Continuing to engage with HP content, even fanfic, encourages others to continue engaging with official HP content. I respect your stance as an improvement, but you are still choosing to actively perpetuate the larger problem.
It’s harm reduction for people (many of them trans and/or autistic) who literally cannot let go of the world despite Knowing That, but experience extreme psychological stress at the idea of causing harm to others/their community.
I would also go so far as to say it can siphon off people/fans who would instead engage with the source material or new material from the author and bring them to a place where they can actively combat the issues in the source work that perpetuated that ideology and teach others to do the same in a completely free gift economy until they’re ready to leave the world entirely.
Autism doesn't mean you can't ever let go of anything. I let go of D&D and jumped ship to something better within the same genera.
I refuse to believe it's impossible to jump to a different book. I'm certain there's a fantasy novel series set in a magic school that's got much much better worldbuilding than shit like, "Actually the slaves like being slaves and the main character owns one. Also, the one character who has a problem with slavery is ridiculed for it because it's ridiculous to want to free slaves."
I mean. Yeah, Pathfinder (first edition, then second).
But also just. There's so many, and I like running little one offs in them. Mutants and Masterminds is good, so is Cyberpunk Red, Reclaim the Wild is a fanmade Zelda TTRPG that I've had fun with. Suspense is cool. Ghostbusters International is an official Ghostbusters TTRPG and a fucking hidden gem as far as I'm concerned.
There's a whole world of TTRPGs made for different genres and franchises and it drives me up a wall how people act like D&D is the end-all be-all.
Thats really neat, have you ever played vampire the masquerade? Thats one I've been interested in just because i thought of a fun concept for a character to play as
Which is why fanfiction criticizing that has artistic value (especially when written by trans people); for a lot of people it’s not about the magical school and world so much as it is about childhood trauma/imprinting on a book in childhood. We know it’s Not Good.
I’m not implying that being autistic means one can’t let go of things, but it does mean that there are potentially comfort objects (in your case potentially TTRPG) of which it is more difficult to switch to a different book (often without a fandom, because there aren’t many) than it is to revisit the literal mountain of historic fanfiction. Fandom is GENUINELY the last bastion of free content, and the last bastion of self published independent work.
There is no one who "literally cannot let go". It's a book series. One that gives profits to a genocidal maniac. Move on.
The issue with your stance is that it still ultimately brings people to the source material. If a kid is introduced to HP fanfic who otherwise wouldn't have looked into it for being Anti-Trans, they now are more likely to engage with the source material or buy merch. Every penny that simple cycle perpetuates is a penny that goes to trans genocide.
As an additional aside, research tells us that engaging with propaganda weakens our immunity to that exact propaganda. While it's true that being able to engage with the source material on an intellectual level so we can engage and improve our futures is a good thing, it's not true in an en-masse format like this, it only works in places like school study groups, and it continues to finance evil as long as the authors lives.
How old are you? Because this may be an age thing — I’m talking about older people (Millennials) who have had to blast over their Harry Potter tattoos but have mental conditions (ADHD hyperfixations, PTSD comfort books, autistic special interests, etc.) that make it very difficult to ‘quit’, akin to an addiction; that’s specifically what I mean by “literally cannot let go”, and what I mean by harm reduction.
I don’t think children are the primary audience for Harry Potter anymore, or the primary vector of cash, but instead families. If mom is comfortable getting her HP fix from fanfiction, maybe she doesn’t need to take the family to Harry Potter World.
Fanfiction is free, and doesn’t give money to the author. There’s no money to be made by the author there.
Harm reduction means giving heroin addicts clean needles, not whatever gibberish you typed there to try to support your love for a terrible series written by a terrible person. If they just can't quit it, they need to go to therapy and not read more hp fapfic.
it’s so funny that you think they’re not already in therapy, and that that somehow makes my point less salient. Also noticed you didn’t answer the age thing, so I’m going to assume you’re young.
Apply the pattern of giving clean needles to heroine addicts to pointing (older) people emotionally addicted to a series toward fanfiction written by trans authors instead; do you see the overlap?
Like. I’m fuckin’ trans and nonbinary, homie, can’t express how much I fucking hate That Bitch Joanne — but I definitely met my best friend (also trans) through HP fanfiction, and I don’t think either of us has contributed a penny since the first transphobic tweet?
I'm reluctant to put my age or other demographic information over the Internet. Suffice it to say I am a flavor of queer, extremely neurodivergent, extremely traumatized, and old enough to have real world experience. I understand that it's difficult to quit. I get it super intimately. I've done it. It doesn't change anything.
You are probably right that's kids aren't the main target audience but are still a major part of the audience. What I said is also still true for families and adults. Most people are not politically engaged enough to be trying to mindfully learn from material or prevent harm. If they were, Trump wouldn't be president and Rowling would already be a historical conversation.
Edit: you added a bit to the end of your response there with an edit, so here's the response to that bit;
Fanfiction doesn't contribute money, but it still makes people excited about the product, which makes them more likely to purchase the actual product, or other products related to that product (costumes, birthday themes, movies, theme parks, video games...).
We've been over this.
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u/cnelsonsic 12h ago
JK Rowling uses her wealth to harm trans people.