#their friendship is the most important thing in the world

[arosimmons]

Okay, I want to say this as nonconfrontationally as possible because I think the advice behind this post is generally very good and was written with compassion which often isn't the case on this topic and I appreciate that. However, it is not going to be effective because it, like most posts I've seen trying to persuade or browbeat people into dropping Harry Potter, is misunderstanding some fundamental things regarding the persistence of the fandom.

Nobody is continuing to engage with the content because of how well the story was told. Frankly, it wasn't told that well. It is not about JKR's abilities as a writer, which are mediocre at best. It is not even about her influence on a generation's moral foundations, which certainly did not happen in a vacuum and can be attributed to many sources, not her alone. No one I've encountered is clinging onto JKR because they learned things from her writing or because she taught them about courage.

There are two different populations continuing to engage with the content. One of them - the more General Audience types - simply doesn't seem to care. Whether it's the issue itself they aren't concerned with or the system of boycotting as political action, there's a lack of buy-in that's a different conversation. But if it's the fandom people you are trying to reach, if it's shutting down not just direct revenue streams such as buying merch and streaming the show, but the mere discussion of the characters, the creation of fandom content. That is a much more intimate subject.

I'll speak to my experience, which is by no means universal, I'm sure, but which I've gathered is relatively common within Fandom. I first read the books in elementary school, and reread them dozens of times throughout adolescence. They were not only my favorite entertainment while I was becoming a person, but more fundamentally a source of emotional comfort and coping during turbulent times in my life, not just in middle school but all the way through college, several bouts with mental illness, my mother's long illness and passing in my 20's, and the horrendous grief that still lingers years later.

When I was socially isolated, I had The Characters and their relationships to fantasize about and thereby experience vicariously social support and stability. When depression was sucking the emotions out of me, I could feel through reading fic about these characters, and I could project my own problems onto them and process those problems through writing. When anxiety, uncertainty, and lack of control rocked my world, I could retreat to a safe and stable place within this world.

It's also a medium through which I connected with other people. Because it was such a global phenomenon, this was the easiest way to facilitate a quick and strong social bond for a very socially awkward teenager. Some of my most intimate friendships today were made that way through bonding over Harry Potter. Discussing, sharing fic, play-acting, going to midnight releases etc. Obviously we have other things holding us together now and we don't need Harry Potter to continue being close, but just to add to the depth with which this fandom shaped my personal and emotional life.

So it isn't a book I read twenty years ago that I'm nostalgic for and just can't give up. It isn't even a book that was important to me when I was young and left 'fingerprints on my brain' (excellent phrase). It's a sprawling and deeply-rooted system of emotional comfort, escapism, and coping strategy. It's a relationship that sustained me for decades as I read and wrote new fic, interacted with other writers, reimagined characters, identities, philosophies etc. It's not a hammer, it's my childhood home, my oxygen mask, my xanax.

I don't buy merch. I don't engage with new media. There will be no more money coming from me. I avoid saying her name when at all possible, and I don't bring up the books/franchise to people IRL except to condemn her actions and reinforce the idea that we do not give people like that money. I read criticism of the original text and reflect on the ways in which it is problematic.

But I still read fic. I still think about The Characters. I still write, mostly on my own personal computer. I still talk to other writers and to my friends about The Characters. I still enjoy parts of the story and the world that are meaningful to me.

"Just find another story" so many posts say. I have. I have read many other, better books since I was nine years old. I have watched movies and TV shows that have wholly captivated me. I've entered other fandoms and used other characters to the same ends. The trouble is, they lack longevity. Their effectiveness fades with time. For some reason, maybe because it was the fandom I originally developed these strategies with, maybe it has to do with just the sheer length and force of the original obsession or the age when it happened, or something specific about the characters I identify with, but for some reason, Harry, Ron, and Hermione have yet to lose their vice-like grip over my mind and emotions, and can provide escape when nothing else can.

What you're asking people to do when you ask them to shut down all activity, all thought, all interaction with this fandom is to remove community, emotional supports, and coping mechanisms. if you really feel the need to shut down fandom entirely, I would focus on thinking of Harry Potter in those terms rather than a tool or a nostalgic phase.

But I would also ask how worth your effort is it to insist that people who are not contributing financially to Rowling stop talking to each other or thinking about the story at all. Why do you want to police other people's minds? Police their actions, sure. Put a hard line on contributing financially. But taking Jegulus away from people is not going to stop anyone from watching the new tv show. Those groups are almost entirely separate entities. Killing fandom will not actually kill the franchise because fandom =/= franchise, franchise = fandom. It seems much more effective and important to focus on the money side of things, on protesting the stores, movies, theme parks, show, etc. Anything that's actually making her money rather than trying to convince people who are already not supporting her to hack out a vital part of themselves.

In Which the Wizard School Books Are a Hammer

Okay. I'm gonna tell this story once, and only once, because I think it might help people who are struggling to finally, FINALLY boot J.K. Rowling from their lives.

I can't precisely say I sympathize, but I definitely know how you feel, because I have already had to do this dance with someone I guarantee you've never heard of. I've had all the feelings you've had. I had to find a way through all by myself, and now I'm going to help you so you have an easier time. Okay? Okay.

Content warning: discussion of child sexual abuse (mentioned but not described in detail).

So there's this writer. I refuse to speak or write his name these days, so we'll call him Evil Bob. ("Bob" is my default placeholder name, and this Bob is evil.) Evil Bob was a damn good writer and, frankly, an underappreciated one in his time. I picked up a few of his projects out of the bargain bin on impulse when I was about 12, and after that he was one of my names to conjure with. If Evil Bob had written it, I wanted to read it. He had a kind of perfect workman's style--he did a lot of things pretty well, and he did them in such a way that a bright 12-year-old could see how the trick was done. I learned a lot of basic writerly technique from Evil Bob--things about dialogue and pacing and how to convey character through action and lots of other stuff. Evil Bob unlocked something in my brain, and I really blossomed as a young writer by applying the lessons of his work.

Evil Bob's fiction started to fall off in popularity eventually, so he switched to nonfiction and wrote a damn good history book that won a lot of awards. I read it in college. The man could really interview, I tell you what.

I even got to interview Evil Bob myself, eventually. I was working for a small magazine that wanted to publish an article about a certain minority group's representation in a certain fiction genre, and Evil Bob had written one of the seminal works in that niche, so I tracked down his contact info, called him up, and we had a lovely hourlong chat. He was kind and gracious and funny and --

Yeah, this is where you learn why I named him Evil Bob.

A few years ago, people in Evil Bob's old fiction genre started circulating a list of, shall we say, disgraced writers in the field. Think of it like a MeToo list. The list got passed around every time a new name was added, and at a certain point, after a much more famous name had just been added to it, the list crossed my feed for the first time in a while. I dutifully scanned down it in case there was anyone on it I'd missed; after all, I attended conventions for this genre, and some of these fuckers were on the list for assaulting fans like me, so I wanted to know who to watch out for.

And there, in the middle of the list, was Evil Bob.

Weird, I thought. Evil Bob had seemed chill when I spoke to him, and usually, being 22 with big boobs (as I was when I interviewed him) brought out the perv in these guys if there was any perv to bring out. Well, maybe this was something else--maybe he used a slur on an old tape or something. I googled.

It was something else, all right.

As I sat there googling, Evil Bob was sitting in a federal prison a thousand miles away. He was there because, according to his Wikipedia page, he had been convicted of having so many CSA images on his hard drive that the judge in his case became physically ill. Honestly, I want to know where he got a hard drive that big in the year he was arrested, but I absolutely will not be asking him.

Evil Bob was EVIL. Fuck the carceral state, but also never let that particular dude near kids or a computer again.

So now I had a problem. I was going to stop buying Evil Bob's stuff, obviously--I would drop the man like a hot potato--but I couldn't so easily remove his influence on me. I'll never be 12 years old and digging through the quarter bin at the used bookshop again. There's no way to re-learn the foundations of my artform without Evil Bob. The bastard is part of me, whether I like it or not. He's left his fingerprints on my brain. And while I have negative interest in creating my own criminal hard drive, it's a little hard to shake the irrational guilt (especially since I had been raised in a high-control religious environment where any contact with sin could permanently stain one's soul, and Evil Bob's writing was part of how I escaped, and--you get the idea). I couldn't shed the stink of Evil Bob. I'd written that article. I was covered in the fuckin' ooze.

I'll spare you the six months of angst and self-flagellation. I've been to therapy since this happened. Here's what I eventually decided:

Evil Bob is like a hammer.

My dad gave me an old hammer when I moved out, along with some other miscellaneous hand tools in a paper bag. I bought a toolbox, I put the tools in it, and I use them when I need tools. My dad is an asshole who abused his children, but a hammer is a hammer. Scratch the previous owner's name off the handle, and you can build a pretty fine house with it.

What I learned from Evil Bob are the tools of a trade, and tools are not inherently evil. He taught me how to put sentences together--but I decide what my sentences say. He showed me how to convey character--but I choose what I'm conveying. He made me a writer--but I'm the one writing now.

So I still use Evil Bob's tools, with his name scoured off. I still teach some of those lessons, but he's the one source I don't cite. Oh, that dialogue hack? I picked it up in grad school, pinky swear. Here, let me share it with you for free, with no credit or compensation to the bastard who taught it to me.

I won't pretend Evil Bob wasn't an influence on my younger self, but you'll never hear me speak his legal name. I was one of the few people who really counted themselves fans of his work ... and he'll never get a whisper of a hint of that support from me again. I guarantee you won't be able to track him down from this post, and that's just the way I like it. There's a reason I haven't identified what genre he wrote in, or what his seminal fiction work was about, or whom he interviewed for that prizewinning book.

Damnatio memoriae, motherfucker. This is my hammer now, and it always has been.

So how do we give JKR the Evil Bob treatment?

Unfortunately, the Terf Queen has a larger media presence than Evil Bob ever did. One sad ex-Potterhead won't be able to erase her from culture. But there's a lot more than one of you, isn't there?

The thing is, cultural trends fade faster than you expect. Plenty of celebrities and famous artists of your parents' generation are nobodies now, and it's usually because their work spoke to your parents but not to you. I once witnessed my brother trying to read his sons a 1912 book about Spanish naval history as a bedtime story, and let me tell you, it did not go over well. Some art burns hot and bright and then it burns OUT.

The Potterheads are the parents now. Imagine how easy it would be to just ... stop talking about her. Stop buying the merch. Don't watch the new TV show or play the new game. Don't tell people you used to be a fan--not because you ought to be ashamed, but because you're not going to give her the satisfaction of saying her name. And when your kids ask about your tattoo, just tell them not to get blackout drunk in college.

Damnatio memoriae, motherfucker.

And if you feel the need to explain where you learned your kindness and courage, your unshakable loyalty to your friends (especially the trans ones), your hope in the face of overwhelming darkness ...

... why, that's your hammer. And it always has been.

[medixnoche]

he thought devoting yourself to mutant liberation was for one day only

[hajihiko]

I disagree! Your trademark is definitely the blurry lines between friendship and romance sprinkled with some polyamory and everyone's okay with it!!!

if that was my legacy I'd die happy

[thereallycoolmonsterithoughtup]

laios i will feed you ten million cheesecakes . one at a time . over the course of multiple centuries

bonus girl laios for the cool people

[kuruna]

AZ was unhealthily attached to Floette in the same way Xan was unhealthily attached to AZ 💔 it just happens to be easier to tell when you're on the receiving end of this behavior vs. when you're the one perpetrating it 😔

[hawnks]

What's so funny is that everyone who knows Dandadan LOVES IT and will sing its praises endlessly and no one else has ever even heard of it

[vonlipvig]

jack and henry's friendship is like. they're best friends. they're each other's ride or die. their iq goes way down when they're goofing around together. they're like if two straight bros sat on each other's laps all the time except neither of them is straight. they're platonic soulmates. "close your eyes mate. what do you see." "nothing" "that's my world without you mate" "[sniffles] mate...". they're this

[wildstar25]

What physical part(s) of Arsay does her partners find the most attractive! Is it the same for all partners or does it differ between them?

(also optional bonus ask of what part(s) of/about Arsay generally do they love the most, physical or not!)

Meanwhile, if you were to ask the same of Arsay:

[asterdust]

SO DID THEY WIN THAT EVENT I JUST WANNA KNOW IF DOYOONIE EVER WON THE TABLET COME ONNNN

[lycanr0t]

the thing about aplatonicism is that just like aromanticism and asexualism, it doesn't inherently mean you don't want friendships, every individual apl person has different needs and wants in regards to friendship and each person will go about it differently.

I for example am aplatonic and don't specifically feel platonic attraction as in, i don't feel a drive to befriend people. I don't get "friend crushes" or ever get the desire to befriend specific people. I am personally, very open to the possibility of friendship if someone else approaches me and we vibe. I am not platonically attracted to them, but I also do get enjoyment from socializing with others in that way and can become attached to them, etc. Platonic attraction does not equal caring about someone/being good to them. Attraction is not moral in that way. it just is.

Just like how some ace people still enjoy sex, even without sexual attraction. Some aplatonic people still enjoy friendship, and some don't. And that's okay! There are so many types of relationships out there that people can form and explore what makes them happiest and it looks different for every person and that's such a wonderful thing.

[moongothic]

Do wanna say, I am actually really curious how Iva-chan would feel if the Dragodile Divorce went REAL BAD

'Cause they didn't know the two were in a relationship at all, right. (Otherwise, like, if Iva-chan knows about Crocodile having a kid then surely they'd realize that would've also been Dragon's kid and like. Understands that's Luffy etc) So as far as Iva-chan understands the situation, Crocodile may have been secretly slightly involved with the Revolutionaries for a period of time, had a kid out of the blue, transitioned, and either immidiately broke ties with the Revs entirely and fucked off to Alabasta, or kept on assisting the Revs in secret (possibly monetarily, being a sugar daddy and all 💰🐊💰) for however long in secret, only to pretty much betray them out of nowhere by attempting to take over Alabasta 17 years later Either way, surely Ivankov would've been deeply confused by this turn of events, right? Like what happened to him, why would Crocodile do any of this?

But if the straw that broke the camel's back and shattered Crocodile's psyche was the Dragodile Divorce going really bad, either from Dragon not being that accepting OR due to things going violent over a miscommunication... How would Ivankov feel about that?

Keep in mind, we've only ever heard Iva-chan talk about Dragon with nothing but adoration and respect. They sincerely hold Dragon in such high regard, can you imagine how badly either revelation could change how Iva-chan's views Dragon? 'Cause like, sure if Dragon's straight then that's one thing, but lashing out at his loved one? When he came out? At what might've been the most emotionally vunerable time of Crocodile's life (between the transing and the baby and having to leave his son forever. Y'know. Heavy shit)? Yeah, frankly speaking, Iva-chan would be completely justified in slapping the shit out of Dragon and giving him some choise words. Perhaps even some 💉 Karmic Punishment 💉 to teach a lesson Feeling disappointed in Dragon would be an understatement. But even if The Divorce happened due to a tragic accident (of Dragon attacking the strange man he has never seen before out of instinct when going to see his wife and child), it's been nearly two whole decades. Have the two even spoken since then? Like presumably not considdering Crocodile didn't even know who Luffy was. So if they haven't spoken at all-- did Dragon ever apologize? Or was he that much of a coward he couldn't face Croc and take responsibility for what he did? If so, that is absolutely pathetic and frankly irresponsible considdering the feelings he would've left Crocodile festering with.

Like either way, I'm deeply facinated how Iva-chan would take the news. How that could impact their relationship with Dragon, as well as how they've viewed Crocoboy for the past few years as well.

Because suddenly Crocoboy didn't just go bonkers out of nowhere, abandon and betray the Revolutionaries to try to do something monstrous for selfish gain. Suddenly, it was Dragon who abandoned Crocodile and left him all alone for nearly two decades, believing obtaining an Ancient Weapon was the only way to take down the World Government. Countless innocent lives that perhaps could've been spared in Alabasta had Dragon just fucking talked to his ex--

Yeah. I'm curious how Iva-chan would feel

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

I don't know how to write this without it being horribly obvious who I'm writing about

[shuffleoflove]

some of my favourite panels from the new update :)

[catty-words]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Nancy Drew (TV 2019) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: The Drew Crew - Relationship Characters: Ace (Nancy Drew), Bess Marvin, George Fayne, Ned Nickerson, Nancy Drew Additional Tags: One Shot, Season/Series 02, the crew goes on a mini hiking adventure to search for an artifact, but this fic is really all about the friendship feels, do not be misled into thinking there's a plot Summary: “Hey,” Nancy says, walking backward for a few paces. “Last one to the beach has to wear the kelp.” Then she takes off running.

“No fair!” Bess yells after George and Nick, who gamely rush after Nancy. “I’m not wearing the appropriate footwear!”

[the-carrotella]

Everyone who’s ever been mean to Fallout: Equestria should actually read it.

[storekn1fe]

dunmeshi and drhdr are 2 sides of the same coin to me.