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If you’re an adult and you’re still a fan of Harry Potter, you should try reading some novels written for adults.
I know this sounds snarky, and I guess it kind of is, but it is true…
You’re obsessed with books written for literal children.
A) many harry potter adults are still proud that they read a book once when they were kids, they haven’t read much since.
B) “Kids” literature can be for everyone, just because they are kids, doesn’t mean it has to be shit. The Hobbit was written for kids and it is among my favourite books. And the little prince is still amazing and a must read for every adult who never read it.
I really hate when “Stuff made for kids” is an excuse to make shitty slop. kids deserve and need quality literature.
Ever since I can (abusive ex didn’t allow it), I’m reading my kids at night, and we’re reading good stuff, we done: The Hobbit, Psalm for the Wildbuilt (not aimed at kids, but I think everyone needs to read it, even children), the Wild Robot series… and they love it.
PS: I really hate when children are treated as a target for slop.
Why do people literally only say this about Harry potter lol. “Read an adult book!” OK sure but why aren’t we saying the same thing about the millions of Anime fans, bronies, Stephen Universe, Gravity Falls, or other kids cartoon fans? It’s just disingenuous
I mean, I am. Bronies are an embarrassment.
Harry Potter wasn’t very good, but if you read it as a kid and got invested in the setting it’s easy to forget that the writing was kinda shit. The argument that it’s “for children” is a (possibly unintentional) misdirection, but following it up with a recommendation to actually good fiction is valid and worthwhile.
Meanwhile, I’m a grown ass man and watched Gravity Falls a few weeks back, and it was fucking good. Good fiction is still good even if you’re not the target age range.
I think I’m agreeing with you.
I disagree, I liked harry potter a lot. I think they’re good books. I don’t think we have to pretend like this is about literary taste and not the author’s political views. I think people should be up front with what the real message is: “I think that the authors views are abhorrent and therefore you should not support her financially”. The age appropriateness of the books or their quality is just a disingenuous personal attack on the fans and is just childish
I stand by my position of the harry potter books being bad, but I will concede on two points:
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it’s an opinion not a fact.
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it’s not that important to the larger discussion of rowling being a shitty person who’s shittiness shouldn’t be supported.
I would also like to say that my criticism of the quality of the books is NOT an attack on the fans of the work (at least it’s not when I do it, can’t speak for anyone else). It is ok to like bad writing, it would be hypocritical of me to say otherwise as I do enjoy reading a lot of amateur writing from time to time. To further this point, I’d like to say that there are aspects of rowling’s creation that I actually do like. The setting of the wizarding world is quite interesting, and I’d love to dig through lore regarding the characters and the history and just how the setting got to where it is by the timeframe of the books.
Actually, speaking of the wizarding world and of crappy amateur writing, I think imma go read Thinking in Little Green Boxes again.
I like you, you’re a good person
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Put Marvel and most of Star Wars also in the same category.
Alan Moore agrees:
“I haven’t seen a superhero movie since the first Tim Burton ‘Batman’ film. They have blighted cinema, and also blighted culture to a degree,” Moore said. “Several years ago I said I thought it was a really worrying sign, that hundreds of thousands of adults were queuing up to see characters that were created 50 years ago to entertain 12-year-old boys. That seemed to speak to some kind of longing to escape from the complexities of the modern world, and go back to a nostalgic, remembered childhood. That seemed dangerous, it was infantilizing the population.”
Yeah, it’s not wrong. Escapism is a way to hide from reality, even if only for an evening.
What did Gaiman do?
turns out he’s not a gay man
overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Gaiman#Sexual_assault_and_misconduct_allegations
some reporting: https://www.vulture.com/article/neil-gaiman-allegations-controversy-amanda-palmer-sandman-madoc.html
note: content warning, NSFL
sexualized assault
I’m sorry, I know it’s a simple mistake and english might not be your first language (it’s not mine either), but sexualized assault really made me laugh for some reason
Publishing opinions you disagree with - no matter how bad these opinions are - is categorically different from committing an actual crime.
She’s the reason why the UK has ruled that transgender people are not equal in protection to the law.
So she hasn’t committed a crime, she just enabled people’s existence a crime. So she’s totally absolved now!
she was also cited in multiple court rulings against trans rights in the us too.
She’s also spending money on hate movements so it’s not just opinions. What she’s doing is not a crime, but honestly it should be. She ends up influencing policy which hurts an entire class of people.
This is called plutocrcacy. When the wealthy elites determine how policy should govern the people without the people in question actually getting a say.
Before trans rights became a ‘culture war’ issue, most people didn’t give a shit what your identity was or what you wanted to do in private - that was just between you and your doctor.
Notice how a lot of folks aren’t aware of the disgusting things Gaiman did, specifically BECAUSE he went quiet. Rowling doesn’t want to go quiet because she’s a crusader: discriminating against trans people is a goal for her.
Yeah its a deliberate strategy by Gaiman, while in the background he goes after his victims that settled previously for breaching NDAs. Even if he doesn’t win its money well spent to stop more accusations from coming out. He’s going to wait this out and try to rehabilitate himself in a few years.
I thought NDAs couldn’t be used to cover criminal behaviour?
Yeah, Gaiman keeps a low profile because he wants people to forget what he did. Rowling is proud of being a hateful cunt and invests time and money in proliferating hate.
Also I actually have less of an issue with other people buying Gaiman’s work. I have no love for the man and won’t buy anything myself again, but if you buy something of his, the money goes to him, and stops there. Rowling directly funds bigotry; the money people spend on Harry Potter is in a direct pipeline to funding the suffering of innocent people.
At the very least, before everything happened with Gaiman, he was known for having positive philanthropic ventures. Even if you gave him money, a sizable portion went to him, another portion went on to better the world. I’d presume he still supports these trusts and charities too.
yes, she sees herself as a kind of martyr and victim of a witch-hunt, which does change how she responds to the cultural backlash she receives for her behavior.
i pity anyone who was named after a Neil gaiman character, like caroline
At least Caroline was already a name before the book and movie. Coraline on the other hand…
Oof for anyone named Hermione.
The Sandman books were a massive part of my teenage years, one thing my sister and I agreed on back then and a source of endless conversation with my crush. Really gutted that I can’t look forward to introducing my teenagers to them.
this is actually the main sadness I have re Gaiman, I never finished the Sandman series and I just never will now.
I know there’s plenty to be said about separating the work of art from the moral judgement of the artist, but tbh it’s just like a taboo, psychologically the association turns me off whether there is a rational justification for it or not.
check out Night’s Master by Tanith Lee
I’ve heard Gaiman lifted a lot of Sandman directly from it
i still love stardust and own the movie/still watch it but i wouldnt buy it now </3
He isn’t entirely gone, the second season of The Sandman is about to release on Netflix in a few weeks…
ick, I wouldn’t be surprised if that fails commercially … I mean, I watched the first season before all this stuff came out and I’m certainly not returning for a second season - I doubt I’m alone.
I mean, I still love American Gods, Good omens and Neverwhere. I just stopped recommending them to people.
They’re great books, but I just can’t enjoy them anymore. American Gods was my favorite of the three.
I still enjoy his writing, but I’m not sure how to engage now. I want to separate the artist from the art and let the legal system do its thing as a separate thing and I don’t know what ‘right’ looks like as a reader
bury his name, rip the story and setting out of his creepy hands and reclaim it. Write fanfiction that specifically shits on rapey shitheads.
Well ultimately you didn’t do anything wrong, he did. So proceed how you wish. If you read some of his work nothing changes and that’s the same if you choose not to.
I can’t separate artist and art. I feel guilty and angry. But I also don’t want to. Money to them is money to their deeds. Paying for anything Harry Potter is paying for anti-trans movements. Paying anything Gaiman goes to the “fix your image” firm he has hired. Then I start thinking that firm is probably out there with messaging convincing people to separate art from the artist.
Heres what you can do:
Encourage people to pirate his shit
Remind people what he did. In detail.
Start with me! I know he did… Some rapey shit? Pro ably wizard flavored?
Absolutely agree with pirating. Even buying second hand will keep money from going to their pockets/estates.
Here’s the sanitized AP reporting: Woman’s lawsuits say sci-fi author Neil Gaiman repeatedly sexually assaulted her
Here’s the full account from the victim (ALL the trigger warnings): “There is no safe word” - Vulture
Wow that’s…
What strikes me is how boring the abuse was. Like, boiler plate horror. Maybe this does make me think less of him as an author, not just as a person.
Well I haven’t looked into the 8 other women. But at least one of the others was absolutely raped, and another was paid off in exchange for an NDA
Right but like ‘call me master’ DUDE
Fucking do better. Not even be less a piece of shit, but a more interesting piece of shit.
Like ‘i hired a PI to learn the song you had your first kiss to, then spent a week practicing, so just as the acid and molly kick in…’
Or, idk, a choir? Some chanting?
tbh my feelings seem to be guiding things before anything like rational morality does - I feel cognitive dissonance about his art because of the association with him as a rapist, and that’s enough for me to ditch his art without having to justify it as a moral necessity that others must do as well.
Buying used copies and pirating his stuff so he never sees a penny, and talking about what a pile of shit he is. I do the same with David and Leigh Eddings. Who locked children in cages in their basement and beat them, among other things.
Holy shit, what the fuck? I think I read one edding’s book and didn’t think much of it, but what the fuck?! Where’s my interrobang button!?
The thing that really pisses me off re: Good Omens in particular is that it took Pratchett out with him. And we don’t get any more of the TV show because of it, either. Even though it’s only half-Gaiman, it got ruined anyway.
american gods, good omens, sandman.
Sort of off topic. I think learning new things about an author can make re-reading their works interesting.
yeah people love to bang the “death of the author” drum and i think it’s because they’re just lazy and hate thinking about stuff. it’s a valid way of reading but it’s also the most low-effort and least insightful imo.
I’ve always felt that if you really subscribe to the ethos of death of the author then you should just consume all your media without learning anything about anyone who made it. And that is unbelievably dumb imo
Is it? I’ve read hundreds of novels that I couldn’t name the author even if I tried. I would go to the library, pick a book, read it, and go to the next one. A lot of people do the same thing with all of their entertainment.
Oh look, another barely concealed fetish!
I misread this as accusatory to the commenter lol
“oh yeah look at those undertones, that’s the good shit, OH YES THAT’S THINLY VEILED SLAVERY OOOO”
same, lol - I was like daaaaaamn
I love your username btw. One of my favorite wild flowers. They’re so whimsical!
aw, thank you! I’m a big fan of dandelions and other flowers.
hp was a big part of my pre transition life when i was in the closet. i hate jk so i dont buy new things but i still do reread my existing books. leaky, pottercast, and starkid were the first places i fit in.
but i dont actively seek out pro rowling hp fandom tho. fuck rowling.
I think a lot of us trans girls are in the same situation. I learned to read on HP books, and Hermoine was a deeply important character to me growing up 😅 It’s hard for me, but I have gradually moved away from the series as it increasingly becomes associated with Britain’s Top Transphobe.
Dunno if you know dimension 20 and their Misfits & Magic mini-series, but it was basically a satire of Harry Potter, really attacking some of the unquestioned tropes in that series.
Anyway, this is a beautiful clip of Erika Ishii, who is NB, at the start of the series, saying what they think of TERFs:
Yayyyyyy Erika my beloved 🥰
i LOVE d20 and erika! they’re amazing <3
evan kelmp
same! i also got into chris colfers land of stories which is infinitely better too (and he’s a better person too!)
I’m out of the loop. What happened with Neil Gaiman?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Gaiman
Check out the Sexual assault and misconduct allegations section for an overview. With how hard it is to get convictions, believing multiple accusers who have allegations across a long period of time has to be good enough. Especially when they are willing to be identified, knowing they will get punished for speaking up.
You can read about it here: https://www.vulture.com/article/neil-gaiman-allegations-controversy-amanda-palmer-sandman-madoc.html
Massive content warning, very disturbing.
Left being the left imo.
Baby goes out with the bathwater every time. “There are plenty of other authors to read” is only going to go so far.
We won’t give a chance for dues paid, once someone is cancelled they’re done forever, and we just hope really hard that it’ll set a good so the other side will do the same.
The right accepts everybody as long as they’re saying the correct thing in the moment. The left, in the blink of an eye, will toss their most ardent supporters if there’s rumors they said the modern interpretation of the wrong thing decades ago.
Sexual assault is wrong, we all have some level of intrusive thoughts, most of us don’t act on them, we need to be critical about severity.
I’m ready for this to be as black balled as any other time I’ve brought it up.
I am going to need you to clarify your point here. Quickly.
I cannot reply to the original comment anymore, so I will say this here: having intrusive thoughts about SA’ing people is not normal, and you can get help for such things. If you experience anything like that, please please please get therapy.
[Personal Note] I removed the comment primarily because this isn’t the proper venue for that debate. Maybe we all misunderstood and maybe we didn’t. Irrelevant. Please remember that this is meant to be a safe space to goof around in. Such matters of mental health are important and should be discussed honestly and openly, just not here. Debate about forgiveness for past SA transgressions is also DEFINITELY not a subject matter for this space.
“Sir…this is a Wendy’s.”
Noted, that makes sense. I will not continue talking about this here then.
It’s almost like I said “some level of intrusive thoughts” and you immediately jumped to me condoning sexual assault.
Like there’s an inability to process degrees of trouble, and a desire to run everything as hard as possible to the worst conclusion when you hear something you don’t like.
But I’m sure I’ve already been banned.
all you had to do was not be vague, and you’re still doing it.
wait, what point are you actually trying to make about the subject at hand here?
It seems pretty clear that they have a significant amount of intrusive thoughts about sexual assault and think that abusing people from a position of power isn’t bad enough to merit removing Neil Gaiman from “nerd canon.”
Honestly, it’s stomach-turning enough to make me think they’re just trolling.
that was my first impression, and my immediate reaction was “that can’t possibly be it”. i’m going to hope against hope that an explanation is forthcoming.
im going to need you to clarify what the fuck your trying to say? rumors are very different from accusations, and we need to take those seriously. if your suggesting that rapists should get less severe punishments, you will be banned.
He’s a predator
Credibly accused of being a rapist, iirc.
Just Google “Neil Gaiman” and “scandal” for more context, but basically he used his position as a popular artist to do some gross, sex pest stuff.
There’s just so much entertainment and incredible creativity out there. I genuinely don’t understand allegiances like this.
I love Sandman but tbh fuck that dude and I’ll go read one of other million alternative stories that often are just as good if not better.
The competition in creative industry is just insane and switching is basically free compared to any other industry. Like, good luck switching from John Deere if you’re a farmer but Harry Potter fans have zero barriers and still can’t do it. Spineless, weak people.
My friend has a significant portion of his sleeve tattoo dedicated to sandman so in his case O really get it
yeah, that would put me in full cope mode too, lol
The worst of us ruin it for everyone else. It’s just like how everyone reasonable hates microtransactions in gaming, but enough unreasonable people love them that microtransactions are still more profitable than traditional income streams so they’re shoved into every game.
Reasonable people didn’t want to pay for the deeply mediocre Hogwarts Legacy, but enough dumb motherfuckers ruined it for the rest of us by making it one of the most popular games the year it released.
Note: I only know it’s deeply mediocre because I pirated it so I could critique how bad of a fucking game it is without putting money into JK Rowlings pockets. Seriously, I do no understand the love for that fucking game, it’s narratively and gameplay-wise a pile of shit for real.
Pure nostalgia injected into the first parts of it from what I heard. It was many people’s fantasy to travel to that world, from both casuals and terminally online people alike. Mediocrity doesn’t matter when the presentation fully exploits deep personal connections people have with the material.
If anyone is looking for some
goodfucking amazing books by an awesome and genuinely fun and good natured dude, check out Jason Pargin, he is awesome and not problematic and his books are all bangers, and he also enabled and actively supports the careers of many other super awesome and creative people. Also, listen to Bigfeets.I’ve been wanting to read his books for a while. I have quite a few that I own and still need to read, though. Any particular book recommendations from him? John Dies at the End? Zoey Ashe series?
There really are no wrong answers. The JDATE books are cosmic reality bending lovecraftian horror, and the Zoey books are a Bladerunner-esque sci-fi about a future you can see from here. The first thing i read of his was John Dies At The End, and I think that is a really good place to start.
The tiktok guy?
The very same
not problematic
I love the guy but I’m sure you could find an instance of him being problematic. Like his pen name, David Wong, is questionable given he’s not asian.
Why is that questionable?
Stolen Valor
Stolen valor refers to the act of falsely claiming military service or awards that one did not earn, often to gain respect, money, or other benefits.
?
How does being or not being Asian plays into this?
“Stolen valor” can be used in a humorous way beyond its original meaning as someone pretending to be a veteran. For example, there’s a funny Youtube video about a tradesperson encountering a hipster wearing Carhartt workwear and using the phrase “stolen valor” to describe him.
Ok, so it was a joke?
English is not my first language so I’m asking for clarification not trying to be snarky.
I like to think my comment qualifies as clarification. I’m not trying to be snarky either.
OK, maybe a little snarky.
Stephen King is Scots-Irish and he used the pen name Richard Bachman despite not being German.
there is a long and respected history of mocking germans.
Mocking Germans is okay but using a traditionally Chinese name isn’t?
He stopped using it for that very reason, and took accountability. People are allowed to self correct, if he understands the problem with what he did and course corrected without being called out for it what would throwing more stones accomplish?
Edit: Also, not a big enough deal to say you shouldn’t read his books.
I’m not throwing any stones, yo. I’m just pointing out you can’t exactly say he’s not problematic. I have a tolerance for problematicity so it’s of no bother to me.
If he was still using the pseudonym and making excuses to keep using it, sure, but I’m of the opinion that once someone understands what they have done wrong and took the opportunity to learn from it and do better there is no more wrong doing. There are, of course, exceptions to this, but a pseudonym that someone came up with in their 20’s and had the wherewithal later to say, “That’s not ok, I need to stop doing that” and stopped doing that for the right reasons is pretty far from a reason to call them problematic, especially when it wasn’t a decision made under any form of duress.
I’ve heard him on a bunch of podcasts and keep meaning to try his books. I’ve got a copy of this book is full of spiders, I’ll have to give it a go.
Where’s a good place to start with his stuff?
John Dies At The End was his first book and where I started. It’s also neat to watch his writing style evolve. I’d say John Dies or Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits, those are the first books for his two ongoing series, if you’re feeling more into horror or sci-fi.
What podcasts? Are you a Dog Zone 9000 fan by chance?
Great, cheers I’ll try John dies at the end.
I’ve heard him as a frequent guest on gamefully unemployed and small beans podcasts. They’re focused on movies, he’s full of interesting takes.
The word problematic is kind of weasely used this way. The pen name had an in-universe rationale that made sense and was funny because of the incongruity. Merely alluding to the existence of ethnicity isn’t “problematic” in itself.
I’m not the on who brought the word problematic into this conversation. But I bet you if I put a poll on, say, tumblr, asking about different potentially problematic things, “pretending to be asian” would score highly on the problematic scale.
He wasn’t pretending to be asian, though, the book John Dies at The End makes that very clear and gives a silly in universe reason for the now dead pseudonym. It really was not problematic, even at the time of it being used.
Just a few comments up you said
He stopped using it for that very reason, and took accountability. People are allowed to self correct, if he understands the problem with what he did and course corrected
Now that you were pushed on it a bit you’re saying
It really was not problematic, even at the time of it being used.
Something about this interaction feels really dishonest.
Was there a problem he needed to take accountability for or not?
Then I will rephrase – asking tumblr “is it problematic for a white person to go by an obviously Asian name as a pseudonym,” I feel that even phrased that way they would still say “yes.”
I don’t really use the word ‘problematic’ in the social justice sense myself because it’s incredibly vague, but if you’re going to specifically use the word problematic and claim that Jason Pargin isn’t, then I feel that it’s a pretty cut-and-dry “yes that was ‘problematic’” scenario.
Oh John dies at the end is in my top ten all time favorites possibly even #1 and I don’t even like horror.
If we’re recommending authors, my favorite is Jasper Fforde. He wrote this book called Shades of Grey (which unfortunately came out around the same time as that book) that’s about people who can only see one color (sorry, colour), and the hue that they can see determines their social standing. I have been waiting over a decade for the sequel and he just released it (Red Side Story) last year. My brain has been bad at letting me read books, so it sits on the shelf but I loved the first one.
I really hope there’s no problematicism around him (as that’s the subject of the thread), but reading his books it’s hard to imagine there could be.
Thats a really cool concept, thanks for the rec, I’ll check them out.
I also love Jasper Fforde, and it is because he was guest of honour at a Jodi Taylor event that I also got into her books. She writes a series about time-travelling historians which I would recommend.
She also writes at a much faster pace than Fforde does these days, so that’s a plus. I was never half as annoyed waiting for GRR Martin to write A Dance With Dragons as I was waiting for Red Side Story!
ooo, thank you for the recommendation. I look forward to it. i was recently gifted Grady Hendrix’s The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. I know they say don’t judge a book by its cover, but i judged this one by its title and d(-_☆).
The last three books that weren’t technical manuals i tried to read, i got 100 pages in and realized i hadn’t retained anything. working on it, but i’m not exactly excited about reading so much. goddamn grad school broke my brain.
I’d only heard about Gaiman on tumblr, and they’re fairly socially conscious over there. Frankly, I’d be surprised if he had any staying power with the crowd that previously endorsed him.
“Sexually assault your fans” wouldn’t sit well with anyone, whereas “women aren’t real women” comes out of left field.
Agreed, Gaiman fans are not the average person, I think this partially accounts for the difference (as well as the difference between how culturally acceptable transphobia is compared to rape).
how culturally acceptable
Both are treasured institutions.
