Five

I think the post image has a tighter vertical crop, but a higher resolution than this one.

Can you access https://sci-hub.se/ ? It may be blocked in your area. You can find a list of mirrors to try on their Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub

For the documentary aspects of it, yeah.

It's mostly a collection of found news footage, shots lifted from other dystopian films, and a low-budget self-narrated life of a silent women of the future living in the rubble of a mall in San Fransisco. The future fiction parts feel over the top coming from September 2022 when it was announced, or even October 2024 when it was released, but in July 2025 it definitely hits different.

The documentary parts take up the lion's share of the run-time, and are relevant to our role as citizen news aggregators. It puts the right-wing news actors and politicians in their proper context, and is a good summary of what we're up against.

I'm sympathetic to the tragedy of tainted nostalgia. I had a similar experience with the author of Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card. It was distressing discovering that some of the literature that raised me and became in many ways my story -- not only had a corrupted source, but contained questionable themes that originated from that corruption and were always present in the work. I wouldn't describe exposure to news about the homophobic war monger as traumatic, but I do understand the grief that comes with having to re-examine and re-contextualize childhood beliefs and memories.

At the turn of the century, it was ambiguous whether the religious right would continue to wield political power. Harry Potter's unflappable rise in spite of theocratic pearl-clutching about witchcraft in literature gave hope that a less religiously dogmatic future was possible. In a time when scholastic book sales were flagging, JK Rowling helped millions of children to learn to love reading. You're not only losing the good feelings associated with childhood nostalgia, but also a shibboleth to a community of agnostic people who love reading for readings' sake. You're not wrong to want to preserve some part of that. It's not wrong to grieve for the parts that can't be saved.

You're also not a bad person for loving the literature. Fantasy is the power to imagine different lives in different worlds, a prerequisite for changing our own. I find it difficult to think of a work that does not have some suspect themes, and all authors are flawed so some degree. In a world where unparalleled success in fantasy writing didn't give someone policy power to harm of millions of people, a conversation about Rowling's fringe ideas about gender identity would have a very different tone. While not unique to the Wizarding World, one of the redeemable themes of that work is that individual people, each doing their own small part, can defeat an evil that is much greater than any one of them. Your small part may be to come to terms with the need to walk away.

On the other hand, your childhood experience gives you a rare power - you're on much better footing to empathize and soften the blow to others who are at a different stage of grief with the same struggle. You're in a much better position to weather the abuse you will receive if you stay, because you understand the place of hurt that it comes from. Harry Potter is about unexpected people rising to a challenge, and by joining the fight against JK Rowling, you are honoring the best parts of what you discovered through her literature.

I feel slightly alarmed that I need to explain this to you.

JK Rowling is traumatizing to trans people because she wants them not to exist. There's very little trans people can do to take away JK Rowling's power to harm them. Note that Rule 3 of !trans@lemmy.blahaj.zone is "Don’t post negative, depressing news articles about trans issues unless there is a call to action or a way to help." !jkrowling will be a !trans rule 3 violation community.

I imagine JK Rowling is traumatizing to you because she wants trans people to stop existing, is using your participation in her fantasy world to fuel her crusade, and the cognitive dissonance between that knowledge and the belief that you aren't an oppressor of trans people is uncomfortable. Maybe you are comfortable with Rowling's goal to erase transgender identities. It could be that are concerned with the growing social consensus that Harry Potter is fueling transphobic policies and propaganda, and people are catching on to your bigotry more easily because of your enthusiastic participation in the fandom. I honestly don't know why you consider your exposure to news about JK Rowling's politics in a HP community comparable to feelings of anger, anxiety, and depression exposure to JK Rowling news is likely to cause in a trans community.

There's a fundamental difference between the trauma you are concerned about and the trauma I am concerned about. With the knowledge of what JK Rowling is doing, you can choose to pirate the content and encourage your friends not to give JK Rowling any more money. You can make trans-inclusive fan art of HP characters. You can choose to listen to the many trans people who have asked you to stop engaging with the franchise entirely. You can stop building your identity around her specific fantasy world. You have so much agency to deal with the trauma of knowledge. Trans people cannot stop being trans.

In your internal chat, have you come to a consensus that JK Rowling is or isn't transphobic? What is .zip's position on her statements?

Do the admins of Lemmy.zip know that you're planning to host a community on their instance where people who are critical of JK Rowling will be censored? @gazby@lemmy.zip @Demigodrick@lemmy.zip @v4ld1z@lemmy.zip @Sami@lemmy.zip

I don't see how creating a community on that basis and then naming it !harrypotter will not produce a safe space for transphobes. I've suggested a compromise in naming a Harry Potter focused community !jkisabigot, where harry potter memes and non-JK content can be redirected from !harrypotter. There are several examples of communities on Reddit like Trees, MarijuanaEnthusiasts, and Anime_titties becoming successful not just despite their name, but partially because the story their name tells.

News and criticism about JK Rowling is part of the HP fan discourse. I've been told to "fuck off" like I'm an outsider, like I don't belong in the fandom because I think discussion of JK Rowling's bigotry is more important than her stories. Places where you can enjoy HP content while avoiding Rowling criticism exist on Reddit. They don't belong on the Fediverse.

And a !jkrowling community on lemmy.blahaj.zone is a terrible idea. Who is going to moderate it, you? Why do you think you're qualified?

A majority trans instance doesn't need reminders that JK Rowling exists in their local feed. If people there wanted it, they would have created the community already. I'm sure @ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone has good intentions, but the existence of that community will only be used as an excuse to push Rowling criticism away from where it needs to be seen; by people actively consuming HP content.

Fucking DOGE.

Think off-brand Michael Meyers mask.

No worries. Why did you think this was spam?