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pomegrnteseed · 4 months ago

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i think there's cause for reflecting on the "love you sm" mentality fandom spaces perpetuate at the surface level, with stories of emotional and sexual intimacy replacing or standing in for the connections we seek for ourselves. by which i mean to say - in creating worlds where such intimacy exists, by sharing explicit erotica and unmitigated heartbreak and lasting love, we think we're closer to each other than we actually are. it's a pseudo-connection, or at least far more brittle than we expect because we've shared our kinks and histories and dreams with people just like us. except, maybe they're not so much like us.

maybe it's not love we have for other members. maybe fandom communities are actually sustained by a desire to quell the anxiety and isolation of a passion/interest/hobby that few others share irl. maybe that's why we all feel the heat and hurt of the ruptures so keenly - they disturb our own sense of security.

that's not to say that love doesn't exist, there are all kinds of love, after all. i'm just not sure that this kind of love between fandom members is enough. i think it's brittle. i think we need more robustness. and i think such robustness comes from deeper connection, which is hard to sustain across timezones, geographies, other interests, political alignments, histories, expectations, dreams, desires. it's not impossible, but in-fighting is inevitable when there are too many people bringing their own notion of normal or expected or correct to the table. too many cooks, indeed.

after all, don't our dhr protagonists often have hurdles to overcome far beyond their love for each other? it is kind of ironic to me that we are embedded in a fandom whose ship is not canon, yet we cannot possibly imagine alternative ways of connecting or building community. it's hard, i know, to look beyond the walls we find comfort in, but there's so much more to community building than being interested in the same thing. and doing it on platforms built to engender miscommunication to keep people posting (and consequently seeing the ads placed on timelines so the fat cat's pockets remain well padded) is probably not going to help matters.

like, i'm posting this on tumblr for a reason. several actually. for one, the ones who took issue with my opinions (I originally named them but logging back onto twt today reminds me it's not worth the possible backlash) back during the ai-shaming conversation aren't likely to see it unless someone sends it their way, but they blocked me so i doubt they have any interest in what i have to write. for another, twt doesn't bode well for nuance given character limits and the atmosphere on the platform being primed for defensiveness and antagonism. third, i don't feel watched over here like i did on twt. i can just post my little rambles and not care about upsetting people because really there's no one watching and that's a relief. i have no fics in me atm. i've been trying, but i don't want to give to the dhr community at large. i want to write specific stories for specific people. that's how i wrote pola's harmony bday oneshot. gifting fics for specific people feels more my speed just now. i just don't have it in me to keep fostering friendships while the atmosphere is so volatile. except for taylor. i want to write her something for sure. soon as i find my muse, there's a big monsterfucking story coming her way. and sweet sweet bee, who i feel i owe a better story than i've currently got to offer in we are to learn. maybe when i'm back west next month i'll have a little more inspiration to draw from.

anyway, i just don't think some folks really understand the fickleness of the love bandied around dhrtwt. it's not the kind of love that wants to see you grow, learn, do better. it's the kind that's merit based but the scoring system isn't clear. it's the kind that's highly conditional with unwritten rules and etiquette you best learn quick. and it's a kind of love, i've learned, that is extremely quick to sour if you don't conform to the personal ideals of a popular, loud few. personally, that's not much like the love i want to put time into at all.

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pomegrnteseed · 4 months ago

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Fandom observations

I only joined the DHr fandom via ao3 in the last year or so. My twt account went live in February. I'm a relative newbie.

I'm also an internet researcher and spend a lot of my time thinking about how people interact in negative ways online. To be clear: I am not participating in fandom as a researcher, nor do I research fandom. But I can't turn off my curiosity and I think my expertise in adjacent internet cultures offers some productive framing for making sense of the behaviours I'm seeing.

The following are some percolating reflections I've been mulling over for some time now. They're incomplete and shouldn't be read as a concrete analysis or a fix-it guide; instead, consider them pervasive thought clusters with fuzzy edges and an incomplete picture as I try to talk through my ideas to identify their core elements or themes.

I'm extrapolating from macro to micro here, and without any real map or guide to structure my thinking, I'm afraid we're left wading through this tangled web together. If, indeed, anyone at all finds this of interest. Which they likely will not. Nevertheless, it's a useful exercise. And so we begin.

On connection and community

In broad strokes, I find that communities tend to be sorted by geography, identity, or interest.

In fan communities, people can connect strongly over a special or niche interest that they don't get to indulge in deep discussion with others in other social spaces. They also connect in specific locations: fora, social media, conventions, etc. Despite the interest connecting fans, there's largely a celebration of diversity and similarities.

However, there's an impetus exhibited by a vocal minority to control or manage the boundaries of acceptable representation or experimentation within fandom. And when people stray from the emotionally and socially charged interpretations considered legitimate (which, to be clear, are inherently subjective because they are not part of the original published works and therefore are all vulnerable in their faithfulness to canon or headcanon depending on the reader), communication between fans (in-fandom and spanning fandoms) can break down.

Frankly, the lack of grace extended to others in these situations is really sad.

I'd love to see more compassionate reactions to behaviour or ideas that stray from our headcanons or interests - provided they aren't harmful.

And before anyone tries to argue that DHr is harmful because Draco was a young fascist, please remember that anything can happen in fiction: writers make the rules. Fandom offers the freedom to explore alternate realities within canon universes, or even alternate universes.

Similarly, if the author is clear in not promoting violence or harm in fiction, fictional worlds are a wonderful way to explore issues of violence, harm and issues of a taboo nature in different societies and cultures. There's a marked difference between exploring taboo and creating a manifesto endorsing harm. While some of the topics may be uncomfortable for you, your discomfort does not afford you license to censor others. As consenting adults, we can enjoy Icky Things and recognise that it only is okay to engage with and explore them in fiction or fantasy.

On digital publics and (intended) audiences

Social media platforms are spaces for various publics to interact. When we post, we have an idea of who the intended audience is. It may be out general followers, or a specific group of people. Sometimes, we post for ourselves as an archive of our ideas and experiences.

We're likely not thinking about the people outside of our perceived networks as reading or engaging with our posts, but because of the (mysterious) workings of the algorithm, often our posts end up in our spaces and we can feel that our territory or personal digital space is being encroached upon (usually because they misunderstand or misinterpret our community practices or artifacts; the recent mainstream news article about Manacled is one such example). These outsiders decontextualise our co-constructed worlds and make them vulnerable to (mis)interpretation due to a lack of or incomplete cultural knowledge.

It's not just external Publicness we need to be aware of, though. There's not one DHr fandom. There are many communities or networks of individuals who share some common interests, but there are numerous differences in what people will accept or not accept as DHr-compliant (or of personal interest). The lack of cohesive agreement as to what is acceptable means that we're vulnerable to misinterpretation or misalignment with others in our spheres.

And that's not even considering the networks of fandoms related to DHr under the wider HP umbrella.

On miscommunication, disagreement and shame

When these boundaries blur or are crossed, or contention arises, we often see an uptick in sub-tweeting, screenshotting or private quote retweeting (pqrting). This "behind their back in front of their face" approach is a wholly unproductive path to addressing ideas or behaviour we disagree with.

Shame is a powerful tool for gaining and maintaining social control. It can quite easily be weaponised and effectively impact the behaviours and beliefs of others. Shaming people's ideas, actions, or interests doesn't end them, it just obscures them or quietens them in mainstream spaces, while ostracizing them and opening up opportunities for escalation (particularly in negative behaviours) to occur.

Deciding whether to engage in conversation publicly or privately is a personal, and sometimes difficult decision. Public call-ins can model good practice and signal to others when behaviour might cross into unacceptable or unproductive areas not conducive to harmonious, diverse ranges in ideas and actions. Publicly addressing behaviour can lead to defensiveness, though, if people perceive the call-in as a shaming event, instead of a good faith intervention.

On the other hand, private conversations may lead to more in-depth and impactful discussion, but no one knows it's happening and so behaviour appears to go by unaddressed - and silence can be interpreted as complicity or agreement, despite the other functions on twt to signal agreement, e.g. Likes, Replies, Retweets.

One way to maybe mediate these tensions is to note your disagreement/issue and ask to talk about it more in private.

But sub-tweeting and pqrts, while signalling your opposition, create divides or Others, which only widens the distance between people and creates barriers to well-meaning discussion.

I'm also a firm believer in protecting your peace. Block those whose ideas or behaviour is misaligned - particularly those who build their identity on negative oppositional stances (I.e. antis). You'll not change their mind, they aren't open to alternate perspectives. Save your energy for celebrating and creating within your own networks of like-minded fans.

Shifting the ways we frame our interactions, with greater recognition of parasocial relationships, and a more expansive, welcoming approach of acceptability that replaces shame or cringe with curiosity and grace could help us combat some of the hardcoded structural issues in communication created or exacerbated by platform design and the lack of a central hub of activity, interaction, and easily accessible historical information on the networks and individuals we're engaging with.

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pomegrnteseed · 4 months ago

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I really love heist films. Here's how I'd set up the HP cast in a magical heist scenario:

Hermione Granger: the brains of the operation, former lover of Blaise Zabini, struggles to let others take on planning responsibilities. Gets Shit Done. Will never take on an apprentice. Outstanding strategist and extremely well connected, with allies in the unlikeliest of places. Learned magical mapmaking from Remus Lupin, and several other things besides. Closet adrenaline junkie. Openly disparaging of high society. Considers herself a liberator of fine arts. Donates generously to social impact projects.

Blaise Zabini: reputable conman and first class fixer, smooth talker, typically in charge of sourcing financing for larger operations and always negotiates extremely good deals. Head over heels for stay-at-home husband Ron and brings home a trinket from every country he visits, even if there's no passport stamp to prove it.

Ron Weasley: zero interest in heists, but hosts regular Sunday dinners with crews when they're on a job locally (no shop talk at the table) to remind them all that there's more to life than getting one over on the misogynistic moneyed pricks who hoard priceless art and jewels for bragging rights' sake.

Seamus Finnegan: explosions expert, eternal bachelor, his dyslexia and dyspraxia led him to building a wholly unique labelling code that inadvertently means he's irreplaceable. Created three innovative corrosive or inflammatory chemical compounds by accident at his kitchen table. On seventeen watchdog lists internationally, has his mail interfered with regularly (so he makes sure to buy some bizarre items to keep the police guessing).

Neville Longbottom: resident hacker and safecracker, particularly skilled with untangling pureblood protections, something of a fixer. Has a mutually beneficial ✨arrangement✨ with Hermione. He has been cultivating a curse-detecting sentient plant to aid his work, but as of yet the seedlings are proving... Unruly.

Charlie Weasley: the getaway guy. A bit mysterious, doesn't say much (unless the good whisky's been cracked open). Sings to himself while he's deep in thought. Lusting after Harry James Potter.

Pansy "Parks" Parkinson: con artist with a proficiency for fake identities and building believable backstories. Only in it for the thrill and to fuck over the patriarchal pureblood upper crust she was stifled by as a younger woman. Rarely without a cigarette in hand.

Luna Lovegood: surveillance whizz, sees things no one else spots. Attuned to pattern recognition, enjoys mixing divination arts with her camera work (much to Hermione's chagrin, it's very effective). Waiting for Gin to realise they're destined to fall in love.

Gin Weasley: the muscle. They're unmatched in speed and agility, and chronically underestimated given their lithe stature. And though they're not often needed, they like knowing they're the protector for the motley crew.

Hannah Abbott: extraordinary artificer, far outranking anything the Weasley twins could rustle up. Calls her wife Millie her lucky charm. Weaves magic and technology together with impeccable precision.

Daphne and Astoria Greengrass: fixers, a little unsettling in their telepathic communication style, but largely trustworthy and reputable. Astoria is engaged to Gregory Goyle. She'll tell him after the wedding vows protect them both from implicating the other in crimes.

Greg Goyle: has no idea his fiancée spends her days rubbing elbows with crooks and criminals. He's too busy building his magical art restoration business. On the downlow, he cases potential marks for his buddy Blaise. Because that's what friends do.

Harry Potter: fully aware of Hermione's hijinks, can't bring himself to worry too much because she's scarily smart and wouldn't take kindly to such a condescension. Lets her use him as scouting and surveillance distraction on occasion because he misses the high life but he's too fucking tired to get involved, tbh. Enjoys the perks of her snark and sneakery at boring galas, and occasionally helps Ron in the kitchen for heist roast dinners, his homemade Yorkshire puddings are unmatched.

The mark: Malfoy Manor

The vague idea: A magical relic of great historical significance is said to be hidden in the bowels of the ancestral Malfoy home. Hermione, loathe as she is to return to the building that still occasionally haunts her dreams some twenty years later, agrees with Blaise that the cut - 10 million gallons - is too great to pass up. But it also means having to rub elbows with Draco at ministry affairs and high society dos alongside Parks. Research will take her on something of an adventure through ministry archives, a tour of crumbling castles in the Scottish Highlands, and dredging a lake the arse-end of Wales for the necessary components her team require in assembling the perfect plan. Unfortunately, Draco has repeatedly legitimate reasons to appear at each location, threatening the op before it takes off. With her crew assembled and financing secured (though Blaise is tight lipped on the identity of their benevolent benefactor), they plot to break into Britain's most heavily fortified home to seek a treasure they're not even fully sure exists: Pair Dadeni, the cauldron of rebirth.

(obvs I'm thinking endgame Dramione, but I also kinda like the idea of a lil Draco x Neville x Hermione triad, honestly.)

#hp fandom #hp fanfic #hermione granger #harry potter fanfiction

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pomegrnteseed · 4 months ago

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Hermione: I just think there are merits to completing novels even if they aren't what I expected them to be

Draco: and what exactly were you expecting from a book titled Morning Glory Milking Farm?

Hermione: insight into dairy farming

Draco: there's literally a minotaur on the cover

Hermione: I thought they were being metaphorical about the inescapability and isolation of the industry! How was I to know it wasn't a commentary on the price gouging of milk and the environmental cost of bovine farming?

Draco: ...

#hp fandom #hermione granger #harry potter fanfiction #hp fanfic #draco malfoy #dramione

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pomegrnteseed · 6 months ago

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I've never related to Hermione and Harry more than in the post-war stories where they realise Kingsley is not the leader they hoped he'd be for them. How his dependence on the Wizengamot forces him to play the game. How he slowly turns more towards the political narratives he fought so staunchly against for decades, caving to the pressures of hypervisibility, unending criticism, and a power-wielding far right so overbearing and loud their viciousness can't be ignored as it erodes at the principles he once held so dear. The small concessions become big u-turns, and the younger generations watch on in abject horror as the promises of equity and safety become the butt of political jibes and media headlines stoking the very same fires that other those most precariously placed in society, those with the least power to enact change and relied upon most heavily to share their stories and knowledge and trauma without compensation or acknowledgement of their humanity.

I look at British politics and I see the same cycles. I see the parallels between our world and theirs. I see the painful irony of Rowling becoming Umbridge, an advisor to the new Prime Minister, forcing her violent agenda and Starmer being ever so Fudge-like in his ever-moldable foundations, churning up new people to blame, new reasons to fear, new restrictions on human rights to implement.

It's fucking galling to sit and watch this happening before us, as it is playing out across the world, and not see people open their eyes to the inhumane nature of it all. Wilful ignorance is baked in to this hell island and I am grieving already. I think I have been grieving for years.

Tomorrow I'll find the fire within me to rally round and act. Today I mourn in anticipation of the painful fight ahead. It's exhausting being able to imagine a more equitable present, to realise the potential we share, and have so many easily distracted neighbours ready to blame anyone but ourselves for the rise in fascism.

I'm so tired of it all. The wins don't feel monumental enough today. Perhaps tomorrow will seem brighter, as the efforts to build communities of care and solidarity on the ground continue.

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pomegrnteseed · 6 months ago

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Dear Serene,

We don't know each other, but I feel an urgent tugging in my belly to write you a letter. I'm posting it here on the off chance it finds you, but even if it never does, it feels important to say this.

Our digital paths barely crossed, but I left you a comment on Green Light after I finished it almost a year ago. I think the comment was quite short, but I was wholly speechless, grappling to form sounds that held meaning beyond gasps of astonishment and the rattling echoes of keening wails trapped within my ribs unable to be loosed through my throat or a keyboard. I'm not sure I'm much more eloquent now, but I am compelled to try.

I don't think I told you that I lost several nights' sleep to reading Green Light. "Couldn't put it down" seems unlikely, but I cradled my phone in my hands for four days and nights as I moved from my bed to the sofa to the loo and back again, devouring every word, rereading passages evidently crafted with care and precision that I caught myself mouthing the words more than once, as if wrapping my lips and teeth around them may help them sink in deeper.

But this story is etched on my soul, Serene.

You did something quite remarkable and all these months later, I'm still unable to pinpoint the exact alchemical base for your particular form of magic. It's quite astounding how accurately you captured the essence of British exceptionalism and denial; the contempt bred through engineered apathy and the sheer scale of systemic violence that trickles down to wreak unspeakable harm on individuals. But more than that, you pulled no punches in your imagining of a post-war universe that pays lip service and inflates the labour of those most severely impacted.

Then there is your careful consideration for places. What a thing of beauty your world building is! You conjure cities and desertscapes and homes and tombs with such care. It's so abundantly clear how much you care, Serene. For the characters, for your story, for their peace. I'm swallowing tears just thinking on it and my latest reread was some months ago.

And your characters. Gods but I love them. They're so fundamentally human. So intriguing and infuriating and loving and scared. Hermione and Draco's love story hurts and that is what makes it so real. The multifaceted characterisation of every member of your cast is astonishing. You take no shortcuts. You commit to authenticity throughout and the result is a masterpiece.

To put it bluntly, I'm grieving your loss in this space. I am processing deep anger and frustration and disbelief at the fundamental misunderstandings from others that has led to you withdrawing from the community. I don't remotely blame you, I couldn't withstand what you've dealt with. I'm gutted you've had to protect yourself and your story this way, but I support your decision.

I just wanted to tell you, though you'll probably never see this, how deeply your story affected me, and how it continues to weigh on my mind nearly twelve months later. It's a remarkable gift you gave us and I'm ever so grateful to have had the chance to read your work before you stepped away.

So thank you. Thank you for naming things I couldn't, for giving me an outlet to explore emotions I struggle to sit with, for proving yet again how fiction has the power to transform. Your words are magic. Your loss is felt. I wish you every happiness in whatever hobbies you pour your energy into next. Those next communities you meet will be lucky to have you. Entirely selfishly, I hope we see you round these parts again.

With love and solidarity,

Pom x

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pomegrnteseed · 6 months ago

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𖥔 ݁ ˖ 🫐 *ੈ.

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pomegrnteseed · 6 months ago

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artificial intelligence is not whimsical magic, it's theft

AI is to art and creativity what the Dementor's Kiss is to wix: extraction of the soul

Artificial intelligence technologies work like this:

Developer creates an algorithm that's really good at searching for patterns and following commands

Developer creates a training dataset for the technology to begin identifying patterns - this dataset is HUGE, so big that every individual datapoint (word/phrase/image etc) cannot be checked for error or problem

Developer releases AI platform

User asks the platform for a result, giving some specific parameters, often by inputting example data (e.g. images)

The algorithms run, searching through the databank for strong matches in pattern recognition, piecing together what it has learned so far to create a seemingly novel response

The result is presented to the user as "new" "generated" content, but it's just an amalgamation of existing works and words that is persuasively "human-like" (because the result has been harvested from humans' hard word!)

The training dataset that the developers feed the tool oftentimes amount to theft.

Developers are increasingly being found to scrape the internet, or even licensed art or published books - despite copyright licensing! - to train the machine.

AI does not make something out of nothing (a bit like whichever magical Law it is, Gamp's maybe? idk charms were never my main focus in HP lore). AI pulls from the resources it has been given - the STOLEN WORDS AND IMAGES - and mashes them together in ways that meet the request given by the user. It looks whimsical, but it's actually incredibly problematic.

Unregulated as they are now, AI technologies are stealing the creative ideas, the hearts and souls of art in all forms, and reducing it to pattern recognition.

On top of that, the training datasets that the technologies are given initially are often incredibly biased, leading to them replicating racist, misogynistic, and otherwise oppressive stereotypes in their results. We've already seen the "pale male" bias uncovered in the research by Dr Timnit Gebru and her colleagues. Dr Gebru has also been vocal about the ethical implications of AI in terms of the ecological costs of these softwares. This brilliant article by MIT Technology Review breaks down Dr Gebru's paper that saw her fired from Google, the main arguments of which are:

the ecological and financial costs are unsustainable

the training datasets are too large and so cannot be properly regulated for biases

research opportunity costs (AI looks impressive, but it doesn't actually understand language, so it can be misleading/misdirecting for researchers)

AI models can be convincing, but this can lead to overreliance/too much trust in their accuracy and validity

So, artificial intelligence technologies are embroiled in numerous ethical issues that are far from resolved, even beyond the very real, very important, very concerning issues of plaigarism.

In fandom terms, this comes to be even more problematic when chat bots are created to talk with characters, like the recently discussed High Reeve Draco Malfoy chatbot that has some Facebook Groups in a flurry.

Transformative fiction is tricky in terms of what is ethical/fair transformation of transformative works. I will argue, though that those hemming and hawings are moot since Sen removed Manacled from ao3 because she is creating an original fiction story for publication after securing a book deal (which is awesome and I'm very excited to support them in that!).

Moreover, the ethical problems redouble when we take into consideration that feeding Manacled to an artificial intelligence chatbot technology means that reproductions and repackagings of Sen's work is out of their hands entirely. That data cannot be recovered, it will never be erased from the machine. And so when others use the machine, the possible word combinations, particular phrasings, etc will all be input for analysis, reforming and reproduction for other users.

I don't think people understand the gravity of the situation around data control (or, more specifically, the lack of control we have of the data we input into these technologies). Those words are no longer our own the second we type them into the text box on "generative" AI platforms. We cannot get those ideas or words back to call our own. We cannot guarantee that someone else won't use the platform to write something and then use it elsewhere, claiming it's their own when it is in fact ours.

There are serious implications and fundamental (somewhat philosophical, but also very real and extremely urgent) questions about ownership of art in this digital age, the heart of creativity, and what constitutes original work with these technologies being used to assist idea creation or even entire image/text generation.

TLDR - stop using artificial technologies to engage with fandom. use the endless creative palaces of your minds and take up roleplaying with your pals to explore real-time interactions (roleplay in fandom is a legit thing, there are plenty of fandoms that do RP; this is your chance to do the same for the niche dhr fandoms you're invested in).

Signed, a very tired digital technologies scholar who would like you all to engage critically with digital data privacy, protection, and ethics, please.

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pomegrnteseed · 6 months ago

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it's all political, babe

people use the phrase 'we live in a society' a lot, but i'm going to use it here too; fandom is not removed from the society we live in. fandom is a reflection of the society, because it is members of society that make up fandom. just like the internet is not unbiased because people built it and people use it, fandom is not unbiased because people create within it.

you may not wish to interrogate your biases, your beliefs, your ideologies, your opinions while engaging with fandom, but that does not mean that those things are not working subconsciously or overtly in the choices you make when you read fics or enjoy artwork.

dhr is especially political. i said it in a tweet the other day, but draco lucius malfoy was the child of supremacists, raised to espouse fascist ideology. he was radicalised, he was a child soldier, he was groomed. for draco fans to claim that they engage apolitically is nonsense. i hate most everything joanne rowling stands for, but she was writing a book about fascism that was (riddled with problematic ideas and language, but) an accessible route for younger readers to understand the realities of supremacist notions of heritage and ethno-centric belonging. in other words, voldemort and his followers' obsession with parentage, with blood, with purity - it's the same thing hitler and the nazis were obsessed with. and their methods were the same too - ostracise, eradicate, overpower. sound familiar?

to divorce yourself so wholly from the reality of israel's ongoing genocide in palestine is to side with the oppressor. genocide relies on complicity via silence - to say nothing is to suggest it's okay. to argue that x isn't political or y isn't that deep is to fundamentally, forcefully turn away. you need to stop flinching. wokeness isn't a fun term to bandy around, it comes from Black american activism - it's time to wake up to the reality of the situation.

dhr fandom will remain political because it was based in a universe of politics. it catalogued the catastrophic outcomes of weak governments (cornelius fudge may you burn in hell), of fascist leaders (fuck you a million times over umbridge), of apathetic masses, of complicit media, of the power of public perception. it's far from the best example of these things where fictitious representations are concerned, but these things are literally woven into the entire narrative of the harry potter series. to say you don't want to see it is to contort your logic so brutally that i cannot in good faith see anything but wilful ignorance and a whole lot of internalised discomfort.

it's okay to not feel good about the things you like reading. it's okay to recognise that fiction is a fantasy land for paper dolls to smash. but it's not okay to pretend that these fantasy worlds are not founded in realities, are not reflected in the geopolitical status of the world now and historically. it's not okay to decide it's not for you because fascism affects us all. the state of the us, the uk, and europe in particular is fucking terrifying. read the news - far right ideologies are gaining more than 10% of the public vote at elections. fascism means ultranationalism (hatred of imagined Outsiders), suppression of opposition, dictatorship, militarised governance. it's literally happening around us. we are living it. and that's terrifying. it's natural to be scared. to want to flinch. to want to escape and pretend.

but you can't escape into dhr fandom and pretend that those exact same things aren't the lifeblood of dlm's backstory. that's a dissonance you cannot afford to grow.

if you look at some of the most read dhr fics: Manacled; The Auction; Secrets and Masks; From Wiltshire, With Love - they deal with the politics of war, of fascist ideology, of violence. The are also love stories, they are stories of hope, they are detailed depictions of how much we lose in the fight against hate.

we cannot have our cake and eat it too. we cannot say we are not getting involved in discussions of genocide that affect us all, because these discussions determine the world order. while we remain silent, we allow our governments to pretend their inaction is the will of the people. while we're silent, we give them a scapegoat; us. we cannot sit idly by and wait for someone else to come along. isn't that one of the characteristics we love most about hermione jean granger? her endless capacity for love (not mushy love, but active, hard-won love that forces people to keep going, that moves mountains with its sheer strength). hjg is a beacon for a lot of us in that way, never stopping after the war with her fights for the rights of all creatures, critters and magical folk. she's righteous. she's horrified by injustice. and if we say we love her, the idea of her, this pervasive fanon notion of her unrelenting fight for a better world, how can we not be moved into acting the same way? how can we read the works of others who have clearly noticed the themes and used this fandom as a vehicle for exploring the nature of fascism, the kernel of undying hope, and still refuse to acknowledge the realities these stories draw on and reflect?

i don't think we can in good faith.

living in a world embroiled in war, fascism, power struggles is exhausting. and we do come to fandom to escape. but we also come to fandom to share and learn and collectively despair and hope. we can't have nice things while we peddle the lie that fandom is apolitical, because it does those who gift us their hearts and souls in fics and fanart a huge disservice. it's not just paper dolls doing horny things. it's not just a romance story for the ages. it's real lives and real fears and real stakes. please treat it as such.

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pomegrnteseed · 7 months ago

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a transfiguration of the internal kind

or, a love letter to transformative justice, and its usefulness for fandom communities for moving away from artificial intelligence use in transformative works

This is not going to be the shortest, but nuanced issues require capacious responses. I'm going to try and keep this as jargon-less as possible, while also using the words that hold importance in transformative justice, because words are important. We all know that, as writers and artists and readers and universe-builders.

I'm also going to ask for a little bit of patience here. Because tensions are running incredibly high. I understand all too well the urge to respond immediately, to unleash the anger in your chest that once again we're having this conversation about the problems of artificial intelligence technologies as they're used for creative purposes. But directionless anger adds fuel to the fire; while anger honed into a tool for change is a useful resource (though change cannot be sought on the coattails of anger alone - this is a surefire way to reach burn out; quick flash and then nothing but errant smoking ashes).

Why do fandoms hate artificial intelligence?

The short version, in case you've not come across anyone talking about this before, is that artificial intelligence technologies like ChatGPT and Midjourney are trained up by their developers with ungodly amounts of data - data which, often, is scraped from the internet without direct permissions from original creators.

These technologies are great at spotting patterns, but because they don't have human brains, they cannot create. They can only replicate. This means that every time they're used for creative purposes, they're remixing, replicating (copying, plagiarising, stealing) the work of artists and writers and other creators without any acknowledgement, citation, payment, or thanks. When users feed reference images into these technologies, they are similarly stealing.

And, while fandom thrives on transformative works, we are careful to credit where the sandboxes we play in originated.

You'll see from time to time righteous anger as someone lifts an entire fic, replacing character names to fit their preferred ship - and the response is never positive. Stealing, in all its forms, is a huge faux pas in fandom. And not everyone is aware, because people engage in fandom across different platforms, and different fandoms have different rules or etiquettes. But thievery is an overarching Do Not.

Why do people use these technologies?

There's a huge internalised pressure, I think, for many to create. We live in a world where Influencer is a legitimate job. Where a so-called living wages still isn't enough money to actually live on. Where loneliness is rising, disconnect is growing, capitalism is thriving, individualism has us in a chokehold. There are any number of reasons why we want to be good at things, but we're subconsciously (or blatantly) being given tools and latent permission to skip steps and cheat code our way to greatness.

Artificial intelligence technologies are another way to skip steps.

There's also the fact that AI is kind of everywhere - it's increasingly normalised (see Grok on Twitter, Meta's AI in development, Grammarly ads every five minutes on YouTube). Artificial intelligence has been talked about in the media for a long time, but it felt sort of distanced to many because it was mostly used in contexts of analysing massive data sets, or other technologies we don't use every day (facial recognition software, for one). And, if you're not keyed into specific communities talking about the ethical implications of AI and machine learning, if you're not a nerd like me who follows Timnit Gebru and the Distributed AI Research Institute, who has long been fascinated with futurism and the implications of tech on society, then you likely have been subliminally aware of AI for a while without realising that it has much closer touch points to your daily life than you think.

So when these amazing technologies that can complete mindboggling calculations or complete the work of twenty human brains in minutes, that can spot patterns that help with diagnosis or condition management in healthcare, that (thanks to the prison-industrial complexes so many of us live in) are naturalised that facial recognition software is a normalised element of news reporting on crime - when they become available to the average human trying to save their limited time and energy, and are marketed as harmless, as fun, as exciting, as helpful? It's no real surprise that so many reach for it.

And some aspects of AI technologies *are* helpful. Because we have to remember that people use them for different reasons. I have a friend who wrote a book outline using ChatGPT because he's incredibly dyslexic. Some aspects of AI technologies *are* exciting. I have watched How To Drink's 'midjourney chose my drink' episode because it was fascinating and entertaining.

The ethics are complicated. But, fundamentally, these technologies steal and regurgitate the words, work and creativity of others and that is hugely problematic.

But - and this is where I suspect I'll lose people - shouting at people on the internet will not lead to long-term behaviour change.

This is where transformative justice comes in.

Transformative justice is an alternative approach to seeing justice, healing and repair. It's abolitionist in its approach, actively divesting from punitive and carceral responses to harm (e.g. policing, prisons, foster care, psychiatric intervention), instead grounding responses at the community level. Transformative justice is holistic, looking not just at What was bad, but Why it happened. It's often used to deal with the community-impacting wounds of interpersonal violence, drug misuse, domestic violence, etc.

Transformative justice is founded on principles of respect, care, patience, and compassion for *everyone*, including those people who have done harm. Because people won't change without the material conditions to do so.

I see AI use for generative purposes (to create, to skip personal skills development) as a kind of harm for creative communities at large. I think it's fundamentally problematic to use AI when there can be no full oversight of the training data sets (data which is often influenced by unconscious biases from the developers, leading to outputs that are ingrained in racism, misogyny, ableism, transphobia, etc).

I also think, for fandom in particular, this chasing ideas of perfection or greatness does us all a disservice. Fandom is the place for WIPs, for seeking progress not perfection, for charting authentic skills development and celebrating engagement with the universe regardless of skill or talent. I especially think it's unethical to use AI and charge money for your artwork that uses stolen ideas.

I do not think that shouting at those who use AI is conducive to a healthy, thriving community.

Especially as a collective that primarily exists digitally, and for whom meet-ups happen typically either at cons or small, local scales between friends, shouting on the internet is unproductive in changing hearts and minds.

Transformative justice would seek education. The Philly Stands Up! roadmap to accountability is as follows:

Identifying behaviours that harmed others (this can take a really long time!)

Accepting harms done

Identifying patterns

Unlearning old behaviours

Learning new behaviours for positive change

This might seem simple, but it takes an awfully long time in some instance, particularly where people are resistant to holding themselves accountable and taking responsibility for the harm they've done.

It's not impossible, but it requires commitment from the community to stick to the principles set out and agreed upon - something that's hard when you exist in a digitally diverse, dispersed community across multiple platforms around the world with very different ideas of what justice looks like.

But maybe we can, in our micro communities - the spaces where we know people best, where we interact most frequently - begin to set expectations clearly. Maybe we can commit to not immediately letting the rage direct our tweets when we come across yet another AI user in our broader or inner circles. Maybe we can learn to hold patience and compassion (and make good use of our priv accounts, because transformative justice also recognises that this work is resource heavy, and those involved need space to vent/process/protect their peace too).

In my mind, transforming the community standards is an ongoing education project. It's unfair to expect everyone to arrive with the same knowledge or understanding as you. Especially when most AI conversations are so emotionally charged - no one has to read the shouting or snark, and many will scroll right by if it doesn't have a ship tag or NSFW in the first line. You cannot demand full compliance with your ethics and morals and practices when there is no entrance exam to joining a fandom community. But you can keep sharing why these technologies are harmful in the precarious spaces we occupy. You can drop people a message and link them to resources that explain the ethical problems with AI. You can rage on your priv with your likeminded friends, and publicly post your monthly or fortnightly or weekly reminder that AI is not welcome in fandom spaces and here's why.

Expecting the same education and understanding from everyone is ableist and classist and exclusionary. Chasing people out of fandom for making mistakes, for letting their need for validation or their desire to be better than they can currently create or their lack of understanding as to what AI is, how it works, and why it's not a good tool to engage with for creative means is going to gatekeep fandom in ways that do us all a disservice.

Keep the fandom aware of those who monetise their work while using AI technologies to generate the outputs. Ask those people to quit and focus on honing their skill set the old fashioned way. Encourage those who have been missold art to request refunds. But if you're sending death threats to community members for historic AI use and creating an environment so toxic and hostile that others who have done similar don't feel able to speak up, apologise, and assure the community that they've changed without harassment and unnecessary shaming? We'll never foster the sense of supportive, loving community so many of us crave.

There will always be people who seek to profit off of kindness. There will always be profiteering book binders, people selling AI-generated art they pass off as their own. That doesn't mean that we should denounce all who have ever used the tools. That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater, I think.

Shame is a tool for control. You can't force people to stop using artificial intelligence. You can lead the abraxan to water but you can't make them drink. That doesn't mean that creating an environment where it's safe to acknowledge past or current behaviours that are harmful and to learn without total ostracism from the community they want to be a part of isn't a worthwhile endeavour.

Edited to add:

Some practical steps people can take towards holding themselves accountable and taking responsibility for previous AI us. (Writing ideas are more plentiful because I am not an artist, my stick men are questionable at best).

If you've used AI to create anything

Share why - I think it can be helpful to humanise the realities of why AI is attractive and helpful to those who use it (and also we can help as a community give you the support, encouragement, learning resources you need to develop further)

Commit to not using it down the line

Help educate others in how to spot AI-generated content; it's not so obvious to those of us (like me) who are not artists - what do you look for? How can you tell the differences?

Create goals for your creativity skills - what do you want to be able to do, but can't yet? Set yourself challenges or journal activities that engage your creativity while not relying on those technologies

If you used AI for art

keep a diary of your skills development as you learn to create art without generated reference images or skeletons for tracing

share non-AI resources for inspiration/reference images to keep folks away from Pinterest and other less trustworthy sources

follow artists on youtube etc who take you through their processes to pick up tips and tricks

If you used AI for writing

get more involved in online conversations on twitter/discord servers to make connections with people who you could ask to be alpha and beta readers on your work

set goals for yourself - could be tropes, writing styles, word counts, whatever it is you want to achieve, share them with the community and we will cheer you on!

journal or reflective activities can help unlock ideas or inspire work

read, comment, scream about the works you love - and also think about what it is that makes them special, what writing techniques do they use?

check out writing courses or youtube tutorials! they can be so helpful!!

throw your plunnies you don't feel comfortable writing yet into the community and see what ideas people throw back; you might just find that a back and forth with someone sets you off down a path you didn't expect and before you know it you have a couple hundred or thousand words written ready to share with us!

All that is to say, there are ways of maintaining transparency about prior AI reliance, while not being self-flagellating, and also not minimising the extent of the harm done by the use of these technologies - especially if you do so for profit. Nevertheless, I won't shout anyone out of the community, personally, because I have capacity to hold space for those who've done harm and want to set things right, who want to continue creating and supporting and enjoying within our community while no longer using extractive, plagiarising technologies to do so.

#hp fandom #hp fanfic #artificial intelligence #don't use ai kids #create with your minds and hearts #being bad at art is cool here #share your half-formed ideas #shout your plunnies into the community and the community shall sing praises back

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pomegrnteseed · 1 year ago

Text

Fandom observations

I only joined the DHr fandom via ao3 in the last year or so. My twt account went live in February. I'm a relative newbie.

On connection and community

In broad strokes, I find that communities tend to be sorted by geography, identity, or interest.

Frankly, the lack of grace extended to others in these situations is really sad.

I'd love to see more compassionate reactions to behaviour or ideas that stray from our headcanons or interests - provided they aren't harmful.

On digital publics and (intended) audiences

And that's not even considering the networks of fandoms related to DHr under the wider HP umbrella.

On miscommunication, disagreement and shame

One way to maybe mediate these tensions is to note your disagreement/issue and ask to talk about it more in private.

But sub-tweeting and pqrts, while signalling your opposition, create divides or Others, which only widens the distance between people and creates barriers to well-meaning discussion.

#hp fandom #dhr fandom #reflections

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