When I was younger (like 12/13yo) my OTP in Harry Potter was Drarry. Some years later, I became obsessed with Grindeldore. And now I'm in love with Flintwood, but I still like Drarry and Grindeldore.
All of these ships have such interesting concepts.
Drarry is enemies to lovers with Draco who has always wanted to meet Harry beacuse he has heard about him since he was a child, but after Harry rejected his friendship, he started doing everything in order to get Harry's attention (acting as an asshole... Draco, honey, I don't think that's the right approach O-O)
And even if they're classmates, they're irremediably on opposite sides: Gryffindor/Slytherin, they Boy who Lived, destined to defeat Voldermort/son of a Death Eater.
While Grindeldore is the opposite: they're lovers to enemies. Dumbledore was a talented and ambitious 17yo boy who was forced to stay in a small town to take care of his younger siblings, after their mother's death. And then a new neighbor arrived: he was handsome, intelligent, brilliant, charismatic, and he became the only escape for Albus from his ordinary life. They fell in love, but all their plans collapsed, Ariana died, and they became enemies, fighting each other for years, until Albus defeated once and for all Gellert.
And then there's Flintwood: yes, they're enemies to lovers, but in a softer way; they are sport rivals, they're captains of two rival teams, they fight each other on the Quidditch pitch and they have two opposite personalities and two different methods to train their teams.
But what unites them is their huge passion for Quidditch.
Also, reading fanfictions about them, I've found many jokes about Oliver being a keeper and Marcus being a chaser, and... I love you, people who write Flintwood fanfictions, I love you
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Why are all Slytherins "evil"?
I was re-reading Harry Potter in the last period. Awesome experience, as always. I mean, HP is literally my favourite book series: it helped me to grow up and find my own identity, it made me feel less alone, it taught me how to dream and it introduced me to the world of fandoms in the internet.
Despite many problems of the series (narrative and ideological), I love Harry Potter with all my heart and I will never stop to recommend it to young readers.
But, you know, there's always something that really, really bothers me with Harry Potter. Well, yes, we could discuss about the problematic aparth- uhm, separation between Wizards and Muggles, or about the fact that Elves slavery is pratically... justified (?), and there's no solution for the Elves question in the final book.
But these topics are too much complicated for a random tumblr post, and we are on the internet, I don't want to start a war about politics, etc. :)
No, I want to complain about a certain thing that I really can't understand and it bothers me everytime that I read the books or watch the movies.
WHY ARE ALL SLYTHERINS EVIL? JOANNE, I NEED AN ANSWER, BECAUSE I DON'T UNDERSTAND.
Why they have to be so mean everytime? Being ambitious and shrewd doesn't mean "bad person".
Also, why are they all racist? And why it seems that all of them are sons or daughters of Death Eaters, or in any case their parents share Voldemort's ideology?
Are you saying that ALL SLYTHERINS are pureblood and racist? ALL OF THEM came from a family of Death Eaters? So there are not cunning, ambitious and shrewd people between halfbloods, Muggle-Borns and healthy pureblood families. That's weird.
Oh, yes, and in the first book Slytherins are described as all ugly. Literally.
So, yes, Slytherins are evil and ALSO ugly. Again... why?
Yes, there are some exceptions.
The first one is Severus Snape: now, I love Snape, he's such an interesting character and I feel sorry for his past; the scene in which he gets bullied is so hurting to me (I was bullied myself so I can understand the anger and that feeling of weakness), but... he was not a good person. He has been dominated by hate for his entire life and he never overcomed his past. He was a Death Eater for a period. He bullied Harry, Hermione and Neville for no reason. And sometimes he was so cruel that I think his behaviour is a part of the "All Slytherins are evil" mentality.
Like, Snape has deceived the Dark Lord for years, he is a genius in Potions, DADA and Occlumancy, he's supposed to be one of the smartest characters in the series. So... why has he never understand that Harry is not like James?
"Because he was blinded by hate", you can say.
Ok, but when he saw Harry's memories in the fifth book, why didn't he change his mind?
"He had to act cold because he was pretending to be still loyal to Voldemort."
OK, but there's a difference between being cold to someone and being openly cruel. Snape's behaviours are often illogical and contradictory with the idea of his character, and I can only think that the author depicted him in that way not only to write a "grey character", but also to be loyal to the tradition of "Slytherins are evil".
Next? Oh, Regulus Arcturus Black, one of my favourites. Yes, he was a Slytherin, he was a hero who betrayed the Dark Lord for the sake of Wizarding World. However, his character still has many negative traits: he was a Death Eater, and he shared the racist ideology of his family for years. Again, not bad, but not a good example.
Narcissa Black. She saved Harry, but she is still a racist woman who is married to a Death Eater, and she failed complitely to educate her son.
Her sister, Andromeda Black. Yes, she is the only example of "good Slyhterins" who is not racist or who has not connections with Death Eaters. So, yes, she is good, but there's another problem in this case: she appears once in the whole series, she is barely a character!
Horace Slughorn, my love, he is good, yes. BUT the main trait of his character is negative: he loves to collect the best students like they were trophies.
Draco Malfoy. He is a useless bully for five books, then he changes but even when his character became deeper and more interesting he remains a coward.
Sorry Draco's fans: I like Draco too, but it's true.
I often see people talk about "Draco's redemption", but honestly I don't see this redeption. Simply he became a decent person, but he is not go through an actual process of change. He is mean, but he never wanted to kill, he never wanted war, so he tries to not get in the way of Harry and his allies, that's it. This is not a redeption, this is an awareness.
There are also Albus Severus, Scorpius and Leta, but they are not characters from the original series, and they were created AFTER all the criticism about the fact that all Slytherins are depicted as bad, so I won't consider them.
It's a shame, you know? Because one of the most important themes in HP is supposed to be INCLUSION. So, why, WHY, nobody, even the "good characters", try to understand or socialize with Slytherins?
Why, in the SIXTH BOOK, I have to read about Harry and Neville who don't greet their Slytherin schoolmates beacuse "Gryffindors and Slytherins don't talk, that's it." Yes, Harry says that.
This is the reason why I love those fanfiction in which we can see Harry and other characters interact with Slytherins. Because this is what I want to see at Hogwarts: inclusion, no prejudice, brotherhood between the four Houses.
I don't know why, but nowdays I still see some "fans" of HP criticize or have prejudice about Slytherin house and I'm like: "After all this time?"
Don't answer "Always" this time, Slytherism (?) has to finish, once and for all.
So... Yes, peace and love between the Houses, thay are all great in their own way!
[I also hope that my English was comprehensible, I'm not that good, but I'm trying my best.]
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Repost of Instagram post by alessandra_sanguinetti:
“In 2004 I worked as an intern in Newsweek and had to go through the wires coming in from the Middle East.
The Iraq war was raging. Israel was committing its routine violations and killings.
The images were devastating and unequivocally condemning of both the USA and Israel, but I remember the editors would reject all my picks and demand images of burnt cars or vague images of destruction.
So I brought a hard drive and collected everything they didn't publish.
It was my first live glimpse of the lack of ethics or integrity in most US media.
Not the journalists on the ground, but of the senior editors making the calls - in their self important glass cubicles.
And no, to the cynics out there..it's not all too complicated to discuss on social media.
Social media is the only reason we know what's happening in Palestine.
And the only reason mainstream news has to keep up and sprinkle some actual news now and then.
Meanwhile we are seeing much less footage coming out of Gaza - Israel has been killing off all the journalists.
This is terrifying.”
Photo credits: Nasser Ishtayeh, Yossi Alon, Saif Dahlah, Jaafar Ashtiyeh, Musa Al-Shaer, Abed Onar Qusini
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