rowling's first book was rough. she improved as a writer dramatically, as a person... not so much.

yea i think HP's success was not do to incredible creativity or incredible writing but the ability to make a more accessible series in the genre that was still good.

other fantasy series are better, but the creativity and complexity makes them more beloved by fantasy fans but they have a narrower audience

they're not well written, have no character development and the plots are weak and full of deus ex machina

the appeal is escapism and the appeal of hogwarts to children's imaginations

but yea i would say the most illuminating insights i've gotten into gender identity have been from trans media stuff. both for obvious reasons and because you are getting not only the opinion of people with a unique experience, but also the people that have likely spent the most time thinking about gender identity in their life.

And if people haven't mentioned this, "Disclosure" on netflix is an amazing documentary

the closest thing to an interesting character is snape and he's ****ing awful

we've left the politics part of this behind but Snape is so bad. he straight up just helps the bad guys until he magically doesnt die for a couple extra minutes and fills in the plot

I watched it yesterday. It's great. It started off as a huge downer but ended up hopeful and optimistic. Especially that one dad who thought his kid was so wonderful.

Never read a page of it and continue to feel fantastic about it.

The Matrix is still the best piece of trans media there is

yes

I envy you tbh

AOC already out there marketing RBGs death as a call to vote for Joe Biden

think the chances i vote for him just went back to 0%

i like how she said it was to protect democracy

after they colluded to prevent democracy to give biden the nomination

i mean anyone that can call the US a democracy with a straight face is either delusional or a well practiced liar

Yeah, I mean I think it’s just classic not something you experience so it is difficult to understanding that is what is happening, which is common and not an inherently bad thing. There are plenty of positive stereotypes that I don’t feel fit me, plenty negative that do too, so I don’t think it is solely about stereotyping. It’s just easiest to explain in stereotypes because that is how the world is colored. The sense of identity is more elusive and difficult to articulate, especially given that society has defined terms that we are all aware of and encounter regularly.

I don’t really know if I believe that people really fit into gender boxes the way you feel you do or that people are actually only attracted to one sex heterosexually. I have thought before that maybe people who perform that way are just confused and closed off because of things they have absorbed from their communities and media etc. However, I’ve Occam’s’d it that cis/straight whatever people really do experience the world that way because otherwise why would they say they do, and since I experience it the way I say I do why wouldn’t they? If that makes sense??

I don’t think there is more than that going on, just people feel differently and experience self-identity differently. We don’t have to understand each other but it is good to validate and accept each other and to deconstruct parts of our norms and culture that dehumanize or devalue and degrade people just because they don’t fit the mold that happens to hold the most power in society and social organization.

Idk I don’t feel too strongly on it, but from my experience I just pass as a cis-woman and get on with my life taking comfort in the love I foster in my relationships to others. Gender is not a big part of anything in my life (except some vulnerabilities etc with being a small female). I mostly ignore the binary. I recognize that there are those who struggle for acceptance instead of just blending like I do, and I admire them for their bravery.

a lot of great works don't have great characters, and sometimes not even plot really! lol... hemingway, right? or am i crazy. not that jk is hemingway! lol! but like lotr has really lame characters. i think gollum is the only interesting one. oh and sam too

but jk and hemingway could get together and bigot

https://www.scholarsonline.org/~gods...ntr_myself.pdf

this was a nice short read. Well done and makes good points without being heavy handed. I did lol though because the current CEO of GM is a woman and the last president of Harvard (from 2007-2018) was also a woman. Progress!

if we are talking recent media at least, I throw this into the ring

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transg...ysphoria_Blues

I haven’t listened to it but I feel like I should now

thanks for the recommendation

we could make a top pick for every type of media—movie, album, tv show, etc

though, of course, I’m not trans so not sure how valid my opinion ever should be

the coolest thing to me about the matrix is how subtle it is at first, but then after you see the allegory how well done it is

It’s an interesting read. I like her style of writing very much, but then I am not a man, but I’m not sure I’m
an imitation either, although I do try sometimes to write short sentences and it doesn’t work out for me. I almost wrote a very short one, like Hemingway, but I failed at that too. Anyhow, I was also born after women were invented and they even have their own pronoun, she, and she is much more mobile and even the President of Harvard at times! We almost even had a she as a president of the USA but that may have been an imitation man, and a good imitation at that if you ask some people; not me but some people. And now that I think of it there have been she presidents in places, I’ve heard the one in New Zealand is pretty good. Anyhow I was born after women were invented, I’m not sure I ever had a chance at being a man, I’m not sure I even had a chance at being a woman, I’d like to say I’d buck off my rider but it seems more the case that I’m still good enough at being just young enough to escape my stall, before the race, for greener pastures.

yeah, like how aggressive smith is with the "mr anderson" stuff

even before I knew what that was about, it felt like some kind of violation

and so many other things

I often use short sentences, but sometimes I write a long winding paragraph that is a single sentence with trees and branches and parentheses. I'm not big on semicolons but I love parentheses because I like to sidetrack and add in a little detail and then get back to what I was saying.