#everyone was a girl in that prongsfoot fic dont accuse me of centring men

[seriousbrat]

This is so insidious. "Be aware of your language because you might unknowingly be spreading Evil ideology!!" basically just means "don't talk about this at all because it bothers me". It's so so transparent. If I'm constantly having to be careful about what I say about female characters (regardless of my actual intended meaning) because this Supreme Arbiter of Truth might randomly decide it's Terf Rhetoric Actually how can I ever have any sort of meaningful discussion at all? Notice how it's framed as "unknowingly"– if I have no possible way of knowing HOW I'm using Evil Language, how can I possibly avoid it? By shutting up is the answer.

It's based on NOTHING. It's a strawman. There is not a single Lily fan that thinks that Lily is just a mother and nothing else. Seeing Lily as more than a mother and recognising motherhood is important to her story are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, in what world is pointing out that women are sidelined in fandom terf rhetoric? This person is just deliberately conflating discussions about misogyny in fandom with hate groups because they know that's an easy way to get people riled. They're pretending the main argument against Lily's exclusion in fandom is about motherhood (it's not) and then doing a further mental backflip to stir up moral outrage about people defending female characters.

Be absolutely clear about this- this person KNOWS, deep down, that there is a reason why they only engage with male characters, and this bothers them. Instead of being honest with themselves about it they are inventing a bullshit faux progressive reason to silence any and all criticism and convince their own conscience that they're in the right.

There are no laws, obviously, saying you can't change lily's story or make her a side character if you want. I myself once made her a side character in a prongsfoot fic. The problem is when this is an overwhelming tendency in fandom, which IS significant and IS, in my opinion at least, worth pointing out. When arguably the most important character in the Marauders Era is routinely sidelined in favour of male characters who are literally irrelevant, that does actually say something about what sorts of characters fandom likes to engage with and why. When she's routinely bashed and hated for not really doing anything wrong while male characters who range from bullies to murderers are excused and idealised, that does say something.

It's never pleasant to have to critically examine your own interactions with fiction and accept that your preferences might be rooted in deeper-held beliefs about the world. But it is important, and one way to do this is to facilitate open conversations between different points of view. One way to NOT do this is claiming that everyone else but you is "accidentally" "unknowingly" using evil language so they might as well shut up about their opinions and about women in general.

#im sorry but this actually annoyed me. #its sooo condescending too. i know what the fuck im saying. #the reason i don't agree w lily being sidelined isn't because she's a mother it's because shes A WOMAN #and also what does ANY of this have to do with trans people?? 😭 #whats also insidious is using real issues of transphobia to silence people saying that women are sidelined #that literally... includes trans women because they are also sidelined along with ... the rest of women #god #everyone was a girl in that prongsfoot fic dont accuse me of centring men #(that's a joke. i actually think i have more m/m fics on my ao3 than anything else) #(by ONE. but still)