#the making of a new american family

[goth-transmasc-demi-omni]

Ok transmascs: I've thought I was in conflict with myself lately. I thought I had to choose between being a man and having a baby. And I mean CARRYING my own child. As a man.

Yes it IS possible but I did not know this until very recently. Like last night kind of recently. I was sobbing at this article cuz I feel so...validated?...I feel so much hope and joy knowing I can have a child AND have taken hrt beforehand.

Here's the article: https://time.com/4475634/trans-man-pregnancy-evan/

It's long but if you're like me, a trans man considering bearing your own child and chestfeeding...it's well worth the read.

Also here's a group for trans people having children, it's in the article too but I'll post it here cuz this community is beautiful and needs to be heard: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TransReproductiveSupport/?ref=share&mibextid=SDPelY

I seriously can't say enough about how happy this made me feel. When I first found out I'm a man, I was extremely happy. Then I realized I wanted to bear my own child still and got really depressed because the thought of choosing between being a man and bearing my own child seemed an impossible choice with regrets on both sides. I had even chosen to be the man I am and forego having kids, since it's VERY important to me that my body matches the man I am (I haven't started hrt yet but will as soon as I can get the medical diagnosis requried).

BUT then I did some research on potentially just getting a tummy tuck so that my man body wouldnt be ruined after giving birth, and I stumbled upon the article mentioned above, and now I've been crying all morning cuz I'm just so happy.

I'm not less of a man for wanting to give birth. I can even still chestfeed because as a pagan I want my child to have the most natural upbringing. My child will likely have two dads and I'll be the birth parent 💖 this is so beautiful and I couldn't be happier. We are valid, you glorious handsome men.

#trans #transmasc #birthparent #chestfeed #chestfeeding #man #male #givingbirth #pregnantman #you are valid #you are handsome #pregnant man #new family #new family style #the making of a new american family #trans issues #trans healthcare #trans pride #trans hope #trans happiness #pride #there is hope

[hypokeimena]

the thing about culture that's difficult for a lot of people it seems to me is that "culture" is not some ontologically coherent Blob where you can sit at the table and someone will serve it to you and you get to just sit there and Receive it. or, it's not something you can dig up and carefully extract unchanged, if you sit carefully enough at your books, and then put on your mantle to admire. i'm a motherfucker whose career is about digging things up from books so i get the appeal, and yet that's not what Culture is, because culture is what you Do. so you already have one. what food do you eat? where do you live? what rituals do you perform? do you take your shoes off when you go inside?

culture is distinct from religion and ethnicity (though obviously it's interrelated with both), and deeply related to the place you live now and its customs and foodways and norms for politeness and hospitality, and what other populations live around you in the place you live now. trying to connect to the mystical immigrant old-country past of your ancestors is unlikely to get you the results you're looking for - culture is something you do every day and i promise you already have one. and you're already doing it. which means that you can also just as easily change the things you do if you don't like them.

#like my family is bicultural and not biracial AND i grew up in a different part of the country than the US side of my family did. #AND there are additional complications for me specifically but like. my dad makes amazing southern food but is limited by what #is easy to get in new england. my mom is horrified by the immigrant-american versions of food she's used to. this is normal and natural. #the old-country culture has changed without the populations who left and they have their own vested interest in what that past looks like.

[unopenablebox]

i admit that i find it a little bit frustrating how Wildly Astonished other antizionist jews act when i tell them my israeli jewish family have lived in the region since [some unknown length of time before 1800 when there start being records about it]

#and then they're like ''ohhh they're mizrahi!'' [connotation nonwhite‚ virtuously indigenous] #and i have to be like. no. it's just that‚ as palestine was in fact ottoman-administered greater syria for most of the last 600 years‚ #you could get there from other parts of the ottoman empire. such as the part of now-ukraine your ashkenazi family is also from. #it wasn't actually a hermetically sealed arab-only ethnostate that evaporated immigrants on sight. it was a pretty decent place to live as #a jew by at least some accounts. or better than the front of the hapsburg-ottoman war anyway which is where they were coming from. #i'm not sure who you think it's serving exactly to believe that there were literally no ashkenazim in the middle east before the 1st aliyah #however there were some. and this information does not actually threaten a modern anti-state of israel position like at all. #but since apparently you've constructed your new Diaspora-Centric Identity around the idea that 'palestine' and 'diaspora' #are the two mutually exclusive nonoverlapping regions and the former is ontologically a no-european-jews-allowed zone #i guess i can give you a minute to try to figure it out. #ugh sorry this is nothing it isn't anything. for one thing it's fantastically unimportant #and for another thing i don't know how to like talk about it in a way that doesn't make me sound at least kind of like im trying to justify #myself as being somehow less complicit or something. i mean i think my complicity as an american dwarfs the rest of it honestly but. #i just feel really insanely alienated where the rhetoric of my theoretically most closely politically aligned group is not really built to #like. accommodate the facts of my family history. #sorry. i have honestly no idea why im so obsessed with articulating this concept ive just been chewing on it pointlessly for days #box opener

[ameliafuckinjones]

The thought of Amelia/Alfred declaring independence and then being immediately thrust into parenthood appeals to me. Imagine if you will shortly after the Revolution the emergence of State Personifications coming about with each admission to the Union (Delaware was the first one). Whether they appear miraculously or are birthed via (unwilling) parthenogenesis (which I prefer) the bottom line is that suddenly America has all these kids to take care of, all of who grow up just as fast as America did. Regardless of how they came to be or how fast they grow, America loves them with his/her whole being and creates a system in which they are always protected and accounted for by the larger government. America promises to be there for them the way England never was.

Then fast forward to the Civil War, and America is waging a bloody war against half of her/his children that see hundreds of thousands of their people dead. Brother against brother, father against son, cousin against cousin. And each secession feels like a small death because they are part of America just as much as America is a part of them, practically inseparable, or at least America thought so. To add even more complexity, not all of America's children were white or white-passing. America being neglected because s/he was to far away or denied certain rights for not being British enough was bad on its own, but imagine your parent not being able to claim you or fully protect you or give you basic human rights without public/social/political backlash because your skin is darker and you're legal property in half the country. Or imagine having powerful politicians who want to keep people who look like your children in bondage and you have to compromise with them to keep the Union whole, knowing the opinions they would have if they even knew you had children who were black (some of them do know and make sure their opinions are known). Or your other children starting a war to selfishly keep this system in place at the expense of their black siblings. The relationship between America and his/her children, with America acting as both the federal government that protects the states as well as the greater whole that represents the Union and the states as the children, each an extension of America, an integral part of America's being, pushing back against the sometimes overbearing hovering of their parent, impeding on states rights (whether they believe America is in the right or not) and protecting others and sometimes America will helplessly throw his/her hands in the air and say "fine, ill let YOU decide on this issue because I am not a dictator, despite what some of you like to think, but if you fuck up im stepping in" because America doesn't want to make the same mistakes England made in the past but then America has to deal with the negative consequences of her/his children's actions when they do something unbelievably stupid while trying not to seem like a fire-breathing tyrant. Which, they end up thinking anyway, regardless if America wasn't entirely in the wrong about butting in and taking hold of the situation before it escalated. The negative reaction only serves to make America step away AGAIN so as to not seem completely authoritarian in their eyes. It's a never-ending cycle. Not to mention the complex relationships the states have with each other, especially the southern states among themselves and the southern vs northern states rivalry.

Edit:

also whenever America takes his/her eyes off the states for 1mili second to see what the rest of the world is up to (hopefully not another world war) while usually being like 'back off, geeze! 🤬' America's children immediately switch to 'how come you're not paying attention to ME instead 🥺 you always focus on the world instead of ME 😢'

#i have a lot of thoughts about the states #hetalia #aph america #aph states #hetalia civil war #i can only imagine Thanksgiving at the Jones family estate 😭 #also America having a family outside Arthur and Matt is really makes sense to me #why else would America be so absorbed with itself if not because of its over dramatic children known as the states??? #not even England and Canada and the entire world can draw America's attention away from them #and if for a moment America steps away to bang a few heads together America immediately steps right back to hover over its children #like an overprotective mama eagle #and America totally doesn't have favorites!!! (its New York California Louisiana Florida the Man and Texas the Problem Child in that order) #the other states obviously know the main favs are NY CA FL and TX but they're always surprised when they realize its also Louisiana #and that's because Louisiana reminds America of France with its unique and charming American Franco hybrid culture #also as the years go by America begins to understand a few things about England a LOT more #still feels s/he does the parenting thing better (debatable but not entirely unfounded)

[badolmen]

Everyone talking about adopting Palestinian kids needs to read Scott Carney’s The Red Market and a brief definition of genocide outside of the physical destruction of lives.

#ra speaks #personal #adoption #palestine #the red market #it’s been years since I read that book #but the sections about the trafficked kids has always stuck with me #about the family who had their son stolen. who tracked him down in America. who asked the family to see him #not to take him home not to be a part of his life but simply to speak with a now young teenager #and tell him how much they loved him and missed him and were happy he was safe #only for the family to deny them. #like Jesus fucking Christ man that shit has fucked me up #idk maybe it’s just cause my countin died recently #and she was adopted and her graduate psychology work was with adopted kids because she was passionate #about the flaws and dangers of the system she grew up in #but every person who talks about saving the children when they mean taking them away from everything and everyone they’ve ever known #it makes my skin crawl #we should be putting effort into keeping track of families. of finding family friends and connections for these kids. #not throwing them into a new country full of racists who will give them shit for where they were born no matter how American they’re raised

[rotzaprachim]

a wild flavor of tumblr user is a certain kind of white American self id’d leftist or commie who reblogs and posts things about I just think all liberals and centrists should DIE (*guillotine* meme) and then posts things needing to be nicer to demographics that vote 80% Republican and are very systemically involved in the structural and practical oppression of people of color and the whole US hegemony like brooo I get having a seriously messy relationship with your own cultural background but who are you talking about? Guillotining everyone at mawmaw’s thanksgiving?

#My mom was bitter about white middle American farmers and like it made me kind of ….. #but also they do fucking vote 70-80% Republican and horrifically abuse the millions of undocumented laborers who run the system #But I see this kind of thing with a lot of white working class American groups #It’s not an argument against empathy we any group we all need more empathy #It’s that a) I think white Americans who got into leftism by themselves often end up #In this violence-centric ideas of reform that are still intensely conservative and culturally Christian #Like bro you just want to kill everyone to make a better shiny world of good people bro #And b) they have exceedingly little empathy with why people from any other background might have family or complex relationships #To conservative ideology #The white leftist culturally xtian relationship to many diasporic groups etc #Idk it’s interesting…… #Also like I’m not letting anyone off the hook but uh some of the language that gets pulled up in these talks #Can be a weird reflection of Fox News rhetoric #The Real WorkinG Class (from predominantly white and rural areas) #Versus the Coastal *Liberals* and *urban people* at fault for income inequality #Or the death of American working class leftism or something #Like blaming that specifically on California and New York and or some of the areas with the highest proportions of people of color and Jews #It’s just like hmmmmm sussssss to me

[famewolf]

had a slightly concerning conversation with my little brother yesterday ... I worry for that kid, but man, I don't know how to help him

#[static] #started with finding out he wants to get a 'chr*stian sleeve' tattoo ... from a kid who used to actively dislike religion #and then ended with him talking about how the only way he has worth as a man is to support a family ... oh Dear #and he was vehemently denying he struggles with mental health. like bro ... you're going down a bad path #he's ... never had the strongest character judgement skills and is easily swayed by people around him and a lot of the people around- #-him in school are from rich cons*rvative families #im worried about him putting all his worth into his ability to make money ... that's not the way to go especially rn #and considering how violent and hateful american christianity is makes me kinda sick to my stomach to think he might be getting advice from #- people who would want people like me dead lmao #all i can do is try and be apart of his life and hope he picks humanity over hate ya know #i also wonder if his new girlfriend is apart of this change. whenever he gets a new partner his personality totally shifts

[telltaleanatomicalheart]

since i started star wars at like 14, i didn’t really get the full political implications or just the innate tragedy of it. it’s not supposed to be a happy story but there’s supposed to be hope. i always thought anakin wasn’t to blame going to the dark like maybe if he had a different master or wasn’t groomed by palpatine but in reality he was a grown ass man with full jedi training that chose to get married (“in secret” bc i swear everyone knew they was fuckin, they just didn’t want to banish him bc they saw him as the chosen one) and chose to kill younglings and massacre an entire people and kill another jedi and turn to the dark side. even if he had really strong emotions and felt things on an insanely intense level bc of midichlorians or whatever he still had full fledged jedi training to be able to control that and yeah the jedi temple was so corrupt in the way they were just cops with telekinetic abilities and fake buddhists but like HES GROWN. no matter what he experienced it was his choice. he was weak and he chose the dark side. so he is not babygirl. he’s hot. but he’s not baby girl. it was over even before he force choked padme cause he killed them kids he said no more jedi too bad so sad.

i never understood padme’s death tho it was kind of a plot hole to me just she just lost the will to live and just died after giving birth like what????even if she is force sensitive (ALLEGEDLY) that’s still crazy. i think it was soley for the anakin-vader plot so that he wouldn’t think of his actions or to maybe (idk if this was on purpose) justify his actions bc he had nothing left.

also sorry if u haven’t watched star wars yet…i recommend release order and clone wars and rebels animated series. forget about the mandalorian and the “ahsoka” show it literally doesn’t matter.

#ik there’s gonna be a new jedi order and theryre coming out with a new trilogy but sw is turning into marvel in the way u need to watch #all their stupid ass series to watch a bitchass movie or one show. if u content can’t stand alone it fucking sucks #also i hate when ppl quote yoda just bc he’s old doesn’t mean he’s not stupid #also i think the jedi values kinda ‘dehumanized’ jedis like leaving their families no attachments like what are y’all fighting for ur just #glorified cops. i think especially when u see the poverty in corusant which is supposed to be the planet for the AMAZING republic..some #peopl have never seen the sky…do something bout that. QUICKLY #i do think that disney star wars beyond liek the animated series is terrible. like they don’t know how to write. they just bring back old #problems and it’s the same tropes and maybe even the same characters #also rosario dawson allegedly attacked a queer person in public but the case was only dropped bc it was the pandemic and the person didn’t #have monies. like that doesn’t mean she’s innocent. sick sick people work for disney. sick sick people. #i hate the mandalorian so much. jon favero and dave filoni will pay. #imma pretend like some stuff just doesn’t exist. fun djarin who?? the mandalorian liek jango fett? oh sabine wren like in the animated show! #i rant abt sw bc i love it sm but i hate it. it was also created by a white american man so like…and more white american men make it worse..

[fuck-em-up-your-grace]

Academia is so left-wing until you actually have to read research papers and then it’s just 20 different papers on why colonization was okay

#I swear to god I read a paper that said the Koreans should’ve thanked the Japanese #and another on why settler colonization was actually beneficial for North Africans #several others I should say #and it’s always like ‘these Africans were so eager to help their new rulers so many of them joined the military and showed theirpatriotism!’ #and then you figure out by painfully piecing things together that no. actually. it’s just that the colonizers controlled the economy & jobs. #none of those Africans really had any choice at all— the only way to make money & keep their families alive was through military service #serving for a country you hate to help them suppress other groups just like you. and then the world asks for your *gratefulness* #like no! colonization is fucking bad!!!! #to delete later #was gonna write a fic to vent my emotions but I have neither the time nor the skills required for what I want to do #might try anyways but unlikely #academic discussion: slavery is the last stage and end goal of capitalism and the very principles of American society perpetuate racism #academic research: :( black people have it so easy whites are soooo overhated :( :( :( #also featured here: me vs the character count limit on tags

[queeroids]

I don’t post on Twitter but I like to browse it and is it just me who’s entire for you is filled with conservative gender critical drivel and shock content? I feel like I’m burning a hole straight through the center of my brain scrolling through my feed but I can’t look away it’s so mesmerizing in a deeply sickening way

#what is this doing to the average Americans mind #this is the news too rn #people in my family’s extended circles angrily declaring that they will be boycotting target and budlight on Facebook #like it’s some sort of public announcement they feel is important to make

[zhuhongs]

i am so painfully american in so many ways that I never even realized,,, like the Pain. Today I went out with my friends mom who doesn’t speak any english and oh my god was I a deer in the headlights all day. I feel soooo bad, also like she refused to let me pay for anything and gave me sooo much food and drove me around all day. I really don’t know how to thank her enough. I tried to give her a gift and she returned it to me without me even noticing... oh my god. ms. huang.. rlly.... TT thank u also I’m so sorry i’m so painfully timid and awkward

#i've never eaten like.. so many kinds of meat bc like.. yk.. americans only really like the "desireable' parts of the meat. so yea.. also i #have like a fear of swallowing bones.. long story. if u were here u were here for it. if u dont know .. its a Story. but yea so i was like. #this is... a painfully awkward meal. also i dropped my chopsticks TWICEEEEE.. pain. also I've never had shirmp with the head on so she #put one on my plate and i was like... uh.... i dont know how to eat this but I just looked out how the ppl around me did it so i got used t #it.. kinda.... god yea. and then she really kept giving me food but I have a small appetite due to the aforementioned fear of bones thing #it was a spell of disordered eating in hs. left me with a damaged throat and a reduced appetite. not body image related but trauma related #etc. etc.. so yea. i felt so bad. I was so full. she bought me so much. im sooo sorry.... but good news is i wont need to buy food at all #tmrw... and then sometimes she'd ask me a question and I'd legit have no clue how to respond. I;m so used to speaking multiple languages #with my classmates and my roommates so if i ever forget smth i can just use a diferrent language to explain and its.. so much harder to #speak only one language than i thought and hhhhh. also sidenote i COMPLETELY understand why my friend is the way she is... like yea no she #IS her mothers daughter hundred percent.... forceful. kind. not afriad to bargain. overall big appetite for life and yea no.. it makes sooo #much sense... i understand it ALL now...also her little brother is so rude.... god i don't like him. i see why she doesn't like him #like id never blame someone for hating their family but yea no i get it #hhhh so yea.. it was rlly fun but also.. a lot. super super grateful tho. #🐌.txt #also i am so tired.. what not getting enough sleep for a week will do to a mf

[otherpeoplesheartachept-2]

.

#you ever like think abt how you don't rlly have a culture or like connections to a wider community #and your family has kind of fallen appart #and even tho you have some friends and you're close w your sister you feel so deeply sad #bc of that disconnect from a wider community or family #and you can't rlly pull your family back togther #and you don't know how to build a new community #or find one you'd fit in w bc your social skills are shit #and you read a book abt a hawiian girl and her family and it makes you so deeply jealous #bc you've never had a family that cares for each other like that #and maybe you never will #and your partner's been recconecting w their family and cultural heritage #but you don't even have that #like you're just white #i mean you're supposed to be Irish and Scottish but you have no real connection to those identities #no one in your family knows anything abt ireland or scottland beyond that fact that distant relatives came from those countries to the usa #idk I've just been thinking abt culture and family a lot bc I took an asian american lit class #and those things were intergral to like all the stories we read #and it rlly made me realize that I feel like I've been missing those things #and when I was younger my family felt closer and more solid #but the oast few years things have kind of fallen apart #sorry if you clicked the expand tags and yiu had to scroll through this wall of text #I've just been dwelling on all these thoughts lately and especially today

[lokigodofaces]

being an american on here is wild because i keep seeing posts from other americans that describe things they've experienced and say that it is universal among americans and it'll be stuff i've either never heard of or know for a fact isn't true. maybe it's pretty common in your state or the states surrounding you, but there's so much stuff i see that i can not relate to whatsoever, and i've never left the states.

#liv won't shut up #i saw something about insurance today #said that optometry is never covered by health insurance #& i'm sitting here like dude the insurance my dad gets from work benefits (so it's not the best in a lot of ways) has covered our optometry #costs for 3 people for years. & actually idk the specifics but it seems like its not that bad of a plan. we usually buy more than a years #supply of contacts for me (only like a month more) and our insurance covers pretty much all the costs. i have to choose contacts or glasses #every year but my prescription has been very stable so i only have to get new glasses if they're damaged beyond repair #again it's not my insurance i'm covered by my parents & they dont tell me all the details so idk how much theyre paying for it. might be a #lot & we're doing it bc it's one of my dads benefits. but any way the point is that so many americans will say things like every single #person living in america understands & 90% of the time i have no frickin clue what they're on about or i have experienced the exact opposit #it's just interesting that this happens. & it happens all the time. 'all american schools require learning another language' no the frick #they do not. lots do (and this may be a state requirement thing wouldnt be surprised) but not all. wasnt required for me it was just highly #encouraged & i got a different type of diploma for my world lang classes (my hs had a few types of diplomas based on different classes/ #grades/etc idk if thats a common thing or not). another good example are train posts actually. i can tell theres a divide between beliefs #on trains based on state & thats bc public transportation is not as feasible in some states. i've spent a good portion of my life living in #small towns or visiting small towns (family) & yeah public transportation in middle of nowhere wyoming and middle of nowhere idaho is a lot #less feasible than the east coast. those are places of vast nothingness other than a few towns every once in a while never exceeding 20000 #(ID) or 500 (WY). & even in larger towns it seems like a lot of western states are more spread out. so a subway or other train isnt very #helpful (unless you want to do long distance trains then those could maybe work the issue is that costs money & idk if itd be used enough #to make it worth it for a gov/actually work well) & this is more of a rural/urban issue but that aligns with states as well in a lot of way #oh another one is about facs classes. so in a lot of places facs is being defunded or removed from curriculum. same with arts classes. & #this is becoming a problem in many places! but when ppl are like 'these classes are being taken away everywhere in america' i just sit #there thinking about my state requiring facs in middlie & high school (i believe but things could have changed) plus i had to take like 3 #semesters of art (idk if thats state or school or district required) & thereve been talks of raising that requirement. & they add more opt #every year. i was helping my younger brother with his schedule & theres all sorts of stuff that wasnt there before. he has way more options #to fulfill that requirement than i did. & i'm not saying that this isnt a problem it is a problem most places but every state has different #legislation on this so for now at least lots of schools are required to have these classes. & i've probably lost my point by now but it is #odd that i see this so often. that most of posts about america i see are different from what i've experienced. idk maybe the states i've #lived in are weird but youd think that this wouldnt happen to me a lot would you? like sometimes yeah but this happens a lot. #my guess is that a lot of these things are very true if you talk about a specific region or state. but then ppl assume its an american

[guinevereslancelot]

i never spoke or understood a target language better than when i was unemployed and just spent hours bingeing tv in that language

#closest substitute for listening to actual conversations #i know podcasts exist but the tv allowed additional context for the words making it much easier to understand #i will never have that amount of free time in my life tho so i will never learn the target language #also i lowkey gave up on it bc i wanted to learn it to speak with my beloved great aunt who had nobody left to speal her mother tongue with #but she died two years ago shortly after i moced home 💔 #and i wasnt confident in it enough to speak to her and she was already sick and in the hospital when i got back :( #anyway i COULD go to canada for some exposure to the language but its silly and pointless now #plus i have a new job #i started learning spanish instead but i have no more motivation and now my duolingo owl is dying of neglect like a neopet #i feel like i have a stronger base in french to try again but there's no point bc french is basically a useless language tbh #like i saw a few job postings looking for people fluent in french and english where i live but i cant imagine they use it much #anyway i dont want to answer phones for a living #and with nobody to talk to my french will never be that good #anyway rip duo owl im sorry #i will try to do some lessons but i will never be fluent in anythinggg 🥲 #american school system die by my sword #why do they not start teaching languages until the neuroplastisicty of childhood is gone..... #only people in actual bilingual families or rich people who pay for tutoring or additional classes get to learn a second language? #unless you're naturally gufted at languages #which i am not #its sooo embarrassing #this has been a shitpost

[badolmen]

Supermassive games made something that was almost perfect and then decided to make several much worse things before reeling it back to something decent that makes the same damn mistake the first game made without any of the first game’s charm and cleverness to make up for it. Like you’ve had the time to figure out this professional video game thing maybe you should start acting like it lol

#ra speaks #personal #sorry I’ve been in an until dawn mood lately and it’s like. gosh they were so close to making a game I could unironically say was amazing #their major flaw was the appropriation of Native American culture (like they could have been generic cannibal monsters you didn’t have to #call them that to make them scary that monster design was on point) #and then. in the quarry. which I dare to say is a decent sequel to until dawn. #MAKES THE SAME DAMN MISTAKE OF STEREOTYPING OOOO SPOOKY ROMANI TAROT MAGIC #like bruh do you. do you even call up somebody from the demographics you’re representing #and be like hey is this fucked up or nah? #like you’re a professional studio that’s a real thing you can do #and I don’t like the new cut scenes in until dawn they were PART of the story not some separate entity from it #anyways rant abt the bad stuff over gosh until dawn had such a fantastic story. the reveal and the twist are unparalleled. #literally my only issue is the monster cultural aspect like that’s such a solid game and story #and I guess the treatment of josh as a character but tbh the story of it seems fairly logical #these people got my sisters killed. I’m going to scare the hell out of them as revenge. no one will get physically hurt. #like yeah I would do that too dude. especially if I had a family background in film and practical effects. #and tbf his friends react pretty realistically for kids not knowing how to handle their friend having #a legitimate mental health crisis that stems from undiagnosed and erroneously medicated psychosis/schizophrenia #in addition to being hunted by literal monsters #the quarry was fun and campy the way until dawn was but there was no iconic bait and switch and also an antagonist uses the g slur so like #sorry it’s objectively not as good of a story

[monsterblogging]

"I know JK Rowing is a terrible person but her books are so good-"

You sure about that?

I mean, just for a start, have you taken a good look at her fantasy creatures lately? A whole bunch of them are straight-up based on malicious and dehumanizing stereotypes about actual people.

Remember the werewolves? And being a werewolf was made into a kind of metaphor for having AIDS?

And you know how AIDS was first associated with gay men? And how conservatives back in the day were claiming gay men were preying on children in order to convert them to gayness?

Remember how Fenrir Greyback preyed on children in particular? Yeah, she put that subtext in there. She was an adult in the 90's. She knew damn well what she was doing.

Remember the house elves? Remember how most of them loved to serve and needed to have a home and a master or else they just wouldn't know what to do with themselves?

Did you know that's literally what slavers in the American South said about the Black people they kept enslaved? Go look up the happy slave myth.

Do I even need to get into the goblins and the antisemitic tropes they're based on? No, folkloric goblins were not gold-hoarding bankers waiting for their chance to stab humanity in the back.

"But the characters are so good!"

Are you kidding me?

Most of her characters are pretty one-dimensional, including Harry. Her idea of making a morally complicated character is giving a tragic past to a bully. Numerous characters are little more than stereotypes. (Looking at Fleur right now.) Literally anybody, including you, can easily make dozens of characters just as good, if not better. (It doesn't exactly take a lot of character designing skill to go, "hey, actually, having a sad backstory doesn't make it okay to bully children" or "hey, maybe I should not base a character on the first stereotype that pops into my head.")

"But the rest of the worldbuilding!"

Sorry, but her worldbuilding is just as basic as her characters. Magical castles and secret passages are stock tropes. Magical people who keep their true nature secret from humanity is the premise of pretty much every White Wolf TTRPG. Most of her fantasy creatures are just common European fairy tale and folklore creatures with shitty stereotypes projected onto them.

I'm not saying "basic worldbuilding bad." I'm saying, you could do just as good, if not better, with minimal effort.

Also there's her magical bioessentialism, where only Harry's abusive blood relatives could provide him with supernatural protection from Voldemort. Rowling thus effectively declared that non-biological family isn't quite real family, and that abusive biofamily can give you some essential thing that a loving, supportive family that isn't related to you just can't.

The Hogwarts houses are one of the most insidious elements of her worldbuilding. The idea of being sorted gives you a little dopamine hit because wow now you have a li'l niche where you belong!

But the actual function of the houses and sorting system and the House Cup is teaching children to see each other as rivals, and ensure that the most toxic views of the upper class get passed on to every new batch of kids sorted into Slytherin.

Hogwarts effectively prepares children for a dystopia where magic serves to distract its citizens from how nightmarishly awful it is. Economic inequality is so bad that people like Arthur and Molly Weasley can barely afford to put their kids through school, casual sadism is just an accepted norm in everyday society, and non-humans are second class citizens. Rowling sorta acts like she thinks this is a bad thing with certain lines she gave to Dumbledore, but in the end, her special boy protagonist becomes an auror; IE, a defender of the status quo. So.

If you've never seen it, Lily Simpson's video goes into even more detail on how the worldbuilding of Harry Potter is actually incredibly fucked up, and how it betrays small-minded attitudes on Rowling's part. There's no separating the art from this artist, because Rowling's rotten values pour out of nearly every page.

Yes, there are many things in Harry Potter that evoke feelings and inspire people, but there's absolutely nothing in it that this series has a monopoly on. You can find those same experiences in much, much better media.

#harry potter #jk rowling #Youtube