[ SECRET POST #7014 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #7014 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


All secrets have spoiler/content warnings today!






01. [SPOILERS for Big Mouth (kdrama)]




__________________________________________________



02. [SPOILERS for Call the Midwife, series 15 finale]




__________________________________________________



03. [SPOILERS for Call the Midwife]




__________________________________________________



04. [WARNING for discussion of pedophilia]




__________________________________________________



05. [WARNING for discussion of ableism]




__________________________________________________



06. [WARNING for discussion of JKR/transphobia]




__________________________________________________



07. [WARNING for discussion of transphobia, racism]



























Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #1001.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I know this is bait, but ... why?

It's a poorly written, plothole-laden children's series even without the reams and reams of transphobic baggage attached.

There are so many excellent books out there, why would you stick with this one knowing all you do?

I get nostalgia, I do, but at this point any whole-ass adult who proclaims they're a fan of this nonsense without also being a current fan of other drivel they enjoyed in their childhood is just sad. Read literally anything else, you stunted bigot.

[(Anonymous)]

Leaving aside all questions of JKR's descipcability...

People are allowed to like things, even if they are poorly written.

People are allowed to like things, even with plotholes.

People are allowed to like things, even if they are objectively terrible.

People are not obligated to only like "good" material.

The issue of JKR's bigotry is obviously a fair one, but crying "why would you like something objectively bad" is just fucking stupid.

[(Anonymous)]

Additionally, people are allowed to like things because they have good memories surrounding those things. Nostalgia can be as much for the experience as it is for the thing itself.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah. I have a lot of nostalgia from things in my childhood, and I know those things weren't that great. I just miss that time of my life, and how it felt to experience those things.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, like I saw a lot of movies as a kid that quite frankly sucked, but the experience of going to the theater to see them on the big screen with your friends was great. I have nostalgia for that, if not for the actual movies themselves.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah! There were books I read and movies I watched and games I played and places I went that were actually nothing special, however, it all has that kind of gilded aura about it because I was happy back then, or I was friends with someone, or I had a good time with my family, or whatever.

+infinity

[(Anonymous)]

Oz books? hella racist and sexist (because 1909). Marguerite Henry? yeah there's some questionable content between the parts about horses. Classic scif-fi? Wow yeah so much you should side-eye. I still long for the quiet calm of my life when those books were my comfort, the worlds I wanted to live in.

HP for better or worse hits a lot of notes people look for in comfort reads: another world that seems better than the one you're in, an easy read for an easy ride with high and low stakes both, characters your age (when you first read as a child), quippy jokes, and marketable aesthetics. I totally get it, it's not hard to understand the appeal.

Re: +infinity

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly. I never even read the HP books myself but even from the outside it's not at all hard to see why people enjoyed them and still have warm and fuzzy feelings about them. If I had been the right age to be reading them when they came out, I very likely would have loved them too.

Re: +infinity

[(Anonymous)]

NA - Strongly seconding this, and also wanting to add that I think there's an additional type of attachment some of us have to the HP books that has to do with it being a shared pop-cultural experience, and not even just that, but a shared pop-cultural experience that was extremely widespread, sustained itself for a long time, and was at the time overwhelmingly positive. People just loved the series. It lit up the zeitgeist in a way few things ever have, while also being really uncontroversial (apart from inciting the ire of some religious zealots).

I was 12 when The Goblet Of Fire came out, and it felt like everyone was talking about it. Before that, the closest to being involved in pop culture I'd gotten was like...asking for the Spice World CD for my birthday, sharing teen magazines with my friends, and being excited when the McDonald's Happy Meal toys were particularly covetable that month. The HP series was the first time I can remember feeling like I was actually part of a shared pop-cultural experience.

Re: +infinity

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt - wow yeah that's actually a good point. I was familiar with movies having midnight premieres with big crowds, lines, cosplay, etc, but until HP books never did that. NEVER. No book ever had midnight premiere sales with lines of costumed nerds out the door. It was culturally significant, and anyone who would say now that it wasn't is either ignorant or doesn't want to admit it.

Re: +infinity

[(Anonymous)]

Your second paragraph is absolutely correct. I don't really see anybody who is still a fan of the books argue that they're great literature. They're fun, they hit the right spot. Sometimes that's all it takes. Stuff doesn't have to be really deep or complex or have lots of layered meaning to be enjoyable.

Re: +infinity

[(Anonymous)]

I think anyone asking in earnest why anyone could like Harry Potter has reverse nostalgia goggles. Even if you weren't a big fan yourself at the height of its popularity, asking how anyone would like that trash was rightly considered blatant snobbery by the rest of the world.

Re: +infinity

[(Anonymous)]

Definitely it is obnoxious. Like, almost all stuff that gets really popular, I can see how/why it appeals to people, even if I personally didn't like it. Once in awhile there's something hugely popular that seems like total and utter garbage and I'm shocked that it became huge, but that's uncommon. Harry Potter is NOT one of those things. It's pretty obvious why people like/liked it, and to me it's really silly to pretend that the entire franchise is and always has been terrible and that no one could like it unless they have horrendous taste.

[(Anonymous)]

This is the reaction this secret is 100% trying to bait, but seriously, they're not even good books. Read something else.

[(Anonymous)]

Read something else.

You know that when a person enjoys something, it doesn't mean they don't enjoy other things, too...right?

[(Anonymous)]

Say something else besides "Read something else." Everyone has told you thousands of times over that we're still reading new things, probably more than you are.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, whenever someone says, "I'm still a HP fan", certain people react as though they said "I live and breathe Harry Potter, it's the only thing I read/watch/engage with, I haven't read anything else since then and I don't want to, I think it's the best-written series ever published, I am no longer a fan of any of the other childhood books I used to love."

Like. All they said is that they're a fan of it. By all means, if someone says that HP is the only thing they have ever read, then sure, take a big steaming shit on them I guess. But it's really silly to make that assumption when they haven't said that.

[(Anonymous)]

Because they are fun books.

[(Anonymous)]

OP: I'm still a fan.

You: You stunted bigot.

Like... you get that your reaction here makes YOU look like the asshole, right? You understand that insulting people for their interests is not doing your cause any favors? I know this is an anon forum, but damn.

[(Anonymous)]

Whenever someone responds like this, I always wonder if its some false flag bullshit. It's hard for me to believe that anyone sensible enough to oppose bigotry and espouse empathy for people different from themselves could be this miserably self-righteous and intent on policing other people's recreational interests.

[(Anonymous)]

Having lived through mid-2010s tumblr, it's unfortunately easy for me to believe they're serious.

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly!

[(Anonymous)]

Yup, this.

And yes, I am going to say "read another book", even if anons get bitchy about every time. Read another fucking book.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, at least you admit you're bitchy and petty about this. Genuinely good for you for doing that much.

[(Anonymous)]

Why though? Why can't they reread an old favorite and still be a fan? It doesn't mean they aren't reading other things as well.