#i also know jk rowling is problematic in other ways

[phantomram-b00]

Why is Harry Potter trending (or was)? Can it not? Like deadass I’m being fr can it plz not. Especially that J.K Rowling is a massive TERF, a raging antisemite, and disgustingly try to deny that trans people were not affected by the Holocaust (which she was ratio’d by George Takei).

“Proof?”

Way ahead of you: (Tw: transphobia, racism, antisemitism, holocaust, Harry Potter)

Oh and don’t get me started how Hogwart Legacy, you know that game that was sworn Jk Rowling wasn’t apart of (yeah sure-) is blood libel story. Not to mention that trans people have told you not to especially since there is a canonical transgender character named Sirona. (People said Sirona is a Celtic goddess for healing. but- come on. You can’t bullshit out of this one. There are OTHER NAMES TO NAME A TRANSGENDER CHARACTER— it make those joke with how Jk Rowling naming not far off. Because it like naming a nonbinary character “NoGendora” or smth (before you say, I’m nonbinary myself—) so idc if it already have a meaning, it still is tone deaf to name a transgender women Sirona).

“But but- you can separate the art from the artist?”

Yes. You can separate art from the artist. HOWEVER before you celebrate thinking you had a gotcha moment. You can only separate if the art itself isn’t problematic or is bigotry itself. Harry Potter is as mention in the links. Not to mention, Harry Potter himself become a cop despite the cop in that world didn’t do jack shit. And don’t get me started on how they handle the whole elf slavery. Also there is heavy fatphobia in this story, proof, look at how they would talk about Harry’s abusive aunt and uncle from his mother’s side. Don’t get me started how she would describe Rita Skeeter. There even a black character who’s last names is Shacklebolt— do I need to say more (if I’m missing any other examples please tell me)

Not to mention she benefits off of it and uses her money to donate to transphobia and just don’t give a flying fuck if she offend people (which seem to usually be the case for trans/homophobia but moving on). like, this is who you wanna support? You still want to read this wizard book when there are other that don’t have transphobia, racist, antisemitic, or any problematic rhetoric and are objectively better than Harry Potter? Really? You wanna die on this hill?

Look. I used to like Harry Potter. but that was before I knew what a dirtbag of a fucking human she is (I didn’t really have social media at the time), and I cringe as I wish I learn sooner that she was a deplorable person who hates trans people like myself (nonbinary respectfully). But, I can happily say Fuck Harry Potter that series can burn in a trash for all I care and I hope the hbo series flops on its ass. And also fuck Jk Rowling, she can fuck off for all I care. That being said, If you support Harry Potter/Jk Rowling, unfollow me. Block me. Because I do not support Harry Potter/Jk Rowling. Because Trans rights/Gender Equality, Human rights are infinitely more important than a basic ass wizard book/movie with a even basic ass magic system when there are objectively better wizard/magic books that are respectful.

Anyway, that being said, Trans and basic human rights matter 🩵🩷🤍🩷🩵 🤭

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#jk rowling #tw: harry potter #tw: antisemitism #Tw: transphobia #Tw: racism #fuck harry potter #harry potter #I’m just pissed off like wtf #I’m sorry if I sound upset I just again not having the best year but overall Harry Potter trending is upsetting #transgender #trans #trans rights #basic human rights #fuck jk Rowling

[hestiasroom]

At first I wasn’t particularly inclined to watch Matt Walsh’s documentary What is a Woman? I know the answer to that one already. Everybody does.

A woman is someone who isn’t allowed a final say on what a woman is. Pretending not to know this — that defining “woman” is incredibly complex and bewildering — is an age-old tactic deployed by non-women, usually in order to excuse treating us badly. 

Are women fully human? Do they have souls? What do women want? Far greater men than the host of The Matt Walsh Show — Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Sigmund Freud — have tried and failed to answer these questions (they could always have asked an actual woman, but first they’d have had to establish whether women can think, and then they’d have been back to square one).

As Matt himself says at the start of his film, “I like to make sense of things. Making sense of females is a whole other matter”, noting that “even astrophysicist Stephen Hawking” was “completely dumbfounded by women”.

Even astrophysicist Stephen Hawking! Honestly, ladies, if the author of A Brief History of Time hasn’t a clue what the hell we are, what hope do any of us have? 

The thankless nature of the task may be why the twenty-first century version of The Woman Question has now been allocated to those somewhat lower down the male intellect hierarchy: Edinburgh fringe comedians, disgraced MPs, right-wing shock jocks, Owen Jones and Billy Bragg. 

The proposal that a woman is anyone who defines themselves as a woman — and that no woman may say anyone isn’t a woman — has led to a particularly unimpressive stage of the debate, one which can only be described as the Summa Theologica meets incels r us. 

On the bright side, it’s clear the men are bloody loving it. If you’re left-wing, it’s your chance to put those TERFs in their place after years of having to “do feminism” as part of the right-side-of-history package deal. If you’re right-wing, it’s your opportunity to own all those feminists who suggested female bodies weren’t inferior and that pink, fluffy ladybrains were a myth. As Walsh declares of his film, “the movie makes utter fools of educated elite liberals”. I’m guessing that’s the point. 

I confess to having known very little about Matt Walsh up till now. “I’m a husband, I’m a father of four, I host a talk show, I give speeches, I write books,” he tells us by way of introduction. Hey, that sounds nice! Alas, a quick perusal of his twitter account shows that he’s the kind of renaissance man who tweets things like “feminism is an ugly and bitter ideology” and “rapists love abortion. It helps them cover up their crime”.

He’s also the kind of man who, should feminists show themselves to insufficiently appreciative of his recent woman-defining efforts, tells us we would “rather be a victim than win the fight” and that we “just want to sit on the sidelines and whine”. He’s been, like, getting death threats due to his challenge to contemporary gender mores! Would you risk that, eh, feminists? What’s anyone ever done to you, JK Rowling, you massive coward? 

I first wrote about the problematic nature of a gender identity-based definition of women over eight years ago. Other women, such as Julie Bindel, were sounding the alarm far earlier, and with little support. I know we’re supposed to be eternally grateful to Matt for stepping into the breach. What a gent! As the Onion once put it, Man Finally Put In Charge of Struggling Feminist Movement (admittedly it’s a man who thinks feminism is an ugly and bitter ideology but hey, we can’t have everything). 

In any case, I gave in and watched Matt’s film, just on the off-chance I’d missed something (more fool me; I read Gender Trouble on that basis, and look where that’s got me). There was little in What is a woman? that I didn’t already know from the work of feminists themselves, but that’s no reason to discount it. What’s wrong with alerting the normies to the excesses of trans activism too? 

Walsh never acknowledges the role his own rigid beliefs play

Perhaps the most difficult thing about conveying the absurdities of extreme trans activism to anyone who hasn’t yet encountered it, is that you either sound as though you’re making it up (usually in order to “stoke moral panic”) or the person to whom you’re talking concludes you must have missed some essential point (it would indeed be horrific if teenage girls were having their breasts removed due to social contagion and “progressive” institutions were cheering it on, therefore it can’t be happening. There must be something else afoot).

One of the great things about Walsh’s film is that he shows, first, that harmful things are indeed taking place, and second, that there is no hidden meaning behind them. The therapists, surgeons, academics and politicians to whom he speaks don’t suddenly pull back the curtain and reveal, yes, this is the reason why it isn’t total bollocks to claim that no one really knows what sex anyone is. That moment never comes (and believe me, I’d have loved it if it had. Being a Known TERF is a pain in the arse).

Instead they say things like “a chicken has an assigned gender” and that the word truth is “condescending and rude”. Ha! Aren’t liberals ridiculous? At one point Matt interviews someone who identifies as a wolf (or some other animal. I got bored and went to the kitchen for a biscuit at that point). What’s striking is that you sense his interviewees know on some level that they’re bullshitting. That’s why a number of them end the interview early, citing Walsh’s alleged bad faith as the reason why. 

There are some genuinely moving sections to the film, such as the interviews with female athletes cheated out of prizes by the inclusion of males in the girls’ categories. The contribution from Scott Newgent, a trans man deeply concerned about the impact of medical transition on young females, was incredibly engaging. I could have watched a whole film on Newgent alone, as someone clearly driven by both personal trauma and compassion for others. 

So why, overall, did the film leave a bad taste? Am I just an “ugly and bitter” feminist, peeved that a man has come along and claimed a number of feminist observations as his own? Am I a purist, unwilling to accept any support from anyone whose views don’t align precisely with mine? 

I don’t think so. The problem for me is that Walsh never acknowledges the role his own rigid beliefs play in creating and perpetuating the current situation. 

He finds countless people convinced that the only way to avoid imposing harmful social norms on individuals on the basis of their sexed bodies, is to pretend we can’t define said bodies or impute any social meaning to them at all. Yet he does nothing to suggest one shouldn’t impose said norms, or that his own pink/blue fantasies of girlhood and boyhood might be leading those who don’t conform to feel they are somehow “wrong”. 

“Give my son a BB gun and that’s just about all the emotional support he needs,” he muses over a children’s party scene, all boys in blue jeans, all girls pink princesses. “My daughter on the other hand … I’ve heard people say that there are no differences between male and female. Those people are idiots.”

Hmm. I have three children, all biologically male, all of whom have played with dolls houses and worn dresses. Two of them have Frozen-style long blonde hair and I’ve never bought any of them a toy gun (nor have any of them asked for one). 

Women are caught between two forms of misogyny

According to Walsh’s own gender ideology, I’m on the slippery slope towards the erasure of any stable definition of “male” and “female” at all. This is the mirror image of the absurdities of trans activism. Both Walsh and the people he interviews conflate sex difference denialism with the rejection of gender stereotypes. He thinks we should suffer the stereotypes; they think we should suffer the surgery. Feminists believe we shouldn’t suffer either. 

There’s a particularly grim scene where Walsh attends a Women’s March, and delights in harassing female protestors who don’t want to give a precise definition of the word “woman”. Much as this reticence frustrates me, too, I know where it comes from. The polarised politics of the day has told these women they must choose between denying their sex and accepting an anti-choice, conservative vision of what it means to be an adult human female. It’s a vision Matt Walsh shares.

These women are caught between two forms of misogyny but to Walsh, it’s all “own the libs” fun and games. This man is not on our side, nor will he win over the women he lazily misrepresents as not knowing what’s good for them. 

At the end of the film, Matt returns home from his gender odyssey to his waiting Penelope. She is, of course, in the kitchen, and happens to be struggling with a pickle jar. 

“What is a woman?” he asks her.

“An adult human female — who needs help opening this!” she responds. Got it, ladies? He’ll defend our right to exist as a sex class, as long as we can all agree it’s the weaker one. 

In the end, I’m just so fed up with the machismo. Last year I spoke to one of the founders of Woman’s Place UK, who told me sex-based rights will ultimately be defended best by those in it for “the victory, not the glory”. The people, mainly women, often lesbians and women of colour, who do the dull, behind the scenes work of compiling data and challenging unfair practices one by one. The people who aren’t seeking to reimpose other, equally oppressive beliefs about sex and gender. 

It may be that What is a Woman? helps, by showing some still on the fence that the problem is real. Others, it may push in the other direction. Either way, women themselves won’t be thanked for their own hard work and significant risks. 

After all, that’s just what being a woman is.

#What Is a Woman? #what is a woman #matt walsh #gender ideology #transactivism #trans #transgender #mansplaining #Victoria Smith #only men are qualified to decide what a woman is #misogyny

[leavesandbounds]

As a trans Hermitcraft/Life Series fan, I have some complicated feelings about a lot of the creators' love of/references to Harry Potter.

I've been sort of absently thinking about this since there was that funny post going around about how when people like Martyn or Grian or whatever will reference Harry Potter, we shake our heads irl to express our disapproval in some way.

But part of me really really wishes I could properly express to some of these creators-- who I genuinely believe mean no harm of their own!-- the harm that JK Rowling has caused and is continuing to cause. In part due to the money she makes from all that Harry Potter stuff.

I don't want to come at anyone calling them problematic or evil, I do know that some of this can be really internet insular and a good chunk of these creators aren't scrolling through Tumblr or even Twitter these days. But then Grian goes on about the Chamber of Secrets inspiration for his build (along with other previous builds), or I go to watch Martyn's POV of 3rd Life for the first time and realize just how involved the Harry Potter aspects of Dogwarts are beyond just the name.

And I get uncomfortable? I guess? I know it's not their job to make me comfortable, but to be reminded again and again that for every creator who loves HP there's at least a hundred non-creators that feel the same way.

I was a big Harry Potter fan growing up. (I was really annoying about it actually). But obviously after learning about JK Rowling's beliefs and intentions it was pretty easy to distance myself, even if not entirely emotionally at first. But I stopped talking about it, I stopped buying any merch. I stopped engaging.

This is sort of rambly and nonsensical, I guess all this is just to say that I wish I had a way to let these creators know that their words-- especially because of their large audiences-- have power. But I have no way to meaningfully contact them, and also they're grown adults and it's not really my business.

I just feel sort of sick when I get reminded of an incredibly rich woman who wants people like me and people I love to suffer and uses her money from these books to make that happen.

#shay says #hermitcraft #life series #but also #transphobia #TO BE CLEAR #in terms of mentioning Rowling #not the creators #i've just been thinking about this lately because i tend to block people on here who still post about HP #and doesn't that make it sort of hypocritical and go against my own beliefs if i keep watching these people? #i dunno #complicated feelings

[meissalambda]

I'm part of the millennial crowd who grew up on Harry Potter and now as an adult have had it blown to bits by JK Rowling being a horrible person.

But I wanna talk a bit about why I write some of the things I write.

I have 2 accounts on ao3 and I do separate my stuff, not coz I'm weird about it or anything but mostly just coz they're so different.

I've been obsessed with Sirius and Remus for years and like most people took All The Young Dudes to heart and dived into that as a whole new canon without, hopefully, the problematic connotations. When I was growing up, teenaged self wanted to know so much more about those guys. POA was always my favourite. I loved werewolves because I have an invisible chronic illness and there's something that sings to me about people not seeing that in you until they do and people expecting things from you due to your diagnosis. I've been told many atime that i can't possibly be tired because I'm too young etc. I saw Remus tired and struggling and related so hard to that.

Sirius though. I fucking love Sirius. Sirius has a problematic family that I could relate with, a bad relationship with his mother, and friends that he could rely on (which I so desperately wanted). I wanted to read so much about his life and how he survived to see how I could too. He's a dude, I see him punk, wearing black with tattoos and his hair all over and it's just so much like I wanted to be but was sorta scared of the family disapproval?

It doesn't matter so much now I'm older but I don't want to stop writing them particularly because I guess there could be other people who wanted the same thing as me. And the community is still alive and well even though we all agree that she sucks.

But also, I guess, I want to give them some kind of happiness because as an adult I've learned to live with my chronic illness, learned to accept it, have found a partner who is wonderful and it's nice to write about people who are just a bit older getting by in the realest way I can while being in love.

If I can bring someone a bit of joy, that means the world to me. And getting out all of that teenage angst is like free therapy haha.

#wolfstar #remus lupin #sirius black #atyd marauders #ao3 #writing #muse

[str82theheartpls]

Okay tumblrinxs, I’m sure we’ve all heard the news: HBOMax and Warner Brothers are rebooting Harry Potter, turning it into a proposed series that covers the original books (as well as a sequel to the books I’ve read in some articles). I’m anti this reboot and I wanna share my thoughts. Let’s go!

It’s a boot not a reboot: It’s been less than 12 years since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 came out (2011). I’m not sure what the reboot time frame is, but 12 years seems too soon to me. Warner Bros also announced they’d be rebooting Lord of the Rings (also hate) BUT Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King came out 20 years ago (2003), which makes it feel like more of a reboot to me.

The JK Rowling of it all: I really really hate that she’s involved, and I hate even more that she’ll make money off of it. It kind of feels like Warner Bros. is not only supporting her in a way, but also trying to capitalize off of all the bad publicity she’s been getting over the years. She is transphobic, and has shown us time and time again that she has no interest in learning or correcting herself. She doubles down every time someone tries to correct her/ teach her which makes me really pessimistic about the opportunity Warner Bros. has to correct the problematic parts of the movies and even the books.

Can Harry Potter be wokified? In my opinion, the fact that JK Rowling is involved means no.  Again, she has a habit of doubling down rather than stepping back and accepting that she’s wrong. This leads me to believe that the issues that fans have brought up will be ignored. A small part of me still hopes that maybe they’ll change Cho Chang’s name and introduce more diversity in the cast among other things. It’s not 2011 anymore, so to re-release a series with these issues would be crazy to see (or if you decide not to watch, read about on tumblr)!

A sign of impending doom? Probably not. But hey, maybe. The fact that Warner Bros is deciding to reboot a series after 12 years makes me think that they for some reason believe they won’t be able to reboot it in 20 or 30 years. Are they concerned about climate change? Shifting supply chains and lack of resources in order to create the movies? The collapse of human civilization as we know it? Who knows if they’re concerned, but I definitely am. And maybe this Harry Potter reboot is the newest harbinger of the apocalypse.

#last one is kind of dramatic but my climate anxiety is real #me #mine #please be nice to me #just my opinion #lets talk about it #harry potter fandom #harry potter reboot #hp reboot #warner bros #let me know what you think #i love to discuss things #fanfiction #harry potter #tumblr #my thoughts #hp fandom #my opinion #anti jkr #hbo

[userpeggycarter]

your 'won't reblog' list is so funny imagine being a loser who hates fun that much. imagine being such a sad little butt baby you can't interact with anyone who likes things you don't. couldn't be me!

wow. i don't even know where to begin.

it's kinda hilarious that **I** am the sad little butt baby but you're the one having a meltdown in my inbox? being butthurt because a stranger has a "won't reblog" section in their about page????? do you have self awareness??? read that second to last sentence I just typed again. read it. HOW CAN YOU NOT GET IT???? 😱

second of all, the "won't reblog" section is a guideline for tagging me on posts. i don't reblog that stuff for a reason. it's not a DNI. in fact, I do interact with people who reblog and make content about (some of) that stuff listed in my blog because the morals of media consumption are complicated and very personal. some things i draw a very hard line on, some i don't. let me explain each of those "forbidden media" in my blog for you in basic terms like I'm talking to a child (because i am):

Wizarding World: JK Rowling is a TERF, an antisemite and a racist. i thought this one was self-explanatory. it's 2023 ffs

MCU!Maximoffs are white-washed, anti-romani and very antisemitic. google that stuff if you don't know. next question. (i did reblog a MCU Wanda gifset recently btw, but a mutual tagged me on it and i felt awkward ignoring it, but when that happens i tag those posts with #mcu wanda because some people blacklist that tag and for good reason. also it's a subtle way to say I'm not okay with her. i wish these awkward situations didn't happen but they do and i like to support creators, despite your allegations that i don't.

starker is a p*do ship. thorki is inc*st. duh

ngl reylo is not necessarily problematic i just think it's lame lol maybe it shouldn't be on the list because all of that other stuff has serious problems (IN MY OPINION!)

red/orange/color-washed content is racist if done with POC (and it's even a bad look if you're dealing with white people, to a lesser extent ofc)

i don't need to explain johnny depp do i? christ

henry cavill dated a teenager. google it

the last of us's creator is anti palestine and pro genocide.

elizabeth olsen said the G slur on air in the Graham Norton show AFTER he told her it was a slur!!!!!!!!!!! again google it.

gal gadot is also anti palestine. remember the IDF cunt post? iconic

taylor swift: same thing with reylo, i'm just not interested in her, even though she's not exactly a saint either... but honestly i put TS on the list mostly because most of the gifmaker community loves her and i was worried people would tag me on TS content and that would be an uncomfortable situation, because i don't like to ignore tagged posts but also i like to have boundaries/preferences, even though YOU deem them silly or stupid (like if that's your right to do so lmao alexa play toxic by britney spears)

i'm betting money it was the taylor swift thing that pissed you off lol maybe mcu wanda???? both?

stolen/reposted content is also self-explanatory right? or are you that stupid? considering the tantrum i think you are but hope springs eternal i guess...

LAST, but not least, i'm gonna end on a positive note because unlike you I'm not a cunt (derogatory). I'm gonna address your first message here:

listen, i get it. i get frustrated with notes too. the grass is always greener and there's always a bigger fish i guess. you envy me and i envy other creators bigger than me. but we shouldn't do that. first of all, it's not a competition. my "success" (it's tumblr at the end of the day... silly stuff!) is not a threat to you or anyone else. people can reblog my gifs and yours, they don't have to pick a creator. unfortunately, tumblr has been suffering from lack of interaction lately and it's just getting worse. all creators are complaining about it. creators of different sizes and different niches, btw. we complain in private and in public. and what tumblr does in return? text posts complaining about us complaining get 50k notes in a day. it's tough. we shouldn't be treated this way, even though no one is obliged to reblog stuff and we aren't owed notes. but it's natural and fair to feel sad about lack of recognition and complain about. tumblr's lack of engagement is going to kill the website, but that's a conversation to another day.

i want to end with this:

you need to create because you want to create. you need to create because you want to get better at your craft. recognition is good and it's natural to want and feel upset about the lack of it, but it shouldn't kill your creative spirit. social media has poisoned our brains. 50 notes might not sound a lot but imagine 50 people in real life complimenting you. you might be someone's favorite creator. you might be a niche creator who is carrying your community on your back and people in that niche are so grateful for you, even though they don't say that. because unfortunately, hate speaks louder than love. case in point, this hate mail. for every one of you out there, there must be 10 people who like my work. but i never hear from them and that sucks, but i must believe that they exist and be thankful for them. sometimes people will recognize my hard work and i'm very grateful for those moments. they do motivate me, but they aren't the only thing that motivates me. making posts i wanna reblog but won't exist until i make them motivates me. getting better at my craft motivates me. making friends because of my craft motivates me. knowing i'm entertaining people (even though they're very silent about their appreciation of my work) motivates me. tumblr is a social media platform and social media is made by its users. if anyone stopped posting, there wouldn't be anything to do here. my gifset might not change the trajectory of someone's day (sometimes it does!), but it's my drop of water alongside thousands of other drops of water from other users that make this ocean that we all swim in. don't give up. keep making gifs. you will get better at them. people will follow you. you will get more notes. might not be enough followers or enough notes in your opinion, but we shouldn't put a number on our value.

and let me tell you a secret: when your goal is numbers, you're never satisfied. believe me, i learned this lesson. i thought i would be happy with hundreds of followers. then i got hundreds of followers. suddenly they weren't enough, i wanted thousands of followers now. and then i got them. guess what? i still seek validation through numbers (google David Foster Wallace's This is Water btw). but it will never be enough because you are now and i was then looking at the wrong solution to the problem. i need to FEEL enough, not be told by numbers or people that I'm enough. I'm the one that decides that. and i am enough. I'm good, even. hell, I'm great. and in theory, so do you, but god that attitude... it ain't it. it will only cause you pain. and worse, it's causing you to try to cause pain in others. isn't that sad? isn't that shameful? i do say try because newsflash pussycat, it didn't work. i was baffled by your hate (thankfully i don't get a lot of hate around here!), but i wasn't hurt. because I'm not threatened by your perception of me. because it's superficial, childish, hateful, you name it. i know myself. i love myself. in the words of my beloved URL namesake, i know my value. do you know yours? it doesn't seem like you do. and that type of attitude only lessens your value, babe. this is not getting you anywhere in tumblr or worse, in life.

this would be the moment in which i would wish you the best, but you know what? fuck you. i hope you get no notes until eternity. but in case an innocent person is reading this and is also battling with their self-worth due to tumblr notes: i wish you the best. don't give up.

#type: ask #Anonymous

[ufolvr]

It's been short minute since I made this post but I'm realizing its all hormone infused ocd overthinking making me sick and scared so. Take this with a grain of salt + I might delete it later.

Ok tiptoeing my way around this but I don't think I'll ever like. Come clean about certain f/os bc they're meant to represent horrible people or are downright vile and it makes Me second guess how i view them.

And yeah I understand fiction affects reality I'm not saying I should be allowed to do whatever unapologetically that'd ignore years and years of media supporting systemic oppression and normalizing it. Whatever.

What I am saying is that liking a character from a certain show can make people uncomfortable and make them not want to talk to you and make assumptions about you and your moral stance on things. And I just straight up do not want to give strangers that opening towards me.

I'm not saying I support creators who use their platform to harm minorities like scott cawthon or jk rowling btw. Nor that I love shit like sp hetalia or aot which are straight propaganda. And also don't take this statement to mean "it's ok guys I'm bad but I'm not bad like Those people uwu" leave me alone. Also doesn't mean I like characters who are underage btw if you were wondering.

I don't know what I wanted to say with this. Just like. Some of my f/os are for me and my friends alone bc unless u know me and I know u know me I will be constantly afraid u think I'm a freak monster or that I endorse what the characters in question stand for.

I don't know. I don't know! I'm near my period I have mad ocd and other issues I overthink way too much and think liking a problematic character will send me to hell (figuratively). Hopefully u won't think I'm hiding demonic secrets in my basement for saying this.

#feel free to not read this its just me venting about liking some bad characters. #📡 incoming transmission 📡

[eamonorus-blog]

JK Rowling’s Rejection of the Political.

Much hay has been made, and continues to be made about the political stance of JK Rowling. For a while it was Christian fundamentalists who were making all the fuss about JK Rowling, but now that seems to have largely changed. Now it is the Trans community and their allies who are disavowing and hating on ol’ JK.

One of the most common refrains is that “her views go against everything her books taught us.” The idea is that the Harry Potter books promoted leftist values of tolerance, open-mindedness, diversity and inclusion, and her current views about gender essentialism are the opposite of that. Although there is plenty of criticism of the books themselves, and people re-examining the text to find problematic elements, it remains true that for most of her recent spate of haters spawned from the trans debate, the books remain relatively well liked, while JK Rowling as a person is the thing specifically seen as out of order. What I aim to do here is take a look at the books and see what they actually have to say on political matters, and hopefully we can figure out what kind of relation there is between the message’s the books espouse and what JK Rowling is currently saying. 1. Wizard Racism So, the whole pureblood thing. The Nazi parallels are obvious, but anyone who is somewhat invested in history and politics can quickly tell that the Death Eaters and Voldemort’s cause in general doesn’t really seem to make much sense. It’s simply full of anachronisms. We are told that their ranks are full of the old aristocratic pure-blooded families. Ok, that kind of makes sense. If muggle-born wizards and witches are on the increase, and they are some sort of social or political threat to the old nobility, then a reactionary response makes sense. But we never get a sense either that the muggle-born wizards and witches are an organised political group that is a threat to the sacred 28 families, or that pureblood power is in any way being taken away or threatened. Maybe it isn’t a political threat that the muggle-born’s represent. Maybe it’s a fear of non-magical blood diluting wizarding powers over time. But in order to make a judgement about whether such a fear is reasonable, let alone morally justified, we would need to know, or at least make educated guesses about the nature of how magic is passed down genetically which we just don’t get.

Maybe there is fears of the muggle world finding out about the Wizarding World and starting a second series of witch burnings, but this is never addressed or examined in the text. Even after the first Wizarding War, families like the Malfoys still have enormous wealth and influence. So much so that Lucius is not in fact well pleased to have Voldemort back. Well, that makes sense. If you are a super-rich aristocrat, highly placed in society, then you have nothing really to gain by joining a group that is dedicated to overthrowing that society. It kind of makes you wonder why the Malfoys and other Death Eaters joined Voldemort to start with. Another problem is the way that Voldemort joins forces with Giants and Werewolves. These are groups which serve as an allegory for marginalised people in the Wizarding World. And yet for some reason this revolutionary group that for some reason comprises of the rich elites (who would have the least motivation to change society through violence in the first place) is the group that is allying with them? The Slytherin’s we meet in the books are often described as ugly or otherwise unpleasant. Draco, Snape, Crabbe, Goyle, Millicent and Pansy all fit the bill here. They are described as a mix of brutish, ugly and stupid. Slytherin house seems to somehow be a rich kids elitist club and also a loutish criminal gang comprised of the worst elements of the lower class. In short, the point I am getting at, is that Rowling wants to have her cake and eat it too. She wants the evil forces to be both the dirty and savage underclass and outcast elements of the wizarding world, and also its sneering and superior elite.

Voldemort’s forces contain a multitude of contradictions. Real life political movements contain contradictory elements and forces within them that are at odds with each other of course, but in the case of the Death Eaters and the Slytherins, these odd elements are never explained, explored or otherwise cleared up. There are possible explanations, but they remain speculation only, the text leaves the central antagonists confusing and impossible to understand politically. Despite Wizard Racism making up such a major part of the series, it is never seriously explored in a way to make us at least understand the rationale of why some wizards feel that way. It remains merely a label for evil that is neither meant to be questioned or understood. And I put forward the proposition that it is pretty irrelevant in the final analysis to the central themes and the journeys of the central characters (or any characters honestly) Being a fantasy racist is mostly just an aesthetic meant to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. If the bad guys hating on muggles was truly meant to be a central theme, then the near total lack of muggle characters aside from Harry’s awful extended family is rather baffling.

The whole wonder and whimsy on which the success of the books series depends relies on Harry being a part of the magical world. And yet what the conflict between the mundane and magical world might be is never elaborated. The bad guys central aim is to conquer and abuse muggles, and yet we never see any muggles find out about this or really interact with the story in any way. From nearly start to finish the whole conflict remains totally contained within the magical world, exploring what it means to have magic when someone else doesn’t, and what the moral and philosophical issues with that might be remain undeveloped. 2. The Power Of Love

Now we are actually getting somewhere! The text of the book, and the authors mouthpiece in the form of Dumbledore is pretty clear that the power of love is the central theme of the series. And yet this remains frustratingly under discussed when people are trying to grasp what JK Rowling’s worldview is, and what the actual message of the series overall is. Harry is saved by love innumerable times throughout the series. But the one which immediately jumps to mind for most people, the sacrifice of his mother to save him, is among the least interesting to me. Its such a universal idea, that of a mother saving her child, that I don’t think it can actually say that much about the authors mindset. So, without totally disregarding it, I want to talk about some other moments. First Narcissa Malfoy. When Harry is lying still, pretending to be dead in the forbidden forest after Voldemort’s killing curse has struck him, Voldemort sends Narcissa to check him. But Narcissa had one thing she loves more than anything else in the world. Her son Draco. And so when she realises Harry is still alive, she takes the opportunity to find out information about his safety, instead of just revealing the truth to Voldemort. Do she and her husband change their minds about pureblood supremacy and hating muggles? Not one bit, we don’t any indication of that being the case in the text, and outside of the text JK herself confirmed that wasn’t the case. And yet Narcissa was among the most crucial people in defeating Voldemort, because he had put her son in danger. It was not a change in her politics that caused her to change, it was a personal, familial love. And who could forget the most famous example of this, Snape! Throughout all the books he remains totally committed to Slytherin House, docking points from Gryffindor unfairly, siding with Draco, and hating Harry. Like with Narcissa we never see any serious sign that he changed his views about blood status or anti muggle feeling. Although his views on that are never made a serious focus. Snape switched sides and turned against Voldemort solely because he threatened Lily, there was no grand moment where he reckoned with the evil things he had done as a Death Eater and repented, no moment where he realised that the Death Eater ideals were wrong and that their beliefs were destructive and evil. And he remains throughout the books deeply unpleasant, being a bully to Neville, a bad teacher, not to mention spiteful and cruel towards Harry. He possessed one great redeeming quality which made him an unswerving enemy of Voldemort and aligned to the side of good, and that was his love for Lily Evans. A selfish and personal love, even though it became unrequited.

 Dumbledore basically spells this whole idea out at the end of Chapter 23 of Half Blood Prince and yet, Harry, despite your privileged insight into Voldemort’s world (which, incidentally, is a gift any Death Eater would kill to have) you have never been seduced by the Dark Arts, never, even for a second, shown the slightest desire to become one of Voldemort’s followers!’

‘Of course I haven’t!’ said Harry indignantly. ‘He killed my mum and dad!’

‘You are protected, in short, by your ability to love!’ said Dumbledore loudly. ‘The only protection that can possibly work against the lure of power like Voldemort’s! In spite of all the temptation you have endured, all the suffering, you remain pure of heart, just as pure as you were at the age of eleven

In Rowling’s worldview, evil ideals are defeated, not through a systemic understanding of how oppressive structures work and how to defeat them, but through an individual love and empathy for those closest to you. Look at how the issues of house elves is addressed. Things which we would need to know to be able to judge what the right way to treat house elves on a systemic level is, like, how they came to be bound to wizards in the first place, why they seem to want to serve wizards for the most part, what it would look like for them to no longer fill that role and what they could do instead, none of this is addressed or explored. Hermione’s attempt at political activism is made fun of and dismissed both by the characters and the author. But how the characters treat individual house elves is taken very seriously. Harry is rewarded for not holding a grudge against Dobby and saving him from the Malfoys by having Dobby help him out several times, before finally giving his life for Harry. Sirius, who on a systemic level likes house elves, but mistreats Kreacher because Kreacher reminds him of his families pureblood mania, which he dislikes for political reasons, ends up getting his comeuppance when Kreacher betrays him to his death. But when the trio befriend Kreacher he becomes a loyal friend and ally. Once again, personal love and compassion is treated with respect, a systemic political solution is treated as a joke. I don’t mean to say this is some universal thing that JK sticks to, it is mentioned that Lupin suffers as a werewolf due to legislation, but for the most part, evil is a personal bullying and any political aspect is more of a surface veneer. It is not that the wizarding world is totally devoid of political messages, it is more that what political messages there are, are mostly unexamined and for the most aesthetic primarily and lacking in substance. This allows people to transpose their own values on to the world of Harry Potter for the most part. Its vagueness allows it to be widely liked and accessible, since it isn’t making too definite a political statement. However this also means that the message of the series is, while liberal in a general sense, and anti-authoritarian, is also pro-establishment, or at least anti-revolutionary. Staying in your lane and helping your common man is encouraged, violent change is suspect. So while the series, and JK herself isn’t very overtly political, for those who belief that evil is a system of privilege and oppression, and not merely the desire to bully people on an individual level, the series is fundamentally incongruent with their worldview.

#harry potter #jk rowling #politics #snape #albus dumbeldore

[musings-on-aching-flowers]

on the ubiquity of the word ‘bride’ in fanfiction, regardless of gender, and the role it has in reflecting the biases of wider society.

Alright. This is applicable to a lot of fandoms (and I mean a LOT, especially m/m), so I thought I’d address it. To be honest, I started attempting to say something about this back in January, but the extreme deconstruction of gender that I was initially going to discuss required a level of understanding and nuance that I really hadn’t achieved yet. I’m certainly not saying that I’ve achieved it now, but I think a more simplified version of what I wanted to say will get the point across a little better.

An innumerable amount of times in fandom content, whenever the more ‘feminine-coded’ character (for lack of any other better way to put it) is promised/engaged to the love interest, they’re generally referred to as their ‘bride’. Even, and sometimes especially, if the ‘bride’ in question is male. And this rubs me the wrong way for a number of reasons.

Firstly, and mainly, it really plays into gender roles and gender stereotypes. Casting a character in the moulds of ‘bride’ or ‘wife’ to connote them ‘more feminine’, ‘less dominant’, or especially as having a lack of agency in regards to their own marriage reinforces the beliefs that women, and by extension, those who are more feminine, have inherently less agency in a marriage than men or those who are more masculine do. It also forces non-heterosexual characters to be viewed through a lens of heteronormativity - like shoving your dolls in boxes they don’t fit into. This also has spillover effects into the way we view non-heterosexual relationships in our communities - we equally shove these people into neat labels and boxes and gender roles and stereotypes where they don’t necessarily belong, because we’re used to seeing, consuming and producing media which portrays them in this way. 

It’s the same for sexual dynamics. The ‘top’ doesn’t always have to be the more masculine-coded character, and the ‘bottom’ doesn’t need to always be the more feminine-coded one - isn’t that unimaginative? Why continue to play into heteronormativity, when it really isn’t like that in real life? M/M fandom is especially guilty of that one, I find - why continue to put the same characters in the same roles where you could instead explore the interplay of gender and sexuality in a more nuanced way? 

Writing and characterising your blorbos in fanfiction like this may seem harmless and self-indulgent, but it’s important to consider that the language that you use to elucidate connotations and characterisations can serve as a showcase of your biases, and should be examined once in a while. 

I mean, just take a look at our lovely ‘feminist’ nutcase JK Rowling, for example. Even in Harry Potter her biases are revealed through the way she demonises hyper-femininity (unless the women in question are mothers)— she ridicules Petunia Dursley, the Veela, Lavender Brown, Parvati Patil, Rita Skeeter, even the lovely Fleur Delacour (who Ginny constantly called Phlegm), and the main antagonist of Book 5 is a woman who adores pink and wears a bowtie in her hair. JK Rowling was one of the reasons I spent my tween years thinking it was cool to hate pink and demonise femininity and be ‘not like the other girls, rather quirky and intelligent’. I’ve gone on a tangent here, but this is why it’s so important to know how to consume ‘problematic media’ critically - deconstructing exactly why something is problematic can teach you so much about the use of language as a subtle weapon, and can help you look out for it later in the different ways news is reported and framed. (I was taught this in high school Social Studies, and it remains one of the most important things I’ve ever learnt.)

So back to what I was saying. To cast characters as more submissive/having less agency/weaker and to ascribe all these traits simultaneously to femininity - isn’t that too archaic?

Let’s move forward from the stereotype that women and traditional femininity are in any way lesser, one fanfic at a time.  

#what's up losers its me back with another analysis #except this is applicable to just about every fandom I've ever participated in and then some #mdzs #tgcf #svsss #genshin impact #my meta #harry potter #haikyuu!! #bnha #yuri!!! on ice #yeah when I say every fandom ever I really mean it #if you put bride in the ao3 search bar the first result is m/m lmao #if you want words that have similar connotations of a lack of agency etc why not 'betrothed' or 'promised'? #tag more fandoms if you think of any that I've missed that this also applies to! #blorbos #fanfiction #archive of our own

[priestessofcreation]

So one thing I keep hearing about problematic creators is “That’s why I separate the art from the artist.”

I… have a lot of problems with this.

Mostly because, as an artist and creator, what I create comes from me. Every piece of art I create and put out into the world comes from my heart. From my beliefs, my traumas. Up until last year, art was the only way I expressed my authentic self in the world. The art I give to you, the world, comes from my blood, sweat, tears, and soul.

Do you understand?

I understand there is fanfiction, fan art, fan music, the eventual joining of the public domain. I understand that Star Wars isn’t only George Lucas’s anymore. I understand Lord of the Rings isn’t just JRR Tolkien’s anymore. I understand Star Trek isn’t only Gene Roddenberry’s anymore. There is a beauty to the way beloved stories can evolve with the audience who love them.

But.

Maybe you experience being a creator in a different way than I do. But I’m willing to bet, you get where I am coming from.

And if you do, all I’m trying to say is, if a piece of art comes from a creator’s heart… can you really completely separate it from the person who created it?

Which leads me to my next point: Problematic people can create beautiful things.

Joss Whedon was a reportedly abusive egomaniac on set. He also created Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and the Avengers to name a few. He made stories that changes the landscape of the entertainment industry for women, the lgbt community, and nerd culture as a whole. He created stories that have stayed with people all these years.

JK Rowling is a transphobe and participates in behaviors that very much confirm she is a TERF. She also created a series of books that sparked an entire generation’s imagination, taught them values of love, courage, friendship, and compassion, and made reading fun for kids again. Her story was a generational event, both in movie and book format. She saved my life.

I am still ripping myself apart trying to understand how these people who created such beautiful things could have such horrible, alienating behaviors and beliefs. It’s heartbreaking because personally, the stories I create and the beliefs I built my life on very much correlate and feed into each other. Yet, somehow, these people have such a stark duality within them.

On the one hand, that speaks to just how multifaceted and complex human beings really are. And then you can also add that they are the outliers in their respective fields because most other creators do not behave this way. But then it is widely ironic that the people behaving this way happen to be two of THE MOST well-known creatives IN THE WORLD.

Which could lead you to the idea that no one is exempt from the negative impact of too much power. No matter how kind you are.

But I digress. My point is, and my view is, these people created beautiful things that I love. They are also awful people in very key ways.

That leads me to a paradox: I do not believe you can separate the art from the artist, but somehow by acknowledging that they are problematic human beings in a way that cannot be ignored, I find that it is easier for me to appreciate the worlds they created without paying mind to the hand they had in creating them.

That could be seen as complacency and hypocrisy. That could be seen as “separating the art from the artist.”

Or, as I choose to see it currently, it is the reclamation of these stories that came from the beautiful parts of these people’s hearts, by the collective, to be transformed into something new and better.

I still believe in redemption. If these people are capable of creating such beautiful things, I don’t think they are completely evil. However, they are behaving in ways that are very horrible.

So ya know Joss and Jo…

Move along 👋🏻

#jk Rowling #joss Whedon #anti jkr #social

[sadgirlautumn]

Idk how fans can still listen to John Mayer? Idk if it’s just me but I just haven’t felt any desire to listen to him (not even just because of WCS or Dear John but also just how much of an ass he was to Jessica Simpson and his racist behavior) like there’s probably some other variation of him in some other white guy

For the most part I agree with you. I think liking him often discredits the people he has harmed especially when you are a big fan of the someone that he has hurt, it makes me question that person a little bit. But with the whole “death of the artist” mentality I think a lot it comes down to people making a connection with the problematic media before they knew anything bad about it and it’s hard to break that connection once it’s formed. I know that John Mayer set the precedent for being a “vulnerable man” in the music industry and like you said there is plenty of others to choose from but that’s the one that they made the strongest connection with and nothing could ever compare to that in a similar way that no one could ever compare to Taylor Swift for me. It’s kinda like the jk rowling stuff, like genuinely fuck her I hope she stops making more money for her to donate to transphobic organizations, but unfortunately she did set the precedent for a lot of the fantasy novels I love today so it’s hard to avoid her presence. In conclusion, sometimes bad people have good ideas and I can’t be too mad at people for liking their work as long as they actively acknowledge that said artist is a bad person (and they aren’t actively promoting it) because I understand that some people can’t break that attachment. But people who actively love problematic people just to be “edgy” are genuinely the worst members of society and should find something else to do.

#I know you weren’t expecting this long of a response but I think about this frequently and it’s something I’ve had to make peace with #asks #wecanfeelsofarbutsoclose

[thegirlwhowrites642]

Top 5 HP ships you you don't like & why?

This ask has been my very own persecution since I've got it. I thought about how to answer this endlessly. I re-wrote the answer in my head millions of times and every time, without fail, I ended up in a rant about the idiocy of this fandom.

The thing is, I do not know how to do a top 5 of ships I don't like from HP because it's pretty much like having a list of serial killers and being asked a top 5. I don't know, they all are people that made killing a sport!

If I had to do a top 5 I should decide for instance if I consider worse pedophilia or incest. And I'm also pretty sure there are more than five pedophilic ships in this fandom so how do I decide which are the worsts? Should I count the age differences in days?

I would say that Voldemort/Harry should be pretty high on that list but how can I decide if it's worse than Fred/George?

And then there are all the ships that are extremely toxic without being pedophilia or incest. How do you establish if it's worse the bully/bullied one or the death eater/muggleborn one? We would enter the oppressions Olympics and it's not something I'm interested in.

And shouldn't the personalities of the characters be taken into consideration? I feel like shipping two completely incompatible characters should be an indicator of stupidity if not of the shipper at least of the ship.

Or do we really want to get into the discussion that changing the sexual orientation of a character means implying that sexual orientation is not part of who someone is regardless of anyone's choices? Or we could talk about how if you care about queer representation you should read the works of people who actually write it, helping make their works visible on the market. But no one is ready for that conversation. Do you even know how frustrating it is having to see people mess up well-rounded characters in the name of representation while completely ignoring the millions of underappreciated authors who do write it in their stories? I mean, don't get me wrong, I wish this was the biggest problem of this fandom but still.

And the thing is, trying to be objective I would say that the ones I hate the most are the pedophilic and incestuous ones but I would be lying. The truth is that the ones that annoy me the most out of all these no sense ships are the most popular because I can't escape them. I know that there are people who ship Snape/Sirius which is obviously disgusting but it's pretty easy to pretend that no one ever gave birth to that monster.

So I'm sorry but I do not have a top 5. But I can tell you that I do not like any ship that goes against canon, I just have different shades of hate for them based on how problematic and popular they are.

One last thing that I can add is that I find it particularly annoying when people ship Harry and Ginny not with each other. And you all will think that it has to do with the fact that they are my beloved ship, and while it surely is a factor, there's actually something else. Harry and Ginny are not created separately as characters. It's blatantly obvious, JK Rowling didn't try to hide it, nor in the books nor in her interviews. Whatever surname you gave Harry's love interest (who would've been named Ginny anyway because it's not a name chosen randomly), she would've had Ginny's personality. They are two characters modeled on each other, well I imagine mainly Ginny on Harry but the result is the same. The reason why Ginny is a Weasley is simply that it was structurally convenient for the story. Harry and Ginny are written as a perfect match, not writing them as the love of each other lives means automatically writing them out of character. So the dilemma that disturbs me, but in a way also fascinates me, is: are all these people actually unable to grasp this very obvious concept, or do they just choose to ignore it?

#harry potter

[floralovebot]

listen, when it comes to any kind of "problematic" media, please remember that there is a very big difference between liking a piece of media while still recognizing its problematic aspects, educating yourself on those issues, listening to the people it hurts, and not wanting to support the creators/whoever added the problematic parts. and just saying "everything is problematic so i can like whatever i want fuck you" and literally just ignoring everyone it hurts because you're using "there's no ethical consumption under capitalism" as a literal excuse.

i'm not going to tell you that liking things like harry potter or marvel is bad - that'd be really weird and doesn't actually mean anything in this "discourse". however, i will tell you that supporting jk rowling or the execs at disney or any other Big Rich Bigoted Person and genuinely wanting them to not only keep making that harmful media but also not wanting to hold them accountable because "boohoo my favorite blorbo :((" is bad. that's not what "you can't avoid problematic media" means and you should know this.

"you can't avoid problematic media" means that you need to be vigilant when consuming anything because literally everything can seep through and give you unconscious bigoted ideas. it means that a lot of things out there cannot be praised as wholly pure or woke because nothing really is. it means that you can still use media as a fun escape from reality, but you also still need to listen when someone says something about it is harmful.

i understand that dealing with this stuff is exhausting but please, please try to see this from the point of view of the people these things hurt. we literally have to deal with this 24/7, all days of the week, every week of the year, for our entire life. things like racism, antisemitism, misogyny, queerphobia, fatphobia, ableism, literally every kind of bigotry you can think of are things that we always have to deal with. we can't just turn off the screen or log off whatever social media to get away from it. we want media to be an escape for us too!! we all do!!!!! but we literally can't ever use it as that because there is always Something. it poisons our entire view of that media and even if we genuinely like it, we'll never be able to see it the way you do. and people who have the privilege to be able to just turn a blind eye and not care about whatever major issue it has doesn't help us get rid of it.

there are a lot of bad takes online, but people using every excuse under the sun and turning genuine ethical conundrums into excuses for them to not care about anything is definitely one of the worst ones in this day and age of everything is contentable.

#this is why the fate fandom is largely one of the worst fandoms ive ever come across #they are so far up their own white asses and so many of them dont care about literally anyone else #obviously there are exceptions and if you are one you shouldnt be getting mad at this statement!! if you are im side eyeing you #like. if you arent racist why do you get mad when i shit talk racists 🤨 #again im not saying you Can't like things #but there are helpful and unhelpful ways of interacting with problematic media #things like watching it on the platform or directly buying the books are not helpful for example! #doing anything to directly line the pockets of bigots will never be good!! #but there are ways to interact with that kind of media that dont directly support them #and if youre genuinely an ally you should At Least be open to these things #literal bar on the fucking ground for you guys and you still manage to never reach it !!!

[emma-what-son]

I wouldn’t be surprised if the original trio DID agree to some sort of Cursed Child movie or more likely, limited series. Rupert has actually said in the past that he is protective of the role of Ron and would reprise it. Who knows, things change, he is a dad now, but he seems to be more active now than he has been in the past since HP. I actually think that Dan would be the hardest to get on board. We can assume that Tom Felton would be all for it! I think that Emma would be up for it, given the right circumstances. Especially if she could do some directing. I bet they could all be enticed with producer credits. That’s where the real money is!

I think that the original actors would be perfectly okay with letting brand new child actors take on their old characters. There’s no way they could play that age and it would be like passing the baton to the next generation.

BUT I think it would be too hard for any of them to let other actors play Draco, Ginny, Harry, Ron and Hermione as adults close to their own actual ages. I think that even if they were reluctant to return, it would just be too hard to watch someone else in those iconic roles (and watch someone else reap the financial benefits!!!).

(I know this exact situation is happening right now with the play Cursed Child, but I think that’s different. Theater is such a different medium I don’t think it would give the original movie actors those same feelings of jealousy or possessiveness over their characters)

As for the problematic opinions of JK, they might not be a big problem when it comes to viewers of a new CC movie/series. People will “hate watch” a series at home, in private. Or, they will watch it openly to then have more fuel for their fires to rant against it.

Or, if JK was smart, she’d maybe try to use a new project to make amends with her fans. I wouldn’t be surprised if the original cast insisted on some sort of CC re-write to make sure it is inclusive and considerate of all HP fans. I don’t want to get into all that though, but there are possibilities there for sure…

Haven’t there been some changes to Cursed Child lately? Shortening it and such? I know it was awfully long and maybe it’s just for that reason alone. Or maybe it’s because a tv series is in the works??? Maybe they want the play to better reflect the screen adaptation in the works?

Also, haven’t there been more indications in some of the productions that there is more of a romantic connection POSSIBLE between Al and Scorpius? Maybe laying some groundwork there?

I suppose time will tell if anything is on the way!!!

You're right, I do think that the man actors would be willing to return if they are offered something more than just reprising their roles. I doubt that Rowling is interested in doing anything to make amends with fans. I haven't been following news on what's happening with Cursed Child. Does anyone know?

[emilypemily]

i have a semi-commitment to not posting about discourse unless it's deeply unserious or only something i care about (gauntlet is the worst gladiators event and i'm sick of it's staying power) but i've been meaning to write about something minorly annoying to me for a while now, like i made a note on my phone in january about it and everything

which is basically about some reddit comment i read (always a bad start) about how this user thinks that people shouldn't read colleen hoover books because they are deeply problematic and could encourage bad behaviour or set bad expectations or cause harm to the reader due to it's bad messaging

and to be transparent, i haven't read any of her books because i find the covers uninspiring and whenever i've read the blurb of one (we get them in at work semi-often) they just don't sound that interesting to me, but i do feel the need to defend the 'right' (in quotes because who genuinely cares) to read like, bad or offensive books. like i just don't think that anyone has become uniquely maladjusted because they read a rubbish book.

like you're not morally wrong for reading or enjoying a book with problematic messaging and i think when we worry about that kind of thing you kind of mb down the reader's ability to recognise that a story is just a story. like most, dare i say all, people reading a book know it's just a book. which isn't to say that you can't criticise a book for being bad or offensive because art and literary criticism are important, and thinking about the things you consume is important and honestly just interesting, but to say 'i don't think anybody should read these books because it might affect the way they think' is just really silly to me.

i feel the same way about films. going 'you should never ever ever watch this film because it is offensive to xyz' just feels kind of too mary whitehouse to me. maybe a caveat might be 'don't pay to see it, just stream it illegally' but even then it's rarely that serious. your brain isn't going to rot just because you watched offensive films or read offensive books. i'm not saying that your particular media diet doesn't at all affect your thinking, like if you are purely watching gb news you certainly might come out stupider, but a reading a twilight or 50 shades or colleen hoover book isn't going to seriously damage the way your experience relationships.

maybe i'm differentiating here between fictional content and like, right wing commentary media diet, and i should just focus on fiction. my point is that again, pretty much everyone knows fiction is fiction, and saying 'don't watch this it's bad!!!!!!!' is honestly just kind of disrespectful to people's intelligence. and sometimes films and books are fun to consume because they are offensive and ridiculous, and watching and even enjoying something does not equal endorsing the behaviours of the characters within that thing, or even the filmmakers. or writers, in the case of a book. also you can check out at any time if you're not enjoying something. again, who cares. and i think there's a lot of worry about the way teenagers consume and internalise things and i think people always sort of forgot what it's like to be a teenager. i also think people sort of forget that you might in all honesty forget half the shit you read or watched or listened to as a teenager and that a lot of if does not make any sort of lasting impact.

i don't think i'm saying anything coherent or interesting and this probably all sucks but i just think there should be less worrying about what other people are consuming, and less calls for people to stop consuming it.

i suppose an objection is when money is repeatedly spent. like, if you enjoyed the harry potter books, i do not think it is Morally Wrong to rearead them, because if you enjoyed them in the first place you probably still already own copies of the books, so who cares if you reread them or not. but if you continue to give jk rowling your money i do think maybe you should stop doing that. but like, idk man buy the dvds or books in a charity shop or ebay and rewatch/read at your leisure, who is that hurting. but you probably don't need to keep funding jk rowling's bank account. same thing applies to boycotts. i am not saying 'who cares what you spend your money on', because money is power, and money speaks. but 'reading a bad book will not rot your brain' is the general point. 'people that read fiction books know that it is fiction' is the other point'. and perhaps the last point is 'sometimes things are enjoyable because they are offensive and bad'.

#this is extremely boring and i talk in circles about something that doesn't matter