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Dang it. I can never resist these. Hair’s not perfect since I don’t actually have bangs, but still cute!

Tagging @triggerlil​, @blue-rose-smalls​, @eletriptan​, and any of the rest of you if you wanna do one, too!

As someone once said, see a picrew you like? Do it.

That someone was @fraddit so now she gotta do it. And I'm also tagging @lazywonderlvnd , @fae-vorite @polly-weasley and @m4g0rtz

Also @julcheninred show us yours, I know you did this one 👀

All the frigging time.

Do u ever read a friend’s fic and it’s like holy shit how do you consider me qualified to talk to you?

On female characters being held to a higher standard

I want to discuss something I've seen in fandom that applies much more broadly, and it involves internalized misogyny toward fictional characters.

Fictional characters often do some shitty things. In fandom, we often explore the shitty things they've done in canon or introduce new shitty things! I can't even begin to list the number of shitty things I've read characters do. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I love moral ambiguity in fiction! I think we humans have lots to learn from thinking about the inherent messiness of life and of relationships.

I write mostly mlm fic. Which means I write mostly male characters and have mostly female readers. (Another whole thing but not focusing on that right now.) And what I've found is this: in fics where I have prominent female characters who are exactly as messy and complicated as the male characters I write, the comments I get are much different. I can think of maybe one or two comments EVER in which I've been criticized for a male character doing something wrong. But Hermione and Ginny? Lots.

I wrote a fic in which Hermione is literally under attack by men's rights activists because she got love potions outlawed. The fic spends a lot of time exploring the complexity of the issue, and in the fic Hermione is challenged by allies with more and less robust challenges and by men's rights activists who are trying to sexually assault her in retaliation. I have received DOZENS of comments (many extremely impassioned) telling me how wrong Hermione is, how can she think outlawing them is the right answer?!, etc.

I wrote a fic in which Harry and Ginny get pregnant almost immediately after the war and Ginny has an abortion without telling Harry. Harry is triggered and gets super upset, etc etc. I recently got two very serious comments telling me that Ginny should've talked to Harry about the abortion, that her behavior wasn't healthy, and that girls shouldn't do that.

I don't care about the comments. But I do feel like we need to have a conversation about this double standard we apparently have wrt fictional characters—because I'm not writing these women any differently than I write men, and the comments are wildly different.

Why are we expecting so much more of female characters? Why are we expecting what amounts to perfection? Do we not see that this contributes to really poor female representation in books and fandom?

Why are we expecting that fanfiction is offering life advice? And if we are expecting that, why are we expecting it more when it's female characters on the page? Fiction isn't life advice, even if sometimes we get amazing life lessons from it.

Both of the fics I mention above are Harry/Draco fics. My most fundamental question, then, is why it's so easy for readers to redeem Draco when they can't do the same for female characters WHO HAVE NEVER DONE ANYTHING NEARLY AS BAD AS HE HAS?

Draco was a bb nazi. Draco joined a hate group that sought to genocide ppl including Harry's bff and mother and his father was the lead torture. Draco idolized that father's actions until the whole thing got too close and bummed him out.

Listen. I am all for redemption stories. I think Draco is a fantastic character (as should be obvious from my fics). But why is it that we as readers can forgive that type of behavior, but not Hermione having a radical political position on love potions? Why is it that we can handwave bigotry and torture but not a 17yo girl who is traumatized and grieving for getting an abortion without consulting a man?

So first, fictional characters do not always behave in ideal human ways. An author writing that isn't condoning any of the behavior.

Second, if you find yourself outraged by a female character's behavior, maybe take a moment to ask yourself whether your internalized misogyny is showing. Are you excusing much worse behavior in male characters?

1 and 10 for the Snape asks, please.

1. Your favorite thing about Snape?

His complexity! I love that he’s not easily categorized as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. He’s cranky, intelligent, has no patience for stupidity, darkly funny, fiercely loyal, and can slice you to ribbons with words alone. He made terrible mistakes, but he also spent half his life desperately trying to make up for them. He’s not an easy man to know, but he’s a damn good one to have on your side. I love so many different versions of his character that I never get tired of people exploring it in fic!

10. Favorite Snape fic?

Ugh, I dreaded this question. It’s so hard to pick just one version of Severus as the end all, be all. I have to say that my favorite fic of all time is The Gift of Kindness by hippocrates460, and it features a softer Severus than one usually sees. I, however, dig him very much in that. Conversely, I also very much enjoy the more vicious version of him in the Pacify series by Chickenpets, where he softens only for Harry. Those are both Snarry fics, and definitely mind the tags on Pacify before delving into that one, by the way. I could list like five more versions in different fics and not be able to actually pick a favorite, so I’ll stop there. 

If you receive this you make somebody happy. go and send this to ten of your followers who make u happy or somebody u thinks needs cheering up. if you get it back even better ❤

Thank you, Lily! Ilysm! 😭😭😭💛💛💛