Hey friends, I need some help. My fiancee are both trans and right now we're trapped in Texas. Like many trans people in unsafe states right now, we're trying to flee. We have a short term place to stay in Minnesota but we could really use more help making sure we can make this move safely. Reblog, repost, share with your friends, and if you're able and willing any amount of donation would make a huge difference.
Hi, my name is Eros and I was born in Texas. I grew up in Texas. I’ve created a… Eros Townsend needs your support for A Trans Couple Fleein
also obsessed with the people trying to justify buying hogwarts legacy by donating to trans orgs. babygirl you are buying indulgences. martin luther is rolling in his fucking grave right now trying to get out and nail his 95 theses into your head. you are so fucked up by the culture of performative activism that you believe that you can undo/compensate for real harm by doing something good somewhere else. they don't cancel out. you have still done real harm, no matter what you do to make yourself feel better about it. i hope your guilt never leaves you no matter how hard you try to wash it away.
What we’re not going to do is say “there are actual wars happening and y’all are worried about a game?” when it comes to Slavery Simulator: Blood Libel
Passivity is what leads to war. You are siding with oppression when you ignore it. You cause actual, real world harm by ignoring issues until the snowball gets too big, and when the war does come you’ll just say you can’t do anything about it. You are just pointing towards “bigger issues” because something will ALWAYS be bigger, and you’ll always look for an excuse not to act. You just don’t care about people who aren’t you.
The game tells the players that an enslaved race (who are literal caricatures of Jewish people) deserve to be enslaved so they can’t oppress their oppressors. That is Nazi propaganda. It promotes the far right extremism that causes war and systemic oppression.
The United States government is pushing a trans genocide AS WE SPEAK. JKR uses her social standing and wealth to influence anti-trans policies in the UK. She WANTS a war on trans people. She openly says that supporting the IP is supporting her values BECAUSE IT IS.
You don’t care about war. You don’t care about “bigger issues.” You won’t care until you’re the one being oppressed. By then there’ll be no one to support your cause because we’ll be dead or worse, and you’ll have to listen to everyone left tell you your problem isn’t important yet (hint: it never will be to them). You should be allying with the oppressed, not your future oppressors.
Just so everyone knows, that post I made about 'creating another Harry Potter' was not about people creating their own individual universes.
I meant, as I SAID, that people could come together to create a big one, like GONCHAROV.
I was not saying you can write your own story or worldbuild your own universe on an INDIVIDUAL level. I was saying you've proved with goncharov that the fandom CAN come together to create something, AS A TEAM-- to replace it.
So no, don't get out there and create your own thing. Work together to create a big overarching thing that can truly take its place. That's what I was saying.
Do Goncharov: Harry Potter Edition, that was the point.
"Uh... well. So they were trying to develop a multi-purpose, MacGyver type robot, you know?" He pushes hair out of his face. "A bot that can be a field medic, or defuse a bomb, or hack a system, or--engineer a solution for whatever needed solving in the, you know. In the field."
"The field," you echo. "So I was supposed to be, what, police equipment?"
"Well. Yeah. I learned what they were going to do with you after... after I'd activated your base program for the first time." He turns his big eyes up to you. "I didn't like the reasons we were working on you, but--but you're amazing, E-Vo. I couldn't just quit my job." Those big eyes slide back down to the ground and his voice drops in volume. "I'd have never seen you again," he mumbles.
...huh...
"...So you stole me instead of quit your job?"
"If I was supposed to be all-purpose, why did they keep wiping my memories?"
"Yeah, fuck the police!" Hold up your hand for a high five
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Percy isn't a good character. He should have believed Harry and dumbldore in the 5th book but he was stupid. He knew them and should have trusted them.
*deep sigh*
Alright, let me break this down for you:
Percy had very few reasons to believe Harry & Dumbledore, but he had a lot of reasons not to believe them.
I’ll put this under the cut due to length.
Let's start with Harry, because this aspect is a little simpler to explain.
From Percy’s POV, he’s hasn’t spent nearly as much time with Harry as his siblings have. In the letter he writes to Ron in OOTP, he says:
I know that he can be unbalanced and, for all I know, violent.
The ‘for all I know’ comment shows that Percy even admits to not knowing Harry well enough to be sure.
And Harry is unbalanced - it’s not his fault, but it’s a fact. He consistently breaks rules and is involved in everything bad that has happened to Percy’s younger siblings & friends up to that point (the beginning of OOTP).
In Book 1, Ron was injured when he went with Harry to stop Quirrell. In Book 2, the Chamber of Secrets was opened, Percy's girlfriend was petrified, and Harry was almost always near the scene of the crime. Harry spoke Parseltongue and appeared to encourage a snake to attack another student. Ginny was almost killed by a teenage version of Voldemort specifically because Tom was after Harry:
“Imagine how angry I was when the next time my diary was opened, it was Ginny who was writing to me, not you. She saw you with the diary, you see, and panicked. What if you found out how to work it, and I repeated all her secrets to you? What if, even worse, I told you who’d been strangling roosters? So the foolish little brat waited until your dormitory was deserted and stole it back. But I knew what I must do. It was clear to me that you were on the trail of Slytherin’s heir. From everything Ginny had told me about you, I knew you would go to any lengths to solve the mystery — particularly if one of your best friends was attacked. And Ginny had told me the whole school was buzzing because you could speak Parseltongue…
“So I made Ginny write her own farewell on the wall and come down here to wait. She struggled and cried and became very boring. But there isn’t much life left in her… She put too much into the diary, into me. Enough to let me leave its pages at last… I have been waiting for you to appear since we arrived here. I knew you’d come. I have many questions for you, Harry Potter.”
In Book 3, Sirius Black attacked the entrance to the Gryffindor Tower - where all of Percy’s younger siblings live - supposedly to get to Harry. Ron’s leg was injured because Sirius dragged him under the Whomping Willow in order to get Harry to follow him.
In Book 4, Cedric Diggory was killed while with Harry. I have always believed that Percy was friends with Cedric (see this post), but if nothing else, Percy knew Cedric because he was the Head Boy the year before, and Cedric was one of the prefects (therefore, one of Percy's responsibilities).
Again, this is not to say that any of this is Harry’s fault - I doubt even Percy would say that - but there is a direct correlation between proximity to Harry and danger, and Percy knows this.
However, even with that being said, it’s clear that the root of the problem was more about Dumbledore than Harry.
In fact, when retelling what happened during the argument, Ron said:
He said Dad was an idiot to run around with Dumbledore.
And in the letter Percy wrote to Ron, he said:
I am sorry that I was unable to see more of you over the summer. It pains me to criticize our parents, but I am afraid I can no longer live under their roof while they remain mixed up with the dangerous crowd around Dumbledore.
He’s making it clear that his family’s association with Dumbledore was the main reason for him leaving - not their association with Harry.
Percy likely believed that Dumbledore was manipulating Harry (which he frequently did throughout the series).
Even back in Book 1, Percy thought this about him:
Albus Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.
“Welcome,” he said. “Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!
“Thank you!”
He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Harry didn’t know whether to laugh or not.
“Is he — a bit mad?” he asked Percy uncertainly.
“Mad?” said Percy airily. “He’s a genius! Best wizard in the world! But he is a bit mad, yes. Potatoes, Harry?”
Dumbledore is regarded as the “best wizard” in the world - the most powerful and intelligent wizard of his time - and yet many people also comment on the fact that Dumbledore is a bit mental (there are quotes by Fred and Ron about this too).
And Percy’s not wrong to doubt Dumbledore. Dumbledore was a horrible Headmaster - that's just a fact.
In fact, up through Book 4, we see very little evidence of Dumbledore being a great wizard, but we do see evidence of him putting students in danger and making far too many mistakes/bad decisions.
In Book 1, he brought an item inside Hogwarts that he knew was being pursued by Voldemort, which put all the students at risk, and he either had no idea that Voldemort was living inside one of his professors or... he didn’t care? Look at this - frankly, horrifying - conversation from the book:
“Well, I got back all right,” said Hermione. “I brought Ron round — that took a while — and we were dashing up to the owlery to contact Dumbledore when we met him in the entrance hall — he already knew — he just said, ‘Harry’s gone after him, hasn’t he?’ and hurtled off to the third floor.”
“D’you think he meant you to do it?” said Ron. “Sending you your father’s cloak and everything?”
“Well, ” Hermione exploded, “if he did — I mean to say that’s terrible — you could have been killed.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Harry thoughtfully. “He’s a funny man, Dumbledore. I think he sort of wanted to give me a chance. I think he knows more or less everything that goes on here, you know. I reckon he had a pretty good idea we were going to try, and instead of stopping us, he just taught us enough to help. I don’t think it was an accident he let me find out how the mirror worked. It’s almost like he thought I had the right to face Voldemort if I could…”
“Yeah, Dumbledore’s off his rocker, all right,” said Ron proudly.
I’m sorry - what?! Dumbledore thought a child had the right to face Voldemort, and even pushed Harry in that direction, instead of facing Voldemort himself? I just have no words for how awful that is.
In Book 2, the Chamber of Secrets was opened, students were being petrified - in danger of being killed - and Dumbledore didn't bother to shut down the school (it wasn’t until Ginny was taken into the Chamber that McGonagall said they were sending students home). Moaning Myrtle literally died the last time the Chamber was open, but Dumbledore just allowed the students to stay and keep going to classes, because...?
There’s also this:
“What does this mean, Albus?” Professor McGonagall asked urgently.
“It means,” said Dumbledore, “that the Chamber of Secrets is indeed open again.”
Madam Pomfrey clapped a hand to her mouth. Professor McGonagall stared at Dumbledore.
“But, Albus… surely… who?”
“The question is not who,” said Dumbledore, his eyes on Colin. “The question is, how…” And from what Harry could see of Professor McGonagall’s shadowy face, she didn’t understand this any better than he did.
‘The question is not who’ - In other words, Dumbledore knew exactly who opened the Chamber, and therefore, knew that Voldemort had access to the campus, yet he didn’t figure out that Ginny was being possessed. Ultimately, a 12-year-old is the one that had to journey into the Chamber of Secrets, fight a form of Voldemort and a Basilisk, and save Ginny.
Yeah, I’m not seeing anything overly impressive about Albus here.
In Book 3, we also get a scene that makes me livid.
Professor Dumbledore sent all the Gryffindors back to the Great Hall, where they were joined ten minutes later by the students from Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin, who all looked extremely confused.
“The teachers and I need to conduct a thorough search of the castle,” Professor Dumbledore told them as Professors McGonagall and Flitwick closed all doors into the hall. “I’m afraid that, for your own safety, you will have to spend the night here. I want the prefects to stand guard over the entrances to the hall and I am leaving the Head Boy and Girl in charge.”
As a child reading this, I didn't think much of it. As an adult, it disgusts me. I get that the teachers wanted to search the school for Sirius, but are you honestly telling me that none of them could stay behind to watch the kids? Instead, you put children in charge of protecting each other? Even if you make the argument that Percy was 17 (and therefore, an adult by wizarding standards), he was still a student, and the other prefects that were told to guard the entrances included 5th and 6th year students who were definitely not adults.
This is basically like a gunman being loose on a high school campus, and the principal saying, “Okay, anyone on the safety patrol is going to guard the doors while all the teachers leave. Good luck.” NO. Just no. You don't do that. Even if Dumbledore didn’t think Sirius was dangerous (which we have no proof of, especially since Dumbledore admitted later that Sirius wasn’t acting like an innocent man), it would still have been a horrible choice.
And during that same year, he hired a werewolf for a professor. Yes, we all know that Remus is a great guy; however, he forgot to take his Wolfsbane Potion, turned into a werewolf, and almost killed students before the end of the year.
Harry could see Lupin’s silhouette. He had gone rigid. Then his limbs began to shake.
“Oh, my —” Hermione gasped. “He didn’t take his potion tonight! He’s not safe!”
“Run,” Black whispered. “Run. Now.”
But Harry couldn’t run. Ron was chained to Pettigrew and Lupin. He leapt forward but Black caught him around the chest and threw him back.
“Leave it to me — RUN!”
There was a terrible snarling noise. Lupin’s head was lengthening. So was his body. His shoulders were hunching. Hair was sprouting visibly on his face and hands, which were curling into clawed paws. Crookshanks’s hair was on end again; he was backing away — As the werewolf reared, snapping its long jaws, Sirius disappeared from Harry’s side. He had transformed. The enormous, bearlike dog bounded forward.
As the werewolf wrenched itself free of the manacle binding it, the dog seized it about the neck and pulled it backward, away from Ron and Pettigrew. They were locked, jaw to jaw, claws ripping at each other.
He was an unnecessary risk. Readers tend to ignore that because we love Remus, but just because we like someone and have sympathy for them does not mean they should be employed at a school.
In Book 4, Dumbledore failed to notice that his friend - "Moody was a great wizard in his time," said Bill. "He's an old friend of Dumbledore's, isn't he?" said Charlie. - was actually Barty Crouch Jr. using the Polyjuice Potion. Even if you argue that he didn't know Barty Jr. was alive, this powerful and intelligent wizard couldn't tell that his old friend wasn't himself? Seriously?
It’s not like there weren’t any signs - ‘Moody’ turning Draco into a ferret and demonstrating the Unforgivable Curses in class being some of them. At the very least, those acts should have warranted a meeting where Dumbledore spoke with him. If he spent a good deal of time with Moody one-on-one, he should have picked up on the inconsistencies in his personality, since no one can perfectly copy another person for an indefinite amount of time, but he either didn’t spend much time with him or didn’t figure it out. Either way, that’s not overly impressive either.
And Dumbledore allowed a 14-year-old kid to enter a tournament that purposely had an age limit of 17 and over because it was that dangerous. No, Dumbledore didn’t put Harry’s name in the Goblet, and yes, the Goblet was a "binding magical contract", but you're telling me the greatest wizard in the world couldn't figure out a way around that? I mean, an obvious loophole would be that 14-year-olds aren't legally allowed to sign contracts without parental/guardian permission, which Harry did not get from the Dursleys or Sirius, and therefore, the Goblet’s contract was null and void. Even without that, it’s pretty sketchy that Dumbledore couldn’t find any escape route for Harry.
And at the end of the year, one of the students died due to Dumbledore’s negligence in noticing that there was something amiss about one of his teachers.
I can't think of one reason why Percy would trust Dumbledore. I certainly wouldn't!
So Percy - likely grieving the death of a friend - was told to put blind faith into a man who had repeatedly failed his students & a traumatized kid who actually was being manipulated by Dumbledore (in other ways).
I don't know, anon; I think it's realistic that Percy wasn’t so willing to believe them.
And the fact that Percy was the only one in his family to really question the trustworthiness of a problematic, powerful wizard is one of my favorite things about him.
Obviously Harry Potter is fucked up as hell, filled with bigotry and stereotypes, and a lot of the morals they claim to espouse are very broken aesops.
However, there’s one broken aesop/fucked up thing that I haven’t seen anyone talk about: the fact that the narrative tries to push wizards as “oppressed”, when really they are oppressing basically everyone else.
Literally the only time we see a wizard being oppressed because they’re a wizard is Harry with the Dursleys, and a couple mentions of the Witch Trials. The Harry thing is one isolated incident, which hasn’t happened to any of the other known muggleborn and/or muggle-raised characters.
I’m not saying that the Dursleys didn’t abuse Harry, or that he “deserved” how they treated him. I’m one of the first who will call the Dursleys’ abuse what it is, and no child deserves to go through that shit. Also, I know that HP-verse wizards are born with their ability to use magic and they can’t help it.
However, wizarding society as a whole oppresses everyone who isn’t a wizard, and even some wizards.
Wizards see muggles(non-magical humans) not unlike how muggles see those apes that know sign language(and other intelligent animals). They also see nothing wrong with regularly fucking with muggles’ minds and memories, and they often all but divide/isolate muggleborn wizards from their muggle family members.
Wizards treat all non-humans and part-humans like utter shit. This includes oppressive laws(eg. werewolves and goblins, as well as the whole bigoted “beasts vs beings” classification the wizarding government does with non-humans), mass enslavement(eg. house-elves), wars and thievery(eg. goblins), full-on genocide(eg. giants), and general societal assholery and disdain(eg. half-giants and other hybrids, and centaurs, and others).
Wizards even see their own kind as “lesser” if they have any muggle ancestry that is more recent than great-grandparents. They especially see wizards that have completely muggle parentage as “lesser”.
Even the “good guy” wizards tend to be dismissive of muggles and prejudiced against non-humans!
So like, it really screws over the supposed messages about “bigotry being bad” and “your blood not mattering” and whatnot. Especially since most of the supposed “good guys” are still bigoted, and the bigotry against non-humans wasn’t changed even when things got better for muggleborn wizards.
Also it honestly makes me uncomfortable these days when I read a fic that suggests that wizards are “oppressed” for being wizards/having magic. This is most commonly seen in fics that mention/are about Harry and his experiences with the Dursleys.
Again, Harry was abused by the Dursleys and treated like shit for having magic. He was arguably “oppressed” by his blood family for having magic, and he didn’t deserve what he went through.
However, Harry’s case was one isolated incident, once which hadn’t been seen in the cases of any of the other known muggle-raised wizards. The only other character who arguably had an abusive muggle family member was Snape, and from what I know his dad mostly fought with his mom, and, while Tobias Snape was an asshole, he wasn’t the horrifyingly physically abusive monster that the Snape Stannies paint him as in their Snape-woobification stuff.
And even if you take Snape into account, there’s still the fact that Harry went from being “oppressed” to being in a high rank of the oppressor class as soon as he joined the wizarding world: he was a fully human wizard, and one of his parents was a pureblood wizard from a rich and well-known pureblood family, and he also has the “Boy Who Lived”/“Chosen One”/“Savior Of The Wizarding World” fame and celebrity status on top of that(though the way he got that fame/status is fucked up and tragic, I’ll admit).
So, while Harry did have a shitty life, he wasn’t oppressed in the wizarding world, especially not for being a wizard. In fact, he’s actually really privileged in the wizarding world, outside of the whole “dead parents + abusive relatives” thing and the “constantly targeted by Voldemort” thing.
Please take a moment to sign this petition. There are two children in Utah (the oldest is 16) who are being forced by the court into their abusive father's home for 90 days. Their father was psychically, mentally, and sexually abusive to both children. These kids are currently barricaded in their room and terrified for their safety because Judge Derek J Pullan signed a warrant allowing police to use "necessary force" to drag them out of their home. They have made it clear that they do not want to go to their father and will be in danger there but the courts don't care and won't listen. Ty and Brynn deserve to stay in a safe loving home. The petition currently has 6,000 signatures and we're bringing as much attention to these kids as we can to try to keep them safe. After you sign this petition, search "remove judge Pullan" on change.org and sign that one too.
