it’s not actually that weird that people are saying “harry potter was never good, actually” after joanne went full mask off, and no it doesn’t mean that we all secretly think harry potter is amazing but don’t want to admit it. it’s pretty simple actually: most people read harry potter when they were children, when they hadn’t read a lot of other books and therefore didn’t have a lot to compare it to. then every time you reread it as an adult, you’re looking through pretty hefty nostalgia goggles. then, after you’ve realized that joanne is a violent bigot that wants you and / or people you love and care for dead, those goggles are broken and when you attempt to look at hp again you’re more likely to see it’s flaws. it’s not rocket science.

Sorry this is gonna be a bit of a rant since it’s something I’ve had strong feelings about since joining the AG/TASM fanfic part of the internet, and you’ve provided me a great opportunity to talk about it.

As a trans person, I am BEGGING fanfic writers to stop writing Marauders stuff. I’ve seen so many people defend it with “separate art from the artist” but like it or not they are still supporting JKR. Separating art from the artist only really works when the artist can’t profit from it. She has done SO MUCH harm to trans people and particularly trans youth in the UK and it’s so fucking disheartening and gives me such an ick when I see TASM writers also write for Marauders because it truly comes across as “I love and support the trans community except when it comes to this because I like it.”.

Even if you ignore the transphobia and holocaust denial (YES IM SERIOUS, she’s denied parts of the holocaust at LEAST twice and she literally did it a second time the other day), the original writing is so fucking problematic. Things just off the top of my head being;

The goblins being stereotypes of Jewish people

The fucking racism with characters like Cho Chang and Kingsley Shacklebolt

The last Fantastic Beasts movie’s plot literally being trying to make WW2 and the holocaust happen

This point needs to be taken with a grain of salt since this was some bullshit Joanne said after the books came out, but werewolves in the universe being meant to represent people with aids. Which is so fucking awful considering one of the two werewolves was attacked by the other as a CHILD

The most ironic part of this is that if Andrew is truly the person he presents himself as, he would probably fucking despise being associated with HP, even if it is just a fancast. But yeah all this to say fuck JKR, fuck Marauders fans but also thank you so much Katie for that last anon answer because I genuinely don’t see that enough in this corner of the internet.

Even Daniel Radcliffe, Harry Potter himself, has spoken out against her and continues to loudly support the LGBTQ+ communities. When your own beloved Harry doesn't even want to stand by your side, you should know you fucked up. Sadly, she does not, and instead leans harder into her bigotry and hatred.

I've always been someone who is very loud and opinionated when I see things that I disagree with, which I know can rub some people the wrong way, but fuck it. I don't like to whisper about my issues on the sidelines, I like to confront the problem head on by being very clear about where I stand and how I feel. I'm not gonna sit around and let someone align me with JKR just because I'm writing a stupid werewolf and Peter Parker fic that exactly 5 people are reading lol. It's not even a popular fic like get out of my asks jfc. Esp when I can tell this person has not read a single sentence of my story and is completely basing their judgements on my header image of AG's face next to a wolf gif.

In this past week I have seen both a Steven Harrington werewolf au and a Daredevil werewolf au cross my dash. Do we think they're getting called out for supporting HP?? No. Because their actors weren't "fan casted" as something years ago. Fan casts don't even mean anything! There was never a movie about them. AG was never casted or played this role. It's literally nothing but a bunch of fans agreeing that they like his look for a fictional character.

Anyway, I'm also ranting back at you haha. You can rant to me anytime. I love a good rant and I agree with you 100%.

Werewolves were not created by JKR. Andrew Garfield has nothing to do with Harry Potter. Don't make make snap judgments about a person's character based on a picture you saw. Support your trans community. Don't be dick.

And, if they actually read my werewolf au, they would see that it's literally about learning to overcome your own hatred and biases of people different from you and learning to love those you were taught to hate. Crazy concept, I know! 🙄😉

Uh time to be cringe

sometimes it makes me feel very bad and the fact of being a gregstella shipper bothers me, imagine that what you love the most and makes you happy is also what hurts you the most, I'm not doing anything wrong and still the people get to be very annoying and cruel to me, I want to believe because I am the one who is actively creating content about them, so I guess it makes sense that I'm the one who takes the hits.

I'm someone who tries to take things calmly but sometimes I just explode over things as simple and stupid as these, I know I asked people to block me if my content bothers them, and I appreciate that they do, but there are also people that the only thing seeks is to annoy, even sending me messages that I should kms.

I couldn't care less about these things when I'm in a good mood but in these moments when I just feel bad and I can only say, I'm sorry? sorry for shipping two characters that have nothing problematic? I wish I had become obsessed with something else instead of this but I can't help it, I've been dealing with this shit since last year, but now that I've become more open it only makes things worse.

I can't even calmly interact with the hellpark fandom because I'm afraid they'll get mad at me and point out that I'm "proshipper" or "lesbiphobic", at this point I don't even want to draw HP Estella and Gregory together, I have to admit that I ship them and that was the reason why I started doing it gregstella content, but to avoid problems I created my own au or whatever. (and it ended up becoming a very ambitious project wow)

I'm not lesbiphobic, in fact, I really like ships wlw, and I have considered being a lesbian many times but i'm aro so meh, just because I like a "straight" ship doesn't negate everything else, it will sound like an excuse but I don't even consider Gregory to be a man (or at least the one from hellpark and my au) or a woman, I consider him as... Gregory just being Gregory? I don't really give much importance to this hc thing because at the end of the day my favorite characters are my favorite characters for other reasons and not just for that, and I found myself unfortunate that my two favorite characters are two that you can't ship because it's "wrong". I know there are some gregstella shippers who have said or done unpleasant things, but there will always be weird people, and that doesn't mean we should pigeonhole us all into that.

It's sad that I have to say something as stupid as this to me. But I needed to get this off my chest because I'm really getting tired of this kind of stuff, I'll probably delete this later or maybe keep it here so people are clear about where I stand and stop saying or misinforming what I do or say, like e.g. I draw nsfw (something I have never done publicly and I haven't drawn this type of explicit things for years since I was grommed lol, and if I did in the future that is something that does not concern you, much less if you are minors)

Anyway, thank you very much to the people who support me and like my art, you really motivate me to continue being open with what I like and continue bringing content for the community of this beautiful ship, or even if you don't like the ship and you only like my artstyle, it is also appreciated ♥️

This is more vent than a clarification, but hey, take it as you want, love y'all!

Hello it's me again. Tell me if you want me to stop sending you asks nonstop, I do not fully understand how interaction on the internet works and so I base everything I do on whether I'd enjoy it myself and I would, but I recognize you might feel different and bwahdgahhhkjkkljkll

Anyway, how did you first get into writing fanfic? How did you get over the feeling that everything you write is #cringebad? I know every writer thinks that...

Hello! I quite enjoy getting asks but rarely receive them, so honestly this is great, don't even worry about it hon

As for how I got into writing fanfic, I really started writing things that would count as fanfic long before I knew about "fanfic" or "fandon" as concepts.

Like, I wrote a sequel to the musical Cats when I was 5 or 6. And for some elementary school creative writing assignment I wrote about the kids of a bunch of my favorite book and movie characters going to school together. I just naturally engage with stories by making up more stories.

I actually discovered fanfiction . net in middleschool--I think the only things I ever posted to that account were a continuation of an anime that had ended like mid-arc and a Harry Potter fic with just the most unabashed self-insert mary sue going to Howgwarts with like Harry's kids and all that generation. I stopped using that account and switched over to a second ffn account I initially made to keep my Brokeback Mountain fic separate because that movie's rated R, so that fic felt grown up and different to me, and I was kind of hiding it from my mom, but that didn't last long because I'm a terrible liar.

That fisrt ffn account is long gone, I took those fics down, but some parts of the HP fic stil exist re-worked without the self-insert character and can be found as the And The Family Circus series on my Ao3. My other ffn account is still up (unless the site purged it, I haven't checked on it in a while) but everything on there has been crossposted to my Ao3, except for my very first Brokeback fic, which I cannot bring myself to take down but which I have grown so far past as a person and a writer.

Now, I want to make a point that no, not every writer feels like everything they write is #cringebad. A lot of writers are insecure about their writing--hell, I know successful professional screenwriters with movies you can call up to watch right now who dread other people seeing their writing! But that's a learned insecurity, it's not an inherent part of being a writer.

I'm lucky enough to have grown up with a lot of support for my writing. My family's always treated my interests with respect, and I just kinda didn't make friends with people growing up who would be jerks about that kind of stuff, so I never got that social shaming as a kid that teaches you that your interests and creative endeavors are bad or cringe or a waste of time because you'll never be good enough to make anything of it or whatever.

Do I look back some of my old writing, from like high school, and cringe? Yeah, absolutely. Cuz I've learned enough to see now that it's clunky and unrefined and dialogue is stilted and unnatural and the character interactions don't make sense and a lot of it is hamhanded and messy--but it's the writing of a child, of someone still learning not just how to write but how to be a person. So I cringe with fondness for who I was and the enthusiasm I had to so confidently put that mess out into the world, and I thank the stars that I've grown since then.

But yeah, I write primarily for myself, and I enjoy what I write, so I figure I must be doing a pretty good job. The fact that other people enjoy it too is a wonderful bonus.

And I do know that every writer (except maybe a few who are delusionally arrogant) has moments while we're writing when we're fighting with it and every word we're putting down feels wrong and it's like damnit this is terrible, I don't know what I'm doing, this is so bad, why am I doing this???

At that point you either gotta push through and tell yourself that's a second draft problem--because the most important thing is getting it on the page, you can edit bad writing but you can't refine something that doesn't exist--or you take a breath, take a break, take a walk, just put it down for a while and when you come back you may find you have a better feel for how to handle the scene or you may find what you already wrote isn't as bad as you thought.

Well, that got long, but yeah, that's my story and my thoughts on the matter.

Thanks for the ask!

zzz

first: i don't remember too much. shocker: it was in my mom's house. growing up in a house will do something to all your dreams even though i think of a different house when i think of home. actually it was in a combo my mom's house/my dad's house/gothic castle. there was a closet with water mysteriously not leaking out from the doorframe filled 2 feet tlal. there were 3 baby hammerhead sharks in the water. about 1 foot long each. i thought they were so cute.

there was an evil vampire milf? she had the flapper girl hairstyle & some bodycon red silk dress with subtle flower pattern & ruffle sleeves. we were trying to defeat her but she made everything go wrong - the water leaked out, the sharks were floppnig around, the other rooms were ruined.... idk in the end she ended up taking control of me & eating all the bllood out of my body. i don't want ot say it wassn't kind of sexy.

then: had a dream that willaim osmanwas trying to sell a car at my mom's house it was parked in the driveway. I also had a different car I had a dark green "kia Colorado" that was about the size of a suv. he & all his yputiber friends were there but I was also there ..? he had some kind of plushie thing that he was willing to giveaway to people who ???? and I wanted one really bad but I wasnt exactly close with him. I was juwt there & helping out on occasion. I kept trying to find the time to ask for one but he seemed really busy. there was some other girl there who also seemed to feel detached from the situation.

eventually he decided to put the car for sale in the garage since the sun was setting, so I said okay let me pull my car out so i dont get bloxked in latwr! & started moving stuff in the driveway out of the way. once I opened my car door neuvilette & sigewinne genshi ipact were in there eating fruit shaped candies that I had & I was like huh. & neuvi was like "these are quite tasty & we have grown a liking to them. have you sny more?" then a random car finally pulled into the driveway before I could respond and it was "William's wife" exxept it wss jsut a random asian lady with short hair instead of his actual wife. the garage got wider to fit her in & all the cars in it were moved down one slot. I still wanted to ask about the plushies , but the wife was taking giant rice-bag sized sacks of fruity candy out of their house & putting one in each car, so I figured best not to press my luck.

scene shift a bit & a bunch of random different gebshin characters were now I different cars on the highway, but the highway was taken over by incredibly strong unkillable beasts or something. there was a ruin hunter at the top of a hill with dark blue energy covering its weak point stuck in missile mode shooting huge aoes & homing missiles at a car that had yelan/gorou/faruzan/kirara in it . yelan got oneshot while trying to shoot it through the blue energy & rhw other 3 were freaking out tryint to escape - faruzan got killed too but managed tosomehow heal the party, which also somehow triggered electrocharge on all the mobs.kirara randonly turned into a short male anemo claymore user from..natlan? he was shirtless, had a long rectangular mask without visible eye holes with an X like patter on it (kindnof just like a tower shield for the face) & long spiky wine red hair kind of like razor's. he had an HP sacrificing mechanic. he didn't mqke t either due to losing kirara's "turn into a box and run really fast" ability.

the survivors got back to the city, which was floating in the air like a fantasy land and was only connected to the ground by the roads. they tried to sever the roads before the hordes of beasts arrived, but doing so triggered a fight with a "boss version" of one of your abandoned party members. I remember ganyu & shenhe vs boss Bennett, who was just monochrome & they increased his model size. ganyu's Q animation instead of raining icicles coated the whole air in viscous bubbly blue tinted but 70% transparent sludge that slowed him down & maybe had some kind of purification effect??? gorou was vs the boss version of the anemo kid, who took his mask off to reveal he was suddenly a large and musculat walter white. tvis was so funny to me I woke up

👀🧠-♥️

hi annie!! thanks so much for stopping by i hope you're doing well 💙

👀: okay so neither of these are 5sos fics but i'll give two different vibes to keep things interesting :)) first off we've got Slitherdale by JombleBoingus which bella read to me out loud after we finished the final season of riverdale and it made me laugh so hard i was actually gasping for air! you don't need any knowledge of riverdale in order to enjoy it so. yeah sdkfjlskdjfljd You're On Your Own, Kid by ohmygodshesinsane which is a heartbreaking marauders-era character study of marlene mckinnon that' just. ohhhh my gosh so heartbreaking and so good and really struck a cord with me in how it talks about relationships and i just. i don't even usually read marauders-era stuff (or much hp fic in general) but this was very well done.

🧠: okay i don't know how long a ramble this is going to be but i am currently entrapped by the television show of all time, aka riverdale and i'm just sorta gonna word vomit about it a little bit so um. yeah you are under no obligation to read this. putting it under a cut bc. yeah. i'm crazy i'm a crazy person do you see me writing my own speech patterns into tumblr posts that's crazy sdkljflkdjs

OKAY so currently thinking about how jughead claims that he and veronica are supposed to be foils to archie and betty which like, on one hand kinda, but on the other hand not really i feel like they're more, not foils exactly but two sides of the same coin but different? i'm missing a word but whatever that is for each other. while archie and betty are both solidly middle class, jughead and veronica are on the extreme opposite ends of the spectrum, with veronica being pretty wealthy and jughead being from the "wrong side of the tracks". jughead is homeless in season one (and seems to have been living that way for a while) while veronica has just been "displaced" since most of her family's wealth has been seized since her father was arrested for embezzlement. in season one she tries to comfort ethel, whose parents are worried they're going to lose their house due to money troubles, by saying that she knows what it's like to lose a home even though the conversation is taking place in the dining area of her penthouse/fancy apartment. she does kinda try to relate to jughead this way as well but not as explicitly (possibly bc she knows he'll call bullshit) HOWEVER despite the fact that it seems like veronica and jughead's living situations couldn't be more different, in the final season (spoiler alert) veronica gets locked out of her parent's flat and is forced to live in the movie theater where she works just like how jughead lived at the drive- movie theater *he* worked at in the very first episode!!! (obvs there are still key differences since veronica owns the movie theater but my point still stands) continuing to compare s7 veronica with episode 1 jughead, while in the beginning jughead's parents were the absent ones with his mother and sister in another state and his dad an alcoholic gang member, in s7 veronica's parents are now absent as they've sent her to riverdale to live by herself despite the fact that's only fifteen or sixteen. they've both been put in positions where the adults in their life expect them to be fully self-sufficient while still in high school and don't even bother to check in regularly to make sure they're actually doing okay. then there's their belief that their respective besties are much better, more perfect people than they are, despite the really obvious signs that they aren't perfect (archie's vigilante complex, "dark betty", etc) but there's the difference in how they handle those feelings, with jughead mythologizing archie to the point that he warps reality around this fact while continuing to view himself as an outsider in archie's life, while meanwhile veronica spends much of season 1 trying to deserve to be betty's friend by becoming a better person and eventually (spoiler alert) falls in love with her in s7 and AAAAAAA there are so many more parallels and/or juxtapositions btwn these two but i'm gonna shut up now thank you for your time.

the deluge of posts demanding I abandon HP fanworks because JKR has wrong opinions and considers any engagement with HP to constitute proof of support for those wrong opinions is making me dig in my heels on two points: (1) when she says that about support, why do we believe her? why do we insist on making it more true? why is this not simply another wrong opinion she has? (2, and for context HP was so many fandoms ago I haven't engaged with anything HP *but* increasingly few fanworks since like 2009, which is longer than I've known I'm trans) people say I'm a fake trans ally if I don't get a new fandom? grumpy claymation penguin folds arms and says "well now I am not doing it"

--

Yeah.

JKR's transphobia is indeed pretty bad in that actual researchers think she has single-handedly changed the amount of actual bad shit happening to trans people in the UK...

But we all watch fucking MCU. Out of all the bajillions of producers/directors/etc. involved, how many do you think have raped someone? Coerced someone? Run an unsafe set because it was more expedient and profitable?

The level of crying over JKR is tedious. Famous people are often horrible. It's okay to boycott their shit if you think it will make you feel better and/or effect social change, but screaming at other fans will not do anything productive.

I was extremely over HP years ago, so I will not be sorry if HP-specific love diminishes a bit and people move on to other boarding school or wizard stuff, but the vibe was just so good. The way she describes candy shops and slice of life shit!

If people want to do some low-effort activism that is actually productive, go after anti-fujoshi "you're fetishizing" discourse that keeps confused trans boys and nbs too scared and guilt-ridden to figure out why they like m/m so much.

If you want to do some bigger activism, there are plenty of trans orgs out there.

This One True Wayism about boycotting JKR though... this is not helping anything except some shouty person's sense of moral righteousness.

Are you excited for secrets of Dumbledore. Saw the second trailer for it at the movie theater I work.

Ahhh, I'm sorry this took me so long to answer. Tbh, i was debating just answering you in private but then i realised that i actually feel like i need to voice these thoughts aloud now

To answer your question, this is how I feel:

(Tbh, i wanted to put a gif here where chidi (that's the character above) says that every time he needs to make a decision, his mind makes a sound like a fork in a garbage disposal. But i couldn't find a gif of it so this will have to do)

The thing is, I'm physically incapable of not caring about this movie or the grindeldore content in it. I saw the trailer and i legit started shaking. I saw the cafe scene between Gellert and Albus and i literally screamed. This movie seems to be specifically written to press all my buttons. I've been shipping grindeldore since i was 13 and here they are, confirmed, on screen, admittedly in costumes I find quite boring, but also played by two of the most extraordinary actors imaginable. Under normal circumstances I would never shut up about this movie.

But here comes the huge "But": JKR. And the fact that she is deeply involved with this movie and its marketing and seems to use the platform it gains her specifically to spread her harmful ideas.

I'm not on twitter, but while I was pondering whether or not I should interact with this movie online (which would mean on my tumblr basically and nowhere else) I went and looked at her twitter. And frankly, I was shocked. I mean, yeah, I knew her views but I had purposefully cut myself off from that a while ago and was unaware of just how constant these harmful reactionary and transphobic tweets had gotten. (And here i could go into it in detail about how radical feminists and "gendercritical" people don't "just" hurt trans people, but also cis women and the entire idea of feminism by casting (their idea of) men as their enemies instead of the system of patriarchy as a whole but other people have done that already and better than i could and that's not the point of this post anyway.)

And here is the thing, the fact that i strongly disagree with jkr would not automatically mean that I don't engage with the harry potter universe anymore. Fandoms don't necessarily have to be in praise of the creator(s) of the content they engage with. Often fandom acts specifically in opposition to the creators of their source material and if there had been no new material since the Harry potter franchise was completed, i would have no problem doing so in the HP fandom as well. Hell, if my staple was, say, marauders fanfic or drarry content, i might still engage with that right now. But, I'm a grindeldore fan through and through and that's, sadly, actively making jkr money right now as well as giving her a platform to spread her bigoted agenda

So here i am, stuck with the sound of a fork in a garbage disposal in my head.

Because I'm so angry, too. I know there are a lot of people out there who are saying "if you even remotely care about anything related to Harry Potter anymore you're a bad person and you should feel bad" but you know what? No. I care. I'm incapable of not caring because this world (and dumbledore and grindeldore specifically) was such a huge part of my formative years. I used to think that whatever went wrong in my life or the world, at least I'd still have hogwarts as an uncomplicated haven to return too. But no, that's gone now. There is no way to consume or engage with hp content now, that is not in some way inherently political, especially in public. It has truly lost its innocence and that makes me so angry and sad. But these feelings, however much they are hurting me are nothing against the hurt jkr is actively causing towards trans people and the cause of feminism. So I'm really only left with one choice (I'm not getting into the content of the series here. Obviously there's stuff there that's worth criticising too. but in general, I firmly believe that the fact that a book or movie has "problematic" content is no reason not to engage with it. The idea that one cannot love something (or certain aspects of it) and engage with it critically at the same time is, imo, frankly infantilising. My reasons for not engaging with fb right now are firmly rooted in it's real world effects, not its content)

But yeah ... that's my reaction. And I'm sorry I unloaded that on you. I wish I could just enjoy this movie in all it’s flawed, retconning beauty. I wish I could make grindeldore edits out of that frankly unfairly poetic cafe scene (THE FLAMES!!! HELLO??? 😭) bc I finally have proper giffing skills :/ But I can't ...

Maybe i will one day, when the movie is out of cinemas, but not right now

(Please don't reblog this post. I have zero energy for a discussion about this that gets larger than my immediate mutuals and followers 😅 if you are one of those, feel free to comment or send me a dm though 💚)

You talked about writers warning for character bashing in HP fandom but I don't think we would see anything similar in the RWBY fandom. There seems to have been a shift in fan culture where people insist that their flattened evil version of the character is the one depicted in canon rather than saying they bash the character. I see something similar in another fandom where people can't just say they don't like a character, but have to justify it on moral grounds by making them the worst ever.

To clarify, those Harry Potter fics were posted between, like... 2004 and 2011. No modern fics that I came across. So yeah, I definitely think there's been a shift in fan culture over the years, the same one that has done away with things like "Don't like, don't read" and distinguishing preferences vs. squicks vs. triggers. "Flattened" is a great term, not just for how characters are depicted at times, but for how fans approach fic in general too. There's now this strong belief that certain fan content can't exist, period, which is how we end up with furious posts every time AO3 has a fundraiser, or—in our circle of the internet—RWBY fans flaming others for producing criticism. I don't want to make it sound like old school fandom was some utopia—quite obviously not. People have always been people, so to speak—but there has been a marked decrease in fans both staying in their lane and acknowledging that what they like may not be everyone else's cup of tea. The fact that acronyms like "YKINMK" existed at all speaks to the fact that such disagreements have always taken place, but at the same time, it seems like in 2021 you're less likely to come across such reminders at all, let alone someone backing off when faced with one. I mean, despite having the capability to cultivate our online experience more easily than ever before, fans are still outright begging one another to just block and move on. There's this very strong belief nowadays that if someone else doesn't like a particular kind of fan content, it's their duty to do everything in their power to, not ignore it, but erase it.

So yeah, you're much less likely to find an "Ozpin bashing" warning in 2021 and, I think, that stems as much from a lack of respect within the community as it does insisting that a personal interpretation is the canon, no exceptions allowed. Giving a "[name] bashing" warning is an acknowledgment that not everyone will agree/enjoy this interpretation of the character you've put forth and the author cares about you having the option to immediately back out. There's an understanding that it doesn't matter whether you can support this reading or not, the point is acknowledging that no matter how strongly you may feel that this interpretation is "correct," you accept that others will feel differently and you want to accommodate that. Interestingly, fandom has gotten a lot better with warnings when it comes to "objective" subjects; things we've somewhat universally agreed deserve a heads up. Stuff like easily understood triggers and major character deaths, helped along by AO3's formatting where you have to choose a major warnings category. Yet at the same time, warnings for subjective topics seems to have died down somewhat. Character bashing, chapters that have been revised, use of genre-specific clichés, really powerful characters edging into Mary Sue territory... the sort of warnings that aren't for anyone's mental health, but simply as a way to say, "The thing I made and love may not be the thing you love and want to read." Obviously we can still find examples like this—especially since everyone posting in the early 2000s hasn't just up and disappeared. The summary habits we learned early can stay with us—but on the whole, given that purity culture thinking that some things Can't Exist and this interpretation is The Correct Interpretation while that one is Very Wrong and Probably Bad, we've lost a lot of the cultural work that normalizes accepting different tastes and warning people just as a fandom form of politeness.

Ngl, fic summaries and related paratexts are super fascinating to me. In this age where fic is common knowledge, we've almost entirely lost disclaimers—"I don't own JKR's Harry Potter, just playing in the sandbox for a while!"—and gained a pseudo-chatting function in AO3's tags that, often, is more entertaining than informative. There have been good changes and bad changes, neutral changes and, as said, fandom has always struggled with these issues... but there is a difference between the fandom culture of now and the fandom culture of, say, 30 years ago. One rather distressing change is an inability to just go, "Yeah I like/dislike this character" without the community requiring an essay's worth of proof and taking your stance as an indictor of IRL morals. Honestly, the fact that I've seen so many posts the last few years saying something along the hyperbolic lines of, "Actually, I love the villain and think everything they've ever done is totally justified" speaks to this pressure to equate entertainment preferences (and fictional analyses) with moral worth. And that, in turn, leads to a change in how fanworks are presented to the rest of the community. Instead of that acceptance that everyone has preferences, we're getting more takes like:

Why would anyone warn for Ozpin bashing? Bashing him is expected and justified. He's a horrible person, remember? That's the one (1) accepted reading and any good member of the fandom will remember that, agree with it, and embrace such bashing in any fics they read. Ironwood? He's a dictator! Omg how can you like him? Why would you want a story that's kind to him? What does that say about you? Bootlicker 😒

Trans(masculine) former Potterhead here! I still own the books, were a gift, a hardcover set from my mom from years ago. I even made a parody of Im a Lumberjack and I'm OK from Monty Python as I'm a Hufflepuff and I'm OK and helped found a Dumbledore's Army club at my High School I loved HP so much, I was obsessed, but now I have so many mixed emotions about the franchise I don't really know what to do.

I cannot speak for trans women, but as a queer trans person, if I see someone reading the books or watching the movies or wearing merch its like. Ok. I know I might get along with this person, they like the same stuff I (used to) like....BUT do they know how the werewolf thing is about AIDS, implying gay people are out of control monsters, and how the only villain with werewolfism specifically targets minors, implying pedophilia is a trait inherent in gay people? Do they know that when a trans woman reads the books they worry they wont be "woman enough" to keep the stairs in the girls dorm from turning into a slide, because they know that the author specifically thinks they don't deserve to sleep in the girl's dorm because of their gentials? Do they understand that JK Rowling's opinions are there, insidiously rooting into young minds? Are they reading this critically? Or do they support what JK is saying? Do they know all of these things and not care about it, dismiss it out of hand?

Does this person want me dead?

It boils down to a Feeling of Unease. Is this person safe for me to be around? There is a Very Real Danger that the person in the Ravenclaw Shirt and Golden Snitch Earrings is going to call the police on a trans woman going to the bathroom, or beat her, or even kill her, because the author of their favorite series has convinced them trans women are men in dresses and that men in women's bathrooms are dangerous. That person could also be a nice genuine nerd, queer themselves, even potentially a friend, but now I am Suspicious of that person. I am suspicious of anyone who openly enjoys it (unless they are children, kids don't know better, or if they have a tattoo, idk how old that tat is). They want to read it at home and want a discussion on new themes and how to make it better/less gross? Fine by me.

But if someone is publicaly supportting her, staying extremely active in the fandom defending the books or movies or JK herself, having and wearing merch which could direct new people (probably kids! Who will get Obsessed! And don't know better!) into buying things from her and giving her money? After all that she's done? After she literally helped create legislation against being trans?? Not cool.

The series is just simply tainted for a lot of trans folk like me. I still hold it dear foe what it did for me as a child, and I know if I read the series again I would still love it, but I would also HATE myself for enjoying it, knowing that the person who wrote this, the bit of her soul which she has given me, wants me dead. Wants my friends dead.

So I'm not really saying if you support HP publicaly people will see you as a TERF but I am also absolutely saying that people will see you as a TERF if you publicaly support the HP franchise. Death of the author is well and good when the author is dead and/or their estate doesn't get any money for new books or merch purchased, but she is alive and actively trying to kill trans folks, so literally anything that could be seen as support of her, or get others to support her even accidentally, can make trans folk uncomfortable and feel unsafe.

Hope this helped? I know I'm not the original asker, this is just my two cents.

Hi there! Thank you for posting this lengthy and very thoughtful response (and I hope you don’t mind my answering publicly -- if so, let me know and I’ll delete). There is one (admittedly very long) thing I’d like to say in response, but if you’re not looking for that, just know that I really value hearing your perspective and you can feel free to skip all of this and carry on your way. 

---

You say that you would probably enjoy the books if you reread them, but would hate yourself for doing so -- and I just want to say that what you like does not make you a bad person or act as any valid basis for deserving hate, from yourself or anyone else. 

Like, for instance, I’m a person who cannot stand horror movies and I am genuinely confused that anyone would enjoy watching terrible things happen to people for 90+ minutes. But I would never say that people who like horror movies are bad people just because they do enjoy that. The same goes for violent video games -- I don’t like them, but I don’t think the people who do are bad.

Because what media you personally enjoy has really no bearing on whether you are a good person. Being a good person is about how you treat others, whether you are kind, whether you are patient, whether you are understanding, whether you help people when you can and show up for the people in your life when they need you. It has nothing to do with whether you like a particular book or movie or videogame. 

So if you do want to reread those books because you think they would bring you joy, I hope that you do. 

Long before she became a TERF -- (and for the record, I don’t think that she was actively and consciously transphobic at the time when she was writing the books, for the simple reason that most of the people who are TERFs today weren’t at that point) -- I had already gotten used to tuning out Rowling and her fondness for Word of God pronouncements. 

Like, Dumbledore being gay actually fit into the canon very well, but others? They just felt tired and not thought-out and her whole short history of American magic was incredibly lazy. The werewolfism=AIDS thing was offensive in very real ways--and also it should be noted just does not make sense as a metaphor. Not just because AIDS will kill you and being a werewolf will not and there’s no way to bridge that fundamental disconnect -- but also because the way people talk about being a werewolf in the damn books doesn’t resemble at all the way people talk about AIDS patients in real life. Which makes me think she didn’t actually mean for it to be a metaphor when she wrote it and then years later threw it out there because it sounded good to her in the moment because she hadn’t thought it through.

By the time we got to wizards shitting on the floor because she very clearly forgot that she had already had chamber pots referenced in the text, I was long-since tapped out. 

Which is all just to say that it is beyond fair for you to use being a fan of Harry Potter as a data point in gauging your safety as a trans person -- but if we’re talking just about you enjoying the books?

Well, in that case, fuck Rowling and her weird post-canon comments that half the time don’t even make sense. If she wanted trans girls to not be allowed up the stairs to the girls’ dormitory, she should have put it in the damn text. As far as I’m concerned, trans girls and trans boys are allowed up whichever staircase matches their sense of themselves (and, I like to think, nonbinary kids get the run of the whole tower). 

In fact, as far as I’m concerned, she lost the right to have me care what she says about the Harry Potter universe when all of her comments started being unbearably lazy, asinine, and/or nonsensical. If she’d been half this uninspired and careless when writing the actual books, I would have stopped reading them. 

This has been a very long reply on that single point, but I want to end by saying that the point is, even if I accepted the premise that liking the Harry Potter books is in and of itself wrong -- and I hope I’ve made something of a case that it’s not -- it still shouldn’t be something you hate yourself over. Short of actually murdering people, I’m not sure there’s anything that’s grounds to outright hate yourself, honestly, but liking a book is definitely not on the list. 

Either way, you seem like a lovely person, one who is very thoughtful and has been very patient and generous with your time in writing all of that out. I hope that you find ways to also be a little more patient and generous with yourself -- about Harry Potter or any other topic -- because you deserve that and you do not deserve to be hated by anyone, least of all yourself. And I also hope you have a good rest of your night. 

Hi! I'm the Plato anon for before. First of, thank you so much for your offer, but I think I managed on me own. Second, could you elaborate on the "analysing as YA" vs "analysing as an adult" approach? I assumed that "discourse people" on this website generally don't go beyond "antagonist is bad because they are against the hero!" out of ignorance/lack of interest except to score Internet Fame Points, not that it was due a specific mindest. I also don't really read YA (except Tiffany Aching)

TIFFANY ACHING!! T_T ANON LET ME HUG YOU it’s like the only YA I actually liked in my entire life apart from nick hornby’s one book but that wasn’t typical lmao

THAT SAID, well your discourse people point is pretty much part of it but since I’m here and I can rant have the entire thing I was too tired to hash yesterday ;) so, in order:

first thing, we need to establish that ya books and **adult** books generally have different target audiences which is fine and good because obviously if you want to write a thing you’ll do that for An Audience That You Have In Mind; this doesn’t mean that adults can’t read ya or that teenagers can’t read **adult books** because everyone can read what they want (and personally for one I never cared for ya in my entire life not even when I was the target audience), but it simply means that some books are meant to be liked by one category first and eventual others later and they need to be talked about in that specific context first and everything else later - then there might be books that are aimed for kids/young readers or sold like that or that can be read on more than one level which can be appreciated for different things later in time (for example I read huck finn at sixteen and I absolutely loved it but it was a book that here is seen as good reading material also for eight year olds, and at eight I wouldn’t have liked it for the reasons I did at sixteen, and if I read it now I would still like it, while a bunch of the books for kids I read when I was seven is stuff I enjoyed then but forgot now and probably was good for that age but didn’t stick with me);

second thing, that means that when I discuss a young adult book aimed at teenagers I will never hold it to the standards I would hold a book aimed at a general adult audience, especially if it’s the kind of ya like dunno as stated the vampire diaries aimed at teenage girls which is obviously the kind where you have the fantasy world with the hot dark guy who swoons the high schooler protagonist off her feet etc because that stuff is basic teenage girl fantasy 101 and like... I’ll expect a bunch of romance tropes, the usual push and pull, the guy eventually being into her, the protagonist being someone a fourteen year-old can see herself in, probably a few sexual elements thrown here and there and so on, because that’s the shit marketed at fourteen year-olds who want to read that and like... it’s really not that deep. I can’t ask the vampire diaries to be moby dick because it’s not meant to be. or, if I read percy j/ackson - which is another thing I have zero interest in but I know about because I see tweets from the author - I expect to have a bunch of teens coming into their own coming from different backgrounds because the author wants to represent properly a lot of categories so most of his readers can have someone they can see themselves in and like if a thirteen year-old who suspects being lgbt or whatever sees themselves in the gay kid from per/cy jackson guess what that’s what that book is for, so I won’t judge it on like... being a faithful representation of greek myths or how good the style is or whatever, because even if to me it’s not top notch writing or has a plot idc about it has to be for teenagers and pre-teens, not for me, a thirty year old who again didn’t even like pre-teen aimed literature when she was a pre-teen;

third, I can extra clarify it using the damned hp discourse, as in: when I say I’m tired of people not reading anything else or reading everything like hp, it means that they read it when they were growing up/were teens and it was aimed at them which is fine, but then twenty fucking years later when the people in question are way beyond their twenties (guys I’m almost 32 and I remember when the first one came out come on) when talking about any single piece of media in existence (movies, comics, other books) use hp characters/situations as the terms of paragon - like guys I had to read sn/ape comparisons with theon and ky/lo ren on the basis that THEY’RE GREY CHARACTERS as if sn/ape is the only grey character that ever existed, people keep on talking about vold/emort as the only bad guy that ever existed and so on, and like... you can’t talk about, idk, asoiaf or any book aimed at an adult audience like you’d talk about hp, because at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if I read comparisons between sn/ape and ivan karamazov and I think I don’t need to specify how completely nonsensical that would be;

now, with all of this explained, what I mean is: ya in general - which is not a fault per se of the genre since it’s aimed at teens and pre-teens - tends to have... very fixed narrative schemes depending on which teens it’s addressing - like, stuff like tvd or twilight is obviously the romance teenage girl fantasy where you have the girl fighting to be with the dark beautiful supernatural creature in question, per/cy jackson is more like I’ll give you a bunch of relatable characters having cool adventures against bad guys with the occasional redemption so we can see that people are redeemable but you still have right vs wrong, hp is sort of like that in the sense you get relatable-ish protagonist with relatable friends growing up throughout the entire thing and fighting on the good side vs the evil side including the usual death of the mentor plus people who seemed bad actually not being bad™ except that PJ has more povs and better rep from what I gather but that’s not the point so it’s basically the growing up journey for the young protagonist(s) the kid sees themselves in, then there’s stuff like hunger games where you actually have the dystopian worldbuilding just written to be enjoyable by younger people who don’t want to get too depressed (and ngl I haven’t read the books but I’ve seen the first two movies and guys the way everyone ignores the classist commentary in thg to discuss the love triangle is... a staple of the problem tbh) but still try to introduce deeper themes and have more nuanced characters and at the same time are still written to be enjoyed maybe by the more adult side of the target, and at the same time I can’t say that thg is the same as 1984 when it comes to target audience because 1984 doesn’t make the ugly dystopian themes more accessible using the love story/teenage protagonist etc;

at this point the problem is: if you only ever read ya and nothing else in your life (which is what a lot of people here do - guys again when I got here in 2011 if people didn’t discuss hp they discussed john gr/een, the only *adult*-aimed book I see discussed on tumblr is asoiaf... because of got X°DDD) then you end up seeing every other piece of literature expecting what you do out of a young adult and then you expect adult literature out of young adults/ya to approach certain implications the way an adult novel would, which is... frankly ridiculous;

specific examples: I see blogs which are principally about like ya fantasy books ie acotar or shadow/hunters or whatever shitting on grrm because AAAAH HE’S PROBLEMATIC/MISOGYNIST/HE HAS VIOLENCE AND RAPE IN THE BOOKS BLAH BLAH and like... spoilers: if I wrote a fantasy series aimed at fourteen year-olds who want their fantasy romance with the hot dark guy who is maybe a tiny bit problematic but turns their leaf for them I would hold back on blood and violence, if I wrote a fantasy for adults where I want to be realistic about misogyny I will not, and the fact that grrm gets judged on what happens and not how he writes it (and again, saying that a guy who has 1/3rd of his pov characters female except that it’s actually 50/50 because there are no throwaway povs except for mel while guys have a lot more of them and all the female povs have narrative weight [and mel has it before she gets one] and all of them have a different personality and he also has the same trope [brienne and arya] in two people with wildly different personalities and needs which is basically a goddamned miracle is a misogynist because there’s misogyny in his fantasy world is ridiculous imvho) which is.... exactly expecting of asoiaf what you’d expect out of acotar, when grrm and acotar’s writer write for wildly different audiences. now, if I had read acotar at 15 and asoiaf at 15 I’d have had no doubt re asoiaf being more my thing because again the subgenre acotar goes for is not my thing because I never related to that fantasy while brienne is my rep, but in general a 14yo girl who likes the acotar-like stuff will not care for grrm.... which is normal because grrm writes for adults of both genders, not teenage girls (I mean teenage boys also have their own subgenres for which the same rules are valid), and someone who likes percy jackson (aimed at both genders but like... pre-teens early teens) who doesn’t gaf for grrm won’t because it’s not aimed at them unless they like grrm for other reasons ie idk they realize that they relate to jon snow idk but you see my point, so like tldr that’s what I mean with if you only read ya you’ll expect adult writers to handle their themes like ya writers would and like... sorry but if I write stuff for adults I won’t feel the need to specify that the bad guy is B A D with neon lights because an adult should grasp that from the narrative, I don’t need to make sure it’s obvious bc it’s aimed at kids;

reverse: when I see people saying ‘the vampire diaries is problematic because it’s about people who are a hundred years old preying on teenage girls so we need to stop teenage girls from reading that kind of thing because it makes them think it’s okay to go with someone that much older than them’, we’re at the opposite problem in the sense that you’re asking a young adult novel what you would ask of AN ADULT NOVEL when there’s no point in it. like, a teenage girl knows perfectly that damon salvatore doesn’t exist and vampires don’t exist and werewolves don’t exist - the entire point of tvd is that she gets to fawn over the hot supernatural dude who changes for the better thanks to the female protagonist she most likely sees herself in and she gets to have a few nice fantasies about that which is like... normal for people who are developing their sexualities, most people wouldn’t actually want damon salvatore the way he’s exactly in canon irl because they know it’s a fantasy and so it should stay. like, sorry but as someone who watched the show because ian somerhalder is hot in her twenties and tried the first book and gave it up at page 30 because I couldn’t do it, I can 100% assure anyone that the biggest issues with tvd books are that the writing is really fucking bad (for my standards at least), with the tvd show that from S4 the writing spiraled downwards and no one wanted the magical vampire pregnancy witch twins ridiculousness, but none of the content actually was shit that anyone would take seriously like that and I wouldn’t expect tvd to approach that subject realistically. if I read a vampire book aimed at adults who actually wants to write such a relationship as creepy WELL YES OF COURSE I’D EXPECT IT TO BE OBVIOUS ABOUT IT BEING CREEPY, but if it’s aimed at freaking teenagers... it’s a fantasy and not really that deep, take it for what it is and let teenage girls enjoy thinking about smooching damon salvatore (or stefan or whoever) without assuming they need to be protected from Horrible Vampire Fiction™, same as no one goes bitching about unrealistic sex scenes in serialized romance books because people read them because they’re unrealistic and escapism, not because they expect nobel prize worthy exploration of themes from them;

now, ^^^^^^ would not happen if people actually read variedly and studied some decent lit analysis in school - but like, after I had to read I think at some point that of mice and men is ableist... THAT’S the damned point - with ya you can take a lot of the plot at face value, with adult lit you can’t and you have to see motivation beyond the action of the characters and you can’t do that if you only read books aimed at pre-teens/teenagers where obviously that’s... more spelled out than it would be in a book aimed at an adult audience;

that by the way also means wildly missing actual adult themes discussion in ya, because again, I haven’t read thg but from the two movies I’ve seen it’s fucking obvious that the whole thing is an anti us-classism commentary from how the districts are built to how the games are rigged to pretty much everything in the worldbuilding, but all the discourse I see on tumblr is about either the love triangle or katniss being miscast or president snow being a jerk and whatever else, but I never once saw anyone saying ‘heeeeey the people in katniss’ district are an in your face metaphor of poor people in the us of a belonging to certain categories while the first few districts are absolutely the 1% and the entire point of it is that she wants to tell you A CLASSIST SOCIETY IS BAD AND WILL LEAD TO REVOLUTIONS’, which to me was... like, glaring, it was literally what 90% of the entire thing was about and no one ever discusses it in a fandom-wide sense (I mean... I saw a bunch of hg posts back when the movies came out, I never saw this brought out), which... is a problem because it means that the moment people are put in front of a ya product that actually tackles that kind of issue.... they go and worry about the love triangle (which seemed to me the excuse to draw the people in the story) not about the social commentary, and like, maybe a twelve year-old won’t catch on the social commentary, a twenty-year old especially from the us should, and I don’t see that happening;

and sorry but that is because if you only engage with content aimed at a younger audience than your target first you assume that every piece of literature should be consumable/readable/enjoyable by a younger audience (and sorry but no, some of us don’t want to write stuff making sure teenagers like it) and then ask of actual ya media to cater to their *adult* needs and not to the needs of the target audience because wow obviously if you’re 25 you won’t want out of literature what you wanted at fourteen;

and this also is valid for children’s media because again, I’m cutting it short, but adults watching st/even universe and sending people death threats because they don’t agree with their opinion of a cartoon aimed at an audience that’s at moooostttt eight years old is a thing that shouldn’t even fucking exist, and if you think steven/universe is that important at an adult age you need to re-assess your priorities;

tldr: adults should not expect media aimed at kids/teens to cater to their interests and shouldn’t analyze it the way they’d analyze a piece of media aimed at an adult audience and should not presume that every piece of media should have the scope/schemes of medias aimed at kids/teens because some of us don’t want to read that.

now, I’ll leave you with a nice short anecdote which hopefully will further clarify what I mean and add to another point which would be, kids and teens don’t give a fuck about what you, an adult, do: when everyone was in a frenzy about my little pony back in 2013 or so I had to see a ton of posts like ‘AAAAAH MEN/BOYS WHO ARE INTO MLP ARE STEALING THE SHOW FROM YOUNG GIRLS HOW DARE THEY ENJOY IT WE NEED TO KICK THEM OUT’ with added people saying that a ten year old male kid who tried to kill himself bc his friends bullied him bc he liked mlp deserved it and the likes, my only thought was that... when I was 8-10 in elementary school and was actually the target for cartoons and stuff, sailor moon was the rage between all girls my age me included, we’d spend recess playing pretend (and I’d get stuck playing sailor mars bc no one wanted her, sad) and our hugest first world problem in existence was that we needed technically a mamoru and of course no self-respecting boy in elementary school would have admitted under death threats to watching sailor moon because it was a girls’ thing (aaaaah gender roles in the early-mid 90s, how fun) so everyone despaired because ofc no one wanted to play mamoru... and the few times any guy actually showed up like HEEEEY I WANNA DO IT BUT PLEASE DON’T TELL MY FRIENDS I LIKE SAILOR MOON we’d all be like OMG YOU’RE OUR NEW FAVORITE PERSON PLEASE YOUR SECRET IS SAFE because we couldn’t believe we found the magical boy™ who wanted to do it, and if anyone had told us that the kid in question was stealing sailor moon from us we’d have laughed in their face.

like.

kids don’t ask of media what you, an adult do, and it’s unfair of you, an adult, to ask children’s/ya media to cater to your damned interests, which are amply catered to by the tons of adult literature around which also forces you to push on your views and read more challenging things and to not read/watch stuff at face value, which is why I would really appreciate it if the amount of 20yo people on here who I consider adults engaged with more adult media and let themselves be challenged instead of just going back to ya/kids’ things, which are good for teens and kids and can be enjoyed by everyone but should not be the only goddamned genre you measure all other literature against because then you get people saying that lolita is pro-pedo when it’s exactly the goddamned contrary, but if you think that pov character = protagonist = good guy (which is... staple kids/ya stuff for obvious reasons) then you decide that humbert humbert is someone you’re supposed to root for. too bad that you’re not and the author was an actual csa victim so it’s a completely ridiculous reading that wouldn’t happen if you didn’t read lolita the way you read hp.

... okay, I’m done, sorry for how long this was, I hope it cleared things for good xD

Do you feel like you can't enjoy anything anymore? Since Jk Rowling s I thrown out all my old hp stuff, everyone told me to. I hate feeling like this.

I don't know if this will help you feel better, but I think we have to look at this person in full and do what we can to make sure her message isn't furthered. There's going to be a lot of mass rejection right now (and after her bratty snit over Stephen King I hope that rejecting is only going up) but you don't have to feel ashamed for what you have and for wanting to hang on to things you have loved. But we do have to re-prioritize and see things in a broader context. That's part of the responsibility of change. 

 When a lot of us first started reading the books and getting into it, none of this was a thing. We didn't know her. I didn't really care then. She seemed aloof and I thought it was odd that she made these colorful books while having herself a very limited and unappealing personality. Maybe she was just super shy. It should have been a red flag. 

I remember reading lots of reviews and early blog posts about the problems in the books (especially regarding the goblins and the house elves), and nothing ever came of it because writers make mistakes and the message of the books seemed to belie those mistakes. But it was a red flag. 

And then she told us Dumbledore was gay. After she'd killed him off. That was weird. She didn't earn any points for it, but, again, nothing really came of it because writers make mistakes. Again, another red flag ignored. 

 There's no mistaking who she is now. There is no mistaking the message anymore. Her behavior is deliberate and hateful and she doesn't deserve a minute of respect for all the hate and trouble she is bringing on other innocent human beings just because she doesn't have the intelligence or compassion to even try and understand. She is willfully ignorant and I'm only glad now that so many people see it and are dropping her like a sack of flaming shit. 

 But I feel for you anon. I've loved all of that stuff too and if there is one word that we can use to help, I think that word is "transform." I think it is very important that we take these things and re-imagine them and take ownership. We may never have the copyright, but we can control what JKR gets out of it (nothing more from me) and we can reclaim what we have loved for ourselves. Fans have been doing this forever and we can make sure *her* message isn't part of it. 

 There's enough hate in the world and transforming all the wrongness we have lived with and done little to nothing to change, especially since it has cost so many lives of so many dear people, is important, especially now, especially when we are on the precipice of an enormous global shift away from the extremities and evils of the "right wing" and bad faith agitators like Rowling.

That should be our priority. 

 If we lose some collector's item, that discomfort really isn't anything compared to what other human beings have suffered because of people like her. It sucks, but I'd rather have people alive and well and not experiencing abuse. There’s no shame in those things, I don’t think you have to throw it all away, but maybe help them find a new meaning. 

The Three Phases of Dramione

When I read these works, I feel like the fanon itself is evolving. The very early works, in the 2006-2011 range were mostly comprised of very young writers. As someone noted, there was a dearth of material after Goblet of Fire, which spawned fanfic like crazy. Most were unfinished.

The ones that were finished seemed to be mostly comprised of angst and most depicted a vulnerable, weak Hermione set against a ruthless, even cruel Draco. Most speculated about the coming war, so were endlessly tragic. A classic example is The Fallout, which, though well-written, could have done with some major editing to cut out perhaps five hundred pages of the everyday descriptions that failed to add to the plot. Hermione, in this version, is cut out from the Golden Trio to fight and she fails miserably at this. Even though this technically has a “happy ending,” it feels like ash because it. Is. So. Tragic.*

*Don't get me wrong. This writer is very talented, but this work was needlessly verbose. I say this from the standpoint of someone who regularly DNFs books, so the fact that I even skipped to the end to find out what happened already means something.

The second period is 2011-2016, give or take a year or two. This is the period after all the canon came out and happy endings started to fill the fandom. Draco saw a revival of his snarkiness. Hermione often got one over on him. Draco is often depicted as having been in love with Hermione all along. The biggest indicator of this high point of fanon is the depiction of Ron Weasley in their relationship--he is almost always a cheater and seen as an emasculated and sore loser.

(Since fanfics take a few years to finish, when I note the years, this is supposed to be when the fic is started.) The most classic example is one that falls before this time period, but the writing style most depicts this period--the Politician's Wife. Now, this work is really ahead of its time, because it was written in 2006, before the series ended, but the author guessed correctly on a majority of points--so close to the actual ending that you really have to give her major kudos. Key points of this fic that reflect the period--first person narrative, written by an author who's clearly older, plot takes place post-Hogwarts, Ron is a cheater, snarky Draco + humorous tone, and very realistic depictions of relationships, although this one does slightly reside on the greyish morality boundary. Whereas the Draco of the earliest period would have cheated on Hermione purposefully just because he could, in this one, he's slightly more vulnerable.

This period makes me sad because when I go back to see the roster of authors, so many are gone from the fandom. They graduated college or graduate school and started working and moved on. You know these writers as well as I do: worksofstone, riptey, drcjsnider, to name but a few. If they haven't left, they've joined a few fests and lurk a bit but are no longer working on long fics. Very sad.

Alright. The third period. The current period of 2017+. How exciting. The biggest, biggest trend I see for this period is the gradual demonization of Dumbledore (or has this been happening for a while?) and the backlash of the emasculated Ron. In recent years, Ron has regained some much needed favor and is no longer Wizarding Britain's most hated individual.

I don't know if it seems that the smut has been increasingly on the rise as well. Where some earlier works could gain favor just by being finished or by being there, now there's an increasing demand for smut-based Dramione. Now, I don't think I'm a prude, but just as someone who's been reading romance novels since the second grade (yeah I was wandering in the wrong section at the library), I've just read too much literary porn to be invested in just another sex scene. I think porn scenes are less well-written than when they first came into popularity in the mainstream fiction world (circa 80s) when they were then still seen as very, very risque. Because they were seen that way, the sex scenes of books of that era seem to be better than any of the ones now, and I mean just in published books. I read a Harlequin Presents book the other day by a writer who's been going at it for maybe thirty years now, and her recent stuff is filled to the brim with really unnecessary pwp. In fact, in an unprecedented move, a Harlequin Presents romance was split into two books, where one would have sufficed, since the second book was only 150 pages (most HPs clock in at 195) and had three bedroom scenes, each of which lasted some fifteen pages. Basically, the two books could have been condensed into one by cutting out completely unmemorable sex scenes.

I guess what I'm saying is just that the porn content seems to be on the rise. That or, over time, the ones containing smut garnered more readership than those without, so by comparison, it seems as if those rated M+ are more popular. The term lemon has even been replaced with smut, just because, I guess. If you like that sort of thing, it's cool. I mean, it's at least a bit educational, isn't it? I mean, that's really how you went about learning of such things before there was internet.

Only, just as a long-time reader, I can maybe detail like three scenes I've remembered in the course of my entire life of reading romance just because the dynamics and character development leading up to the first scene was so well done, either between the two people or the tension between them. What I mean is, sure, there are readers combing content for smut. But can you honestly tell me that every single smut scene you've read have been essential for the characters? Have they been so meaningful that you remember that scene as essential to their development?

That, to me, is what defines a good sex scene. Not just the requisite action movie bedroom kiss/take off shirt in the dark scene that's so generic that I can't help but roll my eyes EVERY time I see it.

I would probably say this to directors as well as writers: make your sex scenes count. If done well, even a handshake can feel just as earthshattering. I think you all know what I mean.

So anyway this is gonna get personal but I really relate to Snape and identify with him. It was really damaging for me growing up seeing the Marauders literally having their asses worshipped despite being violent (and actually murderous) bullies. But that was my experience too. Nobody supported me or stood up for me. I also experienced being stripped publicly against my will by bullies and the HP fandom taught me that my experience was invalid. Something that still triggers my panic attacks isn't valid because their stupid Marauders can't ever possibly have done anything wrong in their lives. I, like Snape, loathe my bullies to this day. I lash out because of it. I don't trust people. I don't trust authority. I'm ashamed to admit it but if I actually hadnt had my ass whipped up by Tumblr I might have actually become a neo Nazi at some point if a neo Nazi group had ever decided to accept me. And acceptance from any random source, no matter how terrible, is huge as an abuse and bullying survivor. I'm just glad I never got into that stuff but part of my therapy process right now is fully acceptig that I would have made really terrible choices back then. Which is why I sympathize with Snape completely. Because I was Snape. I was desparate for acceptance and love and I would have accepted it from any source. It's what led to me having two emotionally abusive ex boyfriends despite me identifying as a lesbian since I was a kid. Unlike me Snape actually did join a Nazi group, and then he realized his mistake and left and became a spy. I'm proud of him for it. Leaving and spying only served to benefit the people he hated and who rejected him and I don't even see myself doing that for my abusers. So if you just blindly hate Snape because hurrr durrr Neville's toad yada yada I don't give a shit, you don't. Get. The. Point. Snape haters have never gotten the point of Snape's character and why people identify with him and never will. According to Tumblr, I will never be that Picture Perfect Victim that the Harry Potter fandom so admires and idealizes, and neither will Snape.

OMFG! Your damage!! Ughh pls share lol I think the highest I've hit so far and most recently (and I think it was by accident lol) was a little over 50k with Eula. LOL I think its because around that time, I increased her talents so its 6-5-8 atm. OH! I just checked Beidou's cons and I'm at C4 pfft I mean I want C6 but I didnt' realize she's at C4 —I just assumed I was like C2 lololol.

Oh, that reminds me, as you know, I've been tryna complete beidou. I did like 3 10-pulls and ... I got a gold star.. of which terrified me because I wasn't tryna get a gold star lol BUT it ended up being Jean lol I don't think you realize how happy I was when I saw that it was just Jean lol Which means I'm DEFINITELY saving up for Raiden like she may just complete me lol

also, I read your recent post about gaming/genshin community and thats so sucky I mean you're definitely right in cr/cd ratio (i'm by all means a newb but still). I think my Eula was like that too (like 1:4 ratio) but once I evened it out to at least 1:2.5, I think that's also why I was able to hit 50k. That reminds me of this user I found during co-op who had an obnoxious profile that, to me, almost low-key block them. It was something about using under lvl90 chara on domains and I was like ??? umm i understand that but like.... if you have a lvl 80 character that get crit 100k every other hit then why would lvls matter ? Idk it like really irked me because grinding for artifacts and ascension materials and even talent materials is time consuming and its a big turn off for other people just getting into and just enjoying the ride. idk it reminds of people that show off their artifacts and still ask if its good like... you know its good... so why did you ask???

OO yes I'll respond to some of this and then I'll share a bit not to flex bc it's not even a ~stellar~ build or anything yet but just to share on how I prioritize stats and stuff since I didn't fully comprehend all that until like....quite recently tbh.

C4 Beidou and a guaranteed Raiden seems great to me omg. Careful with your pulls from this point on cause a random low pity Ganyu/Zhongli/Yae could take away your guaranteed Raiden D:

Ugh people like that is why I don't do co op. Like that person's profile - aside from the fact that it's alienating towards newer players that won't have perfect teams or builds, they are just plain wrong. Artifacts/talents/team synergy/utilizing your reactions well is all way more important towards getting your damage off than raw character levels. It's always the people that are the most toxic that are also the most wrong. This is way Genshin was my gateway to quitting League, bc at least Genshin doesn't force me to play with these clowns LMAO

Like I'd love to optimize Itto and Childe more, but I spent a month prefarming Zhongli and once that was done I was thinking about how I also still needed an EM sands for Kazuha. It's neverending! Lmao

Although I must include a disclaimer - In that post I gave myself slightly too much credit and was misremembering my CR on Itto - it's 57% not 67% but I still stand by everything I said lmaoo.

And omg don't get me started on the "iS thIS gooD?" people with their artifacts that they know damn well are stellar.

Anyway, so my build advice. I'll put this behind a read more for the folks just scrolling

Since IK you have Eula, I'll showcase this.

I've spent far less resources farming for Eula than Itto and Childe so she's my biggest WIP of my main DPS. Just don't have the 4x pale flame, but I farmed Noblesse domain a lot for Bennett so I had all these bloodstained artifacts and threw this together. Her CR is far better with Serpent Spine but Itto is usually using it so I only switch it onto her situationally. But the phys damage from 2x bloodstained 2x pale flame and a snowtombed is wild. Her normals can hit for up to like 21k, and her bursts usually hit for about 180k. I feel like Eula wants CD > CR > Atk% > ER > ATK. Maybe some HP% since our girl has to get up close and personal and inevitably will take damage unless you have a cracked full HP built Zhongli

(Can’t get this image to full screen from desktop, may want to look from mobile if you wanna look close)

For Circlet, Goblet, Sands - if something has the main stat you want and at least two usable substats go for it and just use that til you get something better For flower and plume - If its got at least three usable substats just use that and wait for the 4x perfect starting stat ones later.

Or don't do any of this and level what you want and have fun. This is just how I do things loll. I'm always using less than perfect artifacts for the time being til the long grind for the "perfect" ones pays off.

Okay, since there's been a lot of HP themed asks on your blog recently, I'm taking the chance to ask two genuine questions I've been confused about for a While.

1) An argument I saw a lot is sth like "if you buy Harry Potter stuff, JKR will take this to mean that you support her, including her transphobic bullshit" and I just Do Not Get why I'm supposed to care what JKR thinks.

Just because she thinks people support her doesn't make it true. And we already know she believes ridiculous bullshit, because she's a terf. Why tf should I care abt her opinion??

And no, this is not the same argument as "if you buy HP stuff, you're giving JKR money to spend on her transphobic bullshit". I've seen both points going around, they're not the same thing.

2) I don't understand why it seems like a rando on tumblr reblogging a HP gifset, or a rando on AO3 writing a HP fanfic, is given the same importance as buying new HP stuff. Fandom is not the same as mainstream.

There are many fandoms where fan content has little in common with the source material, sometimes as a default. Why is the default assumption for HP that every piece of fan content kept the worst parts of canon?

Why is a fandom rando on the internet conflated with mainstream HP stuff, when the number of people who will see one is not even comparable to the number of people who will see the other? And you've written before how it's not the same when a bad (or "bad") thing is shown in a fanfic and when it's shown in a mainstream movie (you may have been talking about porn and/or darkfic, I don't remember the details), partly because the number of people who will see it is so vastly different. And I don't get why HP is exempt from this distinction?

I kinda hope I misunderstood or got the wrong impression somewhere, it's not like I'm involved in this discourse and I'm not in HP fandom, so there has to be a lot I don't see.

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1 strikes me as a guilt-based tactic, not a serious argument. Maybe some mean it as other people seeing that as her having support, but I don't think this really holds water the way the money part does.

2 is a debate between the idea that giving money is the main problem vs. the idea that anything that makes a franchise stay relevant is the problem. Every hour spent on HP fanworks, no matter how diverse and progressive, is an hour not spent on fanworks of something else. Making awesome fanworks for HP makes it even harder for others to entirely ditch it. Yadda yadda.

My personal view is that the majority of fanworks, including critical ones or a/b/o no magic AUs that are barely related to the original, still promote the original thing.

Saying "I'm spending all my free time screaming about how [HP, SPN, Sherlock, etc.] is bad!" is still saying "I'm spending all my free time on this piece of media."

Now, how much does it matter that one random fan spent an hour on HP? Not very much. But one of my hobbyhorses is that I think fandom needs to be smarter about budgeting time. You don't have the hours in the day to consume all the old, bad things and be in their fandoms and also seek out new things and build up their fandoms.

If someone's like "I do what I want, fuck off", fine. But if they're trying to make arguments about why their hours spend on HP don't count because they were noncommercial, I think they do because that's still time giving HP your brain space.