Red flags, and sadness.
Jul. 3rd, 2022 02:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bladesparkYou know, looking around fandom spaces, I keep feeling startled, surprised, depressed, and then I guess just resigned, when I see HOW MUCH Harry Potter content is still everywhere.
Sure, the creator being shit doesn't mean the fandom is culpable, and people don't HAVE to give up stuff they love because it's "problematic" I am the LAST person on earth to think that! Seriously, my love for problematic media his no bounds, I read and write some WILD shit.
But I also remember how I felt, as I was boxing up the books to move last year. I just...couldn't love them anymore, knowing. So they got dumped in the donate box, along with a few "you know, this is objectively bad writing, nope" books and one other author whose personal actions also ruined things for me.
I literally cannot ignore the author and enjoy the books when it comes to HP, because they're SO tied to somebody who's SO bad, in an "actively working to harm me personally" sort of way. I'm able to not give a shit if Lovecraft was awful (in fact writing Lovecraftian fiction that Lovecraft himself would have loathed is one of my favorite things!) but he's not here to use his fame against immigrants, there's a degree of separation there that doesn't exist for HPotter as it does for HPL. (Well, and I knew what he was when I began reading him, there was no sudden betrayal. I could write about Lackey, who I still think did great things and I still don't mind much if other people support her, but the personal nature of her betrayal has destroyed her work for me so completely, even if she's not using her money/fame to harm me or anybody else. Sigh.)
I digress a lot, sorry.
To get back to the point, it feels a little bit like people who can go "Oh, sure JK is shit but the books are still my favorites, this is still my fandom" don't actually feel anything about people like me. Hell, some of them feel plenty, some of them outright hate me, but in non-mainstream, mostly fannish spaces, basic trans rights are actually the norm, and isn't that lovely? I'm glad of that, but it makes it all the more shocking to realize that still reading, writing, and enjoying new HP fanfic is nevertheless also the norm in those spaces.
I know people are complicated, and it is in fact possible for one to not lose love for a creation when you lose love for the creator. Heck, that's a big part of the point of Chuck Tingle's AMAZING Harriet Porber books. I literally cried in places while reading the first one. So I know people can genuinely care about trans people and still participate in Potter fandom, at least the not-putting-money-in-JK's-pockets parts of it like say AO3 etc., but I can't help but consider it a red flag now.
One red flag alone maybe means somebody likes the rainbow and today's color is red, of course. I'm not going to give you the boot JUST for writing HP fic.
But I notice. I'm pretty sure we all notice, and remember, and if other flags turn up...
Sure, the creator being shit doesn't mean the fandom is culpable, and people don't HAVE to give up stuff they love because it's "problematic" I am the LAST person on earth to think that! Seriously, my love for problematic media his no bounds, I read and write some WILD shit.
But I also remember how I felt, as I was boxing up the books to move last year. I just...couldn't love them anymore, knowing. So they got dumped in the donate box, along with a few "you know, this is objectively bad writing, nope" books and one other author whose personal actions also ruined things for me.
I literally cannot ignore the author and enjoy the books when it comes to HP, because they're SO tied to somebody who's SO bad, in an "actively working to harm me personally" sort of way. I'm able to not give a shit if Lovecraft was awful (in fact writing Lovecraftian fiction that Lovecraft himself would have loathed is one of my favorite things!) but he's not here to use his fame against immigrants, there's a degree of separation there that doesn't exist for HPotter as it does for HPL. (Well, and I knew what he was when I began reading him, there was no sudden betrayal. I could write about Lackey, who I still think did great things and I still don't mind much if other people support her, but the personal nature of her betrayal has destroyed her work for me so completely, even if she's not using her money/fame to harm me or anybody else. Sigh.)
I digress a lot, sorry.
To get back to the point, it feels a little bit like people who can go "Oh, sure JK is shit but the books are still my favorites, this is still my fandom" don't actually feel anything about people like me. Hell, some of them feel plenty, some of them outright hate me, but in non-mainstream, mostly fannish spaces, basic trans rights are actually the norm, and isn't that lovely? I'm glad of that, but it makes it all the more shocking to realize that still reading, writing, and enjoying new HP fanfic is nevertheless also the norm in those spaces.
I know people are complicated, and it is in fact possible for one to not lose love for a creation when you lose love for the creator. Heck, that's a big part of the point of Chuck Tingle's AMAZING Harriet Porber books. I literally cried in places while reading the first one. So I know people can genuinely care about trans people and still participate in Potter fandom, at least the not-putting-money-in-JK's-pockets parts of it like say AO3 etc., but I can't help but consider it a red flag now.
One red flag alone maybe means somebody likes the rainbow and today's color is red, of course. I'm not going to give you the boot JUST for writing HP fic.
But I notice. I'm pretty sure we all notice, and remember, and if other flags turn up...
no subject
Date: 2022-07-05 02:43 pm (UTC)But oy. Wearing HP merch in public is publicly being a fan, regardless of the provenance of the merch. Which means tacitly supporting her Very Public Views that JKR is actively and powerfully campaigning for--JKR has explicitly and repeatedly said she thinks all her fans agree with her viewpoints. If this isn't a problem for someone, then clearly they don't care about trans folks, it is just that simple. And so, I disengage and I distance and those people are diminished in my opinion.
There are many, many better authors to love. Even supporting terrible authors with less cultural clout would be a better option in an objective sense.
Meanwhile, I love the Widdershins series, lovecraftian m/m romance in which the author appears to be trying to make Lovecraft spin hard enough in his grave to power a small nation. A wonderful experience.
no subject
Date: 2022-07-05 03:58 pm (UTC)