Drarry keeps me sane... ish

[Tweet by Gillian Branstetter reads “If enforcing gender norms requires a constant state of surveillance and censorship then they probably aren’t as biological or innate as you think they are]

The only “Not All Men” post I’ll reblog.

To break down rape culture, we need to stop teaching people that men can’t help themselves; they absolutely can look for enthusiastic consent, and they must. This is absolute bare minimum decent human being behaviour. 

Also, if you stop teaching people that “men can’t help themselves” it tends to go hand in hand with teaching the fact that no, men do not “always want it”– which in turn is beneficial for those men who might themselves be assaulted, regardless of the rapist’s gender. Enthusiastic, mindful consent applies to everyone.

y'all be like “all draco wanted was to be loved and appreciated” but i remember he explicitly wanted muggleborns petrified, hagrid fired, harry expelled or killed multiple times and buckbeak’s head on a platter

And he was loved. Like, Draco was the most explicitly loved child outside of the Weasleys, in the whole darn books.

Fandom’s nice!Draco does not exist.

Seriously. Like, you know that one of the rhyming plot points in Deathly Hallows is Harry being saved by a mother’s love for her son twice, right? Lily’s love for Harry, and Narcissa’s love for Draco. Draco’s mother loved him enough to lie to the Dark Lord’s face.

Lucius’s love for Draco is essentially the driving force of Draco’s entire arc in book 6. Voldy sets Draco to kill Dumbledore to punish Lucius for his failure at the Ministry. This is explicitly stated in the text. Why? Because watching Draco suffer and fail is the worst thing that could happen to Lucius.

I read a fic once that described 11-year-old Draco Malfoy as “exactly what you would expect from a baseline male child if is doting adoring father was Darth Vader.” Draco’s problem doesn’t stem from not being loved; it stems from the fact that the people who love him are objectively terrible people.

We don’t actually have explicit evidence that Narcissa is terrible outside her participation in her family’s shunning of Andromeda. However, we don’t have any evidence that she isn’t terrible, either. We do have evidence that Lucius is terrible in his own right: he set up a little girl to be possessed for a year and then die in order to score points over a minor political opponent. Voldy didn’t put him up to that s***, that’s all Lucius.

This is a really uncomfortable story. We don’t want to think that someone as awful as Lucius could also be a good father who adores his son. So a lot of people rewrite the Malfoys into terrible parents as well as terrible human beings, and deprive Draco of his own history.

Look. I get it. You want to write Draco a redemption arc. We have a societal addiction to redemption arcs. At the same time, you understand that redeeming bullies is poisonous to victims. So you want to turn Draco into a victim himself. Don’t do that. It’s lazy.

I maintain that if you want to give Draco a painful and eloquent redemption arc, part of his struggle comes from the fact that he has to recognize that his doting parents, who love him very very much, are also horrible people. You know the racist uncle you block on Facebook? That’s Lucius Malfoy. Except if the racist uncle was actually like, murdered people. And also he’s the uncle who pulled quarters out of your ear and let you keep them when you were 7, except instead of a quarter he bought you an entire quidditch team. You really don’t think that’s a more difficult road to redemption than “poor Draco just wanted to be loved”?

I think the fact that Narcissa’s pretty much the wizarding world’s version of a Nazi sympathizer is evidence enough that she’s terrible.

Narcissa’s a terrible person because she let Lucius set up Ginny Weasley to be murdered.

In some fanfics Narcissa is like “oh no, those poor children, you can’t do that to them husband of mine, imagine if it was your son” but in canon that never happens. Ginny can die and she won’t bat an eye because as long as it’s not her own child she doesn’t care.

So yeah Narcissa is NOT a nice woman. Not at all.

Remember when Draco said if your wondering what that smell is a mudblood just walked in and she didn’t do shit? What a great person!

this is why it baffles me to see edits or meta about draco where he is labelled ‘misunderstood.’ he was every inch the cruel, bullying racist he presented himself to be. ‘misguided’ might be more appropriate, because it was it was his parents’ own attitudes that helped shape his behavior, but he was never misunderstood. with the malfoys, what you see is what you get. narcissa wouldn’t have given two shits about saving harry’s life if it hadn’t meant buying her time to find draco during the battle - harry knew this. he had seen draco in the castle earlier, but he had zero way of knowing if he was actually still alive at that point. he knew full well narcissa would act purely in her and her family’s own best interests, and he used that to his advantage.

It keeps on getting better!!!!

The malfoys are a bunch of self preserving, bigoted gits but they LOVE each other. To the point of not giving a shit about literally anything else. Oh and I love this post.

Honestly what can be so INTERESTING about post-hogwarts Draco is the concept that he could wise up to how HORRIBLE he was a grow and change. He wasn’t misunderstood by anyone. He was horrid. But he had Atwood instances that kept him from turning irredeemable - he didn’t murder dumbledore and didn’t identify Harry. That is NOT a redemption arc of any sort- it’s the first hint that maybe, just maybe, there was something of a conscience hidden in there somewhere. But to grow and ch age from bigot to NOT a bigot is a long hard process that takes a LOT of hard work to work through and grow on- and he was just a plain old snotty entitled bully too- so there is a lot of growing in every direction he needed to do to become even passable let alone good

Think about why it’s illegal to hire a hit man.

All you’re really doing is speaking and giving someone money.

It’s legal to speak.

It’s legal to give someone money.

Even if they actually complete the job, you’re not the one who committed the murder.

So why is it illegal to hire a hit man?

Could it be because inciting violence is not protected under free speech?

And if that’s the case, why should free speech protect Nazis advocating genocide?

Never reblogged something harder in my life

i feel like some of y’all legit don’t understand that the concept of “worse” or “better” rape just simply is rape apologist rhetoric

whether it’s “raping an ace person is particularly bad” or “a man assaulting a woman who’s not into men is worse than assaulting a straight women or a bi woman” or “a man assaulting a straight man is worse than a man assaulting a gay man” or “spousal rape is an oxymoron” it’s rape apologism lol. trying to rank whose rape is categorically the worst will always result in implied (or sometimes explicitly stated) victim blaming of the person you’re comparing yourself to

just because a person theoretically is capable of being attracted to their rapist like, either on a personal level (spouse, partner, play partner, whatever) or like categorically (because theyre within the range of their sexuality) doesn’t mean they consented. it doesn’t matter if you can theoretically consent because you didn’t. raping someone whose nonconsent stems from “theres no way i ever want sex [at all/with this group of people]” and someone whose nonconsent stems from “i like sex just not right now/with this person” are equally bad kinds of rape. period end of sentence

corrective rape is it’s own type of horrifying trauma. it being a unique type of trauma doesn’t make it worse. being raped by your partner is also a unique type of trauma. being raped by a family member is a unique kind of trauma.

you’re saying “at least you could be [or are] attracted to your rapist” to someone who was also fucking raped and thus didn’t consent. the theoreticals are irrelevant. all this shit is doing is creating a hierarchy of trauma olympics and a battle of whose trauma was the worst which inherently always includes “your rape was better than mine”

like it’s one step away from coming out and just saying “why didn’t you just try to enjoy it then” lol

Hey, friendly reminder that your attraction to people who aren’t the same gender as you is just as valid as your same gender attraction. You are bi, and that means you’re allowed to be exactly that: bi. You’re still 100% valid and you still belong in the LGBTQ+ community despite not being exclusively attracted to people of the same gender. 

broke: the line for the women’s restroom is longer because women take a long time in the bathroom

woke: the line for the men’s restroom is shorter because it has, on average, twice as many places to pee

it ok to not be ready

Please spread this shit like wildfire. People go on and sit through the whole experience and they’re uncomfortable because they just want to please their partner and they don’t tell them that they want to stop because they are not ready. It’s okay not to be ready. 

notice here that consent is revoked without ever saying no and consent goes so far beyond yes/no!!!!!!

Me: I don’t know if I ever want to be pregnant, I’d rather adopt a kid or two that are a bit older

Someone: Are you SURE? Older adoptees present UNIQUE CHALLENGES

Me: We are discussing human beings not digital pets

Literally every child every born and/or parented presents unique challenges. It’s like people are unique individuals…..or something………….

An amazing and revolutionary concept

When people ask me, “Why do you want to adopt teenagers?” I always answer, “Because you asked like that.”

I’m real over it. If I become a foster mom to a 17 year old kid and I get the privilege of the option to adopt them? You better believe I am legally making that kid mine.

“They’ll be a legal adult in no time, why spend the money to adopt? They’ll be aged out of the system.”

There’s no aging out of family, Marvin.

“They might be rebellious or smoke or do drugs or steal things! What if they won’t listen to you?”

Then I guess I’ll have to step up and do some fruxking parenting, Stanley.

“You want to adopt problem children then?”

All. Children. Are. Problem. Children. If you’re not prepared to deal with the fact that at some point, any child ever, whether you birthed them yourself or adopted them at any age, could become a problem? Then you are NOT ready to have children, and should really just step off and let the people who actually want to be parents live in peace with their kids.

Hey I’m so glad this post is picking up

The thing about Harry Potter as a character is that he is insanely observant when he actually cares enough to pay attention. Meaning 90% of the stuff he deems unimportant flies over his head, but he makes these huge leaps of logic and intuition when he bothers to focus. Like in the books when it comes to anything relating to Voldemort or Death Eaters or People Not To Be Trusted (Draco, Umbridge). Growing up, he had to be able to see when a situation was going south long before the frying pan or Dudley’s fists came his way. But he also had to be able to ignore and tune out the constant flow of shit and neglect he was treated to.

If you think about it, for all the better aspects of Hogwarts, it still followed this same basic pattern. He had to pay close attention to the things trying to kill him (even classes took a back seat to this), but find a way to ignore and not acknowledge all the rumors and staring and people thinking he’s a prat or the heir of slytherin or a liar. I think this is why the arguments that Harry is a mushroom and notices nothing, and the arguments that he is deductively brilliant can exist side by side. He’s both. It’s also why, in my opinion, he tends to be ridiculously observant of Ginny once he starts to notice her as something important. She barely exists in the early narrative other than Someone to Be Saved. It’s also why Ginny can sometimes feel like she ‘comes from nowhere’ in the narrative. As far as Harry is concerned, she did come from nowhere. The switch in Harry’s brain went from Doesn’t Matter–Ignore to Very Important–Pay Close Attention, and BAM, there she was. Everywhere.

This is why I don’t get people who think Harry has no characterization. He’s very smart and is a product of neglect and abuse.

He has low self esteem in book one, cause the Dursleys treated him like nobody. He’s utterly devoted to his friends cause he’s never experienced love. How loving he is is actually super touching. Hogwarts seems amazing to him not so much because of the magic but because there’s so much food and love and friendly people and he’s assumed to belong there and to be worthy of inclusion!

He investigates things on his own or with the few friends he trusts, rather than going to teachers or asking for help, because no adults have helped him in life so far. He’s survived the Dursleys because he relied on himself. Authority figures are not to be trusted. Remember when Umbridge is torturing him with that quill? He just treats it as a private contest between himself and Umbridge. Ron and Hermione are appalled, and Hermione tells him to go to McGonnagal. But Harry has been set up to internalize abuse and assume no help will come. And because of his experiences with abuse he pays attention to where the real power lies. Cause that’s where the real threat is. He’s right that Umbridge has more power than McGonnagal, and more even than Dumbledore. When Dumbledore is called upon to protect Harry from Umbridge, Dumbledore does, but at the cost of his own job. And then he’s not there to protect anyone else after that.

Harry’s a very good example of someone whose ptsd is an asset in some ways, cause he often has the right insticts at dealing with actual danger. He’s very skilled.

For instance, he’s very tuned in to signs of danger and he always takes them seriously. This is partly why Hogwarts seems so dangerous to us (I mean, also cause it is, but this is partly why). The idea that Snape could be working for Voldemort? The worst is always possible! The idea that McGonnagal is gonna hit him with a wooden stick? The idea that he’s gonna be expelled any time in the first book? The idea that he’s gonna die on this detention in the forbidden forest? They all seem like real threats, but if Voldemort hadn’t been back, that detention would have been fine, and McGonnagal put him on the quidditch team instead of hitting him, and he was never gonna get expelled. Some of the sense of urgency and danger is just Harry being hypervigilent.

More examples:

The idea that the mermaids are gonna drown Hermione and Fleur if the time runs out in the second task?

The idea that he needs to go into the Chamber of Secrets instead of telling a teacher?

The idea that Voldemort had Sirius in the department of Mysteries?

Harry sometimes gets it wrong and sometimes gets it right, but he always assumes that any danger is real and reacts as though it’s the worst case scenario. And when it is the worst case scenario, that serves him well.

That’s a mentality that comes from growing up with the Dursleys, because the worst frequently did happen and Harry had to watch out for danger all the time. Which leads to hypervigilence.

People sometimes think he’s stupid for not realizing the second task wasn’t going to kill anyone, for instance. But it’s just his ptsd - he’s primed to go into fight or flight at any time.

It’s also why he has that “saving people thing.” He’s suffered, so he is empathic to suffering. He doesn’t want people to suffer.

And he’s had bad things happen around him, so he’s ready for the worst to happen to other people too. And he’s never had anyone save him, so he doesn’t think anyone else will jump in and save the day. And he’s had people be bystanders of abuse to him all his life, so he won’t be that.

So he’ll jump in and save people. It’s a strong urge.

He’s also used to suffering himself and thus will internalize a lot before going to anyone for help. Remember when he was fourteen and felt embarrassed that he wanted someone like a parent to write to about a murderer possibly being back (his scar hurting)? He wrote to Sirius.

He was embarrassed. In his own head. For wanting to have an adult he could confide in. At 13.

And when he was fifteen and had just seen someone murdered? He yelled at Ron and Hermione a lot. Lots of people have trouble with that too and find him over the top.

But they’re his family. He doesn’t have any adults to yell at. (He does eventually yell at Dumbledore). He only confides in Sirius that one time, and then realizes that could put Sirius in danger and stops.

Harry’s also very snarky and sarcastic and he loves his friends a lot and he’s very determined and stubborn. And he has a huge amount of love and appreciation for good things - time at the Weasleys, jokes, good food, love and friendship. He appreciates it so damn much. It breaks my heart and makes me love him.

So yeah. He’s damn good at resisting and fighting. Cause he’s been doing that all his life, and cause he’d do anything for the world that showed him love for the first time.