#can confirm messrsrarchives on tumblr is not a facist

[messrsrarchives]

You’re starting to act just like your fascist Reggie—censoring others and trying to dictate what can and cannot be discussed in fandom. Telling people they can’t talk about politics because you, living in a first-world country, can’t handle it? You’re the one using real-world politics to justify a fictional ship with a fascist. Have you thought about how people who are genuinely anti-fascist might also dislike it in fiction? You can’t control fandom. If you want to like fascist characters, then just own it. While fiction might not feel like reality to you, for many, it is reality. Have you considered that the characters and headcanons you enjoy might reflect deeply personal experiences for others? Not everyone has the privilege to separate fiction from reality like you do.

hi feed, this message was brought to you by someone who has clearly never interacted with me ever !

WDYMMM "telling people they can't talk about politics" 😭😭 i fear that's my ENTIRE niche across two social media platforms. i fear my entire thing is politics in a fandom space + the real world. i fear that's literally what i'm known for. what 😖

i was gonna ignore this but i have so many receipts that i thought okay ! finna answer ! why not, let's entertain this <3 (below the cut because it's long)

assuming that this is a response to this post where, after watching elon perform two nazi salutes on stage, i said "hey! maybe you should stop calling people in fandom nazis for reading about a fictional character!"

what i alsooo said on that post is that it's important to discuss politics in literature (see here: doing a masters degree in english literature + politics <3). because absolutely! the DEs are crafted in a way that reflects historic events and absolutely, that's something we can discuss!

what we should also discuss is that whilst art imitiates life and life imitates art, the two do not directly reflect one another - if i read about wizards, i am not a wizard. if i read a crime book, i am not a detective. and if i read fanfic about regulus black? i am not a facist.

in regards to the censorship comment: this here is an entireeee video i made about censorship and puritanical views in fandom spaces and why this is a Bad Thing To Do (though i fear you will disagree with it because i am saying that people can read and write whatever but alas, no censorship here x)

using real world politics to justify a ship? no, not at all. i do not think ships in fandom need to be "justified" because, again, they are fiction. can they be discussed? absolutely! my tiktok is @/messrsrobyn and you will find countless videos where i dissect fandom, characters and ships. again, this is kind of my whole thing <33 nice to meet you <33 but rather for me? that post was made as a building up of (1) the mass of people in fandom during the tiktok ban saying that words have meaning when american writers say british words "wrong", but throw buzzwords around like it's nothing and (2) this is a place for escapism and safety, which is needed now more than ever and whilst discussions about politics are important, this? this ask? this is not a discussion. this is hostility, much like people just commenting "nazi" with nothing else on a jegulus post.

discussions can be had! absolutely! my entire thing is discussions in fandom. but right now i'm trying to discuss this when you have given me nothing to work with but false claims and hostility - see how this doesn't work? but alas, i'll try :)

do people read jegulus and think "wow i love voldemort and the death eaters!!! i agree with what the did here :D" or do they read jegulus and enjoy the complexity that comes with a character like him? do they enjoy how, with a character with such little canon lore, people explore things? or yk what, do they sometimes read him as a muggle where none of this matter because there's do DEs? yeah, because it's fiction. and liking a fictional character does not have repercussions on the real world.

calling someone a facist/nazi only for teading about fictional characters does - it is so incredibly important that we read immoral literature. i'm rambling now but i'm not even talking just about fandom. we NEED books that discuss these topics and we need to explore the characters within them. we NEED politics and immorality and everything like that in books because that is how we learn, understand, and prevent. reading them does make you immoral - see here: queer books being banned in the us for containing "immoral themes" and main characters doing things they deem had and awful alongside INCREDIBLYYYY important books like the handmaids tale, to kill a mockingbird, 1984, fahrenheit 451 etc etc.

we need to read these. we need to engage with them.

but in a fandom space, we also need to acknowledge that these are not real people. these are fictional characters and there's a big difference between engaging with a character because you are justifying their actions, and engaging with a character because you enjoy Exploring their character and Understanding them in as many ways as possible 🙂↕️

but we agree!! whilst fiction may not feel like reality to some people, to many it is! so have we considered that when people come to escape from the real world for a bit, or people have family members lost to past regimes; are about to enter 4 years of another regime or are holding their breath waiting for european elections to see if another far-right populist party gets in, it might sucklk to have this thrown around?

imagine dealing with alllll of that in reality, not knowing what on earth is going to happen tomorrow or what the future holds for you and the people you love, and then being called a facist online because you read about Fictional Character Regulus Black. whilst your life literally crumbles apart because of it. you are now being called the same thing that the man oppressing you and everyone you love is, because you read FanFiction.

and then finally ahem:

"not everyone has the privilege to separate fiction from reality like you do"

if you click here, you will find a tumblr post i made about this exact thing :D about how we can't separate fiction from reality

see here also: a post about the books jkr publishes under the robert galbraith pseudonym and about how we, again, cannot separate fiction from reality.

if you click here you will find my jkr playlist on tiktok which has videos in about how, again, we cannot separate fiction from reality.

what we also can't do, mind you is call someone a facist for reading a fictional character.

there is big difference between "hey! this character has facist undertones if applied irl, we could discuss this!" and "You Are A Facist For Reading It"

instead of coming and ranting to someone who has spoken extensivelyyyy about politics in this fandom space - both with fandom material and with elections, gaza, the uk riots etc etc - and is a huge advocate of dicussions and debates, put this energy into something productive.

like actual facists. real world politics and what you could be doing at a local level to help reduce the harm of Actual Facists that are in power right now. not people taking a break from Actual Facism to read fanfiction.

ta x

(p.s i'm a homeless, chronically-ill, gay, trans man. what privilege do i have in THISSS fandom space of JK ROWLINGSSSSS worlds, to separate reality from fiction? 😭)