hiding from the cops

this is definitely not my secret side tumblr

[shencomix]

Recently I decided to go to my local fighting game tournament.

Here's how it went.

I had been getting pretty good at Guilty Gear over the past few weeks, to the point where I was getting the input correctly for the Potemkin Buster 1 out of every 4 or 5 times I tried it. So I thought "I might not be the best yet, but, surely good enough for my local" -- and I decided to go.

It took place at a the comic & games store in the town center. The venue was full of people 10-15 years younger than me and even more drastically cooler. They all turned to glare at me as I walked through the door, but as I stood completely motionless like a gazelle hoping to blend into the grassland, their gazes slowly returned to each other and they continued to banter friendlily.

I sat down next to me first opponent, and reached out to shake their hand. They looked down at my hand, and then up at my eyes slowly.

"You're supposed to do that at the end of the match."

"Oh, s-sorry"

I got perfected twice and lost the match. At the end, I reached out again to shake their hand, but they just stood up and walked away.

Because I lost, I got moved down to the loser's bracket, which was literally below the main tournament because it took place in the basement of the comic shop. I could hear footsteps, cheering, and happy conversation in the floor above. Here in the loser's bracket though, the mood was a lot more somber.

My next opponent reminded me a little bit of me. They were equally nervous and disheveled looking. They said "Um, h-hello" and reached out their hand for a handshake as they saw me approaching. I said "you're s-supposed to do that at the end of the match." But as a look of deep sadness came over their face and they slowly put down their hand, I pulled them in for a hug.

I'm not sure why I did that.

I think that some part of me knew that, in this dark, dank, alien place, illuminated only by a single failing ceiling light and the neon glow of a few arcade machines, I had at last found a friend -- someone I understood, and who might understand me too.

They hugged back.

I lost that match by a very narrow margin, and as they jumped up and began dancing around and cheering ecstatically, I began to hate them. This was no friend of mine. A friend would not do this to me. After they were done dancing, they reached out to shake my hand. After a few seconds of pause, I stuck out my hand too, but didn't look at them and refused to close it around theirs as they grasped it. They shook my karate chop.

I thought that at that point, since I had lost and then lost in loser's bracket, I was free to go home. But one of the tournament organizers approached me and informed me that I was going down to sub-loser's bracket in the sub-basement of the store, and pointed me towards a descending staircase.

The people there were fewer, and it was darker. I could faintly hear sobbing in one of the corners, but as I went to investigate, another participant put his hand on my shoulder. He furrowed his brow in a look of pain and shook his head slowly.

"You can't do anything for them."

In sub-loser's bracket I went up against a man in a suit whose face was cloaked in shadow. He spammed May's dolphin move. I lost.

As I went to go back upstairs, one of the tournament organizers held out her palm to stop me, and pointed towards a staircase leading further down instead.

Going down through the levels, I lost to many interesting participants. One player played exclusively by bashing the controller against his face. One player was a mushroom with a few circuit cables clipped onto it, that I later learned was able to play because its bioelectrical signals got sent to a machine that interpreted them as fighting game inputs. One player didn't touch their controller at all, but instead just told me their life story, which was so tragic that I picked up their controller and won for them.

Finally, at the very bottom floor, where construction standards were long abandoned and the stairs and walls were just messily carved out of the earth's stone, I faced my final player. It was a small bit of metal framework, with a controller nestled in it. On it was a tiny piston that just pressed the jab button exactly once every second. I lost.

I hung my head for a moment, then said "close game" and stuck my hand out for a handshake, before remembering that I had played against a metal framework cube with a piston in it and retracting my hand slowly. Then I heard a slow clapping from the darkness.

"No neutral. No footsies."

Out of the darkness slowly walked a woman about my age, clad in a decorative poofy dress that looked more expensive than my entire life savings. She smiled at me warmly, continuing to clap slowly, but there was a hint of mischief in her eyes.

"No meter management. No mixups. No spacing. No learning. No strategy…

…You're perfect."

"Wh-what?"

"You're perfect. I absolutely must have you."

"Have me for…um…for what…"

(Her eyes went wide as her smile grew more manic.)

"WHY, MY MORON FAILSON HAREM OF COURSE."

"Um, I-I"

"Tell me, what do you do for a living? Let me guess, you work at a fast food restaurant? Or, retail?"

"No, I'm a--I'm a comic artist."

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Oh my god, you are PERFECT. What will it take to get you."

"To-to ge--"

"You would be well taken care of, of course. 3 Michelin star dining for every meal. Only the finest, softest sweatpants and sweatshirts, pre-stained with whatever flavor of Takis your little heart desires. You would have access to the entire mansion except for the main foyer when I'm in business calls, and you could make all the comics and play all the fighting games you want."

"I'm uh--"

I knew that I had to think fast here.

"I'm already i-in a moron failson harem."

"Oh, DARN IT!! TELL ME, WHO IS IT??? WHO GOT YOU??"

"I-I think I'm not allowed to s-sa--"

She stomped her foot petulantly, her shoe clacking against the stone floor.

"WAS IT SHUXUAN?? IT'S ALWAYS SHUXUAN HOGGING ALL OF THE GOOD ONES."

"I-I'm sorry," I blurted out, shuffling along the wall to make a wide radius around her and then running up the staircase.

As I got home and began making my standard dinner of Trader Joe's microwave falafel, I thought about her offer. Maybe I should have taken her up on it after all. A 3 Michelin star meal right now wouldn't be so bad.

Then I hopped on Guilty Gear and lost 22 matches in a row.

[creature-wizard]

jkr never ever said anything bad about people of color, she only don't support trans activist movement, stop calling every little thing and person you don't like racist nazi facist, the left loves calling everything racist

This message is so funny. Aside from the goblin issue, I don't think I've mentioned anything about Rowling being racist?? But also like, she very much is racist. We all remember her naming the East Asian character Cho Chang and her attacking Imane Khelif, right??? We all remember that much at the very least????

[wise-healer]

The fact all continents except Europe has one magic school. And since I'm East Asian myself, I'll take some time to rip into the Asian School. I'm not Japanese, but if I remember correctly, the school's name is literally just "Magic School." And they all wear kimonos for their school uniform??? Do you know how long it takes to put on a proper kimono??? I don't, but it can't be practical! I don't know if she changed this, but all of Asia had to go to this particular school. Good fucking luck with language barriers. (and that's the least of their concerns considering the generations of beef between South Korea, Japan, and China alone...)

Also, I question the South American school being in the middle of the Rapidly Deforested Amazon..

[creature-wizard]

Oh my god, the Mahoutokoro shit. Yeah.

JK Rowling created one school, ONE SCHOOL, for all of East Asia. Its name literally means "Magic School" and her page claims it's pronounced "Mah-hoot-o-koh-ro." You don't have to be a mega-weeb to know that's not how you pronounce that.

The school building was also made out of white jade. But unlike European architecture, traditional Japanese architecture doesn't really involve a ton of stonework. It uses more wood. She couldn't even be bothered to do the most basic research into Japanese architecture.

Now, a quick DuckDuckGo search finds me a page that tells me that before sailor fuku were a thing, boys wore hakama to school and girls wore kimono to school. But there's also this weird detail where doing dark magic will make the kids' enchanted robes turn white, which... is the kind of creative choice you'd make from reading something that briefly mentioned that white has negative connotations in Japan because it's associated with death and mourning and not doing enough research to learn that this is because white is used at funerals because it's associated with divinity!

Then there's the detail where Japan learned Quidditch from wizards who were blown onto the island in a storm, and this is literally the "shipwrecked sailors teach island natives how to have fun" trope in a wizard hat.

Also her Sinophobia really comes through in her failure to imagine that China would not only have its own school, it would probably have multiple schools with different philosophical outlooks.

And like you mention, there are so many cultures here that have beef with each other, and so many languages. It's so obvious that Rowling doesn't actually conceive of East Asia as a place with distinct cultures and meaningful history, but has the average white person's comprehension of East Asia, which is incredibly racist.

[a-krogan-skald-and-bearsark]

Might not necessarily register to someone who isn't British.

But it is CERTAINLY a choice. To have the obviously Irish student have an issue with his spells making things explode, regardless of what they're intended to do.

This certainly doesn't read as some sort of prejudice, when coming from a British person who lived through The Troubles.

[creature-wizard]

Oh yes, Seamus Finnegan would totally go over non-UK and non-Irish kids' heads. But yeah, she decided to write an Irish kid who keeps accidentally blowing things up while literally writing during the end of the Troubles.

[cardassiangoodreads]

Mahoutokoro is actually Magic Place, not Magic School — so it is even worse and lazier, really, and obviously based purely on that it sounds “fancier” to a monolingual English speaker. And then she can’t be assed to get the pronunciation right.

Pronunciation is by far the easiest aspect of learning Japanese for an English speaker. It has significantly fewer phonemes, all of which exist in standard English pronunciation too (which can’t be said of Spanish, French or German) and it is extremely consistent — each letter has one sound that’s pronounced the same way each time. That’s why it is one of the first things you learn in a Japanese class, along with the hiragana and katakana alphabets (which conveniently chart the different sound combos that are possible). This is why a lot of people who just are really into some aspect of Japanese pop culture, like anime, pick up Japanese pronunciation rules on their own without ever taking a class. I can’t underestimate how basic this is; it’s basically the next level down of basicness from knowing words for common greetings and numbers. Japanese is one of the most difficult widely-spoken languages for an English speaker to learn overall, but its pronunciation is a breeze, much easier than even our closest relatives among the other Germanic and the Romance languages (speaking as someone who also has studied a number of those too).

All that is to say that a) JKR almost certainly knows someone who has absolute baseline level understanding of Japanese, whom she could have checked this over with before putting that on her website, and b) if not, it’s easy to find how to say it by just searching “Japanese pronunciation” or the word itself on the internet.

I’ve just always thought that it speaks volumes about her that she couldn’t even do that. It shows that she's lazy. It shows that she's arrogant. It shows that she buys into some culturally imperialist ("this word MUST be pronounced the same way it would in English!") and specifically orientalist ("this Oriental language with its weiiiiird symbols must also have impossible pronunciation, so no point in trying! Just make it up!") assumptions about Japan. And the fact that she never fixed even something that simple shows how resistant she is to any sort of criticism, especially from progressives.

I've always found both the "anybody can be radicalized" and "Rowling was always a TERF and you can see it clearly from the books" really unsatisfying. She was radicalized; you can see it even if you just chart the shift in her transphobic statements over time, which used to feign some degree of concern for the "right" kind of trans people but don't bother with that at all anymore. It's easy to see how she was radicalized. But while I think everyone has potential things they could fall for, radicalization works somewhat differently for each person, because it plays on the biases, prejudices and other faults you already have if it is going to work. And it does involve some degree of agency, at least in the sense that you like what you are being sold!

I think what made Rowling ripe for TERF radicalization has more to do with the personality traits she possessed than her ideology or anything in her HP books. There are people with similar privileges and blindspots she had who've had that pointed out to them, and changed their ways, or apologized for their previous mistakes. Plenty of children's and YA fiction from the 1990s and 2000s has similar issues to the Harry Potter books, but with writers who have since grown away from that and acknowledge those issues (for instance, Tamora Pierce). What sets Rowling apart to me is that lazy incuriosity, and arrogant refusal to listen to criticism, especially when it comes from marginalized groups or people from different cultures asking her to. be a bit more sensitive about how she depicts them in her globally-popular book series. She clearly held a lot of hostility to people who had the audacity to tell her she was insufficiently progressive, who suggested that she should do anything to better educate herself about different cultures or experiences before putting them in her books.

If you know anything about the way that TERFs recruit among liberal/left-wing/feminist women, if you've ever seen it in action (I have, had them try it on me even), then it's not hard to see what about those qualities make her so ripe for radicalization. Starting with that "I can't ever be wrong about anything" is the easiest way to ensure that you will, in fact, be wrong about many, many things, because you're cutting off any chance for yourself to learn and grow and question your assumptions. Your thinking can't move forward if you refuse to acknowledge that it has anywhere to go!

[arkadijxpancakes]

This. I agree with this so much. Because - yes. Rowling has always been a bigot. She has always been racist, just like she has always been sexist and queerphobic and ableist. But she wasn't always the gender critical fascist we see today, and it wasn't just her bigotry that caused her to enter the radicalization-pipeline she's riding.

In addition to this - people really don't seem to be able to pinpoint when her radicalization journey actually started. Some think she was always that way, while others believe that she only started radicalizing herself in or after 2020, when people started criticizing her transphobic behavior. Neither of which is true.

We don't have a hard date for the beginning of her radicalization, but we can estimate it. It is likely, that she entered the TERF-to-alt right-radicalization pipeline at some point between 2015 and 2017. Mostly because of the following aspects:

This was the time, when she became increasingly active on twitter. While she was still posting Harry Potter-stuff during that time, she began to post about politic stuff, too. She famously went after Trump during his first time in office (and was lauded for it).

In preparation for Fantastic Beast 1, she published her essays on international wizarding schools and the history of wizarding North America. All these essays were racist and steeped in colonialist thinking. (In addition to this, she also posted an essay, where she both-sides-ed the house-elf-slavery-plot.)

She committed her first "middle-aged moment" (liking a transphobic article) in 2017. After she came out as a TERF, she admitted that this was the time when she started "researching" the topic.) She kept having more "middle-aged moments" throughout 2018.

At some point before June 2019, she started to follow multiple transphobes, including Neo Nazi-coddler Magdalen Berns.

From this, it is pretty clear, that she was already interacting with TERF-ideology in 2017. She herself admitted that she liked that transphobic article, because she was looking into the topic. This means, that she must have come into contact prior to this. If I had to guess, that one (or both) of the following things happened:

She fell down some rabbit hole on twitter. She was political active, during that time and she did pick fights over this. It's completely possible, that she ran into TERF propaganda during her search for a new battleground.

She fell for the "The t-slurs are coming for your kids"-panic, mumsnet-style. (Her younger kids entered their teenage years during that time. This means that she belonged to one of the big target demographics for gender critical recruitment, back then.)

From there, she started "researching". This clearly included reading stuff like Lisa Littman's "study" on Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria. She also got into contact with influential TERFs like Julie Bindel and Magdalen Berns. And to be clear: Berns (may she rest in piss) was a raging antisemite and openly hostile towards trans people. You don't follow people like that by accident. Not if you're really just a misinformed but well-meaning person.

This means that she was already a full member of the gender critical movement, when she came out swinging for Maya Forstater at the end of 2019. She didn't fell for Forstater's sob story and defended her because of a misunderstanding. She defended one of her allies.

And yes. This also means, that the TERF wars essay that followed in June 2020 wasn't the product of some confused middle-aged woman who was just concerned for women's rights. That thing was her fucking manifesto, and it was fully soaked with TERF-rhetoric and dog whistles. She didn't publish that essay because she misunderstood things. She published that essay to make herself a figurehead of the movement.

And since then, she has radicalized further. And she will continue to radicalize. So expect her to get worse, because she will.

[nyxelestia]

Trope Anatomy did a good breakdown of what most people seem to agree is the worst subplot from the books, namely Hermione and the house elves…and how the problems in that subplot that seem bizarre in isolation make a lot more sense when you realize how much of those problems align with JKR's current politics and transphobia:

I know that at least ~15-20 years ago, a lot of Harry Potter fans of color were pointing out the racist elements of JRK's worldbuilding and lore. But back then, we were dismissed at best, and more commonly derided. It wasn't the biggest thing that drove me out of the Harry Potter fandom (that would be the misogyny), but it was certainly a contributing factor. This was back when JKR was deeply and openly critical of UK conservatives and often upheld as something of a feminist icon, so anything potentially painting her as "maybe not as progressive as she appears" was met with tremendous hostility.

I've got a lot of mixed feelings about how much more open people are about discussing the microaggressions in her work nowadays. Part of me feels vindicated. Part of me feels frustrated that it wasn't until JKR started attacking a white-coded group / a group not associated with race at all (aka trans people) that people finally started to take the racism seriously.

Most relevantly, a part of me feels suspicious that so often, discussion about the racism of her works feels less about highlighting subconscious biases in Anglophone fiction and the hidden bigoted origins of much of Euro-centric folklore…and more about using JKR's specific microaggressions as an excuse to cudgel other fans for continuing to be in the fandom.

The reason why I call that the most relevant feeling is because a lot of the white supremacy culture traits that permeate fandom spaces are also communal reflections of individual traits that make people ripe for radicalization.

About half a year ago, I wrote this stupidly long essay dissecting a specific instance of Discord server drama in another, completely unrelated fandom. That incident and this essay were about racism, but most of the traits and problems that cropped up in relation to racism also apply to most other strata of social inequalities and systemic injustices. In particular, the three white supremacy culture traits that most made one prone to radicalization on transphobia and other gender issues are:

Defensiveness (Reacting to criticisms as if they were personal attacks, prioritizing comfort over growth, and using hurt feelings to derail discussions.)

Paternalism (The belief that one can dictate what is ‘best’ for everyone or make decisions on others’ behalf without their input.)

I’m The Only One (The assumption that one knows best; therefore, they have the unique right and responsibility to take unilateral action.)

And all of these are traits that JKR has exhibited, both subtly in her books but also quite openly in her personal writings and politics over the years. These all became vastly amplified over the last few years, but tbh they've always been around. Her descent just created a feedback loop, where her radical transphobia fed on these traits, which in turn were amplified by TERF ideologies and communities.

As the video I linked above details, those last two traits are especially visible in JKR's writing, especially in the aforementioned terrible subplot.

Meanwhile, I suspect her defensiveness was initially dismissed by fandom because way back in the day, a lot of that would've come from a place that was much more sympathetic to people vested in social justice: conservative backlash.

A lot of people don't know or don't remember it much now, but two decades ago, conservatives hated Harry Potter. People were buying books to burn them, there was a mini Satanic Panic in the US about them, and even back then it was pretty obvious that social conservatives were really lashing out against an incredibly popular franchise that looked down on bigotry, prejudice, and some kinda fascism. Harry Potter was insanely popular, but there was a very loud minority that was very obviously a.) fascistic and b.) attacking JKR, the series, and its fans for being what we would now call anti-fascist. While JKR's wealth and celebrity insulated her from most of this, that doesn't mean she wasn't aware of it; and while JKR was afforded that insulation from conservative backlash, most fans were not.

I mostly grew up in California, a state known then and now for its (somewhat superficial) liberalism and progressivism. Despite that, I still knew tons of kids whose families had expressly forbidden them from reading Harry Potter (and who sneakily borrowed it from classmates and read it anyway). These were almost exclusively and universally the children of deeply Christian families. When JKR basically mentioned Dumbledore could be Shchrodinger's gay in passing in an interview, every other PTA busybody in America lobbied to have the books labelled as obscene and banned from schools because of this.

In that context, you can probably see why JKR herself and many of her fans would get defensive of any criticism of her that was about her being insufficiently progressive; she was already being attacked for being too progressive.

I'm deeply sympathetic to that, but I also think the extent of that defensiveness and protection led to JKR and much of her core fanbase being a little too accustomed to sneering at all criticism, which lead to them sweeping genuinely constructive criticism under the rug.

By 'genuinely constructive,' I mean that it wasn't coming from a place of trying to denigrate the series or fans of it. A lot of it in my personal experience was variations of "we know this little detail is canon but it's not very relevant to the story overall and it's got some racist origins, so maybe try changing up the trope in fanfics or something?" Or even just asking fans to acknowledg that this work of fiction so many of us loved was not perfect and it didn't have to be for us to enjoy it. Despite these very low bars, it was still too much to ask of JKR and of many of her fans. (Obviously, not all; I looked up to her for most of my childhood, and I still regard myself as a Harry Potter fan now, despite my disdain for the author now.)

This protectiveness against reactionary politics calcified into a refusal to interrogate JKR herself or her works or her biases at all. It metastasized into Defensiveness, which combined with the other traits mentioned, created fertile ground for reactionary politics, and in the last decade the most reactionary social issue in politics has been transphobia.

tl;dr I don't know if JKR's transphobia was always there, but the traits that facilitated certainly were. Some were present from the very beginning in her writing; others were created or calcified by cultural reaction to her works and their popularity. Either way, there is a strong relationship between the microaggressions and subtle or subconscious racism in her books and the transphobia of her politics today.

[cow-inthe-closet]

friend whos always planning everything: hey guys lets do something this week!! when are you all available?

friend whos always available: i can do whenever

friend whos constantly busy: im sorry i have work and then school and then the labyrinth and then more work :( i can do tuesday at 3:00 am for five minutes tho

friend with the randomly generated sleep schedule: (no response)

friend who went missing in the woods behind their house 12 years ago and hasn't been heard from since: (no response)

friend whos really into genshin impact: does anyone want to play genshin impact

[pmamtraveller]

"Everything Appears as it is: Infinite" by Alex Dodge

[luntfontanne]

via The Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas:

Material/technique: brail texture; six-color UV screen print Dimensions (Height x Width): 512 x 815 mm / 20 3/16 x 32 1/16 in Artist Alex Dodge made this print with a computer program that builds virtual spaces. The artist wanted to point out the contrast between the geometric human-made tiles and the wavy organic shapes made by the water. The geometric shapes (tiles) were formed by using angle measurements. The organic shapes (waves) were made by taking photographs of waves. Dodge used the computer program to blend the shapes together.

[yuzu-hiragi]

Haha wow that sure feels like a mild panic attack!!

[yuzu-hiragi]

I love having anxiety so bad I feel like throwing up!!!!!

[merrymorningofmay]

"omg i LOVE it when love between characters is so strong it overrides the boundaries of flesh and selfhood, merging them into some sort of (un)holy chimera" — person who's uncomfortable with the idea of permanently sharing a bedroom with someone else

[yuzu-hiragi]

I am so sad, I don't want to be god's strongest soldier anymore I want to be baby girl

[ari-kari]

fuck marry befriend kill: operator addition

Fuck:

Addition (➕)

Subtraction (➖)

Multiplication (✖️)

Division (➗)

Voting ended onSep 9, 2025

[ari-kari]

Marry:

Addition (➕)

Subtraction (➖)

Multiplication (✖️)

Division (➗)

Voting ended onSep 9, 2025

[ari-kari]

Befriend:

Addition (➕)

Subtraction (➗)

Multiplication (✖️)

Division (➗)

Voting ended onSep 9, 2025

[ari-kari]

Kill:

Addition (➕)

Subtraction (➖)

Multiplication (✖️)

Division (➗)

Voting ended onSep 9, 2025

[wickedsick]

[yuzu-hiragi]

My answers matched up with the popular vote and my reasoning was:

x: sexy, useful, use it frequently

+: stable operator, I add things every day, even more than multiplying. The first thing you learn in school is what's 1+1

-: yeah sure, an alright operator. It's there, or you could just add negative numbers.

÷: why divide something when you can just multiply??? The way they teach division in school is so much worse than multiplication because remainders exist.

[mikufanclub]

[evenlyevi]

Goodnight.

[evilsanlang]

it's okay if you as a lesbian want to fuck the straight blonde popstar but you can't be pretending she's a lesbian too girl at least make it a lesbian corruption kink or some shit

[evilsanlang]

"taylor swift is a lesbian" check your house for mold

"I can fuck the heterosexuality out of sabrina carpenter" questionable taste, but much more respectable

[twentybrokenipodclassics]

[mikufanclub]

[efoxgirl]

Sorry for calling your wedding hetslop

[thedeadbelle]

René Lalique's 1936 perfume bottle design for Trésor de la Mer

[nerdreamer]

[samwisefamgee]

[etaka]

[aromancy]

[natalieironside]

No this is book accurate

[inbabylontheywept]

you're not allowed to bring wireless devices into classified areas and a security guy noticed a square phone-ish shape in my pocket so he asked me to show him what it was and i had to show him my can of pocket herring :/

[inbabylontheywept]

artists depiction of event