#whoisleftadmin

TW: Transphobia

Dear esteemed readers across the Wizarding World, 

How about a fun twist on a classic game: ‘wed, bed, behead’? 

Send in the names of any two people—whether they’re together or not—and we’ll tell you whether they’re a WED, a BED or a BEHEAD. In other words, whether they would survive a trip down the aisle, whether we think they’d send up some sparks if they shagged, or if we’d all be better off putting them out of their misery. 

Or, if you’re feeling feisty: send in SIX names and we’ll pair them off. One couple to tie the knot, one to rumple the sheets, and one that ought to call it quits. 

Who doesn’t love a good mix and match?! 

Hi, there! As a fair warning, this is the only message about this we’ll be answering because frankly this situation is getting out of hand, and we’re trying to operate in the frame of mind that--despite the very cruel and vulgar messages in our inbox--that we’re all really on the same side here.

Whitewashing is NOT fine! Which is fortunate, because that’s not what’s happening here. As stated in our post, one third-party illustration on Pottermore is not what we consider canon. That’s not to say we consider Dorcas canonically white; we don’t consider her canonically anything. Unequivocally, if it were to somehow become confirmed, tried-and-true canon that Dorcas Meadowes was a Black woman, we would have changed her FC immediately. 

In truth, we didn’t hear about this in ANY capacity until this week. If Dorcas were an open character and an application came through for her today, we would have no problem greenlighting any workable FC for her. This policy does not just extend to Dorcas; it’s been in place for more than five years. 

Dorcas’s FC was chosen years before the Pottermore illustration and, like ALL Pottermore information released after our group was incorporated, we didn’t require follow-up changes to accommodate. 

This is not to say that our writers can’t take inspiration from Pottermore and other post-books-released canon. Just because we acknowledge foreign wizarding schools and included the names of James Potter’s parents in his bio does not mean that we’ve built our group around Pottermore canon - just that, as with ALL things touched by JKR, we’ve taken inspiration where we’re able to and have relied on invention, flexible canon rules and imagination to improve things, overall, by making them more inclusive and consistent than reflected by the books’ original worldbuilding. 

Consider, for instance, this photograph from the Harry Potter films of the First Order of the Phoenix in which every single person is white (including, and called out by name, Dorcas Meadowes). This photograph, for a long time, was the only non-book canon any of us had to go on. And, like all JKR-stamped extra canon, is suitable to use as a seed for inspiration but is not, in any way shape or form, binding canon rule. 

Our stance is consistent with our group’s history. We have stated many, many, many times in the past that we don’t consider Pottermore to be our arbiter of canon. Remus’s backstory is wildly different, for example. JKR and Pottermore have both gone out of their way to clarify that Remus and Sirius "were not” in a romantic relationship, which is very much not true of our game canon.  Meanwhile, Hestia Jones is depicted as white on Pottermore and in the Lego games, despite being described as a relative of Gwenog Jones, a Black woman. We don’t accept that as canon, either! 

Additionally, our group has a wide range of POC representation, so we’d encourage you to please do some research before throwing out that claim. This is inclusive of characters that were not made POC in canon, including all three Black sisters, the Lestrange siblings, the Carrow twins, Frank Longbottom, Marlene McKinnon and Ted Tonks. 

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY: FIVE YEARS OF WHO IS LEFT !

With everything going on around the world today, we know that this isn’t the MOST historically significant milestone to keep an eye on – however, we are so floored to announce that today, November 6, 2020, marks the official anniversary of FIVE! FULL! CALENDAR YEARS!!!! since Who Is Left first opened our doors and held our first round of acceptances back in 2015. 

When we started this group, we were a lot of things: younger, greener, full of optimism about the potential to create the type of writing group we’d always wanted to find. So many years—HALF A DECADE!!!—later, we continue to be blown away, day by day, by Who Is Left and the phenomenal writers who bring their enthusiasm, ideas and skills to the table. 

We had one goal in launching WIL: to forge a long-lasting, para-driven group where we could just write, muse and create alongside other people hoping to do the same. Through it all, we found not only that dream becoming a reality, but so much more: genuine real-life friendships, creative breakthroughs, and a stable online outlet that provides both an escape from the real-world and doesn’t punish us for having outside obligations. 

This group is so, so special to us. As are our characters. As is every member who has brought their words and their muses to our dashboard – past, present and future. We’re just humbled to have five years (?!?!?!) here under our belts, all of them spent with a collection of the most thought-provoking, creative, talented, hilarious, angst-inducing, wonderful humans that we’ve ever had the pleasure to write with. 

After this long, there’s not much else to say other than:

Hi gang! We’ve got some weird notifications and, bizarrely enough, some anonymous hate messages about Dorcas Meadowes that we very quickly wanted to address!

If Dorcas Meadowes being Black is now your personal canon thanks to an illustration that went up on Pottermore a couple years ago, that’s amazing! We’re all about making the characters we love, even the ones barely developed beyond a couple throwaway lines, diverse and emblematic of their time when Miss TERF Rowling didn’t really have the same concerns.

However, we don’t consider Pottermore “canon”, and we haven’t since our group started back in 2015. Canon is whatever is in the books, and even then if you take a look around our group we’ve been pretty lenient with what we consider canon when it comes to adding more characters of color than Joanne could muster in 7 books (and also, apparently, an illustration a decade later). 

JK Rowling is a transphobic monster whose work we have essentially pulled out of her hands in order to try and preserve the joy we originally derived from the series. If you, personally, want to give this very white series and its transphobic creator kudos for giving the nod to draw a background character as Black on her non-canon website despite being given no canon history besides 'Voldemort murdered her personally’, that's absolutely up to you.

Dorcas being Black is an amazing call, but it isn’t canon. If you don’t like that the Dorcas of our group is played by a white woman, that’s totally understandable, and you don’t have to like it! But in 2020, please think about which series - and which writer - you’re giving canon lip service to. We suggest taking that time and energy to read up on or even donate to some UK Transgender charities (like Mermaids!) instead.

ORDER TRAINING CAMP: THE BARNS #002 WEEK TWO // JULY 1978

The Order of the Phoenix has an annual tradition of taking all its members – both old and new, but with a dedicated focus on training up the new recruits – out for a two week session at the Barns. The Barns is the catch-all name for the rambling, isolated farm used for training up both the hard- and soft-skills of the Order members.

This event window covers WEEK TWO of the two-week training camp. 

HOWEVER – due to everything going on in the world ( *gestures vaguely at....all of it* ) the admins know that we can’t be the only ones who weren’t able to wrap our minds around writing. Therefore we’ve made some changes, to be further detailed below, including: 

Open AND closed starters for week two can now be posted.

Closed starters for week one can still be posted as needed, through the rest of the event window. 

We’ve added another week to the event overall, not only to account for the recent election (& other OOC commitments/distractions) but because of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday for our American writers. Therefore, starters are now permitted through November 30th. 

Also, please keep your eyes peeled for additional forthcoming posts – that give a brief overview of some of the week two training (and some of the unsubstantiated week two gossip!)  

OOC Information & Logistics

Both open and closed starters for WEEK TWO OF TRAINING can be posted from now through 11:59pm ET on Monday, November 30th. 

Closed starters taking place during WEEK ONE of training are permitted through the end of the event window. 

Please use the starter tag #WhoIsLeftBarns for open starters

Obviously, this event is open to ORDER MEMBERS ONLY.

Order members will not be able to leave the property during the two weeks of the camp, and will remain on premises the entire time. There are no nearby towns, etc. so those seeking alone time will have to be creative.

Additionally, all in attendance are assumed to have given excuses to their jobs/loved ones/etc. as to where they are and why they can’t be contacted. 

The Schedule

** The full two-week schedule is provided HERE for plotting, planning & inspo purposes.

For higher image resolution, visit: https://imgur.com/a/Ym6WenT

The Room(mate) Assignments & Barns Worldbuilding