“I just know that something good is gonna happen, I don’t know when. But just saying it could even make it happen.”
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Latest Posts by chocolando - Page 6
Hi. Im sorry you are hurting. Im feeling a similar way myself currently and it sucks. If you're up to it im really in the mood for a drarry soulmate AU. Maybe a red string of fate? No pressure tho. Hope you feel better.
Hello!
Thank you for your wishes <3333 I’m better, thank you: writing fun drarry ficlets helped. It gave me a lot of joy to write this one, and I hope you like it!
Eighth year, 1.3k, Mature, unbeated.
*****
When Blaise offered Draco a potion that would make him discover his soulmate, Draco only drank it to humour him.
‘There’s no such thing as soulmates,’ he said, twirling the blue vial. The potion inside gave off a strong smell of iodine. He wondered if it was a harmless Muggle medicine or an illegal hallucinogenic drug—both real possibilities where Blaise was concerned.
Blaise was leaning against the frame of his bed. ‘There is. That’s how I learned that Padma is the love of my life.’
Draco scoffed. ‘It’s all right to say you’re smitten, you know. You don’t have to justify it with metaphysical mumbo-jumbo.’
Blaise’s eyes flashed. ‘Just drink it and you’ll see it.’
Draco couldn’t be arsed to argue; he drank it. ‘And now what?’ He deposited the vial on his bedside table.
‘Now fate will contrive that you meet them, and when you see your soulmate, they’ll glow.’
‘You mean my soulmate is at Hogwarts? Out of the entire world? How ridiculous! What if my soulmate is a Brazilian underwear model?’
‘Well then your Brazilian underwear model will somehow, through mysterious circumstances, find himself at Hogwarts tonight.’
‘What a load of bull,’ Draco said and gathered his school bag. ‘Come on. We have Intelligent Plants at Greenhouse Six. Hey, maybe a plant is my soulmate? I could swear my ficus winked at me the other day.’
Blaise didn’t look impressed or amused. ‘You’re mocking now, but you’ll eat your words.’
He followed Blaise out of their dorm, his chest heavy. He didn’t want to tell Blaise the real reason he didn’t want to know about soulmates. It’d be so disheartening to be in love, desperately yearning for a person, and then to get confirmation that he wasn’t the One. That someone else was, someone that perhaps you hadn’t met yet. Even if it was better in the long run, Draco didn’t want the pain of disillusionment. He didn’t want to know the right bloke for him when his heart ached for the wrong one.
Because there was no way that Potter was his soulmate. They’d barely had a conversation these days that wasn’t fraught with tension, weird looks and awkwardness. Potter—who, in former years, had been capable of returning Draco’s jibes with sharp wit—was tongue-tied around him. Avoided looking at Draco even.
It hurt. Potter’s distance hurt, and Draco had no idea how to bridge it. He distracted himself by thinking about their next class when he froze a few metres from the greenhouses. He’d forgotten to bring the ingredients Professor Sprout had asked them to for this lesson. Curse Blaise and his stupid potions!
‘I need to go back,’ he told Blaise and strode back to the castle without another word. He crossed the Entrance, silent and empty now, and was about to head to the dungeons when he saw the school’s psych-healer walk his way. Oh no.
Luckily, she hadn’t seen him, her attention on her folder, and Draco glanced around him in panic and dashed inside a broom cupboard. He shut the door firmly and leaned his forehead on it, trying to listen to her footsteps fading away.
‘What are you doing here?’ said a voice behind him.
Draco froze. Honestly, this day couldn’t get any worse.
He turned around. A weird glow hovered in a corner, which illuminated the silhouette of Potter’s head. Draco’s heart—the traitor—thumped giddily. He swallowed. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I…er…. was looking for something.’
‘So am I,’ Draco hurried to say.
Murmurs came from outside. Draco pressed his ear to the door and groaned. Dr Bells had stopped right outside their door and was talking to someone—McGonagall probably.
‘You look like you’re hiding,’ Potter said.
‘So do you,’ Draco replied.
‘Maybe I am.’
Draco’s eyes adjusted to the darkness and he could see Potter a little more clearly, shrouded in that golden haze. ‘What’s that around your head?’
Potter glanced above him. ‘What thing?’
‘That— oh dear Merlin!’ Blaise’s words shot through Draco’s brain like a lance: your soulmate will glow.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, yes,’ Draco answered quickly, his heart hammering in his chest. Was Potter…? Was it possible? Draco’s breath came shallow, his lungs straining for air. They strained harder when Potter left his corner and leaned on the door beside Draco. He put his ear on the door, then glanced at Draco with a half-smile.
‘Hiding from Dr Bells?’
In his confusion it didn’t occur to Draco to lie. ‘Yes. She keeps asking me to go see her and talk to her.’ He mimicked the counsellor’s voice. ‘ “How about a chat, Draco? I haven’t seen you in my office yet. How about you tell me about your worst nightmares and biggest shames and—”.’ Draco bit his lip. He hadn’t intended to say all of that and waited for mockery or laughter.
But Potter looked serious. He still leaned beside him, his face turned towards Draco. ‘I’m hiding from McGonagall. Same—well, similar reason. She wants me to make plans about the future, decide on my next few steps, and—’
He didn’t finish his sentence and Draco didn’t hurry to fill the silence. They stared at each other in the dim golden glow. ‘I can’t stand people being understanding,’ Draco confessed. ‘Helpful. Kind.’
‘It’s pity,’ Potter said. ‘It infuriates me. People checking in on me all the time.’
Draco was distantly aware that, outside, the conversation had ended, and he could leave. He remained where he was, breathing quietly, side by side with Potter. ‘All you want is to be left alone,’ he whispered.
‘Yes,’ Potter said, voice equally low. Then, he lowered his face but glanced up at Draco through his lashes. ‘Well, maybe not all alone.’
Draco swallowed. He kept his eyes on Potter’s, desperately trying to keep his knees from collapsing. His voice rasped only a little. ‘You want someone by your side.’ Potter nodded. Draco continued, ‘Someone who’s not kind, though.’
‘No,’ Potter said, coming closer. ‘Not kind, not understanding, not helpful.’ He’d stopped an inch from Draco’s lips, his breath hot. ‘I want someone who’s fierce. And clever. And a bit rude. And—’ he stroked Draco’s cheek. ‘Resilient.’
The word loosened something inside Draco’s chest, and he propelled himself forward. His mouth fell on Potter’s, his hands pulling him close. Potter kissed him back, making small, painful sounds, as if it hurt. And perhaps it did hurt: to be granted this joy. Draco found himself pressed against the door, Potter’s thigh between his legs and Potter’s hot hands under Draco’s shirt. He kissed him breathlessly, relentlessly, savagely, while a voice inside his head rang with joy: soulmates!
Late that evening, Draco lounged on his bed, his skin flushing at the memory of Potter—Harry, sweet Harry—kissing him and stroking him and gasping in his ear. He looked up to see a disgruntled Blaise enter the room.
‘What’s up?’
‘Daphne’s sister, that annoying Sixth-Year, got a hold of the potion, tested it and said it was a tiny strain of Felix Felicis with some other shit which would make someone’s pupils dilate when they saw the person they had a crush on? I didn’t understand it, but—’
‘You wanted it to be soulmates.’
Blaise sat heavily on his bed and held his head with his hands. Almost inaudibly, he said, ‘If we’re not soulmates, Padma might fall out of love with me.’
Draco sat up. ‘Well, then you’ve got to treat her right, don’t you? But if it helps, I did meet someone today. Under unexpected circumstances. Perhaps there is something in that potion; something that hints at fated love.’
Blaise cast a sideways glance. ‘Your Brazilian underwear model?’
Draco leaned back on his pillow with a smile and a half-hard cock. ‘Someone better.’
***
First line tag game
Thank you @smehur and @mourningliliesmorningglories for tagging me 🩶🩶 Read theirs here and here !!
Rules: share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written less than ten, don't be shy and share anyway!
I’m going to be cheating a little, though. Cause rules are meant to be broken…
The Enchanted Bicycle | Genshin (xiaoven), T, 253
Venti sat atop a rock by the lake. In his hands laid a red wooden flute, spilling prolonged notes with the soft breeze of the wind.
I Will Put You Back Together | Project Sekai (ankoha), M, 1k
The robot opened its brown eyes and emptily stared at the person in front of it.
WIP: You’re My Magical Spell | MHA (bakudeku), T, 12k
“I’m going to a boarding school.”
WIP: I’m Not Paid Enough to Care | Genshin (xiaoven), T, 7k
“Welcome to Heyu Tea House, what’s your order?” Xiao asked indifferently.
I saw some people also doing their unposted works and I also wanna do that. I feel like those are at my head’s at.
Five Apologies and One Sincerest
The first time Harry saw Draco Malfoy after the Death Eater trials was at the Ministry of Magic. He wasn’t surprised to see him there, but by how they stumbled into each other. For starters, they did literally bump into each other.
Capacity to Give Him All He Needs
“Did you really have to bring me to this place?” Draco asked, taking a look around the restaurant.
Everything is romantic
When Harry comes down for breakfast, Sirius and Remus are at the table, the food is made and a cup of tea is already set for him.
That’s it. I kind of died a little, lol.
I’mma be honest, fam. I don’t know who to tag so if you see this and you haven’t done one yet, do it. Or not, but it is fun.
Imagine being JD Vance, who makes such a huge part of his personality being catholic. The pope himself takes time to lecture you on compassion then promptly DIES. The pope uses one of his last hours on earth to tell you that you suck at your religion on EASTER. And then DIES. Anyway RIP Pope Francis
What score would u get?
want to be clear that if i ever talk about a headcanon and then later discuss a headcanon that is directly contradictory to the first one, that’s because headcanons exist in a quantum state where they are all simultaneously true and not true up until the point where i discuss it in detail, in which case that is the one that is true in that instance. schroedinger’s headcanons
April fool's winners
Got inspired by someone's suggestion to draw Scott and Cleo with tragedy and comedy masks, I tired that but it didn't quite work. So i changed the idea to venetian masks / fools / clowns... Idk it looks cool and i just locked in painting. Don't know if i'll ever have the time to finish this one so enjoy this wip in the meantime
The last train: overtime at the ministry means the they have the whole seat to themselves (a glimpse into the future?) dw Draco only work when he wants to.
exactly
A large part of the reason families were bigger in the past was because marital rape was not considered rape and birth control/abortion methods were ineffective, dangerous and/or illegal. We can dance around this and act like our great great great grandmothers just loveddddd being mamas so much that they decided out of their own free will to have 11 children. We can pretend that they DECIDED to have big families because it was a financially advantageous decision so they could have more labor around the farm. But a lot of children in the past were fundamentally unwanted and not conceived out of love, children were not a choice women got to make. We need to admit that and stop pretending historical women were inherently more maternal because they were impregnated at the age of 15 and kept having babies until they were 40. That did not make them loving mothers, it did not make them ‘the divine feminine’ and it sure did not make them happy.
Some phone wallpapers from the Project Eevee Twitter for Eevee Day!
Well have you 🤓
Border hoarders core <3
Senara, as a resident serious adult with a good grasp on the UK political and cultural landscape, AND the Harry Potter fandom, may I ask:
What impact does the fandom actually have on policies that impact transgender people?
I want to be the best ally I can be to trans folk, and I have seen discussions advocating that the Harry Potter franchise falling into oblivion is the only real way to de-platform JK Rowling.
I don’t entirely disagree - but I also suspect that the fandom as we know on Tumblr and Discord could be a much less influential bubble than it thinks itself to be, and not the main target audience for new movies, shows, and merchandising.
Is simply not consuming products from the franchise enough, or is engaging in extremely niche discussions on a cloudless micro-blogging platform still fanning the fire of Harry Potter, and giving ammunition to JKR to continue on her rampage of infantilising those who challenge her and targeting trans rights?
I don’t want to be naive or wilfully ignorant about my participation in this culture. But I want to know if blogging about Snupin smut and reading fanfiction on free independent platforms still trickles down to making JKR’s voice louder.
I also sometimes think that Harry Potter achieved the status of undeniable cultural staple, and oblivion is simply not an option - much like Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. I can force myself to forget and never engage with it again, but is it at all realistic in a global scale?
Is there an erroneous assumption that most of us on tumblr and discord are on team “fuck JKR, read fanfcition and pirate the books”? Or are offline elder millennials buying HP merch and reading the books to their kids carrying the franchise on their backs?
Or none of this matters, because HP is already part of the popular imagination, and it’s the tragedy of our times that big corporations will inevitably milk it forever?
Hope this is not too much of an awkward question, I really appreciate your insights
the way that the fandom impacts trans rights is by earning jkr money.
jkr's public transphobia - her comments on twitter etc. - absolutely contributes to recruiting others to the anti-trans cause, and that shouldn't be downplayed.
but being loud and wrong on social media isn't the same as having political or legal authority - jkr doesn't have this, and she doesn't deserve people thinking she does.
how she causes material harm to trans people in the uk [which then hurts all trans people, because other places may choose to follow suit] is because she donates colossal sums of money to legal cases which challenge trans people's rights. it's not just yesterday's judgement from the uk supreme court - in which the plaintiff was an anti-trans group she's on the record as having donated £70,000 to - she does it all the time.
she can donate this money because it's loose change for her. she makes millions every year.
and it doesn't come from mid-tier detective fiction, does it?
so, yes, here is the first truth - if she doesn't earn any money from you, you're not contributing to the overarching way her anti-trans crusade has an impact, and that matters.
but there is also a second truth - that you need to go beyond that.
several things need to be borne in mind:
jkr is one of the most visible - if not the single most visible - transphobes in the world. but she's not the only one.
the tendency to make her the figurehead of a transphobic movement, and to assume that disengaging with harry potter without doing anything else is enough may be comforting. but it's also wrong.
indeed, a lot of the people who have the greatest power to harm trans rights are nowhere near as visible as jkr - politicians, lawyers, journalists, academics, doctors, and so on. the supreme court did not reach its judgement because of jkr. the assault on trans rights which will unfold from the judgement will not happen because of her.
i'm not saying this to deny jkr's influence or to imply that she's not dangerous.
i'm saying it because i think it's important to remember that she has a vested interest in you feeling tiny and hopeless in the face of her money - in you thinking that she's the head of a movement and that movement is winning.
instead, the uk terf movement is fragmented and riddled with internecine beef. plenty of its factions don't actually like jkr - and she doesn't like plenty of them.
it can be fought, and it can be fought at the grassroots while she's in her mouldy tower being a bigot on twitter.
it's worth being absolutely clear that yesterday's supreme court ruling was not - in and of itself - new legislation. the uk supreme court does not have the power to make new laws. only parliament can do that.
it was a "clarification" - which is to say that it was an interpretation - of existing legislation. it - by itself - doesn't compel an institution or organisation to change anything. and it is, therefore, an interpretation which can be pushed back against.
this has already started - there's an excellent summary of objections to the judgement, which also provides a rebuttal to the crowing many terfs are doing about how trans rights are being rolled back by pointing out all the ways in which they will not be surrendered:
sadly, this is behind a paywall. it's summarised here, in an article from the same writer, a practising barrister who is a specialist in employment and discrimination law:
and all of us can do things which enable that pushback to continue, above all, in making clear to our mps that they only have our votes if they - at a bare minimum - continue to defend trans rights.
find their contact details here:
if you have an mp who is clear that they support restrictions on trans rights, then actively oppose them - call for them to be reselected at the next election [sadly a while away...], canvas for an opponent etc.
support institutions which continue to defend trans rights. the supreme court judgement doesn't force places to, for example, ban trans women from entering women's toilets [parliament could pass legislation which does, but that doesn't exist yet, and that's why you need to contact your mp], but plenty will be frightened into doing so. be loud about how you value and will continue to use businesses and services which don't bend to transphobic pressure.
donate to trans charities. lots are circulating, but here are some specifically northern irish options, which tend to otherwise get overlooked:
boost stories about the impact of transphobic legislation. it's crucial that you don't underestimate how little the average person knows about this [and about jkr's role in it in particular] - and this is something which helps anti-trans messaging sound more reasonable. but we can reach them first.
what you do with harry potter as a thing beyond this is always going to be subjective. i've set out more on my personal approach before - here - and, of course, you may do what you want.
but - since you've asked - i think two things are true:
on the one hand, harry potter is a juggernaut. the tumblr subsection of the fandom could disappear tonight and the impact would be minimal - harry potter is probably one of the most mainstream cultural products in the world.
and that's how it makes jkr money - branded merchandise, the theme parks, the studio tour, royalties from streaming, and so on.
fandom doesn't require you to engage with any of these. and i do think it's acceptable to understand a commitment not to give jkr money as a viable and sincerely significant harm-reduction strategy.
however.
on the other hand, the vitality of the fandom plays a role in making harry potter marketable. this is undeniable.
and this is the case for all areas of the fandom - i see a lot of cope ["jkr would hate my queer otp!"], but people can get sucked into liking harry potter through anything. having a non-canon take on things, or writing dead dove, or whatever doesn't prevent that.
but it's especially the case for areas of the fandom which are prominent in pop-culture independently of jkr.
i don't just mean the marauders subfandom here - i think we can all stand to grapple with this implication, and i think there's a tendency from people in less prominent fandom subsections to think that they don't have to, which exists at the other end of a spectrum from the tendency from people in the marauders subfandom to assume that their lax approach to canon absolves them from any connection to jkr.
this is a difficult circle to square because it's something which gives jkr visibility indirectly. there's no way, for example, that she's in contact with e.g. artists whose songs go viral in marauders tiktoks, whose youtube comments are then flooded with "can't believe i'm thinking about harry potter's dead dad 😭". and she doesn't earn money from it.
fanfiction and fanart also lives in this indirect space.
jkr doesn't gain any money from it - and that is important. it's also a medium which may engage with the subject matter of the series critically - through taking issue how she writes about gender, for example - and this is important as well.
but she doesn't gain nothing from it either.
my personal view is that the only way to remain in fandom is two-fold:
as discussed, make sure you're actually doing something in defence of trans people in your real life...
and make sure that your indirect contribution to jkr's nonsense never becomes a direct one.
that is to say, don't spend any money.
and - and this is the important thing - actually mean that.
i think that a very important thing to do if you want to stay in the fandom is to work on building yourself a mental defence against the fear of missing out.
by which i mean... in the circles in which i move, people seem - at the moment - to universally agree that they won't be watching the new television adaptation.
but i find it very striking - and very concerning - that lots of people seem to be taking the view that doing this will be easy, because the tv show won't be any good.
i strongly - strongly - advise you to prepare yourselves for the opposite. expect that the show will be absolutely outstanding. deal with your disappointment in missing out in advance. and do not engage with it, no matter what it tries to tempt you with.
we are about to see an unprecedented level of fan service. every single complaint people made about the film series will be addressed. it's going to make sure that ron is written book-accurately. it's going to give romione or hinny or whatever as it "should have been" in the films. it's going to whip out some really big name casting [cillian murphy has had months to shut down the rumour that he's voldemort... and if it comes to pass, his casting will bring a legion of peaky blinders fans on board. do not be one of them.]. i would bet my house that it's going to make wolfstar canon.
and it's going to do this because it knows that's how people who have committed to not watching it will waver - that, when faced with "i've got the chance to see x done properly" or "god, i love y in everything else they're in", people will go "lol, no ethical consumption under capitalism" and consume anyway.
but there is a more ethical strand of harry potter consumption, and that's consumption which does all it can to limit its impact to only benefitting jkr indirectly seriously.
I’m glad ppl on tiktok are doing ok
Hi! Thanks for all the responses -- I hadn't realized how many chapters I'd gotten through since your last round until I saw the emails lmao
I was wondering, in regards to this:
And omg, I totally feel you on being a trans person in the HP fandom. It's very weird how my tumblr dash is set up. I have mutuals still from old fandoms who are queer, and I feel so ostracized from them at times when they toe the line of 'anybody in the HP fandom supports JKR, you're a bad person if you're still engaging with it'. I'll spare you the essay on why I disagree with that, but oddly the safest place I feel on the internet as a trans person is in the HP fandom. Which is weird at face value, I suppose, given what JKR is doing, but we really are separate from her. I've yet to see substantial evidence that fandom, which is infamous for generating zero revenue, is floating trans peoples' demise. It's just a thought crime, I guess.
if you would, perhaps, not spare me the essay? lol
I feel the same sort of ostracization which is especially frustrating when I am in such "thought crimes are fake!" circles, and I'm interested in your perspective, if you want to give it!
Sure, I’ll offer my perspective on it! This is probably best broken down into bullet points:
1. JKR was already a billionaire before she came out as a TERF.
There is nothing in the world that will change this status. Even if every single person currently engaging with her various IPs immediately dropped them, JKR would still have a billion plus dollars to drop on anti-trans movements and whatever. A billion dollars is immensely difficult to picture. The easiest way is to think like this: if you make $50,000 a year, the equivalent of her dropping $75,000 the other day is you spending $3.75. How often do you spend 0.0075% of your income and give it any thought? JKR’s wealth is not directly tied to ‘levels of fandom engagement’.
Which leads to…
2. Boycotts don’t work.
Sorry. They don’t. Not against someone this politically powerful. If they did, the flood of people out of the HP fandom in 2020 would have had a measurable effect. What did have a measurable effect? People not going to watch the Fantastic Beast movies (because they were hot trash lmao). Not giving JKR any more money works in the sense that it cripples her future projects, but it has zero effect on what’s already in her purse.
Also, think of boycotts this way: wasn’t it hilarious watching conservatives try to boycott the Barbie movie, Nike, Bud Light, and whatever else they’ve systematically locked on to? But so then why do progressives/the left/whoever think it’s going to work the other way? Like with Hogwarts Legacy? Just don’t interact with the media, dude. And if you do, pirate it.
3. Fandom is not mainstream. I have never seen any data to substantiate that participating in a fandom directly correlates to dollars for the IP. Copyright literally prevents that from happening. To bring up to popular saying, “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism”, fandom exists outside of capitalism—for me, at least, as a fan fiction writer. This is a hobby to me. I have never seen a red cent for any of the hours of work I’ve put into my fics.
And I can probably guarantee that no one has stumbled upon Harry Potter through me, lol. They didn’t read one of my fics and go, ‘you know, I should check out what source material this is coming from’. Harry Potter is so well-known that there’s no way they came in blind.
Also, the TERF discourse is very much an online thing. I work retail irl and I’ve had conversations with customers who’ll say “you know, I really don’t get all this hubbub against trans people” but are too boomer to be anything more than tangentially aware that Harry Potter is a Thing. Like, ‘oh yeah, my kids read those books when they were coming out, but I never bothered’. One of my employees bought a set of the HP books because they were on a wicked deal at Costco, and when we were discussing it I told her that while I still enjoyed HP, I wasn’t comfortable giving JKR more money because she’s extremely transphobic and donates a lot of money to anti-trans causes. My employee was horrified and said that had she known that, she wouldn’t have bought the books. Lots of people just don’t know!
Which takes me to…
4. This type of online activism isn’t effective.
I’m talking specifically about being anti-Harry Potter or anti-JKR. Falling into those two categories does not automatically make you pro-trans. This was pretty blatantly obvious back when the books were being burned for promoting witchcraft. As far as fighting for trans peoples’ rights, screaming until you’re blue in the face about how anybody who engages with Harry Potter is a traitor and JKR BAD is wasting time better spent doing something productive - something that could actually benefit trans people rather than…I don’t know…virtue signalling that their blog or twitter account is a safe space?
5. I personally do not feel welcomed or vouched for by these people.
Listen, I’m going to break myself down into all my stupid little categories. I’m trans. Autistic. Intersex. Aromantic. Asexual. Basically, all the things that people love to try and cast out of the queer community, whether that means they’re trying to split LGBTQIA+ at the T or Q.
The anti-Harry Potter stuff, as far as attacking the fandom, feels like the latest strain of purity politics to me. As I’ve laid out above, abandoning HP will not right the wrongs of JKR in any measurable or tangible way. Boycotts don’t work. Fandom does not feed JKR’s coffers, and destroying the fandom will not cripple her. There are trans people inside the HP fandom, and what of us? Are we traitors? Are we not ‘really’ trans, because obviously we don’t care about the current political climate? Are we just confused and need to be enlightened as to what harm we’re doing? Where have I heard this rhetoric before?
One small thing, tangentially related:
6. I don’t care what JKR says about how engaging with Harry Potter tells her about who her ‘supporters’ are.
Seriously? She’s a lying dirtbag, and I’m just supposed to take her word on this? This is the one thing she just so happens to be right about?
When she started spouting TERF shit, I was really saddened by the writers who, upon leaving the fandom, also deleted their works in protest. Seeing as the majority of the HP fandom is queer, I’m sure that JKR was very pleased with the amount of queer media erasure that occurred. Why did we do that for her?
7. I believe JKR actually seethes and malds over the prospect of her fandom being queer and producing queer content.
As a writer, there’s a special kind of pain that comes from someone not quite interpreting your work the way you would have wanted them to. What do you think JKR’s first reaction was when she first learned about the Harry/Draco ship? The Draco/Hermione ship? If she didn’t live in a stone castle, I bet she would’ve punched a hole in the wall.
So, yeah. Transing and gaying all of her characters is a pretty nice way to get to her in a way that she can’t legally or financially retaliate. Every time she screams ‘WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?!’ at the queer people in her fandom, a trans person’s crops are watered.
8. The HP setting is very welcoming to trans people.
Potions exist that can change your body. Enough said.
That the Harry Potter books never really says anything specifically about trans people (NOTE: obviously JKR’s prejudices even back then showed through, but this isn’t about that) leaves the question on the table. Obviously trans people exist in the Harry Potter setting, because they exist everywhere. So, how did they never get any page time?
Well, who says they didn’t? In a setting where potions exist to change your body, trans people are just…people. I don’t even think that they would have a marginalized identity because gender dysphoria would be something very easily treated. Think of it like someone who takes medication for blood pressure. They need the medication, it’s life-saving, and while there isn’t a magical pill to ‘cure’ high blood pressure, it can be managed. The magical world revels in being strange. Why would being trans, while being considered strange here in the ‘Muggle’ world, be anything other than normal there? Why can’t it be?
And then there are Metamorphmagi. People who can literally change themselves at will! If that isn’t a trans person’s dream, I don’t know what is. I would personally love the option of being the biggest, hairiest dude with a dick so big an erection would make me black out, and then ultra femme and delicate the next.
Last on this point, Harry never notes anyone specifically trans in the text (NOTE: touching on things like the physical descriptions of Rita Skeeter and Marge Dursley, JKR tends to do the ugly=bad person thing. Although she describes Rita and Marge as mannish in appearance, they aren’t trans characters. They’re women that JKR wants to frame as bad people. Like I said above, this is JKR’s prejudice showing through). If Harry never notes anyone as specifically trans, that probably means that it’s impossible to tell at face value. The same as blood pressure medication, to return to that analogy. How do you know someone is on them? They tell you. You see the pill bottle and happen to know what that medication is for. They complain about side effects. They complain about the symptoms that led them going to the doctor in the first place.
9. Queer HP fandom content can potentially be how a Harry Potter fan realizes that they’re queer (or that queer people are just regular folks).
Hey, the first one happened to me!
If someone comes into the Harry Potter fandom unaware of JKR’s politics - maybe they were gifted the books for their birthday or happened to catch the movies on TV - it’s good actually that this person doesn’t fall right into an echo chamber of JKR’s politics. I’ll be happily here to correct her record in a way that isn’t shaming or policing them.
Anyway, I think that’s everything lol. To summarize:
- The HP Fandom is a neutral setting. Engaging with it doesn’t help JKR, and not engaging with it doesn’t help trans people. Just don’t spend money on official HP merch.
- If you want to be a pro-trans activist or trans political ally, please just ignore JKR and put all your focus on the real world.
- There are trans people in the HP fandom who are left feeling awkward and uncomfortable due to virtue signalling.
- Generating queer HP content is good, actually.
BACK IN THE FREAKING BUILDING I FINALLY GOT TIME TO DRAW
hey! donate to uk trans charities today because it’s gonna be a rough one
Genderbent modern au
maybe im just a weirdo but does anyone else hear an interesting or relevant conversation behind you in a way where you think if i’d been a cat my ear would have done this just now
Because when everyone in the Drarry Pit gets put into Azkaban, you mine the "Prisoner Draco Malfoy" tag for gold. Obviously. ⛏️🖤⛏️
✨Stars Shine Without by @p1013: Angsty Azkaban Draco realness somehow masterfully combined with domestic fluff, smut, and hope. E, 2k.
✨any day now by @oknowkiss: Not Azkaban but a fully realized rehabilitation center with a delicious power imbalance and heart-aching ambiguity. E, 17k.
✨Fearful Trill by @vukovich: Middle-aged (ahem silver fox) Harry and still-incarcerated Draco reunite in the Ministry. Sexy dark comedy ensues. E, 30k.
✨Former Things Come to Mind by @dodgerkedavra: A beautifully crafted post-Azkaban Draco and post-war Harry hurt/comfort fic where they tenderly heal together. E, 64k.
Drarry as Onion Articles (pt. 1?)
feel free to add on!
what if you wore a shirt that featured a picture of you trying to claw your way out of the shirt with a horrid desperate expression and the text "THAT'S NOT ME THAT'S NOT ME I'M TRAPPED IN THE SHIRT"
