#and everyone is trans because fuck jkr

[nehpihcs]

sirius knows that pink is punk

[disconnected-dragon]

yknow I really didn't think it was possible to make me angrier at JK Rowling but then I found out she wrote a book abt an autistic person being sucked into a cult (that's totally not an analogy for trans people what you talking abt) because they just can't possibly know what's good for them, they need their fathers to come and hire private investigators to get them out of a cult. And in the book autistic people are referred to by the r slur and called "a bit simple".

I didn't think it was possible for me to hate this paternalistic, honeyed head-patting, self-righteous, hate-driven HAG of a woman more than I did but fuck me here we are.

[ryn-holt]

Me Seeing a Video about new Cozy Games: Fuck yeah I’m always on the lookout for new games that aren’t already on my radar

Stupid Fucking Asshole: And then there’s Hog-

Me: Fuck all the way off to hell motherfucker

[doppelnatur]

Mutuals may reblog

I've been listening to Rite Gud and like they keep talking about how everything is seen very moralistically and in one dimensional ways and it's made me think about. Do y'all remember when everyone decided that gender swap was a transphobic trope???? As if that isn't the most transgender shit??

[so-3i3]

Being online recently has just been like there's a constant siren right in front of your face blaring 'TRANS ACCEPTANCE IS NOT THE NORM' :|

[bunni-bun]

🪄

[ineffectualdemon]

What I got from the Hbomberguy video and from Todd in the Shadows video beyond that James Somerton is a liar and plagerist and misinformation and plagerism are rampant on YouTube and need badly to be cracked down on is that James Somerton is also:

Really weird and kinda racist about Asian people. Neither Hbomberguy or Todd said this but that's what I felt listening to his own words and seeing his facial expressions

Very misogynistic. Especially against straight white women but he also isn't afraid to shit on queer women

Except he also wants to crawl up JKR's ass and make everyone believe she used to be a really good ally to trans people (no she never was???? What the fuck)

He knows nothing about the politics of attaining gay marriage and what it meant in the 90s nor why not wanting to be murdered or lose your job if you were outed while in the military might be important to some people and in general this topic is infuriating

He really really thought the Nazis were hot and gayer than they were which is uh, kinda a red flag my guy

I'm that fry meme about his transphobia. I don't know if he hates all trans people or just non-binary people and/or trans men. But I doubt he's nice about trans women either. I just don't have any evidence because I am not watching that man's videos

His line delivery is shit full of weird pauses. I don't think he bothers to even pre read or practice the shit he steals

[decolonize-the-left]

I've noticed a rise in radfems/TERFs in feminism tags and more specifically trying to rebrand as The Real Feminism or True Feminism since it's "for the girlies" or whatever.

I am begging you all to help me bury them.

Because as a teen who grew up during the peak of exclusionary "bi/pan/aces aren't vaild" and "kill all men" era where the concept of misandry THRIVED I'm telling you this feels extremely similar.

And radfem/terf ideology got mainstream from those sentiments being so popular and so easy to tap into. It was framed as being righteous since men were oppressors.

"Women are good and men are just mean oppressors! Look at everything they've done!" is such a common sentiment in those circles.

It also completely lacks critical feminist thought.

And we're STILL dealing with the affects of it over a decade later.

.....So let's talk about JKR since she's currently the Figurehead and favorite of the movement that's trying to rewrite feminist history.

It's 2023. It's a year before a US election where Project 2025 and Trump would happily create a road for trans and queer folks to be imprisoned if not worse.

Which is I'm sure why JKR has been photographed and interacting with multiple members from The Heritage Foundation, people whove spoken for them, and people who attended theyre meetings. She even enjoyed watching Magdalen, who who she credits for becoming a TERF.

But do you know who Magdalen is? Or what else she was saying? What about any of the other people in the photo? Do you know the scope of what JKR was internalizing and how bad it was? Do you know she has ties to conservative anti-abortion groups?

Do you know what The Heritage Foundation? Probably not and they're the worst so let me tell you why it's such a huge red flag for her and other so-called TERFs and radfems to be associated with them.

Because I can tell you right now she heard a lot of things from those people and there is no fucking way in hell that it was just about queer people or just some sex-specific concerns. And it wasn't just passive bigotry.

Anyone who doesn't conform to the idea of a white, straight nuclear family (re: single mothers, leftists, immigrants, gay couples, etc) is made out to be an enemy of the state.

Anyone they can justify as a "national threat." Yes, they call us all a national threat on their site, their book, and the pamphlets they pass out to politicians. The details are listed on their website including the Mandate For Leadership which is their instruction guide for the next president.

I'm not exaggerating when I say it calls for genocide, prison camps, and eugenic cleansing.

Several people in that photo don't even support abortion, a basic women's rights that JKR claims to care about deeply.

JKR was consuming white supremacist dogma under the guise of feminism.

And she's not willing to admit or correct it which is where the problem lies. She won't even admit to herself that she was fooled or that it's bad or hypocritical.

My concern is that she is not the only person who's fallen for it and there are more everyday.

So it's very important to me y'all learn how to filter out what Actual Feminism is in this age where literal fascism is attempting to take its place.

Firstly,

Real, actual feminism will be welcoming to EVERYONE

Because the patriarchy doesn't only affect women or cis people or white women and it's an insult to every previous feminist icon to say otherwise.

Feminists have been fighting for decades to unite people under the concept that Patriarchy is a system that will be brought down with allyship and solidarity.

They've been fighting so hard and so long to prove that everyone deserves the same rights as men.

That women are just as capable as men and shouldn't be stopped from entering fields of study and sports dominated by men. They've been fighting to prove that women are just as capable and smart as any man is, that men would benefit from it dismantling patriarchy too.

Women fought side by side with the queer community to get Roe v Wade passed in 1973. You know why? Because despite what radfems and TERFs will tell you trans women benefit from protecting and standing up for bodily autonomy.

Do not let bigots tear drive a wedge between two groups that experience gender based oppression and would benefit from the same exact rights.

We have changed history together and they're terrified we'll do it again.

A screenshot from the largest feminist organization active right now, The National Organization of Women.

Notice how the T is included. They even posted this video two years ago when LGBT and specifically trans rights started really coming under attack in 2022.

Trans women are women.

Trans men are men.

ALL women deserve rights.

Every gender deserves equality and fairness.

And feminism is for all of us or it is for none of us.

Because nobody deserves to be treated the way patriarchy treats us.

[finnslay]

Happy trans visibility day!!!

[flaming-brown-witch]

i'm prolly going to get a lot of shit for this but here goes anyway: to everyone who is side-eyeing the hp fandom or trying to convince us to jump ship, i'm begging you to leave us alone and let us enjoy what's left of this fandom in peace.

the fandom is not the creator and neither is the art she created. this is no more apparent than in how the OVERWHELMING majority of the hp fandom denounces jkr and activities that line her pockets. and we're like this precisely because of the morals she reinforced within us through the series (the greatest irony of it all).

i am a proud trans person and the hp fandom is the ONLY space in my life where i'm able to fully embrace my trans creative self. it's full of the funniest, nicest, cleverest, most creative people i've ever encountered in my 32 years. through our fan works, we are queering and transing the fuck out of the series and engaging in other creative acts that foster the best of what the series has to offer: tolerance, love, resistance, and inclusivity. our continued engagement with the hp narrative and how we're making it our own is, in fact, the best form of resistance.

so when you ask us to give up the hp fandom, please understand that you're asking us to give up something that goes way beyond jkr. you're asking us to give up a profound source of our creativity. you're asking us to give up something that's etched deeply within our psyche. you're asking us to give up our people.

[nehpihcs]

let’s just pretend they lived happily ever after

[anti-terf-posts]

TERFs tell on themselves so much when they defend JKR because they leave out all the ACTUAL things people are mad about and straw man the fuck out of arguments (which if you actually look into her she's fucking vile.) and then act like because she HAS done good things that automatically absolves her of any guilt.

But I bet you MONEY that if a trans person did all the nice things she did most of them would STILL shit on them.

And I think it kinda just shows how bad faith and dishonest they are and they aren't worth taking seriously online.

They also act like leftists only hate her bc she's a woman and they wouldn't hate a man for the same/worse things when uh.. Dude that is literally not true. I could make a fucking BOOK of men who have gotten ""cancelled"" over less. And that also pisses me off because claiming everyone you don't like hates women waters down anti woman and anti female sexiam and makes it look like a joke when people are literally dying over it and THIS is what these people are concerned about?

The whole thing is a self report lol.

NO FR hating an antisemite/racist is NOT the same as hating her for being a woman 😭

[jax-yacks]

I admit when I was dipping my toe into the Harry Potter fandom (outside of answering a couple rp ads), I was afraid I would have to dig through the TERFs to find anything good. I have shinigami eyes and I made sure to wait until I was on desktop so I could use it, while also checking out blogs on my own in case any were sneaky or hadn't been flagged yet

But I've found a community of queer people, including other trans people, who reject and criticize jkr -- many who have been critical of her for years before she became so mask off on Twitter, taking these characters and this setting and writing fic making it all queer. As they always have been.

Not to say there are no TERFs in the fandom of course, but they're not the forefront of the actual creation and discussion, the things that keep fandom going

I'm listening to some Harry Potter analysis podcasts again, at least two of them hosted by queer people (including trans), and while they started before the major signaling began, one that started in 2019 actively discusses how JKR is starting to show some bad signs (outside of what's just shown in the books) and how this podcast is being used in part as an exploration about how they still feel about the series because of this. Another podcast wrote a whole guide to how to ethically engage with the fandom while not supporting JKR, though they have since moved away from discussing her or HP at all

I will never hold it against fans who feel too betrayed by JKR to continue engaging with HP. Everyone has different reactions to what has happened, and I hope they're able to move on and enjoy the stories of the many many queer creators and allies who have stepped up to condemn JKR and offer more welcoming spaces

But I am also forever grateful to the other queer HP fans I've found who said "fuck this; my fandom now," many of whom have honestly been saying this since the main series ended.

Now that I'm on a new account without the blocklist I spent over a decade building up, I imagine I'm going to have to be more careful than I was before. But I know other queer HP fans are out there, and we're watching each other's backs, making sure the fandom stays a safe place for us

[theliterarywolf]

the conversation around the newest Harry Potter game is super intense

so like, I can understand and respect people who feel passionate about boycotting the game/series the general but there are some loud voices throwing around death threats and getting absolutely vicious about anyone who plays the game (and also people taking that opportunity to be nasty/make death threats about trans people)

it's fair to explain why you think people should boycott. . .yes it can be frustrating when you're concerned about a cause and it seems like people don't care but some people are focusing their anger on not very effective methods

some people really might not be the most up to date on what J. K. Rowling is up to, yes there may be people "sea lion-ing"/asking for proof in bad faith BUT you still do need to have your argument clearly stated somewhere

And my position: J. K. Rowling definitely seems to promote some hurtful ideology I don't agree with, but I respect those promoting charities/organizations to help transgender people more than people making elaborate posts about how amazing they are as a person because they hate the video game/totally always hated Harry Potter/etc

So, to get this out of the way:

JKR is a shitty person. That is undeniable, particularly because she could have just shut the fuck up at ANY MOMENT and still retained some of her positive image. But, no. Instead we have a perfect example of 'don't double down'.

Okay? Okay. All of that being said:

I fucking HATE that the stupid wizard game turned into a matter of grandstanding morality.

Both on the people saying to not buy it so you're not supporting a TERF's platform and on the people who are gleefully buying the game to 'own the libs'.

Because! If everyone had just shut the fuck up, the game would have gone the way of the Fantastic Beast films: sure, they make a bit of money, but people start drifting away when they realize that there are other, better 'magical school stories' out there.

Am I going to buy the game? Fuck no. Am I going to attack any random joe for buying the game? Fuck no.

However, both sides of the argument immediately, IMMEDIATELY, lost when one made that 'HasTheStreamerPlayedHogwartsLegacy' tracker site and the other started harassing and '42%-ing' any trans people who expressed their discomfort about the situation.

[hussyknee]

do u really not see the difference btwn writing fanfic on the internet and buying a game whose storyline is actively being written by white supremacists and having the money go directly into the pocket of the most vocal & influential terf in the UK? that's not even touching all of the other racist and offensive bs in her series inc her antisemitism, appropriating first nations cultures, her asian racism, etc? i guess thats why you dont have 'antisemitics dni' on your blog

First, let me be clear – I do not give one single shit about Harry Potter. They are the best memories of my extremely shitty adolescence, I still read fanfic from time to time, but other than that, if I never hear the word "Harry Potter" again it will be too soon. I care about the fact that you clowns are

encouraging bullies and endangering mentally ill marginalized fans

leeching the air from leftist and queer discourse

fuelling a Western culture war that distracts from combating systemic transphobia

making suffering Black and brown communities, who mostly see white and Western trans people, think that trans people don't have any real problems beyond video games

Now, on to your ask:

I said never said not buying the game was the same as writing fanfic on the internet. I said that the furor over buying the game is leading to everyone who had anything to do with Harry Potter, including just writing fanfic, being bullied. I've had to unfollow so many people for reblogging posts attacking people for being in the *fandom*.

Asking people to refrain from doing something to prove that they care, especially demanding that they don't, has never in the history of activism worked. Black people have been speaking out against copaganda shows forever and STILL get harrassed. Indigenous people have been asking people to boycott Avatar and gotten nothing. Some people comply, but more do the thing simply out of contrarianism, and the entire issue becomes a culture war divided along political affiliation. People on the right go out of their way to do the thing, the people on the center and center-left won't really care, and people who identify as leftist divorce themselves even more from the rest of the left as being no better than the right, which eventually devastating results when it comes to actual elections and agitating for political change.

What works a lot better is harm reduction. Pirating is harm reduction, asking the HP fandom to offset JKR's fuckery by making their own merch, promoting indie games and donating to trans healthcare funds is harm reduction. People won't stand for being policed, but they like giving and also not paying for stuff with a clear conscience. You would have raised so much fucking money and promoted so many different things in all this time you've spent giving the game negative engagement clicks and keeping it trending on social media so long after its release.

You keep insisting that people shouldn't be fans because JKR equals her fandom with her own influence. This is called buying into the right-wing narrative. The woman is delusional (I can't think of a non-ableist word atm, and I honestly think that she's not all stable) and you're enabling her and her terf cult. We created the online HP fandom ourselves back in the aughts, before there was any merch, before movie rights were ever sold to WB, a full decade before her advertising machine ever woke up to the fact that an internet fandom existed. JKR has lost relevance for HP fans a long time ago; imagine the slap in the face for her if the fandom starts countering her bigotry by very prominently engaging in trans activism? The JKR terf cult in the HP fandom are a minority, like TERFs themselves (they're only so loud because the right-wing promotes the shit out of them). The vast majority of fans are just the kind of vaguely well-meaning cis people who don't agree with transphobes but are pretty ignorant about trans issues. And I do mean the vast majority, because literally a billion people grew up on her books and only a bare fraction is on social media at all, and even fewer even see the leftist drive to boycott the franchise.

Let's talk demographics. Because of the aforementioned vastness of consumers, the majority of HP fans are cis het, abled, neurotypical Millennials. Because of the way internet penetration works, the majority of HP fans online and even in fandom are white or Western. Leftist spaces mostly attract young and marginalized people, and transformative fandom is full of neurodivergent women and queer people. Which means the majority of people you're reaching are young queer neurodivergent people who have limited economic power themselves. And the people most vulnerable to and impacted by policing and harrassment are trans, Black and brown, Jewish, mentally ill, poor. Do you see the problem? You're policing the very bottom rungs of the socio-economic ladder on the off-chance of maybe influencing a privileged few who might give a damn.

This is literally why we say that boycotts, especially over social media, don't fucking work. Firstly because they penalize the most disenfranchised consumers, it's hard to reach enough people to even explain why they matter, it's hard to keep up with the constant discourse and changing information, and it relies entirely on performance. Someone can stay quiet or nod along furiously to whatever you're saying and then just...go out and buy the thing. Social censure doesn't work when you have the option of not having to face the consequences. Contrary to hellsite opinion, the Fantastic Beasts franchise died because it sucked, and Harry Potter is dying because it's fading from relevance and JKR is being an embarrassment. The wider market doesn't even know y'all exist.

As for the game being racist and antisemitic...you come on my blog, a South Asian who has been in fandom for twenty years, and try to tell me about racism in media???? NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF ALL MEDIA IS RACIST AND ANTISEMITIC YOU ABSOLUTE CLOWN. I'm from South Asia, our children grow up on books written by colonizers! LORD OF THE RINGS is white supremacy! NARNIA is white supremacy! Disney and Marvel is one of the biggest figures in US military industrial complex that razed the Middle East to the ground. It's so ubiquitous that we have to accept the racism and white supremacy as a matter of course to engage with any Western media! And even then fandom is so racist it's hard to even exist in it! We get run out of it when we try to talk about it. You suck on white supremacy every single day you live like it's your Mum's teat! Do you know what it's like to hear whiteys ranting that people who consume this one game they hate are being antisemitic and racist??? While still fawning??? Over cop shows???? And Disney???? And sending Black people??? Death threats??? Over a game???

I don't say "anti-Semites DNI" for the same reason I don't say "racists DNI". Nobody identifies as a racist or antisemite, that's not how systemic oppression works. Radfem and Zionist and Communist are political identities. Radical feminism is underpinned by transphobia and racism, Zionism is currently entrenched in Palestine occupation, Western communists refuse to acknowledge USSR and Global South genocides. See how that works?

Bitch, you didn't just come at me about JKR's indigenous cultural appropriation when I was among the few who were trying to discourage people from supporting Fantastic Beasts back in 2016 and literally got flamed for it. You people did not give a single shit about Natives back then, and you don't give one now. Just like you don't actually care about Jews and never did. I literally never heard about why and how openly alt-right people keep getting this kind of power and position in the gaming industry. Conversations about antisemitism in gaming and antisemitic tropes in entertainment haven't gotten this much traction. No wider revelations about how entertainment media directly funding and promoting social harms. But sure, it's about antisemitism and racism and has absolutely nothing to do with a mess of white queers realizing they can weaponize it like a cudgel against anyone they believe are against them. We know you whites. You care about excuses to take the moral high ground without having to do any self-interrogation or cost to yourself.

Finally, to give y'all one example of where the current discourse around this stupid shit is at:

Fuck you.

[soloorganaas]

what are your thoughts about sirius black and gender and class and trauma and toxic relationships and british homophobia and mental illness and kill the gays tropes and the suffocation of hope and found family

ALRIGHT DANI LETS GO

exec summary: JKR’s class anxiety is a big part of her bigotry and her punishment of characters who run away from her. it shapes a specific set of rules, which Sirius breaks in more ways than most other characters, and it draws out a hatred from JKR that leads her to punish him through her writing in painfully particular ways. that includes inflicting brutal tragedy on the heavily implied/coded queer relationship he has with remus, in a kill your gays trope that is peak 90s/00s. and so Sirius’s storyline overall becomes a morality lesson for queer/enby/neurodivergent kids that teaches them whatever love or found family they have will inevitably be destroyed - and they deserve it

~ spicy meta essay below the cut ~

JKR and class anxiety

class divides people in the UK to such an extreme extent its bizarre for people outside to conceptualise. like most of Europe we had centuries of strict class hierarchies, but ours never got entirely broken down because we never got rid of the royal family and aristocracy. class is such a strong form of division that we truly 'other' people from another class to us and generally avoid the excruciating ordeal of mixing with someone from a class different to us. this isn’t always the case - i know people reading this will feel differently - but it is predominant in the middle class

middle class in the UK is entirely different to the US. it's not at all about income, it's about identity markers that signal you are better, more well to-do, more refined than people of a lower class than you. the majority of the UK are working class, so the middle class work hard at the idea they're better than everybody. except, obviously, the upper class, who they will never be as good as under these rules, so instead they aggressively enforce them to try and cling onto power over those below them. think white Republican women

the middle class enforce this generally through keeping everyone and everything in a nice and tidy box. a good education, a respectable job, a large (but not extravagant! that would be chavvy) house, nice (but not flashy! also chavvy) cars, modest and neat clothes that don't draw too much attention, excruciating and often fake politeness. the most important thing in being middle class is not drawing attention to yourself. if you're loud, if your appearance is out of the norm, if you're queer or trans, if you're disabled, if you're neurodivergent, then god help you. you will be abused and shunned (i'm not joking, this happened to me by my school). this interacts with race in a very complicated way which i am absolutely not qualified to speak on, and isn’t relevant to Sirius, so I won’t be attempting to talk about it - but I don’t want to erase the fact that it exists. 

JKR grew up working class but gained so much wealth and notoriety in an educated profession that she shifted to middle class, which is unusual to the point of being forbidden. so when she wrote the later books especially, her need to firmly, clearly follow middle class rules in order to gain acceptance bleeds through her writing

JKR hates Sirius

Sirius breaks every single one of nice middle class rules. every single one. and offensively so. and she hates him for it. I don't think it's a coincidence she only made him a shunned aristocrat until she became famous and classism rose to the forefront - she wanted that power for herself, and she'd never have it, so she punished him for it

Sirius is loud. he's brash. he's talkative. he's argumentative. he's mentally ill. he's neurodivergent. he's gay. he doesn't give a fuck about gender roles. he's extreme, coded a thousand times over as manic depressive. he's unapologetic about all of it. and she can't stand it. no one is allowed to be like that - and especially not the madman side character she created just to provide some spicy background for Harry

so JKR does what every bigoted classist Brit does in this situation and silently, viciously, hatefully and passive aggressively punishes Sirius. she has every character shame him for all his rule-breaking traits by patronising him, looking down on him, criticising him, humiliating him, belittling him, all because he is apparently incapable of being trusted by normal society. Molly is literally JKR's mouthpiece for this, passively aggressively keeping Sirius in line, and getting away with it because she's so sweet and loveable no one ever sees her as a bigot. I have met one hundred thousand women like in her my lifetime. so has JKR. she knew exactly what she was doing

why would these characters turn on him like this, though? Sirius is highly competent, incredibly intelligence and very astute, as shown over the previous books, and both the characters and readers know that. so it has to be something else, something that overrides all of that

it's because of who he is, and that's what we absorb between the lines of the book. that who Sirius is is wrong, and people like him will inevitably be shunned by society around them

12GP, mental illness and Sirius's death

Sirius is (quite literally) characterised as mad, and it's used as a justification for punishing him. by OotP his rebelliousness is explained as a sign of instability. and by god - that instability is toxic. so he's locked in a madhouse for his own good (to keep him alive! to protect Harry!). he's then tortured as painfully as possible to drive him even madder, leading him to the inevitable conclusion of bringing about his own death through his irresponsibility. he has to die, because he has to face the consequences for rebelling

the way that JKR weaves his rule-breaking and depiction of "madness" together is intentional, and truly vile. it's evident in the sharp contrast of his characterisation in PoA/GoF and OotP. he's coded as mentally ill and neurodivergent from the first time we hear of him. he's portrayed as a man of manic depressive extremes (I wrote a bipolar meta here talking about this in more detail), and is clearly suffering from PTSD. we can assume this continues in GoF

alongside all of this, he is so smart, competent and compassionate he manages to keep himself alive and hidden from the ministry whilst living outdoors, basically figures out the entire GoF plot through newspapers and a few rushed conversations through the fire, and is single-mindedly dedicated to his godson

in OotP he is a fundamentally different person - not in a way that is caused by mental illness, but genuine changes in his core character, however it’s still characterised as mental illness. so it becomes justifiable to punish him, to restrict him, to criticise and curtail and humiliate him

and most of all the traits JKR hates about Sirius so much are part and parcel of being bipolar (and also having ADHD, which he's implied to have as well). bipolar people are capable of extraordinary feats when we're manic, which aren't always bad - like, for example, breaking out of a wizarding prison! being on the run for two years just for take care of your godson! we feel everything incredibly deeply - like, for example, devotion to the point of death for your friends, strong emotional reactions to them being mistreated! we have tendencies towards being incredibly creative, smart, and making intellectual leaps that are impossible for other people, all of which are traits Sirius has that make him such an extraordinary wizard, and person. he literally wouldn't be who he is without neurodivergence, and yet JKR portrays it as an entirely negative characterisation, a punishable offence

kill the gays - queer and mentally ill people will never be happy, and they don't deserve to be

Sirius and Remus's story is about two traumatised, scared, lonely kids doomed to be outcasts forever, until they find acceptance and love in found family, and each other. that is the story of every fucking queer kid growing up before like 2015, and everyone now who doesn't live in a liberal town. we look at that story and we know it, we feel it in our bones. i could will write an essay about this in itself but for now:

the way that that story should play out is Sirius and Remus getting to grow up and begin adulthood in a stable environment where they can slowly unlearn their trauma, toxic coping mechanisms and/or terrible relationship models, and form a healthy, mature and long-lasting relationship with each other. but they don't get the chance to do that, because of the First War, and instead their unstable and immature relationship is put under an existential pressure it could never have survived

okay. but then we should be able to see them slowly, if painfully, recover from and/or learn to live with the impacts of that war and eventually get to a stable place where they can deal with their formative trauma as well. except Sirius goes off to be tortured for 12 years, and Remus is sentenced to living as a lonely, isolated and unsupported outcast, who’s lost everything good that he gained in his life

okay... but then when they're finally released from this slice of hell frozen in time for 12 years, they should be able to spend the rest of their lives, guess what? fucking recovering from it all, and maybe, perhaps, being able to salvage a healthy relationship from it. instead they get thrust into another war, where every bit of trauma they've already gone through is magnified, and they have one (1) year together in absolutely awful circumstances before Sirius is killed

at every single turn in their story queer and/or ND people are taught that they will never find safety. they will never be given a reprieve and the chance of stability and happiness they see others have. it's not on the cards for them. it is simply not possible. JKR hams this home three fucking times. it’s brutal. it’s vicious. it’s beyond what anyone should ever have to go through. it’s entirely unnecessary for the plot. it is just punishing them for who they are

it’s a trope we all know well from that era, but the fact that it’s used as a punishment for so many other aspects of Sirius's character is what makes it so doubly awful

conc

nothing about what JKR did to Sirius was an accident. it was deliberate, it was targeted. and it has very, very real impacts on kids growing up reading those books

we should be learning that what makes us different is nothing to be ashamed of, that everyone is different in some way, that difference is all a matter of perspective, that you should be allowed to express every aspect of who you are without so much as a comment, let alone stigma. we should be learning that in a world which doesn't afford us that luxury, we can still build our own sanctuary where we can have that, full of found family and meaningful, lasting love. we should be seeing people like us unlearn the harmful ideas they absorbed growing up so we learn how to do that as well; we should be learning what people like us look like in relationships; we should be made to believe, in our very bones, that happiness is possible for us

instead we watch someone who we see ourselves in be tortured, humiliated, punished and denied every ounce of happiness until their premature death

Sirius deserved better, we all deserved better, and i'll never be quiet for a fucking moment about it lest this wrongdoing go ignored