THE FUCK BOX

J. K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter. And we need to accept that.

Harry Potter isn’t some pure unproblematic beacon of perfection that we can just choose to erase the scummy author from and enjoy without guilt. Harry Potter is very much rooted in Rowling’s view of the world. The blatant antisemitism in the portrayal of the goblins, the entire race of slave creatures that actually really like being slaves and Hermione’s attempts to free them are largely played off as a joke, the almost complete dearth of canon characters of color (and then when she does put canonical characters of color in, they’re… Nagini…), the complete lack of respect for other cultures (the Japanese wizarding school literally translates to “Magic Place” in Japanese, Cho Chang is not even remotely a proper Chinese name, don’t get me started on her usage of Native American folklore), the almost complete lack of LGBTQ+ characters, the “Dumbledore is gay!” baiting, the lycanthropy-as-HIV metaphor that involves one of the werewolves intentionally infecting as many people as he can, with a preference for targeting children, no less…

These are all very much present in Harry Potter. They’re not things you can just ignore. And they’re there because Rowling wrote them in.

I know you read Harry Potter as a kid and loved it. I know when you read Harry Potter as a kid you probably didn’t even notice how shitty all this stuff was. I certainly didn’t. But you can’t go back to that time. You can’t go back to when you were 10, when you were consuming this media and loving it uncritically without notice or regard for its more problematic elements. You can’t go back to being a kid again.

And that’s okay. It doesn’t mean you’re required to wholeheartedly condemn this important part of your childhood. You can still enjoy these books while acknowledging that they’ve got some really shitty things in them. You can enjoy Harry Potter as a mature adult. You don’t have to be a kid again to like it. And you’re perfectly allowed to hate on Rowling for her shittiness, past and present, while still loving Harry Potter.

shirt and pants with horizontal black and white stripes

A black domino mask

A dark grey wool hat

a big sack with a dollar sign on it where he stores his gadgets

“I did this racebend / rule 63 character art because I like exploring AU ideas!“

“I did this racebend / rule 63 character art because I wanted to try something new and expand my skillset.“

“Even though I’m not the same gender/race as this character I decided to cosplay as them because I think they’re cool and/or I relate to them a lot!“

“Sorry cissies, they’re not for you“ *proceeds to post rcdart captain amaerica clone*

“Reblog just to piss of the whites“ *african-american version of Japanese character*

“sorry this is canon now I don’t make the rules. If you disagree you’re racist.“

“This character needed to be fixed so I…“

Taking someone else’s creation and changing it to ‘stick it to‘ anyone else rather than out of a genuine sense of appreciation and enjoyment.

me: i am absolutely never gonna draw a combiner, not even a doodle they are a walking mess of everything that makes mecha hard for me to draw never gonna happen!!

So, what is his “job”?  Destroying Autobots, of course.  But you can only battle so long, and being second in command has to come with a lot of admin work, too.

My headcanon is now that Starscream is actually, despite all expectations, freaking excellent at managing people.  He sees through you, dude.  He knows what you want.  He knows how to train, pay, bribe, and encourage you so that you will do your damn job with the minimum of effort from him.  He knows this for everyone, and he will treat everyone utterly differently.  He’ll bitch and yell at some people, communicate with others via email, praise some for every little thing, never praise others, and his duty rosters are utter chaos because he knows exactly who to put on shift with who else and there is little rhyme or reason to it unless you know who distracts who, who likes who, who hates who, who will help who.

It’s time to activate it…

Bites The Dust! now this entire post will be reversed!

Based on this post

Bonus: