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I doodled Vermicious Knids from memory while I was zoned out in my electrodynamics class.

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Soooo 2025 has been fun so far

enjoyed the prophecy fulfilment while it lasted

She Who Must Always Be Named

What the “Dramione” Discourse Says About Internet Slactivism in 2025

First: I want you all (yes, all 6 of my loyal followers on this blog) to read this in-depth essay by Tori Loves HEAs on Substack.

At least thoroughly skimmed it? Good. Because everything I’ve written is working under the assumption that I don’t need to repeat what’s already been said by Tori. You may now proceed. 👇

“Read another book—but not like that!”

A proposed silver lining about the upcoming fanfic-to-tradpub Dramione novels is that for readers aware of the connection, these books may be an explicit alternative to HP, rather than a complementary product which encourages their desire to support HP. Perhaps marketing referring to these books as “Dramione” helps some former HP consumers seek them out, or current HP consumers wean off from the OG merchandise. Hasn’t “read another book” been the whole anti-HP slogan all along?

In a series of unfortunate events, that simple demand now appears to come with new caveats. The Big 5 themselves cashed in to pull-to-pub these cis white M/F fics under the current sociopolitical atmosphere, and leaned, along with at least two of the authors (Soto and Knightley) into HP-related advertising, which forcefully keeps HP relevant in trans-allied spheres that were in the process of weaning off Rowling. Given the trad deals (and the Dramione marketing, and the loyal fic readers, and the speedily-becoming-high-profile controversies …), these authors’ trajectories are very unlikely to be harmed at all by any conscientious boycotts, and at least one of the authors—Soto—has said she views abstinence against her book due to its origins as fair, rather than a punishment.

Still, is it unreasonable to suggest that if there is a public consensus on what books are still ~sort of HP~, without giving Rowling the dollars she nefariously pours into anti-trans legislation, then that can be, well, maybe not heroic as some folks are trying to establish (wishful thinking, my dude) … but still maybe just a mildly good thing? Pull-to-pub releases (or adjacent, as with Knightley’s book) are an opportunity to access and support well-beloved original stories by writers in the fandom community without having to succumb to re-immersing ourselves in the HP universe. It’s the best case scenario for interested and aware readers, and allows the authors to separate their work from HP.

However, there hasn’t been much room for these lines of nuanced, cautiously optimistic thought in the current online dichotomy of “These books aren’t HP and it’s actually radically subversive trans activism to support them!” and “These books are HP and you’re a raging transphobe if you don’t boycott them!” AO3 will always be there, be queerer, and exist outside of capitalism, but realistically speaking, not everyone is a fanfic reader—And certainly not in my home country of Bangladesh. So I hope you’re buckled in for an alternative perspective.

Joanne who? Dramione what?

The conversations currently being had are very western-centric. In this case, there is technically a legitimate reason—Rowling is based in the UK, and is causing harm most actively in UK politics, trickling secondarily into other mostly English-speaking, white-dominated western countries. There has been an alarming uptick of TERF talking points among more progressive spheres globally, correlating to the global crackdown on trans rights and the rise of harmful internet-spread radfem rhetoric. While Rowling’s success and sales are international, in my experience many HP readers elsewhere on the globe have never kept up with her as a living author.

In Bangladesh, we don’t have a Barnes&Noble-adjacent bookstore that could advertise these new releases as “Dramione”—not that I think many of Bangladeshi HP readers would even recognize the term or vibe with it anyway. Regardless of the small reach, it’s truly a shame the fanfic-to-tradpub marketing of these formerly Dramione novels was done explicitly during today’s precarious climate rather than the usual “If you know, you know” route, when what would have actually been appropriate is disclaimers expressing distancing from HP. After ReyLo (which gave us Ali Hazelwood—heard of her?) took off well for being less hush-hush, Dramione seems to be the obvious successor as one of the most popular cishetero white fanon ships: It’s low-hanging fruit. The (non-trans) authors themselves perhaps—and disappointingly—did not have the integrity to say no to whatever approach offered the most sales, exposure and superficial success.

Perhaps, even, the backlash was expected and invited since “no press is bad press”. In that case, many of us have fallen for the rage bait, and the extra discourse is leading to free marketing for HP to readers who would otherwise have obliviously consumed the new releases as works that stand alone. Globally, book marketing usually acts on a relatively small scale. Most buyers go solely off the blurb; few follow authors or publishers on socials or get to access events. While informing content creators about the serious risks of platforming these new releases is necessary, I can’t help wondering if what was supposed to be a zero sum game has instead been devolving into a counterproductive lose-lose venture instead. Which is a great segue into another means by which I feel we’ve lost the plot:

White theater, dead platforms

The most involved conversations have been inside online echo chambers (a term I generally despise but can’t deny applies here), amongst people who are already somewhat aware of Rowling’s negative impact and consider themselves trans allies to some degree. Of course, these community discussions are important: in-depth forms such as Tori’s informative essay, or as short illuminating exchanges. However, in the medium of social media, ideal interactions are rare. At what point is “discourse”— itself a term rapidly becoming synonymous to roundabout hostile online infighting about semantics and personal feelings, fully ignoring existing academic literature or statistics—more of a distraction, or at risk of leading to unnecessary division? Movement requires eyes on the prize and strength in numbers, which can require suspending your pride to work with folks that aren’t always going to act exactly right. (Here, I am obviously not referring to any unpleasant cis white creators flipping out due to being asked to check their privilege.)

A case study: I gleaned no gratification from Lady Whistlethreads (@janaandbooks), a cis white disabled creator trying to apologise in futility for her initial supportive stance (and for the apology not coming fast enough) to her some 100k followers, instead “having her face eaten by the leopards she usually feeds” on Threads, as a satisfied Don Martin—a cis white gay able-bodied author with a slightly smaller following whose content I usually otherwise enjoy—put it. Jana’s words weren’t the most gracious, in part because that is genuinely the neurodivergent-presenting way she has always spoken. Either way, they were viciously tone-checked and liberally misconstrued—including by Don—while she was repeatedly baited and switched until she ultimately took a break from the platform.

Of an entire week’s worth of drama, I (purely out of morbid curiosity) was one of only 50-200 folks that appeared to even follow it—on Threads, a mostly dormant website. And yet one of the prominent criticisms aimed at Jana’s receding presence was her deletion of her initial post, thereby avoiding a lasting accountability. I am curious what larger purpose the careful preservation that post, that nobody will bother to scroll back to look at, would serve. I am also curious how our end goal (is there one?) would hypothetically have been served by more people seeing a post in support of the novels. Of course, the criticism itself very effectively serves the purpose of being satisfactorily impossible to fully resolve, leaving Jana perpetually unforgivable.

Ultimately, the whole incident read only as unsettling white (un)cultured American theater to me, the internet liberal crisis of humility and our mimicry of our oppressors’ elitist practices brought into stark clarity—and to what end? This year, when unity is particularly urgent, I have instead been bewildered by the behaviour of many white creators, authors, artists, and public figures I usually admire. Even if it’s a pain, not our paid job, and highly inconvenient, is it not still our responsibility as cis allies to first gently try to correct—or better, civilly discuss with—our peers instead?

(Edit: Case study 2 is now officially a book creator—appearing to be a non-native English speaker—who suffered from a serious self-harm incident after the fallout from platforming one of the books. She later posted about the hostile demands for proof of her condition she had recieved from “so called humans”, and that she was glad for folks in the trans community who had passed on their condolences. Of course, this has led to many claiming this creator doesn’t see trans folks as full humans. Am I the crazy one for being able to clearly tell she was solely referring to internet bullies as inhumane, regardless of identity? And more importantly—Is she wrong?)

The now popular statement “Only the minoritised group affected by an action is allowed to accept the apology,” sounds simple and fair enough. While I feel conflicted about the way this approach requires every person’s (often vulnerable and closeted) identities to precede the percieved validity of their opinion, I am most interested in hearing from trans folks, especially those who have been involved in HP fandom spaces. However, even those who explicitly declare they do not have the relevent identity and therefore can’t accept or reject the apology still choose to follow up with their own opinion—effectively accepting or rejecting the apology anyway, drowning out the minoritised group in question, and rendering the entire sentiment into yet another meaningless string of words to argue about. Given their sheer loudness, I’m compelled to wonder what fraction of these cis folks are genuinely committed to uplifting (all) trans voices. And even as these very angry cis users humbly (-braggily) declare they’re just doing the bare minimum, it’s difficult to observe their full refusal to pay attention to any trans person with a less agitated, more nuanced opinion and not suspect if some of them are only selectively seeking personal social capital—through relatively unlaborious means such as internet posts—instead. (Case in point: Despite their expertise on and experience within fandom, YouTuber Mel Thomas’ openly transmasc identity has been glaringly ignored by critics—including Don—of the infamous Harper’s Bazaar article they were interviewed in.)

In any case, the majority of trans folks able to pitch in on this entire tradpub Dramione debacle have been overwhelmingly white-dominated, western-dominated … and online-dominated. My real life friends and I have rarely felt represented by disembodied, disjointed voices on the internet who mysteriously have time for comments wars in today’s economy. As a lover of words but a hater of serious arguments entirely based off semantics, I feel baffled by this new “I acknowledge your apology but don’t accept it,” language, when usually we would simply say “I appreciate your apology, please don’t do that [hurtful action] again.” Constantly shifting, convulated, morally charged hypersensitive rhetoric—especially online, where authentic communication is already difficult—is both how the left eats itself, and how we vigorously alienate (and thereby assist) the right. On the internet, we fail to identify when cautious forgiveness and tentatively agreeing to disagree on particularities can be far more sustainable and intersectional for collective liberation movements than an openly disdainful grudge.

Unfortunately, the current state of affairs is by design of inflammatory algorithms working only in the best interests of the trillion dollar companies that own these social platforms and rely on wealth inequality. An individual from a minoritised group in the US with limited opportunity for real-life interactions, a lifetime’s worth of valid internalised frustration, little frame of reference of what a mutual-aid-based society at large even looks like (FYI it’s not easy and boundaries are never straightforward!), and only the minimal luxury of being able to afford to pick and choose allies (a luxury I certainly never have in Bangladesh), is simply easy prey. That, along with those whose careers are unfortunately social media, which is literally built to give our brains tunnel vision.

(If I may, this essay is also about: Fletcher. Cierra Ortega. Ethel Cain. Even Sabrina Carpenter. And Jojo Siwa. But only partially about Contrapoints since mother appears to have failed us for now.)

Colonialism all the way down

There have been, unfortunately, many cases such as the above—but fortunately not on my feed, which I curate, despite constant vigilance seeming to be the mandatory for a truly ethical reader these days. If the aim was to “decenter” cis white folks, focusing the majority of our energy on “holding them accountable” by constantly begging cis white creators for apologies is certainly not accomplishing that (and is giving me second-hand cringe). There are plenty of BIPOC and trans creators to engage with—must we harp on this much about what the cis white ones have said, or not said? I would better understand the sheer intensity and urgency of the online backlash if supporting these new releases directly and significantly lined Rowling’s pockets … but they don’t, because their marketing is a drop in the ocean of the already-existing absurd global enormity of HP’s financial success.

While some of us have lived in blissfully Rowling-free online bubbles since 2020, the reality is that very few depend on an online book influencer or a pull-to-pub book to inform them about HP’s existence. Given how few readers are actually aware of the HP marketing in the first place, and how the marketing itself is unlikely to empower existing anti-Rowling trans allies to suddenly support HP again, seeing definitive statements about how these novels will be exclusively consumed by closet transphobes/failed allies that compromise safe spaces and are practically donating money to Rowling by doing so feels … blown out of proportion. Perhaps it is just a cultural difference, perhaps we have other fish to fry on the opposite side of the planet, I don’t know. For indirect zeitgeist and industry concerns such as this, after a certain stage shouldn’t we expect allies to show up and learn from their surroundings off their own accord? Pleading with them to take a very specific stance (or the third iteration of a reworded apology to 100 chronically online users that will ultimately do nothing significant to rescue LGBTQ+ rights) feels like precious time wasted that could be used to directly support marginalised authors, or educate the actual masses about Rowling herself ahead of the new Warner Bros show adaptation coming out, set to generate volumes in revenue.

An excess of anything is bad. It is disheartening to see the term “nuance”, a concept used to soften and add dimension to any single perspective, now being distorted into a synonym for the opposite: the singular politically correct interpretation—when such a thing rarely exists in media analysis. A simple request for “respectful” discourse under a mildly put, but perhaps not popular, opinion post is immediately (and with alarming outrage) called out for “tone policing” rather than a plea for being fairly and politely heard out … all while actual tone-policing remains rampant. It feels incredibly odd to feel the need to say this next part out loud, but I do: Dogpiling on a well-meaning white person’s disability (or other minoritised aspect of their identity) might be satisfying when you’ve been bullied by privileged white bigots with flimsy excuses your whole life, but any disproportionate, projected public flippance of marginalised experiences eventually end up causing harm to underprivileged folks. Disabilities are an intersectional experience already not taken seriously in many BIPOC communities. Again: What is the end goal? I hope that it’s not a mere blindsided and misplaced vengeance against offending allies with identities that coincide with that of our oppressors: the socially acceptable scapegoat for the human darkness in all of us. Obviously, legitimate enragement as well as constructive criticism offered for better allyship are well within our rights to display. But we would bode well by remembering “mean girls” in school always picked on people-pleasing students with low defenses that were socially acceptable and available to bully. Mean girls were also girls—victims of the patriarchy themselves. If we have so much righteous rage, why not aim the bulk of this powerful ancestral instrument at the transphobes—y’know, like a certain Joanne—rather than the imperfect allies? Surely we have the capacity to accomplish something more impactful?

Privilege is not linear. Whenever we fail to see oppression as systems to be dismantled, refuse to humanise our oppressors, and apathetically base our identity entirely around how oppressed we are, then we are at risk of ignoring our own personal bigotries. (… Many such cases, I’m afraid.) When we see the world only in a black and white dichotomy of good vs bad people rather than a complex intersectional network of identities and systems, and refuse to have empathy and grace for any form of the “other” that we feel threatened by, then we are internalising white supremacist styles of thinking. I am often dumbstruck by the steep—and exclusionary by design—standards for allyship and “true” safe spaces that westerners display on the internet. I have never once experienced these strict attitudes in real life American LGBTQ+ serving spaces, and have a difficult time believing they could actually be enforced. As I witness performative keyboard warrior tennis matches, I feel haunted by the knowledge that this privilege that LGBTQ+ westerners flaunt today—the privilege to ruthlessly single out folks that proudly proclaimed to be allied with them as “not good enough” for relatively minor reasons—has been at the cost of immense historical exploitation of my own people in Bengal. Westerners today get to access the prestigious lives that their ancestors stripped mine of, and that remains the entire reason I myself can’t access higher standards of allyship in my own community today.

It’s hard not to feel resentful, except the current internet blueprint for western utopian exclusivity isn’t the kind of dystopia I yearn for anyway. Corporations reduce our worth only to our labour and our wallets, but I refuse to unquestioningly embrace that narrative to our own detriment even as we attempt to resist it. Growing up in a conservative Muslim-majority country like Bangladesh and subsequently marooned as an international Muslim student abroad, I adore and feel safely cocooned within the diversity of my chosen circles. Our mild conflicts, varying abilities, and differences in worldview about complex issues enrich our wisdom, kindness and allyship to one another and the wider community. Of course, there are boundaries that cannot be crossed, toxic friendships I have ended and estranged myself from to protect my sanity and health. But those cases were complex too. If I wanted to only be in community with people who have experienced the world exactly as I have, who have never hurt, offended or disappointed me, whose apologies have been perfect, whom I never have to laboriously educate about my minoritised experiences—I would have nobody left.

Let me be problematic in private, dammit

In our personal lives, many things we do as individuals are morally neutral, and even the best of us do things that are morally gray. In particular, ethical consumption under capitalism—or even just an ideal maintenance of morals as a human being in general—is difficult. Where do we equitably draw the boundary for comfort vs community? The internet certainly doesn’t know. In real life, most of us commit varying degrees of energy to a limited list of causes that best fit our personal strengths.

The trans community wants us to understand that platforming these books is not a politically neutral act and does promote the original IP, ultimately benefitting its influential and highly dangerous transphobic owner—and that shouldn’t be hard for us to admit. Today’s culture of creators and artists being compelled to publicly justify their every move as sociopolitically virtuous is not only severely unrealistic but can devolve into a PR disaster at the tiniest arbitrarily unsavory framing. The irony is that this virtue signaling behaviour is usually initially encouraged by the very same audience that later throws tomatoes, so blaming the behaviour itself isn’t sufficient if we fail to examine and address why the demand for it was there in the first place, and whether we ourselves are really exempt. Do we have our own priorities straight, or are we lost in the sauce of monitoring the details of other people’s lives at whim?

Supporting these romantasy novels whilst avoiding HP isn’t any meaningful “activism”. Likewise, simply boycotting these books (that don’t themselves give Rowling a paycheck) and raising awareness about them (which can culturally both help kill or sustain the IP), then promptly assuming your work as a trans ally is done is also … not much in the way of true activism; it is, in many ways, just optics. It is step 0. It is morally better than the former action as it establishes cultural indifference to HP and strengthens the integrity of safe spaces, but it does not widen coalition or lead to tangible social change. To say otherwise would be to lend credence to the plea that it was somehow revolutionary (or it can be made radical through reclamation) that a smaller entity apolitically marketed through HP, rather than an age-old, pennies’-worth song and dance within the Rowling empire. And if you indicate that your relatively small act of defiance is somehow groundbreaking or part of some (as of now hypothetical) fully coherent and inclusive political consensus, then yeah—that is virtue signaling too.

It thereby follows that crossing the picket line to review these books—hopefully with disclaimers about their origins—is a simple indulgence in a guilty pleasure, somewhat akin to buying a cup of Starbucks, a Chick-fil-A sandwich, or fries from McDonald’s … and even that analogy is a stretch, because the latter scenarios are far simpler boycotts against multi-million dollar corporations. (Although not without complexity, especially for vulnerable employees at these companies.) For all of the above, if I see a friend doing it—I’ll casually remind them of the sociopolitical consequences, they’ll agree without getting defensive and won’t regard my intentions as personal offense, and then … we’ll simply move on regardless of what they decide to do. “You think you can get away with it just because it’s a gray area!” may not be the accusation you think it is, since that is exactly what “gray area” is meant to imply.

Conclusion: Life & (un)death of the IP

I personally exist online passively, so I want to ask actual participants: What amount of this energy—that, regardless of the debate on the legitimacy of “cancel culture”, has been documented to be tangibly destructive to both a person and their brand—are you also reserving to hold elected officials and large corporations (especially the Big 5) accountable? Perhaps at the very least, we can agree to lay off indie bookstores, whose employees are busy enough trying to survive in the face of an equally insidious entity—Amazon? (You do realise most indie bookstores actually stock HP itself … ? I would imagine that would be the boycott priority, if efficient results were indeed the desired outcome.)

Perhaps we can even take it a step further, and think about whether in our haze to keep those who are already allied with the trans community from buying these comparatively little-known new releases, we are missing the forest for the trees—The marketing doesn’t just “keep HP relevant”, it is actually a symptom of a much more pressing issue: The marketing tactic was chosen, in spite of all legal concerns, because THE HP FRANCHISE IS ALREADY CULTURALLY DOMINANT, primarily due to those unaware of Rowling’s destructive impact. Sadly, politically aware LGBTQ+ allies do not form any majority of the globe, or of book buyers, or of HP consumers. The online book community is a tiny minority in the scale of the world, the western world, and even just the UK. HP was a global phenomenon that has been (along with some of these fics) translated into a myriad of languages, including Bangla, along with eight blockbuster films. Retroactively claiming “The books were awful anyway,” in a ~holier than thou~ tone doesn’t make that true, and it is unrealistic to expect the rest of the world—especially in non-western countries, especially offline—to 1) even hear you and 2) immediately spur into action. Artistic talent doesn’t pick morally good people—just look at Neil Gaiman. Harry Potter is a multigenerational household fucking name, y’all. Wake up. Whether the classic children’s books with problematic undertones we grew up with have an alive or dead author is of little concern of most ordinary people buying a gift for their niece. And yes, that includes LGBTQ+ folks in other parts of the world with entirely different everyday concerns about their own rights—that almost certainly do not involve what westerners are arguing about on Threads (a Meta platform we have obviously miserably failed to boycott since January—and was it worth it?). Frankly, trying to explain this miniscule Dramione ordeal to a single “normal” person in my life to specifically dissuade them from picking up one of these literally non-HP books feels ridiculous, especially in Bangladesh but equally so in the US, and I would have much better luck simply reminding them Rowling is evil and to not buy HP products regardless.

I’m not trying to be purposefully nihilistic to absolve myself of responsibility—or maybe I am, because I am so fatigued by the style of overtly passionate (to put it mildly) western internet feminist discourse and its disproportionate obsession with trivial intracommunal matters, and I believe it is well within my rights to fully unplug, opt out, and conclude it’s simply none of my business; as a Bangladeshi, I have a hard time thinking this discourse is life and death for the HP IP, because it really is not. When the Big 5 publishers are unabashedly showing us proof of that on a silver platter, I would much rather that readers and non-readers of these new releases alike instead banded together and doubled down on ideas for how to educate more folks on Rowling and trans advocacy as we continue to closely monitor how the IP’s popularity evolves.

The tea? We need to cast a wider net. And for that: Just sometimes, get off the internet.

Update: It appears that Julie Soto has bowed out of Romance Con and the events themselves (including EnchantiCon) are taking steps to divulge from HP-related labeling under new management after scores of other authors dropping out. Despite my concerns about liberal purity tests and internet slacktivism (other authors are still being bombarded for blurbing the books and then participating in a panel with the Dramione authors prior to the outburst of criticism), I hope these consequences become a prominent cautionary tale for future literary community members that consider platforming harmful IP.

Postscript—God forbid a woman of colour have hobbies

I have one last thing to say: In terms of the objective fictional content of these new releases, I want to remind everyone that white people aren’t the only ones reading and writing fantastical oppressor x oppressed romances. SenLinYu, author of the upcoming Alchemised (adapted from Manacled), is mixed-race Asian, as well as openly queer, and they should not be referred to as a “white author” anyway.

The original muggle-born vs “pure-blood” identities in HP are fictional and generally can’t directly apply to real-life ethnic identity, though it is the closest possible comparison to certain events. Critical analyses of fictional media can result in enlightening conclusions applicable to real life, but it doesn’t make sense to immediately and very seriously moralise fantastical fiction, or perceive it as prescriptive of the author’s intent. Obviously, conversations about why these particular authors and these particular (cis white M/F) fics were chosen by tradpub, and what responsibilities the authors have in the stories they choose to tell, remain extremely relevant. But whether or not the books include historically ignorant, patriarchy-promoting or racially offensive content (which is all entirely possible) can be deciphered only from reading it, rather than resorting to sweeping negative statements about feminine media.

Fictionally examining steep power dynamics in intimate human relations is not merely some grotesque two-dimensional sexist colonizer fantasy in sheep’s clothing, but a form of complex, nuanced self-introspection that exists across cultures, and is especially universal among women’s and/or romance genres due to the patriarchy. It may be a tempting assumption to make because white supremacy is difficult to unlearn, but white women actually don’t own certain kinds of femininity—Feminine experiences and desires are informed by other intersecting identities, yes, but also commonly shared across identities. (In that vein: Please stop indiscriminately insulting the intelligence of fellow BIPOC and/or queer folks that listen to “white girl music” such as Taylor Swift.) Erasing that heritage within BIPOC cultures for the sake of puritanical pearl-clutching is short-sighted at best, and erases minoritised artists at worst. (Seriously, I need to recommend some danmei and baihe—which can have SO much in common with slash fics—on here.)

Historically prevalent “problematic” (read: gothic and complex) genres and archetypes are nowadays being immediately reduced to a symptom of “internalised phobia”, effectively stripping both author and reader of their agency and participation in the creation and consumption of that media. Perhaps as a reaction to its newfound visibility on BookTok, the recent trend of policing feminine media has been reminiscent of second-wave separatist radical feminism, a choice repackaging of “I’m not like other girls” with implicit misogynistic and queerphobic pitfalls.

I feel concerned at how our black and white worldview towards other human beings are bleeding into and then reflecting back to us in our reading of fiction—especially when we are no longer even able to consider a poorly-behaved child’s ability to grow into a healthy adult. It is dangerous to believe your oppressor will change; it is equally dangerous to not believe in anyone’s ability to change at all. Our movements only exist and flourish because of the truth that oppressors are fallible—and not just to death or imprisonment as they would do to us. I never shipped Dramione either, but it’s not difficult for me to imagine the ship’s potential, if written well. There is no need to extrapolate and generalise about an entire marginalised demographic’s reading comprehension based on a few people’s offhand comments on the internet. Don’t side-eye what you have not made a good faith attempt to understand.

Consume unabashedly feminine media (which has often predicted and determined overall media trends) without feeling the need to say it’s “trash” that you have to “turn your brain off” for. Read Bell Hooks and other BIPOC feminists—who were never and will never be a monolith—and make your politics inclusive. And then refer to Ursula K Le Guin on the necessity of ambiguity: “My guess is that the kind of thinking we are, at last, beginning to do about how to change the goals of human domination and unlimited growth to those of human adaptability and long-term survival is a shift from yang to yin, and so involves acceptance of impermanence and imperfection, a patience with uncertainty and the makeshift, a friendship with water, darkness, and the earth.” ◼️

Daytime Shooting Star: Feminine Desire vs. Feminist Subversion

spoiler warning!

I tried and failed to get hooked on several manga before picking this up, worried that I’ve finally grown out of shoujo. My fears vanished when I was immediately sucked in by Daytime Shooting Star. THIS was the feeling I’d been chasing. Do they make shoujo like this anymore? As I read, I constantly battled raging feelings of equal discomfort and elation at shockingly dark (but very inexplicit and nuanced) content, all the while unable to put it down.

I was reminded viscerally that, above all, shoujo is a study of budding feminine desire. The teen characters are incredibly adorkable and relatable in their fragile, heartfelt coming of age, and despite its complexity, even this story comes with lessons. I loved the inclusion of a mixed-race character with curly hair, and the good-natured allusions towards queerness. (I also must address the sudden mention of Bangladesh in chapter 1 that made me giggle—what was that?!) My initial fears of being too old for the demographic were immediately placated by comments by fellow adult readers online split between “I ate this sort of age gap romance up as a teen but this is so disturbing” and “Sensei you’re hot so please dont be a pedo and date me instead, I’m your age”. I distinctly felt (with some hints in author notes) that I was in good hands as a reader and this was not going to be an oversimplified fictitious fantasy of teacher-student/adult-minor relations that ignores the inherent power/maturity imbalance in real life. There is something clever about the framing of the abusive relationship where I, much like Suzume, felt deeply anxious and aware of the abnormalcy, yet unable to put my finger on exactly what Suzume could do improve her position, and often overlooked how truly horrific (I don’t use that word lightly) Satsuki’s behaviour actually was.

It’s a trick question, one that is intentionally woven into the narrative. Suzume is very obviously a child, and there is no scenario in which a callous, erratic adult such as Satsuki could have “loved” her without causing harm. (For a far, far more decent adult character in a similar position—refer to Love So Life.) Regardless, the depiction of Suzume’s intense romantic feelings and innocence/naïveté as a teen girl is deeply poignant, characteristic of any well-written shoujo manga. Which brings us to the real kicker: The ethical dilemma presented in Daytime Shooting Star isn’t really whether it’s wrong for a 25-year-old teacher to pursue a 16-year-old student. (That much is fairly obvious from the beginning, a position nudged towards the reader in little tidbits just in case. Presented as Satsuki’s mature antithesis and a truly equal lover for Suzume, I adored Mamura’s growth, his singular voice of reason ringing matching the voice at the back of the reader’s mind.) Instead, the reader’s true reckoning is the moral dilemma of the urge to root for Suzume’s joy and success in love even when it’s “wrong”, dumb, or enabling a bad man.

The 2020s has brought fatigue and pushback against the portrayal of women in the 2000s and 2010s media, but often through bypassing empathy entirely and careening instead towards black and white boxes of binary “right” and “wrong”. However, as a deshi person, media scrubbed of morally ambiguous content doesn’t fully address our real lives, with many real life women confined in deeply patriarchal positions. This includes questionable elopements and marriages, along with a myriad of other unfair scenarios that women often had very little agency in, but are still lives they eventually grew into and made wiggle room within, for their authentic selves and happiness. When you get to know people like that, you can’t very well coolly inform them (like many westerners would, without hesitance, on the internet) that their entire existence is politically incorrect. Rather than favouring media that avoids darker content altogether, I have always loved shoujosei for bravely handling it imperfectly.

I don’t think the problem with today’s shoujo (as often cited by disappointed readers) is “too many green flag men”, it’s that otherwise good characters are not put in difficult enough positions. The audience has a part to play in that. I loathe how feminine media can nowadays be immediately tossed aside as “problematic” because it’s not feminist enough by some arbitrary standard, and academic jargon like “male gaze”, “queerbaiting” and “compulsory hetereosexuality” are mis-applied to real artists, with the same outrage as that towards war criminals and abusers. Rage bait-fueled algorithms are ruining fandom spaces, while real life connection to fem media enthusiasts (including neurodivergent and queer communities) remains inaccessible to the folks who need it most.

Given all of the above, I will admit that I was (fearfully) open to the idea of Satsuki and Suzume as endgame. I would, of course, have wished for it to be handled a certain way—a standard that hasn’t always been historically met. As it is, I was very happy with how beautifully and neatly the series soothed the second-lead syndrome of many in its wrap-up. Well, mostly: I hope I have established by now that I am ACAB in fem media. However … after spending the near-entirety of the manga being manipulated by Satsuki in Suzume’s shoes, and then slowly regaining consciousness after he “breaks up” with her and subsequently tries to win her back (good lord), I wanted him to pay. I wanted his crimes to be on the front page of the papers. I wanted Yukichi to truly hold him accountable. I wanted Suzume to be angry. I was willing to forgo how Satsuki was so easily forgiven for his sheer creepy behaviour by everyone (it is a decade-old manga after all, and still ahead of its time), but reading the extra chapter and feeling charmed by Satsuki, and seeing his sheer lack of remorse, was crossing the line. I guess that’s just real life after all. (I say with gritted teeth.)

Anyway, I will let you enjoy Yamamori sensei’s gorgeous artwork, where blank expressions are somehow the most evocative:

Aaaaand that’s on reactionary social responses to women-dominated fandoms gaining a teensy bit of recognition <3

Pattern

• Taylor Swift’s folklore the “Cardigan” by Lion Brand (free)

I have several qualms about this pattern, and though it’s easy to comprehend for the most part, I kind of hate it. But! I have tips below so that you can use this free pattern and OG cardigan reference pictures to make the perfect finished project. It’s also super easy actually even if you’ve never done cables or a large project before.

Materials (used as recommended by the pattern)

• Needles: Takumi Clover US 9 (5.5 mm), 29" circular needles—My first time trying bamboo needles and this brand, I LOVED it. It made continental knitting so easy and fluid. I would recommend longer cables to make the button band part less stressful, and perhaps smaller diameter needles to make the ribbing prettier
• Lion Brand Wool Ease: see rant below
• Buttons: 3 1.25"-diameter La Mode buttons (there are prettier ones out there though they can get frighteningly expensive, pick what you like)

A summary of issues

• the sizing runs very large
• the button band (and, by extension, side panels) is all wrong for sizes other than S/M (the whole pattern is based aound S/M with suggested alterations for other sizes)
• the arms turn out way too long for any size if you follow the instructions
• the back cables (and possibly some others) are spaced distinctly differently from the OG folklore cardigan from Taylor’s site
• the suggested yarn (Lion Brand Wool Ease) is scratchy on sensitive skin, stiff, thicker, more fuzzy than the folklore cardigan (and sheds a lot!), and stretches a lot which makes the cardigan larger than expected

Biggest tips (if you want to knit a cardigan similar to the OG)

• CHECK YOUR GAUGE
• measure yourself to pick size, and size down
• find a bunch of pictures of the OG cardigan in the size that you want & count the stitches from the photos + graph the Lion Brand pattern, and compare before you begin
• make alterations as needed
• DO NOT BLIND BUY LION BRAND WOOL EASE

My best advice would be to just do a big guage swatch (as recommended on the pattern), run it through the wash, block it, measure it, plus assume that the cardigan will additionally stretch out on your body whenever worn. (Also if you’ve never knitted a garment before, the individual pieces absolutely look bigger once assembled and seamed than when they do on the needles while being knit.) The button band will add some width as well.

The button band is the current object of my misery. The cardigan fits like a cute tent, but the buttons beginning near my stomach is a no-go. I would definitely recommend double checking the spacing of the buttonholes on the button band because I kind of wish I’d altered them a little bit according to how I want the front to look. But then, the side panels would have to start slanting higher up towards the neck, so the whole neck should have been a smaller V. And I don’t have the heart to frog all the way back to to that. Still wondering if I should just shift the buttons higher and redo the button band, but I might just leave it as is and call it a day.

The recommended yarn is Lion Brand Wool-Ease, but actually I regret using it because it’s so stretchy and bulky, so the cardigan turned out a lot more chunky (and a lot more stretchy too I’m guessing) than the OG. I even found the finished measurements on the pattern misleading due to the cardigan stretching due to its own weight.

The pattern also calls for very long arms so I would advise just doing 4.5 diamonds for the back and then 4 diamonds for the arms, just like the OG! I thought 4 diamonds would be too short but the off-shoulder fit makes 5 diamonds incredibly long for me, and 4 would have been perfect!

I’m not sure why the instructions were that misleading with the sizing—Partly it’s me messing up with my guage, but I’m thinking it might also be because Lion Brand was basing it off the OG folklore cardigans from Taylor’s website, which I’ve heard run immensely large in a similar fashion. Still, I’m not sure exactly how the sizing compares to that of the XS/S and M/L OG cardigans

I usually am an S for perfectly fitted T shirts, and I get M sized crewnecks/hoodies for a perfect, comfy, borderline oversized fit that isn’t snug over layers. I was confused between knitting the S/M and L/XL because I wanted an oversized fit. I worried the S/M might be too snug and figured it was better to err on the side of it being a bit larger than expected because it’s still possible to style that, while a too-small cardigan would just be unwearable. But I think sizing down is the best way to go for that pattern and yarn if you’re picking between two sizes. The S/M pattern would probably produced something that fits more like a regular L/XL you would expect to see in a store.

Also, the yarn is fuzzy and pills a lot! It’s also slightly scratchy even after conditioning. So I would say just pick a durable yarn that creates a fabric that you love first before you start the project!

The Lion Brand pattern’s back cables are spaced slightly differently from the OG cardigans. (The OG had some moss stitched space between the two left cables on either end and the group of other cables in the center.) There might be other differences too. I know there are some other patterns out there you can pay for and they might be more accurate to the OG, but I would recommend simply looking up pictures of the OG cardigan in the size that you’re aiming for, and then taking note of the differences and making the alterations yourself! The stitches are fairly easy to count!

I have a breadth of regrets about this project (and some of it is just post-project blues, y’know?), but you live and you learn, folks! And I definitely learned a lot from this project. :) Will come back here and update once I add the (very expensive) silver star patches I’ve been procrastinating to buy because I’m so broke and so sad about how it turned out. I’m confident all the time I’ve spent on her will culminate in me surely falling in love with her soon enough. <3

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood: a critically kind review from a femme acespec physicist <3

> scroll to the next section for my review on the physics academia content in this book!

First, a quick romance novel review!

spoiler: it wasn’t my favorite but I gave it a ⭐️⭐️⭐️.75 because being a writer has made me a generally more appreciative reader + I am so starved of woman in physics rep.

the good

• It just felt good to read about a woman physicist, who are still incredibly underrepresented in fiction, especially as protagonists. (I’ll go off about that in a minute.)
• The romance is so swoony with shoujo manga vibes, I haven’t read straight M/F adult romance novels in a while and I just loved the flutteriness of it.
• A couple of chapters were so soft with excellent pillowtalk. There was something about the ambience of the snow, the hypnotic sadness of failure, the prescence of a comforting person.
• I enjoyed identifying the relatable parts about physics academia. Hazelwood clearly did a lot of research, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It definitely kept me reading!

the bad

• The academia issues are so over-simplified it’s almost juvenile. For an adult novel, even one marketed as a romcom, I expect more nuance, more explanations, more explicit lingering in tight positions.
• And then the romance tries to be complex (and has a lot of potential!) but not a lot of conflict really happens.
• A fictional physics fued between theorists and experimentalists is a really fun (and actually not far off) concept, but I would have expected some things to be the other way around. (More on that later!)
• Okay this is personal but the main couple both have terrible taste in movies. Twilight vs white male rage movies??? There is no lesser evil here
• Elsie’s hardships aren’t put in a very serious light. Her diabetes and lack of access to health insurance is used as a plot device to engineer romantic momentum between the characters and/or comic relief.
• Just overall, the book tried so hard to remain “light” that I think it fails to garner depth. Because adult lives really aren’t that light all the time, and a book can bring relaxation and joy whilst including real worldly negative experiences.
• There were aroace and sapphic side characters, but I wanted so bad for Elsie to be demisexual. It’s set up so perfectly only for it to be averted—As a demisexual person myself, Elsie’s feelings about attraction felt acutely familiar to me, and every other reader I’ve spoken to has agreed that the book took a dissapointing and unexpected turn. I understand Hazelwood may not feel equipped to write queer protagonists but if I were her editor, I would have flagged that and recommended she make it canon. It would have added so much more context and dimension to Elsie, and would’ve put hetero demisexuals on the map. </3
• Following up on the above: The smut tries so hard to be meaningful but it … really is icky, stereotypical, unrealistic allocishetero stuff. Think: the shy inexperienced girl vs the man who knows exactly how to advise her. The characters try to subvert the trope by calling it out, but it feels performative because all is forgotten in the next second. The PiV sex is weirdly conventionally idealistic considering the pairing’s size difference. I’m picky about smut but also forgiving when I do like the dynamic. I just didn’t here.
• Following up once again: I was ready to ignore all the repetitive comments about how sexy Jack’s height and muscles were, because sure, I guess Elsie has a type. But the sex scenes solidified the redundancy of it all. I’ve read this same dynamic in countless smutty heteronormative M/F paperbacks. And I have also been made aware by every Hazelwood reader that all her books focus on this kind of physical build pairing. I just want more diversity, you know?
• IDK, I just wanted more physics in here than complaining about teaching, glossed over toxic mentors, and using some quirky physics term in every other sentence. (More on that below!)
• I just wanted … more? It’s not an extremely short novel, but both the plot and the character development fell flat. The ups and downs were too fast and easy, and the placement felt off. I finished the book and wondered, “That’s it? That’s all that happened?” It just wasn’t fulfilling. The side characters aren’t expanded upon, and don’t get enough pagetime. My other romance reads this year were Bellefleur’s The Fiancee Farce and Mcquiston’s One Last Stop. In both of those novels, the drama was fleshed out with so much care and detail. In comparison, Love, Theoretically may mention similar social difficulties in passing, but failed to really, really show us.

Overall … the novel was fun for being about physicists but I really don’t see myself picking up another Hazelwood book, especially considering this isn’t even a debut novel. The conventional white steminist vibe and the particular allocishetero M/F dynamic just isn’t my thing.

But perhaps a reader wanting more of a novel and its characters is a good problem to have. Never say never, I guess! I look forward to keeping tabs on what Hazelwood publishes in the future!

Now, onto the physics!

First, most physicists, as good scientists, understand that theory and experimentation are fundamentally linked. It’s true that we each are often biased towards our own methods of research, but it is quite a stretch to imagine full professors so blatantly feud against others solely because of theory vs experimentation. Regardless, I was happy to suspend my disbelief for the sake of the plot that was framed in a genre-specific, lighthearted, humorous way.

Secondly, both theory and experimentation have sources of funding that are motivated in different ways, and Hazelwood’s decision to have the theorists struggle with funding cuts due to declining interest in pop culture/the general public is actually quite credible. Experimentation garners a lot more interest from the application and engineering end of society, parts that are easily fueled by capitalism.

However, I think experimentalists in general are far less likely to be mean to theorists than the reverse scenario. Dr Fatima Abdurrahman has a great video essay about that called on her YouTube channel called “Quantum Physics, Feminism, and Objective Reality: What Physicists Don’t Want You to Know About Quantum Mechanics.” Dr Fatima outlines how old white men in physics have maintained this image of unwavering scientific objectivity in the name of rigor, despite studying a field that fundamentally is barely fathomable for humans. In simpler terms: Men, even in theory, pretend to be better, smarter, and more valid as physicists despite being in an infamously iffy field. And I would have liked to see that represented. It was just really hard for me to buy narcissistic grad students mansplaining Elsie about her field, and Elsie’s righteous feminine rage, when the field in question is … physics theory? It just didn’t make sense to me, when all of my personal experiences point to the opposite.

But every cloud has a silver lining, and having a woman theorist in a physics field that’s less popsci-oriented is actually … really cool. And having her love interest be a man in experimentation … sort of subverts gender roles and conventional media expectations.

Let me explain. The reality is that when women are represented in STEM, media prefers to put them in biology, like a nurse to a doctor, a people-oriented nurturer, a mere sidekick to the real “objective” scientist—often a mathematician or an astrophysicist who is always a man. And when women are placed in physics, they are automatically assigned to observational astronomy, which is dismissed as passive and easy. (This is wildly untrue—though styles of research in astronomy has interestingly allowed a somewhat more diverse array of researchers in history. Even today, you’ll see a higher frequency of women and queer people in every astronomy department.)

I think my ideal version of this novel would be retaining Elsie in theory, while also making theorists the overall bad guys in the feud. I would love to have her talk about the unique sexism she faces as a theorist. I would kill for a scene in which Jack gets gobsmacked by how fucking good at math she really is, compared to him (instead of, like, only making fun of it like it’s easy). I would love to read about her getting a tour of his lab, and just more physics content. But maybe I’m the only one saying that, because I’m a physicist. Maybe Hazelwood simplified it all to keep the book appealing to the general masses.

Still, it all read more like a girlpower!!! chant rather than a real commitment to represent a woman in STEM. I savored every moment Elsie or George would go off about physics. I loved Elsie’s conversations with Olive, a different STEM academic. (Monica was more complicated and actually quite interesting, and I wish we could have seen more of her. Heck, I wish we had actually been given any tangible info about Jack’s mom, even.) But I genuinely felt these instances were rare. Elsie referred to being a physicist a lot (and frankly, her mind is more physics-y than any IRL physicist considering the sheer number of physics-inspired figures of speech she uses … but I excused that as silly comic relief, a quirk in Hazelwood’s writing style). But she didn’t tangibly do physics on page. It was disappointing, considering women characters in STEM is what Hazelwood is known for.

And there are physicists who love teaching—even physicists who solely want to teach. Physicists who do pedagogy research. I know the book was mainly trying to criticise the adjunctification and dismissal of physics higher education, and it’s actually quite accurate in representing that most physicists in academia would prefer not to teach. But the excecution also ends up erasing physicists who aren’t in academia just for research. And I say this especially because the validity of teaching physicists as physicists is dismissed in real life. It’s used as justification to further force all physics academics to try to juggle between both research and teaching, whether they want to or not.

Which leads us to bad mentors. I’ve had a bunch of those. As Olive pointed out in an excellent quote, “Academia is so hierarchical, you know? There are all these people who have power over you, who are supposed to guide you and help you become the best possible scientist, but . . . sometimes they don’t know what’s best. Sometimes they don’t care. Sometimes they have their own agenda. […] Sometimes they’re total shitbuckets who deserve to step on a pitchfork and die.” And the thing is, the novel really doesn’t show us any of that (perhaps other than in Monica). We don’t fully get to know what happened to Jack’s mom, or Olive. We are not shown what Dr L’s agenda really was. Their final confrontation was so quick, when in reality shitty mentors are often sticky and entwined with your work, hard to cut off and scarier to talk back to even after you’ve finally realized they’re toxic.

Which isn’t to say the novel is just inadequate about everything. It’s correct in how goofy physics faculty are, and how white man-dominated the field is, how students try to mansplain women profs, how theorists madly work on their computers (as an experimentalist, I could never understand), how publishing is finicky (to put it kindly), and how tenured faculty fail to understand the reality of the job market in academia today. There are certain parts (like the quote above!) where I felt incredibly seen as part of a minoritized identity group in STEM academia. It’s rare to have a book written from this PoV, and as a first I think this novel will always be special for me!

If you’re interested in reading about more fictional women physicists, I would highly recommend skimming through this list I made on GoodReads (and feel free to add more!).

And if you’d like to support memoirs and science communication books by IRL women physicists, then look to further than this other list I’ve also made. (We’re actually currently seeing a boom in these which is inanely exciting to me, so again, contributions are always welcome!)