#because if someone lacks that nuance I can just block them and it’s not a breach of etiquette

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

part of my job is going on Instagram to see what questions autistic families have

and

I’m getting real sick and tired of “ABA is the perfect therapy which has never had an issue ever and also I will not vaccinate my children because obviously the autism is from vaccine injury”

or

“ABA is 100% abusive and has never benefitted anyone, also if you call your child nonverbal instead of nonspeaking you’re a terrible person, and support levels are ableist BS made up by neurotypicals”.

with very little in between.

I get that autism causes black and white thinking but please golly can there be some nuance on the little camera app.

[sarcastictissy]

Hola :D I just wanted to thank you for being so positive lately and looking at things regarding the qstudio situation with nuance. It feels like people have been so stressed and angry after all of the admin stuff came that they began to take every bit of news we hear as some sign that bad things are to come . I think a lot of people underestimated just how long this process can take, there a lot of factors to be considered here, including: q's lack of experience, the union, the laws, the admins. And unfortunately there is no way to satisfy everyone when it comes to stuff like this. This was never going to take a week or two, I feel like people didn't fully understand that.

Some admins are going to be pushed out of the project due to the lack of funds and the fact that this is a legal issue first and for most. It's unfair but it's the law. Not everyone understands that and because of that people are going to say things without understanding the situation. Not every thing is black and white and sometimes things aren't going to work out the way we want them to. Nobody is perfect and we shouldn't expect people involved in this situation to act like that. Which is why you should always look at the situation from multiple perspectives before forming an opinion.

It makes me feel tired to see the same takes over and over agian with no nuance. So your post have really helped me feel better :) I've seen people from both qsmpblr and qsmptwt act like every ccs involved in this is a war criminal or like this is a admins vs quackity or french/brazil vs quackity. It's kinda drove me off most social sites and forced me to only watch YouTube and stuff (on the good side of things, I've been watching quackity's discord videos and some dsmp vods :D it's been fun)

What I am trying to say is that, scrolling through your blog feels like a breath of fresh air and has made me feel 8× more calm about this situation. I don't think doomposting is necessarily bad but after seeing so much of it, sometimes you just need to distance yourself and look at the good parts of life. No matter how much I complain, I am never changing the course that qstudio is headed and neither can any one else, The only one who can do that is quackity. I hope that he does the right thing and the studio gets better. I love the characters that qsmp has brought us and the community it has formed, qsmp is a beautiful project that I want to see thrive. For now the only thing I can do as a viewer is hope for the best <3

I'm sorry if this came off as a trauma dump, I just really wanted to thank you.

So, this has been in my askbox for a while because I was so grateful and happy to hear I've helped someone!! Thank you sm anon that means a lot to me and knowing I'm keeping others optimistic, helps me feel optimistic too! :D

This is a very complex situation with so many moral grey areas mixed with black and white. It's not simple, it's not easy. These things cannot be fixed in a matter of weeks, you're absolutely right about that.

I also agree doomposting isn't necessarily bad! It's a good way to get off some steam and vent/ rant for a bit. There's nothing wrong with that. We all need it at times. For me, personally, it becomes toxic when that's ALL I'm seeing in social media. When I go on my phone and all I see is negativity, that's when I need to call it quits and start blocking people or start taking time away (which is why I deleted twt off my phone) everyone's tolerance levels are different ofc, so, not everyone is affected by that negativity, but I certainly was. This is why I want my blog to be positive and uplifting and you know what? Each and every time I get a ask or a message thanking me for that, I gain faith in humanity and it just encourages me to keep being positive! I'm so thankful for your ask and dw it wasn't trauma dumping at all!! :D I hope you're doing well anon! Take care of yourself. You matter

[itsclydebitches]

Obviously Nina and Maggie are meant to parallel Crowley and Aziraphale. I don't even need to argue that because Nina outright says it: Crowley is the "hard-bitten one" (like her) and Aziraphale is the "soft one" (like Maggie) who are facing similar relationship stumbling blocks. Just to hammer it home, they're both queer couples with Nina calling Maggie "angel" as a pet name.

I'll come back to that parallel in just a moment. First, I've seen some great meta regarding their justified anger at being paired up for celestial "amusement" and how that reflects the lack of agency humans have in Heaven and Hell's endless attempts to start Armageddon; something that Aziraphale, specifically, may be able to change. (Which, you know, highlights the nuance of this decision. Can he totally fix the broken system from within like he believes? No. Can he, like Gabriel, keep the hosts of Heaven from decimating Earth in the immediate future? Quite possibly.) Nina and Maggie are absolutely right and have every reason to be angry, however, they are missing the context that Crowley and Aziraphale didn't try to pair them up for the hell of it—though it's perfectly understandable why it would come across that way. How are they supposed to learn and understand the intricacies of this plot, especially when Crowley is literally shooing them out the door and telling them to forget everything? Regardless, the audience knows the full story and thus we can see how their subplot mirrors Aziraphale's love for Crowley, beyond the obvious, textual parallel.

Because why is he pairing them up? To keep Crowley safe. Himself too, but the dual nature of that motivation—what helps you automatically helps me and vice versa because we're in this together—just highlights how Aziraphale is approaching the "us" here. He pulled Crowley into the Gabriel debacle because he a) recognized that helping him was the right thing to do and b) knew he needed his partner to succeed. Sure, we could blame Aizraphale for setting it all in motion, but even without knowing that hiding Gabriel was helping to stave off the next Armageddon, Crowley recognizes that Aizraphale was right to help someone, even a someone who told his best friend to shut up and die already. He has a whole (hilarious) apology dance about it. So they're doing this together, as they should. They commit to hiding Gabriel together. They cast the miracle together. They tell lies to their bosses together. All of which ultimately leads to the subterfuge of, "That celestial energy? Just helping two humans fall in love! Oh shit, now we've actually got to accomplish that..." They mess around in Nina and Maggie's lives to try and keep their own loved one safe. Their love is a direct byproduct of Aizraphale and Crowley's.

Of course, they still have every right to be angry about that manipulation, regardless of the fact that it's leading to something they both want and is for the "greater good." However, I think it's crucial that we didn't get a scene that said, "You were wrong to mess around in our lives! ... but we're so glad you did because we're totally in love now and everything's perfect 😊." Maggie and Nina aren't together at the end of the season. They, like Crowley and Aziraphale, care for one another deeply but aren't yet in a place to make that love explicitly romantic. Here, we get a bit of a reversal where the Crowley equivalent—Nina—is the one who needs time and the Aziraphale equivalent—Maggie—is the most verbally devoted, prepared to wait for however long it takes, kinda like how Crowley has waited 6,000+ years.

Nina: I can't start seeing Maggie! When I'm ready, I hope she'll be there, but there isn't any guarantee. Maggie: There is. Nina: You're not helping, angel.

Both Nina and Aziraphale are, at their core, grappling with abuse. For Nina it's the abuse of a romantic partner. For Aziraphale it's the abuse of an institution. The difference is that Nina has gotten out, notably by having her partner dump her. We see throughout the season that Nina cannot let her go, despite knowing that they're bad for each other and despite others telling her as much. She's too deep in the relationship and shows no signs of getting out on her own, even when an objectively better option (Maggie) is right there, begging her to take that step. Nina needed to get dumped in order to achieve that growth. Aziraphale, in VERY sharp contrast, is roped back in by his abusers. Whereas Nina is granted harsh freedom in the form of a key under the mat, Aizraphale is coaxed further into the relationship he likewise isn't prepared to leave, offered what appears on the surface to be a way to fix everything he cares for. Do we think that if Nina's partner had instead texted something optimistic, complimentary, and full of the promise of change that Nina would have listened to her Crowley equivalent here (Maggie) and confidently cut her off? I don't. I think she would have gone straight back to what's familiar, convincing herself that this time will be different. Because that's how abuse works.

From the audience's perspective, Nina and Maggie's conversation is a warning to Crowley, though one he's not yet equipped to understand (as evidence by him doing the opposite of all their advice with Aziraphale). They say, "You powerful beings manipulate us too casually" and Crowley doesn't get how desperate Aziraphale is to fix that as archangel. They say, "I needed to be forcibly freed from my abuser before I could even consider someone I truly love" and Crowley doesn't see how Aziraphale is not just still under his own abuser's thumb, but is getting pulled further in. They say, "Even now that I've seen how much better things can be I'm not ready. It doesn't matter if I love her. It doesn't matter if I'm free. I need time to recover before I can move on to the next step" and Crowley doesn't get that at all, instead kissing Aziraphale rather than continuing to wait like Maggie. That kiss was hard for me to watch because it's abundantly clear how uncomfortable Aziraphale is. He doesn't kiss back. His hands are spasming rather than holding Crowley close. "I forgive you." That's not because he doesn't love Crowley, it's because he's not ready. Nina would have reacted the same way if Maggie had kissed her in the immediate aftermath of escaping her abuse and Aziraphale isn't in the aftermath of his. He's deeper than he's been since the start of the show.

The more I think about it, the more clear it is to me how their relationship and that final conversation was a blueprint for what was about to come. They're in a much better place than Crowley and Aziraphale are. Nina is free of her abuser. No one needed to explain that they had romantic feelings for one another. Crowley, meanwhile, "doesn't understand" until seconds before Aziraphale walks back through the door. No one is trying to keep them apart with the fate of the universe hanging in the background. Yet despite all this, Nina still says, "I'm in no way ready" and Maggie responds, "I understand. I'll wait."

Crowley couldn't wait anymore. Which is understandable and, tragically, is actually part of the solution. One of the things they need to do is talk about what they're "really feeling," so he does that. But unlike Nina, Aizraphale is still in his own abusive relationship and unlike Maggie, Crowley takes the truth too far, kissing him before he was equipped to accept that. Of course the season had to end the way it did. It's not just in character for them both, it validates the OTHER characters functioning as their parallels.

[duckiemimi]

Its interesting to me how Gojo's english VA rejects or simply doesn't see the subtext StSG has but he's so open about his admiration for GJHm because he apparently pulls the same pranks on his wife like Gojo messes with Uta. And he even went as far as to say "C'mon guys, they're best friends" in regards to people being vocal about StSG relationship.

i’m gonna be honest, i’d rather listen to what the Japanese VAs have to say about anything jjk related (but especially about geto and gojo’s characters and relationship) considering the English Dub’s blunder with toji in season 2.

if u aren’t aware, the English Dub scriptwriters took liberties with a certain translation—in the manga toji says, “oh…i remember now. megumi. the name means blessings. and i’m the one who gave him that name.” meanwhile, the english dub of this scene became, “oh, speaking of blessings. that’s right, i almost forgot. i named my cursed spirit megumi.”

to twist a translation so badly that it takes away from what the actual scene was supposed to portray (toji remembering his son, megumi)—of course, whoever wrote the script is at fault here, not the actual VA, but it makes me doubt their commitment to the story’s authenticity. i’m not sure if this happened bc of lack of research or if they were trying to paint toji in a certain light.

i mean, language is fickle anyway; there’s so much cultural subtext that gets lost in translation and perhaps that could be the case here. but it could also be internalized homophobia, or just blatant homophobia.

i’m a big advocate for shipping whatever u want and respecting ppl’s boundaries! if someone dislikes or is uncomfortable with a ship, then don’t talk to them about it. in a similar line, if u dislike or are uncomfortable with a ship, filter, mute, and block! but to try and pass off ur biases as canon? bc of ur own lived experiences/personal values/trauma? c’mon now. preferences are preferences—none of our ships are canon, anyway (at least for now, but even then, that’s never stopped ppl from shipping characters in a confirmed relationship with other characters—and that’s fine!)

there is some nuance in situations like these, if we really wanna get into the nitty gritty. men can be close friends, sure! but if u bring a woman in to counter someone’s gay ship/hc, then u’re doing it in bad faith and ur obviously biased. queer subtext will almost always be ignored by a straight audience anyway, mainly bc they’re not familiar with it, and they might even be uncomfortable with exploring concepts that don’t fit their worldview.

again, if u a wanna ship gjhm, by all means, go ahead! just don’t be headass about it. don’t deny the possibility of other ships, either—specifically stsg bc that ship alone has more canon “proof” (that’s what they call it) than any other ship with their characters. don’t go and pull dumb excuses or justifications out of ur ass to dismiss other ships (or ship dynamics) bc u’re gonna look stupid. like what u like and don’t go to war with other ppl for liking different things!

(also, i’m using the universal “u/you” here, anon! i’m not accusing or addressing u in these paragraphs!)

(also also, if this VA pulls the type of “pranks” gojo pulled on utahime on his wife, i’m a little concerned. those aren’t pranks. gojo genuinely thought he was better than her in the hidden inventory arc. in gojo’s case, he wasn’t wrong bc he was and still is the pinnacle of jujutsu, so he would’ve called anybody weak regardless of their circumstance—he’s much more tactful about it nowadays, anyway. in the VA’s case? umm…but that’s none of my business.)

[impunkster-syndrome]

my reply on that post was about the idea that the fandom would be unwelcoming to plural folk. i basically said that i myself am plural and that while we cannot control the actions of the fandom, we absolutely curate bad behavior in the fancord where we can catch it, and obviously do not discourage sch fictives considering *i* am a clown with fictives.

but i will add since im here that kitty blocking you is not because you Dared to criticize kit. it's because all of the dogpiling and negativity was unbelievably stressful, you all behave as if there is no person behind the screen, or that she is trying to hide behind trauma as an 'excuse.' that is Not the case. kitty blocked, and will continue to block, every single person involved with those blogs just because again, it was so stressful as a traumatized individual. so much toxicity buried any potentially Good criticisms. we Hear yall on the issues like barry not being drawn as fat as he usee to be anymore, or polly missing their cane, we Will rectify actual issues like that.

we welcome issues being brought up and have listened many times before. the fact of the matter is is that no one was going about it constructively at all.

While I do interact with some criticism blogs, I legitimately don't care for some of the criticism from blogs and approach the media as someone entirely new to it. Media analysis is my hobby, and I see so much potential in Sparklecare plus the related media like the therapy spinoff as someone who has dealt with stuff like systemic ableism and interpersonal ableism. I think some of the criticism blogs don't exactly focus on the bigger issues at hand- the lack of nuance, pacing, the high barrier of entry to being able to understand the media through expecting readers to have done hours of scrolling through social media for lore, the problems of not having page numbers on the site visible and not being able to easily skip to specific pages, etc. However, you do not help yourself here by clearly never having actually read and understood my posts. In fact, I do see some staff acting like trauma makes the media immune to criticism, when trauma can make beautiful art that can speak to people at a core level like Alice: Madness Returns. It just can't get that good without people actually being able to point out things that can be fixed and improved upon. The timing for being blocked despite never actually interacting with the main sparklecare blog plus the posts about how people shouldn't take it as anything other than vent art despite the site's about page itself claiming it is a social commentary tell me that it was about my posts and critique of the media as what it claims itself to be. I had never seen anyone else talk about it in that way in the tags, which was astounding to me as someone that reads social commentary like Discworld and is currently working through Lolita so I can write about the objectification of CSA survivors and erasure of our stories and identities by abusers. If it was never meant to be seen as social commentary, that needs to be removed from the site.

I approach it less like a disappointed fan and more like a creative because I've been in Kittycorn's position at about the same age- 15. I wanted to make a twine game about my trauma and abuse I was still undergoing because I wanted to know why I was being abused and it was a cry for someone to help me. There were also many other projects, and some that I have refined over time. I have OCs I talk about and I use them to explore parts of myself. This is my disability blog too, and I'm going to have opinions on disability-related media and representation in it.

I honestly suggest you read over the posts I have written about Sparklecare and then reevaluate if you think I am coming from a malicious place like you seem to think I am.

As for the alterhuman thing, I will say that it was from publicly available information at the time. I'm not going to be in a fandom discord when I have stuff like a job to worry about and the whole media is a migraine risk to me.

Also- I've seen some staff literally tokenize Kittycorn and act like kits schizophrenia is what makes kit excused from all critique. The holding up of kit as a bully victim and not a 23 year old person able to handle kits own issues is infantilizing to disabled people. We can handle our own shit. You personally need to learn the line between bullying and publicly discussing media that was made public, as someone who got extensively bullied in school for years. It's not the same thing here. Kittycorn is a person behind the screen- but so are the people you proclaim as bullies and dehumanize by acting like all criticism is unfounded or coming from "bad people."

[helly-watermelonsmellinfellon]

Why tf is harrymort something you ship? Not only is Voldemort constantly trying to kill Harry, has killed Harry's parents, threatened to kill all of Harry's friends, and actually did sort of kill Harry, but like. He's definitely over fifty in the books. IDK how old he is exactly, but he's old enough that he was a feared political cult leader missing 6 chunks of his soul and a Hogwarts graduate when Harry is a baby. It's creepy, man.

Bruh, all of my ships are incredibly problematic in more than one way. I'm suspicious over that being the only one you seem to take issue with.

1.) You lack imagination. HP is a very fleshed out fictional universe with many options at your fingertips for fanfic. Tom Riddle appears throughout the series, in the ages newborn, 11, 15, 16, 18, 20+, 30+, 50, and 70. Harry has appeared in the ages of 1, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 37/38. Time Turners exist. Alternate Universes exist. You can do literally anything because HP is a massive sandbox. I can have Harry find the Diary in his 6th Year and then he is actually older than Diary-Tom. I can have Adult-Harry Time Travel to any point between 1950 and 1970 and end up in a relationship with Adult-Tom.

2.) What attracts me is the potential. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean there aren't ridiculous connections between Harry and Voldy. People would see Voldy's obsession as some kind of mad crush if Harry was a girl and we all know it. Just because Harry's a boy doesn't mean Voldy getting touchy feely isn't weird, or Tom staring at him 'hungrily' many times isn't suggestive, or Harry remarking 18 times between 2 books that Tom Riddle is 'handsome' while doing nothing to tell people about how attractive the supposed love of his life(Ginny) is.

3.) My weakness is Protag/Antag ships. Ever since I was a child and a romance was happening in something I was watching, my first thought was always preferring the hero with the villain. I didn't understand why until I was about 13. Suddenly it's, how would that work? How can they realistically go from being enemies to being in love? Can any fic writers manage it since it isn't canon?

Bruh, I shipped Sailor Moon with almost every enemy she had(even Diamond tbh). I shipped Kagome Higurashi with Naraku and Sesshomaru from the moment those characters were introduced in the story(Inuyasha). Long before we learned any back story on them. I shipped Naruto with almost every member of the Akatsuki at some point out of curiosity the moment I learned about the organization. I shipped Kaname Kuran and Zero Kiryu(Vampire Knight).

As a result of my Protag/Antag obsession, most of my ships end up being unhealthy by nature. Even in cases where they are undeniably canon, like Luo Binghe/Shen Qingqiu | Shen Yuan, they aren't very safe or sane.

Something you need to remember is that it is fiction about fictional characters. Real people are not being harmed. And the only way someone could realistically be 'triggered' by such content is if they go to specific lengths to see it. You have options to curate your online experience. Don't follow blogs/accounts about topics you don't like, mute words/tags that bother you, block ppl who make you uncomfortable. It takes a few minutes to ensure your future is hassle free.

I'm at that age where I've been in fandom spaces so long I don't care about people's ships or interests. Spending my personal time worrying about some stranger's obsession with Tragic Non-Con Reylo fanfic won't do me any favors when I honestly dgaf. I'm here for the fandom stuff I like and only occasionally participate in discourse, and that is never aimed at ships and is always about characters and the people who wrote them.

So yes, I ship fucked up shit, and I could write the fucked up stuff(maybe, if I ever get emotional strength to) but typically I'm more into nuance and drama and slow burns that take 400K words to work through. I don't do Non-Con Triggering horrible stuff because mentally I can't handle writing or reading it very much. But I'm also not up in arms over the people who do. Let people like what they like. Ship and let ship. Live and let live. They're pixels on a screen or words on a page. They don't exist. They aren't real. They are meant to entertain us, and how people find their enjoyment in fiction isn't for anyone to decide.

[zeldaelmo]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

Tagged by my wonderful friend @bahbahhh.

__

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

77

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

484,215

My goal for 2023 was to hit the 500,000 and I'm positive I'll reach it.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Legend of Zelda, all games apart from Zelda I, II, and Minish Cap (because I haven't played them so far)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

How to name a royal child

Stolen Kisses

Strangers in the Night

It's in his Kiss

Flour, water, salt, yeast, love

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Uh... in theory, I do. I love getting comments but I often feel stupid saying ten times 'thank you' in a row, so I end up answering mostly when I have something to say.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

That would be Lonely at the Top. I don't really write angsty endings, but this one is hurt/no comfort as it tackles Link visiting the Light Dragon who doesn't even react to him.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Hm...I'm not too fond of the fanfic version of the perfect happy ending, namely, proposal, sappy wedding, and omg, twins!, mainly because I love the nuance life teaches us. What a happy ending for a fic and a character is, is so often much more different than the fairy tale version.

That being said, I'd still go with Strangers in the Night, just because the two worked so damn hard for their happy ending.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Hate is a big word, but I get negative comments and sometimes they are even personal, yes. Most people are lacking reading competence and/or don't understand how stories work. I mostly ignore those. Sometimes I complain on discord if it's very annoying. If someone insults me, I block.

I don't think that has to do so much with me, though. I have 1,346 comment threads on my stories. Of course, there are some idiots among them, that's life.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes, occasionally. I think ten of 77 fics are explicit. Look, the thing is, I'm a story teller. So if the smut doesn't add to the story, I don't tell it. Rule of thumb is, that I keep it to a T-rating if possible to make the story accessible to most people. I only go for explicit stuff if I want to deliver some part of the character development/plot with the intimacy (or the lack of lol) that the smut offers.

Does that get me the most Kudos? No. But I'm not here for that or I wouldn't bother writing for 30 years old games. I'm here to tell a good story and have fun. :)

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

No. If you've read so far, I can tell you a secret as a reward: I find crossovers pointless. Ooops.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I am aware of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I am aware of! But I'd love to! Big fan of accessibility!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No. I've seen a few writing collabs end in fandom drama or otherwise go awry, so I decided that I only collab with artists. I might try with something short one day, but nothing novel-length.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

Take a guess.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Ah, so I have a half-written novel in my drafts. A story about writer!Zelda and fanartist!Link who are also princess and beloathed bodyguard. I'm very determined to go back to that one after I finished The Promise, but I'm a little scared. The story is complicated and my thoughts are chaotic. I already asked @mistresslrigtar to help me work it out next year, so I hope we'll manage.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue and showing what's going on in the character's head who's not the POV character.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I struggle with simplicity sometimes, mainly because of the language barrier. I write something that's horribly complicated and I just know there must be a better way to put it, but I can't figure it out. Grammar is hard, lads.

I also have a weird relationship with descriptions. I love having characters interact with their environment but I loath big chunks of description. I plan to work on this during my traditional holiday self-study break.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

This is a weirdly specific question, but ok.

If you don't happen to write a book that's supposed to teach beginners the other language, then don't. You might end up othering the person who's speaking and that's something you don't want to dabble with lightly.

I already talked about accessibility: You will exclude people from your writing and you don't want that just to sound cool. If you must for plot reasons, make otherwise sure everyone is on board. Slightly different case if you actively hide something from your readers (and other characters), but that's probably not the most common case.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

LoZ

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

I refuse to answer this. 77 fics are too much to choose from. I love most of them.

_

tagging: @mistresslrigtar, @airplanned, @jenseits-der-sterne, @silentprincess17, @deiliamedlini, @skyyknights

[bitter-sweet-coffee]

day 2 of trying to piss off the sonic fandom so i either get blacklisted or blocked by as many people as possible:

the people who turn rouge into “the bestist lesbian big sister to shadow for ever and ever” are not as progressive as they’d like to think they are.

congratulations, you are reducing a female character to the bettering of a more popular male character, focusing exclusively on one dimension of her personality and rejecting the rest to make it wholesome and cute.

doesn’t seem so different from the people who would only focus on her sexuality in the 2000’s, does it?

listen. you can have your lesbian big sister rouge just like people can have their sex symbol rouge. they can also coexist. HOWEVER. do not pretend like this fanon interpretation does any justice to the nuanced layers of her character.

what about her selfishness? her commitment issues? her self preservation disguised as brashness? her lack of moral stability since she always puts herself first? ignoring the total disregard for her femme fatale disposition, the people who reduce her to a sibling dynamic are completely disregarding how canonically horrible at this she would be. her and shadow are coworkers, yes, and it’s evident she cares about him (in whichever way you choose to interpret that) but she is far from responsible for him. even if she wanted to be, episode shadow proves he completely disobeys orders and doesn’t regard her as a support system lol.

in case anyone is questioning why i keep including lesbian in my description, it’s because of the shipping can of worms. self admittedly, my rouge is bisexual, but that’s besides the point. the reason why the whole “lesbian rouge, gay shadow” makes me raise an eyebrow is because it is almost ALWAYS to eliminate any possibility of them having romantic feelings for each other, and additionally, so shadow’s big sister is also in a gay relationship because clearly he is gay and only gay and therefore rouge is a lesbian. since we need her to be in a gay relationship too we’re gonna ship her with wave, who is a lesbian as well because she wears pants and is mean, and that means we have a scapegoat wlw ship for the REAL focus— shadow and his boyfriend.

do you see what i’m insinuating here? do you see the fanon trend (which is not exclusive to sonic) and are you getting the bigger picture here? i’ll elaborate more on this when i dedicate a day to dissecting amy rose as a character but for now, let’s brush past this sexuality business and onto one more teeny tiny point

hey. so. a lot of people consider rouge to be racially coded as black. now, does anyone see a potential problem of having a black coded female character be this strong, independent, tough, maternal/sisterly caretaker for people? no? nothing historically bad about the caricature of older black women being “no nonsense” babysitters for people? or black women being strong and independent who don’t cry or have softer vulnerable sides? hm? any pancake products coming to mind? and before someone says i’m reading too much into this, i’m not calling anyone outwardly racist. i just think that it is unfair to women but especially black women to not only reduce a coded female character to a caretaker for the male main characters, but especially in the ways which people go about this. ANYWAYS

yeah. do whatever you want with rouge, but don’t think i haven’t had my eye on the ways in which she’s mischaracterized almost exclusively for shadow’s own character development. stop using female characters as tools or resources for male characters. i don’t care if it’s through gender or race or sexuality, there is some serious bastardization going on here and i am appalled when people who scoff at sexy rouge go on to do shit like this thinking they’re “saving” her character from everyone else. no. i actually think you’re just as bad as them, fight me i guess

note: i’m not attacking anyone as a person, i’m attacking the general fanon phenomenon. this isn’t about a particular creator or their work, this is about the way rouge is treated by the fandom as a whole. people can make whatever they want, and in the same vein, i can call it fucking stupid. if you’re offended or think i’m an asshole though, even if it’s just for doing this and you’re not involved with fanon rouge, block me. please. i’m actively trying to get rid of people and this helps.

[colorisbyshe]

So, my anti-Jeremy Renner post blew up and as sometimes happens when posts blow up, a bunch of TERFs got in my notes. I do a fairly systemic purge whenever this happens. I go onto each one I can find in the notes of that post and go through their blogs, blocking any other TERF I can find on their blog and going through the blogs of any URL I see multiple times so I can block all of the TERFs on their blogs. Literally blocked over 500 people, from big name blogs, to just some frequent rebloggers. ANd many, many pathetic randoms who can’t get a single note on their posts but desperately try anyways.

I have been a bit vague and flippant about this because bitching about them only ever fuels their victim complexes and often fuels their desire to engage and get attention. Me saying I don’t want TERFs engaging with that post made multiple TERFS ignore my boundaries and lack of consent, engage, and laugh about it. I know there’s no “winning” with them, so I don’t like arguing with them. It is identical to arguing with MAGA freaks--the level of delusion is impenetrable and it often only ends up traumatizing the people most hurt by them, by making them witness hatred and ignorance.

I instead try to be a positive force and just speak out in support of trans women to make where I stand clear.

But apparently I haven’t been clear enough because through this systemic weeding of my notes I have discovered multiple TERF followers, some because of the anti-Jeremy Renner post but some have been here a while. They weren’t obvious via URL or bio but going on their blogs made things clear quite quickly.

So, I just want to say it here.

I am a nonbinary woman. I am AFAB. I was born with a puss puss and I naturally grew tits with puberty. I am by every TERF’s definition “a woman” and it is with that clarified I will say--Trans women specifically have been more foundational to my understanding of gender, myself, and the world at large and my LOVE of my gender, myself, and the world at large than most other groups of people.

Trans women have done more good for me specifically and the world at large than any trans exclusive radical feminist ever has.

Reading the words and experiences of trans women has actually brought me more in harmony with the “woman” part of “nonbianry woman” and it has done so more than any fucking uterus-obsessed, menstrual blood-smeared, trauma-based one-dimensional nonsense TERFs have shat out and have forced the rest of us to witness.

Understanding transness on the whole has made me better appreciate the diversity of human experience and the boundless ways we can love each other and ourselves. It has made me dig deeper on how my life and society has shaped me and made me willing to stand up against societal expectations. I am the one who gets to define who I am. Not what I was born with. I am not a human seeking out the perfectly shaped hole to crush myself and lose myself inside. I am a million different things in vessel waiting to expand outwards and inwards at the same time, bound by fucking nothing.

Transness is beautiful. It is nuanced. It allows each person to get closer to the infinite.

Hatred of trans people in general but trans women specifically has no fucking place in my life, on my blog. I seek out liberation against all oppression and leave no woman behind in that.

I’m not going to give in to what any shit tier human being wants and wish violence upon y’all like you want. I’m not going to feed your martyrdom. I am just going to say I wish you a broader understanding of the world and deeper wells of empathy and love.

I don’t know if it’s simply a power trip y’all are on, eager to finally have a group you can punch down on, or if something truly went wrong in your lives where you have to have a fear response to someone more vulnerable than yourself. But get the fuck over it, grow up, and do better. You deserve harsher words but I will not give in and give them to you so you can lay yourselves upon the cross and weep about it.

Womanhood doesn’t benefit from this shit. Society doesn’t benefit from this shit. And frankly we’ve had enough fucking suffering without self righteous bigots making it fucking worse while pretending it’s progress.

Trans women are women. And trans women belong in “woman only” spaces more than trans-exclusive bigots ever will.

[sugaredcosmos]

Why Minecraft is boring to you now

I keep seeing this notion online of "Mojang is lazy" and "refuses to put good content into Minecraft". I feel this claim is motivated by a lack of understanding about Minecraft's nature as a game and just how much it differs from most of the other games out there. Like Minecraft is incredibly unique within how we understand what the medium of video games even is, especially when it first came out. It's a game with no goal and it doesn't tell the player what they can and cannot do. it just gives you a set of tools and a palette of blocks and lets you do whatever you want with them.

Because of Minecraft's nature as a game with no expressly stated goal the idea that the game "lacks new content" is sort of a pointless claim. If the point of the game is that the player is the one making content for themselves, what content should the devs add?

"Content" from a traditional game design standpoint is some abstract thing that the game is telling the player to get through. In some cases the player gets some kind of extra items or abilities, and in others it's just "content". So then how do you add "meaningful content" into a game like Minecraft? You might say that they could add an extra boss, or another dimension much like many of the community made mods do. But then you come to the problem of how you implement something like that while keeping the game's identity intact. And then you come to the conundrum of what even is Minecraft's identity?

The first time I was presented with such a conundrum was in middle school. Mojang had just been bought out by Microsoft and the game's future was called into question by many of the people that I talked to at the time. I remember someone saying that they were going to add crossbows into the game and that made me uncomfortable for some reason. It felt to me like crossbows, for some reason, would somehow make the game less like the Minecraft I knew and played.

What's funny is that I was kinda right. Ever since 1.9 I feel like Minecraft has been getting the ship of theseus treatment where every update some aspect of the game changes that moves it away from what I knew as "Minecraft". And, writing this now, I realize that it's always been this way. This was before my time but supposedly there was backlash at minecraft beta 1.8 and the direction the game went following it from the playerbase that played it in the days preceding it. Subsequently, my sort of "generation" within minecraft's rotating main audience (around 1.0-1.8.9) largely stopped playing after 1.9 came out and changed the combat and added stuff for after the ender dragon was killed. I feel like the cycle repeats every few updates or so, and I think we just crossed another one with 1.20. Not expressly because of that sort of ship of theseus effect, but from the aforementioned perceived "lack of content"

I say this because I feel like minecraft's resurgence in 2019 and 2020 put pressure on the devs from the newly brought back playerbase that had been sort of steeping in an increasingly exploitative understanding of game design in most of the more popular triple a games while simultaneously developing their critical thinking skills through late middle school and high school. This, I think, led to a lot of people in my generation thinking that every game should follow this rigid structure of a loosely defined "progression" until you hit the final boss.

Thing is, this is nothing like how minecraft was played back in the day for me. From both what I played and the creators I watched, the gameplay loop of minecraft was to basically start your own building projects and just keep doing that whenever you got an idea. Now, people as adults having their creative minds obliterated by the machine of capitalism (not to mention the failures of the education system under capitalism primarily teaching kids how to be cogs in the machine rather than a fully formed and nuanced human being especially in the cases of how much art and language arts classes are devalued within both academia and life under capitalism, but I digress) erasing any self confidence in themselves to make something beautiful and good in addition to the constant presence of much more experienced builders online for the average player to compare themselves. What this leads to is a depressing loop of making a new world, building a house, finding diamonds, maybe beating the ender dragon and then quitting not knowing how they were once able to find so much joy in a game that is noticeably absent in their life now.

People now are more than ever conditioned by capitalist society into getting a hit of dopamine out of being told to do a task and then doing it, and that trend in everyday life leaks into what players subconsciously want in a game which then shapes game design and honestly it's really depressing.

So then the problem isn't minecraft's game design, or that the game's identity has changes, or the supposed "lazy devs". It's us. We live in a world fundamentally built around heirarchy and being told what to do and that expectation is so deeply ingrained in our own identities that when we're given the freedom to literally do whatever we want we become paralyzed and get bored at whatever endeavor we choose.

Try playing Minecraft again. Try it again with all of this in mind. It'll quite literally change the game for you. I know it's doing that for me.

TL;DR: The reason you don't enjoy Minecraft anymore is because capitalism sucks.

[aotoreiki]

Rei's aura abilities, and how aura is written here...

Given the vagueness and general lack of information in canon about the exact mechanics of aura, different people have different interpretations of it and how it works for their muses and writing. The following is to reference for my muse and my own worldbuilding. It isn't intended to affect anyone else's and differences can be treated as natural variations of a complex mechanic; but please do respect this for my muse and my writing.

As of time of writing I haven't caught up with the Journeys section of the anime where aura is used more. I need to watch it so I can see how it works there and decide what to incorporate into my own stuff. Until then, my hcs are based only on the material preceding it.

The "aura" being referred to here is specifically the kind of aura in things like Riolu's and Lucario's dex entries, Aura Sphere's name, and aura guardians in the anime. There is a specific term for this in Japanese, differing from general-use "aura", which unfortunately doesn't carry over into the English. To explain a little better: While other instances of the word "aura" in Japanese such as those used in reference to Z-Moves or Xerneas' and Yveltal's Fairy and Dark Auras use オーラ (literally representing the pronunciation of the English word, written using katakana), there is a different word used for "aura" as relating to Riolu and Lucario. Words used for the latter are 波動 or 波導 (hadou, share the same pronunciation). A more literal translation is wave or wave-guiding, respectively. I find the fact that a different, specific term is used is interesting, that it's fun to explore the potential meaning of it, and I just always think it's a shame when a translation loses or muddies any original nuance... so that's why it matters to me, personally.  

I don't treat aura as being 100% synonymous with life energy. They're closely linked, but not entirely the same. Life energy or infinity energy is a more general and broad term. Not everything that contains life energy gives off a discernible aura wave, in the same way that a living thing does. Likewise, aura is based in the life energy or essence of a living thing, and is intrinsically linked to it. Life energy itself as found in other states is far more raw.

Disclaimer of course that anything is liable to change as I learn more and further develop my headcanons. Now, on to the muse...

Rei has always had a potential affinity for aura, which he inherited from his father. However, it was very weak and for most of his life it remained dormant, and did not manifest in a noticeable way. It only became active in his adult years, during/post-Team Dim Sun, due to exposure to the Shadow Crystal's energy and influence.  

He is very sensitive to the sensory aspect of aura, and he has a poor ability to regulate the information that he picks up through it. He gets easily overwhelmed, and so he often deliberately dampens or blocks his own aura-based sensory abilities.  

Speaking of which, he experiences aura as its very own separate and distinct sense. He does not literally "see" auras. The best he would be able to describe it would be like textured vibrations that carry various information, which he "knows" (intuitively decodes), but even this falls short because it's not a true physical sense. He can relay what he learns from them, and describe the impression they gave him as well as any associated mental imagery or traits (which is where things like colour or brightness would come in). This is referring to the typically invisible aura wave. If aura is manifested in a way that's visible to the ordinary naked eye, he can then literally see it in the same way that non-aura users can too.  

Similarly, he does not literally read minds or thoughts in a way that would give him a word-for-word representation of someone's inner monologue. He instead perceives the emotion, or the thought's core concept and its meaning near-instantaneously. He would be able to paraphrase your thoughts, rather than state them exactly.  

This is also how he potentially communicates via aura with other aura-sensitive beings. He would project his own aura wave, which carries his thought information and feelings, which they can then perceive and understand the meaning of. He's not at the stage of being able to use true telepathy or to speak in someone's mind.  

Aaand more about what he can do with it will be added here later.

[forcedhesitation]

not the usual rant...

but I haven't been on twitter in a while, and all for the better really, I'm starting to accept. people will preach endlessly about how you can "curate" your experience, but I just do not think that is possible of twitter.

the practice of quote retweeting bigots/bigoted bait posts is way too common, even amongst people who genuinely have something intelligent to say in response and do not care for the engagement the qrt might bring them. I swear, it doesn't matter how many people I mute, block, or unfollow...there's always someone who's qrting some scummy shithead's terrible opinion. I really don't need to see you qrting a transphobe to know you do not stand with them... likewise, I think I can safely say that most people belonging to a marginalised and/or minority group would much rather you ignored those bigots' accounts entirely, and spent your time...oh idk...educating yourself, or directly supporting us and other peoples facing oppression.

then there's all the ignorant, and often wilful, misinterpreting of people's words...the complete lack of understanding some people have that, no, someone cannot fit an entire dissertation's worth of nuance into 200 or so characters of commentary. that, or someone will see a tweet of a partially expressed opinion and a (1/5) tacked on the end, and still only respond to that first tweet in the thread, completely ignoring the rest of the person's commentary because they were overcome with immeasurable lust at the mere opportunity to "dunk" on someone. not to get too personal, but I have a problem with understanding how sincere people are, and thus always feel as though I must make my own thoughts and intentions as clear as possible. and I feel as though being on twitter genuinely makes that problem worse for me. it's hard to tell if people are saying what they are because they care, because they want engagement, or because they are plainly an asshole.

and of course, seeing awful fandom related crap is also unavoidable because twitter has a terrible tagging system. the worst out of all the major social media sites, I'd argue. the algorithm hides posts with too many tags, so it's not necessarily possible for you to mute something upsetting or irritating, and avoid seeing those things. not that people would tag some of the things they post, anyway, because while a system to warn people of mature content exists, most users do not actually use that feature. this is a problem that obviously extends beyond just fandom, and that is where the real issue lies. regularly you will encounter videos of real life carnage, pornography, and the like, posted just...wherever! under a tweet announcing a celebrity's passing, under a piece of artwork, or through a qrt trying to "make a point." it's awful.

I hate the whole atmosphere of the site, there is so much of this...careless subjecting of others to cruelty, to violence, to bigotry...all for the sake of attention. people are so unbelievably rude to each other, because they've cultivated an echo chamber in which their negativity is being rewarded, and so they are driven to say just the nastiest things imaginable to total strangers. and this will be under the guise of "activism," or of "intellectual superiority," or simply because you tweeted something random about a character, or a musician, that you do not particularly care for. it's pure madness. I do not understand how people can willingly spend hours on that website.

[insectoidvoid]

Attempting to put words to my otherheartedness

I've been thinking about the post regarding how difficult it is to explain what being otherhearted is like. And well, I guess I like a bit of a challenge. I'd also like to attempt to convey my experiences for the sake of anyone trying to figure out if they're otherhearted or not. While otherheartedness is broad and not everyone will experience it like me, I always think it's helpful to have people to compare notes with when questioning.

I'm going to focus on my spider hearttype for this post, for simplicity's sake. I might make another post about my fictional hearttype at a later date. I might not. Idk.

This is kinda long, so I'm putting it under a cut.

There are two main sentiments that I hold that led me to the label spiderhearted:

I feel a familial attachment to spiders

I feel I am a spider-themed person

On point 1:

I feel a maternal instinct towards spiders - something I notably thought I lacked entirely before I realized that the term could apply to other things besides human children. My brain registers basically every spider as my wonderful little child. I'm proud of them for being their spidery selves. I love them so much. Just looking at them brings me joy and comfort.

There is some nuance to this attachment because I feel it while also still seeing and appreciating them as a part of nature. So, it's not upsetting to me to see a tarantula hawk doing its thing or a bird hunting a spider or whatever. That's part of the spider's role in the ecosystem. It's important.

However, it is extremely upsetting to me when spiders are killed for no good reason by people. I don't even want to ever hear about it. It's also upsetting to hear people insulting them in general. I've blocked people just for calling them gross (and I'm not sorry about it).

On point 2:

This is definitely related to one of my kintypes (Widowmaker from Overwatch), but it plays into my otherheartedness in a big way as well.

You know how a lot of fictional characters have an animal as a motif, while still being human/humanoid themselves? I see myself as someone with a spider motif.

And I certainly enjoy presenting myself in this way. I like wearing spider-themed accessories and clothes. (Contrast this to the gear I have for my kintypes, where my aim is to literally look like that species or character instead. I don't have a shirt with a satyr on it, I have well-made costume horns and goat legs.)

And this applies online, too. My main handle is SpiderQueenPC. On sites I don't use as much, it's usually spidergoth.

I just really want people to associate me with spiders, basically. I'm spider-adjacent. That's part of my self-perception right alongside literally being certain species and characters.

On the surprise point 3 that I didn't list above because I don't consider it as crucial as the first 2:

I have some spidery traits. And by this, I mean a couple of things. The first one is pretty direct: I want to eat bugs. Not in the "I hate this animal so I want to eat it" internet comment way. (As I'm sure you can guess, I love bugs in general.) I just... don't see them as necessarily not-food the way most people do. Eating fried mealworms or whatever seems just as normal to me as eating a hamburger.

(Please don't derail this post by starting discourse about meat consumption in the notes. Please.)

The second one is metaphorical. I'm an illustrator. A professional one, now, but I've always drawn as a hobby. Throughout my entire life I have pursued this form of creativity out of what I can only describe as sheer instinct. I can point to inspirations for why I draw the way I do, but drawing in general? That's just innate to me, like eating and breathing. And I see spiders as a good metaphor for this. They, too, create out of instinct.

Conclusion:

Otherheartedness is multi-faceted and a little odd and that's what's lovely about it. I'm not sure how much this admittedly somewhat rambly post really conveys the experience, but at least I can say I tried. I encourage other folks in the otherhearted community to give it a go too, if you want to. Thanks for reading.

[docholligay]

"Does it though?" made me laugh. Just like a horse, you can lead a person through an English degree, but you sure as fuck can't make them think critically or drink the water. What do you think help facilitates critical thinking? Intrinsically, I feel like it's a skill and thus it can be taught, but how would you go about doing that?

It's a skill and it can be taught but I think some of the ways our culture (broadly) runs makes it difficult. If you're brought up believing there is one answer to something and one answer alone, it's going to be hard for me to tell you, "Question every answer you're given, even and ESPECIALLY ones that appeal to you."

Shades of nuance, that there is imperfect, and there is bad, and they aren't the same, and even that not all bads are equal, I mean these are things I'm really trying to even work with Midge on at a young age. She's not yet 2, so, you know, limited options, but I do try. Stopped clock theory. Someone who is wrong about everything else can be right about something. Everyone has a spark of the divine, or what I like to call, "Well, Hitler loved his dog" theory. These were building blocks of MY childhood which made it a lot easier for me. I hope to do the same for Midge, though she may ALSO just end up hitting her head on her desk repeatedly.

Here's a really good chart I think people should go through when they think of things:

And I know some of you will read this and think: "Ah! A guide to finding out how to make this anime/fanfic/youtuber problematic and cancelable!" And, please don't make me backhand you with a work glove*. See how everything in there has you step back and think about the opposite side as well? I cannot tell you the number of times that taking a step back and reevaluating things with this eye has, at the very least, calmed me the fuck down.

I think the way to try and foster critical thinking is for us to do it and demand it. So to pick on the 'Is X problematic" thing, I would maybe ask, "If I think this is anti-Semitic (to pick on my own identity) what would be the argument that it isn't? Is there a similar concept to this I could apply?" and one thing that I think is important for people, "What are my biases? Do I hate this thing anyway? Am I looking for 'trouble' with it because I don't want people to like it?"

And you can do these sorts of things for any thing. If I hear something I agree with, i think, "what might be an argument against it? What would it feel like to be in the opposing position?"

Honestly I think that people's trouble is lacking a lot of self-examination. Critical thinking is about looking at context, motive, assumptions, etc, and that's very difficult for a lot of people who want a bright-line answer.

*OP threatened VIOLENCE when challenged.

[andypantsx3]

andy: i would not touch endeavor with a 30ft pole

andy, once: i think the narrative is leading towards an endeavor redemption and here's why

andy: *gets blocked*

i only go here (bnha) to read your and a few other writer's pieces, but i've been here (ur blog) long enough to know that this is the funniest thing i've seen all day 💀

Lmao hello my love!! Thanks for being astounded with me lol.

I'm putting my reply under a cut because I honestly can't stand when people put bad vibes on the dash like I'm about to, even when I agree with them lol.

So I have noticed, in the past year most especially, a distinct lack of nuance in the way people read and interpret things.

It's interesting that my answering that I thought Horikoshi was driving towards a redemption arc for Endeavor was, if my suspicions are correct, interpreted as me supporting that choice.

Some of you who have followed me for a long time know that I have my own past history with abuse from my father and that does very much feed into my dislike of Enji's character. I personally don't know if I even believe that adult abusers can be "redeemed," and mine certainly never attempted to make any amends before he kicked it.

So I have no personal belief that this is either probable or possible, and while I tolerate it in BNHA for the sake of enjoying the story and thinking about the wider messages of hope and change, I certainly don't eat this arc right up.

So I find it super interesting that even dissecting a storyline, mentioning that I think the author is making a choice that someone disagrees with--myself kind of included, honestly--is potentially evaluated as abuse apology.

I have several more recent complaints of this nature but I think it would be childish for me to get into them, so I won't. But I just am begging people to like, evaluate things with more nuance, and read things in good faith.

[whyismangososour]

I’m gonna just let out this one last rant real quick before I just block JKR from my tags forever and hopefully never have to speak about this again. Because I’ve been holding in these feelings ever since I made this blog last year and it’s all just coming out in a fit of reblog rage after destroying my mental health for so long. Plus I know I’m just speaking into the void. I just- I need to get these feelings out.

Harry Potter was both the first fandom I was ever in and the first time I fell in love with storytelling. It’s also one of those special pieces of art that kept me alive when I was in the thick of my depression, being bullied relentlessly, and didn’t realize I was queer (with both my sexuality and gender). While I don’t want to spend money on Joanne anymore, she’s not going to fucking stop me from engaging with this story. I have my hand me down copies of the books my parents gave me when I was seven. I have my old merch I got as a gift when I was 12. I have my daydreams and my fanart and A Very Potter Musical and Wizard Rock. I’m not going to buy her dumb wizard game or watch her stupid HBO show. But I’m not going to let Joanne take away this thing I love without a fight. Without Harry Potter, I wouldn’t even be here alive, let alone on Tumblr. And I know I’m not the only one.

To bully people relentlessly for holding onto and reclaiming whatever parts of this story they can that, often, was there for them when no one else was, not only is lacking any nuance and critical thinking, but also is incredibly cruel and is clearly a projection onto others. Plus it’s so clearly driving a complete wedge between people, both in the LGBTQ+ community and those who are just allies. I know I’ve never felt more isolated than I have since Joanne started her tirade and brought on people’s clumsy boycotts.

And listen, I get it. I get it if you’re one of the victims of this systemic abuse Joanne’s caused and you just want to lash out. You want to do anything to stop her. So, you immediately block and shut down anyone who so much as mentions their Hogwarts house in their bio. Because, to you, supporting this story is supporting bigotry which is supporting these hate crimes and legislation. I get it. You don’t have to engage with people who still enjoy Harry Potter. But the depressing fact is that yelling at them to overcorrect and boycott everything that Joanne has touched, not only doesn’t get rid of the problem, but it actively makes it worse. When you are telling people to stop engaging at all with Harry Potter, you are basically telling them that what Joanne is doing is their fault. It’s basically a guilt trip and it’s only going to drive them away from the right advocacy or force them into it unwillingly (and if you’re forcing someone into advocacy then that isn’t real advocacy).

And the thing is, Joanne knows this. That’s why she claims so adamantly that people who enjoy her work are supporting her. She knows it’s driving a wedge between us and therefore distracting us from the actual, visceral harm she is contributing towards. She actively encourages it because it’s taking some of the blame away from her for a change. Meanwhile, there are god knows how many trans people actively dying everyday and fighting over a slightly outdated children’s book series from the 2000s isn’t going to change that.

It doesn’t mean you have to enjoy it or engage with it at all. Really, that’s up to personal choice. But what it does mean is that each of us has the responsibility to be there for each other no matter what. And it also means we have the responsibility to stay as educated as much as possible. This doesn’t mean erasing the books from our cultural history (another thing that makes it worse). Nor does it mean obsessively doom scrolling about every hate crime committed against the queer community. No, it means befriending different people, talking to those with different experiences, donating money when you can, reading up on trans and queer history, and goddamn it, maybe it even means writing queer Harry Potter fanfiction. Just as long as you don’t forget who the real enemy is because it’s not each other. It’s the people in power that Joanne forgot she clumsily advocated against in her dumb books. The type of person she has now turned into. Don’t you ever forget it.