"i wanna be the person i needed when i was her age”
I hear other adults who also suffered as kids talk about how we want to be the person we needed when we were young. And it is beginning to dawn on me that on the other side of that choice are the people who needed someone, didn’t have that person, and instead of choosing to be that person when they grew up, they chose to perpetuate cruelty and selfishness.
And they act like they are tough and strong and powerful because they don’t let anything get to them … but that’s all a lie they tell themselves.
The truth is, they’re weak and afraid.And when they can’t sleep at night, they know it. And the scariest thing in their reality, the thing they will run from their entire lives, is that they will be found out and exposed.
It takes courage and strength, vulnerability and dedication to be the person you needed, because when you are that person for someone else, part of you remembers and relives that you never had that. The people who choose indifference or cruelty aren’t strong or courageous enough to allow themselves to feel that pain all over again, so they just inflict it on others. They know they’re weak, they know that beneath the mask they are afraid. So all they have is cruelty, which is honestly the easiest thing in the world. It’s the path of least resistance for the people of least courage.
Being cruel is so boring. It’s lazy. Anyone can be cruel. It takes real hard work to be kind.
Make the choice to be the person you needed, and commit to doing the work. Practice it, and break the cycle.
saw this last night and i havent stopped thinking about it because the plushie actually gives me the exact same emotion as harrier. like its so fucking ugly and fail and i should hate it but its also a little endearing to me. a lot actually. like i would like to pat its head and say Its okay buddy. its just so so sad you know
pretty unbelievable that in spite of the insane level of flesh ripping edits to turn him into a human bird this is still instantly recognizable as Jerma
“X bodily fluid is just filtered blood!” buddy I hate to break it to you but ALL of the fluids in your body are filtered blood. Your circulatory system is how water gets around your body. It all comes out of the blood (or lymph, which is just filtered blood).
“Okay but why is it always so chemically roundabout and unnecessarily complicated” well buddy, that’s because your blood is imitation seawater. See? It’s very simple.
#are you telling me#humans are just sentient aquariums?
Buddy if anything is living in your blood (except for more parts of you) in detectable amounts then you have a serious microbial infection and need to go to the hospital.
Humans are seawater wastelands kept sterile of all but human cells, with microbial mats coating their surfaces.
#/blood is imitation seawater/ is the part that’s confusing
Picture this: you are a Thing That Lives In The Ocean. Some kind of small multicellular animal a long time ago, before proper circulatory systems existed. “Wow,” you think, metaphorically, “it sure is difficult to diffuse chemicals across my whole body. Kinda puts a hard limit on the size and distance of what specialised organs I can have. Good thing I have all this water around me that’s the same salinity as my cells (they have to be that way so I don’t explode or shrivel up) so I can diffuse and filter chemicals with that.”
“Wait a minute,” you say a couple of generations later, because you’re not actually a small animal but an evolutionary process personified and simplified to the point of dangerous inaccuracy for the purposes of a Tumblr post, “instead of losing all these important chemicals to the water around me, how about I put it in tubes? I can keep MY water separate from the rest of the world’s water! Anything I want to keep goes in my water! Anything I don’t, I dump back into the outside water! I’m a genius! An unthinking natural trial-and-error process that’s a GENIUS!”
“Wow,” you think a great many generations later, “being able to have such control over such high concentrations of important chemicals is so great. Look how big I’m getting. I even have a special pump to move my seawater around, and these cool filter systems to keep the chemicals in it right, and that control and chemical concentration has let me grow so many energy-intensive, highly specialised organs! Being big is so hard. I need special cells just to carry my oxygen around now, to make sure my enormous, constantly-operating body has enough of it.”
At this point you are embodying a fish, and eventually, fish start straying into water with different pressures and salinity levels. (I mean, they do that since befor ehty’er fish, but… look, I’m trying to keep things simple here.) “What the FUCK,” you think. “My inside water is at a different salinity and pressure to the outside water?? How am I supposed to deal with that? I can’t have freshwater inside my seawater tubes! My cells have a set salinity and they would explode! I need to start beefing up my regulatory and filter systems so that my inside seawater STAYS SEAWATER OF THE CORRECT SALINITY even if the outside water is different! Fortunately, adding salt to my seawater is a lot easier than removing it, and I want to be saltier than this weird outside water.” At this point you beef up your liver and urinary systems to compensate for different salinities. (Note: the majority of fish, freshwater and saltwater, have a fairly narrow band of salinities they can live in. Every fish doesn’t get to deal with every level of salinity; they are evolved to regulate within specific bands.)
You also, at some point, go out on land. This is new and weird because you have to carry all of your water inside. “It’s a good thing I turned myself into a giant bag of seawater,” you think. “If I wasn’t carrying my seawater inside, how would I transport all these important chemicals between my organs and the environment?” As you specialise to live entirely outside of the water, you realise (once again) that it’s a lot easier to add salt to water than to remove it in great quantities. Drinking seawater in large amounts becomes toxic; your body isn’t specialised for removing that amount of salt. Instead, you drink freshwater, and add salts to that. The majority of your organs are, at this point, specialised for moving your seawater around, protecting it, adding stuff to it, or taking stuff out. You have turned yourself into an intelligent bag for carrying and regulating a small amount of imitation seawater, and its salinity (and your commitment to maintaining that salinity) is based entirely on the seawater that some early animals started to build tubes around a long time ago.
Because at some point, operating along lines of logic that worked out perfectly so far, you did decide to be a mammal.
A mammal is a machine for adapting to Circumstances. A mammal is a tremendously resilient all-terrain life-support system, with built-in heating, cooling, respiration, and incubators for reproduction. Mammals internalise everything (grudges, eggs) and furthermore are excessively, flamboyantly wet internally. Sure, everyone’s a bag of chemicals; but mammals slosh. Mammals took the concept of an internal ocean and took it in an unnecessarily splashy direction, added aftermarket mods and a climate-control system,
and just to show off, you leaned across the metaphorical gambling table and said: “my internal ocean is so good-“
“Bullshit,” said the shark, keeping it salty (ha)
“My internal ocean is so brilliantly resilient, more so than any of YOURS,” you said, holding their attention with a digit held aloft, “that for my next trick, I shall artistically recreate the ballad of evolution as a performance. I shall craft a complex chemical ballet depicting the origin of multicellular life - using some of my own material, of course-”
“Oh, ANYONE can lay an egg,” yodel the fish, and the ray adds: “ontogeny does NOT recapitulate phylogeny!!”
And you’re like, “yeah no, it’s an artistic rendition, not a literal thing. Basically I’m going to take some cells and brew them up-“
“Like an egg.”
“Like an egg. An egg but internally.”
“Yeah,” said the viviparous reptile, “yeah, like, that can work really well. I’ve always said it’s the highest test of one’s chemical know-how. It’s a lot of work. And forget about support from your family - forget about support from your PHYLUM - all you get is criticism.”
“I’m gonna do it on purpose forever,” you said. “The highest chemical, thermoregulatory, immunological, everything-logical challenge. It’s gonna be my thing.”
“I’m with you,” said a viviparous fish, stoutly. “Representation.”
You kindly don’t point out, once again, that you’re planning to do this outside the ocean, in a range of temperatures; carrying the dividing cells in a perfect 37.5• solution of saline broth in all terrains, breathing oxygen in a complicated matter, you know, bit more difficult; but you need your allies.
“It’s solid,” says the coelacanth.
“But is it metal?” says the deep-vent organism.
“Oh, it’s metal. I will feed the young,” you say, magnificently, “on an echo of the mother ocean. The first rich feast of cellular matter, the first hunt for sustenance, the first bite they sip of our liquid planet-”
Everyone waits.
“Will be a blood byproduct. My own blood byproduct.”
Everyone looks uncomfortable.
“But,” a hagfish says carefully, “don’t you outdoorsy guys still need your blood?”
You cough and explain that if you stay wet enough internally and hydrate frequently, you should be able to produce enough blood byproduct to sustain your hellish new invention until they can eat your peers.
The outrage that follows includes questions like “is this some furry shit?” And: “milk has WATER in it?”
And you won the bet. “My inner ocean is such a perfect homage to the primordial soup that I can personally cook up an entire live hairy mammal in it. And then generate excess blood byproduct from my body and give it to the small mammal until it gets big.”
That is an absolutely bonkers pitch, by the way, and everyone thought you were a showoff, even before the opposable thumbs. When the winter came, and the winter of winters, and the rain was acid and the air was poison on the tender shells of their eggs and choked the children in the shells; when the plants turned to poison, and the ocean turned against you all; when the climate changed, and the world’s children fell to shadow; your internal ocean was it that held true. A bet laid against the changing fates, a bet laid by a small beast against climate and geography and the forces of outer space, that you won. The dinosaurs fell and the pterosaurs fell and the marine reptiles dwindled, and you, furthest-child, least-looked-for, long-range-spaceship, held hope internally at 37.5 degrees. Which is another thing that humans do, sometimes.
What do you mean Fujo, the totally not Jewish goblins, the not an AIDS allegory werewolves (including one that intentionally infects other people), the "nah, Hermione is black, even though I drew her and casted her as white?" You gotta be specific.
Okay, but this is off the top of my head and if HP men start shitting up my inbox i’m blaming you
Also I’m putting this under a cut because “off the top of my head” ended up being more than i thought
The hooked nose Goblin bankers who control all the gold I really don’t have to go further on that one
The SOLE jewish person at Hogwarts (who we never see) has the last name Goldstein and one of HIS parents is also a banker
The sole black person of note at Hogwarts (Dean Thomas) has “his father abandoned him” as part of his backstory
The only irish of note (Seamus Flanagan) has a running gag where he makes shit explode and he’s bad at magic because of it. He also drinks a lot. The running gag is LARGELY a movie invention, but nothing to added to those movies without her say. She wrote this shit during the troubles, so it’s not an accident.
The only east asian of note (Cho Chang) has a chinese surname and a korean surname as her name. She does NOTHING of note outside of hopping from white dick to white dick and crying. We’re told that she’s very good at wizard soccer but it’s a footnote in her characterization.
The two Indian characters, the ONLY ones we see in a story taking place in the UK, do nothing of importance once Ron is done getting his dick wet
There’s a minor character who is described as ugly and having “unkempt” hair in addition to being black, once she gains plot relevance, she’s retconned into a white person and the above traits no longer apply to her (This is NOT just movie casting related, despite the memes mostly referring to the movie casting)
As mentioned above, the werewolf sub-plot is, according to JK herself, an AIDS metaphor, which becomes an issue because of how werewolves are handled inherently (there’s zero reason to be afraid of a guy with AIDS just living his life, but a guy who can turn into a fucking wolf and maul you is a serious problem) BUT the person who infected the one virtuous werewolf we see was infected on purpose by another man AS A CHILD and is written to be a very obvious allegory for pedophilia, so you’ve got “gay men fuck children” on top of the terribly done AIDS stuff
Every single fat person is evil as shit and the one fat person who isn’t (Neville) slims down before he can truly be heroic
Rita Skeeter is described in ways JK used again to describe a villainous trans woman in one of her detective books.
Rita’s noted to have a “Strong grip” that almost breaks Harry’s arm, she’s got long fake nails and stiff blonde hair that “looks odd” against her “mannish” jaw, she has man hands and “broad shoulders”, etc. At one point Hermione refers to Skeeter as “her” with her in fucking italics. Hermione ALSO traps Rita under a glass after Rita is caught spying on children in roach form (which UH) and leaves her there for a month. This is played as good and just.
She made Dumbledore gay (which is actually in the book) but insisted he not act too gay for the movie where that relationship would’ve been relevant (Magic Beast 2)
Hagrid is mixed race and gets put on what is basically janitor duty because of it
Ambition is a negative trait and every single character who tries to better themselves is evil or looked down upon for doing so and the idea that everyone has a “place” in life and trying to change that for any reason at all is stupid is baked into the world itself (It comes up so fucking often)
This goes DOUBLE for poor people, everyone in HP who is poor should never dream of anything else, they should suffer in silence and hope some rich bitch feels like throwing them a crumb, as shown via the entire ginger family vs Harry getting a shit ton of money because his parents left him the cash which means he was never poor to begin with and thus is allowed to dream big
Hermione has a subplot about freeing house elves because it’s slavery. The little group she makes up attempting to do this is called S.P.E.W so right off the fucking bat you know it’s a joke. This is reinforced by basically NO ONE sticking up for her while she’s going “Slavery is bad, please stop doing this”, including heroic elder characters who also laugh and jeer at her. The entire thing is played for laughs because house elves “like” being slaves so it’s cool to just make them work for free. Harry frees his because they’re friends and Hermione manages to free ONE, who is a complete asshole, so he’s the exception, not the norm. (Pottermore also states she just gives up on it because it’s the status quo so good times)
I’m going to point out something here. If JK isn’t just bullshitting (she is) and intended for Hermione to be black, re-read that shit and imagine a black girl doing it.
Because what you’ve got here is a black girl understandably being upset about “It’s cool, they like it” slavery and the entire world telling her she’s stupid which is played for laughs.
I mean
People who are mixed race (as in like giant/human spawn) are treated like shit by the wizarding world at large and everyone’s pretty much okay with this, it doesn’t really get commented on outside of Hagrid and while we’re meant to feel bad when people are mean to HIM, no one calls out it happening to anyone else, which gives the impression it’s just because we know him that we’re supposed to give a shit
Humans are treated like gross oddities and barely worthy of the air they breathe, you can write this off as just wizards being shitty and that’d be fair BUT there’s a late series development where, in trying to keep them safe, Hermione completely erases her parents memory of her and sends them on a vacation. At NO point does anyone raise any real objections to this and it’s treated as the “correct” thing to do because they’re humans, so people who know better, like wizards, are free to just do whatever the fuck they want to them. Like they’re pets.
Likewise, there aren’t any rules about killing humans with magic other than “don’t get caught”.
Wizards breeding with other wizards to create more powerful wizards is something that happens and it’s considered particularly evil, the good guys actually do it.
Despite all of the foreshadowing about how the status quo isn’t THAT good because this shit is dystopian and Harry should PROBABLY be the defense of the dark arts teacher, he becomes a wizard cop. Wizard cops exist to jail any wizard actually trying new shit with magic. Only the elites are allowed to do that.
That’s not a “bigotry”, but it’s really dumb and I have to mention it
Since you didn’t say Harry Potter BOOKS we’re gonna jump outside the main series for a second here
The terrible follow up (Cursed Child) states Voldy is evil because he was born of rape (his mom raped his dad) and anyone born of those circumstances will automatically be evil. This along with the main books stating that his mother’s lack of love for him is ultimately what drove him evil, because again, anyone without a loving mother is just gonna be evil.
The expanded universe (Pottermore) gives us the rest of the wizard schools.
The Japanese one is literally named “Magic Place” in broken JP. The Japanese one is ALSO supposed to be used by Koreans, both of them. (Side note, Korea’s flag on the HP map has JP colors which hoo boy)
The rest of Asia, ALL OF IT, has to go to the Chinese school which is of course, decked out in dragons and such.
The ENTIRETY of Africa has one school. ALL OF IT.
Spain has one school, all of its shit is written in Portuguese.
The American school has a Native American bent because BRITISH wizards came over on boats and taught the Native Americans how to use magic. Which is uh
Anyway, gonna pause here to discuss a thing.
The whole of America has one fucking school. Now, I don’t know about your America, but in this America segregation was a pretty big fucking thing.
And in Harry Potter world, it still happened.
So, that means one of two scenarios happened here.
A) Wizards who are super racist were somehow NOT racist enough to segregate the ONE wizard school and black and white wizard children got along/went to school together well before human kids did (Unlikely, given what we know about the world)
OR
B) There was a period of time where black wizards could not be taught magic by the school and had to have their own underground schools to learn how to control that shit, lest they accidentally set something on fire and, you know, get lynched
She doesn’t go into it because the American school is just fluff, but it shows a complete lack of understanding how ANYTHING works outside of her British bubble because you can’t just go “There was one and only one school in America” given our history.
Also, while i’m on the subject, it means that British wizards saw human slavery happening, some of which HAD to result in black wizards being slaves and just went “eh, whatever”
And we know this happened BECAUSE
In Magical Beasts, the main antagonist wants to STOP Hitler (Original Flavor) from doing the Holocaust as well as stopping humans from making the nukes. Literally everyone, including Dumbledore, opposes this because it means he’d be meddling in human affairs.
This is framed as correct.
“Do not, under any circumstances, help humanity (because they’ll know we exist)” is baked into wizard rules.
Also in the same film, the only other asian character gets turned into a snake and is stuck that way forever/ends up serving wizard hitler and gets killed by a kid.
I know as soon as I post this I’m gonna remember fifteen other things but there you go
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