Human to human. JKR is a piece of shit. We thought, as a whole, that was common knowledge. We did not endeavor to make this game to "celebrate" anything that comes from her mouth. We created this game, intentionally set before canon, with the idea that a whole lot of things would be changed over the course of time.
We've seen some incredibly heated opinions directed our way because we didn't put disclaimers up on our game stating our opinions. That was never a malicious intention.
Head mod + helper mods are all LGBTQ+. Head mod here, I genuinely assumed it just went without saying. I never expected it would hit so many uncomfortable notes for so many people, to the extent that I'm attacked for the entire premise.
jesus christ on a cracker - i don't go here but you would yeah think in a generally left-leaning, queer-leaning space as dw rp that these things would be a given. sorry you're dealing with all this, dudes, hogwarts/harry potter is a great world to play with and if some people don't have enough divide to understand that then it's just sad for them.
Is this seriously happening? I also don't go here, but my very first RP game was set in the world of Harry Potter and it's a very fun world to play in. That's the beauty of transformative works - you don't have to stick to the author's intentions. You can take things and change them.
A lot of JKR's worst side has only really come out in recent years - a lot of us despise JRK's person irl while still having very fond memories of a series we grew up with, and there's power in taking it and making it something of your own, that she can't touch.
I don't go here either, but I'm also sorry so many people feel the need to be ugly. I haven't played in a strictly Harry Potter/Wizarding World game in ages, but it's such a great canon - regardless of the fact that its creator turned out to be... all of that.
I don't go here either and WTF. You can like the story and the world the author created without condoning the author's shitty takes on IRL things. I'm sorry you guys are dealing with this nonsense.
Head mod here on my personal plurk. I also want to clarify in regards to the seemingly "strange" timing of the game opening: I personally got extremely excited when that Hogwarts RPG was announced, realized I didn't want to support her financially and decided to have my fun HP times in RP land. That was the motivation behind this game.
I was hoping that it would be a similar situation for others who may want to splash around in the world without any gross ties to JKR herself. I didn't think it would be seen as something in the opposite direction of that.
Also don't go here, but I'm so sorry to hear this is a thing. RP, like fanfiction, is a transformative work where you take a creator's content and reshape it. For that reason, it should be clear there's a huge difference between supporting the fiction an author has created and supporting their own personal bigotry.
Especially when the author has no say in what you do with the characters or the world, nor does she make any profit off it. So I wish you all the fun and prosperous RP times for the future!
I genuinely appreciate those of you voicing support, I know I speak for myself and the mod team when I say it's reassuring that not everyone feels so strongly about the existence of this game.
This plurk isn't to condemn anyone with feelings one way or the other, I fully acknowledge that JKR is a sore subject. I understand those feelings. But what I don't understand is the automatic assumption that I, personally, am a piece of shit because I wanted to make a HP game.
I'm also trans by the by. I saw that plurk side eyeing it. It's not universal and imo hinges heavily on the idea you're magically all cis straighty cises. I normally assume the opposite in dwrp anymore, it's just more statistically likely everyone's queer and/or trans.
Assuming everyone trans feels so burned by JKR they wouldn't want to touch the world with a ten foot pole is ignoring that some trans people just don't want her to get money and accolaes
It's unfortunately a trend that I've seen develop over the past few years. Where we used to always understand that liking a problematic character/fandom/whatever didn't necessarily mean that person supported the problematic aspects themselves, nowadays there's a lot of people who... don't have that understanding.
So liking a character with racist traits must mean that you yourself are a racist, etc. And I don't understand what led people to believe these sorts of things, short of 'if you don't condemn these traits, it must mean you approve of them'.
It's one of those if you want to play around in a flawed world created by a flawed person things, make sure to note the other intersectional things where she fucked up when doing your depiction.
I would just make the goblins look more like the way they're described in the first book, because I reread that a while back and the description there is far less horrible than the way they look in the movie.
The good thing with her was a lot of her flawed shit was in her description? Easily avoidable. That's one of the things where the actual creature concept was flawed
Meow Knight
: any 1 dimensional money grubbing species that only exists to be greedy is usually just... some kind of bias they're smart enough to not bake into humans though. Like yeah someone's gotta staff the banks but that's not a hugely vital part of hp either.
1 dimensional money grubbing monsters have unfortunately been a part of fiction for such a long time that there's a very blurred line there. I mean, just look at Smaug.
Yeah, I think the concept of the goblins themselves isn't bad, because again, just look at the legend of dragons/monsters guarding treasure and whatnot, but the execution just went horribly wrong.
Anyway people are well within their rights to be uncomfortable with the game and avoid it. I think levels of how upsetting are sometimes based on personal experiences, how much HP featured as important to your childhood, etc. But it shouldn't reflect on the mods in liking parts of the world.
From the moment of conception, my dream for the game is to be able to give people ways to enjoy the setting how they want to. Don't want to engage with DEs? Stay in school, you're safe there. Want to get involved at the ministry? Work towards it! Want fun slice of life magical times? Go for it, everyone is welcome.
Of course! There's nothing stopping any of this from being ICly addressed. We have an NPC request mechanic that can be utilized to have those discussions with whatever professor or NPC that you want your character to engage with.
reminded of a story about someone who went to the eye doctor and they said that if the patient needed to rinse their eyes, they could use boiled water THAT HAD COOLED DOWN. like the doctor specifically made the patient look them in the eye while they said "BOILED WATER. THAT IS NOW COOL. NOT BOILING CURRENTLY WATER"
Hi, I just want to make it clear that though I can't speak for the anon plurk (since I only briefly skimmed that one), the other plurk I was in didn't contain any attacks against anyone.
my own opinion was that i felt it was in poor taste to make an HP game the year her bullshit came to a head and not make any sort of comment or disclaimer about the issues, anywhere, at all, because JKR's terfism has cut deep and left a lot of people hurt.
I didn't make any sort of comment to the mods or feedback because....I don't plan on apping and it's not my game, so it wasn't really my business? i dont usually leave feedback for games i'm not in, in general
That's totally fair! And you know, admittedly I never stopped to think "too soon", i barreled straight through that into "fuck jkr i'm doing what i want" and at the time, HP game sounded like a fun idea.
yeah a disclaimer's a good idea. But if people feel so strongly they're going to start rebloggable anon plurks someone should probably drop a faq comment first
i mean, i think its understandable that someone who wasnt sure what the mods' stance on jk rowlings opinions were wouldnt want to engage with them directly about them
If you're just feeling personally uncomfortable/talk it over with friends that's one thing but the second it crosses over to like a replurkable anon plurk
🐅 its harry
: I can understand that, but I also can't help but think that's what the FAQ/PMs are for... to figure out if it's a situation you want to engage in
Again, it's on me for not stopping to think to clarify bc the entire consensus in my friend group is "jkr is shitty so therefore everyone HAS to think so right?" but. Again, I have to encourage the use of the FAQ because I'm not going to have all of the foresight necessary to know what I do and don't need to actively clarify.
Yeah imo I don't begrudge someone not commenting on a faq or even talking it over with friends, but let's not pretend repurkable public anon plurks are anything other than a public shaming
honestly i think a little public shaming is warranted in this situation im afraid but i think the point where it was possible for it to be linked on wankgate is a disaster for everybody
speaking again as an outsider to the game, I'm sorry y'all are in this mess, mods. I sadly don't have time to app to the game, but I assumed it was run by people who don't condone jkr's views. since rpers tend to take aspects of a canon we like and fuck the rest we don't wanna deal with (I play from comics so I know this too well lmao)
I argued with myself a lot over whether I wanted to remain anonymous or come forward, and for the sake of full disclosure and honesty and an attempt to reign this situation in, I felt like bringing my authentic self to the table was what was best.
There were so many people speaking directly my way and assuming I'm a shifty TERF supporter, which genuinely made me feel gross. I'd hope that anyone who sees this and knows me knows that is not who I am and that I am not a shitty person bc I wanted to make an HP game.
honestly ive modded a lot in the past and if id done something like this i would be fine with getting a lil shit about it haha but yeah im glad you were able to clarify
i will say i dont think its fair to say "people shouldnt assume" as if that's the solution to everything that happened here when the inciting problem here was that people werent willing to assume what the mods' intentions were and the mods thought they would
Since I was the main person protesting that we should probably drop it bc we have fundamental differences in opinion on how rpers should handle mod contact
speaking as someone outside the game but who had an amazing time in an hp game way back when, I'd assumed your stance on jkr's awfulness was exactly this, but am glad to see it here because now I can have schadenfreude about what she would think of dwrp appropriating everything good and nostalgic about the canon and yeeting the terfness right out the door.
Chiming in that I agree that it's a good thing to have the mod stance on JKR's shittitude made clear when running an HP game, but I'm just gonna say: there's a big gulf between "you shouldn't expect people to guess what you meant when you didn't state your stance" and "if you don't state your stance then it's fine if people assume the worst on no evidence"
(I get that no one's defending that as a good decision/good behavior here, but there seems to be some murmurings that it's understandable that people acted that way, if that makes sense...?)
(When...no, it does not make sense for people to decide "no evidence" means "guilty", and just because the mods could have avoided this by stating their stance up front doesn't mean that some people weren't acting in very bad faith by not trying to get some clarification before making some pretty serious accusations in the public sphere)
Anyway. I can understand people being uneasy not knowing, and that discomfort maybe leading to an unwillingness to engage with the mods/tje game, and if that was what the mods were being held accountable for I'd say that's reasonable enough! That is definitely a consequence that can arise directly from not clearly stating their stance.
But no one should have been assuming they knew what the mods' stance was when the mods literally hadn't stated what said stance was, and they certainly shouldn't have been starting shit based on their own baseless assumptions.
And yeah, I very much disagree that public shaming was required to fix this problem, because...yeah, this is a problem that even purely anonymous questions or concerns could have fixed. No one needed to be harassed or accused of anything to resolve this.
And the idea that public shaming is a reasonable response to problems that can be resolved long before that point is the sort of mindset that has made modding such a hostile environment specifically, and also is at the root of a lot of the communication issues with the RP sphere in general.
i have no direct horse in this race so i’m just here to agree with what seems like the mostly common consensus re: what communication should’ve happened + to express to the mod that you’ve handled this with such chill and i dig that.
No real, true harm done in the end. It was a conversation that needed to be had and it just happened to be on an anonymous platform where it's easier to say things and get carried away with the other voices.
another horseless non-racer here, but damn sorry you had to deal with this. crazy how much needless drama can be avoided by the simple and straightforward solution of "maybe consider talking to the person first"
no horse in this race but I've considered putting a horse in, so I'm both very happy to have this stance on Her made explicit and very disappointed someone didn't just Ask First... assumptions aren't helpful with things like this
Hello, I haven’t join this game, but I am really sorry that you guys are getting some flak right now. I currently play Harry in two games so far, so I can relate since 1 person didn’t want me to interact with them as Harry in one of those games possibly because of this.
Yikes, you can disagree with things she's said or be offended by them but so far I am unaware of JK being a mass murderer or anything. Can we dial back the hate? Sorry to see a game based on a fictional book taking the heat. People do need to realize there can be a divide.
cool motive, still solved by asking (1) question.<<<< that, dudes