House elf by choice...lover by force

part one

A Free Elf (fanfiction.net) - dirtydeedsdonedirtcheap T, 1k

Summary: A look into Dobby's last moments.

A House Elf's Birthday (fanfiction.net) - Megsy42 K, 2k

Summary: A oneshot about Dobby's birthday

And Giant-Winged Whatsits (ao3) - Rozarka G, 659

Summary: It's the summer after the Battle of Hogwarts, and Dean and Luna pay a visit to Dobby's grave.

I don't think Harry Potter is the biggest symbol of JKR's bigotry. I think the most flagrant sign of that was how she responded to critics. I watched her become radicalized in real time. I watched how she doubled down on her racism when she was called out for the ways she promoted her tragically mid fantastic beasts movies. I watched her chase marginalized teenagers with a double digit follower count off of twitter for daring to criticize her thought process, and no one with any kind of power standing against her because she was the one who was paying them. This isn't to say Harry Potter is without flaws. This is to say she really didn't give a shit about that. Getting rich and powerful is a hell of a drug, and she had enough sycophants that she had no reason to care about what her critics were saying.

She was convinced that she was a martyr; a voice for the unheard; a leader for the ages, so of course her detractors were the bad guys. And I think we should take this to heart. We should see this as an example of how easy it is to get radicalized; if you think of yourself as a paragon of virtue, you are going to think that whatever you see as good and right is an objective fact. Most people don't know this, but the majority of terfs start out as trans allies. You are not immune to propaganda! You are not immune to falling into dangerous ideologies!!!

This is why the most important thing you can do as an activist is to listen. Do NOT think you're above being wrong; do NOT develop a god complex; do NOT form an identity out of being right all the time. Involve yourselves in the groups you claim to speak for. Listen to trans women; share resources that help trans women; familiarize yourself with the diversity of experiences that trans people have and the struggles they face.

#but in the wake of her going off the deep end people have twisted that into#''she was always a hateful bigot and hp was actually a nefarious attempt to corrupt children into sharing her bigotry''

#and like#no#she was once a well-meaning fairly progressive normie who just didn't think too hard about her own background assumptions about the world#and then she got famous and then she got older and she got radicalized by people who targeted her on purpose because she had#enough money and cultural caché to turn into real influence

#and she was completely unprepared to defend her worldview from people who were telling her that her knee-jerk reaction was always right#and anyone who said otherwise was not only a jerk but also a dangerous villain who wanted to hurt her and other innocent women and girls

#and y'all are not nearly as immune to those tactics as a lot of you think you are

#fuck the ghoul that jkr has become but the story of how she got here is not the story of a crypto-fascist who made it into mainstream#it is the cautionary tale of a normal decent person who fell down a bad rabbithole and got swallowed up by a hate movement

#re-writing history so you can pretend she was always evil won't protect you from sharing her fate

#you have to put in the effort to interrogate your own biases and your own knee-jerk disgust reactions#you have to take a minute every so often to step back and CHECK if you have ended up in an echo chamber bubble and touch grass a little

#because radicalization doesn't happen overnight and it can happen to any of us#it's very easy to let yourself believe that you're Correct and anyone who disagrees with you is Obviously Evil

#you have to force yourself to double-check that notion from time to time and to hang onto EXACTLY what it is that makes the other side wron#you can't just say ''well they're conservatives so obviously they're evil'' because that is how you wind up at ''these men are hurting youn#''girls by PRETENDING to be women in order to take advantage of the protections feminists have spent decades fighting for! and we shouldn't#''even be surprised really - men are awful after all. all they do is TAKE from women and PREY ON young girls. we all know this from our own#''bad experiences with men. and we were right to hate them for it! you see!!'' and whoops now you're a fucking terf