On Anti Culture & How Narrative Influences Reality

“Is there something you want, Potter?”

Hannibal (2013-2015)

Happy Lunar New Year!

Here's a quick drawing as celebration!

I feel like this is an unpopular opinion, but more people should read incomplete/unfinished/in-progress fanfics.

I've noticed this huge trend where creators on tiktok and tumblr who will be explaining how to use Archive Of Our Own to new users and they always say "and make sure to scroll down and click completed only" or how people will go out of their way to mention they only read completed fics 'because they were traumatized when they forgot to check the dates and didn't realize this fic hadn't been updated since 2012'.

The thing is - I think by not engaging with and/or actively avoiding writer's WIPs readers are potentially adding to the aggregate of abandoned works. Now this obviously isn't the case for all abandoned fics, anything from major life events, to loss of interest, to getting busy can be a reason for a fic getting abandoned - but at least on some level I just know that writers are quitting while they're ahead when they aren't garnering any response or feedback because reading WIPs has become unpopular. If you're worried about reading something that hasn't been updated since 2012 then you can use the date updated function to sort out old fics.

Anyways, support your favorite fanfic writers by engaging with their WIPs.

Written for day four @hpkinktober prompt Amortentia.

Thank you so so much to @rockingrobin69 for the wonderful beta and great cheerleading. You really helped my spirits.

Amortentia is fickle. It's a fickle potion, due to how its properties constantly change. The ingredients stay the same, Draco knows them like the back of his hand. But the smell changes — consistently.

He would brew small portions, to keep a few vials on hand. Wanting the shop to smell comforting, clean and welcoming with the potion happily bubbling in the far back, behind a closed door.

Everyone smelled something distinct, a sensitive nose to what was lingering around the bottles, trinkets and ingredients. All customers would comment on the fragrance of the shop, saying how lovely the smells always were. Many would comment on the familiarity, only changing the most miniscule amount. Draco always found that rather fascinating.

Were these people falling out of love? Did their heart split into two and the aroma linger on two or more objects of their affections? Draco always wondered and pondered. Others would stop in while browsing and compliment the new fragrance for today, making Draco aware of their own hearts wandering nature.

It was something to pass the time. Pure amusement when he would watch his customers’ eyes glaze lightly — the smell entrancing them for mere seconds. Shaking their heads and continuing on as if nothing had stopped them in their tracks.

He enjoyed this, but also did this for selfish reasons. His shop was home, and this helped solidify that notion. Smells being the closest to memory and emotion — Draco knew how his Amortentia smelled.

It never did change.

When Granger first walks into the shop, a tiny bell tinkling announcing her arrival, Draco is rather surprised. She asks about Valerian root, and what potions he has in stock for sleeping aid. He's still rather surprised she's even here, looking at his inventory and asking about proper sleep potions.

However, she does compliment how clean the shop is — and how gorgeous it smells.

"Like a crisp autumn morning and baked treats. A lot like treacle tart."

He knows his eyebrows raise to his hairline, and also knows she has to be smelling Weasley. Which is a little off-putting — but he thinks it's because Weasley has never really been his favorite person. He'd rather not know what he smells like.

Granger brings Potter into the shop a few days later. Draco finds it amusing how he ogles the crystals at one side of the shop, eyes wide with wonder. Poking at the magical plants in the corner and picking up a few potions for purchase.

Almost as if he hasn't been a wizard all his life.

They both walk towards the counter as Draco opens the till and the smell is so overwhelming that tears prickle his eyes as he raises a hand quickly to his nose.

"Are — are you alright?" Potter looks concerned and Granger has one brow raised in a quizzical expression.

"Yes — I thought I was going to sneeze. Pardon me."

Draco continues with their purchase, with the bouquet circling up and around his nose, filling his head and making him float.

It's broom polish, sandalwood with hints of citrus. Still the same after all these years —he just wasn't aware of who the potion portrayed.

Days go by, and he contemplates the idea of throwing away any and all of the potion that sits in his back room, behind the closed door. Wants to scrub the pearlescent liquid away and never have it trace his shop again.

But this smell — the one that smells of home and love. He's grown so accustomed to it, that he can't bring himself to toss the cauldron. Lets it simmer and sit like he always does. The incense and deep perfume still wafting throughout his shop as he sits in the back with the small sign on the door flipped to closed.

Granger is a regular now. Picking up items that she needs for additional health purposes, potions for Weasley and their tiny freckled baby at home. She's an interesting witch, though Draco will never speak that aloud to anyone — she invites him to the pub. His mouth hangs open and she smiles as he agrees and is now irritated with the predicament he's placed himself in.

He slides into the seat next to Granger as she passes him a glass of whiskey and a pint.

"I wasn't sure what you drank, so I grabbed the drinks I thought you might enjoy."

He smiles at her, and feels oddly at home.

Draco is well into his third pint when Potter stops by, sliding into the open seat next to him.

"Hello. Hermione did say that you'd be here this evening."

Potter grins and Draco's stomach jumps into his throat. He's never really been this close to Potter before and he smells exactly like his shop. He's mortified with himself and doesn't quite understand it.

The smell has never changed all these years.

"Did you work today?" Potter takes a sip from his glass, foam stuck to his beard as he dabs it away with a napkin.

"Earlier I did, yes." Draco sips on the small shot of whiskey, the burn sliding all the way down his throat.

"Ah, that makes sense — you smell just like your shop. It's like parchment and lavender. I always wondered how you made it smell so nice."

Draco chokes on the rest of his whiskey.

The Black Sisters: Andromeda, Bellatrix and Narcissa.

Does anyone have a link to a back-to-basics article about good fanfic practices, like standards of content and chapter length and such (speaking as an old fart who only wrote a couple of shitty one-shots back when lemons were a thing)

society depicts hell as the hot underworld from Dante’s Inferno, but I think we’ve all encountered some variation of Satan’s influence and it fucking looks like this:

I try to stay away from a lot of fandom discourse, but since I’ve been seeing this on my dash again and in tags, I feel the need to make a statement on this, particularly for any young fans who follow me that might get drawn into this mindset.

Stay away from purity culture. Warn your friends away from it too, if you see them starting to fall for it. It’s very easy to get drawn into it

Almost always, it starts with one of three roots, pedophilia, incest and/or abuse. Usually it’s pedophilia. Funnily enough, that’s also what congress usually uses to try to justify passing bills that undermine online privacy & security. Because it’s an easy, extreme target, and when people attempt to argue against it, it’s nice and easy to say “Oh so you like pedophilia” rather then actually engaging with their argument.

The logic goes like this, although there’s many forms of it.

“Pedophilia is bad.” -> Obviously, you agree with this. You’re a reasonable person, and the idea that anyone would do something like that to a child is horrible. This is a normal human reaction.

“Because pedophilia is bad, all fictional explorations of it must be equally bad.” -> Here you might hesitate, but it adds up, doesn’t it? The thought of pedophilia in any context probably gives you a bad feeling, that makes you inclined to go along with this logic. 

“Anyone who creates content with a fictional exploration of pedophilia is also bad.” -> Maybe you pause here, or maybe you don’t. But still, it adds up, it’s a very easy flow. After all, we’ve decided that that is Bad, so why would anyone Good want to create something like that?

“Since people who create content with a fictional exploration of pedophilia are just as bad as people who engage in pedophilia in real life, it’s okay to harm them.” -> Here’s where you might pause again. The argument might not win you over entirely, you might not be willing to do harm yourself, but you may be a lot more willing to turn a blind eye to harm being done to someone. Or to consider it ‘justified’.

The pattern now repeats for anything else that’s considered “morally impure”, and “pedophilia” is expanded and expanded, often to ridiculous points, such as merely shipping two underage characters. “Abuse” becomes any ship that the person pushing doesn’t like, for any reason. And so on and so forth.

This is the foundation of “anti” culture, and it’s important to be aware of it so you can catch this false equivocation. Fictional explorations of something, are not the same as the thing itself. Fictional explorations are fiction. The characters are not real people. There is no actual harm being done. Equating fake harm and real harm is a dangerous, slippery slope, which leads us to fundamentally flawed ideas of moral purity. It’s a form of controlling people & making them feel guilty for their very thoughts, rather than holding people accountable for their actions. 

A very handy trick for when you encounter this sort of argument, is to replace whatever the selected purity term is with murder. After all, we can all agree that murder is bad, but at the same time, we understand that a murder in a book =/= a murder in real life.

Let’s see that argument again, shall we?

“Murder is bad”

“Because murder is bad, all fictional explorations of it must be equally bad.”

“Anyone who creates content with a fictional exploration of murder is also bad.”

“Since people who create fictional explorations of murder are just as bad as the people who commit murder in real life, it’s okay to harm them.”

Hopefully, it’s now easy to see why the above argument is fundamentally flawed.

Keep your eye out for purity culture in your fandom spaces, and when you see it, refuse to engage with it. Warn your friends if you see them falling into the same traps, although try to be kind about it; this is a very easy thought pattern to fall into. I don’t recommend trying to argue/debate anti’s. The attention only feeds them. Block them instead. Don’t let people control or shame you for what you create or consume, and don’t control or shame others for what they create or consume.

Also, as a note, let me be clear about something. If you are uncomfortable with any of the above discussed things, or anything in general in fiction (ie, underage ships, murder, incest, abuse, penguins, needles, etc), that’s perfectly fine (it’s also called a squick, for those that haven’t heard that term before). Absolutely control your fandom experience by blocking people, filtering tags, unfollowing, etc. However, just because you are uncomfortable with something, does not give you the right to control other people. Other people have no right to control what content you create or consume, and you have no right to do that to them either. 

Okay?