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monsieuroverlord · 19 days

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Wolverine #48 Spoilers (and also heavy ranting):

It was boring.

Somehow, even LESS happened than the past two issues.

I mean, what even is the plot at this point? What are the character motivations?

Laura made her grand escape, which was nice. But also, why would Graydon or "Bad Seed" even be interested in her in the first place?

His main interest is his father, yes?

I guess he does hate mutants in general, but if I were him, I would've intentionally let her escape so she could lead me to the main fight.

Also, what was even the point of attacking the bears? Logan literally said "don't kill them" and immediately stabbed one. Master hunter-tracker wild man couldn't go around? lead them away? Bears are generally skittish and don't really go out of their way to attack people unless provoked. UNLESS they're food-conditioned by raiding dumpsters and such, but this is in the middle of nowhere in Alaska. There's no people food to eat.

Logan disabled one -- which is usually a death sentence in the wild by the way. And that's assuming it ran away after Logan did that. But usually they would fight back after fucking stabbing them.

Nekra fucking flipped one and presumably knocked it out (???) Third Eye put the third one to sleep.

Also also, grizzly bears are solitary. If that was supposed to be a mother and two cubs, the cubs are WAY too big to be with their mama still.

Those bears were depicted as well-muscled/well-fed/basically NOT starving at all. They wouldn't be that attack-happy over a fish (maybe a bit protective over a huge carcass, but my point still stands). I mean, assuming you don't walk right up to them! They'd make some bear threats first, in which an experienced hunter with keen animal-like senses *cough cough* would know to back off.

Keep your distance and you're good. They literally had to walk quite a distance further for that stupid bunker. Literally just go around. No need for this.

I'm sorry, this isn't how bears work at all. They can be territorial, but an experienced woodsman would know how to avoid the conflict. Especially since they weren't even caught unaware by said bears.

And the narrative around Logan remains redundant:

When will I be free of this?

THEY DO THIS EVERY TIME HE LOSES HIS HEALING FACTOR!

Last time he went on an introspective monologue like this, he went on a grand death tour and got got encased in molten adamantium! Then Laura became Wolverine :)

But they do this every time. Nothing about these plot choices are original, or even a fresh retelling of a Wolverine-esque story. It's not even vaguely interesting. At best, they're the safe choice, but I think its just lazy and lacks direction.

How the fuck is it a relief? How the fuck are you a "walking carcass?" You don't even have that cool eye scar anymore.

Also, your fucking son had a healing factor and STILL died. How do you think he feels about that, hm?

It irritates me especially because Aki isn't even mentioned beyond those preview pages. For all that shock value they did, and he still ends up being a passing thought.

I am repeatedly banging my head against a wall, I swear.

(Send Aurora in to smack him around a little. It's greatly needed).

Anyway, Laura made her grand escape by lowerng defenses to alert the sentinels and Bad Seed Graydon was able to hack them. X-Force was also alerted to the situation and Black Tom is using his veg powers to grow a rescue ship.

I guess this could lead up to a Graydon vs. Laura situation? Kid vs kid? But I don't know anymore. The plot is all over the place.

Creed ended up being encased in a sort of psuedo-egg as well, but burst out of it.

We don't see anything beyond that, but maybe he was transformed somehow? Maybe he's weaker? stronger? who knows.

I am disappointed. I wanted the seed to do something a bit more than this. There's still time, I guess. But I remain disappointed for now.

MAJOR MAJOR SPOILER PAGE:

The armor makes its first appearance.

And because fuck it, we're getting a muramasa blade too.

I hate it here.

Hurry up with all of the ressurections. I stand even firmer in my belief that this Sabretooth War should count as one of those "Orchis Purges" and Aki, and all the other dead mutants should be ressurected as such from the White Hot Room. Graydon was able to hijack one, its close enough! We don't need to argue semantics here, just ressurect everyone please and thank you

#i never thought i'd need to rant about bear behavior in a comic book #but here we are #only two issues left #and at least the last one has some promising back-up stories #my thoughts #comic book spoilers #wolverine #sabretooth war

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melodiousmonk · 8 months

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That golden and grimy time when punk was born kicking and screaming and spitting out of the bloated excess of what rock music had become by the mid-70s.

#last podcast on the left #lpotl #sid vicious #nancy spungen #sid & nancy #matt wagner #last comic book on the left #Spotify

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daydreamerdrew · 4 months

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The Avengers (1963) #35

#1. Steve is such a dork #2. we haven’t really seen much of Natasha and Clint casually being together #the last time she appeared in the book was when she was helping the Avengers as Black Widow #in order to prove that she’d changed to Clint so that they could be together #though she has been mentioned by Clint in the issues she hasn’t appeared in #but it’s still interesting that this is our first look at their settled relationship in this iteration of it post-Clint joining the Avenger #3. one upon a time Steve did have ‘another human being to whom he can reach out’#specifically Rick Jones #and even though I know it makes sense with the writing style of the time #it still comes across strangely to me that he’s just never mentioned after he left Steve to go back to trying to help Bruce #marvel #steve rogers #clint barton #natasha romanoff #my posts #comic panels

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un-pearable · 2 years

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so was anyone going to warn me the garmadon comic is actually like. in comic stores. or was i really just supposed to find it in the sonic stack and lose my mind in aisle 2 like that

#so anyway i bought 1-4. RIGHT on top of where my store stocks the sonic comics. prophecy #literally the last thing i was expecting i already feel so embarrassed 90% of my purchases there are sonic but my guy knows i have bad taste #it’s chill. i’m dying internally this is hilarious #i skipped going last week bc i felt bad bc i’m not all DC all the time anymore and was considering dropping some of my pulls and then #BAM. garmadon. right there. with criminally good cover art. needless to say i left with twice as many comic books as i planned.#and half my pulls dropped #sorry mary marvel and teen justice. garmadon takes precedent #text✨#ninjago

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miragemage · 1 year

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customer at work was like yeah i got two coupons i wanna use. so im like okay we can use those at the drive thru what can i get you. proceeds to order a black coffee and two chai lattes, right? simple. but shes like okay do the chais count for the coupons. i tell her yes as long as you get them in a 20 or a 24oz. and shes like well do they come in anything smaller. and i say yes but then you cant use the coupons. and she argues with me.

i tell her she can get the 16oz chai latte but her coupon wont work. and she has the audacity to be like well why not? its still chai. ma'am we dont have chai-specific coupons. so she relents and gets the 20oz chai lattes.

then at the window shes like can i also get two ice waters. so i ring in two ice waters and her coupons and all that. and then she argues about the price with me. shes sitting there doing the math for how much her chai lattes and her black coffee cost and subtracting the discount and its just not adding up and i tell her ma'am you ordered two waters. those are a dollar each. and she looks appalled that i would charge her money for water.

by this point its so late in my shift we havent been able to get a single thing done because we've been busy enough to warrant a third barista but it was just me and another barista there. and i could not fucking handle some dumbfuck customer arguing with me about the price of water i simply couldnt. so i just rung up her coupons and give her the total and she gives me the wrong amount of money. she gives me like $5 for her $14 order. i tell her ma'am you still owe $9. and she says no i dont i dont want to pay that much. HELLO??

i tell her well alright keep your money and i will just close this order and you can go to starbucks or something. i have never seen a woman so red in the face. she was sputtering. she was shocked and appalled. over some chai lattes and a coffee she didnt necessarily need to even buy. she hands me a $10 and we finish the transaction without another word. if you or someone you love have ever been a customer please consider repenting or something.

#this is kind of long but good fucking lord #how hard is it to not be the dumbest human being alive at a drive thru for a fucking coffee shop.#sorry for the work rant but customers get on my last fucking nerve sometimes #and my manager keeps scheduling only two baristas during my shifts. its a mid shift. the busiest of all shifts.#and has the audacity to tell me she doesnt think the coworker she is constantly scheduling me with works well with me #HELLO?? SHES A SHIFT LEAD SHE FUCKING TRAINED ME what do you even mean we dont work well together #i miss working for comic book stores where i was left alone almost all day to simply do my tasks #i miss being my own manager. i could get things done and deal with customers and still have time for side projects.#i feel like a corporate monkey here.#making drinks for my audience of drooling idiots without enough time to even sweep.

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graphicpolicy · 2 years

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Preview: The Last Comic Book on the Left

The Last Comic Book on the Left preview. The Last Podcast on The Left is reviving the tradition of the humor comic magazine, this time as a series of graphic novels #comics #comicbooks

View On WordPress

#bob fingerman #graphic novel #graphic novels #the last comic book on the left #z2 comics

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smashpages · 10 months

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At the San Diego Comic Con, Dark Horse announced Operation Sunshine, a new miniseries written by Henry Zebrowski and Marcus Parks, the host of The Last Podcast on the Left. They’re working with artist David Rubin, colorist K.J. Diaz and letterer Ferran Delgado on the story, which is about a group of young vampires trying to steal a mystical artifact that can turn them back into humans.

#dark horse comics #sdcc 2023 #dark horse #comics #comic books #operation sunshine #k.j diaz #ferran delgado #david rubin #henry zebrowski #marcus parks #the last podcast on the left

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mattzerella-sticks · 2 years

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These are a few of my favorite things... 🎵 (that I got from comic-con today) 🎵

#supernatural #spn #dean winchester #castiel #destiel #ofmd #our flag means death #stede bonnet #blackbeard #stede x ed #tim drake #thee tim drake pride special #left the @s so y'all can support some artists #you don't even know how lucky i was to run into the person selling these ofmd keychains in ed cosplay they were so cool #and there's a little heart where the clasp is i couldn't include in the pic #also can't believe how lucky i was to meet both belen AND megan #i usually never get comic books signed but this year i came PREPARED #i also asked an spn question and at long last one of my final lingering questions has been put to bed 😊#support them too they're both super talented - megan and belen #belen was really nice i was surprised her booth wasn't crowded because she is such a talented artist

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kimwexlers-brownhair · 3 months

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It's like he stole my brain and made good fucking content with the insides.

#james tynion iv #last podcast on the left #comic books #blue book #batman #dc comics #joker #even a vague shout out to my girl jeannie!#universal monsters: dracula #marcus parks #ed larson #erica slaughter #Spotify

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phoenixyfriend · 1 year

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Pour one out for all the stories you'll never find again, that you barely remember in totality, but that left an impression on you that you'll never forget.

The short stories from standardized tests that you only had a few minutes to read, but those minutes will last a lifetime.

The books on the library display shelf you used to occupy time until your mom could come pick you up from school.

The graphic novel you picked up when you were first getting into comics and could never find again.

The single lines or themes from stories you otherwise don't remember, save for the one thing that you saw and internalized as a new part of your personality.

Let's pour one out for the books that built us, even if we never could find them again, and couldn't if we wanted to.

#books #stories #positivity #phoenix talks

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redgoldsparks · 7 months

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I wrote a 12 page epilogue to my 2019 comic "Harry Potter and The Problematic Author" because I found, in 2023, that I had more to say. You can also find this comic on my website, and I have PDF copies available on etsy. I may sell print copies at some point in the future.

instagram / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my book / redbubble

Full transcript below the cut.

PAGE 1

Part one: Ruddy Owls!

I was in fourth grade when the first Harry Potter Book was released in the US.

Panel 1: Sometimes our teacher would read it aloud in class. “Mr and Mrs Dursley of number 4 Privat Drive were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much…”

Panel 2: I was 11 years old when Harry Potter finally broke through my dyslexia and turned me into a reader.

Panel 3: Every night in the summer before sixth grade I waited for the owl carrying my Hogwarts Letter. I cried when it didn’t come. “I have to go to Muggle school!”

PAGE 2

Part Two: Hats

I dedicated myself to being a fan.

Panel 1: I began collecting Harry Potter News article.

Panel 2: I asked my relatives to mail me ones from their local papers. I filled a thick binder with clippings.

Panel 3: I wrote my own trivia quiz

Panel 4: and participated in the one held annually at the county fair. “Next contestant!”

Panel 5: I usually got into one of. the top five spots. I won boxes of candy, posters, stationary, and once a baseball cap. (Hat reads: I survived the battle of Hogwarts).

Panel 6: In high school I sewed a black velvet cape and knitted many stripped scarves.

PAGE 3

Part Three: Double Trouble

Watching the last film in 2011 felt like the final note of my childhood.

Panel 1: I remember driving home from the midnight showing thinking about the end of 13 years of waiting; wondering what would define the next chapter of my life.

Panel 2: That same month I heard of something called Pottermore. “Okay, so there’s a sorting quiz… I already know my house! Patronus assignment? Mine’s a barn owl. Duh!"

Panel 3: You can read the books again but with GIFs? Why?

Panel 4: I lived in a place with very slow and limited internet at the time. Pottermore sounded inaccessible, but also boring. I never joined.

Panel 5: "I’ll just read the actual books again, thanks."

PAGE 4

Part Four: Sweets

In 2016, a series of short stories titled "History of Magic in North America” were released on Pottermore to pave the way for the first Fantastic Beasts Film. These stories display an extreme ignorance of American history, culture, and geography, but the worst parts are the casual misuse of indigenous beliefs and stories. Fans and critics immediately spoke up against this appropriation. Some of the most quoted voices included Nambe Pueblo scholar Dr. Debbie Reese who runs the site “American Indians In Children’s Literature”; Navajo writer Brian Young; Johnnie Jae (Otoe-Missouria and Choctaw), founder of A Tribe Called Geek; Dr Adrienne Keene (Cherokee Nation), a Professor at Brown University who runs the blog “Native Appropriations”, and writers N.K. Jemison and Paula Young Lee.

PAGE 5

Rowling is famous for responding to fans directly on twitter, yet she did not respond to anyone calling out the damaging aspects of “Magic in North America.” Her representatives refused to comment for March 9 2016 article in the Guardian. She has never apologized. All of this, plus the casting of Johnny Depp and the specific declarations of support by JKR, Warner Brothers, and director David Yates left a sour taste in my mouth.

For further thoughts on the new films read The Crimes of Grindelwald is a Mess by Alanna Bennett for Buzzfeed News, November 16, 2018.

PAGE 6

Excerpt from Colonialism in Wizarding American: JK Rowling’s History of Magic in North America Through an Indigenous Lens by Allison Mills, MFA, MAS/MLIS (Cree and Settler French Canadian)

Although Rowling is certainly not the first white author to misstep in her treatment of Indigenous cultures, she has an unprecedented level of visibility and fame, […] One of the most glaring problems with Rowling’s story is her treatment of the many Indigenous nations in North America as one monolithic group. […It] flattens out the diversity of languages, belief systems, and cultures that exist in Indigenous communities, allowing stereotyping to persist. […] It continues a long history of colonial texts which ignore that Indigenous peoples still exist. […] In the Wizarding world, as in the real world, Indigenous histories have been over-written and our cultures erased.

from The Looking Glass: New Perspectives in Children’s Literature Volumn 19, Issue 1

PAGE 7

Part 5: Music

Panel 1: Also in 2016 I discovered two podcasts which radically altered my experience of being an HP fan. The first was Witch Please created by two Canadian feminist literary scholars Hannah McGregor and Marcelle Kosman.

Panel 2: “If it’s not in the text it doesn’t count!” “Close reading ONLY!”

Panel 3: They talk about Harry Potter at the level you’d expect in a college class with particular focus on gender, race, class, and the troubling fatphobia, fear of othered and queer coded bodies, violence against women, white feminism, gaslighting and failed pedagogy in the books. They bring up these issues not because they hate the series, but because they LOVE it.

PAGE 8

These passionate, joyful conversations went off like fireworks in my mind. I had never taken a feminist class before. I gained a whole new vocabulary to talk about the books- and the world.

PAGE 9

Panel 1: The second podcast I started that year was Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, created by two graduates of the Harvard Divinity School, Vanessa Zoltan and Casper Ter Kuile.

Panel 2: They read one chapter per episode through a theme such as love, control, curiosity, shame, responsibility, hospitality, destruction, or mystery. Like Witch Please, they are interested only in the information on the page, not thoughts from the author. The delights and failures of the text are examined in the context of the present day, and new meanings constantly arise.

PAGE 10

What does it mean to treat a text as sacred?

Trusting that the more time we give to it, the more blessings it has to give us.

Reading the text repeatedly with concentrated attention. Our effort is part of what makes it sacred. The text is not in and of itself sacred, but is made so by rigorously engaging in the ritual of reading.

Experiencing it in community.

“To me, the goal of treating the text as sacred is that we learn to treat each other as sacred.” -Vanessa Zoltan

PAGE 11

Part 6: Tooth and Claw

In October 2017, Rowling liked a tweet linking to an article arguing that trans women should be kept out of women’s bathrooms because of cisgender women’s fears. In March 2018, she liked a tweet about the problem of misogyny in the UK Labour Party which included the line “Men in dresses get brosocialist solidarity I never had.” The author of the tweet had previously posted many blatantly anti-trans statements.

Rowlings publicist claimed she had liked the posted by accident in a “clumsy and middle-aged moment.” Yet, in September 2018 she liked a link posted by Janice Turner to her column in the Times UK titled “Trans Rapists Are A Danger In Women’s Jails.”

Screencaps of these tweets can be found in the article “The Mysterious Case of JK Rowling and her Transphobic Twitter History”, January 10 2019 by Gwendolyn Smith (a trans journalist), LGBTQNation.com

PAGE 12

Excerpt from: Is JK Rowling Transphobic? A Trans Woman Investigates by Katelyn Burns

Ultimately, the answer is yes, she is transphobic […] I think it’s fair that she receives criticism from trans people, especially given her advocacy on behalf of queer people in general, but also because she has a huge platform. Many people look up to her for creating a singular piece of popular culture that holds deep meaning for fans from different walks of life, and she has a responsibility to handle that platform wisely. (Published on them.us March 28, 2018)

PAGE 13

Part 7: Home

At age 30, I’m still not over Harry Potter.

Panel 1: I’ve recently found a local bar that does HP trivia nights. “Poppy or Pomona?” “Poppy!”

Panel 2: I currently own an annual pass to Universal Studios so I can visit Hogsmeade.

Panel 3: I love talking to kids who are reading the books for the first time. “Who’s your favorite character?” “Ginny!”

Panel 4: And I’m planning a relisten to the audio books to next year to help me get through the election cycle. “Jim Dale, I’m going to need you more than ever…”

Spoiler from 2023: I did not do this. By mid-2020 JKR had posted her transphobic essay; we were in covid; I never visited Universal Studios again.

PAGE 14

But I do want to learn from her mistakes. I never want to repeat “Magic in North America.” As I write, I will do my research. I will consult experts and compensate them. If a reader from a different culture/background than me speaks up about my work, I will listen and apologize. I KNOW I WILL MAKE MISTAKES. But I will own up to them and I will do better.

PAGE 15

Excerpt from Diversity Is Not Enough: Race, Power and Publishing by Daniel José Older

We can love a thing and still critique it. In fact, that’s the only way to really love a thing. Let’s be critical lovers and loving critics and open ourselves to the truth about where we are and where we’ve been. Instead of holding tight to the same old, failed patriarchies, let’s walk a new road, speak new languages. Today, let’s imagine a literature, a literary world, that carries this struggle for equity in its very essence, so that tomorrow it can cease to be necessary, and disappear. (Buzzfeed, April 14, 2017)

PAGE 16

Harry Potter is flawed, & JK Rowling is problematic. But the books helped me learn a lot:

*One of the greatest dangers facing the modern world is the rise of fascism

*The government cannot be trusted

*Read and think critically

*Question the news: who paid the journalist? Who owns the paper?

*Trust and support your friends through good times and bad

*Organize for resistance

*Educate and share resources with peers

*The revolution must be diverse and intersectional

* We are only as strong as we are united

*The weapon we have is love

MK 2019

PAGE 17

PART 8: EPILOGUE

In 2021 I removed a Harry Potter patch I sewed to my book bag over a decade ago. I took 15 pieces of Harry Potter fanart off my walls. I got rid of my paperback book set, 2 board games, and 8 t-shirt. [images: a Hogwarts a patch with loose threads, a pair of scissors and a seam ripper]

Panel 1: Maia holding up a shirt with the Deathly Hallows logo on it. Maia thinks: “Damn, this really used to be my entire personality.”

Panel 2: The t-shirt gets thrown into the Goodwill box.

PAGE 18

I wrote my zine wrestling with JKR’s legacy in 2019, after her dismissive and racist reaction to indigenous fans and critics of “Magic in North America” and after she had liked a couple transphobic tweets. Since then, she has gotten so much worse.

A Brief Timeline (mostly from this Vox article)

June 2020- JKR posts a 3600 word essay making her anti-trans position clear

August 2020- The Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Org issues a statement about her transphobia, JKR doubles down on her position and returns an award they gave her

December 2020- JKR claims 90% of HP fans secretly agree with her anti-trans views

December 2021- JKR mocks Scottish Police for recognizing transgender identities

March 2022- JKR criticizes gender-inclusive language and legislation

December 2022- JKR retweets trans youtuber Jessie Earl’s critical review of Hogwarts Legacy, starting an onslaught of transphobic harassment towards Earl

December 2022- JKR removes her support from an Edinburgh center for survivors of sexual violence with a trans-inclusive policy and funds her own center which explicitly excludes trans sexual assault survivors

January 2023- JKR tweets “Deeply amused by those telling me I’ve lost their admiration due to disrespect I show violent, duplicitous rapists.” It got nearly 300K likes

March 2023- One the podcast “The Witch Trials of JK Rowling”, hosted by a former Westboro Baptist Church Member, JKR compares the trans rights movement to Death Eaters.

PAGE 19

What are The Witch Trials of JK Rowling?

Panel 1: Maia speaking. “It’s a 7 episode documentary style podcast hosted by Megan Phelps-Roper. Nearly every episode contains interviews with JKR as well as critics, journalists, historians, protestors and fans.

Panel 2: Maia speaking. “In episode 1, JKR speaks more candidly than she has previously about being in an abusive marriage. Her ex-husband hit her, stalked her, broke into her house overlapping with the time she was writing the first three HP books.”

Panel 3: Maia speaking. “What she went through genuinely sounds horrific. I have a lot of sympathy for the kind of life-long traumas those experiences leave.”

PAGE 20

HOWEVER.

It is clear from reading the June 2020 essay on her blog and listening to the podcast, that JKR still to this day feels unsafe. Despite her wealth and privilege she moves through the world with the mindset of a victim. And the group of people she finds most threatening are trans women.

Or rather, she is afraid that allowing trans women in women’s spaces invites the possibility of male predators entering those spaces.

Here’s a direct quote: The problem is male violence. All a predator wants is access and to open the doors of changing rooms, rape centers, domestic violence centers [...] to any male who says “I’m a woman and I have a right to be here” will constitute a risk to women and girls. - from The Witch Trials episode 4 as transcribed by therowlinglibrary.com, March 2023

Image: A stem of Belladonna with flowers and berries.

PAGE 21

Let me introduce here the term: TRANSMISOGYNY. The intersection of transphobia and misogyny, this term was coined by Julia Serano in 2007. Scout Tran, on tiktok as Queersneverdie said: “Transmisogyny occurs in people who have been previously hurt by traditional misogyny. Who have been driven to hate men or at the very least to be scared of men. They will sometimes take out that rage on trans women. (March 2023)

JKR claims to care for trans women and understand they are extremely vulnerable to assault and violence. In her 2020 Essay she wrote: “I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe.”

So she cares about trans women… just less than cis women, and she’s willing to throw all trans women under the bus because of her unfounded, prejudice fears.

PAGE 22

Panel 1: Maia speaking. “JKR claims to have seen data that proves trans women have presented physical threats to other women in intimate spaces, but never cites sources. She also uses “producer of the large gametes” as a definition of “woman”.

What about transmen and nonbinary folks?

Panel 2: Maia leaning on a stack of all seven HP books, the first four Cormorant Strike books and The Casual Vacancy, gesturing to a series of quotes with a tired and disgusted expression.

I’m concerned about the huge explosion of young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning. * [...] If I’d been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition. The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge. -June 10 2020 essay

I don’t believe a 14 year old can truly understand what the loss of their fertility is.

-Witch Trials episode 4

I haven’t yet found a study that hasn’t found that the majority of young people experiencing gender dysphoria grow out of it*. -Witch Trials episode 7

*No sources cited

PAGE 23

It’s hard to over emphasize how fixated JKR has become on these topics. As of the date I’m writing this, 14 out of her 20 most recent tweets (70%) are in some way anti-trans. She tweets against Mermaids (a UK based trans youth charity), against trans athletes, against gender neutral bathrooms, and in support of LBG Alliance- a UK org that denies trans rights while upholding gay rights. Here are some gems from her archive:

“People who menstruate.” I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud? -June 2020

War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. The Penised Individual Who Raped You Is a Woman. - December 2021

And in response to someone asking “How do you sleep at night knowing you lost a whole audience?”

I read my most recent royalty cheques and find the pain goes away pretty quickly. -October 2022

PAGE 24

Hashtag Ruthless Productions a queer nerd podcast company created a great guide on ethical engagement with HP. Image: the two hosts of Hashtag Ruthless productions, Jessie (They/she) and Lark (he/him).

Stop buying all official HP Products: books, movies, games, toys, etc, Universal Studios tickets, food, merch.* Boycott any new TV series or movies. Instead: buy the books and DVDs used. If you still want to wear HP merch, buy fan-made. Engage only with fan content: fic, podcasts, fanart, wizard rock, etc. Show transphobia is bad for business. None of this will change JKR’s mind. But the Fantastic Beast series was canceled and after record Pottermore sales in 2020, they fell in 2022 by 40%.

*She gets a portion of ALL tickets. In 2019, this was her largest income source. Read the full guide: hashtagruthless.com/resourceguide

PAGE 25

As late as 2019, I was still reading JKR’s murder mystery series. But by the fourth book my experience began to sour.

Panel 1: Maia holding a copy of Lethal White. “The only gay character in this book is a government official who gropes his staff?”

Panel 2: “The only genderqueer character is misgendered and portrayed as a whiny faker?”

Panel 3: “The only Muslim character is disowned by his family over gay rumors?”

Panel 4: “Even the women aren’t portrayed very well…”

Panel 5: “Why is the main female character defined by the rape in her past?”

Panel 6: “Wait, what happens in the rest of this series…?” Maia scrolls on eir phone.

Panel 7: “Is the series heading towards an employee/boss relationship?”

Panel 8: “And has a man wearing women’s clothes to commit assault?”

Panel 9: “Yeah, I’m done. I’m never reading a new JKR book ever again.”

PAGE 26

And as for JKR herself?

As tempting as it might be to tweet your frustrations at her, I don’t recommend it. In 2021, she tweeted, “Hundreds of trans activists have threatened to beat, rape, assassinate and bomb me.” Getting hate online feeds her sense of victimhood and she waves it as proof of her moral high ground. Instead I suggest you block her on twitter, then delete twitter, go to the library and try to find a new book that feels magical.

Stack of books: In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan, The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, Gifts by Ursula K Le Guin, Deep Wizardry by Diane Duane, A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik and Gideon the Ninth by Tamsin Muir.

PAGE 27

In “Emergent Strategy” adrienne maree brown writes: You do not have the right to traumatize abusive people, to attack them, personally or publicly, or to sabotage anyone else’s health. The behaviors of abuse are also survival-based, learned behaviors rooted in pain. If you can look through the lens of compassion, you will find hurt and trauma there. If you are the abused party, healing that hurt is not your responsibility and exacerbating that pain is not your justified right.

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Seeing anyone over age 12 wearing HP merch now makes me uncomfortable. Are they ignorant or actively a TERF? I hate wondering how much money JKR has probably poured into anti-trans legislation… This zine is a culmination of my slow breakup with a story that once brought me joy. Now it just makes me angry, tired and sad.

Image: Candle in a fancy holder burned down to less than an inch.

Maia Kobabe, 2023

#harry potter #harry potter and the problematic author #jk rowling #transphobia #jk rowling transphobic

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see-arcane · 21 days

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Our good friend Jonathan Harker is getting ready to leave for his business trip, Mina Murray is picking out a new journal, Lucy Westenra is charming a gaggle of smitten suitors, Abraham van Helsing is wrapping up his lectures, and Castle Dracula is prepping the guest room for a very long stay.

Which must mean that Dracula Season is here again!

‘Dracula Season’ being a catchall term for the voracious reading, memeing, writing, illustrating, analyzing, and general fun-having that’s ensued since Matt Kirkland’s project, Dracula Daily, caught on with us back in 2022. The Substack had already been running before then, but it sparked a conflagration as time went on and readers old and new to Bram Stoker’s Dracula—the actual novel, not Coppola’s fanfiction—devoured it in a way that scratched an itch none of us knew we had. Stoker wrote the book in epistolary fashion, clumping sections together as needed for the pacing without perfect adherence to chronological order. Matt went ahead and put all the events in order and proceeded to set up a lovely chain of emails that delivered entries on those correlating dates.

This style of organization and pacing turned out to not only make the virtual book club that much easier to engage with, but left space in-between to stew on the story and relate with the characters themselves. Every day of waiting in the book feels weightier when you have to pace and sweat and worry in tandem with poor Jonathan trapped in the castle or Lucy wasting away or Mina running out the clock before she loses the fight for her own humanity. And while we sat with the story or the lulls between Dracula Seasons, some of us found ourselves craving more of that ghastly gothic horror goodness to the point that we figured:

“Well. Why don’t I make something?”

And then we did! Tons of creative works have been churned out in the wake of Dracula Daily’s high. I figured that while we’ve still got a bit of time to wait for May 3rd, we should check out all this new stuff in the meantime. (Plus a handful of neat stuff that just clicks with the Dracula itch overall.)

So, in the interest of Dracula Season pregaming, let’s take a look at…

FICTION

Blood of My Blood – A recent addition to the Dracula Bad Ending AU pile, and definitely one of the most harrowing and addictive group-produced narratives I’ve ever come across, Blood of My Blood is the dramatically gothic currently-WIP work of @ibrithir-was-here and @animate-mush’s devious design. Give or take a heap of other fascinated folks (hello!) adding ideas to put more Horror into the Horrors that our cast has to face. The premise:

The Transylvanian climax went fatally sour and the Harkers were forced to shelter with Dracula himself, including their half-vampire son, Quincey. Cut to two decades later, and Quincey finds himself out in modern London, smitten with Lu, adopted daughter of Arthur and Jack, and diving into certain bloodstained old documents that detail the real history of how his parents came to live in the castle. Said revelations coming not a moment too soon, as a storm is coming for him straight from the Carpathians…

Dracula Daily Sketch Collection – An array of illustrations that captures every entry beat by beat, the Dracula Daily Sketch Collection by Georgia Cook, alias @georgiacooked was dished out over the course of the last Dracula Season. Some of the most fun character designs out there.

Fanfiction Spotlight: BlueCatWriter – With a whopping 99 works devoted to the novel Dracula (so far, the number may have gone up since I blinked), @bluecatwriter is one of the most prolific and talented fanfiction scribblers out there. Romances, nightmares, and overlaps between the two seem to crop up the most, give or take a crossover. Seems fitting that those blue paw prints have contributed to BoMB too.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlefolk – An ongoing comic in which all your favorite characters from the Classics section get together and tackle some perils ranging from the mundane to the monstrous. Started by the amazing @mayhemchicken and posted on @lxgentlefolkcomic, this series is a love letter to beloved Victorian era lit, with a spotlight on the two couples leading the League. Namely, the Harkers, ala Dracula, and the Nortons, ala Sherlock Holmes,’ “A Scandal in Bohemia.” Mina and Irene are the driving investigative and steering forces here, and still deeply in love with their likewise-infatuated husbands, just like in their canons! What a concept! Alan.

Without spoiling the full character list, just know there are going to be a ton of familiar faces roaming around before you finish reading the first arc. Said arc having conveniently wrapped up just a few days ago! Give the comic and its bonus silliness a look if you’re in the mood for a new comfort-adventure epic.

Re: Dracula – Probably the most well-known and incredible thing to come out of the initial Dracula Daily wave. This podcast is a full audio drama that follows the same format as the Substack, with episodes coming out in time with the entries themselves. And it has an unfairly cool soundtrack. They have a Tumblr with @re-dracula, a site and a Patreon to check out before the series kicks up again on May 3rd. (Also, keep an eye out for their next work, an audio drama in the same style with Carmilla.)

The Soldier and the Solicitor – Another treat from @ibrithir-was-here, this one involves a bit of time travel trouble. Quincey Harker has stumbled out of World War I and into the same dark forest where his father once fled for his life…then runs into the man himself, on that same night. Jonathan Harker, young and starved and lost, who has no choice but to trust this stranger while the Weird Sisters are at his heels…despite said stranger having no shadow. It’s a tasty emotional trek, already complete on Tumblr, but now it’s turning into a Webtoon. While Ibrithir is juggling a number of other stories, she’ll be redrawing spruced up versions of the comic and adding a few new scenes as things unfold.

Substack Stack – You know what’s better than one emailed-out public domain book club? A mountain of them. Just. So, so many of them. You’ll see that a lot of these are finished, but some are still ticking along. Either way, they’re all great picks if you’re craving some more old school lit to fill the void between undead emails.

Frankenstein Weekly – Frankenstein

Jekyll and Hyde Weekly – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Voyage of the Nautilus – Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Letters from Watson – Sherlock Holmes

The Invisible Mail – The Invisible Man

Letters from Bunny – E.W. Hornung’s short stories of the eponymous Bunny and Raffles

Letters Regarding Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster short stories, including the novel, Right Ho, Jeeves

…

……

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…The Beetle Weekly – The Beetle (NOTE: Do Not Read This.)

The Vampyres – A novella I finally wrenched through the gears of self-publication as of March this year. Starring a petite but powerful paranormal cast, The Vampyres, centers on an unscrupulous undead fellow who finds that the revenants of the world are being mowed down by an entity known only as ‘Quinn Morse.’ Between trying to save his neck and figure out where the shadowy bastard came from, the Vampyre in question crosses paths with a new paramour and handy human shield in the form of a grieving Good Samaritan. He’s even polite enough to invite the Vampyre into his home while he’s in dire straits! Surely this will end well. All the info is available here and a little author site is over here.

What Manner of Man – This is the one made for everyone who started out hoping there’d be a real love story with our good friend Jonathan Harker and the Count when he was at his most charismatic. Where that sea of wonders dried up into a mire of horror, What Manner of Man by @stjohnstarling keeps things firmly on the romantic tracks. This Substack stars the letter-writing priest Father Victor E. Ardelian as he finds himself meeting with one enigmatic Lord Alistair Vane. It isn’t long before interest turns into intrigue and intrigue into undead intimacies.

The entire novel has been completed—along with multiple epilogues in the author’s Patreon, allowing readers to choose for themselves just how the uncanny romance plays out in the end—and the Substack now has a number of other gothic goodies piling up in the meantime.

NONFICTION

Dracula Daily: A Unique Reading Experience: This one comes courtesy of @realwomenofgaming. It’s a short and sweet piece that amounts to a fun snapshot of the entire Dracula Daily ride. A cozy couple-minute read.

‘Dracula Daily’ is the One Substack You Need a Subscription To: Features my favorite Matt Kirkland interview. @mattkirkland, if you’re still floating around on here, thank you for dispatching our vampire newsletter again this year.

Dracula Daily is Tumblr’s hottest new book club: Alright, the ‘new’ part is worn out by now, but this one is still a delightful article to swing back around to. Two years on, this Polygon piece is a time capsule of those early months when people outside our bookworm bubble realized we were all happily receiving letters from our favorite classic gothic horror blorbos.

“How Mina Murray Became Dracula’s Girlfriend” – Princess Weekes, if you ever read this, thank you, thank you, thank you. I am sending oceans of love and millions of rewatches to your video essay. If you haven’t seen it yet, “How Mina Murray Became Dracula’s Girlfriend” is one of the most refreshing and well-made breakdowns of both the title subject and numerous other issues that have proliferated in the public view of Dracula’s cast and plot as adaptations endlessly warp or outright bastardize the actual novel. An incredibly cathartic watch.

Literary play gone viral: delight, intertextuality, and challenges to normative interpretations through the digital serialization of Dracula: A mouthful of a title for an even more elaborate article about the Dracula Daily phenomenon. This one is a full-on study that analyzes just what happened within the big bloodsucker book club surge and how its ‘wandering reading practices’ enriched the experience for participants.

“The Undying Undead: An analysis of the Dracula Daily community for a theory of online community formation and interaction” – We have a thesis on here! Look at that! @sirangelothebestest’s MA thesis used our vampiric book club as the bones for a massive brick of an academic piece that definitely deserves a look.

…And I think I’ll go ahead and cap things here.

This isn’t everything I got recommended, but if I had squashed all of it in here, I think folks’ eyes would start to fall out of their head. I hope you can find something cool to comb through here. Or, if there’s something great I overlooked, tack it onto the list! We’ve got just two weeks to go until we’re off with Mr. Harker. Let’s enjoy our respite before those castle doors close behind us.

#time for Dracula Season pre-gaming :3 #thank you to everyone who sent in their suggestions!#dracula #dracula daily #re: dracula

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