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lamentationsofasinner · 1 year ago

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YES SAY IT LOUDER

Thoughts on Ron and Hermione as a ship?

thank you very much for the ask, @thesilverstarling!

i’ll state my position straight away: book ron and hermione are the best of the canon couples.

they will have a long and extremely happy marriage made rich by great and stalwart love, lust, fun, and faithfulness, rather than held together by duty and couples’ therapy like so many readers and authors (including jkr, who seems to have decided to spend the years since the conclusion of the series failing to understand anything about her own characters) tend to think.

i will state another position straight away: lest i seem like i’m just a fan with blinkers on, i think this even though hermione is, by far, my least favourite member of the trio. if she were real i would detest her, and i dislike how she is treated by the narrative as always justified in her negative characteristics. i like fanon hermione - perfect and preternaturally good - even less.

as a result, i think that it’s ridiculous that jkr has said that she thought ron needed to ‘become worthy’ of hermione. they belong together as equals - which is what they’re set up in the narrative as being from the off - and i hate seeing that undermined.

because ronald weasley? he’s an icon. and he doesn’t get anywhere near the respect he deserves in fandom.

there are multiple reasons for this - ron’s narrative purpose is to be the everyman sidekick, and so he is able to be less special than harry or hermione (the helper-figure); the amount of aristocracy wank in this fandom means that the weasleys’ ordinariness is less appealing to writers than making harry have twenty different lordships and call himself hadrian; the narrative interrogates ron’s flaws - especially his capacity for jealousy - much more intensively than it interrogates either hermione’s (cruel, inflexible, meddling) or harry’s (reckless, self-absorbed, judgemental) - but one i feel is particularly significant is that ron is such a british character that many of his traits are not understood as intended by non-british readers.

in particular - as is outlined in this excellent meta by @whinlatter - ron’s sense of humour isn’t indicative of immaturity or a lack of seriousness, but is, in fact, evidence that he’s the most emotionally aware of the trio.

ron is shown throughout the series to understand how both harry and hermione need to have their emotions approached - and i think there is no piece of writing which says this better than crocodile heart by @floreatcastellumposts:

That was what she liked most about Ron, she thought vaguely. He was very good at being suitably outraged on your behalf. For Harry, for her, for Neville. That sort of thing mattered, when you were hurt or embarrassed or wronged in some way. You needed to have someone else on your side, to be as emotional as you felt, maybe even more so, so that you might feel a bit more normal. It was very decent of him, and she was not sure he realised he did it.

ron’s inherent emotional awareness is an enormous source of comfort to other people. he does the work which isn’t flashy or special - he makes tea and tells jokes and is just there - but which is needed in healthy human relationships far more frequently than a willingness to fight to the death for the other person.

[as an aside, this normality - even though i think it is assumed rather than justified by the text - is also what ginny provides for harry. if you believe that hinny are a good couple but romione aren’t… i can’t help you.]

but let’s look at some specific reasons why ron and hermione belong together:

their communication styles mesh perfectly. ron is the only person hermione knows who feeds her love of being challenged and debated, and who is able to engage in this way of communicating without becoming irate when she refuses to back down. ron is good at picking his battles, but he’s also good at recognising that hermione’s tendency to argue isn’t intended to be confrontational a lot of the time - it’s just the way she works through feelings and problems. he’s far more easy-going about her tendency to nag, interrupt, try to provoke arguments, or speak condescendingly than he’s given credit for - and hermione evidently respects this, since when he does tell her not to push a situation (above all, when she’s trying to needle harry into talking about sirius), she listens to him.

that ron and hermione’s tendency to bicker is taken by fans to be a bad thing is because it’s something harry - from whose perspective the narrative is written - doesn’t understand. harry is extremely conflict-avoidant - he tends to take being pushed on views and opinions he has to be insulting; and he has a tendency to assume that he is right which is just as profound as hermione’s. he and ginny communicate not by debating, but by ginny having no time for his rigidity and refusing to indulge it - but ron and hermione bickering about everything is not a negative thing within their specific emotional dynamic.

[as another aside, this glaring chasm in communication styles is why harry and hermione would be a disaster as a couple.]

they each provide validation the other needs. it’s clear - reading between the lines - that hermione is a tremendously lonely person. the friendlessness of her initial few weeks at hogwarts seems to be a continuation of her experience as a child, and - outside of ron and harry - that friendlessness endures through her schooldays. i’m always struck, for example, by the fact that, when she falls out with ron in prisoner of azkaban, she has no-one else to spend time with, and that this is only avoided in half-blood prince because harry decides not to freeze her out. i don’t think her friendship with ginny is anywhere near as close as fanon seems to imply (ginny has no interest in being nagged either), nor do i think that she’s anywhere near as close to neville (not least because she is so condescending to him) as she’s often written to be.

and this loneliness seems to stretch beyond hogwarts. the absence of hermione’s parents’ from the narrative is - in a doylist sense - clearly just a device to maximise time with the trio all together, but the watsonian reading is that she doesn’t have a particularly good relationship with them. hermione’s obviously upper-middle-class background - the name! the skiing! the holidays in the south of france! - can be presumed, i think, to come with a series of expectations from her parents which she feels constantly that she’s not entirely meeting, particularly expectations attached to academic success.

[for example, the grangers - were she a muggle child - would undoubtedly have ambitions for her to attend an elite university and then go into a prestigious career. tertiary education of the type that they’re familiar with doesn’t seem to exist in the wizarding world - most careers seem to be taught by apprenticeship - and this, alongside all the other divides between the magical and muggle worlds which contribute to the distance between them, would be one very obvious area in which she felt the need to prove herself to them.]

ron, too, has quite a difficult relationship with his position in the family - voldemort’s locket is not wrong to point out that he seems to receive considerably less of his mother’s emotional attention than ginny or the rest of his brothers - and he too is constrained by expectations which he doesn’t know how to explain he has no interest in - above all, molly’s desire for her sons to achieve top grades and go into the ministry.

he also suffers while at hogwarts from being ‘harry potter’s best friend’, something which harry never appreciates. but hermione does. she recognises ron’s jealousy and never allows harry to minimise it (and she and ron are very much aligned on having no respect for harry’s saviour and martyr complexes). she appreciates ron’s strengths - above all his kindness and his sense of humour - and makes him feel as though he’s achieved things with them. and ron does the same for her; he is hugely observant when it comes to her, and he challenges and defends her.

the two of them clearly spend a lot of time together one-on-one while harry’s involved in his various shenanigans (including outside of school - hermione has often arrived at the burrow days or even weeks before harry, and they seem to write to each other frequently when apart). they do this within a relationship which is fundamentally equal. one issue with hinny is that, post-war, harry is going to have to get used to seeing ginny as a peer, rather than as someone he has to protect. but ron and hermione never have that issue - equality is baked into their relationship from the off.

because, to be quite frank, fandom overstates the role that jealousy plays in their relationship. it’s true that ron certainly doesn’t acquit himself brilliantly when it comes to hermione’s relationship with viktor krum (it’s because he’s bi and doesn’t know it yet), and a tendency to externalise his insecurity into trying to make others also feel insecure is one of his primary negative traits (hermione does this too, via her patented lofty voice when she’s trying to condescend to people). but this is often taken as the initial red flag for how the relationship would crash and burn, and ron’s toxic jealousy is often used in fan-fiction as the trigger for emotional and physical violence towards hermione which, frequently, seems to drive her into the arms of either draco malfoy or severus snape… who are, of course, the first people we think of when we hear the words ‘not prone to jealousy’...

but i think it’s important to point out several things in defence of ron’s jealousy over krum. firstly, hermione evidently regards his jealousy as ridiculous - she’s upset by it, yes, but her upset must be understood as being caused by the fact that she wanted him to ask her out. she doesn’t think he’s being possessive, she thinks he’s being stupid. secondly, hermione is equally as jealous over ron’s crush on fleur delacour and relationship with lavender brown. she behaves just as cruelly when it comes to lavender as ron does when it comes to krum - and the narrative only treats her actions as more sympathetic or justified both because harry dislikes lavender too, and because, by that point in the series, jkr has dispensed with any inclination to ever criticise her.

but, outside of this teenage pettiness, ron is never jealous of hermione over things which matter. he is never jealous of her intelligence or competence or ambition or success (indeed, he defends her constantly from attacks designed to undermine her in these areas). for someone who struggles with being overshadowed by harry, he is never upset at being overshadowed by her. he is clearly going to be happy to support her in any of the career ambitions she can be written as having post-war.

and, on this point, i think it’s worth interrogating why so many readers still seem to feel uncomfortable with the idea of ron and hermione having a dynamic where she is the more ‘powerful’ one. [it’s always a bit trite to say ‘but what if the genders were reversed?’, but actually that’s not irrelevant here]. if hermione ends up taking the ministry by storm and ron becomes a stay-at-home father or has a job which is just to pay the bills, what, precisely, is wrong with that? why, precisely, should hermione regard ron making that choice for himself as a negative thing? hermione so often seems to leave ron in fan-fiction because of a lack of ambition - something which seems to be particularly common in dramione - but, in canon, she is shown to not particularly care if ron and harry do the bare minimum when it comes to studying etc. she nags them to do their work so they don’t get in trouble. she doesn’t nag them to do it to the same standard that she would.

and, actually, i think that ron being less ambitious than hermione is something which is key to how well they work. because ron provides not only emotional support, but emotional clarity.

hermione is shown throughout canon to - just as harry does - have a tendency to become obsessive to the detriment of her own health. she is also often - as harry is - emotionally or intellectually inflexible, and finds it hard to move on when what she feels or believes is proven to be wrong. both she and harry are micro-thinkers, who lean towards knee-jerk assumptions and stubborn convictions (and, indeed, hermione has a remarkably hagrid-ish tendency towards blind loyalty).

ron is none of these things. ron is a big-picture thinker (it’s why he’s so good at chess). he’s a pragmatist. he’s the least righteous of the three. he understands that faith and loyalty are choices, and that sometimes these choices will lead to outcomes which are bad or hard. he is the one of the three most willing to own up to having made mistakes. he is the one least likely to act on gut instinct (and, therefore, the hardest to fool - i think it’s worth emphasising that he clocks that tom riddle is tricking harry immediately, the only one of the trio to do so). he understands that things are a marathon, not a sprint. he is the least obsessive.

and these traits contribute to aspects of his character which are underappreciated. ron worries about hermione making herself ill during exams, or when she is using the time-turner, and makes an effort to get her to set healthy boundaries and redirect her anxiety. ron stands on a broken leg in front of sirius or goes into the forest to fight aragog not out of righteousness, but out of choice. ron takes over the burden of preparing buckbeak’s defence when it is clear that hermione is approaching burnout. ron is completely right that harry hasn’t done any long-term planning for the horcrux hunt, and his anger does force harry to tighten up after he leaves the trio. ron has a clear head in the middle of battle. ron makes harry and hermione laugh. ron is unafraid of human emotion. ron arrests harry’s tendency to brood over the little things by looking at the bigger picture. ron will always come back.

ron is bringing his politician wife regular cups of tea and making sure she doesn’t work all night. he is helping his lawyer wife to feel less upset over losing one case by reminding her that she’s won ten others. he is noticing stress creeping in and whirling her off for a dirty weekend, or even just a takeaway on the sofa. he is teaching his daughter to be proud of her ambition and his son to treat women as equals and both of his children that all you can do when you fuck up is apologise and try to do better. he is making hermione smile on the worst days of her life. he is helping her strategise her long-term goals when she gets stuck on the short-term ones. he is telling her straight when she needs to get it together. he is seeing a misogynistic head of department call hermione a ‘silly little girl’ and choosing to tell him exactly what he thinks of that.

ron is the ultimate wife guy. hermione is a very, very lucky lady.

#romione #ron weasley #hermione granger #ron weasley appreciation post #we stan ron weasley in this house #got a bit emotional reading this ngl

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annakaspring · 1 month ago

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Officially the longest rant I've ever posted

Snater mauraders fans literally being the most shallow people on earth.

I will see them saying Snape deserved to be targeted and bullied. And the reason is always the same.

"he was creepy" how was he creepy? "He was obsessed with Lily and possessive of her."

oh, you mean like how James threatened to physically assault Lily if she didn't go on a date with him while simultaneously bullying her friend? While Severus did as Lily asked and left her alone when she said their friendship was over.

"He was racist." No, comparing the word mudblood a fictional slur to a real life racial slur is so ignorant, problematic and also completely disregards that there could be actual racism in the Harry Potter universe. And Snape is not a pureblood in fact he is way more muggle born than half blood as he grew up in a muggle neighborhood, wearing muggle clothes. Is what Snape called Lily right? No. could she have still been hurt? Yes. But I see the same people who bash Snape, Stan Malfoy who is canonically a pureblood who hates muggle-borns. Like be so for fucking for real rn.

"He was a nazi" Again, comparing a fictional "cult" to real life devastating history is ignorant and frankly ridiculous. But let's just humor that idea for a moment. Then why do I see maurader fans idolizing characters like Barry Crouch Jr? Or Regulus Black? Who not only joined the death eaters just like Severus did but were privileged purebloods who unlike Severus had money, a proper home, family. And in Barty Jr's case he is literally canonically evil.

"He was a bully." So was James, so was Sirius.And both James and Sirius are canonically described as being obviously well loved and privileged while Snape "so obviously lacked" that. Severus had reasons to be cold, stand offish and rude. had a terrible home life, neglectful if not straight up abusive parents, a single friend, depressed and was poor. What was James's excuse?

And I will see ppl who loooove Draco Malfoy yet despise Snape. Draco Malfoy, who is repeatedly voiced his pureblood prejudice so much as saying he wished death upon Hermione Granger simply for her blood status, was a HUGE bully, surely bigger than Snape ever was if he did ever bully (he didn't). Severus Snape used a slur once, once when he was a child while he was being SA'd and regretted it so much he never used the word again. While Draco literally never even apologized for his fanatical white supremacist behavior. "Well he didn't want to kill Dumbledore" I'm sorry but being too cowardly to kill someone does not equal being a good person.

"Oh well they changed, they grew up and became better." Did they? Where's the proof? Where's the evidence? I never saw Sirius own up to his actions. Remus still excused his friends bullying. "Well actually Draco actually liked Hermione the whole time. And that's why he was so mean to her" So? If anything that makes even worse. If a guy wished me dead, was openly vile to I wouldn’t suddenly be okay with it because he was actually attracted to me the whole time.

So what arguments do the Snaters have left?

Nothing, absolutely zero justification other than shallow, half baked reasons.

Severus Snape commits the most unforgivable sin. Being poor, morally grey AND ugly.

Because being poor can be forgiven as long as you're hot i.e Remus Lupin. But forbid they actually show signs of their class. Being malnourished, having hand me clothes, not being able to have proper hygiene. These are all things that actually happen to severely lower class individuals. Being a pureblood snob can be forgiven as long as you're hot. Being actually evil with zero justification is forgiven as long as you're hot.

People will twist and headcanon characters we get two pages of information on into fully fleshed out people with intricate backstories and believable justification for all their evil behavior.

Meanwhile bashing Snape who is one the most complex, dark, interesting character in the series. All because Snape is "ugly".

Because god forbid a character does not fit their rigid beauty standards and is actually complex and human.

And we're not gonna get into how literally not once was Snape ever explicitly described as ugly or how Draco Malfoy in the books described as having a pointed, rat like face.

And just to clarity I'm not trying yuck anybody's yum. Love the characters you love, stan evil ones, ship all the characters you want. I do! I ship character who make absolutely no sense in canon. create intricate stories for background characters all you want That's what fandom is all about. But don't act you have an actual reason for hating Snape while simultaneously stanning Voldemort and Barty Crouch Jr.

Be straightforward and say you don't like him because he does not fit your rigid cookie cutter beauty standards and you have no compassion.

Cheers,

#pro snape #severus snape #harry potter #anti snaters #pro severus snape #hp #ranting #Im not gonna shut up about this #yes I am seething

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blorger · 16 days ago

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I have a confession to make: I love Pansy Parkinson.

I love her little snub nose, I love her big DH moment (even though as readers we're supposed to hate it) but, most of all, I love her because jkr hates her.

I'm not being hyperbolic when I say this either, we have it straight from the horse's mouth:

I loathe Pansy Parkinson. I don't love Draco but I really dislike her. She's every girl who ever teased me at school. She's the Anti-Hermione. I loathe her. Yeah, sorry! Sidetracked there by my latent bitterness.

("PotterCast Interviews J.K. Rowling, part two." PotterCast #131, 24 December 2007)

I recently found myself wondering how, for a self-professed Pansy stan, I sure know very little about her as a character. If we take aside the fact that I derive psychic joy from being a contrarian (especially when it comes to jkr and her garbage views), is book Pansy actually an interesting character or do I just like the Pansy that the fandom's collective unconscious created? Who even is Pansy, really?

Because I'm me and there's no problem that can't be answered by amassing huge amounts of informations, I went ahead and prepared

a Persuasive Primer to Pansy Parkinson

PART 1: PANSY'S PERSONAGE

The character of Pansy Parkinson has been present in the Harry Potter series since book 1. Her name shows up briefly during Harry's sorting since she's close to him in the class list but her first real appearance occurs during the Remembrall Incident, where jkr sets up two of her character's mainstays: her looks and her meanness.

This very first description of Pansy's face as severe and pitiless-looking is perhaps the kindest one we get in the books, since the only other times Harry, our narrator, bothers to describe her appearance he calls her pug-faced, which incidentally is where we as a fandom (and, clearly, the HP movies casting directors) got the idea that she has a snub nose.

Other than these vague and unkind descriptors, Pansy's looks are left to our imagination; the brunette bob she is well known for is a movie creation and the only other description relating to her appearance is that of the robes she wears for the Yule Ball in book 4, which are very frilly and pale pink.

As any scholar of JKR Studies worth their salt can tell you, jkr is a consummate misogynist who loathes pink and only uses it in order to give a negative connotation to something/someone; pink=girly, which is bad, and frilly=superfluously, ostentatiously girly, which is the worst possible thing a female character in the jkr extended universe can be. jkr has a lot of opinions on what constitutes an acceptable performance of femininity and the character of Pansy Parkinson exists to exemplify the complete opposite of that.

PART 2: A PERNICIOUS PERSONALITY

What can we learn from Pansy's tone? Firstly that she is shrill and annoying, as she shrieks and screeches; in her role as part of Draco's entourage she's both a mindless follower who simpers and an active participant who spreads gossip and maligns by whispering and giggling mean-spiritedly.

jkr created Pansy in the image of the girls who bullied her in her youth so Pansy has an entourage all of her own, an unnamed gang of Slytherin girls (they're always referred to as such, no further description provided) who appear in a greek chorus-like fashion to herald the bullying of Hermione (Ideal Woman and self-insert supreme).

So, what can we learn from Pansy's insults? well, for one that she doesn't like "fat little crybabies", as shown in the excerpt above. Furthermore, when she's not parroting Draco's insults, Pansy shows a single minded preoccupation with the life and looks of one Hermione Jean Granger

(from GoF, Pansy has Opinions of Rita's Skeeter's aricle)

(from GoF, Pansy is there to show us that Hermione was Beautiful All Along)

(from GoF, Pansy helps Rita Skeeter with her character piece)

(from GoF, Hermione suffers the fallout from Rita's article, Pansy is vigilant to any and all Hermione news)

We'll look more closely at Pansy and Hermione's relationship in a short while but for now let us focus on more of Pansy's barbs; I would like to take to this moment to highlight the following:

(from OoTP, Draco's gang shows up to the Gryffindor quidditch practice to do some heckling)

I find it notable that the only time Pansy insults the looks of someone who isn't Hermione it's when she makes a racist microaggression towards Angelina Johnson, one of the very few black characters in the books. While this is unquestionably vile behaviour, I struggle with interpreting jkr's intentions: does jkr even know and/or understand microaggressions? Is Pansy's insult even meant to be interpreted as racist? Does racism as we know it even exist in the hp universe?

Personally, I've always gotten the impression that the wizarding world was meant to represent a post-racial society in a very United Colors of Benetton, "I don't see race" kind of way that is very typical of nineties pseudo-liberalism, no doubt to give more space to her blood purity system (and because someone like jkr has no interest in even mentioning the pervasive effects of racism in society). Still, let's not discount what is no doubt one of Pansy's lowest moments in the books, regardless of the reading we choose vis à vis jkr's intent.

To cleanse our palates, here's a more benign insult:

(from OoTP, Harry and Cho's date is but a collection of unfortunate moments)

While I'd put the Cedric reference pretty high on the Insensitivity Scale, I find myself reluctantly entertained by Pansy's drive-by read, especially because Harry IS a garbage boyfriend to Cho.

What else do we know about Pansy's personality from the books? For one, that she likes unicorns but considers showing it outright to be undignified:

(from PoA)

We know that Pansy is made a Prefect in OotP and, while the books never specify the parameters used to choose Prefects and Hermione implies Pansy wasn't chosen for her smarts ("she's thicker than a concussed troll" is the actual quote, though Hermione's objectivity is questionable), we can assume that, at the very least, she is somewhat of a leader among the Slytherin girls (on account of the aforementioned gang).

Finally, we never hear Pansy's opinion on blood purity although it's safe to assume that it's not terribly progressive on account of the company she keeps.

PART 3: PASSIONATE PARAMOUR

While the books never state conclusively wether Pansy and Draco are ever a couple (in fact, neither of them says a word about the other in the books), we know both from statements jkr has made irl and from the in-universe characters' opinions that we are supposed to treat them as a couple of sorts. The evidence for that is as follows:

Draco is implied to exagerate the extent of his Buckbeak injury in order to garner sympathy from Pansy in PoA:

Pansy is Draco's date to GoF's Yule Ball

the infamous carriage scene in HBP:

and

Ron assumes that the boasting witnessed by Harry on the train was done in order to impress Pansy.

and

Regardless of wether you want to read their relationship as romantic or not, Draco and Pansy clearly hang out together a lot from the ages of 13 onwards; Pansy is often mentioned as part of Draco's posse together with Crabbe and Goyle and she's further shown as an active participant in his various schemes, most notably in the popularisation of Weasley is Our King:

(from OotP)

Pansy appears to have a genuine interest in Draco's wellbeing as shown by her concern when Draco is injured by Buckbeak in PoA:

and

Pansy if further shown to be understandably upset when Harry guts Draco like a fish in HBP:

So we can conclude that, although we have no idea of Draco's feelings, Pansy feels authentic affection for Draco.

PART 4: HERMIONE HATER?

Pansy is positioned as sort of the Female Draco: while Draco's job is to antagonize Harry and Ron, Pansy is there to deliver the Girl insults to Hermione, the Girl One of the trio. While jkr's intention was no doubt to paint Pansy as a straightforward bully, her singleminded interest in Hermione displays the same pigtail-pulling connotations as Draco's behaviour throughout the books.

Their first exchange comes by courtesy of Hermione, who hits her with her trademark condescension, which seems to specifically drive Slytherins mad like nothing else (the first "mudblood of the books comes as a direct response to one such occasion):

(from GoF, Pansy enjoys the potter stinks badges, hermione begs to disagree)

Following this exchange, we start to see Pansy engage in your typical Mean Girl behavior, which, apart from the preoccupation with her looks shown above, also includes laughing at Hermione's expense:

(from GoF, Hermione was hit by a stray curse and her teeth grew to a comical size)

and

(from GoF, Pansy shows hermione the infamous "harry is in love with Hermione" article by Rita Skeeter, which features a quote from her)

While we never see Hermione respond in kind (since her preferred method of dealing with bullies is the could shoulder), we know that this behavior definitely colors her opinion of Pansy

(from OotP, Hermione is displeased when Pansy is made Prefect)

and

(from OotP, Fred and George's departure from school left a vacuum in the prankster hierarchy and all manners of students jumped up to fill the spot)

All in all, we don't have a very precise read on the relationship between the two: do Pansy and Hermione exchange barbs whenever they meet? are they enemies or is Hermione a sainted martyr suffering in silence (on account of her moral superiority)? Just how closely do they parallel Harry and Draco's rivalry? You decide.

PART 5: PANSY'S POLEMICAL POSITION

Finally, we come to Pansy's Big Moment

(from DH, Pansy says the quiet part out loud and is banished for it)

During the Battle of Hogwarts, Pansy displays the ultimate act of Evil (in jkr's eyes) by not behaving Bravely when faced with an impossible decision. To give context, Voldemort has just given the students of Hogwarts a way out of the whole mess:

Personally, I hate this scene. Pansy doesn't know shit about just how essential Harry is to ending the whole shebang; furthermore, she's just a scared student living out her own version of the trolley problem and yet the narrative frames her (imho) understandable reaction not only as unforgivable cowardice on her part but has a condemnation of Slytherin house as a whole.

I hate how the Hogwarts student body is alternatively portrayed as a mindless horde whose opinion can be swayed by the faintest of rumors (as seen by public opinion turning on Harry in CoS, GoF and OotP) and as a prop to show the Right Way. The Hogwarts student body is essentially pulling a Spartacus moment except their reactions are somehow neatly divided into Houses: it's not some individuals who choose to react bravely and motivate the rest, its the Gryffindors as a whole, moving like a single-minded hive, who influence the other single-minded hives of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaw. The individuality of all of these people is ignored in service of an impactful scene and the one person who shows a dissenting thought is summarily removed (together with the Evil Slytherin hive, which did not express any opinions but is nonetheless blackened by association).

jkr's bullshit black-and-white worldview rears its ugly head here and what could have been a genuinely moving moment of student solidarity - showing people from different backgrounds coming to the defense of Hogwarts together - becomes a condemnation of those who dare oppose the righteous horde instead.

In a moment in the books that feels very biblical, the non-believer who dares doubt the Savior is shunned and summarily dealt with (which opens up a whole can of worms about the Jesus-ification of Harry that I'm not prepared to go into). Pansy is merely a prop in this scene, a stand-in for the whole of her house, yet I appreciate her very human reaction: she's the only person in that room to show individuality, expressing the fear and doubt that most people would feel when placed in a similar situation.

I appreciate how Pansy goes against the grain in one of my least favorite scenes in the whole books but I acknowledge that her big moment is not really about her, nor does it tell us anything about her character that we didn't already know: All Slytherins Are Evil and the best they can hope for is to just be slimy and opportunistic (à la Slughorn) instead of straight up villains.

PART 6: PERSONAL PERORATION (or: I really shot myself in the leg with the whole alliteration thing)

So, what did we learn kids? First of all that the Pansy in the books, as intend by jkr, is an irredeemable, uninteresting shitstain, less of a fully-formed character and more like a vaguely defined caricature of a Mean Girl.

While my instinct is to go against this cartoonish portrayal and attempt to read some complexity in her thoughts and motivations, I acknowledge that, to some, Pansy is forever tainted by the harsh way in which she's depicted and therefore will forever remain unlikeable. Personally, I find myself drawn by characters with seemingly nebulous motivations and, since I don't share jkr's shitty deterministic worldview, I can see scenarios where she grows as a person; I enjoy seeing different explorations of her characters in fics just like I enjoy reading about her fellow b-team villains in general.

Choose the path that sparks the most joy for you and live your truths my friends, ignore this primer completely or allow it to change (or reinforce) your opinion of Pansy, your feelings are valid regardless.

xoxo

#hp #hp meta #harry potter meta #Pansy Parkinson #the blorger special #it didn't fit anywhere else but #fic Pansy is often either a lipstick lesbian of a helpful fag hag and I find that entertaining #fanon pansy is fun and that is a major reason why I like her #pansy my beloved

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skeelly · 1 year ago

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"when im fat and old and my kids think im a joke"

hi!! welcome. i suggest putting a seatbelt on and i will pay for your therapy, dont worry. :)

☘ "hi, it's me. im the problem it's me.": im kristen! you can call me kristen or kris. minor. she/her. intp-t. ambivert. 🇵🇭. reader (sort of). notes app writer (sometimes). i could not care less about my dumb typos so deal with it. i suck at math. biiiiiggg ophelia wilde fan. delulu swiftie no.9273737277. rodrigoxpartidge's biggest supporter. claire rosinkranz is the reason for my existence. gracie abrams ily. "how long can we be a sad song?". im married to grayson hawthorne. mirrorball//tolerate it girlie 4 life. stromboli fan until the day i die. nick girlie by heart. pjo stan at this point. harry potter simp. hermione granger is my mother. sherlock and enola holmes stan. "no body, no crime". haylor (sorry not sorry). one direction is my life. FREE PALESTINE. kenji, my spirit animal. jude is so ughhhhh perfect. javery shipper cause jameson for avery, grayson for me :3. massive k!nye west hater so if you like him, please leave. but i love rap. certified professional procrastinator. capricorn (not a believer in those things though). i love reading poetry. correct grammar = non existent. i can (technically) fluently speak 3 languages. i can speak (basic, not much) about 5 languages?. piano enthusiast. very big sport girly (football *soccer. america football can kiss my toes. that sport sucks*, f1, volleyball, badminton, basketball, tennis and hockey fan). walker scobell is perfect and i love him. c²>>>>. sharl leclerc. max the axe. oscar paistry. ankara messi. sewy. leah is my bestie. dior is the best artist no cap. pookie nation frfr. charlie's luke is best luke. andrew is underrated. olivea is jusssttt.

☘ rappers i like//listen to: eminem, lil skies, ysbtril (does he count?), nicki minaj, doja cat (:3), cardi b (rarely), dominic fike (does he count? yk, melodic rap). tbh idk who else lol.

☘ all around favorite artists: taylor swift, olivia rodrigo, claire rosinkranz, gracie abrams, the weeknd, doja cat, lil skies, ysbtril, selena gomez (?), harry styles, niall horan, louis tomlinson, zayn, liam payne, one direction, clairo, conan gray, lana del rey, one republic, why don't we, the neighborhood, billie elish, ariana grande, abba, michael jackson.

☘ navigation?:

rambles: #kristenstedtalk

anything i don't proof read: #i didn't proof read this lmao

grayson hawthorne: #loml

cringe posts that idk why i posted: #/j or #post to delete?

asks: #askaroo or #ty for answering <3

sturniolo triplets: #stombolis

☘ follower count (as of march 20): 313 (im actually not sure lol)

☘ DNI: racists, homophobes, sexists and anyone that's ok with any form of discrimination

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼ 　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼ 　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

☘ safe space for: everyone lol

☘ my other accounts: @crysten my writing and other stuff @skeellymellows book rants (AAAH I CANT TAG)

☘ books/movies/series: harry potter, pjo, aggtm, tig, sherlock/enola holmes, little women, black beauty, tsitp, better than the movies. hp, pjo, enola holmes, tsitp, gilmore girls, gossip girl, mean girls, legally blonde, little women, hunger games (haven't read the books), marvel (barely lol), secretariat (my favorite :>>). tbh idk what else lol

☘ my people:

@stvrgirl111//@stvrlighhttt (mare) #maree

@urbanflorals (em) #walkers wife

@gergthecat (scouty) #evil batman sourdough guy #bread man #george

@mqstermindswift (quason) #nickyy

@nqds (NADS) #nads! or was it #NADS! ??

@reminiscentreader (JAS) #theworldneedsmorepeoplelikejas

@sophiesonlinediary (fifi) #fifi <3

@myster3y (kiaraah) #kiaraah

@regisdvmb(reggggg) ✶ @coco6420 (cocoo) ✶ @eddiethebanished (finn :)) ✶ @themidnightarcher ✶ @starchasers-stuff ✶ @what-about-wendy (wendy <3) ✶ @lucinda-008 ✶ @foaming-sea ✶ @lonelycatsblog ✶ @good-old-fashioned-lover ✶ @my-mind-is-frozen ✶ @dandelions-fly-in-summer-skies ✶ @baboland ✶ @blocked-zombieartist ✶ @sturn-wrld ✶ @swiftieannah ✶ @weeping-in-the-willows ✶ @s1xseasonsandamov1e ✶ @the-red-archer ✶ @svnflowermoon ✶ @helpimhopelesslyinlove ✶ @doyoujustnotwantto ✶ @atwtmvftvtvsgavralpsss ✶ @oh-whale13 ✶ @bonesofnixie ✶ @art-of-fools (stephanieee) ✶ @percabeths-blue-cookies ✶ @imthatweirdratinthecorner (a rat <3) ✶ @letmeseeallthefrogsinthecity ✶ @that-multi-fandom-hijabi (novaaa) ✶ @rachellelizabethhdare ✶ @sluttypoetsdepartment ✶ @kimu-dem ✶

#kristenstedtalk #intro post #re-done

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dhr-ao3 · 7 days ago

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LOVE ISN'T BLIND

LOVE ISN'T BLIND https://ift.tt/c6slRWx by Anonymous “Harry!” Hermione swatted his arm, feeling like his older sister. “You have to stop letting them parade you around.” “Well, I would, but now they’re doing an actual Muggle-inspired television dating show. And they want all of us on it. Me, you, Ron, Gin, the whole crew. It’ll be the first ever magical telly show!” He attempted a charming smile. “It’s about moving on, putting the past in the past, y’know…” “Harry,” Hermione said, refusing to fall for his charm. “Why the fuck would I join? Ron and I just broke up; I’m not ready to date. You know that.” “Well…sure. But Kingsley said he’s firing us all if we don’t participate.” “What!?” In which Hermione and her friends are roped into being on a dating reality TV show. Because what better way to bring the Wizarding world together than forced romance? Words: 2998, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: F/M Characters: Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley, Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Pansy Parkinson, Parvati Patil, Stan Shunpike Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy Additional Tags: Comedy, Humor, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Reality TV, Reality TV Parody, Inspired by Love is Blind (TV), maybe she’s OOC maybe it’s maybelline, ooc Hermione Granger, ooc draco malfoy, everyone else is more or less in character, no assistant producers were harmed in the making of this fic, Dreams, Song: Dinner and Diatribes (Hozier) via AO3 works tagged 'Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy' https://ift.tt/9HLtJqz December 16, 2024 at 09:44PM

#IFTTT #Dramione #Draco x Hermione

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brookebellamy · 9 months ago

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BookTok Needs to Read the Room

by Brooke Bellamy

As a fanfic community, we don’t leave negative, snotty comments in the same way we don’t criticize our kid’s volunteer soccer coach. Well, I suppose some people do but at least that’s commonly understood to be in poor taste to publicly ridicule someone contributing their time, effort and talents to the community for free.

Full blog below the cut but I'd super duper appreciate it if you consider checking it out for free on medium 🙏

Why We Shouldn’t Hate on Fanfic Writers

Spend no less than five minutes with me and you’ll probably — whether you want to or not — be brought up to speed on the latest fandom drama happening in my discord servers or Twitter groupchats.

I’m a fangirl, it’s exactly what it says on the can. I’m a copywriter by day and by night an avid creator and connoisseur of fanfiction — these days mostly about TOP GUN (yes, that TOP GUN) but it tends to vary on a semi-yearly basis.

I get my kicks in weird ways and yet I’m far from alone in that.

Beyond the movies and the characters, I’m interested in fandom as a whole or as we like to call it fandom meta.

The unspoken rules of this wacky subculture dating back to the 1960s. Watching beloved or controversial fanfics get pulled off the web, reworked and eventually published as independent stories in their own right. The constant push and pull against a mainstream that is becoming increasingly aware of something that used to be a shame-filled, hidden hobby only for the nerdiest of the nerds.

Enter, Stage Right: BookTok

Fanfic going somewhat mainstream is thanks in no small part to TikTok, specifically BookTok — the community that reviews and discusses published romance novels. I’m not really a member of that community but from what I’ve gathered BookTok is mostly made up of millennial women who voraciously consume books of varying degrees of quality and really, really, really care about the sex. Or, to use their own lingo, spice.

Like they’re almost getting a little weird about it, not gonna lie.

To an outsider, though I hardly should be considered one, BookTok seems to be a somewhat spiritual successor to the “Mommy Porn” craze that swept through the country with 50 Shades of Grey — the most famous example of a fanfiction (originally about Twilight) that was repurposed into a full-fledged novel.

But I digress.

I’m a creator on FandomTok which naturally brushes up quite a bit with my cousins over on the published, professional side of the street. It’s a mostly peaceful co-existence, but it is TikTok so it also can be a fucking nightmare.

Case in point: I opened up the app last week and was immediately bombarded by a presumably millennial woman from BookTok ranting about how much she hated a popular Harry Potter fanfiction.

I didn’t read the fic she’s talking about but from what I can gather it takes place after the books conclude and focuses on a tumultuous love affair between Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy. That would be Emma Watson and Tom Felton for the non-stans.

Now, I’m no Harry Potter fan. Quite the opposite, actually.

Some of my earliest and most deeply unpleasant childhood memories are that of older cousins chasing me around our grandparents’ house yelling all sorts of spells and Potter-lingo at me. I’m also pretty sure I got locked in a cabinet at one point — but that’s a story for another day.

So it goes without saying: I’m no fan of J.K. Rowling, her work or her vitriolic hate speech against trans people.

However I do live, breathe and love fanfiction and so that means my support has to extend to the Potterheads and their stories as well.

So back to the video, I’ll give you the TLDR:

OP is upset that she’s spent so much time on what she feels to be a very overhyped fanfiction. She doesn’t typically read fic and so she’s confused and angry as to why the writer changed so much of the plot. She thinks it’s an unrealistic story, that its readers have poor taste and she’s mad that the fanfic’s writer killed off Harry.

She also reduces the entire 380,000 word story into being only about sex, despite it being heavily based on the gender-based oppression and violence that takes place in The Handmaid’s Tale.

OP concludes the first of a series of videos on this singular fanfic by proclaiming that a real Harry Potter fan would never tolerate something like this.

I watched just 10 seconds of the video before I had to put my phone down from seeing red.

Eventually, I watched it all the way through, left a couple of angry comments, made a few video responses of my own and eventually blocked her because I can’t stand internet beef with people engaging in an argument in deliberately poor faith.

But I’m still really annoyed about it, if it’s not obvious.

OP’s video has about 30k views at the time of my writing this. That might not seem like too much for an app that regularly sees content explode with 15 million views, so let me reframe it for you:

Imagine you and a friend dined at a massively successful Italian restaurant (I’m talking reservations a month in advance at a minimum). You loved it so much you spent weeks thinking about the pasta and how much you wanted to go back for more. But the restaurant is popular for a reason and so you couldn’t get another reservation. After a while you decided to try your hand at recreating some of the dishes at home. You even opted to have a little fun and throw in your own take on it. You spent a long time researching the ingredients, practicing your technique and ended up with a final dish that you were quite proud of. In fact, you were so proud of and excited by your creation that you invited that same friend over to try it one night. For some inexplicable reason, she was visibly angered at the invite. She told you that you were wasting your time trying to recreate the magic from the restaurant, but she showed up for dinner anyway. Empty handed, of course. Not even a cheap bottle of wine for your trouble. She took the first bite, gagged, announced she hated it and then for some reason decided to power through your entire meal. Literally licked the. plate. clean. She then stood up and left your house without a word of thanks or even a goodbye. And then the next day you got a notification from TikTok that she made ten minutes worth of videos about how shit your cooking is, and her videos reached enough people to fill up Madison Square Garden one and a half times.

And that analogy, though long-winded, still isn’t even perfect. In reality, the fic author didn’t invite OP to read the story; OP found it on her own.

So really it’s like your friend barged into your kitchen, took a bite of your pasta and then put you on blast for having a bland sauce.

Words (And Where We Say Them) Matter

30,000 views certainly isn’t viral, but it’s enough to drastically alter the fanfic writer’s creative experience. It’s enough to ruin the magic for a devoted fan just trying to have fun and write a little story about their favorite characters smooching.

The disgust and anger OP brought to table is shocking and in blatant disregard for the fic writing community’s golden rule:

If you don’t like, don’t read.

There’s a ton of other fandom colloquial terms — don’t yuck my yums is a particular favorite of mine — but they all mean more or less the same thing.

Don’t be a hater. Don’t spoil the fun. Don’t hurt anyone. Don’t be cruel in this space intended for creativity, community and friendship.

BookTok is increasingly diving into the wonderful, wacky world of fanfic and yet many of creators refuse to learn the unique culture and norms that have existed for decades.

For instance, it’s not an uncommon phenomenon for a single nasty comment to stop a fanfic in its tracks. That may sound like a hypersensitive author, but I argue:

Non-consensual criticism has no place in fanfiction.

I say non-consensual because in fandom we do actually have protocols for critiques. A beta read is a common term for a peer review, where the writer actively seeks out feedback from another writer to improve grammar, story structure, etc. However, this is a closed, private exchange between two community members that have established trust and connection — it’s a safe space.

Fanfiction that is deemed harmful or even dangerous is also fair game, though we tend to keep our commentary mostly to things like:

“This story contains sexual violence that was not properly tagged, please update the tags ASAP so not to trigger others”

When we post, of course we know that technically we’re opening ourselves up to the internet. However, I’m not blasting my quirky little Iron Man stories to the front page of Medium. I’m sharing it with a relatively small, somewhat isolated community filled with others who also happen to like quirky little stories about Iron Man.

For instance, it’s very common for fics to conclude with brief send-offs like:

“This was my first time writing from Peeta’s pov, so be nice please 🙏” “I wrote this for my friend’s birthday — I hope her day is as happy as Edward and Bella ended up here!!!” “English isn’t my first language and I’m not from the UK so apologies if any of the stuff about the train station or taxi cab seems a little off!”

In my opinion, this is not hypersensitivity; this is a request — sometimes a plea — to be kind about amateur work and to treat it as such.

We’re Talking Your Mom’s Pickleball League, Not the NFL Here

Fanfiction is not formally published writing, even though it’s “published” on a website like Tumblr or ArchiveOfOurOwn. More times than not, the fic writer is the only person that has eyes on the draft before the story goes live.

It doesn’t receive thorough review from a publisher. It doesn’t go through rounds and rounds of edits and comment periods like a professional writer’s work will.

Fic writers don’t receive any payment, sponsorship or credit for their work. They can’t because the entirety of fanfiction depends on writers cooperating with extremely delicate copyright laws — a fascinating topic I’ll probably elaborate on at some point.

There is literally nothing to be gained by writing and sharing fanfiction beyond the personal satisfaction and pride in contributing to your community’s collective joy.

Old Men Yells At Cloud, Harry Potter Edition

As a fanfic community, we don’t leave negative, snotty comments in the same way we don’t criticize our kid’s volunteer soccer coach.

Well, I suppose some people do but at least that’s commonly understood to be in poor taste to publicly ridicule someone contributing their time, effort and talents to the community for free.

I guess what I’m saying is that BookTok has some catching up to do. Or more aptly, they need to read the fucking room.

Fanfiction is a labor of love — by fans, for fans

If you don’t like a story, just scroll on by. Certainly don’t double down and read 380k of a story you hated in the first three paragraphs.

And if you think it’s so easy to write a “good” story, well then maybe you should give it a try before hating on the writers that are brave enough to share their work with the community.

And so finally, a speed run just a handful of OP and other BookToker’s concerns because if I don’t formally address these points I will lose my goddamn mind:

You guys were okay with the author just blatantly changing things? The mannerisms, the deaths?

Yes, that’s the whole fucking point of a fanfiction. Maverick and Iceman don’t actually kiss in the movies but they sure as hell do when I’m in charge.

What post-apocalyptic world would this ever happen realistically?

Are we really nitpicking the practicality of a post-9/11 wizarding world?

I’m sorry but this story sucked. Here’s a list of my Did-Not-Finish fanfics

Did-Not-Finish (DNF) lists are a popular tool used by BookTokers intended to help their audiences save money and avoid splurging on books they probably won’t jive with.

DNF lists have no place in fanfic because there is no money to save.

If you were a true Harry Potter fan, this would not fly.

No, no. If you were a true fan, you’d embrace your community members and uplift the storytellers that are keeping the magic alive for us all.

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if you made it this far, thanks! consider checking me out on medium for other blog posts on fandom, pop culture and more :)

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