#gefluester

[henryhiemis]

a whole new season and still no hug for mycroft, preposterous 

[henryhiemis]

just finished the season 2 finale of Better Call Saul and my heart, 

[henryhiemis]

guess who fumbled their Harvard interview, what even is America

[henryhiemis]

I have three interviews today and still I find myself here, what am I doing

[henryhiemis]

How not to behave in a group chat/HP rant

Me: I have SO MANY problems with Hogwarts' house-sorting system

OP: wait what why

Me: Well,

Me: For one thing it's ridiculously polarising. Obviously no student would be 100% Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, etc., but would have characteristics of all four houses. BUT. The (British, at least) wizarding community makes such a huge fuss of houses during and after Hogwarts - you're a Gryffindor? swoon. Slytherin? stay away from that one, son - that being in any particular house would mean the stunting of your personality such that you would invariably tend towards/find yourself identifying with (especially in the face of opposition, ie. in the form of the other three houses, where you'd be obligated to defend your house even if its values aren't quite yours - I will expand on this later) the associated characteristics, and to some degree repressing/making negative associations with the others. And of course, this would then lead to further conflict if a student doesn't embrace their 'house spirit' quite as wholly as their compatriots.Which links to the second major issue with the house system: the prevalent, underlying, utterly useless elitism it promotes. Through the course of 'Harry Potter', we saw it as pretty much ubiquitous in (again, British) wizarding society - the instance of the Blacks' insistence on an exclusively Slytherin clan alone shows how house identity directly feeds into and fuels (even if, as is often the case with identity rooted in a body of people, it is for no rational reason) other, nastier ideologies, in this case pureblood superiority, and all that entails. And consider for a second that Harry Potter is, for most part, foreign to the wizarding world, so this phenomenon as seen in the books isn't nearly on par with what the vast majority experience, having grown up surrounded by the selfsame elitism. And even newcomers fail to bring a breath of fresh air, as the tendency would be to latch onto their house identity as a common factor with all these other people a Muggleborn, for instance, would naturally be awed by and would want to be like, and defend it to the death with no thought as to whether it might be harmful to rule out interaction with 3/4 of your generation, and everything you would gain by said interaction. This is of course an extreme example - I'm sure that inter-house friendships aren't uncommon, except in the case of the age-old Gryffindor vs. Slytherin - and look how Harry bought into that immediately, all from one half-giant's preconceptions he holds to even though he must, as groundskeeper, interact with Gryffindors and Slytherins alike on a day-to-day basis, and if he could see past the blinkers of house-based prejudice, realise that they are all just children, with as many 'bad' as 'good'.It's a dangerous thing to assign such an identity to everyone, and thereby propagate a culture where it's such a huge factor in how people view one another. In the Muggle world, as it were, things as nationality and religion end up in world wars and the systematic slaughter of 6 million innocents; it's been calculated that were we to take any period of 100 years in the past five thousand, on average, 94 would have been occupied by large-scale conflicts in one or more parts of the world. Then take the parallels between the Second Wizarding War and the Second World War: as with the Germans, the Slytherin name was dragged through the mud, regardless of whether it was deserved. If not, imagine how grossly unfair it would be to be unable to take on jobs, have the chance at a good deal of personal relationships taken away, be forced to deal with the shame of simply belonging, and perhaps feeling that you belong still, to a house you can't divorce your name from, just as your house would continue - at least in your lifetime, if not further - to be firmly tied to the war atrocities that affected so many. There's enough prejudice as it is; all the house system is just another tier that, in the end, does more harm than good.Amidst all this, we mustn't forget that coming into Hogwarts at age 11, these are mere children. They've just made it into Year 7, and now they're going to be lined up to be categorised with a label that's going to stick with them for life. And mind you, all their formative years are ahead of them. Have they been exposed to the world, really? No. Have they had the chance to settle into themselves yet, in thought and personality? No. Will a flawed decision be made regardless? Why yes. This applies especially in the cases where the Sorting Hat 'barely [touches their] head' before proclaiming the House; on the other side of things, in cases such as Harry's, where there is more of a deliberation process and the student is allowed input and to make the final decision, we can still see how Harry's decision isn't truly his, being influenced by a boy he met on the train and the word of Hagrid, which he would take seriously, however unreliable, as by virtue of being the first 'wizard' he'd seen, Hagrid not only represented to him this exciting new world, but an escape from the hated old one that he was responsible for (even if he was only Dumbledore's errand-boy). (Imagine, for a second, the stereotypes that would have been broken down had the Boy Who Lived gone to Slytherin.) Additionally, though it must be evident that people change, and children most of all, the Sorting doesn't account for changes in temperament and/or personality over the course of school life. It would make more sense to have a re-Sorting partway through, much in the same way that GCSEs determine the sixth form, for example, but with a non-academic focus. However, this then prompts the eternal question: why? To what purpose are 'similar' people lumped together? Is there really merit in devising a more effective system of ensuring that they are, when surely - putting elitism and prejudice, the treatment of Slytherins at the hands of Dumbledore and the insult dealt to both Snape and his house by equating him, in the end, to a Gryffindor, aside: there would always be more value, both short and long term, in diversity? 

...For God’s sake, this is longer than my Personal Statement D:D:

[henryhiemis]

Can we please stop using ‘people of colour’ as a tag? I see this in AO3 in particular, and it’s been bugging me for a while now - whilst I agree, of course, that cultural (and other forms of) representation is Good and important as a reflection of the equal value of people of all types, tagging ‘people of colour’ just seems to me to contradict the spirit of that by turning it into a selling point. Although the writer/tagger might have had the very purest of intentions, I can’t help but feel that they’re either saying, ‘look how tolerant and inclusive I’m being’, or simply perpetuating the problem of such (non-white) people being viewed as somehow different, and removed, by presenting them as some exotic attraction or bonus feature. And I understand that some people might want to seek out fanfiction, etc. with non-white characters (for once), but even so, I don’t believe that’s why a good number of people do it and I think that in terms of being progressive it’s more a hindrance than a help.