#harry potter is problematic and here's why

[houxe]

Regarding my SBI/DSMP Fics

TW: Abuse, Trauma, and Mentions of Suicide.

With all that has happened, I did want to come out here and make my stance clear. I will always stand with Shelby (Shubble) and all of the victims who are speaking out against Will Gold (Wilbur Soot). If you still support that bastard, unfollow me and leave my blog and whatever small community I made.

I've already stated this is my Discord channel, but I want to put it here too.

For me, c!Wilbur is so far removed from cc!Wilbur that I don't connect the two. The characters are vessels for my own characterizations and stories. It's a bit like writing Supernatural*, Twilight, or Hazbin Hotel fanfics. I don't support the guy, monetarily or otherwise, he does not interact with fanfics, I have plans to be very vocal that I'm on Shelby's side no matter what/make it clear that what Will did is wrong, and I don't use his real life events as plots in my stories. At least, I certainly don't try to. It's why I typically change traits about the characters. (I.e. Tommy is shorter, Phil is taller, Techno is bulky, and Wilbur always has golden/hazel eyes.)

I'm aware that it's a tad different because it's rp and not something like a full on book or an actor in a movie, but DSMP has also been over for over two years and the characterizations I make for SBI are not at all based on the CCs. Real life Techno isn't a literal terrorist, Phil ain't a father married to a goddess, Tommy is not a traumatized child soldier, and Wilbur isn't suicidal and blowing up countries.

I think I'll likely focus more on Techno, Tommy, and Phil for a while, but I'm not gonna let one dude ruin a fandom and things I've made for myself. Nothing I write is ever made for Wilbur, as I've seen people saying. Additionally, Wilbur was not the only writer. Technoblade, Philza, TommyInnit, and so many others made that story what it was. Not him.

However, if any CCs come forward saying they don't want their old characters interacting with his, I will respect that.

Though I do think there is a tendency to take real life events (i.e. Techno's cancer, LJ's music, Tommy's real life parents, etc.) and put them into fiction about DSMP. I, however, don't try to do that and have stated before that I don't feel comfortable doing so. The truth is that we have not gotten any genuine SBI content outside of DSMP for years. The dynamic in real life is very different from what was presented in the DSMP. Did personalities still bleed over? Yes, I'm not going to deny that, but I'm not going to act like they're exactly the same between character and person either. We've had that conversation like in 2021, it's why we have C! and CC!.

The rather sad truth is, SBI is what got me really into writing and it's a comfort for me that nothing can compare to. Obviously, I don't think it's appropriate to be writing certain types of stories right now or to be involving characters made by CCs outside of the DSMP. I think it's up to everyone else to decide on what they want to do, however, rushing it also isn't the way to go either. Give yourself time to heal and think it over first instead of throwing away something that gives you comfort and has not been associated with by the creators for over two years.

Anyways, fuck Will Gold. Fuck the fact that he hurt so many people, and fuck that he lied and manipulated his way around the damn internet. ESPECIALLY fuck the fact that he tried to diminish what he did and not take proper accountability.

Go and support Shelby so so much, she and everyone who spoke out really deserve it. I'm glad silence on these types of issues is not being normalized.

Here is a list of (American) resources for DV help:

TNLR

RAINN

WOAR

Love is respect

The Trevor project

Futures without violence

National domestic violence hotline

Resource on what DV and abuse looks like

*Changed it from Harry Potter to Supernatural because Harry Potter is a significantly worse and more problematic franchise, even just within the content of the books. It'd be better left in the dust. I've talked about it before, but it was the first thing that came to my mind at the time and was a poor comparison on my part, I'm truly sorry for that.

#tw abuse #tw suic mention #dream smp #ao3 #fanfic #shelby support #tw trauma

[hopeymchope]

Oh GOD the fiendish David Zaslav is rebooting Harry Potter with a new "extremely faithful" adaption of the seven books. J.K. TERFling is heavily involved, she's executive producing, and they've made a TEN-YEAR COMMITMENT already.

Five Rapid-Fire Thoughts I Had in Reaction to This News:

Fuck Zaslav. (Btw, did I mention that — after deleting half of HBO Max's original content — Zaslav has now announced a price hike to the newly christened "MAX" service? As if giving a shitload of money to the planet's most notable TERF wasn't enough fuckery. FUCK that fucking shitheel.)

See below.

3. All y'all who were like "Boycott Hogwart's Legacy or You're Automatically a Terrible Person" or whatever because Rowling was going to make like a 1% royalty off of that game had GODDAMN BETTER boycott HBO MAX (....uh, sorry, it's just "MAX" now, I keep forgetting bc that name sucks — "HBO MAX" wasn't all that good a name to begin with IMO, but now it's worse) from here on out. YES, I know it's harder to boycott an entire streaming service that may contain OTHER content you want, but c'mon now, just bootleg anything you want off MAX in the future. (I'll help! I will send you a link or whatever if you need assistance. Message me. It's cool.) Because this is going to make her SO MUCH MORE MONEY due to involving her FAR MORE DIRECTLY. FUCK. WHY. Why did they fucking do this.

4. There are so many things in the books that are either A) poorly explained workarounds for continuity/logic issues or B) extremely problematic that the movies were actually BETTER for ignoring them. Can't wait to see the scene where every single known Time-Turner gets accidentally broken shortly after Prisoner of Azkaban in order to ensure the characters can never use time travel to fix their problems again! SUPER excited for the plotline where Hermione has to learn that she's silly and wrong for trying to free slaves because the slaves are fucking happier being enslaved! OH BOY!

5. God, a ten-year production commitment UP FRONT. I hope they lose so much money on this stupid-ass project that they wind up dragging their feet to produce future seasons for so long that the contract runs out before they've gotten farther than like, the third novel, and then it just dies on the vine. Would be HILARIOUS.

#harry potter #wizarding world #fuck david zaslav #j.k. rowling #there's a reason her initials are “JK” #it's because her existence is a fucking joke #jk rowling #anti-jkr #hbo max #streaming services #fuck zaslav #david zaslav #hogwart's legacy

[licorice-lips]

Okay, so I was thinking about Snape and although I'm avoiding like hell speaking online about Harry Potter, I think it needs to be said because it falls onto the rest of fantastical literature as well, especially those stories that have parallels to fascism/nazism/colonialism in their magical world.

I'd like to start by saying I don't like Snape for a variety of reasons, some of them because of Rowling, others because of the character himself, and others because of his fans, but today I'd like to talk about how Snape's Redemption Arc actually sucks and why, and also about how we're treating redemption arcs as a whole.

Okay, so let's begin by making a sort of timeline on Snape's life: he grew up in an abusive household, suffered bullying by the Marauders through school years, bullied other students as well, called his best friend a slur, "apologized", joined a fascist hate group that actively persecuted and hurt people for things they had no control of, acted on behalf of this group for years, turned against the hate group not out of morals but because their actions began to threaten the people he cared about (like they always said they would, how shocking), bullied his teenage students as a grown adult, acted as a spy against the hate group when it came back, died.

Right, so before I dive into all those things, what we also have to add is that Art isn't made in a vacuum. Just like science can never be done by a completely neutral party, our productions of art are completely based off of our views, especially when we're talking about writing. As a writer myself, I can see exactly how my experiences as a person in the context I was born and grew up in affect my writing and my production of art.

For example, it's very common that I find enemies calling themselves by their last names in American/European fiction but in Brasil, we don't normally call people by their last names unless it's very unique and as a nickname. So when I write enemies, they always call each other by their first names, simply because it doesn't feel right to me any other way. On a more serious example, most of the countries in my fantasy books have some history of colonization or dictatorship because it's a part of my history and I feel it's impacts to this day, so it's something that reflects my own thoughts and ideas in politics.

So when we talk about Snape as a character, we cannot escape the fact that Rowling created him. And as a European author, it's more than clear —and that's especially obvious to people who suffer under colonization to this day— that Rowling has a deeply ingrained colonizer mentality. The goblins in Gringots are a clear and problematic representation of Jewish people, the domestic elves LIKING being enslaved and not changing the status quo by the end of the books, and even Hermione being ridiculed for her militancy on it — these are all representative of how Rowling views the world.

Although there's more, all of those examples make it clear that, when she looks at fascist ideology as a whole, Rowling doesn't think the ideology itself is the problem: the ending is the depiction of them getting rid of the "bad apples" instead of making the "roots of the tree" healthy again is parallel to blaming bad individuals for a system that is corrupted and therefore corrupts. So basically, what the Harry Potter books tell us by the end is that it's okay for you to perpetuate a racist system, just don't do it so openly. The problem for her is not the system, but these people she considers "bad apples" which is basically right-wing ideology.

And my problem with Snape starts here: because Rowling sees purist views as an acceptable way of thinking as long as you don't kill people because of it (because for some reason that's a step too far — but when the system oppresses, beat down, and hates on marginalized people, that's okay) — in her mind and in her writing, Snape's ideological affiliation earlier on in his life is not that big of a problem, especially when he "changes sides".

Snape's active participation in a hate group is dangerously and irresponsibly downplayed both by Rowling and by Snape's apologists and fans when this is, in reality, one of the two greatest offenses his character has to compensate for in his "Redemption Arc". So when he hesitates at nine yo to say to Lily that being a Muggleborn doesn't make a difference (even when he knows it does in a practical sense of what's happening in the Wizarding World), when he despises Petuney for being a Muggle, when he says to Lily that what he, Mulciber and their "death eaters" friends did to Mary McDonald was "just a laugh (btw, I'm sure the Marauders also think what they did was "just a laugh" as well), all of this is not only extremely reprehensible, it's the kind of thing that makes a fascist, a fascist.

And it's not that I don't believe teenagers cannot change their minds and grow with more ease than adults, it's just that this alone would've been enough grounds to understand why Snape's redemption arc sucks. His beliefs from early on, even before he goes to Hogwarts, are extremely problematic and hateful, and they uphold the very corrupted system that is perpetuated against Muggle-borns in the Wizarding World.

Then we reach the point I wanted to make: it's very clear throughout the books that child and teenager Snape struggles with feelings of deep hatred against his parents (especially his father, who's a Muggle), inadequacy in social life even among his peers (wizards and witches) and isolation, all of which make a person undeniably vulnerable to extremist ideology.

And here's my first issue with Snape and his Redemption Arc: his trauma and feelings should not be an excuse for his bad choices and yet, they are used exactly as such. Yes, Snape was an impressionable teenager and yes, he was influenced by an ideology in his desperation to fit in and find solace in a community, but that doesn't matter.

None of it matters because, at the end of the day, his actions for this ideology are just as harmful, just as awful, just as cruel, as the actions of someone who joined the Death Eaters for thoroughly believing Muggleborns were scum. He harmed people just as much as Yaxley, Mulciber, or any other Death Eater who joined Voldemort for their hatred just for his support alone.

And more than that, even if Snape was in a vulnerable state and impressionable, he was still receiving other kinds of influences, influences that were contrary to the bigotry and cruelty of Voldemort — and he still chose to ignore those influences. There was still a level of choice to what he became as a young adult.

But even if there wasn't, Snape is —or at least he should be— responsible for his own choices regardless of influence. As they say in the Kingdom of Heaven film, when you're before God and he asks you why you did something, you won't be able to say that others told you to do so or that it wasn't convenient to do the right thing — it'll not be enough. And it's not enough because your actions matter more than your intentions. Your actions will be the thing that will determine what happens next, not your intentions. It'll be actions that will shape your path and influence or directly impact the path of others around you, not your intentions.

The older I get, the more I understand the power of action and how it says more than any intention or feeling ever will. At the end of it, Snape's actions are what matters, not his feelings or intentions. But as humans, we're so prone to empathize with others that we actually believe that, because someone feels guilty or regrets the things they did, that's enough to forgive them.

We forget that it's not.

Earning forgiveness must come with 5 major steps —

Accountability — do they acknowledge the way their actions hurt us? Do they acknowledge the way they hurt us? Do they acknowledge their role in our pain?

Apologies — do they apologize? Is their apology sincere? Do they hold themselves accountable in their apologies?

Acceptance — do they feel entitled to forgiveness? Do they accept the consequences of their actions? Do they accept the boundaries you impose on the path to forgiveness?

Amends — Did they take steps to mend what's broken? Do they make choices to prevent them from doing this again? Do they try to help without crossing your boundaries?

Alteration — Did they change the behavior that hurt you? Did they take steps to improve themselves?

Those steps are fundamental in a Redemption Arc because it'll exemplify to the (young) readers what is forgivable and how forgiveness is earned, not deserved. That's what grits me the most about Snape's "Redemption Arc":

There is no accountability, at least not for joining and upholding a hate group, and we kinda get accountability for what he did in his friendship with Lily, but in a fucked up way, let's see:

It was nighttime. Lily, who was wearing a dressing gown, stood with her arms folded in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady, at the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. “I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here.” “I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just – ” “Slipped out?” There was no pity in Lily’s voice. “It’s too late. I’ve made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends – you see, you don’t even deny it! You don’t even deny that’s what you’re all aiming to be! You can’t wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?” He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking. “I can’t pretend anymore. You’ve chosen your way, I’ve chosen mine.” “No – listen, I didn’t mean – ” “ – to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?”

It's very important to me that we dissect this piece of dialog because it shows a lot about Snape and how every time he's tried to apologize, there's no accountability.

He didn't say he's sorry he said that slur (to LILY and only Lily, might I add, when at all would've been ideal but I'll have some leniency because of the situation) — he's said he's sorry, but not for what he has done, just for Lily. He didn't take responsibility for his words as he should — he says it 'slipped out' or that 'he didn't mean, again just to LIly.

He accepted no boundaries Lily tried to impose — sleeping outside Gryffindor? Really?

Most importantly of all, he took absolutely ZERO steps to alter his behavior so that he could never harm someone again like he harmed Lily. And that's very important, I cannot begin to explain how: when we regret doing something, the most fundamental step to take in change.

Change is fundamental to forgiveness but it shouldn't be conditioned by it. If we regret doing something harmful, the first thing to do is to change our behavior. Instead, Snape not only doesn't change his problematic behavior, he doubles down on it, joining the hate group Lily pointed out as one of the main problems in why their relationship couldn't continue, acting in the name of said group for years and only backing down on it when Lily is threatened.

And that reveals something about Snape's worldview: for him, since that day he called Lily a slur, the problem wasn't that he was a bigoted piece of shit (like Lily said it was), the problem, in his head, was that he hurt Lily. And that's not true. The problem is, one hundred percent, his bigoted behavior, and Lily says as much, more than one time. He just does not listen to it. He doesn't listen to her.

More than that, though, you can try to point out that he redeems himself by acting against Voldemort but I'm sorry: what Snape did is not enough. He was part — and believed in — a hate group, it's not enough that he changes sides not because of values, but because one person who is being threatened is dear to him (which was the whole prerogative anyway so I failed to see how he's even surprised by this). You can say that this is good or honorable or "love" but it's not cute to base your entire life around one person.

It's not honorable to prioritize one person over a whole world he was threatening before and not caring at all about them. Disregarding other human beings in favor of one is not as pretty as people think it is and Snape represents this very well: it makes you bitter, it makes you become abusive, cruel, a bully to everyone else. It's not pretty, it's not understandable. Be a fucking decent human being, it's actually not that hard.

But I digress again: my point is, that just because Snape regrets the things he has done for Voldemort (not even out of morals, which drives me mad) it doesn't mean he deserves forgiveness. He doesn't and he hasn't earned it, he didn't even try. Actually, he's so stuck in his regret, he's harmful because of it: guilt is a trap, babes. It sucks you in if you let it and makes you miserable as well as anyone around you. You'll be so remorseful and yet you'll hurt people because of it.

And it's the same thing I've been saying since the beginning: we need to stop associating feelings with deserving forgiveness because you don't deserve forgiveness, you earn it. Either you earn it from someone else, from yourself, or from both, but either way, it's earned, not deserved. If I were to excuse my harmful behavior every time just because I regretted doing something instead of earning their forgiveness by taking steps to apologize to the people I've hurt, I would be compared to my father all the time. And THAT would've been an insult.

Anyway, let's just stop feeling sorry for characters, especially fascists, just because they regret something. Please, let us hold our characters accountable for the shit they've done adequately and make our writers actually put in the work to make them earn the forgiveness they crave instead of just wallowing in their own misery, stuck forever in a vortex of hurting and being hurt that sucks people in. It's not a good example for us readers, it's not a good example of behavior, it's not what a good person who did shitty things should strive to be and we shouldn't think it is.

#snape slander #severus snape bashing #anti severus snape #pro james potter #pro marauders #sirius black #writers #writers on tumblr #female writers #books #harry potter #hp fandom #severus snape #snivellus #james potter #the marauders #marauders era #james potter is actually a good person #i really hate snape #sorry not sorry

[wackyrumble]

Wackiest Character Tournament

does explaining your guy (gender neutral) make other people laugh? go "what the fuck?" "Huh?" personally, i adore characters who's existence sounds stupid and nonsensical. thus... the tournament is born.

send me only your most absurd sounding characters here and let them fight

regular rule applies: you can nominate multiple characters but do not nominate the same character multiple times number of submissions doesn't matter here what matters is their levels of wacky

i'm not checking the things the characters are from for being problematic and i am not well acquainted with what is generally considered to be so be advised. i might do background checks on characters but not what they're from, but if it's like an extreme case, you are free to bring it up to me and argue why a character should be removed i will hear you out. generally, if the character that is being nominated isn't abhorrent themselves (nazi, pedo, etc i will be the judge on that) it's acceptable

no harry potter submissions though fuck you guys

no real people unless it's really funny i'm counting the dsmp guys in no real people mostly because i just do not like that series but also i don't know shit about where it falls on the real people-ness thing but i doubt it's funny enough for me. i guess you can try though

i will accept ocs IF i think they fit and you can provide an image (i will accept a picrew with credit)

characters will be chosen based on highest levels of weird, so feel free to submit your most obscure guys! i also ask people do vote in polls on the basis of which character is more weird (descriptions will be included) rather than actual character preference in the name of science. obviously i cannot control anybody to actually do this but please keep in mind that's what i would prefer

tagging some tournaments i like :) @weirdstrangeguybattle @latine-showdown @miss-latam-sexy-tournament @guess-that-ship @who-do-i-know-this-man @insanepoll @ultimate-word-tournament

examples and such below:

if you're unsure what counts, i'd say follow your heart. basically just assume that so long as it's not realistic and describing them to another person might make them laugh or confused they are a viable fighter, they don't need to have a quirky personality themselves if everything else about them is the utmost quirky. i will dictate what does and does not count at my own discretion

examples

- dark riku from kingdom hearts: a replica of a replica of a guy named riku that time travelled to the future. the guy's deal is so confusing and not explained clearly enough that i think majority of the fandom still don't know what the hell he is. there's a scene where the riku replica is apprehending dark riku and riku is watching them

- denji from chainsaw man: was in debt for like a fuck ton of money and sold one of his balls, later became a devil hunter and all he wanted from his job was to touch boobs. loves dating women who want to kill him, had a whole sharknado scene where he was trying to kill his girlfriend

- don't hug me i'm scared characters probably

- most yugioh characters probably

#wackyrumble #poll tournament #tournament poll

[avelera]

"I read it to find out what the fuss was about, and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kid’s fantasy crossed with a school novel, good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited."

- Ursula K. Le Guin

It's been understandably popular to take pot-shots at Harry Potter lately because of JK Rowling's truly disgusting and reprehensible comments lately. This quote above by Le Guin, which I agreed with even while a teenager, got me thinking about my own views on the series and apropos to nothing, I felt this was a better place to expound upon them than Twitter.

I have a knee-jerk dislike of the very human condition of saying we, "Always knew something," after the fact, that we "Always knew" someone problematic™️ was problematic or we always knew this thing that was popular was Bad Art after it became less popular. I find it intellectually dishonest.

So I'll preface all of this by saying: I had minor issues with the Harry Potter series back when it came out that went against the mainstream view of it, in that I thought it had many good qualities as a book series, but not enough to warrant its popularity compared to other, similar YA and fantasy series. I was genuinely baffled by its superstar popularity but as a fantasy book reader in the days before it was easy to access online fandom, I would take what I could get and I certainly didn't mind fangirling about Harry Potter stuff with friends even if it wasn't my #1 favorite series of all time. I enjoyed the fanfic for Harry Potter immensely so that allowed me to sort of blend in with those who enjoyed its popularity. (Special shoutout to MY favorite Harry Potter book of all time, "Harry Potter and the Battle of Wills" by Jocelyn over on fanfiction.net, that was MY Harry Potter series lol.)

So here's the thing, it's easy to say, "I always hated Harry Potter" or "I always knew it was trash" and that's a lie. For me, the truth is:

I enjoyed Harry Potter much like I did many of the fantasy series of its day.

What they had going for them was their pacing, whimsy, and inherent mystery structure in the first 3 books. They're fast, fun, easy reads with a likable protagonist. They are not bad books. But as Le Guin says, they're stylistically ordinary and imaginatively derivative. There's a lot of books like them.

I did not think the books were better than Pratchett, or Gaiman, or Garth Nix, or Dianne Wynn Jones, or any of the many other fantasy authors I was reading at the time. I was confused by their popularity as compared to better books like Pratchett's Discworld which, while popular, never got a theme park made for them in terms of order of magnitude popularity.

Now, JK Rowling on the other hand I had some issues with from the start, if not the ones that emerged later with her being a bigot. It is worth mentioning for the sake of intellectual honesty that decades ago, she gave a lot to charity and was a voice for tolerance in the early 00's when Bush/Blair, the Iraq War, etc were in full swing. It makes it all the more heartbreaking and baffling to see her swing towards bigotry on LGBT+ issues. Truly, a lot of young people first learned to stand up to fascism and be accepting of those different from them because of Harry Potter, just like they did reading the Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card, and in both cases it's absolutely heartbreaking and so very confusing to see these authors fall to the very dark side they wrote against in their books. I have no answer for how or why this happened. I don't say this to make an excuse for either of them, simply to express confusion and mourn the loss of someone who was once a voice for some level of good in the world.

Now, my issues with JK Rowling were writerly, and they are the ones I feel somewhat empowered to say I "always knew" and "always had an issue with" and that, like the worst sort of hipster, "I talked about before it was cool".

Really my dislike began when JKR very famously said in the early 00s that she didn't read any fantasy before writing Harry Potter. Considering how derivative it is (heck, Neil Gaiman already had a YA series about a black-haired wizard boy with a scar) it left one wondering if she was lying or she truly was that ignorant in the genre in which she wrote. Either way, not a good look, and it soured me towards her pretty permanently as an author.

Terry Pratchett, the author I would actually follow into Hell, criticized her for this comment and got a lot of flack for it, asking how in the world she could not realize she was writing fantasy. This solidified my opinion of her as something of a hack, even if she had stumbled upon a winning story. Neil Gaiman also chimed in saying he didn't feel ripped off but seemed to tacitly agree with Pratchett that her lack of institutional knowledge about fantasy was odd.

As a big fantasy fan of the early 00s, I can say that fantasy was still a bit of a forbidden genre (at least in the Anglosphere), one not taken seriously. So for JK Rowling to be asked if she wrote fantasy had a layer of nuance, basically she was being asked if she meant to write a fantasy novel, ie, in a "lesser" genre, barely above dime story penny dreadfuls in value.

No one literary would admit to writing fantasy at the time, it was a whole thing where if you admitted to writing fantasy you were "downgraded" as an author in terms of prestige (Stephen King went through a lot of this). BUT, if a fantasy book achieved popularity, it was labeled as "literary" so the literary folks could claim ownership of the quality genre fiction, and never have to admit that "literary" is a genre and not a mark of quality (a deep-seated rage button issue for me and a rant for another day).

So when JK Rowling said, "She didn't know she was writing fantasy." That meant something. And what it meant was she was throwing the rest of the genre under the damn bus. With her visibility she could have helped actively tear down the biases against fantasy (something she did indirectly with the popularity of her books). Or she could have simply had humility and said she wasn't as versed in the genre as she should be given where her book ended up being shelved, but there's a lot of good works there and she's honored to be among them.

She did neither. She stuck to her ignorance (what would become a common trait of hers, apparently) and did very little to elevate others in the genre, or the genre itself, and indeed, seemed to try to distance herself from it in what was the safe move at the time.

I cannot stress enough how intellectual dishonest, arrogant, and safe it was for popular writers who got dubbed "literary" when they were in fact writing genre fiction to cleave to that title of literary, guard it jealously, and refuse to acknowledge that literary is a genre of its own, not a mark of quality. To be labeled "genre fiction" was to be considered "lesser" and that stigma is still out there, though much lessened by the wave that began with the Lord of the Rings movies, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and the Marvel films making so much money and really setting up genre fiction to at least be seen as lucrative if not artistic. We have come a long way from how fantasy was viewed 20 years ago.

JK Rowling also said she wrote no other books before Harry Potter. That's another puzzling instance where either she's lying, sold her soul to the Devil (and hey, maybe she did and he's collecting by making her turn into a frothing bigot), or was simply a more lucky and less skilled writer than people realized. Every writer has a closet full of short stories and novels they've written before publishing their first work. I can't stress enough how bizarre it is for her to claim she never wrote anything else before putting pen to paper with Harry Potter, that simply does not happen. Then again, her later books make it seem more likely that is true.

Writerly aside, but JK Rowling is utter garbage at structure. She lucked into the perfect scaffolding for a basic plot with the Harry Potter school year, but as Fantastic Beasts and her other, non-school based plot structures reveal, she didn't realize what a crutch that was for her because the woman does not and has not learned how to build a plot that isn't strung up on the structure of a school year for building tension and story beats.

Look, JK Rowling has always been a weird author. She really did come out of nowhere in terms of previous works. She doesn't acknowledge her peers in the genre that built her fortune, not even to confess that while she didn't know about them, she's now learning about a wonderful rich genre out there. She went the other direction and disavowed fantasy (it's possible she backtracked since and had nice things to say about the fantasy genre, I'd love to hear it if so).

There was in fact always subtle bigotry and a ton of tokenism in the Harry Potter books. That said, in the 90s, that was pretty par for the course, and she deserved some kudos for making the books so explicitly about fighting fascism, even if I'm not sure she fully understood her own themes.

To say these books were unpopular or that they had no writerly merit at all is intellectually dishonest. They were popular for a reason, mostly because they're fun. However, they were not unique, there were many like them, she got very lucky and it's bizarre how little she's acknowledged this or her peers. Of all the negative tendencies any human has, I'm shocked and dismayed that her tendency to stick to her ignorance like she did with the wider fantasy genre is the one that won out and was transferred to LGBT+ issues, to the point of doing active damage to her works and brand. But as her attempts to branch out from Harry Potter have further confirmed, JK Rowling was always a stylistically ordinary writer. Her mean-spiritedness didn't stand out as much in the 90s but it absolutely does now and it's ugly how she leaned more into sticking with the moral heights she reached at that time rather than trying to learn and grow as a person.

JK Rowling went full Whedon and figured because she was slightly ahead of the curve in the late 90s that she had nothing more to learn and it hurts when people who are creative, people whose job it is to have empathy for other walks of life, never learn or grow and stick to their old laurels that are increasingly out of date. I personally don't think myself as a hardcore Harry Potter fan, I have no horse in this race for the redemption or lack thereof of JK Rowling or the book series. I can only offer my view as a fantasy writer and someone who grew up through the cultural phenomenon of these books.

But, as usual, Ursula Le Guin was right, I agreed with her then, and her words have only borne out more and more with time.

#jk rowling critical #hp meta #hp critical

[wisteria-lodge]

A question for you: would you sort a living person with whom you are not in communication, and without her express consent, but whose words and deeds are very much on public display? Specifically: J.K. Rowling sure thinks of herself as a heroic Lion Primary; what’s your call?

I have spent a long time thinking about this lady. Possibly too long. But here's what I've got.

She's a Bird. She *likes* Lion primaries, and she likes them in that way a lot of Birds do - Lions feel magical and moral and easy and good. That's why Gryffindor is her good-guy house, and that's why Gryffindors always get a pass when they do shady things. They were always doing it for good reasons, because that's just how Lion primaries are. They know what's good, just by kind of feeling it.

(obviously this isn't at all how it feels to be a Lion primary, but it can SEEM that way, if you're outside looking in.)

And so she likes Lion primaries, and surrounds herself with Lion primaries. And over time, seems to have filtered for the most fiery, if-you're-not-with-me-you're-my-enemy Exploded Lions imaginable. This could also be why she's not interrogating emotional pings when she really should. Like it's heartbreaking to read some of her essays - like, no JKR, that's not a reason, that's a trauma response you ought to be getting help for. But she thinks there's inherent goodness with going with your heart over your head.

Which is also probably why, for the last two decades, she's been slowly surrounding herself only with people who agree with her - effectively Exploding her own Bird primary. She is notoriously stubborn and difficult to work with, and I have that from first hand accounts... but just think how much better an editor could have made books 4-7. Or the Fantastic Beasts films. Or the Cursed Child (we all sort of collectively forgot about the Cursed Child.)

But I see the Bird! I see the Idealism, I see the mind that likes puzzles, and systems, and mysteries. And then I see her just kinda... be lazy about it. Not think though the implications. Be happy with only a very surface-level understanding. Not edit, or update, or interrogate her system. (We know that her worldbuilding is sloppy. We know she grabs existing problematic tropes and then kind of uses them as-is.)

The more I dig into to her, the more I'll come across bits of her system that just seem very... young. They'll be things like 'Good people have kids, or if they can't, then they take care of kids.' Or 'People with mobility aids are good.' That's one's so weird I just have to bring it up. It's very consistent, and comes with the reverse - 'People who use mobility aids they don't need are evil.' Barty Crouch jr. is the HP example, but that situation comes up like - a weird amount in her mystery novels.

(also, I can't prove it, but I think Lucius Malfoy got a much more sympathetic edit after Jason Isaacs started playing him with a cane. Of course that could also be just because... he has a kid... so he can't be BAD.)

Harry Potter, the character, is also very much a Bird Primary. When he acts on really strong emotions it's because they're - yep, trauma responses. Mostly he's trying to figure out his world, synthesize everything Dumbledore and the Weasleys and Hagrid and Sirius tell him, in order to build his own system.

And he's a really loud Lion secondary, the way I suspect JKR is too. Her response to all of this has just been to double down, do MORE, be LOUDER. If her royalties, or the reputation of her IP take a hit, she honestly does not seem to care.

She's not stupid and she's not evil. Hermione was a complicated, fascinating female lead. JKR has an incredible knack for side characters. The books have good stuff to stay about grief, and depression, and I know it gets memed now, but it was a big deal (for me) when she said Dumbledore was gay. But this is how I think you can get someone who starts out in a reasonable place, and gets more and more out of touch, and harmful and wrong and dangerous - when locked into one way of seeing the world, and no one with the ability to contradict you.

#jk rowling #jkr #anti jkr #sortinghatchats #tangentially #shc #exploded bird primary #lion secondary #bird primary vs lion primary.

[wc-confessions]

GENUINE QUESTION to any of those who wish to answer... warrior cats is anti-indegenous, has an inability to explicitly include LGBTQ characters and has been CONSISTENTLY sexist. I understand that JK Rowling LOUDLY SAYS A LOT OF TRANSPHOBIC BS(among other things) and Harry Potter is written under the one author unlike Warriors,

But why don't more people go "read a different book" to Warriors in the same way they do Harry Potter?

To clarify I hate Harry Potter and have been drifting away from Warriors for these reasons lol. I'm not clenching a desk and grinding my teeth in fury, I'm just curious.

Honestly I don't know why, because I'm that person who says go read a different book - Cloudnettle

-----

If the books upset people that much and genuinely make them angry then yeah they should go read another book series.

I don't stick around in the fandom because I like the books problematic content, I'm here because I like the feral cats with religion idea. I have my whole own project using the ideas from Warrior Cats but with my own story.

But if there was another book series about cats in the woods then yeah, I might read that instead! I don't think I've ever told someone to read the books, in fact I frequently talk about how bad they are with my friends honestly.

~ Mod Lichenbark

#not confession #mods talk

[teacup-captor]

Random tangent prompted by absolutely nothing but when ur talking about why JKR and Harry Potter are horrible stop bringing up the fact that Harry Potter's written badly. That doesn't matter. It could be the shittiest story in the world that wouldn't matter. BRING UP THE FACT THAT IT'S WRITTEN ANTISEMTICALLY AND RACISTLY. STOP BRINGING UP THE PLOT HOLES AND BAD MAGIC SYSTEM. BRING UP THE RACISM AND ANTISEMITISM AND WHATNOT. BRING UP THE FATPHOBIA. BRING UP THE PROBLEMATIC SHIT. HARRY POTTER BEING WRITTEN BADLY IS NOT THE PROBLEM HERE AND IT NEVER WILL BE

[southshoretides]

There was a great post I saw a while back but lost about the ideological lens of media criticism that went like "Your average Reylo-hater doesn't hate it because she thinks Rey is not submitting to Kylo as a wife rightfully should, they hate it because it normalizes abuse. People who really hate Avatar tend to think it's colonialist, not that the humans are failing to teach the Na'vi about Christianity. People who hate Harry Potter in 2024 hate it because it's a story about rich prep school kids growing up to become feds plus the trans stuff etc, not because books about magic are Of The Devil."

In other words, you can only say that shaming campaigns/social-media mobbing for people who like Problematic Content is inherently a conservative (i.e. bad) thing (which is an argument I see over and over again, and not just on Tumblr) if you define 'conservative' as entirely divorced from its object-level goals (re: family, religion, law and order, etc) and round it off to "telling people that their feelings are invalid or immoral," with the implied inverse being that it's unprogressive to ever criticize someone's tastes in media.

And I guess that's internally consistent if your modal progressive is a live-and-let-live hippie with a high openness-to-experience and agreeability scores, that's internally consistent. But it's 2024 and if that's your modal progressive, I'm wondering why. Part of the reason this sort of stuff gets me genuinely worked up in a way little else does these days is that it seems so willfully, deliberately ignorant of the last ten years of cultural change, and it often comes from people who really ought to know better.

Because if you listen to the sort of people who hate Problematic Content, you will find that they indeed don't care about media spreading the Gospel, or enforcing traditional heteronormative values, or being patriotic, in fact they have contempt for all those things (which are, yes, themselves, kind of hall-of-mirrorsy concepts, but the important point here is that most conservatives define themselves as favorable to those concepts).

But what they do care about is media that enforces harmful stereotypes, or causes harm to marginalized groups, or defends capitalism/nationalism/etc, and other things conservatives don't really care about. And it is entirely internally consistent to say "I hold progressive values XYZ, I think that fiction that opposes my values will weaken them, ergo I want to ban or suppress fiction that opposes my values." There's nothing inherently un-leftist about that, the Soviet bloc did it for decades! There are millions and millions of people who think that way who openly and proudly despise all things conservative and Republican.

Thousands of words have been spilled about what happened to the left in the 10s, how they willingly took on the pro-censorship, pro-word-police mantle once various proto-Trumps and the big guy himself ran in the opposite direction. Maybe the last few years of things (somewhat, sorta) swinging back the other way have made people forget. (And I put 'in 2024' up there for a reason: the battlefield really was very different as little as 15 years ago. But now it's not.)

But I think it's more likely that people who think you can't be both censorious and a progressive are simply still unwilling to truly accept that, that we have this whole class of people who may say the right things and vote the right way on green fuel and gay rights and whatever else, who claim the mantle of progressives, but are as strict and paranoid and closed-minded as any conservative in practice when it comes to anything outside their comfort zone, just as dependent on whisper campaigns and public moral grandstanding and consent-manufacture as the conservatives they hate.

And this is embarrassing for leftists who don't believe in media censorship, so they try to write these guys off as infected by enemy memes, or double agents, or just hopelessly confused. Either way, they're not real progressives, because they're not how I'd prefer progressives to be. And like again, fine, you can do that, but we have a term for that behavior, not a complimentary one. "Progressives don't ban books" only hold true insofar as progressives don't ban books--that the people with the levers of power in the progressive movement refrain from doing that.

Ultimately, a book banned for reasons of blah blah Jesus morals Christian America is a banned book, and a book banned for reasons of blah blah privilege historical inequity triggers trauma is a banned book, and no clever rhetoric can get you around that.

[thealmightyemprex]

So I have been revisiting some Gen Z franchises lately,I marathoned and ranked the Shrek films last year,Im one third the way through the X Men films......And there is a ranking I really wanna do cause I wanna talk about it and no one has talked about it the way I want to :Harry Potter .See most people want to ignore it cause of the transphobic elephant in the room ,or ignore the problematic shit entirely and mindlessly gush over nostalgia

Heres the take I want to do.,...I want to view them as movies cause ,even before we knew JK Rowling was nuts ....I dunno where I land on this franchise .I saw the first 4 in theaters ,enjoyed them as a child ,then wasnt allowed to see 5 due to a fantasy hating stepfather ,saw 6 and was totally confused ,saw 7 on DVD which was so visually dark I had no idea what was going on,saw 8 in probabbly the worst theater experience I have ever had due to tothunder blacking out the power thrice ,and finally saw 5 last .I also saw that first Fantastic Mr Beast movie or whatever the fuck that was called(Wouldnt include those in the watch through ),saw the first film at a church screening 10 years ago where I did cosplay as Snape (Mainly cause I can do a decent Alan Rickman impression ) which I believe is the last time I viewed any of the main series movies

I wanna stress as far as memory tells me there is stuff I liked (Like of course ,the cast is stacked )and stuff I really hated (Voldemort is one of the worst villains ever )and that I know Rowling sucks.....But shes not the only person who made theser movies ,film is collaborative and I wanna see if the series is good ,bad or meh just as films .I just feel like I need to see why these films which were massive hits took off like they did

@the-blue-fairie @themousefromfantasyland @countesspetofi @theancientvaleofsoulmaking @princesssarisa @ariel-seagull-wings @piterelizabethdevries

[morally-grey-girlbosses]

why would you ad men to a poll about girls?

I suppose I had better explain this one since I know a lot of people weren't here right since the start.

When I first opened the submissions my policy was to run qualifier polls on characters that I didn't think unequivocally qualified. While I was still operating under this policy, three male-aligned characters (Captain Jack Sparrow, Patrick Bateman, and Miles "Tails" Prowler) were submitted, and I ran qualifiers for them accordingly. After a few days of this, people began to complain, both because of the men and because of a glut of joke submissions, and I started taking my responsibilities as an officiator of this poll more seriously. I started taking more liberties with what characters I disqualified by executive fiat, including enforcing my policy of keeping this a girlboss-aligned tournament. However, the three men that were submitted had been submitted in good faith, and had passed the qualifier poll. I felt it would be a betrayal of their submitters to disqualify them now. So yes, those three men did make it in.

I'll also address the nonbinary characters now. I haven't seen as much outcry over this, but a couple people were confused so I'll clarify - it was always my intention to allow canonically nonbinary characters to enter the poll. This is because I myself, as a plural system in which certain members are nonbinary, do not mind having the girlboss label applied to me. Nonbinary experiences are a vast set of spectrums, and this can include people who use genderless, gender-neutral, or alternative-gender pronouns but still allow themselves to identify with traditionally feminine-aligned labels. It was never my intention to suggest that canonically nonbinary characters such as Chara were women, and I apologize if I failed to make that clear.

One other thing I've seen coming up vis-a-vis Jack Sparrow is the fact that he is played by Johhny Depp. I will say this only once: fuck Johnny Depp. However, Johnny Depp the actor is not Captain Jack Sparrow the character, and being a fan of one is not the same as being a fan of the other. In general, I am against excluding media from this tournament, whenever possible. I have allowed characters from Homestuck and Hazbin Hotel to enter the tournament, despite the problematic history of the creators, because I believe that people should be allowed to engage with media on a basis that does not require them to be constantly aware of its creator, and that censorship of media based on its morality is rarely excusable. The exception to this rule is that I have not allowed Harry Potter characters to be submitted, because the Harry Potter universe is not only laced with problematic elements in itself, but all proceeds from it essentially, at this point, go to fund an antisemitic, racist, transphobic political hate campaign.

Finally, I will once again remind you all that any hate in my notes will get you blocked. You have the right to disagree with others and you most certainly have the right to disagree with me. That does not give you the right to attack and insult others over anything - how they choose their vote, how they run their tournament, how they engage with media, etc. I have seen actual death threats in my notes towards submitters of characters people did not like. I shouldn't have to tell you all that I will not tolerate that, but here we are.

#asks #long post #important #please respect your local pollrunners #its hard work and rarely appreciated

[goodfornothingstar]

Some asked me why I hate the character Remus Lupin so much.

And people who have read my posts will think that probably it is related to my even more strong dislike for wolfstar. But surprisingly it is not at all related to that.

So, long story short is that I read a fic which was done so nicely that from there on me and remus were always on odds.

For those who want long story-

I was actually into time traveling fics a few years back. You know where hermione goes back in time and makes all things right.

This was one such fic. Where she is reborn as the twin sister of james Potter.

Now, one thing people should know about these fic is that here she is paired with prominent people we know from first war time.

More often it is not james, because of his epic love story with lily or the fact that her best friend will not be born if she is paired such. Others who are often paired with her are sirius, remus, Regulus and snape.

I was into sirius-hermione pairing and read all of them like drugs.

Now my expectations when reading such fics is that the romance take a little back seat and the drama related to war should provide more entertainment.

So mostly avoided fics where she travelled through 2-3 boyfriends to reach to her final guy. Sirius. But this story was exception.

I was reading one such fic in which this pairing was taged. Sirius and Hermione

In it sirius and remus both have feelings for hermione. And neither made a move because they knew about how the other felt and didn't want to come in the way of rthe other out of brotherhood.

We as reader are not told which one of them she has feelings for. Maybe both??????????????????The player witch😎.

Anyways. But this change when after the incident with snape in the shack, remus lets go of all his concern for his friend's feelings and makes a move to the girl.

All is well and good. And they slowly and steadily ease into the relationship. And things are in early stage.

This carries on for a few months where sirius is shown to be feeling remorseful for what he did to his friend. And is also a little heartbroken seeing the two together but he takes it like a champ and does not feel any ill will towards the new couple.

One day the marauders are planning some prank. During which remus starts taunting sirius because he still feeling bitter. Peter and james try to handle the situation but it keep on accelerating to no avail.

In the heat of the moment, remus decides to taunt sirius that he has got the girl they both wanted and tells in detail about what the two got up two just the last night. ( about their bedroom activities).

James first of all punches remus and breaks his nose for speaking like this about his sister. As if she were an object.

Turns out hermione was also nearby and listened to all this and confronts remus about using her and their relationship to make sirius suffer. She asks him if he would have asked her out if it weren't for his desire to punish sirius by asking her out.

This scene was done so fantastically that after that day lupin's character was gone for me. As soon as he comes as a prominent character in any fic, I take my leave or skip those parts.

Now obviously, the Hermione, sirius and james in that particular fic forgave poor lupin. But I never could find it in me to be able to do so. I simply was hoping till the end of the fic that they will just kick him out of their life.

This is my problem as a reader. I get too emotionally attached when the story is really well done. yeah I am malleable like that. 🥺🥺

I am once again reading a fic with sirius/ harry pairing, this too has a problematic remus but the author says that they are trying to aim for his redemption. It is called "RETURN FROM THE VEIL BY @jmagnabo92

This fic too is such where in the end the protagonist will forgive the bad guy but I will be left with even more bad feelings about this particular character than before.

So, this is the reason of me hating remus, not because of canon or wolfstar or any toxic story I read, simply a well done fic where he tried to take away the female protagonist from her destined male protagonist.

#remus lupin #remus lupin critical #anti remus lupin #sirius black #anti wolfstar #sirimione #time travel

[regheart]

in the light of jk rowling's more recent transphobic comments — and the possibility of her facing legal consequences for her vile actions — i feel the moral obligation to once again emphasize that she uses her money and her relevance to platform bigoted views and fund transphobic projects, if you're interacting with her works in any way, it's an interesting choice to avoid giving her money in any way: don't play the games, don't buy new merch, pirate everything you can

there's a reason why i only talk about harry potter here and that it's because it keeps the discourse limited to the people that are already talking about it, instead of platforming it to others. i believe that reading her works critically (and fanfiction is a way of critical engagement) allows us to see and understand other problematic aspects of the text. more than that, engaging with trans artists and activists, sharing ideas that are opposed to hers, it's a way to respond to discourse she defends by equal means, except that she has notoriety and we don't, do it takes more people, more effort, more compromising

#harry potter fandom #harry potter fanfiction #anti jkr #anti jk rowling

[space-ace-beleren]

I cannot stress this enough: if you still appreciate and enjoy the world of Harry Potter because of some association you have with it growing up, examine why.

Did you identify with Harry, kept in a literal closet and take his journey out of an abusive world into a fantastic one where he had some sense of agency and finally knew love and acceptance?

Did you find a sense of belonging with the way the houses were set up, signaling your values and finding like-minded folks by showing off a bit of house flair?

Was it a gripping escape from harsh reality where you could put yourself in a magical school like Hogwarts?

Was it the idea that together, we can stand against great evil?

Even if it was something else, I implore you to find those themes elsewhere. People a lot better informed than myself have had a lot to say on issues with JK Rowling's work and her political activism. She has used her position of privilege and amplified voice to frame all her detractors as abusive.

I understand that it is difficult to parse reasonable voices from hateful noise. When she mocked voices of reason like Jessie Gender, the message received is that she can hear us, she just doesn't care.

It's not just transphobia. It's not just antisemitism. It's not just racism. It's not just ableism. It's not just slavery apologia. It's not just imperialism. Those alone, with the kind of reach JKR has, would be bad enough. She's used her relevance to target marginalized creators and communities, while blatantly ignoring legitimate criticisms of her work.

Her essay has been quoted in the US Senate to block civil rights bills.

Nobody is perfect, but the difference for me between writers who have penned ignorant and problematic works and grown over time is that they listened, learned, and grew. I love Sir Terry Pratchett (GNU)'s works and have deep respect and appreciation for him, and also acknowledge some of his earlier works were rough to read.

So please, if you hang your hat in [insert house here]'s common room in your mind palace and consider me a friend or reasonable person, remember:

The author has implied that autistic folks are easily confused and cannot be trusted to know themselves.

She has profited from, and refused to listen to criticism of, her bigotry.

Her bigotry has been used as a bulwark against rights for trans folks and people with disabilities.

You deserve better.

#jk rowling #harry potter #social justice #please consider alternatives #jessie gender

[welurklate]

In defence of Ron Weasley - or: why Weasley is our King!

I have noticed that in the last decade so-called Ron-bashing has almost become a sport in the Harry Potter fandom, or at least in certain corners of the fandom. And that makes me quite sad, because in my eyes it is unjustified and a product of circumstances that have nothing to do with the canon character. People depict Ron as a laughing stock, a truly incompetent wizard who is nothing but jealous and petty. Even in fanfics where Ron is an adult he rarely outgrows his teenage character. I believe this has to do with a few thing I will get into here.

First and foremost, we have to take a stance and decide if we believe that redemption is possible or not. If you think that once a fruit shows signs of rot it is better to throw out than to salvage it, stop reading here. If you think there are parts that can be saved and possibly restored, you are probably a Draco fan as well 😉 and you're welcome to read on.

So first of all, everything we see the characters do in the books they do as children and teenagers. Adolesence is a time of great changes, physically and psychologically. The prefrontal lobe of our brain still develops until our mid-twenties. It is a time to experiment and to make decisions, even if they are objectively the wrong ones, and to learn from that and to evolve into well-adjusted, open-minded and self-reflecting adults. So it isn’t even necessary to ‘redeem’ oneself for what you did growing up, it is just imperative to evolve. I have been working with teenagers my whole professional life and I am always amazed by what happens between the ages of 10 and 20/25.

So Ron is a child in the first books and an adolescent in the final parts and we actually see him grow and evolve. Not everyone is as perfect as Hermione and we sometimes forget that people can be flawed in small ways (not only in big ways such as ‘oops, I’ve taken the dark mark and commit war crimes’). I think people tend to hate on Ron because of this. He is so normal in his jealousy and his envy. We see a lot of ourselves in him and that is uncomfortable. We turn to fiction to experience the extraordinary in both good and bad, but we rarely want to see our very common shortcomings reflected in the characters. Because then we could just read self-help books and do something about it. But we don’t. We just want to escape reality and enter into worlds where everything is starker in contrast, emotions are deeper and stakes are higher.

And Ron is not such a character. He is a mild grey. He is not the hero, but he is also not the villain. Ambiguity and nuance have very little place in fantasy. But I think that is exactly what makes Ron such a great character and the books (despite JKR’s bigotism) so fascinating.

So what I see people do in fanfiction is to push his character to the extremes – mostly make him an antagonist. Interestingly, this usually occurs in in Dramione or Harmony fics. In Drarry fics or others where Hermione and Ron stay together, he usually gets to grow up into a reasonable and well-adjusted adult. And I get it. I love Hermione and I get what she sees in Ron (stability, a deep understanding, loyalty, common values, a wise mind that complements her academic one etc.). But in stories where we pair Hermione with other people we need to get Ron out of the way. Because we cannot, for the love of Merlin, make Hermione be the problematic one in the relationship (she is the queen of the books - she cannot be touched). So of course we have to make sure that Ron is the reason why their relationship fails. And to make their breakup believable, we antagonize Ron so that there is no chance for them to get back together. From a storytelling viewpoint this makes absolute sense. But it does not do Ron’s character justice. Canon Ron is a truly amazing character. The movies did him dirty and depicted him as the slightly stupid one with the punch lines and this has often clouded our image of him. Book Ron holds much more power in the trio's friendship. He is the one who introduces Hermione and Harry to all things in the Wizarding World. He is smart – even though he is not as zealous as Hermione, he is a good student and a brilliant wizard’s chess player. He is genuine, kind and loyal. I won’t reiterate all the smart things people have said about his character before. If you are interested you can check some good arguments here:

here, here or here

Everything he is and everything he goes through makes him a hero in his own way. He is the character with the biggest development and the biggest potential. He overcomes his own shortcomings again and again to stay by Harry's side. Especially in the last books he struggles, makes decisions he deeply regrets and faces his insecurities.

I could go on and on about this… but leave it at this for now. I hope this makes you see Ron in a better light! Fight me in the comments or sing along my praise of Ron!

tl;dr: Ron is a truly interesting character but the movies and fanon have skewed his image in a negative way.

#weasley is our king #ron weasley #ronald bilius weasley #in defense of ron #in defense of ron weasley #harry potter movies #harry potter fanon #dramione #harry potter fandom #canon ron #moodboard #ron weasley moodboard #redemption #say no to ron bashing

[tomjamesavery]

New Year's Resolutions Written for the Ginnyversary Bingo Challenge with the prompt: #B2 — "It’s time to make New Year’s resolutions!" Read on: AO3 It was 30 minutes to midnight as Harry stood on the rooftop Balcony at 12 Grimmauld Place. He watched the dark horizon, thousands of roofs covered by a thin layer of late December snow, he listened to the faint sounds of partying and music that mixed with the occasional early firework going off, always bathing a few roofs in bright light.

Yet it was still peaceful somehow. Harry had left the busy commotion downstairs for a few breaths of fresh air, with everything going on around Voldemort’s return, the distraction was more than needed. For a single evening, he felt like a normal teenager, leaving the chaos of the wizarding world behind him.

He heard something ruffling behind him, as the rooftop door fell open and a lanky tall redhead stumbled out.

“There you are mate, we were looking for you,” Ron exclaimed, slightly out of breath from the many stairs. “That one here said we shouldn’t let you sulk off by yourself somewhere.” He gestured towards Hermione who was coming up the stairs behind him, equally out of breath, as she gave him a pointed look.

“But to be honest, I agree with her, that’s why we decided to bless you with our divine presence.” Ron joked, earning him a snort from both Harry and Hermione.

But Harry’s lips curled into a small smile, as his two best friends stepped out onto the terrace both plopping themselves down onto the bench he was sitting on.

They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, just taking in the beautiful winter night. Until Hermione’s curious voice finally broke the quietness.

“So, Harry, do you think Sirius has a firework show planned for tonight? He keeps avoiding my questions about the legality of wizarding fireworks in a big city like London.

Ron and Harry only looked at each other, unable to keep their faces from breaking out into a grin as Harry spoke up. “Hermione, it’s New Year’s Eve, and those are the big questions that are plaguing you right now?” 

Hermione looked slightly offended as she retorted. “Harry, the effects of pyrotechnics on nature and our surroundings are very important questions.” She pointed out. ”I recently read a study about the amount of stress loud noise and firework explosions cause to  the local flora and fauna, it’s highly problematic!”

Harry only raised his hands in surrender, trying to avoid spurring her on further. “You are right, you are right! It is an important topic, still, I’d rather look at the bright side of things tonight.” He let his eyes wander over the far horizon again.

“Well the fireworks will be going off in 20 minutes, so you’ll have a lot of bright things to look at soon anyway!” A very familiar voice exclaimed from behind them.

The three of them all spun around, looking at a grinning Ginny who was just stepping out onto the balcony. 

“But I still agree with you Harry, let’s talk about something more fun.” She plopped herself down next to Harry, and her long hair tickled his right hand, making him blush.

“It’s time to make New Year’s resolutions!”  Ginny exclaimed- “I hope you thought of something.” -Now looking smug “-Cause my resolution is to pet as many cats as possible!”

Harry laughed while Ron and Hermione only rolled their eyes. “That’s a good resolution I am nabbing that!”  “I bet I will manage to pet more than you though!” He dared her, earning him a fiery look from the redhead.

“Are you, Harry James Potter, challenging me, the Queen of Challenges, to a pet off?” She flung herself to her feet, a blazing look crossing her features, only making Harry swallow.

“Well, seems like I am!” He met her confident gaze and couldn’t keep his lips from forming into a smile as he took in her features, her chocolaty brown eyes, framed by those beautiful long lashes, her slightly flushed pink cheeks, and her burning red hair.

“You, my friend…  “…are doomed,” Ginny muttered.  “There can only be one to pet them all! And that one is me!” 

“Pfft, Weasley, you will sink, and it will be me who will stand victorious!” He foretold, now also standing up to face the younger girl. As they stared each other down in fake competitiveness, both struggling not to laugh.

“A tall lanky monster like you will have the cats running in an instant, they just see my good soul and will all flock to my feet,” Ginny stated still feigning greatness.

“Oh so you think that you’re so great-” Harry started before the sound of a closing door drew both his and Ginny’s attention, as they spun around staring at where Ron and Hermione had just disappeared into the house again.

Neither of them said anything for a second until Ginny spoke up.

“Did you notice them leaving?” She turned to face him again, and those brown eyes made his stomach do flips once more as he shook his head.

“Nope, I didn’t. They must’ve sneaked away while we were arguing.” Harry admitted, feeling slightly confused.

“Well anyway, you’re not winning, we all know that Cats prefer fiery young women, not old broody men!” Ginny teased before she stuck out her tongue.

“Old? I am like one year older than you, witch!” Harry retorted making Ginny grin.

“See, exactly! Basically ancient, old man!” 

Just as Harry was about to snap some form of funny insult back at her, a loud hissing sound lit up the evening, as all around them firework rockets started to light up the now bright night sky. 

The two of them watched in surprise, they must’ve totally forgotten about the time. It was beautiful, colourful, and bright.

Harry almost flinched as just next to their roof a mass of magical fireworks took off. Seems like Sirius did indeed prepare some for midnight he thought.

Ginny had also jumped next to him, and they instinctively clutched each other’s hands. Neither of them thought about it, nor really noticed it, it just felt natural, it just felt normal.

Now hand in hand they stood, on the Grimmauld Place rooftop terrace overlooking London, observing the most wonderful fireworks they had ever witnessed, just each other as company, a perfect New Year’s evening.

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