive you tho #it's my own fault for having that headcanon. and to think I didn't think I'd be able to answer that question #I'm poking a real bear by finally talking about how much I hate the pureblood politics/pureblood supremacy/misunderstood bad guys trifecta #another thing that was perhaps interesting 20 years ago when people first started doing it but is now stale and infuriating #since it's now seen as fact and not fiction #the fiction of fiction even #I can't believe I didn't just write ''the worst part of fanon is every independent!Harry/manipulative!Dumbledore fanfic ever written #that's growth for me #oh god the worst part about no expanded roles for Fleur and Krum is that most fans only give Fleur an extended role #when they're SHIPPING HER WITH HARRY as some kind of ''ooh foreign beauty'' thing where he naturally resists her allure #and oh my god here comes the nausea again because flowerpot is another ship that's been done to death the very same way haphne/wolfstar has #and I love Krum/Hermione as much as the next person but fanon Krum is like NEVER allowed to move on from Hermione unless he's gay/bi #which is VERY rare to see. like please give me Harry/Krum fanfic recs if you have them #or Ron/Krum because that is so narratively satisfying #honorable mention for question 22 would probably go to the scene where Hermione and Ron try to get Harry to go to Dumbledore in year 5 #after they find out what Umbridge is doing to him in detention and Harry just. CAN'T. properly explain why he doesn't want to go #but he's thinking about how Dumbledore has ''ignored him since last June'' and it's one of the few times we see him acknowledge that hurts #he mentions it several times throughout the book in his thoughts but that's one of the first times he refuses help from Albus #even though Albus would help him in a heartbeat oh my GOD it's been like 20 years since that book came out and I'm still feral about those #Goblet of Fire #Fleur Delacour #Viktor Krum #pureblood propaganda #and how much I am anti-that lmao #not fireandgold #oh my god having to reformat this every 3 hours because the bolds and italics won't stick is a fucking NIGHTMARE

8 notes · View notes

desertdragon · 11 months

Text

This shit got me heated and reminded me why I stay away from people who also play this game but it also made me think again about Why the Ga/lean section of E/W was just more tone deaf apologism for me (and as I've learned, many others)

Also I am seeing people in the quotes using having a lot of empathy as an excuse to frame themselves as superior to others and implying ableism against those that have low empathy so that's another thing where I'm like shut the fuck up you're literally fucking arrogant for making that equivalency anyway- empathy level does NOT equal a person's value or moral value/humanity and ironically thinking it does shows you dehumanize others on prejudice, which you claim not to be doing because you're empathetic-

Like I don't like this person actually I have them blocked on here and I forgot they were even on Twitter until I saw the people "dragging" this post but I agree with the essence of what op is saying- if you are ACTIVELY still being a piece of shit (And even if you're NOT because forgiveness is never OWED) No it is not an obligation on anyone to forgive you or suck your dick and not care how hurtful you're still being; it's dehumanizing, entitled, and victim blaming to tell someone they cannot be allowed to their feelings or defending themselves when met with prejudiced hate and violence

It's frustrating however seeing people turn how SE handled this into black and white self righteousness or obnoxious selfishness because I don't think anyone actually remembers how badly once again the ball was fumbled despite starting from a reasonable place, this is how I feel about it from what I remember explicitly because it made me angry to see a good thing ruined again by centrist ignorant nonsense:

It is legitimately a good thing to help the helpless! It is and that is a noble first instinct to have and not everyone has to agree with it as Lyse says if the helpless at that moment was once or still is your oppressor! But people who rush to suck SE's corporate cock stop it at that fact, at the Idea That Is Included and refuse to examine The Execution of That Idea. Any idea can be included in anything, it's been done forever, but how you describe and show that idea is what speaks. And the execution on this serious topic as with others was deeply flawed and one sided. You cannot insist that people motivated by dehumanizing fascist hatred, giving themselves wholely to the duty of extermination for national interest and personal pride, to commit countless atrocities they don't even reflect on when it's given back to Them, who see anyone not of the Perfect Chosen Civilization/Race as animals, are simply misguided and misunderstood. People coming to you purposefully in bad faith, still being entitled to absolute forgiveness and acceptance.

The few people who are welcoming to you in Ga/lemald and those who just want to move on and not hate after the dust clears, who are not actively hateful and who are repentant, should be taken care of imo. And I appreciate that they were included. And I do find it disturbing in the thought exercise it represents to insist on slaughtering destitute people who want to break the cycle. Because they come in good faith. But looking at the actual campaign and dialogue it cannot CANNOT be denied that this same lens of acceptance/pity/woobying is also extended to those who continue to only see themselves as true human beings worthy of life. It cannot be ignored how quickly the implications and weight of the evil function of a soldier for an imperialist fascist empire is ignored with zero self reflection for the military's conquered victims. Particularly represented by the character of Julius, which I have seen other people rightfully call out as well, even some of his sympathizers. Instead the story suggests you must be a doormat for everyone no matter how they treat you without any dignity for yourself and others who are targeted. That we don't need to hold those who commit evil as accountable for what they did without blaming it on something else, some outside influence having total control rather than the fact of them choosing to be an inhumane instrument. That ignorance literally happens everyday in real life, just look at how many people truly trust in the idea of authority figures or soldiers and glamorize it. Often times hateful people in real life don't move out of or detach from one of their hateful groups because of a true change of heart, but rather out of convenience for their image, or because the hate group targeted them for some different part of their identity. But it doesn't nessesarily change that they still mindlessly hate X Population for baseless reasons.

These nuances are lost, the conversation in the game refuses to engage with the detail work and instead paints using a wide brush. Because it needs to appeal to making money. And also I saw someone in the Twitter thread saying "Well the girls who run away from you because you're a dirty savage to them (which they explicitly stated) were just scared, so you can't not feel bad when they die by their own actions." This is rhetoric I have seen white people use to defend the killing or harm of people of color in real cases. You don't call someone a slur, tell them they're subhuman, that you'd rather die than get help from an animal- and then brush it off as you being scared (how many cops/bigot gun owners shoot for no fucking reason at ALL and then say Well I had to take the shot they were threatening me, I was scared, they were endangering Me when they tried to get away or ask I stop or they were scared; how many times have Whites or other hateful strangers ever called you a slur or treated you unfairly because you're not White too or not part of their group and that makes them feel threatened, because you did nothing but exist, how many times do you experience discrimination and it gets turned around/used to gaslight you with Well you were scaring me so abusing you was justified etc). You see how the jump between this prejudiced rhetoric being justified in fictional thought experiments can mirror the same logic as a takeaway real already prejudiced people have viewing the story.

So no, under no circumstances do I find calling the Ga/lemald section of EW amazingly written something I can agree with, in fact I find it incredibly ignorant and then turning it into a soapbox to target dissenters as if they're inhuman for not getting it and using ableist language as well to help do so is appalling; nor do I agree with its most extremist of detractors, who deny it any positives simply for suggesting people want to help those who suffer even if they once wronged you. This is yet another case of the SE writer's room having no fucking idea how to write anything more complex than a toddler book about shapes or focused character stories with an actual nuanced sense of perspective. How every time they have a great or decent starting point on a broad heavy topic they can't find where to address the lines within it. And the rare times they do succeed at it it still amounts to clean corns in a big picture that's a pile of diarrhea shit. And they keep getting away with it because nobody wants to lift their head instead of indulging the rat race that is fighting each other.

#the way I have seen people collectively forget shit that happened in cutscenes so they can feel superior & don't bother fact checking LMAOO #GOD I HATE Y'ALL SO MUCH! Consider silence!#and you can tell which poc defending this type of shit so they can attack people don't give a fuck about punching down other poc who're mad #'oh i live in the most powerful imperial core country- America & i can afford expensive smoothies and other shit-'#'let me tell you how I'm suffering under imperialism too unlike my ancestors and those who lived it in my family so i can excuse'#'the fantasy racism and imperialism those other dirtier poc complain about because it was poorly handled' BITCH SHUT UP!!#i expect that shit from white people you fucking stop that right now! you and me live in an imperial core country we're safe from it!!#we're not safe from racism and prejudice and other bad things but we're fucking safe from that; we DO the imperialism you privileged fuck #i do not like Sun'ra i think he's a fucking asshole BUT i also think people are jumping for his throat so hard bc his character is dark ski #*dark skinned #he bothers me cuz of shit he's said about fiction not affecting reality proship nonsense and believing trigger warnings makes you a pussy #but here he's right this is the one thing we agree on lol #anytime the evil things get misrepresented badly and it generates anger from irl ppl affected by those same issues the ballfondlers come ou

0 notes