Thoughts on JK Rowling.

It seems like forever since I’ve sat down and written a post here. Probably because it has. I have meant to post sooner, but my depression has not been kind to me, and given the state of things, I wasn’t sure that it was the time. However, I find I needed a release from all the bad news and so…here I am. My first post and I am going to touch on JK Rowling. It’s not a secret that I absolutely love Harry Potter. Nor will it ever change. Now, before you get to thinking that I’m about to defend Jo’s comments, I assure you that I am not.

I am an open person. I accept people for who they are. Black, white, blue, green with yellow spots, LGBTQ+, able-bodied, disabled, et cetera. I believe people need to live their truth. Thus, I stand with Transgender people. It isn’t cliche, it isn’t a person just changing themselves because they can. They suffer greatly and I don’t imagine anyone would choose a life where they’d have all the vitriol thrown at them. As Daniel Radcliffe said in his piece of the The Trevor Project, there are many more educated people on the topic and I highly recommend you looking them up. It’s not just a phase.

According to The Trevor Project, 78% of transgender and nonbinary youth reported being the subject of discrimination due to their gender identity. It’s clear that we need to do more to support transgender and nonbinary people, not invalidate their identities, and not cause further harm.

To you, Jo Rowling, you are someone I used to admire. Your imagination is a thing of legend and I do thank you for sharing it with the world. I am forever appreciative of that. However, that is where my admiration ends. Because you have a cruel streak in you that would make Voldemort proud.  

I am disappointed. That word seems so useless in my trying to properly articulate how I feel, what I think. I don’t understand how you can be so willfully ignorant to all the information that is available for you to read. We live in a digital age. Research! That you keep your mind so closed and one tracked is (again, this word) disappointing, to put it mildly. It’s also disgusting that you are being ignorant to the pain that your words are causing. Millions of us took you at your word that Hogwarts would always be there to welcome us home…yet the more you show your ignorance and cruelty, Hogwarts no longer feels welcome to many. 

I take back the Voldemort remark. You’re more Umbridge. Thinking you’re right, not hearing the voices of your fans. You believe your way to be the truth and you won’t hear reason.  You’re an intelligent woman.  Get your head out of the days of pearl clutching. We’re all trying to survive but for persecuted people,  its 24/7. There’s no break. 

I’m not transgender and I personally find it devastating that you’re saying such dreadful things.  Your saying that you have trans friends is the equivalent to a racist saying, “but I have black friends.”  It’s never a good look.

Whilst Jo did write and create the Wizarding World, what it has become is because of the love and passion we have for it. She may be a bigot, but the experience we have had is ours. She can’t take that away.  Daniel, again, said it best. 

To all the people who now feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished, I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you. I really hope that you don’t entirely lose what was valuable in these stories to you. If these books taught you that love is the strongest force in the universe, capable of overcoming anything; if they taught you that strength is found in diversity, and that dogmatic ideas of pureness lead to the oppression of vulnerable groups; if you believe that a particular character is trans, nonbinary, or gender fluid, or that they are gay or bisexual; if you found anything in these stories that resonated with you and helped you at any time in your life — then that is between you and the book that you read, and it is sacred. And in my opinion nobody can touch that. It means to you what it means to you and I hope that these comments will not taint that too much.

Perhaps she ought to read her own books. Learn empathy and also to remember that people are different.  Our hearts do beat as one. But we all live differently. Our experiences make us unique, and that should be celebrated. I love everything that makes us different. I am forever in awe. Please keep being YOU. Don’t allow ignorant people to ruin things for you.

To my trans, LGBTQ followers, I am sorry you suffer as you do. But I am an ALLY. I am here for you. You are not alone. 

 

What are your thoughts? Let me know! Stay safe and I missed you! 💋

 

Happy Hogwarts Day! #19YearsLater #HarryPotter

Well, guys. It’s September 1st! And if you’re a Harry Potter fan, you know what that means! It’s the first day of term! Or if you’re a Muggle, it’s time to reread the books and relive the adventures of Harry, Hermione and Ron. I wanted to do a Harry Potter post for awhile, but today seems like the best day to do so. It does make sense, doesn’t it? So today, it’s Harry Potter celebration!

So with that said, I have to make a confession. When the books first came out and there was all the hoopla and the bookstore parties and everything…guys, I thought it was stupid. I wasn’t impressed at all. (Call me a rebel; I just didn’t like to bandwagon things.) It was only when my parents were in AC Moore, getting craft items when I went wandering and I found ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’. It was the newest book and I skimmed it. I admit, I read the first chapter standing there. My parents only chuckled when they saw me and they bought it for me; which meant I had forfeited my allowance. So be it. I read the book in two days and ya’ll? A Harry Potter fan was born.

When school started later that month, they had started a Harry Potter club after school. I joined and I got the second book, which they provided to us. The group disbanded, but I kept the book. (I was supposed to give it back, oops.) I then made it my mission to read books one and three, both of which I got for my birthday in September. From then on, I made my parents pre-order the books for me. I never attended a book release party but I can tell you, when Pottermore opened, I was the first one of my friends to sign up and to log in. When I saw Harry Potter merchandise, I was all over it. And I, of course, saw all the movies. I used to see them with my cousin, who is six years younger than me, and we had a ball. When I went on vacation, for fun, I sent him a postcard with his name and I wrote ‘The bedroom at the top of the stairs’ (an homage to ‘The Cupboard Under The Stairs’) followed by his address. I didn’t know if it’d reach him, but it did. It was funny and I think he still has it somewhere. We also would play the video games together. He looks like a Weasley, my cousin, with his red hair and freckles, but I always called him Harry. Now that he has his own son, I hope when he’s a bit older, he’ll instill that love onto him.

I own all the movies too and my mother, who never read the books, finally gave in and watched them. Now when there’s nothing on TV, we break out the movies. My ‘aunt’, (my mother’s partner of 35 years), read the books not at my instance, but at a friend of hers whom I call ‘Auntie Pat’. (If you read this, hi Auntie Pat! <3) If you ever meet her, you wouldn’t think of her as someone who’d read the books. She’s very well read, but I could never picture her as reading the series.  But when she insisted, Aunt borrowed them from me and another fan was born. I guess you can say, this is a HP household.

My house, as you can tell from the side of my page, is Slytherin as my house–and Pottermore sorted me into it. But as I sit here writing about this to you, I can’t help but be in awe that it’s been twenty years since JK Rowling and Bloomsbury published ‘The Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone’. Isn’t it strange to try and imagine our lives without Harry and his adventures? JK Rowling’s imagination is a thing of beauty and it’s created so much joy and happiness. That in itself is magic.

Hogwarts, truly, became a haven for people. It was for me, for certain. Books were always my escape. They became the thing that made waking up everyday a wonder. They were the one constant in my life where I could forget my troubles. I was bullied very much. I wore glasses, I had freckles all over my face, was fat and I was shy. Not to mention, I struggled with my classes, so I felt stupid. And I had developed faster than the girls in my classes. When they had just begun to start wearing bras and getting periods; I’d been doing both since I was nine. You can imagine how miserable I felt; so for me; Hogwarts was the school I longed to be in; and I was, every time I opened the books. Luna felt like someone I could be friends with; Hermione who was I longed to be, although I discovered, just because someone is smart doesn’t mean that they’re happy and popular. Fred and George always made me laugh. Dumbledore gave me bits of wisdom, some of which has never left me. Snape, to me, there was always more to him than met the eye. I never disliked him as many people did. Professor McGonagall reminded me of my grandmother. I even liked Malfoy, who I felt was just terribly misguided. And Hagrid. Who didn’t love him!?

My books were my friends. And whilst I struggled to fit in, I happily lost myself in their world. Whether I was reading about Harry or the Babysitter’s Club or if I was running wild with Sara Stanley in Avonlea or travelling across the Midwest with Laura Ingalls Wilder…I was home. The bullies didn’t exist in the worlds I was reading about. And if they did, the heroes in there dealt with them in the ways that I could not. Hermione punching Draco Malfoy will forever be my favorite moment. It’s almost as good as Tyrion slapping Joffery in Game of Thrones.

Even today, Hogwarts and the whole Wizarding World is still very much alive and well. The community that exists because of our love for this series and for Jo Rowling is a beautiful thing. Whether we’re playfully bickering or debating headcanons, or making up our own assumptions, or coming together to mourn–Alan Rickman, you are SO missed. We have our own Hogwarts; it exists in all of us. Magic is alive and well because we believe it to be so. Maybe the wand I have will never be anything but decoration, but it will be a reminder of the world created by this glorious series of books, the brilliant movies. My Slytherin robes may just be worn on Halloween, but they’re hung where all can see them. My books, the original series, my 20th anniversary edition, the illustrated editions…the Wizarding World is very much alive and well, and always shall be.

And lest we forget…today is the day that Albus Severus Potter went to Hogwarts today.  I think I’ll let Jo finish up this post for me; the line is a poignant today as it was the day I first read it. (And yes, I skipped to the end of the book–I needed to know if he lived or not! lol.)

 

“The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well.”

Happy Birthday J.K Rowling!

Today, we celebrate J.K Rowling’s 50th birthday…and if your memory is good, Harry Potter himself is celebrating his 35th birthday today too. (Happee Birthday, ‘arry!” in the words of Hagrid ❤ ) Isn’t it amazing how her imagination set fire to the world and introduced us to a world that we may have imagined but never dared to write down ourselves? I have always loved to read…but it’s funny, I recall when the first books came out and there was all this hype, I thought people were absolutely bonkers, dressing up and having parties at the bookstore and all of that. It wasn’t until the fourth book (which my parents bought me to shut me up on a long car ride home) that I was hooked. I wanted to go to Hogwarts, I wanted to be a witch…I wanted in. I had to get my hands on every book and all things Harry Potter after that. Relatives indulged me and bought me the first and third book; I “borrowed” the second book from school and it just never made its way back. (Sorry!) I proudly own all of them and always show them off. They’re not collector’s editions, but they are mine.

I was still in school when the fifth book came out (cursed snow days made the school year even longer) and I fondly remember skipping school to read it. My mother was ill in the hospital at the time and we weren’t doing anything but watching movies in class, so my aunt didn’t really mind that I stayed home. I finished the book the following day. Our UPS man came to our house first, I remember him saying, because he saw Amazon on the box with my name…and he knew what was in it. So I spent the entire day reading lazily on our couch. Such is the power that J.K Rowling has. Her books are that wonderful that we can lose ourselves in them and read quickly. Yet, even though I finished it, it stayed with me. Everytime I open one of her books, I am transported back home to Hogwarts and brought into the adventures of Harry, Hermione and Ron. I laugh with them and I cry at favorite characters deaths. I root for them (even though I know the end result) and I curse their enemies.

The same thing happens with the movies and I imagine once I visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Universal (eventually, I haven’t been there yet.), I’ll feel the same. I brought some of that HP magic to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party in 2011 when I went as a Hogwarts student. (Wand included!) Everywhere in the park that I went, people smiled at my robes or gave me a bit of lip because I dare wear my Slytherin robes proudly. A little girl even kicked me in the shin because “Slytherins are bad!” to which I told her, “Not all of us are.” (She was a Gryffindor, she said, in case you’re wondering.)

When Pottermore opened up, I was excited to jump back into the books in an entirely new manner. I was over the moon at being sorted–prouder still to be named a Slytherin, which is my favorite house. (Don’t judge me, haha.) And all of this….from this amazing woman who despite all of her many hardships, never gave up. Merlin’s beard, can you imagine if she did?!

Ms. Rowling can never be considered a muggle…she created an enchanting (no pun intended), delightful new world with her books…and she still does by printing short stories on Pottermore, giving us more information and stories. She is the gift that keeps on giving. And that, my friends, is magical.

Happy Birthday, Ms. Rowling! Thank you for being so damned amazing. ❤

The Wonderful Wisdom of Dumbledore.

Seeing as today is September 1st and the first day of school at Hogwarts, I thought that perhaps I would share one of my favorite characters words of wisdom. Very wise man that Dumbledore.  It seems silly sometimes, that a fictional character should have such an effect upon the world, but I am glad that he did. Dumbledore is one of those characters who no matter what, will always stick with you. His words are that profound. J.K Rowling truly is a genius…and I do hope, very much so, that someday she will write an entire book about him.
Such a wise, revered man.

“In dreams, we enter a world that is entirely our own. You may swim in the deepest ocean, or glide over the highest cloud.”

“Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love.”  

“Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic.
Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.”

“Age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimates youth.”