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floralembarrassment · 10 months

Note

james finding regulus sitting by a stream in the forest

this is suddenly in my brain and it will not leave so take that inspiration wherever it may go

Ohh see I asked for fluff and you requested fluff but this is actually going to hurt instead (because we know NO PEACE in the fandom) but I swear it's fluff-adjacent at the end! with love

By the water (1/1) (jegulus)

James was wandering through the forbidden forest. He had seen Regulus walk towards it during dinner but didn't really think much of it until he was looking a the map and found his name near the river.

This was one of James' favourite places. He loved to run through as prongs until he could change back and spend the afternoon swimming in the cool waters.

But there was something in the way that Regulus had been distant, quiet, and so flat all week that worried James. And something that worried him more was that he knew Regulus wouldn't go to that river for a lovely little splash.

And so James ran through the castle, then across the grounds, leaping into Prongs just as he cleared the tree line.

He stumbled back into his body a few feet away, calling out Regulus' name not to scare him. But when James reached the break in the woods, he saw Regulus with his pants rolled up, his feet in the water, and turned looking back at James' softly.

"Reg?" James breathed heavy.

"Hi," Regulus replied. His face was so young and innocent, James forgot sometimes how young they actually were because they felt like they had been alive forever.

"Alright?" James asked, stepping tentatively forward.

"No," Regulus said.

James froze in his tracks. Whole body stuck in place but his heart fell and was beating faster than he could catch it.

Regulus caught it though when he reached out his hand toward James. An invitation and an ask for help. And James moved to grab his hand, to answer the ask, to be one more thread for Regulus to hang on to.

But the clouds parted slightly, and the sun shone through, warming where their hands were clasped. And it was one moment that helped, and one moment of joy, and one moment of love to hang on to.

#did i know i had an asks box? no #I'm sorry #im sorry to you #im sorry to myself #there will be fluff again #jegulus #starchaser #sunseeker #marauders #fanfic #lgbtq+#james x regulus #regulus black #james potter #marauders era #regulus arcturus black #james fleamont potter #marauders fandom

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vixnarts · 3 months

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I don't normally like talking about personal stuff online but... I've been feeling... Angry lately like really angry. Maybe it's just me spending way too much time with the PJO fandom. I keep throwing things and I want to just cry. But any time I'm angry it's like Riordanverse related... It's like I can't do the things I want on my Insta page. Anytime I try doing something I want l get people whining at me. I do often blame myself for being a people pleaser but... Fans started complaining about me doing Jasico or attack me for having my take on Nico di Angelo as aroace. Like what's wrong with being aroace? Nothing!

They just want me to do Solangelo this and that because everyone else is doing it. I don't want to do that, I wanna do the things I want, not what they want. I feel like I'm a slave and I have to do the things that the fans say or they'll unfollow, block, and bully me. I love Percy Jackson and all but.. in the Hunger Games fandom I feel more carefree and the fans actually like my artwork and they don't mistreat me. They let me do what I can headcanon and whatever AU, that's what the THG fan base does. But when it's PJO, it's like how the fans do in the PJO fandom, they whine and bully. Fuck they even harass people for drawing the original trio from the books on Twitter (Of course it has to be that platform where everyone is mental..) What the flying hell is wrong with you people!!?

Bullying someone or even a young CHILD for having an opinion and wanting to draw the book version? If people can't draw the book version, then why is everyone drawing both movie and book versions of Harry Potter? Explain that to me? Also the Percy Jackson fandom is by far the worst fandom I've ever seen. It's just as bad as the Harry Potter fandom (do not get me started with that atrocity of a fan base)

I don't hate good Percy Jackson and Harry Potter fans, I'm just so tired of being treated like I can't do the things I want. I can't headcanon Nico as aroace and I can't have an AU where Jason and Percy hate each other. I'm honestly just tired of the Percy Jackson fans bullshit, picking on other fans because they have a unpopular opinion or they can't draw their take on percabeth. I'm tired of toxicity and toxic people that crumple other people's enjoyment. I'm tired of being bullied, having people spread stuff about me behind my backs (I'm looking at you HTTYD fans on Instagram), cyber stalking, and having my work reposted to be shit on because its an OC of mine.

Hopefully the Hunger Games fandom is at least not as toxic as the Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, MLP, and HTTYD fandoms. Just to know, I'm not pointing fingers at good fans, they have nothing to do with this. I'm pointing at the toxicity and the bullying these toxic crybabies do to destroy people's enjoyment. It's okay to have headcanons on said character, it's normal. It doesn't go against canon, just let ppl have their fun..

#percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians #heroes of olympus #toxicity needs to be called out in ALL damn fandoms #anti toxicity #no hate comments and reblogs allowed and i will know when i see it #percy jackson and the chalice of the gods #percy jackson fandom #yeah I'm calling you guys out because your toxic behavior SUCKS ASS! (not calling out good fans #are good..#harry potter fandom #anti jkr #anti rick riordan #I'm calling out toxicity not good fans I'll repeat this because apparently no one reads nowadays #don't comment if you haven't read it #i don't wanna read your complaint if you're going to attack me for calling out toxicity in fandoms

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goggles-mcgee · 11 months

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i used to like u but whyre u still into hp? jkr’s transphobia and racism are so bad in those books

There are many problems with the books, movies, etc and the person who wrote them I will never and don't deny that.

I don't know why you felt the need to tell me you used to like me. That just...you could have simply asked the question without trying to put me down. I'm not buying the new game, I don't buy any kind of memorabilia, I don't but new books, I didn't go to see the new movies...I don't support JK Rowling. I don't support putting money in her pockets.

If you have or did follow me, then I would think you would see I'm no stranger to critiquing things or just plain pointing out things that I hate or that annoy me in a media I am consuming. I legit write salt because of how mad shows have mad me because I wanted things to go different or because I thought some things could have been handled much better.

HP is not different.

I like to come up with funny little ideas for it, maybe even in the future angst or something like a rewrite. Why? Because I hate what became of it and the author herself.

Me writing little ideas is not benefiting JKR in anyway. Those who write HP fanfic or draw HP fanart don't do it because they support JKR, they do it for the media they fell in love with once upon a time and many acknowledge they don't support JKR. Some even do so in a defiant nature against JKR.

HP was something I loved in my childhood but I did grow and acknowledge all it's faults as I did. Growing is sometimes learning and acknowledging mistakes or wrongs. JKR will never do this but guess what? Past fans have, but instead of burying a past love in shame many take to pointing out the wrongs and mistakes with their fics or their redesigns. To make it better.

I'm not going to hide being into what HP could have been/should have been. Because overall I'm just a fan of what other fans did with it. I don't want to feel shame about it but others really want me to feel ashamed.

The fact is I do feel shame. I feel shame for the little me who was so in love with the HP world that I never saw the wrongs until I grew up. I feel shame for all the gifts I got that were HP themed, I feel shame for the books I was given despite being only 10. I feel shame for things that were beyond my control because there are people who love to shove the old love fans of HP have in their faces despite repeated attempts to tell them we do not support JKR.

I could go on and on about me being LGBTQ+, I could go on about family members and friends being LGBTQ+ who are just like me and feel that shame, who hat JKR, etc.

But really I'm just going to end this ask with everyone needs to just stop this shaming. Everytime someone posts HP fanart they don't need someone in their comments shouting at them about why they would do such a thing. Everytime someone makes a fic they shouldn't be waring with themself if they should or shouldn't because they fear the reactions. The fans do not reflect the author.

There are so many fandoms out there that the media they are part of are problematic or the creator is and yet they aren't as heavily shamed, and I get it, HP is much bigger than a lot of them but it's still not right to attack the fans.

I know you're not attacking me. I know that. But it still doesn't feel nice to be told you used to be liked before someone even asked yo uyour opinion on something. It hurts when someone assumes.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to make you feel bad, you simply asked a question but I've gotten a lot more negative anon asks about this directed towards me and this way the most...polite and I felt it was the best to say my peace with all this.

#harry potter #hp #hp fandom #i don't want this to be a big thing but I'm very tired of this #you guys don't know the amount of asks I delete of this nature #they hurt a lot #my mental health always takes a massive hit when i get them #i don't want this to lead to drama #this is just my opinion

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darkfromday · 2 years

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PLEASE keep the HP Wiki to canon information *only* ffs, and here’s what I mean by that

looks like recently someone has edited Dumbledore’s page, specifically about Harry, with some of the most common fandom misinformation: namely about Harry and the Dursleys, Dumbledore’s intentions, guardianship and a godfather’s rights and responsibilities (parental or otherwise). Seen here:

since I can’t edit this section myself to correct it, and since it pisses me off, I’m debunking it in order instead:

First!

‘taking him away from his godfather and rightful guardian’: far, far too many people have mixed up the terms “godfather” and “guardian” in the HP fandom. We’ll come back to this in a sec, but first...

An aside: The line above is written as though Dumbledore swooped down from the roof like a bat and snatched baby Harry out of Sirius’ arms. Funny image, but it’s not what happened. Dumbledore didn’t “take” Harry away from Sirius. Sirius made one attempt to take Harry at Godric’s Hollow, but when Hagrid rebuffed him and said “Dumbledore says he’s going to his aunt and uncle’s” Sirius did not fight back until he won. From Hagrid’s words, he “argued, but in the end he gave in”. He then immediately pivoted to trying to get revenge for Pettigrew’s betrayal.

He did not say “Petunia?! Great Scott, Lily and James wouldn’t want this! She hates Lily, she won’t raise Harry right” or any of the many other lines that have been included in innumerable fanfics (which is fandom’s right, no one’s arguing that! the lines just aren’t supported by canon like so many people seem to think).

So there is no argument to be made that any of Lily or James’ friends “knew” anything about Lily and Petunia’s strained relationship, or that she even brought it up. Even Severus Snape (who would have probably seen/heard most of their relationship firsthand as it evolved and devolved) never brought this up in canon.

Back to “taking him away from his godfather and rightful guardian”. This was clearly written by a Dumbledore-basher and an uncritical Sirius fan. I say “uncritical Sirius fan” because I like Sirius myself, but I’m more interested in seeing him portrayed accurately in canon discussions/writings like the Wiki is meant to be, in order to preserve his agency and prevent other characters from being bashed in the name of ‘protecting’ him. I’m worried the author of these pro-Sirius edits is a fan that doesn’t see his flaws, because this is not only unsupported by canon, it’s not even supported in real life. This is the dictionary definition of “godfather” that comes up via Google:

Obviously the first definition is the meaningful one here: “a man who presents a child at baptism and promises to take responsibility for their religious education”. That’s right: religious education. Not guardianship. In modern times, there are probably people in real life who make their children’s godparents their legal guardians as well in the event of the unthinkable, but Wikipedia’s civil and religious-based definition of the term leans heavily on the religious implications with only brief references to the civil implications (which do state that the godparent can become mentor or guardian to the bereaved child).

Religion in general isn’t mentioned much in HP, so it’s likely that the religious definition wasn’t relevant to what James and Lily wanted. And (to be fair to uncritical Sirius fans) there was an understanding that if something happened to James and Lily that Sirius would step in to become Harry’s guardian, which is stated by Sirius himself in Chapter 20 of Prisoner of Azkaban. (More on this in my second rebuttal.) But Sirius states both things separately: specifically, he asks first if Harry knows that Sirius is his godfather, then states that Lily and James named Sirius Harry’s guardian. That tells me that the two are not inextricably linked even in the wizarding world: one can be a godparent without accepting any legal responsibility for the child. But that’s a moot sub-point, since Sirius does accept that responsibility.

Right?

Well. Actually, no. Not instantly. That’s the issue: at the critical moment, Sirius does not step up to this responsibility.

His chance to do is clear: Hagrid is merely a stand-in for Dumbledore, who had clearly already come up with the protective charm he hoped to activate with Petunia. Hagrid at this point doesn’t know that Sirius was the Secret-Keeper, so he has no reason to suspect Sirius of anything yet. Hagrid is big and strong—annnd also a half-giant monitored by the racist British Ministry, forbidden to legally use magic; a bit of subterfuge and perhaps some Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, and Sirius could have gotten away free and clear with his godson, if he wanted to. In the worst-case scenario where Harry had to go to his aunt and uncle anyway, Sirius also could have just gone with Hagrid, hung around the Dursleys’ house until his situation was cleared up, and then worked with Dumbledore on a way to be involved with Harry without sacrificing or compromising the blood protection. What most Dumbledore-bashers miss is that Sirius did not do any of those things for two reasons:

1) his priorities were skewed toward revenge (seriously. instead of telling literally anyone on his side about the Fidelius switch before it could be pinned on him, he chose to go after Pettigrew alone, because he further underestimated his former friend’s cunning and skill. and not even to bring him in for judgment, but to just kill him and destroy any evidence of his own innocence. bruh. I love you, but you idiot.)

and

2) he trusted Dumbledore to take care of Harry. IRL people nowadays like to treat trusting Dumbledore in general as a moral failing, but it’s not, whether in our world or in-universe. Dumbledore is the leader of Sirius’ rebellion against Voldemort, his blood family, and all blood purists. This is the man who didn’t expel Sirius for putting Severus’ life and Remus’ safety in danger. This is the man who offered to become Lily and James’ Secret Keeper himself to ensure their absolute safety. If Sirius hadn’t trusted Dumbledore, he might have fought harder to start his new life as a surrogate father.

Or maybe he wouldn’t have fought—who knows? We know a little about Sirius, but the tragedy of the series is that he dies before we and Harry can get a full picture of him as a complete person (both before and after Azkaban). But I know for a fact that we certainly don’t ever hear him disparage Petunia Dursley—in fact, when he offers himself and his home to Harry in PoA, this is his exact line:

"I'll understand, of course, if you want to stay with your aunt and uncle," said Black. "But... well... think about it. Once my name's cleared... if you wanted a... a different home..."

Now why would Sirius say this if he knew for a fact that Petunia and Vernon were emotionally and psychologically abusing Harry, or that they were horrid and untrustworthy people in general? He wouldn’t. No one in their right mind would. He didn’t know. In fact, when Harry hesitates in the next line, made speechless by the opportunity for freedom, Sirius misinterprets it as a sign that Harry’s quite happy living with his mother’s family and doesn’t want anything to do with living with him. Harry has to untie his tongue to correct this impression (in the most vague way ever, notably: he never directly mentions how the Dursleys treat him. typical Harry).

So. We know Sirius isn’t nursing any grudge against Petunia Dursley. And we know he didn’t stake his claim on Harry in 1981. Fandom (and bash-friendly fans of Sirius especially) would do well to grapple with this bit of canon and redeem Sirius of this flaw in their works, rather than erasing it, whitewashing it, or pointing their fingers at other characters and absolving Sirius of his agency in the story.

Next!

‘despite them not even being named guardians in the event of James and Lily’s death’: ah yes, the “the Dursleys weren’t legally named guardians!” argument. (first off: I hate the Dursleys. this post is not Dursley apologism. fuck the Dursleys. if I’d had my way they would have been brutally murdered the second Dumbledore and Harry left their doorstep in book 6. But anyway.)

Not to be one of those “your word against his” people, but as stated above in Counterargument A, Sirius states in Chapter 20 of PoA that James and Lily appointed him as Harry’s guardian if anything ever happened to them:

"Well... your parents appointed me your guardian," said Black stiffly. "If anything happened to them..."

... and he’s the only word we have on that point.

Fans of “Sirius and/or Remus raise Harry” (or even “Amelia Bones/the Malfoys pre-defection/other random HP character raises Harry”) often tout this as a reason that Dumbledore was “stealing” Harry from his rightful place, and include a lot of bogus legalese during their obligatory Gringotts or Wizengamot chapter. But the fact is: we don’t ever see James and Lily’s will. A will is never mentioned in any of the books. Wartime or not, since they’re twenty-one years old, it’s very likely that they just didn’t make one—and certainly not one that explicitly named Sirius as Harry’s guardian or disqualified Petunia from being one.

This may be hard for some fans to swallow, but it’s another piece of the puzzle of the tragedy of the Potters: like many young people, they thought themselves invincible even when in direct danger, and the one they left behind paid the price for their mistakes.

All of this detailed wordvomit ignores the most important counterargument to this line: namely, the one brought up before. Sirius’ choice and its consequences. With the agency he possessed in 1981, he chose to pursue Pettigrew and, when that failed, chose to let the entire wizarding world believe that he was the traitor. Perhaps his grief and guilt tied his tongue. Perhaps he felt the only punishment that was adequate for losing his surrogate brother was prison. He says “I as good as killed them,” in PoA, but the truth is that (regardless of his mistakes) he didn’t kill Lily and James.

He also didn’t take the opportunity to set the record straight, meaning he was not in the running to raise Harry anyway. We know from canon that wizards skilled in Occlumency can fight Veritaserum and that’s why it’s not admissible in court as some kind of flawless truth-serum. But that detail doesn’t really have any bearing on Sirius’ situation because we don’t know if he knew Occlumency or not (though probably not, or else Dumbledore would have just had him teach Harry in year 5. remember, Occlumency is not a common skill that everyone and their mom knows how to do).

I won’t get into the other canon gray area of “did-Sirius-have-a-trial-or-was-he-carted-straight-to-Azkaban” (though unlike other fans, I firmly believe that just because we didn’t see a trial doesn’t mean there wasn’t one; Dumbledore did say “[he himself] gave evidence to the Ministry that Sirius was the Potters’ Secret-Keeper”, and it seems rather far-fetched to assume he gave this evidence outside of a trial. Granted, I do not doubt it was a kangaroo court fueled by the rage of public opinion and that Sirius hardly had a lawyer or any chance to defend himself, even if he’d had the inclination).

But the points stand:

Sirius’ decisions that November night sent him to Azkaban, meaning he was legally out of the running to raise Harry. So any co-parenting or godfather visits he might have set up in canon are dust in the wind. (Legal experts can correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure certain crimes disqualify you from having guardianship over kids.)

Remus is a werewolf, and thus discriminated against by the Ministry similarly to Hagrid (also as mentioned above). But since his whereabouts and any other canon reasoning for noninvolvement in 1981 are unknown, James’ friends are now disqualified to raise Harry.

We don’t know if Lily had any other close friends besides the one she’d already fallen out with (no, I regret to inform some of you that no adult female HP character was legally or otherwise declared Harry’s ‘godmother’. That’s also fanon. You’re welcome to keep using it of course, I’m not your mom, but it’s not canon or canon-supported, so please don’t treat it as such in meta arguments).

This means that the Dursleys are the only ones left who have any sort of legal claim to Harry. Yes, we the readers know the Dursleys suck in-universe and shouldn’t have had legal guardianship of a shoe, let alone two children; but on the surface, to the oblivious observer (which is 99% of Harry’s contacts), with Sirius in absentia, the last Potter was going to be placed with his next-of-kin relatives just as anyone in the real world with no written directive would be.

The obvious sub-argument implied in the ‘why would anyone put Harry with the Dursleys’ main argument is usually “what right does DUMBLEDORE have to put Harry with the Dursleys” etc. etc. This is where narrative purpose comes in. No, no one (least of all That Woman when she was writing this) expects you to read Harry Potter and think that every single government official or headmaster has the right to just pluck orphan children out of the ruins of their dead parents’ houses and place them with whomever they see fit. But it fit the story for Albus Dumbledore, most powerful ‘good’ wizard and the only person knowledgeable and powerful enough to activate the bond of blood protection, to be the one to take responsibility for Harry’s present and future safety from Voldemort, especially once Sirius so spectacularly disqualified himself.

And again: in November 1981 canon, there is no one else left. Remus fucks off to parts unknown, Peter is considered dead, and both James and Lily’s parents predeceased them. The Weasleys don’t know the Potters that well and already have six children (maybe seven? had Ginny been born by then? hell if I know). Most other ‘good’ aligned families don’t know the Potters that well either, and they are also too busy celebrating Voldemort’s downfall to do anything more than toast to the orphan involved in it. Like it or not, Dumbledore (well, and Slughorn and Snape) are the only ones who have any inkling that Voldemort will be coming back, and Dumbledore is the only one who comes up with a plan to at least thwart Voldemort just directly knocking on the Dursleys’ door and taking Harry off to one of his murder locations.

Third, and Finally!

‘Despite being aware of the criminal abuse Harry had suffered while living with the Dursley family through a contact, Arabella Figg, he did not step in to prevent the abuse Harry suffered as a child,’ etc.: yeah, no. Just no.

The following are the only two very vaguely-written lines (why does That Woman love vague lines so much) from Albus Dumbledore about Harry’s life at the Dursleys, from Order of the Phoenix:

Harry glared at him for a moment, then flung himself back into the chair opposite Dumbledore and waited. Dumbledore stared for a moment at the sunlit grounds outside the window, then looked back at Harry and said, “Five years ago you arrived at Hogwarts, Harry, safe and whole, as I had planned and intended. Well — not quite whole. You had suffered. I knew you would when I left you on your aunt and uncle’s doorstep. I knew I was condemning you to ten dark and difficult years.”

Dumbledore bashers love this line. I daresay they salivate over it. It certainly makes Albus look like a dick, I’ll give them that—but let’s break it down a bit, shall we?

“Five years ago you arrived... safe and whole, as I had planned and intended.”

The ‘as I had planned and intended’ is important here, because the (il)logical conclusion many bashers and antis jump to is that Dumbledore deliberately left Harry somewhere to be abused. This line refutes that conclusion. Dumbledore may not have imagined Harry to be some perfectly bubbly boy in the Muggle world, but even in his coldest plans, the plans he made before actually meeting Harry and becoming emotionally attached, he intended for Harry to arrive at Hogwarts ‘safe and whole’. It’s safe to assume this means physically, mentally, psychologically, etc.

Next part: the big part.

“Well—not quite whole. You had suffered. I knew you would when I left you on your aunt and uncle’s doorstep. I knew I was condemning you to ten dark and difficult years.”

Doesn’t sound so great, yep. Except. What does he mean EXACTLY by 'ten dark and difficult years’?��We are never told. He does not clarify, here or elsewhere. He does not say, “I knew the Dursleys would abuse you. I knew they would hit you/starve you/be unkind to you and did nothing”.

This is the conclusion many people choose to draw because as the readers they know what happens to Harry; in fact, they know even more than the characters Harry is living his life with since he doesn’t seriously fucking tell anyone how the Dursleys treat him. But we also know despite all the fanon uproar about this line that Dumbledore did not know all the minutiae of Harry’s life at the Dursleys, and we know this because of a line from OotP (up first) and another line from Half-Blood Prince (up later):

“Five years ago, then,” continued Dumbledore, as though he had not paused in his story, “you arrived at Hogwarts, neither as happy nor as well nourished as I would have liked, perhaps, yet alive and healthy. You were not a pampered little prince, but as normal a boy as I could have hoped under the circumstances. Thus far, my plan was working well...”

If we are going to analyze Dumbledore’s ‘dark and difficult years’ line, we must also analyze equally all the other lines he says around it. This is one of the most candid conversations Albus Dumbledore has with Harry in the entire series. In this conversation in Chapter 37 of OotP, he reveals (implicitly) that his ‘plan’ was to tell Harry the prophecy early on, for reasons he doesn’t elaborate on. And in this conversation, he states, twice, that at minimum he intended for Harry to return to the wizarding world ‘safe and whole’, or ‘alive and healthy’. I am sure his definition of those words matches the readers’.

We should also note here that Dumbledore says “neither as happy nor as well-nourished as I would have liked”, and “as normal a boy as I could have hoped under the circumstances”. Meaning, again, that Dumbledore’s intent in leaving Harry with the Dursleys was not only to protect him, but also to perhaps give him a happy, normal life away from the magical world, protected from Voldemort and his most unhinged followers, until he was old enough to rejoin the world he belonged in.

Depending on how much he’d gotten over his old ideas about Muggles, it could even be theorized that to Dumbledore ‘dark and difficult years’ referred simply to the time Harry would be exiled from the wizarding world, unable to return or interact until he could start learning magic (supported by the fact that even ‘good’ people like Mr. Weasley and Minerva McGonagall don’t have an entirely unbiased view of Muggles, or living without magic). This might be torturous if Harry knew his true origins growing up—which we know Dumbledore intended because 1) Dumbledore mentions to McGonagall in Chapter 1 that he doesn’t think it’s sensible for Harry to grow up knowing he’s famous (“...for something he can’t even remember!”), not that he doesn’t think it’s sensible for Harry to know about magic at all; and 2) his messenger, Hagrid, is shocked and angry that Harry doesn’t even know he’s a wizard.

Before my words/theories are misinterpreted: I’m not saying Albus was totally naïve to the Dursleys’ treatment of Harry here. The way this line from Chapter 37 is phrased implies that once Harry arrived at Hogwarts, Albus was able to see for himself that Petunia had not taken his request in his letter to heart. And given how skinny and underfed Harry probably looked at eleven, even if he probably wasn’t saying shit about the Dursleys to anyone at this point, it’s a logical conclusion.

But before that point we have no idea how much or what specifically Albus knew about Harry’s life with his relatives. Bashers use the same argument above that’s marring the Wiki: that Arabella Figg kept Dumbledore informed on every little thing that happened in the Dursleys’ home, thus he knew about the full extent of Harry’s mistreatment and actively did not intervene, making him complicit. Except: we don’t know that either. Cue second quote from just after Mrs. Figg reveals herself to Harry:

“Why didn’t you tell me you’re a Squib?” Harry asked Mrs. Figg, panting with the effort to keep walking. “All those times I came round your house — why didn’t you say anything?”

“Dumbledore’s orders. I was to keep an eye on you but not say anything, you were too young. I’m sorry I gave you such a miserable time, but the Dursleys would never have let you come if they’d thought you enjoyed it. It wasn’t easy, you know. . . .”

“I was to keep an eye on you but not say anything.” This bit of text, similarly vague (say anything to Harry about what exactly? and not say anything when? before Harry learned about the magical world? after?), is contradictory to Hagrid’s own expectations that Harry would know about magic, if indeed that’s what Arabella means. But she also implicates herself here: she too made sure part of Harry’s existence was at minimum mind-numbingly boring. Harry never recounts any instances of abuse from her, but nor does he imply that he ever told her the whole truth about his personal life.

It’s clear she’s a good enough judge of character to tell that the Dursleys did not want Harry to have things he enjoyed (and draw conclusions from there), and it’s likely she passed that information on to Dumbledore. But when? And to what extent did she emphasize the second-class citizen status she observed from Harry? And even if she had, who’s to say that Dumbledore, Fudge, or anyone would have done anything about it?

(This, by the way, is the kind of plot hole/vague, non-explained thing fandom should grapple with in fanworks in my not-so-humble opinion. I can understand why no one wants to wrestle with the idea that a child being unhappy at home but not visibly mistreated would not be whisked away to happier, safer environs, because for many people that is their real story. Or maybe just because it’s hard to accept that under all the magic and adventure, Harry’s story is a story about adults fucking up in so many ways that he eventually has to rescue himself by murdering an old serial killer.)

Frankly, there are not enough fanworks that explore the possibilities of a Dumbledore who was not aware of the exact details of Dursleys’ mistreatment, a Figg who told him, and the moral grappling/potential spell retooling that might follow. Or, on the darker side, the possibilities of a Dumbledore who was still a good man, but had to make an ugly, shitty decision and live with how ugly and shitty it likely made him feel. Instead the default is to pivot to it all being “AN EVUL PLAN” by the mastermind who knew everything but also somehow not enough to stop the various plots that happen during the books.

Long past time for the aforementioned HBP quote, the one that (while it still doesn’t specify precisely what Dumbledore knew and when he knew it) is the most specific the entire series gets about Harry’s abuse:

"Now, as you already know, the wizard called Lord Voldemort has returned to this country. The wizarding community is currently in a state of open warfare. Harry, whom Lord Voldemort has already attempted to kill on a number of occasions, is in even greater danger now than the day when I left him upon your doorstep fifteen years ago, with a letter explaining about his parents' murder and expressing the hope that you would care for him as though he were your own."

Dumbledore paused, and although his voice remained light and calm, and he gave no obvious sign of anger, Harry felt a kind of chill emanating from him and noticed that the Dursleys drew very slightly closer together.

"You did not do as I asked. You have never treated Harry as a son. He has known nothing but neglect and often cruelty at your hands. The best that can be said is that he has at least escaped the appalling damage you have inflicted upon the unfortunate boy sitting between you."

This, along with a few more following sentences in chapter 3, is Dumbledore’s canon criticism against the Dursleys. Here is another instance where Dumbledore explicitly states that his desire was for the Dursleys to treat Harry as a beloved member of their family; he has now said the same thing twice before witnesses. And this critique notably comes following the close of several months of Harry’s Occlumency lessons with Snape, who (as a teacher) may have actually done one positive thing and acted as a mandated reporter for whatever atrocities he saw in Harry’s mind.

Note: this is just a theory. Nothing in canon specifically states that Snape shared any of what he saw in Harry’s mind. I have no proof that Dumbledore’s conversation with the Dursleys was spurred by any alleged reporting by Severus, but I think that this combined with the fact that Alastor Moody, Arthur Weasley and Remus Lupin (three people who Harry definitely did not confide in about the Dursleys) all team together to threaten the Dursleys at the end of OotP of Harry’s lessons with Snape means that some information that was previously unknown made its way around the ranks, and all the way up to the top.

But ‘just a theory’ or not, it’s far more likely based on timing that Severus said something than Arabella. Dumbledore himself is a candidate too, except... if he knew the extent from the start, why keep it to himself and only share it fifteen years later with the aforementioned trio of Moody, Arthur and Lupin?

As for the “criminal abuse” phrase: let’s not leave any doubt in any mind that what Petunia and Vernon did to Harry was criminal. It makes them criminals. The implication in how this is written on the Wiki though is that the two of them were beating him raw and Dumbledore strolled by, peeked in the window, and muttered “b-but Voldemort” and kept it moving. That’s not the case for all the reasons listed above.

Additionally, and unfortunately, we don’t know the full details of all the abuse Harry suffered. Physically, we know that Petunia swung a frying pan at Harry in second year. We know that Vernon was quick to grab Harry, even hit his own eleven-year-old son when he tired of listening to him, and strangled Harry so effectively that either Harry’s blood protection or his own accidental magic kicked in to stop the asshole. We have those two concrete examples, and (though I hate to say it) these are what many in the fandom hyperfocus on. Whatever they might say to the contrary, there are an unbelievable amount of stories which inflate or overexaggerate the amount of physical damage Harry obtained, because they consider that more concrete or more ‘valid’ to write about than the more insidious, unseen types of abuse.

There are far fewer stories exploring and deconstructing the lion’s share of the abuse Harry received: the neglect and cruelty that Dumbledore mentions. The deliberate erasure of his presence within the house, whether that was through the lack of pictures with him in them or through the Dursleys expecting Harry to shrink himself when they had company, such as in Chamber of Secrets. And worst of all, on top of all of this: the enduring fact that Petunia still had the nerve to offer Harry space in the house for his protection, even as she and her family worked to make that space as cramped and unwelcoming as possible.

This is a fandom flaw: as long as there are fans quick to invent depraved acts for the Dursleys to perform rather than sitting with exactly what they have done and acknowledging it as ‘more than shitty enough’, we will as a whole still be plagued with stories that unbalance the amount of blame the adults in Harry’s life can claim over his circumstances.

So. We need a TL;DR. What have we learned here?

Lily and James had no other remaining relatives who could have taken Harry and thus (on Lily’s side since James’ wouldn’t matter) also upheld the upcoming bond of blood protection.

Lily and James named Sirius Harry’s godfather, and there was an understanding between all three that Sirius would care for Harry if his parents predeceased him.

Specifically, there was no written or referenced will ever mentioned in canon that qualified Sirius or disqualified Petunia Dursley from Harry’s guardianship.

The specific nature of Lily’s sacrifice gave Dumbledore a method he could use to protect Harry in his most vulnerable years, a method that required Lily’s only living relative; and he acted on his knowledge as soon as possible.

Concurrently, Sirius went to stake his claim to Harry, but (for whatever reasons) did not persist with Hagrid until Harry was in his care. He trusted that Dumbledore would look after his godson. Instead, he went after Pettigrew and ended up framed, imprisoned, and out of the running to care for (or even interact with) Harry.

We don’t know if Sirius had a trial. We can assume that he may have since ‘evidence’ was given of his undeniable guilt, but we will never know for sure unless That Woman says one way or another.

If he didn’t have a trial, though, that blame lies squarely at the feet of Barty Crouch Sr., who we learn in Goblet of Fire was locking people up left and right after their speedy trials—not Dumbledore.

Besides legal racism reasons, Remus was unavailable to be Harry’s guardian for reasons unknown. (Is this info on Pottermore? someone tell me.)

Peter was... yeah.

Minister Bagnold of “I assert our inalienable right to party” fame was not thinking about baby Harry Potter’s well-being while she and her Ministry were celebrating Voldemort’s “downfall”.

Dumbledore was one of the few people thinking about Harry in the revelry that followed Voldemort’s disappearance, and with the chaotic events between Sirius and Pettigrew, he was also the last person left who could place Harry anywhere. He placed Harry with the Dursleys, trusting that they would treat him like a second son and care for him until Hogwarts could welcome him home.

McGonagall’s resistance to leaving Harry with the Dursleys in book 1 was not due to some sixth sense she had about how they would treat him: her specific concerns were that Vernon was a prick and baby Dudley was clearly overly spoiled. If anything she was more concerned about Harry’s moral fiber being compromised, not his safety.

From 1981 - 1991, the Dursleys emotionally and psychologically abused Harry, keeping the truth of his origins and nature from him while subsequently punishing him for those truths.

Outside of dark jokes to his friends about their mutual dislike in the early years and one explicit confession to Dumbledore that Petunia “doesn’t give a damn [about him]” in Order of the Phoenix, Harry is not candid about his experiences.

Specific details of the Dursleys’ abuse outside of explicit book descriptions are unknown; when and how much each of the major adults in Harry’s life (Albus, Sirius, Remus, Arabella, Arthur, and Severus) know about his shitty situation is also unknown, though there are enough confusing half-references and retaliation scenes to make any reader’s head spin.

Any fanon attempts to color in the lines between what’s said and unsaid, what’s known and not known, are just that: fanon. They are just as divorced from canon as the concept of ladies’ man!Sirius or Slytherin Lord!Harry. I’m emphasizing the following again because I know some people will dismiss me and my post as a sermon from the fun police: There is nothing wrong with creativity in fanon by any means. The problem comes when invented information and (both friendly and malicious) personal headcanons are treated as canon and affect the canon accordingly.

So I’d really appreciate it if someone with the power to edit the HP Wiki deleted everything from the erroneous sentences starting with “It was Dumbledore who planned...” and ending with “...bullying cousin Dudley.” Those lines weren’t on Albus’ wiki originally anyway, so it won’t hurt to consign them back to the void—especially since there are plenty of other flaws and conflicts in Harry and Albus’ relationship that can be (and are) addressed there instead.

After all, Sirius’ wiki article is flattering and (mostly) canon-accurate without discounting his flaws and how they affect his cut-short relationship with Harry. If we can keep the bias out of Sirius’ account, surely we can do the same for Albus’.

#Harry Potter #meta #Halloween 1981 meta #Harry and Dumbledore #Harry and Sirius #Harry and the Dursleys #Harry and abuse #Albus Dumbledore #Sirius Black #Arabella Figg #HP Wiki #le sigh #I'm begging y'all... stick to the actual gray areas if you want to criticize a character #stop making shit up and passing it around as telephone truth because it makes you look dumb #we all have copies of the books right???#we all reference them right??#and uh if you don't at this point please pirate them. Fuck JKR #inb4 ''read another book'' just mute me and move on. I read other stuff. I can post this if I want ffs #Albus has plenty of actual flaws that don't need to be expanded or lied about. I know because I love him and criticize him #this is a skill that more people in the HP fandom need to learn about their particular faves #let's have 2023 be the time where we criticize JKR for the plotholes and fill them in creatively instead of doing bashing bullshit #(lol I already know that won't be happening)

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heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon · 11 months

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" I feel like I'm missing something in the ~'cripplepunk'~ debate."

Okay but you're not Cripple Punk, are you?

Therefore, nobody here needs to explain shit to you.

Now get the fuck out of our tags.

#cripple punk #cpunk #Especially if you follow up those tags with 'I don't know what else to tag this as I'm sorry.'#You don't belong here. Go.#Goddamn fucking Harry Potter Moose messed up everything ...#And THIS is why we typically try to keep fandom bullshit and bullshit fandoms AWAY from Social Movements please and and thank you!!!

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mydarlingdearestdead · 1 year

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Reconditeravens

"Pink is his favourite colour... but you knew that." Emma smirks from where she's situated herself on Hestia's lap.

"And his birthday is coming up." Her girlfriend chimes in, "Don't reckon that'd be connected, would you love?" Hestia laughs good-naturedly as she pulls Emma closer, Caradoc is already walking away.

He rubs a lock of hair between his fingers- baby pink and soft to the touch. It's a temporary spell. In a few weeks, it'll begin to fade, then go all at once, revealing the straw blonde underneath. Caradoc had never let it get to that point before, as soon as the fading starts he picks a new colour, or retouches the original spell. He inherited his father's hair, but that's all. Every other feature comes solely from his mother. Some days it's enough to cover up that link with a pop of colour, a flash of red or spark of blue, but others it's like the ancestry is clawing at him, making it's best attempt to tear him apart.

From his bag, Caradoc pulls a well-worn copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde and carries it, and himself, to the nearest alcove.

Ravenclaw common room is centred by a large, winding staircase built into the tower itself that leads to the dormatories. The space is dotted with hidden reading nooks and alcoves, throughout the years rumours have been uttered of a secret library concealed within them, last accessed by Rowena Ravenclaw herself. That, of course, is totally improbable- but, a boy can dream, can't he?

This alcove is empty save for two comfortable-looking armchairs and a candle with amplified light, magically burning on without shedding any wax.

Caradoc settles himself in one armchair and waits. Eventually he'll be found, and dragged away from his bubble of peace and quiet.

It takes twenty minutes to find Caradoc's hiding place, and a further five for Benjy to work up the courage to approach him. This is his best friend in the world, talking shouldn't be so difficult.

"Took you long enough." Caradoc comments. His hair is pink. Actually pink-pink. Light pink. Benjy's favourite shade. His brain goes into overload, because what other logical response to the situation could there be?

His best friend dyed his hair Benjy's favourite colour, just days before his birthday, he's wearing one of Benjy's jackets- old corduroy-, which fits him better than it ever had Benjy and his grin is all lopsided and cute.

"Benjy-"

"'Doc-"

They both smile sheepishly, "Go ahead." Caradoc says. Benjy smiles ruefully. You've gotten this far, he thinks.

"I really like-" Caradoc's eyes widen comically. "like- your hair. It's great." Unfortunately, Benjy has already psyched himself out. Caradoc visibly deflates upon hearing the words. "No- I- It looked great before too? But the pink is really great. My- my favourite colour actually."

Benjy is visibly flustered as he turns to the other boy.

Caradoc puts on a smile like he isn't breaking down inside,

"Thanks."

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copperbadge · 1 year

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Had a dream this morning that Archive of our Own had a Random button which would simply take you to a random fanfic, like Wikipedia has. (AO3 does not appear to really have this, I checked and couldn't find one, but I kinda wish they did.) Someone had started a game where whatever fic you got, that was your new fandom, which is very fun! I would love this meme in real life.

The problem came in where so many people used the button that it broke and just started sending everyone to Stealing Harry, and like...I have fond memories of Stealing Harry but it's not my best work and nobody should be assigned to be a Harry Potter fan in this day and age.

So I decide to go off and find Astolat and demand she fix this but when I finally did (there was a whole quest) she turned to me like the baddie in a horror flick and said, "But that's the most random story there is" in a dark voice and I was terrified and woke up.

In the cold light of day I know there are more random stories by me on the archive, let alone by others, but I'm not going to try to get back there to argue my case. Pretty sure whatever I spoke to was actually the demon specifically assigned to plague fandom and not Astolat at all.

I'd say "get thee behind me, demon" but I know just how many porny fics on AO3 begin with that premise. (I've written some.) Begone foul spirit, and take your Satanic Panic with you!

#dreams #demon of fandom #probably has a name like anticifer

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temporaltemporary · 1 month

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One of the reasons I've stayed in the dsmp fandom for so long is the huge amount of ao3 fics without romance. Going from dsmp to any other fandom on ao3 is crazy because while 90% of dsmp fics are centered around platonic relationships, most other fandoms seem to have 90% of their fics centered around a romantic one.

Like, in 2023, while only 18 of the top 100 relationships were platonic, 7 of those were dsmp. Even more, the top 2 most popular platonic relationships were dsmp. Then there's the fact that of the 44,000 total fics on ao3 with the "no romantic relationships" tag, 9000 of them have tommy in them. And most writers who write a story without romance don't even use that tag.

Even shows with canon aroace characters have way more romance on ao3; with hazbin hotel, alastor is shipped with someone in almost every single fic. With DBH, even though their relationship is friendly at worst and father-son at best, there are way more hank/connor fics than hank&connor fics. Lastly, I think it's funny how there are almost 500k harry potter fics and only 1000 of them have no romantic relations, which is an insane percentage compared to dsmp.

I don't know. Do you get what I'm saying? No other fandom (that I've found) does it like dsmp. And so while I understand why people have stopped writing them and have been deleting their fics, it does make me sad to lose all these found family and friendship fics that I've lived off of for so long.

#dsmp #tempo talks

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apparentlytheproblem · 8 months

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Hi! I hope you’re having a great day! I had an idea for a fic and I thought I’d send it to you!

Theodore Nott or Mattheo Riddle x fem! Reader

The readers on her phone relaxing after spending all Saturday on homework, and she opens tiktok and watches edits edits of her boyfriend and watches some for like hours and then he walks in- (stay with me bestie-) and she dosent notice, and she’s gotten really horny, needy and turned on *cough* maybe she goes on character ai to try to make her miss him less and she’s just super horny- he sees her watching edits of him and it’s just super smutty?

A/n: Also this is my first time requesting! I sent this to a couple of my favorite fanfic authors bc I didn’t know who would respond, I love your work pls keep it up!!

p e r f e c t i o n

fandom- Harry Potter

pairing(s)- theodore nott

a/n: thelloo my darling, i am so sorry it took so long. i couldn't choose which character to do, so both are uploaded, one is the copy paste of the other except their names [ofcourse] so there isn't much difference, tysmm for requesting and i hope you're happy with how this turned out :)

p.s i love you and this literally has me giggling and smiling

requested- yes

currently playing- forever favourite

warnings- this is set in a modern au, here he's a famous actor

you placed your pen down, a clicking sound was heard as the cap enclosed the nib. you uncross your legs and make way to the couch with your phone on one hand, ready to take a well deserved break.

you opened TikTok, the symbol animatedly popping up as her for you page loaded. there was something so addictive about it, not that of the app, but how the edits and controversies of your boyfriend pulled you in for hours.

the thing was, the both of you had an argument and you're missing him more than usual. you long for him to grab your thighs, the neck kisses, his fingers running down you as if to sculpt you.

from POVs to edits to just scenes of him had you captivated. just the thoughts of him doing what they claimed. you found yourself rewatching an edit of his thighs. for some reason they turned you on so much. his walk, his arms, the way he moved, how could he do it all so seductively.

was it getting hot in here?

you instinctively started unbuttoning your shirt and removed your shorts, leaving you in a pretty set. you were home alone anyway, who would be bothered? but god didn't he love that set. you rested on your stomach as you encountered an audio, a one with Theodore Nott fucking you. you could feel yourself practically melt with his voice draining all thought and reason on your mind.

his slow footsteps took him to the bedroom which's door was slightly ajar his hand preoccupied with takeout.

fuckfuckfuck

you eyes look up to see the the biggest grin. he though he'd won. he knew you wouldn't go too long without him. it made you upset. but at the same time, his barely buttoned up shirt was loosely hung and his trousers outlined his visibly growing bulge.

leaving the food gently on the desk facing the door, he lifted you up from the bed with his hand under your thighs, placing you on top of his study.

his eyes ran through the pretty blue lace, he always said it looked lovley on her skin. he closed the gap between her, your breats pressed against him.

"I'm sorry my love, but i don't mind fucking you while you're still angry at me. it quite turns me on."

Theo backed you up against the wall, his mouth warm and heavy on yours as your fingers hooked his belt buckle. you were far from angry, you were ready to end him, oh and he knew. he would be dying today, but atleast it would end with his face berried in your pussy.

“sweetheart..” he held his palm out to you, pressing you against the cold wall as his chocolate eyes gazed you in absolute awe.

you pulled Theo by the tie, his hands swiftly picked you up and dropped you ever so gently on the centre of your bed. you push his standing figure on his back roughly as he just has the most blissful expression on his face.

you leaned over Theo and gently placed a feather like kiss on his abdomen, your fingernails gently paving a path down him, reaching towards his abs, the hard muscle were as if god himself had taken the time to sculpt it for you.

you slowly mount him, ghosting above him slightly.

"you have such an annoying face Nott."

that was absolutley untrue. is face was perfection. it was gorgeous and defined and just perfect.

"sit on my annoying face then baby" he murmured. it was soft and kind.

you crawled to the head of the bed, "you’re fuckin perfection." you muttered, pressing a gentle kiss on his jaw as he positioned his hands round your hips, pulling you on top of his face. you settled in, your legs locked on either side of his pretty head. one arm was resting on his chest lightly as the other played with his soft curls.

"fuck" you moaned, his lips spread under you only sucking harder, the sensation making you shudder. you were already dripping and he's just gotten started.

"darling-" he shushed himself off as you moaned, your fingers entangled in his brown hair as he lapped up your juices, quickening his pace.

his tongue lightly ball room danced around your clit as you came and your hands switched to the bedsheet so you don't nearly pulled his hair from his roots. he was memorized with the feeling of your thighs tightening

he continued his pace and as if muscle memory you gripped his hair again,

"fuck-"

you moaned out as he gripped your thighs, acting as if he could swallow you whole.

another orgasm.

and another.

one by one, they all fell into order.

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ms-demeanor · 8 months

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i mean realistically many people do deserve to be the victims of targeted harassment campaigns. if you're being an asshole you deserve to be screamed at by everyone present until you stop. some people commit acts of cruelty and subsequently forfeit their reasonable right to participate in society until they've made amends.

the people of wendy's have a moral right to scream at the manager if said manager sprays them in the neck with milkshake every time they go to pick up their order

damn following up the last ask, ig it was someone in ur notes constructing an equivalence between @tting staff and getting nuked to yelling at a wendy's manager and getting kicked out. my bad lol thought that was part of ur main post

I mean this is something that's still worthwhile to bounce off of even though you're not actually responding to me.

First of all, no, I pretty much don't think that anybody deserves to be the focus of a targeted harassment campaign. At least not the kind that are spun up on tumblr or twitter. I generally think that targeted harassment campaigns don't work to change minds, they only work to torment, isolate, and attack people, which will often further entrench them in their positions.

Sometimes people doing serious antifascist work will make a discovery like, for instance "the principal of X school is a vicious antisemite" and will run an *exposure* campaign to get them removed from a position of power, but with very few exceptions when you see an online callout post for a random internet user it's nothing but abuse and an attempt to bully them off of a specific website, not an attempt to protect victims or inform people of a genuine threat. "ABC is the new alt of this person with a documented history of starting cults, DNI, block and move on" is very different than "This specific user who is on staff posts harry potter fanart and is why fascists continue to exist on tumblr, let's make sure they know what tumblr thinks of them."

You are trying to frame bullying campaigns as normal consequences for antisocial behavior, but the antisocial behaviors under discussion here are "user posted fanart broadly disliked by the community and associated with specific ideologies long after the initial fandoms were crystallized" and "is the CEO of a social media website that is implementing features that the users dislike."

"People deserve to be screamed at until they stop the bad behavior" is punitive and shitty and so broad and open to so many interpretations that you're basically saying "it's open season on screaming at people." I think that it's bad behavior to support neoliberal political candidates who prop up capitalism but it would be horrible for me to run harassment campaigns against everyone who says "vote blue no matter who" even though I think that attitude perpetuates real world harms. (And it also wouldn't convince those people to change their minds! The fact that I think they are doing something harmful doesn't give me the social license to send hundreds of people to harass them! And it wouldn't work! These kinds of campaigns don't effect change they just isolate people and erode trust and civility jesus fuck we need to be coalition building not posting callouts over whatever activity has been deemed "freak behavior" this week)

some people commit acts of cruelty and subsequently forfeit their reasonable right to participate in society until they've made amends.

oh buddy, I think I get where you're coming from here but considering the kinds of behavior under discussion this is just straight up fascist. You are literally saying that people should be banished from society for wrongthink because nobody under discussion here has actually committed an act of cruelty.

(one of the things that i'm putting under the heading of "tumblr conspiracist thinking" is "staff is currently and continually intentionally flagging certain LGBTQ tags and bloggers" - there is ample evidence that the current staff is working to unfuck flagging and blocked tags that was done long before this crew was working on it. People talk about "tumblr had to settle because their filtering disproportionately impacted lgbtq+ creators" and that is TRUE however that was a filter that was established under different owners with different policies and different staff; the implication that the current staff is guilty of trying to stifle LGBTQ+ content because a lawsuit started before the Automattic purchase of tumblr ended in a financial settlement is just bad, wrong, incorrect, faulty logic. And if I might indulge in a bit of my own conspiracist thinking: I actually suspect a lot of the flagging and tagging and blocking of trans women specifically might actually be targeted attacks of individual users by terfs - many of the things that are getting flagged as needing a community label are things that use tags that terfs follow to attack and if enough users click "this needs a community label" the post will get flagged - I don't know that that's what's going on but just operating on occam's razor I think it's a lot more likely that terfs are coordinating attacks on trans people than that there is a secret group of cryptoterfs on staff taking time out of their day to ensure that trans users get flagged, if only because I think that the vocally trans positive former members of the staff would have said something about it.)

So, given that my position is "it is unlikely that anyone on staff is intentionally targeting LGBTQ+ groups HOWEVER prior policies enacted harm against LGBTQ+ groups and there is visible evidence that the current staff is trying to repair that damage" I'm not seeing any behaviors here that call for individual employees or users to get targeted with harassment from thousands of users.

But anyway, back to the specifics of the ask:

some people commit acts of cruelty and subsequently forfeit their reasonable right to participate in society until they've made amends.

Do you have any idea how frequently amends are made and never circulated as widely as the callout post? Do you have any idea how frequently callout posts are incorrect, and exaggerate the things that need to be amended? I'm reminded of Lindsey Ellis, who was the victim of a years-long targeted harassment campaign and made multiple apologies over the years who was finally driven off of her primary platform because she carelessly misspoke and the people who had been targeting her for years were able to make a post that she had long disavowed and was a relic of her dealing with the aftermath of sexual violence go viral. The internet doesn't let people make amends; people see accusations. They see the first post, not the follow up. That's why starting these campaigns is shitty and dangerous even if you *personally* believe that you'll forgive an individual once they "make amends." (and the "amends" people usually demand are "i want this person gone from the internet forever and cut out of this part of their life" - that's not really something that's fair to ask of people when so much of the world is online these days.)

the people of wendy's have a moral right to scream at the manager if said manager sprays them in the neck with milkshake every time they go to pick up their order

No they don't. Straight up. If the manager of a wendy's sprays you in the neck with a milkshake you have the right to escalate your complaint right up the chain, take your business away and never come back, warn other people "hey the manager sprayed me with a milkshake, stay away," but you don't have the moral right to escalate the situation by screaming at them (and you certainly don't have that right if you happened to get sprayed with some milkshake while the manager was attempting to fix the frostee machine when you came to pick up your order, which I think is actually more analogous to what is happening here).

someone in ur notes constructing an equivalence between @tting staff and getting nuked to yelling at a wendy's manager and getting kicked out

A big point that I think you're missing here is that @-ing staff when there is a problem on a post or you see harassment is generally pretty acceptable (though much less effective than filing a support claim), but the issue under discussion isn't @-ing staff, it was pointing thousands of angry people at two specific people who are *part* of staff and holding those two individuals responsible for all the problems that users see with tumblr.

partyjockers got nuked because their post directed a flood of harassment at one staff member in a post where they had highlighted that user's URL and name:

This is explicitly saying "users like the one I screenshotted are the reason you're being attacked by terfs" because one member of staff posted fanart from two franchises that tumblr-the-userbase has deemed off limits.

(Do you have any idea how extreme a bubble this is? Do you walk into barnes and noble and sigh because the managers are fascists who want trans people dead because there's harry potter merch everywhere? JK rowling is a terf and a horrible fucking person and I am no longer personally comfortable engaging with that fandom but people posting fanart of a franchise are not personally attacking you even if it feels like they are disregarding your humanity; you cannot consider other people's participation in huge, popular, mainstream fandoms as a sign that they are plotting against you this is why i'm calling this conspiracist thinking the entire scorched earth conspiracy spawned from someone interpreting a staff member's art as esoteric signposts signalling their hatred of trans people. Do you remember when the stupid harry potter game came out and this entire website was despondent because it meant that people didn't care about trans people? That's not actually what it meant! What it meant is that the vast majority of people on the planet have neither a twitter nor a tumblr account and have no idea how shitty JK rowling is to trans people and they don't interpret "harry potter imagery" as "covert terf signal" they interpret it as "possibly the most mainstream fantasy series in the last fifty years")

This isn't someone calling out the manager after they spray you with a milkshake. The manager asking someone to leave after they started screaming that the cashier's earrings were hate speech.

This analogy got out of hand but please just understand that there's a difference between @-ing an account that people are paid to monitor as part of their jobs and that they have support and coworkers to help with and @-ing someone's personal account.

Nobody got a post deleted because the used @ staff, they got their posts deleted because they focused viral negative attention on individual users.

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