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Sometimes a flower is just a flower, and the best thing it can do for us is die.

I try to stay away from a lot of fandom discourse, but since I’ve been seeing this on my dash again and in tags, I feel the need to make a statement on this, particularly for any young fans who follow me that might get drawn into this mindset.

Stay away from purity culture. Warn your friends away from it too, if you see them starting to fall for it. It’s very easy to get drawn into it

Almost always, it starts with one of three roots, pedophilia, incest and/or abuse. Usually it’s pedophilia. Funnily enough, that’s also what congress usually uses to try to justify passing bills that undermine online privacy & security. Because it’s an easy, extreme target, and when people attempt to argue against it, it’s nice and easy to say “Oh so you like pedophilia” rather then actually engaging with their argument.

The logic goes like this, although there’s many forms of it.

“Pedophilia is bad.” -> Obviously, you agree with this. You’re a reasonable person, and the idea that anyone would do something like that to a child is horrible. This is a normal human reaction.

“Because pedophilia is bad, all fictional explorations of it must be equally bad.” -> Here you might hesitate, but it adds up, doesn’t it? The thought of pedophilia in any context probably gives you a bad feeling, that makes you inclined to go along with this logic. 

“Anyone who creates content with a fictional exploration of pedophilia is also bad.” -> Maybe you pause here, or maybe you don’t. But still, it adds up, it’s a very easy flow. After all, we’ve decided that that is Bad, so why would anyone Good want to create something like that?

“Since people who create content with a fictional exploration of pedophilia are just as bad as people who engage in pedophilia in real life, it’s okay to harm them.” -> Here’s where you might pause again. The argument might not win you over entirely, you might not be willing to do harm yourself, but you may be a lot more willing to turn a blind eye to harm being done to someone. Or to consider it ‘justified’.

The pattern now repeats for anything else that’s considered “morally impure”, and “pedophilia” is expanded and expanded, often to ridiculous points, such as merely shipping two underage characters. “Abuse” becomes any ship that the person pushing doesn’t like, for any reason. And so on and so forth.

This is the foundation of “anti” culture, and it’s important to be aware of it so you can catch this false equivocation. Fictional explorations of something, are not the same as the thing itself. Fictional explorations are fiction. The characters are not real people. There is no actual harm being done. Equating fake harm and real harm is a dangerous, slippery slope, which leads us to fundamentally flawed ideas of moral purity. It’s a form of controlling people & making them feel guilty for their very thoughts, rather than holding people accountable for their actions. 

A very handy trick for when you encounter this sort of argument, is to replace whatever the selected purity term is with murder. After all, we can all agree that murder is bad, but at the same time, we understand that a murder in a book =/= a murder in real life.

Let’s see that argument again, shall we?

“Murder is bad”

“Because murder is bad, all fictional explorations of it must be equally bad.”

“Anyone who creates content with a fictional exploration of murder is also bad.”

“Since people who create fictional explorations of murder are just as bad as the people who commit murder in real life, it’s okay to harm them.”

Hopefully, it’s now easy to see why the above argument is fundamentally flawed.

Keep your eye out for purity culture in your fandom spaces, and when you see it, refuse to engage with it. Warn your friends if you see them falling into the same traps, although try to be kind about it; this is a very easy thought pattern to fall into. I don’t recommend trying to argue/debate anti’s. The attention only feeds them. Block them instead. Don’t let people control or shame you for what you create or consume, and don’t control or shame others for what they create or consume.

Also, as a note, let me be clear about something. If you are uncomfortable with any of the above discussed things, or anything in general in fiction (ie, underage ships, murder, incest, abuse, penguins, needles, etc), that’s perfectly fine (it’s also called a squick, for those that haven’t heard that term before). Absolutely control your fandom experience by blocking people, filtering tags, unfollowing, etc. However, just because you are uncomfortable with something, does not give you the right to control other people. Other people have no right to control what content you create or consume, and you have no right to do that to them either. 

Okay?

“dont forget to lycan subscribe” - werewolf youtuber

Hannibal (2013-2015)

Incredibly late to the game, as usual, but here's some Harry fanart... I can hardly believe how much fun i had!

Hannibal 3x10 - “And the Woman Clothed in Sun”

writing should be fun.

make oc playlists. spend hours on moodboards that have no purpose. write self-indulgent fluff that’s never going to be published. scribble three lines of poetry in the back of your history notebook. draw fanart of your own characters. write stupid dialogue that your publishers might hate. start new wips that you might never finish but write those three chapters that make you happy because if you don’t write them, who else will?

writing shouldn’t always be about “will publishers like this” or “i have to reach this word count” or “how do i get the most likes”.

have fun with your writing.

The Dateless

“Lost your friends Potter?”

“They’ve ditched me.” Harry replied morosely, wondering what had possessed him to plonk down next to Draco Malfoy of all people. He blamed his traitorous friends for ignoring him. “Sickeningly loved up the lot of them.”

Draco screwed up his nose in disgust at that, an action which combined with the alcohol induced pink flush across his cheeks Harry absently noted was kind of cute. Wait, what? Harry glared down at his champagne glass. How many of these had he had?

“No date then?” Harry asked, when it became apparent that Draco wasn’t going to initiate any further conversation.

Draco smirked slowly and raised his left arm just enough that the sleeve of his sky blue dress robe slipped back to reveal the reddened edge of his dark mark. 

“With this glowing endorsement branded into my skin you’d think suitors would be throwing themselves at me wouldn’t you?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Alright you arse, I get it — let’s talk about something else.”

“Oh? What makes you think I’m going to waste any more of my evening talking to you?” 

Draco’s tone was cutting but Harry didn’t miss the way his gaze dropped, could almost feel the caress of his appraisal across his body. Already this ministry ball was seeming a lot less dull.

“Why not? We’re both here tonight, together.” Harry drained his glass and stood. The room was too hot, too loud and he’d spotted a secluded balcony earlier which looked perfect for what he had in mind. He extended his hand to help Draco from his chair. “What have you got to lose?”

@drarrymicrofic prompt: Waste It On Me by Steve Aoki ft. BTS

one of the smartest things the hp fandom has ever done is to universally characterize pansy and draco as mean gay little friends  

I just want my OTP to derrive meaning from each other in a way that would be incredibly unhealthy and codependent if two people did that in real life but is profoundly poetic and romantic within the context of a fictional piece of media in consuming.