#jk rowling has outed herself as a horrible person since then

[madrewrites]

so my day has been irreversibly ruined

[castielsnutrag]

This has been on my mind for a while and I just need to say it online because if I say it to one of my friends I'll get like interrupted or stutter a bunch and have to scream.

I totally believe in separating the art from the artist even if they're still alive, because I've been doing it ever since I found out what a horrible person JK Rowling was. I separated her art from her because it was a big part of my childhood and still is a part of my life. I can still enjoy the media without feeling guilty about supporting her.

But when it comes to other situations, like vivziepop vs ken draws, it's completely different. I won't separate the art from the artist there because the art is stolen and/or traced. A good few of the designs in hazbin hotel are heavily based on Ken's art or ocs. And vivzie herself has said that she's a bad writer, and a few scenes in hazbin are very similar to some messages that Ken sent her.

It's still possible to separate the art from the artist here, but I choose not to do it because the making of the art was dishonest and kind of shady. But this is just my opinion enjoy media however you want 🫶

[joannerowling]

Man PinkNews really can't stay away from Jo for too long lol, they're back at it again with more slander, this time with a supposed like of a pretty offensive tweet. And as always people are eating it all up.

Now I went to check and that supposed like wasn't there which makes me think it's fake(either that or much like few years ago when she liked and then unliked that one tweet-I forget what was it about, and if her like was real then it could be the same case again, an acidental like).

But like, I really don't get these people...I get it, they hate her, but why make up stuff? Is it cause perhaps normies are waking up and seeing that Jo isn't this evil person the likes of PinkNews and TRAs are trying to paint her as...it's so weird.

Well they can't exactly go and talk about anything wrong she would have actually done, can they, since when you look up what Jo really does with her money it's all charity and paying her taxes. We're still waiting on that list of anti-trans organisations she would have supposedly funded or donated to - you'd think they would line up to claim her patronage, and yet! Crickets! Strange, isn't it?

So they are reduced to this: dishonesty, defamation, and just making shit up when they run out of ideas. Take this week's example of what has the gendiboos shitting themselves: Jo liking a darkly humourous tweet saying "at least the Talibans know what a woman is". Someone tried to paint that as a) original tweeter was supporting the Talibans (yes, in this era where people can just say "kill yourself" to a celebrity over them claiming to like raisins); b) JKR herself implicitly supports the Talibans by proxy because she liked the tweet. Now, the person who said that claims to have received a cease and desist order. Gee, why would that ever happen??

… Yeah, i guess Jo's a little sensitive about that particular brand of defamation of her character. It's almost like, unlike these bozos, she actually cares about hate crimes against women.

Honestly i wish she'd actually take them to court, just once. She would absolutely wipe the floor with them and that would set the record straight for any more who wants to try her. And i'm not even saying that with her sake in mind tbh.

But for the sake of the ACTUAL WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE EAST SUFFERING THROUGH ISLAMIC REGIMES RIGHT THE FUCK NOW.

Like hey!! guys, gals and nonbinary pals! Maybe… just maybe?? we shouldn't use victims of horrible religious tyranny as pawns in some stupid gender wars?? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I know we're all convinced in our heart of hearts that JK Rowling is a big bad meanie, but maybe we could act like the better people we pretend to be for once and treat this topic with the seriousness it warrants?? ufuckingwu!

And since i had the unpleasant surprise to see that in the tag this morning: same thing with Ukraine. No, JK Rowling is not friend with Putin, she has actually helped Ukrainian refugees since the start of the war, and the fucking Harry Potter store being maybe still up in Moscow on Google Maps is the last of Ukraine's problems even if she had the actual power to shut it down (assuming GM's infos are even actualised).

Like, i can sort of laugh it out when these idiots make up bullshit about the Goblins being antisemitic caricatures. (Except, it's not actually funny, not when you take two seconds to think about the implications that a whole generation of people apparently think that this is what antisemitism is, OR, care so little about antisemitism that they are happy to pretend that this is it.) It's a whole 'nother business to pick victims of current wars and religious extremism and make up a story about how it's all some writer you don't like's fault. Those are real people ffs. Whom JKR is tangibly helping. What the fuck is Pink News doing for them, hmm? Not even showing them an OUNCE of decency and respect, that's what.

Anyways, apologies for this outburst. To answer your question : why do they do it? Hatred. Hatred is the point. It goes nowhere deeper than this i'm afraid.

[rodanseys]

ok i lied i know, in my gut, this is in reference to taylor. so i’ll bite. and i'm not going to hide this behind a read more, so just scroll for folks who don't want to read it when they see it.

first off, depending on your definition of stan, i may or may not already have “unstanned” taylor. my relationship changed ever since the pandemic, when celebrities in general were exposing themselves as being so out of touch. i started emotionally distancing myself from her then, not because of anything she had done, but just because i was growing up and part of that growing up was understanding parasocial relationships and where i wanted to place my boundaries with her. this still was a net positive relationship with her, but i was still far more parasocial at that time than i am now.

ever since dating matty healy, i became far more critical. i think that’s when i really emotionally unstanned her insofar that i want to be known as a swiftie in the way that her music has shaped my life and i want to believe she’s a good person, not that i believe she’s perfect and will defend any decision she makes. and that i’m willing to retract my faith in her if she gives me enough consistent reasoning. if you don’t think stans can be critical, then maybe i’m not a stan by your definition.

her silence on palestine is disappointing to say the least. you can look all over my blog for incredibly articulate posts from other swiftie tumblrs about why. in general, i’m not of the opinion that celebrities are politicians. i think it’s grim and dystopian that we have to depend on celebrity activism to encourage and persuade so many people. it’s not taylor’s fault that is the case, but it is the reality of the world in which she finds herself an incredibly wealthy and privileged celebrity, thus she should use her platform. she shares an understanding of this responsibility in miss americana and a desire to use her platform better; this only makes her silence and hiding look more cowardly.

i also think it is hard to find a clear line where you should stop consuming the art of someone problematic. this is because everyone is problematic, including me, including you (anon), including the reader of this post. problematic needs to be neturalized as a term because it’s just the way humans are. we have biases, we make mistakes, we do bad things while knowing they are bad. i am generally against cancel culture for this reason (also, because it is more in-line with punitive justice vs. transformative justice, and i think punitive justice needs to be abolished completely).

sometimes, the horribleness is clear and the art just can’t be separated, like with jk rowling. i’m not going to buy anything that’s going to send my money towards racist and anti-trans lobbying. i don’t think any amount of nostalgia should let people off that hook, but i do empathize with people's disappointment towards not being able to engage with a franchise they love because of the harm it is still actively causing to fund its creator.

taylor is different because she’s not funding anything harmful but she isn’t helping when she can, which is making myself and so many other fans really stop and think if she’s the person she says she is. she keeps saying she wants to go to other planets where only gentleness survives, that she wants to go to the 1800s except for the racism. well, when you can defend a white woman against weird and invasive comments on her body, but can’t use that same energy to post a link to help women of color escape from being bombed, i can’t really believe your self-declared anti-racism.

and that’s where the lines blur and it gets hard. because it becomes so much more about every fan’s individual relationship with taylor and how comfortable they still are consuming her music. after info about matty came to my attention when they were dating, i stopped listening to the 1975 fully and they were one of my favorite bands. that was a hard and fast line for me. i can cut out artists and will.

but taylor wasn’t always just an artist to me, which is the whole problem. she was so close to fans and real with us at the beginning of her career. now, she’s a secluded millionaire who, for reasons both valid and awful, refuses to listen to those same fans who she used to invite into her homes. i’m willing to both admit and call her out on that huge pendulum shift. but i’m still trying to understand what this means with my engagement of her art. even if it isn’t stanning, or being a die-hard, there are songs by taylor swift that touch me more than almost anything else in this life. the best day is a song that was played at my grandma’s funeral to memorialize her best friendship with my mom. sparks fly will always be about my childhood crush, dylan, who has green eyes. i was in a really, really, really dark place when lockdown lifted (almost lost a job and was living alone); listening to folklore helped me get through intense loneliness, self-doubt, anxiety, and anger. her music has guided me through stages of my life and the image she has made for herself, regardless of how real it ever was or how much it has changed, inevitably impacted my ability to look at her with critical eyes.

in my tweens and teens, i was teased and bullied for liking taylor. that, alongside seeing her criticized for sexist things and given death threats during rep, made it even more difficult to accept that there are valid criticisms of her. over those YEARS, friend groups and families treated me as her defacto defense for any widespread gossip, which also made it difficult to separate her opinions and values from mine (i know this sounds extreme, but it is the truth). i have moved away from these ways of thinking now, but it was incredibly difficult. i imagine that a lot of longtime fans can relate to the difficulty of removing yourself from this parasociality, especially those who have also grown in their own social consciousness as time passed. i am perpetually grieving the relationship i used to have with her.

because of those complexities, i think all fans should be able to decide where their own breaking point is without being criticized for it. i also think fans who aren’t criticizing taylor need to really look inwards and figure out why exactly they are so incapable of criticizing someone they don’t know. what they are trying to do or save. are your morals really less important than winning hypothetical brownie points from a celebrity who, most likely, has no idea that you exist? i also don't get the argument behind calling people "fake fans" because it just has shallowness all around.

so those are my current thoughts on stanning, specifically in relation to taylor. i don’t expect everyone to have exactly the same opinions and would love to have conversations (not fights over anon or passive-agression in tags) if people want to talk more or just have reassurance from a fellow swiftie who is really struggling with taylor’s inaction right now.

and i’ll end this by saying that, while i think it’s always important to criticize celebrity culture, i am, myself, privileged to be able to have this conversation right now when people across the world are being martyred. so…

do your daily click

donate to PCRF

donate to gazafunds

donate to swiftiesforpalestine

have difficult conversations with your loved ones (who you can influence more than taylor)

etc

(also, these are the opinions i hold as of today. things will probably change and evolve. i hope you all will treat me, and i will treat myself, with grace when this happens).

unstan

you gotta say a bit more

[rjalker]

Made with speech to text. Forgive random typos.

If somebody asks you why the Harry Potter books are bad and your only response is that JK Rowling is transphobic then you are not listening to anybody except people enough like you.

The Harry Potter books are bad because they are racist and antisemitic and fatmisic. They promote, defend, and glorify slavery.

Edit: There is some transmisia in the books with the way Reeta Skeeter is handled/portrayed:

i have a correction -- the way reeta skeeter is portrayed in the harry potter books is absolutely transphobic. iirc she's described unflatteringly as "mannish", transforms herself in order to spy on (female) child characters (she gets caught & trapped in her transformed state as a result), & is generally presented as obnoxious, demanding, & unreasonable, the way terfs falsely think trans women are. it's not "man in a dress" to be fair but you can still see it if you look

tl;dr -- minor transphobia IS present in the books, in the way one female character is demonstrated to be villainous by giving her stereotypical "trans predator" traits, probably subconsciously on jkr's part

(Ty @technoxenoholic)

but that does not change the fact that there are a million and one other forms of bigotry in the series that also need to be criticized and also need to be held up as reasons the series is shit.

JK Rowling being a TERF inherently makes her shit bad, but that is not why Harry Potter /in particular/ is a fucking garbage pile of bigotry.

If the only thing you can come up with to explain why the Harry Potter series is bad is that JK Rowling hates trans people, then you are not listening to people of color, you are not listening to fat people, you are not listening to Jewish people, you are not listening to anybody that is not like you.

People have been criticizing the bigotry in the Harry Potter series for decades. Ever since they came out. If you only start caring about the bigotry in the series now that JK Rowling openly hates trans people, if you literally do not understand or even know about or notice any of the bigotry in the books despite you having read them, then you literally just need to stop talking and start listening to other fucking people.

I read these books when I was a kid. And even as a little fucking kid the bigotry in these books pissed me off even though I didn't have words for what they were. Anytime I looked for Harry Potter fanfiction, it was literally specifically shit that was taking the entire thing apart and rebuilding it from scratch to not be a glorified fucking dystopia that we're supposed to pretend is awesome and amazing when it is filled to the brim with fucking bullshit and bigotry and horrible shit we're supposed to cheer on.

Yes, you should hate JK Rowling for the way she hates trans people. But if literally the only only fucking reason you hate her and you hate her writing is that she hates trans people, you're just a shit person.

If you've read the Harry Potter books 10 times each or what the fuck ever it is you people like to brag about, and your only take away for anything bad about it is that JK Rowling is a TERF, then you are just not fucking good at this.

So many of you people proudly claim to have read the Harry Potter books cover to cover 10 times hundreds of times blah blah fucking blah but cannot even come up with the most basic summary of the bigotry in the series except for saying "oh well JK Rowling is transphobic now so that's why the books are bad that's why I don't read them anymore. Because of the transmisia. And nothing else"

Solidarity or drown motherfuckers. Stop reducing everything JK Rowling has done wrong to her just hating trans people and nothing else.

[fandom-thingies]

My Complicated Feelings Toward JK Rowling

I think everyone who’s read Harry Potter and likes to talk has written something like this by now. It makes sense, right? She wrote possibly the most influential book series to come out in the last century. For me and many others, those books are an unforgettable part of our childhoods, and it hurts for the person who took us on such a journey of magic and wonder to be so unmagical herself.

So, here’s my take.

I think the thing I hate most about JK Rowling is how close she came to greatness.

There’s a reason her books became so popular, after all. For all her faults, (and there are many) she’s an amazing writer.

Every one of her characters feel like they could walk off of the page at any time and into your life. 

Dudley Dursley with his absorption of how his parents treat Harry and how his friends treat him, with his slow growth throughout the books into a person beyond who he was raised to be.

Molly Weasley with her overbearing mother henning, sometimes harmful but oh so clearly coming from a place of love, and her complete willingness to adopt any child that stands still long enough for her to do so. (Except Fleur)

Narcissa Malfoy with her belief in the horrible things she’s doing, without that stopping her from being entirely willing to do anything for her child.

Sirius Black with his tendency to unintentionally echo the sentiments he was raised with, and the tragedy of him losing his chance to ever truly grow as a person after being thrown in Azkaban for twelve years and then dying so soon after, and his complete, unconditional love for Harry.

I could write essays on any of them, and my point is that while JK’s treatment of certain issues and characters makes me want to hate Harry Potter, her characterization itself is both consistent and magnificently human.

Her world, too, is beautiful.

I first read Harry Potter before I turned eleven, and I was one of many across the nation who awaited my letter with eager anticipation. 

Can you blame me? The world she created filled so many children with wonder, made so many of us want so badly for magic to be real, to be ours- 

It was beautiful, and I hate her for what she could have been.

She had this fully realized system of prejudice that canonically created genocidal maniacs and put them in power every two generations or so, and she had this very realistic way of writing horribly flawed people that pronounces them as people without exonerating them for the awful things she’d have them do, and I can’t help feeling like “the horrors of war”, as well as she wrote it, wasn’t the story her world deserved.

But that’s a big idea to tackle, and I think it will be tackled best if I start small. I’ve spoken now of the beauty of her world, of her characters. Now I’ll speak of what marrs it.

Like I said, I want to start small.

So, let’s talk about the house elves.

TL;DR? Hermione was right. They’re indoctrinated from birth into believing the only thing they’re good for is housework, as well as being raised to abhor any elf who chooses to do otherwise. It’s a neat little self perpetuating system that bears absolutely no similarity in ideology to the mythology JK built it off of, and as such loses the aspect of choice that’s so significant to brownies.

Add to that the socially acceptable abuse, and you’ve got something that looks far more similar to slavery than it does little fairies who come to clean your home and get mad if pay them because they’re doing it as a favor.

And that’s why it’s so concerning, when JK brushes Hermione’s campaigning off in canon so casually.

It’s honestly hard to say when I started to be leery of JK Rowling, except that it was several years before the TERF scandal occurred. I think this was probably one of the earlier areas, though.

The first time I remember wondering if Harry Potter’s greatnesses were in spite of her intentions, rather than because of them, though, wasn’t the house elves.

It was, rather, a different contentious issue in the fandom, and one I’ve always fallen quite firmly to one side of, as someone who’s been bullied myself.

The first time I remember being suspicious of JK’s beliefs was when I realized she didn’t write Snape with the intent for him to be a villain.

Snape is not a person anyone in the fandom seems to be able to agree on. Some see him as a flat, cartoony villain, while some see him as a tortured soul who only did all those terrible things because he was hurting inside, don’t you see? 

Personally, I drew the line at him being a child’s boggart, as well as the time he attempted to kill Neville’s toad, Trevor, because seriously; what the fuck.

It had always been my belief that while him being obsessed with loving Lily motivated him to work on the side of good, it was more like Narcissa’s willingness to betray her cause for her son than anything else, being a sympathetic trait without absolving his cruelty.

Then I realized that a bunch of people (likely including JK) view Narcissa similarly to how they view Snape, seeing both as people who do bad but are good, rather than people who do good but are bad, and I honestly don’t know what to say to y’all.

You know having good traits doesn’t make a person good, right? Being capable of affection doesn’t absolve people of cruelty or make it your responsibility to forgive them and try to get them to change, it just tells them that they can do bad things without being punished for it. 

Do you guys need an abuse hotline? 

Anyway, that’s when I stopped liking JK, since I’ve been bullied myself and seeing her treat such a horrible bully as a good person kinda soured me on her. I’m not mad at her for letting her bullies grow and change- I love Draco’s and Dudley’s character arcs. I’m just mad at her because unlike those two, Snape is an adult and she kinda wrote it like forgiving him was an expectation of Harry, rather than a personal choice (and not an easy one either! Forgiving bullies is hard and it’s not always healthy!)

I’m getting off topic, but I genuinely believe that discussing this kind of thing is important, so I’m leaving that in.

Getting back to what this is actually about, I’m the kind of person who sees potential in things, often before I see the work itself, (it’s why I write fanfiction) and Harry Potter has so much potential it hurts, because so much of it is just wasted.

I said, earlier, that “the horrors of war” wasn’t the story best suited to this world, and I stand by that.

The first reason I believe that is because I don’t think that the black and white morality this kind of narrative often creates was well suited to JK’s writing style. JK has a tendency to put her characters in boxes of “good” or “bad” and as someone who doesn’t really believe in inherent goodness or evil, this will always feel unrealistic to me.

Because in the end, it’s JK’s minor villains, the ones not directly involved with Voldemort’s war, that really shine.

My favorite villains in the series were Umbridge, the Dursleys, Draco Malfoy, and Cornelius Fudge, because they were the villains who felt real, who felt like flawed people making flawed decisions because we’re all fundamentally products of our environment-

These are the villains who stuck with me, who I still want to take and shake because they were the kind of cruelty we’ve all faced.

Voldemort, as the main villain of the story, would have been more powerful if he’d been an amplified version of these people. In fact, the story would have been better in general if Fudge or Dumbledore had been the villain, because the problem with Voldemort is that unlike the good villains in this story, who feel real because we’ve all met people like them, Voldemort is and will always be larger than life.

A genocidal maniac is a villain few of us have faced societally, and one none of us have faced directly.

Also, rather than being a worse version of Umbridge or Fudge, Voldemort is more akin to a worse version of Snape. He’s a tortured soul who does bad things because bad things were done to him, rather than being cruel through his choices, his own agency.

That’s the first reason why “the horrors of war” wasn’t the best choice of a narrative for this world.

The second is that I don’t think JK sees anything wrong with her muggle hating characters.

She clearly thinks killing muggles is wrong, of course. She’s not that bad.

But, well, the muggle characters in Harry Potter are consistently kind of awful.

First there’s the Dursleys, selfish, entitled, egotistical, and cruel to anyone different from them. Then there’s Snape’s muggle father, who was horribly abusive, as well as cruel to anything different from him.

Then there’s the muggle prime minister, who despite being an important figure, is left completely out of the loop for anything concerning wizards, pretty much only used when the ministry needs the muggle news to say or do a certain thing, like when Sirius Black was declared a criminal.

There’s also the family at the quidditch world cup, of whom who only meet the patriarch, a somewhat stupid man who remarks uncomprehendingly on the oddness of wizards trying to assimilate into muggle society, a man who is canonically obliviated ten times a day.

And that’s it, that’s all the muggle characters I can remember. Aside from the Dursleys, none of them are given more than a page or so of screentime, and none of them do anything significant.

No, wait, I did actually forget two.

Hermione’s parents, who are obliviated and sent to Australia when the war starts, because the only thing they could ever do in a war is be victims.

Muggles in Harry Potter are consistently stupid, ineffectual, and cruel to anyone different from them.

Out of the entire massive cast of Harry Potter, there are few enough muggles that I can list them all off the top of my head without googling and the only muggle in the story ever given the all important chance to be kind is Dudley Dursley, who is taken out of the story the moment he stops being an awful person.

I’m sure you see the problem.

The issue with Harry Potter is that JK acts like the problem is solved when muggles are no longer being actively persecuted, when in reality that’s only the beginning of solving the prejudice that plagues her world.

Voldemort is frequently called “wizard Hitler” and I think that’s more accurate than people realize, because as with Hitler, people easily see the problem with Voldemort committing genocide, and they’re fine with working to stop that, but the moment they’re asked to examine their own biases, their own small cruelties and exclusions, the ten thousand cuts they’ve inflicted with their own hands…

The moment people are asked to examine themselves, to look close at the mirror and point to what allowed someone like Voldemort to gain a following in the first place, they turn away and go back to turning a blind eye to the fact that if you don’t address the societal issues that made him gain a following in the first place, there’ll just be another when it’s been a few years and people have forgotten.

In the end, Grindlewald is wizard Hitler. Voldemort and the death eaters are wizard neo nazis.

I’m not Jewish, though, so I’ll let them be the ones to expand further upon this, as many have.

My point here is that JK’s story would have been more powerful if it had been about addressing the issues that underpin the death eaters, rather than killing their leader and acting as if that’ll solve anything.

JK Rowling is antisemetic, racist, and a TERF, among other things, and while I’m glad it shows in her work as little as it does, it does show, and I’m not going to cover that in this because a thousand other people have covered it better than I ever could.

Suffice to say, I’m nonbinary, and I’m glad I was disillusioned with her before I knew she was prejudiced directly against me, because loving her before she said the things she said and did the things she did would have hurt.

The fact that her world shows so clearly the consequences of her beliefs, even in the context of a prejudice that doesn’t exist in our own world…

I guess she’s always been too good a writer for her own good, in the end.

[uncloseted]

So is it problematic if a character in fiction is gay or bi or trans, but that idea is never explored as a part of their character arc or struggle? Like it's just a one off aspect of them? I see some people get upset, especially in the case of Loki or JK Rowling, when characters are revealed as canonically queer but it's not an important part of the story. Does every queer characters arc and backstory specifically have to revolve around their sexuality or gender?

I think whether or not it's problematic depends on the larger context of the piece of media, but I actually think it can be more problematic when their *tragic queer backstory* is the only thing about them (although it's also good to have LGBT stories where that is discussed). For example, I think the [minor spoilers] Korra/Asami reveal in Legend of Korra is okay, despite it not really being part of the story, because it took so much for the writers to be allowed to show them in a romantic relationship at all.

Likewise, I don't actually have a problem with the "Dumbledore is gay" reveal. JKR has a lot of ideologies that I find horribly problematic, but in context, I don't think the Dumbledore reveal is that bad. It was in response to a fan who asked whether Dumbledore had ever found love. Rowling responded that she “always thought of Dumbledore as gay," and that “Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was." I always found it to be an honest answer to an honest question, the same way that she's answered questions about McGonagall's romantic past, especially since none of the teachers have romantic partners in the books at all. I think it's an answer that's relatively well substantiated in the parts of the book that discuss Dumbledore/Grindelwald (or at least, as substantiated as it could be for a children's book released in 2007- gay marriage wasn't even legal in the UK until 2013). I also think it's pretty profound for the most powerful wizard in the world to be a gay man, although it would have been better to have him be the most powerful wizard in the world *while being in an LGBT relationship*. I think the reason people struggle with this reveal is because they feel like JKR "announced" that Dumbledore was gay in order to get "woke points" without having to actually write an LGBT character or risk offending people, but I just don't think that's how this actually came about. I actually think it's more problematic that she wrote an epilogue where all of the characters were suddenly in straight marriages.

In the case of Loki, however, I do think it's problematic. Loki came out this year, when 70% of US Americans support gay marriage and it's legal in all 50 states, their target audience is adults aged 18 to 34, and Marvel constantly queerbaits because they know it will make them money. The reason Loki (and Marvel movies in general) doesn't contain any LGBT content is because they're afraid of losing business in China. They're being cowards, and we shouldn't keep letting that happen.

In general, I don't think an LGBT character's entire personality should revolve around their sexuality/gender, and I don't think their backstory needs to be about the *trauma* of being LGBT. But I do think they need to be allowed to be shown with a same-sex partner, the same way that straight characters are shown with opposite-sex partners. Thirteen in the TV show House is a pretty good example of this; she's bisexual and she's shown with both male and female partners, in both casual and committed contexts, but her storyline never really revolves around being LGBT. It revolves around the trials and tribulations of her being a doctor, her relationship with her own health, and the struggles she has within a relationship (regardless of who that relationship is with).

Jules in Euphoria is another pretty good example- she's trans and she talks about her experience as a trans person trying to understand what that means to her. She's also bisexual and is shown in romantic relationships with men and women. But her gender and sexuality aren't ever the focus of her character arcs; her relationship to herself and to the people around her is. She's pretty much accepted as both a trans person and as someone who's bisexual, which gives room for her stories to be about other things.

GLAAD released an LGBT analog to the Bechdel test called the Vito Russo Test which I think helps to illustrate which portrayals of LGBT people in media are and are not problematic. The criteria for passing the Vito Russo test is as follows:

The film contains a character that is identifiably lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer.

That character must not be solely or predominantly defined by their sexual orientation or gender identity (i.e. they are comprised of the same sort of unique character traits commonly used to differentiate straight/non-transgender characters from one another).

The LGBTQ character must be tied into the plot in such a way that their removal would have a significant effect, meaning they are not there to simply provide colorful commentary, paint urban authenticity, or (perhaps most commonly) set up a punchline. The character must matter.

I would add a fourth criteria to that list about sexuality specifically, which is "The LGBQ character must be shown engaging in an LGB relationship comparable to that of their straight counterparts".

[akari-hope]

So I’ve heard differing arguments relating to it, ranging from “Well, if we shun content created by this person and/or everyone who’s done anything problematic, that’s a slippery slope that’ll lead to us being unable to enjoy anything” to “It doesn’t matter if you can separate the author from their creation to an extent, there’s ultimately other content to be consumed, & shunning the work of the problematic author in order to deny them or their progeny traffic is more important than salvaging

2/4 said author’s work.” Pablo Neruda, Yukio Mishima, & JK Rowling are authors that come to mind in these discussions. (For example, I’ve seen several SPOP edits ft. Pablo Neruda’s love poetry, & when his problematic history was explained to one creator, they cited death of the author.) Another argument against the concept, or rather, against how the concept is often applied, that I see is that people cite it in order to uncritically consume whatever they want.

3/4 Yet others say that people who say this often take the concept too far, to the point where no one can enjoy anything, ever, unless they’re obsessively analyzing every last detail of something for potential problematic tropes or other problematic content. I just don’t know where I fall, because I both agree and disagree with various parts of these stances, but see how all could be taken too far and used poorly, if that’s a sensible way of wording it. But I don’t know what dictates “too

4/4 far”, so I’ve never voiced a definitive opinion on the matter. I hope this makes sense, it’s a bit more jumbled than I had intended.

total sense!

death of the author is such an interesting concept, purely bc how it was MEANT to be used and how it has come to be used are so different. for transparency, death of the author is a lens of examining a piece of work which states that the author’s original intent does not matter, that the metatextual elements of a work do not have any bearing on what is actually present in the text.

to use an example, fans of spop will likely know that adora and catra are at least somewhat inspired by noelle stevenson’s own relationship. since we know this, we can see this in the text. the more you know about noelle and molly, the more you can see what parts of their relationship influenced those characters. we don’t have to guess that catradora is meant to be viewed in a positive light - we’re told by the showrunner itself it should be. if we were to apply death of the author, though, we would ignore this. it is not written explicitly in the text, and is therefore metatextual. we can still come to the same conclusion based on information within the show itself, but we would not use that “word of god” type of information.

and you can do this with basically anything. an artist said their song is about romantic love, but you see it as platonic love? claim death of the author! once it’s out in the world, it’s up to the audience to decide what a piece means.

now, here’s where it gets tricky: you can’t just ignore bigotry in a piece, even if you are applying death of the author. let’s look at hp lovecraft for this one. anyone with even passing knowledge of lovecraftian horror will know that the main element of it is fear of the unknown. sure, there’s many ways you can interpret that within the text! but fact of the matter is that lovecraft was a horrible xenophobic racist. and knowing that, it becomes very hard to separate the “fear of the unknown” in lovecraft’s work from real world xenophobia. you can still claim that within the text you interpret it differently, sure. but you can’t go so far as to pretend the intent isn’t there. the author’s interpretation doesn’t have to be yours, but it’s impossible to separate the author’s worldview from the text - it’s baked in.

okay, so, interpret however you want, but acknowledge prejudice. easy enough. until we get to the elephant in the room, joanne rowling herself. now, we know she has horrible ideas baked into her text. but that doesn’t necessarily mean we throw it all away, right? after all, people still love lovecraft’s work, and he was horrible. there’s an entire horror genre coined after the man. if we don’t throw lovecraft away, why throw joanne away? and the big difference there is that...joanne is alive. and wealthy. with friends in high places. and a large public following. even when he was alive, lovecraft didn’t exactly have millions of followers on twitter. pablo neruda and yukio mishima were not good people, but again, also dead and not with the same level of power. meanwhile joanne is actively using her wealth and following to influence british lawmakers.

and here’s where people lose death of the author. bc yes, you can still examine harry potter however you want. you can still say the books were an influence or that they meant something to you. but you cannot use “death of the author” to substitute an answer to a moral dilemma. and the moral dilemma is simply that supporting joanne, be it by word of mouth or monetarily, is supporting her ability to spread transphobia. this is why we see a more active push than usual to stop consuming hp and related rowling works. the driving force is not just “thing bad”, but the active harm joanne is causing to trans people in the uk.

so, what does that all mean? basically, use death of the author responsibly. you don’t have to toss out every single problematic work ever penned. if we did that, we wouldn’t have much left, and the foundations upon which modern media were built would be gone. but, you also can’t say that you don’t have to acknowledge biases and prejudice in media. bc you still do. there’s not a filmmaker in hollywood who can claim they’re not using some amount of technique pioneered by alfred hitchcock, but we also can’t pretend like “psycho” didn’t have transphobic undertones. it’s possible to both appreciate “psycho” for its importance to film history AND acknowledge those problematic elements without beating them to death.

basically, if you’re thinking of applying death of the author, you need to ask yourself two questions:

-am i using this to analyze the work, or am i trying to make myself feel better? -is my consumption of this work allowing the creator to cause harm?

if you’re trying to make yourself feel better, you don’t need death of the author; being aware of the problems within the work is sufficient. and if your answer to the second question is “yes”, that’s when you need to wonder if your consumption of said work is really more important than the harm you may be inadvertently causing.

bc it feels wrong to not include them, lindsay ellis has two wonderful videos on death of the author, which i will link to below (as well as a video on transphobia in pop culture, which i sort of touched on here, that helps give a better sense of how you can consume and even admire problematic media while acknowledging its flaws)

Death of the Author

Death of the Author 2: Rowling Boogaloo

Tracing the Roots of Pop Culture Transphobia

tldr: death of the author is a great tool to analyze media, but all too often gets used as an answer to a moral dilemma when that was never its intended purpose. you can invoke death of the author without ignoring problematic elements of a work, you don’t have to self-flagellate over said problematic elements, but be aware of if your consumption of a work causes active harm to people.

[lo-lynx]

Femininity in the Harry Potter books

I started writing this essay over a month ago, before (as it felt like) all hell broke loose regarding JK Rowling’s transphobic tweet. As a genderqueer person myself, her comments hurt. I have loved the Harry Potter novels since I was a teenager and have often found solace in both the magic of the story and the magic of the community around these books. So, in immediate aftermath of Rowling’s comments, I struggled with how to engage with this community and these books. At first, I really did not feel like continuing to write this analysis. Now, however, I felt like I at least owe it to my love of this series and fandom to finish it. So here we go:

Last year I wrote a post about how several of the villains in Harry Potter seem to be coded as queer. In that text I also wrote that I sometime would analyse the way femininity is portrayed in the Harry Potter books. Well, studying, work, and writing other stuff got in the way, but now I’m finally getting around to it! This post is definitely inspired by some of the conversations from the excellent podcast The Quibbler, where they lament some of descriptions of feminine characters in the books. So, shout out to them, do go check them out! In this analysis I’m going to lay out several different aspects of what I see as problematic portrayals of femininity in the Harry Potter books: the silly girls, the villainous feminine men, and the (queer coded) feminine evil women.

Now, I first want to focus on what I describe as “the silly girls”. When reading descriptions of girls in the Harry Potter novels, I can’t help seeing how many of them are portrayed in a way that Julia Serano might call “traditionally sexist” (2007, 326). Serano describes traditional sexism thusly:

Traditional sexism functions to make femaleness and femininity appear subordinate to maleness and masculinity. (…) For example, female and feminine attributes are regularly assigned negative connotations and meanings in our society. An example of this is the way that being in touch with and expressing one’s emotions is regularly derided in our society. (…) in the public mind, being “emotional” has become synonymous with being “irrational”. Another example is that certain pursuits and interests that are considered feminine, such as gossiping or decorating, are often characterised as “frivolous”, while masculine preoccupations- even those that serve solely recreational functions, such as sports- generally escape such trivialization. (Serano 2007, 326-327)

That is to say, that which is deemed feminine is seen as silly and irrational. Unfortunately this fits quite well with how a lot of the girls are portrayed in the novels, such as in the fourth novel before the Yule Ball: “Girls giggling and whispering in the corridors, girls shrieking with laughter as boys passed them, girls excitedly comparing notes on what they were going to wear on Christmas night …” (Rowling 2000, 338) This motif of giggling girls returns many times, with Harry even thinking about Parvati that: “[He] was relieved to see that she wasn’t giggling.” (ibid 358) Speaking of Parvati, her and Lavender are continually portrayed as silly girls throughout the series, such as in this moment in Order of the Phoenix:

‘I’ll bet you wish you hadn’t given up on Divination now, don’t you Hermione?’ asked Parvati, smirking.

It was breakfast time, two days after the sacking of Professor Trelawney, and Parvati was curling her eyelashes around her wand and examining the effect in the back of her spoon. They were to have their first lesson with Firenze that morning.

‘Not really,’ said Hermione indifferently, who was reading the Daily Prophet. ‘I’ve never really liked horses.’

She turned a page of the newspaper and scanned its columns.

‘He’s not a horse, he’s a centaur!’ said Lavender, sounding shocked.

‘A gorgeous centaur…’ sighed Parvati. (Rowling 2004, 528)

Here Parvati and Lavender’s apparent crushes on Firenze is portrayed as silly, and their focus on their appearance is probably meant to be seen as frivolous. It is also starkly contrasted with Hermione’s apparent rationality, especially as she is sitting reading a newspaper in the scene.

Now, how about the men in the story, are they not portrayed negatively as well? Well, yes, of course. But when looking at some of the male “villains” of the story, many of them are described as quite feminine as well. In my previous text I noted how this was the case for Lockhart for example, who is described like this when the reader first meets him:

Gilderoy Lockhart came slowly into view, seated at a table surrounded by large pictures of his own face, all winking and flashing dazzlingly white teeth at the crowd. The real Lockhart was wearing robes of forget-me-not blue which exactly matched his eyes, his pointed wizard’s hat was set at a jaunty angle on his wavy hair. (Rowling 2010, 49)

Lockhart is here (and throughout Chambers of Secrets) described as both vain, and quite feminine with his stylish outfits. These traits are part of what marks him out as an unlikable character. I noted above how Julia Serano writes about traditional sexism that traits and interests that are deemed feminine (such as caring about clothes) are devalued. Serano also writes about oppositional sexism, which she describes as the idea feminine attributes are seen as natural in women, and unnatural in men (2007, 326). Similarly, Lockhart’s “feminine” seems to be perceived as abnormal/bad in the story.

Another male villain that is described as feminine is Quirrell. When Harry sees him at the welcoming feast in the first book, he is described like this: “Harry spotted Professor Quirrell, too, the nervous young man from the Leaky Cauldron. He was looking very peculiar in a large purple turban.” (Rowling 1997, 134). Both the nervousness and the turban later turn out to be part of Quirrell’s disguise as one of Voldemort’s agents. The nervousness making him seem less capable of evil deeds, and the turban hiding the fact that Voldemort is living as a parasite on his head. Both of these disguises are interesting in relation to femininity though. Stephen Whitehead writes that as a man one is expected to embody strength, toughness and control over physical space (2002, 189). He contrasts this with how women are expected to embody caution, restraint etc. With Quirrell’s nervousness (and re-occurring stutter) it is quite clear that he comes off as more feminine than masculine. Another thing is this turban that he wears. Based on his physical description Quirrell seems to be a white Englishman (he is described as “pale” when he is first introduced) (Rowling 1997, 80). Later he claims that this turban was a gift from an African prince for helping him get rid of a zombie (ibid, 147). So, it seems established that this turban is seen as strange on him, and that is connected to Africa. The way this is described makes me think of orientalism. Now, what is orientalism? It is a term that is meant to describe the way Europeans have viewed “the Orient” historically and to this day. This often entails seeing people from this region as savage, sexually depraved, but also viewing the men as emasculated and week (Carroll 2018, 121). (I’m referencing this specific book because I happened to have it on hand, but a lot of different people have written on texts on this theme). In story, Quirrell claims that he (the white Englishman) got this turban as a gift from helping an African prince (it should be noted that “Africa” is very vague, I’m here choosing to see it as part of “the Orient”, but it’s not necessarily that). The other characters doubt this story, but it does tie in with the perception of “oriental” men as week (and in need of help). But Quirrell wearing a turban also ties him to this image, and perhaps makes him seem even more effeminate.

Finally, I want to touch on a theme that I wrote also about in the text about queer coded villains in the Harry Potter books, that of the female villains. Here I’ll focus on Dolores Umbridge and Rita Skeeter, and how their femininity is part of what is meant to make the reader think of them as bad. When we first meet Skeeter, she is described like this:

Her hair was set in elaborate and curiously rigid curls that contrasted oddly with her heavy-jawed face. She wore jewelled spectacles. The thick fingers clutching her crocodile-skin handbag ended in two inch-nails, painted crimson. (Rowling 2000, 266)

So, the description makes her sound feminine, but there’s also something off with her rigid curls, heavy-jawed face, and long red nails. This reminds me of how feminist theorist Ulrika Dahl describes that being femme can be queer (2016). By doing femininity wrong, for instance in a way that is seen as trashy, one can come off queer. Another way of seeing this is to analyse the way that Umbridge is described:

She looked, Harry thought, as someone’s maiden aunt: squat, with short, curly, mouse-brown hair in which she had placed a horrible pink Alice band that matched the fluffy pink cardigan that she wore over her robes. (Rowling 2004, 183)

I want to note two things here. Firstly, that she is described as a maiden aunt, that is a woman who is of an age where she should be married with children but are not. Clearly, she’s breaking the expected life pattern of a woman here. Secondly, the way her clothes are described makes her seem girlish, which is the same way her voice is described as on several occasions. Her appearance is not what is expected of a woman of her age. This puts me in mind of what Elizabeth Freeman describes as temporal drag (2000). Freeman writes that when we as children learn how to perform our gender properly, mainly by imitating our parents, we must also learn how to adapt this to our own time. So, while a woman is expected to learn from her mother how to be a woman, she cannot simply copy the mother’s look. Freeman points out that if she herself were to copy the way her own mother looked during Freeman’s childhood (ca 1970) she would not look normative at all. But we can play with this temporal crossing for queer effect if we wish. I do not think this is was Umbridge consciously does, but her femininity does have a somewhat queer effect because of the way it does not fit her age.

So, in conclusion, we can see that throughout the Harry Potter novels, several feminine characters are described in a negative way. Both “good” characters such as the silly girls, and more “evil” ones such as Lockhart, Quirrell, Skeeter, and Umbridge. These latter ones also have a somewhat queer coding. With Quirrell there is also a sort of racialised femininity, with the description of his turban. It is unfortunate that these characters are described this way, however, it rings true to negative stereotypes from our own world.

I’m not sure how to finish this analysis to be quite honest. It makes me sad to find all of these elements in the books that I have loved. But, to be quite honest, it’s possible problematic things in most works of fiction when you start looking. Nonetheless, this last month or so has been tough on my love of the Harry Potter novels and community. Going forward I want to try to focus on the more positive aspects of them, such as the magic this community makes together (while remembering the more negative things of course). I’m not sure how. But I felt like I had to get this text out there first. So here it is.

 References

Carroll, Shiloh. 2018. Medievalism in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.

Dahl, U. 2016. “Queering Femininity”. lambda nordica. 2016/1-2, pp. 7-20.

Freeman, Elizabeth. 2000. ’Packing History, Count(er)ing Generations’ New Literary History, 31(4): 727-744.

Rowling, J.K. 1997. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone. London: Bloomsbury.

Rowling, J. K. 1998. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. London: Bloomsbury.

Rowling, J.K. 2000. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury.

Rowling, J.K. 2004. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. London: Bloomsbury

Serano, Julia. 2007. Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. Seal Press, San Francisco

Whitehead, Stephen M. 2002. Men and Masculinities, Cambridge and Malden: Polity.

[bookfandomtalk]

It’s been 21 years since the first Harry Potter book came out...

Here are a few of the best things our fandom has produced:

Theories:

1. Ron Weasley is actually a time-travelling Dumbledore

This has been a popular theory since 2004. It’s based on the idea that the chess game in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is an allegory for the series as a whole. Ron plays the knight and then the king – just like Dumbledore does in the larger war. There’s also the fact that they "look similar", they’re both described as tall and thin with a long nose, and they both have auburn hair (or Dumbledore did before it went white).

There’s also the fact they have similar characteristics, such as loving Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans. Far fetched? Yes, but not unbelievable, check out the full theory here.

2. The Dursleys were under the effect of a horcrux

For years we thought the Dursleys were simply evil - but according to one Tumblr theory the Dursleys were influenced by dark forces. Remember in the last Harry Potter when Ron turns really horrible because of about 5 minutes of exposure to a horcrux? Well, the Dursleys were exposed to Harry Potter - who is a horcrux - for 10 years.

3. The Deathly Hallows is symbolic of all the books

According to this Tumblr post about the final fight scene in the Deathly Hallows, Ron and Hermione are chased by an ugly creature and then hide behind a bike (like in the first book), then attacked by spiders (like in the second book), then a werewolf appears (like in the third book), and then dementors appear (like the fourth book), then the Order of the Phoenix appears, as happens in book five, and then they reach Snape who is the half-blood prince. This is one of the most convincing one’s we’ve read.

4. Horcruxes were created by cannibalism

JK Rowling never revealed exactly how Voldemort managed to split his soul into seven pieces and evade death. Reddit user, sirione13 theorised that he did it by eating his victims. She argues that cannibalism throughout history has been associated with gaining strength, and the only way to make a horcrux is through murder – yet Voldemort wasn’t responsible for all of the deaths that created horcruxes.

5. Harry is now immortal, and that’s awful

Probably the saddest Harry Potter fan theory was posted by this Imgur user. The Harry Potter books say “either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives” most interpreted this to mean that one had to kill another (as Harry kills Voldemort in the last book).

This theory questions that premise and asks if it really means the only way that either of them could die was at the hands of the other. Hence by killing Voldemort, Harry forfeits his death – the ultimate sacrifice for Harry, as it means he’ll never be reunited with his deceased friends and family.

6. J.K. Rowling is really Rita Skeeter

This is our personal favourite. The theory goes Rita was banished from living in the magical world after it was discovered that so much of her work was fabricated.

She then went to live with the Muggles, and fell upon difficult times, so turned to writing in an effort to make a living for herself. This would mean Harry Potter is 100% true, which makes sense to us, no-one has that big of an imagination.

7. Draco Malfoy is a werewolf

This theory argues that Draco exhibits all the signs of a werewolf, often described as pale and looking ill, he doesn’t give in his transfiguration homework and he missed out a Quidditch match against Gryffindor.

8. Muggles already won a war with wizards

Last year, Reddit user celeritas365 theorised that there had already been a great war between wizards and Muggles, and the Mmuggles won. This theory has a lot of merit. In the fourth book, the Minister of Magic is required to tell the Prime Minister that he was bringing dangerous magical creatures into the UK - an odd rule for wizards to make up, as they usually hide things from Muggles. She goes to the theorise that the very fact it’s referred to as a ‘ministry’ makes it sound more like a government department than a government in itself.

9. The Defence against the Dark Arts teaching position is cursed

The most predictable thing about the Harry Potter series was that each Defence against the Dark Arts teacher would only last a year. This was because the position was cursed by Tom Riddle (Voldemort) when he was refused the position. Dumbledore knew this, and hence refused Snape the job to stop him from rendering him useless, and therefore no longer being a spy. Read a more detailed version here.

10. Arthur Weasley was unknowingly under the Imperius curse

This theory speculates that there were a number of wizards placed under the imperius curse, which meant Voldemort had complete control of their actions. It explains why he did not rise further in the Ministry of Magic, as well as some of the skeletons in the Weasley closest.

11. The Harry Potter trio are only in Gryffindor because they asked

This Tumblr theory argues that Ron, Harry and Hermione should really be in Hufflepuff, Slytherin, and Ravenclaw respectively, but ended up in Gryffindor because they had the courage to ask.

(source: Here)

Videos:

Gifs

[haydenstudiesblog-blog]

Writer Ask-Meme

“This isn’t studyblr-related shocker right? but I’m a writer so I wanted to do something fun that will also allow my followers to get to know me a little better!

01: When did you first start writing?

I started writing when I was 10 (around 10, I don’t remember for sure. It was before I started middle school)

02: What was your favorite book growing up?

While I wish I could say it was Harry Potter, I didn’t read that until a little over a year ago (in college). I’d have to say The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, I actually want to get a tattoo about it :)

03: Are you an avid reader?

YES! Reading is my all-time favorite activity. I have too many books in my TBR pile (my theoretical one, they’re all on a shelf). I’ve reread some books more times than I can count because I love them so much, but recently I’ve been “broadening my horizons” that sound so lame and reading new authors and genres.

04: Have you ever thrown a book across the room?

Not that I can recall. I don’t think I could even if I wanted to, I try to take care of my books for as long as I can (until they start to get old, then I just embrace them being broken-in except my HP books those are kept somewhere safe)

05: Did you take writing courses in school/college?

WELL. At my current university I decided to enroll in an Elements of Creative Writing course this fall, which I’m excited about. I’m also going to be taking Intro to Professional Writing. If all goes well, I’m hoping to transfer to a different university to finish up school and major in English and Creative Writing (one whole major, not 2), so I’ll be taking more literature and writing courses.

06: Have you read any writing-advice books?

I’m reading an old textbook that I had when I took a creative writing course in high school through our local community college (back when I had health problems and couldn’t finish the course but already had the book so I kept it and didn’t read it, so I don’t count this course as a creative writing course I’ve taken). So I decided to read it now. I also have a list of books on writing that I’m looking to buy!

07: Have you ever been part of a critique group?

When I was in 5th grade we had an assignment to write a short story. I did, and my teacher said it was amazing and took me to a writer’s workshop where shy-little-me was forced to sit at a table with strangers my age and take turns reading our stories aloud. I hated it, but we got to go to McDonalds after. Also since then I’ve looked back at the story I wrote and it super sucks but maybe I’ll try to rewrite it because the idea is decent at least.

08: What’s the best piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten?

Honestly, I don’t even remember. What a boring answer.

09: What’s the worst piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten?

It’s not really feedback, but in high school I wrote a research paper and my best friend at the time peer reviewed it and she tried to cross out a bunch of my commas. I was so annoyed because she was horrible at grammar. I ended up leaving all the commas and I did great on the paper haha!

10: What’s your biggest writer pet-peeve?

Bad grammar. Hands-down. I’ll be reading someone else’s writing (I look over my boyfriend’s and sister’s papers for them) and I genuinely get baffled by how bad their spelling is or how they don’t know when to use a semi-colon. In my head it’s all just second nature (not that I don’t make mistakes, especially because I hate editing my own work so sometimes I just don’t, but still!).

11: What’s your favorite book cover?

I have two, and they’re for the same books. The new HP covers!!! I LOVE the ones where you line up the books and the spines create Hogwarts. I also love the ones that have the horcruxes in them. I want to buy those sets, but I literally just got my own hard cover set from my mom for Christmas (they came in a box that looks like a trunk) so I’d feel bad for buying new books. They just look SO COOL though. 

12: Who is your favorite author?

I currently love Michael Crichton (I said I’m broadening my horizons, these are the books I’m using to do that). I’ve loved Sarah Dessen for a very long time; I own all of her books, and I preorder her new ones. But of course I have to mention J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer. Not everyone is a HP fan and not everyone loves the Twilight series, but I’m die-hard HP and I’ve read the Twilight series twice. 

13: What’s your favorite writing quote?

“We could have been killed- or worse, expelled.” -Hermione Granger, HP

14: What’s your favorite writing blog?

I don’t have one because I can’t find any!

15: What would you say has inspired you the most?

Emma Watson and J.K. Rowling. I feel like it’s so easy for characters from the HP series to just be identified as their characters, but Emma went to college and she does amazing things and she’s just made a great name for herself and I’ve always loved her. J.K. Rowling is obvious, if you don’t know her back story you should look it up (I’m not going to talk about it, it’ll make this post even longer).

16: How do you feel about movies based on books?

They’re never good enough. My preference is (if I can help it) to watch the movie before I read the book, so I’m not disappointed. If I read the book and then watch the movie, I’ll be upset with how much they changed or left out. If I watch the movie first and then go and read the book, I can’t be as disappointed with bad casting (because they’re already planted in my head and I didn’t have an opportunity to create my own characters) and the storyline is always just better because you get MORE information instead of them leaving things out!

17: Would you like your books to be turned into TV shows, movies, video games, or none?

Movies, definitely. Any time I begin a story I imagine what it would be like if it were a movie. Actually, my process is that I usually hear a song and I think of a storyline for it (I prefer to listen to songs that tell stories in my free time, rap and stuff is for clubbing haha) and then I write a story with that song in mind. I love letting music inspire me. But yes, from the very beginning I usually picture my books as movies.

18: How do you feel about love triangles?

I guess I don’t have much of an opinion. Wait JK I do, I’m currently writing about one. Sort of. They can be good if they’re done correctly, sometimes they can just be too predictable. IMO, if you use a love triangle you should incorporate some elements of surprise into your story, things to keep the reader on their toes, especially if the love triangle itself becomes predictable. 

19: Do you prefer writing on a computer or longhand?

I love the idea of writing longhand, but I write kind of weird and my hand cramps up fast, I hate my handwriting (I write too big), and typing works better for me because I can get my thoughts out much faster.

20: What’s your favorite writing program?

I’m going to assume this is in regards to Microsoft Word, Pages, etc? I personally use Scrivener. I paid, like, $45 for it but it’s just a one-time payment. I saw that a lot of writers use it because it has tools for plotting, characters, it’s just really organized. I watched tutorials on it and then I did a 30-day free trial (I don’t think it strictly goes by days, I think it counts the days you open the program and use it) and I fell in love, so I bought it and I haven’t used Word since (except for homework and notes, but I’m going to try to switch to OneNote for that).

21: Do you outline?

No, but I really should. I’ve been trying to. Like, I’ll at least put into Scrivener in a separate folder the idea of my story and maybe a storyline, how I know I want it to end and what could happen in the middle. But it’s by no means an outline, and I really do need to work on that. I think it would help me a lot.

22: Do you start with characters or plot?

I definitely start with plot. Like I said before, I hear a song and I think of a story and then I just go from there.

23: What’s your favorite and least favorite part of making characters?

My favorite part is definitely coming up with their personalities, and my least favorite has to be deciding their names and how they look. It takes me forever to decide on names, and I change them a lot.

24: What’s your favorite and least favorite part of plotting?

I don’t know if this is considered plotting, but it’s SO hard for me to figure out where and when my story should begin. I also hate trying to put in fillers in-between all the scenes that I know I want to happen. I’ve read about a process where people who write the way I do write out the scenes they already have in their head, and then they just go from there. They don’t write in order. So maybe I should try that, just write as it comes.

25: What advice would you give to young writers?

Oh god, I’m only 20, I still consider myself a young writer! I don’t think I’m in any position to give advice. BUT, if you’re in high school and you have a passion for reading and writing, start considering your options and make sure you get into a good school that has a good program. I didn’t do that because I was stupid, and I should have because I’m at a university that I don’t enjoy and I’m trying to transfer.

26: Which do you enjoy reading the most: physical, ebook, or both?

Physical, 100%.

27: Which is your favorite genre to write?

It’s been Young Adult for a while (before I even knew what YA was, or that what I was writing was YA), but as I’m getting older I’m noticing that my writing is maturing a bit more.

28: Which do you find hardest: the beginning, the middle, or the end?

The beginning

29: Which do you find easiest: writing or editing?

Writing. Sometimes I’m not in the mood to edit, my work or anyone else’s.

30: Have you ever written fan-fiction?

Nope!

31: Have you ever been published?

HA. I wish.

32: How do you feel about friends and close relatives reading your work?

I’m really shy and self-conscious so I don’t let anyone read my writing. They have, though, because they’re stinkers and they did it secretly. I recently found out that my mom printed out all of my old stories from our old computer and kept them in a binder and would show people.

33: Are you interested in having your work published?

Yes, even though I just said I’m shy and won’t let people I know read it. I think things are easier when people I don’t know read my stuff. So weird.

34: Describe your writing space.

My writing space isn’t one space yet. I’m going to be moving into an apartment out at my school with some roommates, and I plan on making my room really calming and relaxing. Just a bunch of pastel colors, because I’ve found that those calm me. I want twinkle lights in my room, a fuzzy rug, candles, all of it. Recently I’ve been going to our student union/common area and library to write at school, though. The hustle and bustle keeps my mind working. I can’t work in silence, I’ve found that out the hard way.

35: What’s your favorite time of day for writing?

I usually write in the afternoon and whenever I have free time because I’m a full-time student. I do good writing at night, though. I’ve read that you should lay down and write at night, because that’s where you do your best thinking. It’s worked for me so far!

36: Do you listen to music when you write?

While I write and while I do homework I’ll look up the piano instrumentals to Disney songs and I turn them down so I just barely hear them.

37: What’s your oldest WIP?

If this means Work In Progress (God I hope it does or I’ll feel so stupid!), I couldn’t even tell you honestly. All of my writings are WIPs.

38: What’s your current WIP?

It’s about two women who are best friends. One gets engaged and the other is either in love with the guy, having an affair with him, or both. I haven’t decided yet. There’s more to it, but that’s the gist.

39: What’s the weirdest story idea you’ve ever had?

I don’t think I’ve ever had any weird ones. If I have they’re from middle school and I’ve forgotten about them (thank god).

40: Which is your favorite original character, and why?

SUCH a boring answer, but I don’t have one! UGH UGH UGH.

41: What do you do when characters don’t follow the outline?

Considering I don’t use much of an outline, I just follow them where they try to go. It’s usually better than what I had in mind, anyway.

42: Do you enjoy making your characters suffer?

.... No.... Of course not, what an awful question............... No writer EVER enjoys that, nope, never.....

43: Have you ever killed a main character?

Not yet... :)

44: What’s the weirdest character concept you’ve ever come up with?

I haven’t really come up with any weird ones.

45: What’s your favorite character name?

Cora

46: Describe your perfect writing space.

See #34, that’s my dream space. Hopefully I can make it happen. Also, a giant, beautiful old library surrounded by books but also in a nook by myself would be amazing.

47: If you could steal one character from another author and make them yours, who would it be and why?

Hermione Granger. I could only dream of creating someone so iconic as her character. She’s my dream character, and just reminds me so much of myself. In case you haven’t guessed yet she’s my favorite character ever haha

48: If you could write the next book of any series, which one would it be, and what would you make the book about?

I WOULD MAKE ANOTHER HARRY POTTER BOOK. I so badly just want to do this on my own (basically fan-fiction I guess?) but never try to publish it or anything. I would make it about everyone where they are now, where they work and their kids. Not ABOUT their kids, but still just about them. Actually I don’t think I’ll ever attempt that because I wouldn’t execute each character correctly and I’d never be happy with it, but yeah.

49: If you could write a collaboration with another author, who would it be an what would you write about?

Okay. Sarah Dessen, a YA novel, not sure what it’d be about. Maybe she could help me with one of my own ideas. J. K. Rowling, we could collaborate on a new HP book (lol in my dreams). Stephen King, we can write whatever the hell he wants to write about because he’s amazing and I love his writing and it’d be a huge honor to even meet him.

50. If you could live in any fictional world, which would it be?

You can probably guess this. Obviously the world of Harry Potter. I literally got a fake Hogwarts acceptance letter, a student ID, and potions bottles for Christmas when I was little. I played Harry Potter every day with my sister (surprise, I was Hermione).

If you read this, thank you love you’re so sweet! I super appreciate it! This was super fun to do, I honestly love answering random questions. My boyfriend and I ask each other random questions that we look up online all the time because it’s just fun to think of answers and stuff. :)

xx Hayden 

[danithebookaholic-blog]

Top 10 to Run To

Top 10 to Run To

The following are my favorite books to listen to while running. The more detail there is to paint a picture for me and to keep my thoughts off of my burning lungs and aching hip flexors, the better! That's why Stephen King's IT is my number 1 choice. So much detail in that book, and if you're not paying attention to the detail, you're not going to understand what's happening.

Comedies are usually something that I don't listen to while running because I tend to lose control of my breathing when I'm laughing hysterically (I don't know if this is just me, or what?).  But Kevin Hart and Jim Gaffigan's books are perfect for those grey rainy days when you need a laugh just to get you through.

And then any time I can find a series that I enjoy running to, the more excited I am about running (I hate running, but I love it at the same time. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about!), and that's why I love The Warded Man (The Demon Cycle, Book 1). I'm anxiously waiting for book 5 to come out in October; perfect timing if you ask me!

The others on this list I love to run to just as much as the above mentioned for their own different reasons. Hopefully one of the following will be your perfect companion for that next run you have planned!

1) IT by Stephen King

Looking for a suspense-thriller? King's IT is the way to go! And just in time for the reboot that came out earlier this month.

To the children, the town was their whole world. To the adults, knowing better, Derry, Maine was just their home town: familiar, well-ordered for the most part. A good place to live. It was the children who saw - and felt - what made Derry so horribly different. In the storm drains, in the sewers, IT lurked, taking on the shape of every nightmare, each one's deepest dread. Sometimes IT reached up, seizing, tearing, killing . . . The adults, knowing better, knew nothing. Time passed and the children grew up, moved away. The horror of IT was deep-buried, wrapped in forgetfulness. Until they were called back, once more to confront IT as IT stirred and coiled in the sullen depths of their memories, reaching up again to make their past nightmares a terrible present reality. (source)

2) The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett

For the sci-fi fantasy lovers out there, this is the one for you! 

As darkness falls after sunset, the corelings rise—demons who possess supernatural powers and burn with a consuming hatred of humanity. For hundreds of years the demons have terrorized the night, slowly culling the human herd that shelters behind magical wards—symbols of power whose origins are lost in myth and whose protection is terrifyingly fragile. It was not always this way. Once, men and women battled the corelings on equal terms, but those days are gone. Night by night the demons grow stronger, while human numbers dwindle under their relentless assault. Now, with hope for the future fading, three young survivors of vicious demon attacks will dare the impossible, stepping beyond the crumbling safety of the wards to risk everything in a desperate quest to regain the secrets of the past. Together, they will stand against the night. (Source)

3) I Can't Make this Up: Life Lessons by Kevin Hart

 Hysterical memoir with a serious side. Kevin will have you laughing and thinking of your journey to success at the same time.

Superstar comedian and Hollywood box office star Kevin Hart turns his immense talent to the written word by writing some words. Some of those words include: the, a, for, above, and even even. Put them together and you have the funniest, most heartfelt, and most inspirational memoir on survival, success, and the importance of believing in yourself since Old Yeller. The question you’re probably asking yourself right now is: What does Kevin Hart have that a book also has? According to the three people who have seen Kevin Hart and a book in the same room, the answer is clear: A book is compact. Kevin Hart is compact. A book has a spine that holds it together. Kevin Hart has a spine that holds him together. A book has a beginning. Kevin Hart’s life uniquely qualifies him to write this book by also having a beginning. It begins in North Philadelphia. He was born an accident, unwanted by his parents. His father was a drug addict who was in and out of jail. His brother was a crack dealer and petty thief. And his mother was overwhelmingly strict, beating him with belts, frying pans, and his own toys. The odds, in short, were stacked against our young hero, just like the odds that are stacked against the release of a new book in this era of social media (where Hart has a following of over 100 million, by the way). But Kevin Hart, like Ernest Hemingway, JK Rowling, and Chocolate Droppa before him, was able to defy the odds and turn it around. In his literary debut, he takes the reader on a journey through what his life was, what it is today, and how he’s overcome each challenge to become the man he is today. And that man happens to be the biggest comedian in the world, with tours that sell out football stadiums and films that have collectively grossed over $3.5 billion. He achieved this not just through hard work, determination, and talent: It was through his unique way of looking at the world. Because just like a book has chapters, Hart sees life as a collection of chapters that each person gets to write for himself or herself. “Not only do you get to choose how you interpret each chapter, but your interpretation writes the next chapter,” he says. “So why not choose the interpretation that serves your life the best?” (source)

4) Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

For the analytic and the student to life, Outliers will have you questioning what your parents should have done differently that would have helped you win the race.

In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band. (source)

5) The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Beautiful imagery, well written story, the only thing that would make The Night Circus better would be to listen to it while running in the dark.

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night... But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway - a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love - a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.  True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead. (source)

6) See Me by Nicholas Sparks

Part romance, part thriller, See Me will satisfy a fan of either genre.

See me just as I see you . . . Colin Hancock is giving his second chance his best shot. With a history of violence and bad decisions behind him and the threat of prison dogging his every step, he's determined to walk a straight line. To Colin, that means applying himself single-mindedly toward his teaching degree and avoiding everything that proved destructive in his earlier life. Reminding himself daily of his hard-earned lessons, the last thing he is looking for is a serious relationship. Maria Sanchez, the hardworking daughter of Mexican immigrants, is the picture of conventional success. With a degree from Duke Law School and a job at a prestigious firm in Wilmington, she is a dark-haired beauty with a seemingly flawless professional track record. And yet Maria has a traumatic history of her own, one that compelled her to return to her hometown and left her questioning so much of what she once believed. A chance encounter on a rain-swept road will alter the course of both Colin and Maria's lives, challenging deeply held assumptions about each other and ultimately, themselves. As love unexpectedly takes hold between them, they dare to envision what a future together could possibly look like . . . until menacing reminders of events in Maria's past begin to surface. As a series of threatening incidents wreaks chaos in Maria's life, Maria and Colin will be tested in increasingly terrifying ways. Will demons from their past destroy the tenuous relationship they've begun to build, or will their love protect them, even in the darkest hour? (source)

7) Angels & Demons by Dan Brown

Start at the beginning of Robert Langdon's story in anticipation of the fifth (and final?) installment to his legend which is to hit shelves in early October.

An ancient secret brotherhood. A devastating new weapon of destruction. An unthinkable target...  When world-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a mysterious symbol -- seared into the chest of a murdered physicist -- he discovers evidence of the unimaginable: the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati... the most powerful underground organization ever to walk the earth. The Illuminati has surfaced from the shadows to carry out the final phase of its legendary vendetta against its most hated enemy... the Catholic Church.  Langdon's worst fears are confirmed on the eve of the Vatican's holy conclave, when a messenger of the Illuminati announces he has hidden an unstoppable time bomb at the very heart of Vatican City. With the countdown under way, Langdon jets to Rome to join forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and mysterious Italian scientist, to assist the Vatican in a desperate bid for survival.  Embarking on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even to the heart of the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra follow a 400-year old trail of ancient symbols that snakes across Rome toward the long-forgotten Illuminati lair... a secret location that contains the only hope for Vatican salvation.  An explosive international thriller, Angels & Demons careens from enlightening epiphanies to dark truths as the battle between science and religion turns to war. (source)

8) Dad is Fat by Jim Gaffigan

A great comedic laugh is always needed while on a long run. If you have young children in the house, then this is a double win for you!

In Dad is Fat, stand-up comedian Jim Gaffigan, who’s best known for his legendary riffs on Hot Pockets, bacon, manatees, and McDonald's, expresses all the joys and horrors of life with five young children—everything from cousins ("celebrities for little kids") to toddlers’ communication skills (“they always sound like they have traveled by horseback for hours to deliver important news”), to the eating habits of four year olds (“there is no difference between a four year old eating a taco and throwing a taco on the floor”). Reminiscent of Bill Cosby’s Fatherhood, Dad is Fat is sharply observed, explosively funny, and a cry for help from a man who has realized he and his wife are outnumbered in their own home. (source)

9) Finding Ultra by Rich Roll

What book list for runners would be complete without a book about physical limits and running itself?

Finding Ultra is Rich Roll’s incredible-but-true account of achieving one of the most awe-inspiring midlife physical transformations ever.   One cool evening in October 2006, the night before he was to turn forty, Rich experienced a chilling glimpse of his future. Nearly fifty pounds overweight at the time and unable to climb the stairs without stopping, he could see where his current sedentary lifestyle was taking him.   Most of us, when granted such a moment of clarity, look the other way—but not Rich.   Plunging into a new way of eating that made processed foods off-limits and that prioritized plant nutrition, and vowing to train daily, Rich morphed—in a matter of mere months—from out-of-shape midlifer to endurance machine. When one morning ninety days into his physical overhaul, Rich left the house to embark on a light jog and found himself running a near marathon, he knew he had to scale up his goals. How many of us take up a sport at age forty and compete for the title of the world’s best within two years? Finding Ultra recounts Rich’s remarkable journey to the starting line of the elite Ultraman competition, which pits the world’s fittest humans against each other in a 320-mile ordeal of swimming, biking, and running. And following that test, Rich conquered an even greater one: the Epic5—five Ironman-distance triathlons, each on a different Hawaiian island, all completed in less than a week.   But Finding Ultra is much more than an edge-of-the-seat look at a series of jaw-dropping athletic feats—and much more than a practical training manual for those who would attempt a similar transformation. Yes, Rich’s account rivets—and, yes, it instructs,providing information that will be invaluable to anyone who wants to change their physique. But this book is most notable as a powerful testament to human resiliency, for as we learn early on, Rich’s childhood posed numerous physical and social challenges, and his early adulthood featured a fierce battle with alcoholism.   Ultimately, Finding Ultra is a beautifully written portrait of what willpower can accomplish. It challenges all of us to rethink what we’re capable of and urges us, implicitly and explicitly, to “go for it.”(source)

10) Grey by E. L. James

With this add on to Fifty Shades, trust me, you're mind will be focus on the book, and not the task at hand! *This book is intended for mature audiences

Christian Grey exercises control in all things; his world is neat, disciplined, and utterly empty—until the day that Anastasia Steele falls into his office, in a tangle of shapely limbs and tumbling brown hair. He tries to forget her, but instead is swept up in a storm of emotion he cannot comprehend and cannot resist. Unlike any woman he has known before, shy, unworldly Ana seems to see right through him—past the business prodigy and the penthouse lifestyle to Christian’s cold, wounded heart.   Will being with Ana dispel the horrors of his childhood that haunt Christian every night? Or will his dark sexual desires, his compulsion to control, and the self-loathing that fills his soul drive this girl away and destroy the fragile hope she offers him? (source)

From one wine-loving bookaholic to another, I hope I've helped you find you next fix!     -Dani

[workreveal-blog]

Education for all School Children

New Post has been published on https://workreveal.biz/education-for-all-school-children/

Education for all School Children

Children’s schooling education within the arts is in a “terrible country” way to an obsession with tests and league tables, the award-winning novelist Philip Pullman has said.

The writer of the His Dark Substances trilogy advised the authorities to make theater visits  school education “a firmly hooked up part of the curriculum,” announcing he turned into worried about falling numbers of Children being taken to performs and live shows.

child

“I do fear what happens to Youngsters once they’re deprived of this stuff via these blasted league tables and this crazy assumption that we’ve were given to check the whole thing,” he said.

“We do pay attention this from theaters that we’re no longer getting any Youngsters due to the fact the schools don’t need to allow them to out, as it takes time far from their instructions. That’s a terrible state to have were given into, indeed horrible.”

Consistent with the Branch for Subculture, Media, and Sport, the share of number one news universities -age Children who had visited the theater in the previous twelve months fell by almost half (47.1%) in 2008-nine to much less than a third (32.three%) in 2014-15.

“It needs to be a firmly set up a part of the curriculum that Youngsters need to go to theaters and concert halls,” The author said.

He said instructors, dad and mom and adults also had to make certain Kids have been taken to see theatrical productions. “Theatre is one of these things that Youngsters will love if they’re helped to get there to look it. No baby will discover his or her personal way to the theater.”

Pullman has been an outspoken critic of government coverage on this place, pronouncing in August that training in the arts was “of incalculable worth in what it way to be a person,” and calling the government “philistines and barbarians.”

Pullman’s fable collection for Children and Teens has bought thousands and thousands around the arena and received several awards, which include the Whitbread e book of the 12 months in 2001 for The Amber Spyglass, the 1/3 in the trilogy. The three novels had also been tailored for play which premiered at the Countrywide Theatre in 20013, winning Olivier Awards.

He praised fellow author JK Rowling for her new play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which is scheduled to open within the West Cease next yr and which he said would help to introduce Kids to the theater.

But, he stated it might be “a pity if human beings are going to be priced out of it.” Tickets for the manufacturing value up to £one hundred thirty each, but such is the call for they have been being offered for up to £2,950 on resale websites after a batch launched on the market in advance this week swiftly bought out.

Pullman stated gadgets such as pills and e-readers were “quite efficient”, however “nothing beats that pure joy of turning a web page and having something bodily there in your hand”.

Pullman changed into talking to mark the publication on Friday of the 200th version of the Children’s comic the Phoenix, which he said turned into a “marvelous way of helping Youngsters to read.”

The two-hundredth edition, which features a cowl using the Children’s Laureate Chris Riddell, will characteristic a taste of a brand new comedian strip via Pullman and artist Fred Fordham referred to as Philip Pullman’s John Blake, approximately an English boy from the Twenties and his time touring schooner.

The piece will run for 30 weeks in 2016 earlier than being published in e-book shape in 2017.

Also included in the difficulty are strips from readers Jordan Vigay, 14, and 11-yr-old Jonny Toons.

The Phoenix become launched in 2012 and has been voted the second quality comedian in the international by using Time magazine. It is the first impartial British actor to attain two hundred troubles due to the fact 1969.

At their conference in Birmingham, the Liberal Democrats had been looking to draw distinctions between themselves and their coalition partners, the Conservatives. It is possibly a testament to the magical powers of spin and public amnesia that It’s miles even viable for them to try to accomplish that.

It’s miles just 18 months for the reason that coalition turned into pieced collectively, proclaiming itself as a “new politics.” How ironic that now seems. When the Liberal Democrats voted via a tripling of lessons costs last 12 months, they betrayed – in an almost comical style – their public pledge to “vote towards, marketing campaign towards” any lifting of the cap. The reaction become the largest wave of mass scholar mobilization since the 1960s, with the spine of some of the demonstrations coming from poorer college and similarly education (FE) students whose education protection allowance became being scrapped.

The authorities’ plans for education do not forestall merely at taking cash out of college students’ pockets

education

But. What is now being proposed – inside the form of the better training white paper – is an assault on the very idea of education as a public carrier. It’ll allow large carriers to enter into an increasingly marketised machine, pushed by way of client “preference.” Meanwhile, establishments themselves could be more and more precarious – some pressured to shut, some privatized – and college students gets poorer, as debt rises and “fee waivers” take priority over bursaries, earlier than being released right into a international in which there are vanishingly few jobs. Placed sincerely, this is an assault on all of us in society – and It’s far a recipe for chaos.

On 9 November, the Countrywide marketing campaign against Fees and Cuts – in coalition with other organizations – has known as a new Countrywide demonstration in opposition to what the government is doing to schooling and to society. We want to peer training in any respect stages restored as a democratically orientated public provider, free and reachable to all – and a reversal of the government’s attacks on faculty and FE college students.

For years there has been no mainstream ideological opportunity – least of all from Labour – to the awareness of the market and growth of customer capitalism into each public service and every area of life. The fundamentalism of the coalition’s guidelines is grounded in a notion that the time of mass political unrest and class awareness ended long ago. Nothing will be similarly from the truth.On 30 November, Britain will see the biggest co-ordinated business motion due to the fact the general strike. 3 million or more workers will take to the wooden lines over pensions. The scholar movement will stand with the unions on the day, and can be calling for a sparkling wave of direct action and campus occupations. From pensions to the welfare nation, to the very concept that regular running people can make a stand towards a cupboard of millionaires, It’s miles clear that the unions’ fight is set our future.

Young humans in Britain are confronted through a society that rubs consumerism in their faces even as making them terrible. The looting and unrest that swept across Britain’s towns this summer time become no longer a coherent or tremendous political task, and might properly have opened the door to extra repressive and brutal policing measures, however, neither should it have surprised everyone.

While the government reacted to the riots by using scapegoating all and sundry even vaguely concerned, it became apparent, all over again, how insufficient, and out of contact their political factors of reference were. The most effective high-quality binding pressure left to many Young people in Britain is the politics of grassroots organizing: the construction of a political movement inclined to project and defeat the government on best high schools upkeep cuts, lessons costs, housing, and unemployment.

It’s far that force, in alliance with the most significant change union strike considering 1926, that the scholar movement will search for to mobilize When we march on 9 November, and inside the coming months. While the Liberal Democrats wheel out the “new politics” over again as an excuse for tame compromise this week, they might do nicely to keep in mind who the real progressives now are.

  I assume it’s miles workable. Humans experience the revolution they were provided – excellent non-selective schools – just hasn’t occurred to them. I paintings for an academy chain in London: it affords truely correct non-selective colleges. However, they’re in London. Some place else, there are complete towns with out a tremendous colleges. People need that trendy of training for their kids, and they think grammars will deliver it to them. The recollections of dysfunctional secondary moderns had plenty to do with the fact that when those faculties were first hooked up, their curriculum changed into special and they have been underneath-resourced. None of those things will occur now, and we’ve more potent accountability structures.

May additionally is searching out a way to differentiate herself from Cameron and define what she stands for. I think she believes this policy truly can boost social mobility. The fact that grammars haven’t completed that earlier than now, even in their heyday, is a purpose to be skeptical, however not to disregard the opportunity. Perhaps if the combatants of reform were a little more nuanced of their responses during the last six years as opposed to treating every announcement as though it changed into the stop of the Arena, May additionally wouldn’t have decided to take this threat. But she in all likelihood thinks: May additionally as accurately be hung for a sheep as a lamb.

All the evidence indicates that where colleges pick out, social segregation and widening gaps in attainment follow, and it’s far “normal, working-magnificence People” who lose out. Asking selective schools to sponsor non-selective faculties gained bridge divides; it will confirm them. Adjusting entry requirements to let in greater kids raises the question: why pick out in any respect? The authorities are going to face ambitious move-birthday celebration opposition in this question, which includes an unusual alliance of Goveites and Corbynistas. However what May also and co have now not but reckoned on is the fury those plans will arouse among parents throughout the United States of America, lots of them center class and pretty sharp-elbowed, for whom comprehensive schooling is working well. They truly gained’t be given the rejection of their very own children before they’ve even left the first college.

school

These proposed reforms are quite a whole lot the most sizable exchange you can make to a training machine. Children who visit current secondary faculties can be worse off than they’re presently in a system wherein they can go to all-ability faculties. We recognise that secondary moderns have to take care of better trainer turnover, more unqualified instructors, greater instructors who are new to the system. It’s entirely comprehensible that they emerge as-as the faculties that war to provide a schooling. The losers in this system are much more likely to be negative youngsters. This isn’t simply because they don’t get the tuition and assist had to pass the  many truly have much lower academic capabilities by means of the age of eleven.