#ok ill shut up now lol

[rollercoasterwords]

Have no clue if you’re still on The Prank discourse but one thing I find so interesting about it is how much it emotionally affects people compared to something like Regulus being a canonical blood supremacist or Barty torturing people or other more traditional bad guys. And I think a lot has to do with how it affects two characters that people often project themselves into (Remus and Snape) rather than just being a generic “oh ya he tried to murder someone we hear about for a line or two.” Like people don’t approach it from a literary or a character standpoint, they often seem to see it as something that wronged THEM. It’s so fascinating to me- the epitome of how one attempted murder is a tragedy but the attempted murder of many that I don’t happen to care about is an easily ignored statistic.

of COURSE i am happy to continue talking about The Prank u bring up a really interesting point!! i do think a lot of the things that become these big like...moral debates in this fandom have less to do with like. actual morality and more to do with like....constructing identity through social media. like god ok let me see if i can be concise abt this:

we're being increasingly conditioned to construct our identities around online presence and social signifiers like the media we consume; so for a lot of people the books they read or the shows they watch etc etc are not just something to enjoy but are a pillar around which they are constructing their perceptions of themself. and in order to reify that construction you basically have to put yourself in this constant feedback loop of posting these social signifiers so that other people can look at them and go "oh so this is your identity," because a performance can't be real without an audience.

SO. i feel like that's where we're getting people who will say "oh yeah i'm a [character] kin" and feel as though that is truly an important expression of their deepest personal selves. and then, once your identity is tied to those characters, any attack on those characters feels like an attack on you. you can't accept the fact that other people might interpret the characters differently, because to do so would mean to accept that this thing you've tied your identity to is somewhat meaningless/empty/fluid/unstable, which would force you to confront the fact that this identity you're performing is, in fact, a performance, and not a revealing of some true and inherent inner self.

in reality, all of the things that happen in harry potter do not hold any real-life moral weight. like...these actions aren't happening. we aren't talking about real people doing real things to each other, we're talking about characters. so to use an example from ur message, barty killing his dad is no better or worse than The Prank, because neither of those things actually happened. and THAT means that everybody can take those fictional actions and interpret them in different ways and say they think one is better or worse within this fictional context, but there is no single true and correct interpretation, because none of this is real.

so, yeah. i think ur 100% right that when we do get these really contentious debates about the morality of certain characters, it's because people aren't approaching the topic through the lens of literary critique but rather through the lens of this Personal Moral Performance. like, if you kin sirius, and someone says sirius was bad for doing The Prank, then you HAVE to defend sirius and insist that that person is wrong, because u need to perform ur own moral correctness to the audience. like, sirius can't be a morally bad character, because i kin sirius, and i am morally good.

and yeah, that definitely leads to some cognitive dissonance! people are going to be quick to defend the characters they've attached themselves to while decrying the bad actions of the characters they don't like/don't care about--again, oftentimes to perform Morality on the internet more than in service of any actual literary critique. and like. if ur stuck in this mindset of feeling like you need to be constantly proving to the world how morally good you are, then anyone pointing out the fact that you defend one character but shit on another who did similar things is gonna feel like a personal attack, and that just makes the whole situation worse because then you feel like you need to dig your heels in and insist that your interpretations are right and their interpretations are wrong, and nobody feels like they can give ground without becoming Problematic for defending/shitting on whatever character they're fighting about.

[sexysilverstrider]

thinking right now and the switch pokemon games really gave me great pokemon ship dynamics

hop/gloria - childhood friends but best friend snatches the other's dreams and bff cant bring to blame her coz hes his bestie and he has his own issues and weakness to blame

bede/gloria - bratty rival gets beaten and has his life hit him in the face by protag is always a win for me

raihan/gloria - ill always love the 'i see you as a lil sister i never had :) *proceeds to accidentally falls for the said rhetorical sister figure* type lol its cute. kousuke toriumis characters are just like that

leon/sonia - childhood friends too!!! but this time theyre the reverse of hpyu

trace/elaine - childhood friends but the less angstier version compared to gurileaf/gurired

arven/juliana - arven being CANONICALLY jealous n clingy at everyone who is close to juliana is just top tier for me. that is a big big puppy dog craving for love and attention

kieran/juliana - i would like to thank pokemon for giving me a whiplash of a character LMAOOOO a rival who becomes bastardized by protags actions??????? kieran heavily implying that he likes juliana too before juliana accidenatlly ruins his life????? oh im EATING

volo/akari - enemies to lovers but this time it breached containment and actually reached fame because the amount of fanarts/fanfics ive seen of this otp is fascinating. in a span of a year pixiv managed to have 100+ arts of them. maybe even more. i mean what do you expect? yandere? angst? drama? pining??? hosoyan and hondo kaede??? in MY pokemon game?

[cryolyst]

~

[dullahandyke]

My fuckung godddd bubbles just threw up twice and the only undigested thing in it was the deli ham dad keeps feeding her and he still refuses to start giving her actual cat food... ugh I have to finish the essay but once I do I'm gonna go cry at him so he takes me seriously

[betasuppe]

Rinz's identity disc is too big for he gotdamn hand!!!😢😢😢

[puppyeared]

he’s ok guys (frm here <3)

[pollutionbylimpbizkit]

undefined

backing vocalist wes borland (and a bit of sam rivers) my beloved

[todayisafridaynight]

time a flat circle why the hell am i usin the same loafers i bought for one cosplay of my fave antagonist for another fave antagonist

[dhmis-autism]

i DID put all my character playlists on spotify recently so i could get real autistic about those today if i want hmmmmmmm

[sillypilled-friendcel]

i wish financial abuse and forced dependence weren't like. only seen as bad when a spouse does it??? lol.

[yoylechess]

play online with your friends!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[netscapenavigaytor]

me smiling serenely: i love house of leaves but i understand that its an incredibly difficult book to get into and is really, REALLY not for everyone, and johnny truant's... everything can make like half the book difficult to get through if you don't IMMEDIATELY click with his character

some complete stranger minding their business: house of leaves kinda sucks and johnny truant ruined the book. just skip his parts

me, crying screaming throwing up etc.: SHUT UP...... SHUT UP.............. LEAVE ME OLONE

[crescentfool]

never in my life did i think i need to makeout with a piece of software so badly but here we are i guess

[feral-mouse]

So uh. I think I’m gonna take a break from my murder blog for some time even though I haven’t really been reblogging stuff on here for a while 😔💦

I will probably be posting more on my new blog tho, @dazed-and-defeated. I’ve been wanting to make a new casual blog for some time now to just post other random stuff aside from murder content, and I finally got around to making one so 👀💦

If you wanna see more casual art there, especially as I prepare for art fight, that’s where you’ll find me

[opens-up-4-nobody]

Ugh. The urge to ask ppl for art requests vs the pile of ideas that I plan to draw at some point. There r so many things to draw 😭

[bat-the-misfit]

you know the Si dom i said i mistyped yesterday? i'm starting to think i also got their judging axis wrong lmao