Fantastic Besties (and Where to Find Them)

I am a massive Potterhead. I am part of the generation who grew up with Harry Potter, who eagerly awaited each new books release. I cried when I watched the last film, was one of the first people in the world to see The Cursed Child and I have Harry Potter merchandise scattered around my bedroom. To say that I am a fan is an understatement, Harry Potter is part of who I am, and it makes up my very essence as a person.

Naturally, like many Potter fans, I was very excited when Fantastic Beasts was announced so much so that months in advance I made plans with my three best friends Chelle, Ray and Faye to go and see the film, however this wouldn’t be a normal outing.

Those who have followed my journey here on Safe Space will know that I’ve been making massive progress with my agoraphobia, PTSD and anxiety this past year and I decided that I wanted to tackle my biggest challenge yet: going to the area where my abusive ex lives to go to the cinema and watch Fantastic Beasts. I haven't set foot in this part of town for years and I finally felt like I was ready to tackle my biggest demon.

And then, the Johnny Depp casting news was announced.

For some Potter fans, this was nothing more than a distasteful choice (if problematic to them at all) but when I read the news I actually broke down in tears. You see, Harry Potter has always been a safe space for me. It was also a massive source of comfort to me when I came out of the abusive relationship. When I was bruised and broken it gave me the strength to get up and fight and restored my faith in humanity. So Johnny Depp, a known abuser, being cast felt like a massive betrayal to me, I felt so let down and for a time I felt lost. I made the personal choice to not support this part of the Wizarding World and cancelled my plans to see this film telling my friends to go and see it without me. That was when something unexpected happened.

I woke up to a message saying that they’d been talking and they would rather not see the film and see me instead, a decision that I found incredibly moving. So on the 20th November, the day that we were supposed to go and see Fantastic Beasts, we got together and went for a meal at a pub right next to the cinema so that I could still face my biggest trigger with them by my side.

Looking back I still can’t quite believe that I did it, especially because I was so incredibly anxious that morning but my girls got me through. Over the past year I have faced so many of my demons and they have been by my side every step of the way. They are my Harry, Ron and Hermione not letting me face the darkness alone. They are the tribe that I dreamed of someday finding ever since I was a little girl who learnt what true friendship is from these books.

Magic aside, at the core of Harry Potter is the message of standing up for what you believe to be right, which is something that I feel like I did that day for the women and men in the world who live in fear of their abusers, but also for myself. I took a stand that said this is not okay, I am not supporting that and did something for myself instead and my friends cared about me enough to support me in my decision. Forget Fantastic Beasts, I have fantastic friends and they can be found by my side, always.

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The Fandom Connection

Now you may have realised that I rather like Harry Potter.

In the nearly 20 years (dear lord that's basically three-quarters of my life) since I first read Harry Potter along with an entire swathe of my generation, those books and that world have become so utterly ingrained in my life and personal identity that I *LITERALLY* could not imagine the kind of person I would be now if I'd never read Harry Potter.

Who in the world would I be if I hadn't grown up wanting to be Hermione Granger (I related to her big front teeth woes like crazy & obvs the bookish obsession was a given)? Who would I be now if I hadn't spent a worrying amount of time creating a mock-up Hogwarts letter for my original character (I believe I called her Natalie Parker) who I may have written stories about or at the very least did a lot of imagining about. I am damn near certain that I still have that letter in a folder somewhere in this house. I have drawings in a sketchbook that are Harry Potter-related and you should know that I am *not* an artist and my art skills are damn near zilch. Would I have been making up stories to roleplay in the playground in primary school if I hadn't read Harry Potter? Quite possibly, I was *that* kid.

None of these expressions of fandom ever made it to the internet like happened for a lot of people in the Harry Potter fandom, I was never on the fanfiction or fan-art sites so it wasn't until I was a lot older that I really engaged with other fans outside of my real-life friendship group - believe me not many of the folk I was friends with in high school were on the same level of obsessed I was.

Weirdly it was Twilight that brought me into the online fandom experience, with my meteoric rise & fall of love for that series back in 2008. If you are in the handful of people that have known me and Jess for a long-ass time then you might have heard the cute-yet-hilarious story of how we met and became the inseparable & slightly eerie double-act we are today. But pretty much from that time I spent ignoring work at Sixth Form to spend hours on the computer trawling the Twilight Lexicon for god knows what reason, I have run to the internet to find people who love the same things I do and talk about them.

Is this scarf all now a LIE??

Harry Potter is such a normalised part of my life, a staggering portion of my clothing is from Primark with it's ever-changing array of fandom stuff to collect like a fiend, it is not a weird thing for me to mentally sort people and characters from other book series into Hogwarts houses, I will make judgements about people I meet, especially if they are of a similar age to me and HAVE NOT READ THE BOOKS, even though I suppose it's unreasonable to expect everyone in my generation to have done so. The fact that the updated Pottermore sorting quiz recently put me in Gryffindor after I identified as Ravenclaw since I was probably about 10 was enough to rock my entire sense of identity.



But thanks to this fandom I'm friends with people who also don't find any of those things I just mentioned strange! I can say to someone "I think so-and-so is such a Hufflepuff" and that has meaning even when a word processor will be side-eyeing me with red squiggles. Harry Potter has created a whole language and value system that transcends the pages that J.K. Rowling wrote and has been absorbed in the cultural mindset of my generation and God how I love that.

I know there are other fandoms which have a similar importance in other people's lives as Harry Potter has in mine and if the internet has been able to bring a fraction of the awesome friendships & life-changing experiences to those people then I am ecstatically happy for them.

We all should be able to surround ourselves with the like-minded people who share our passions and strive for the best future we can imagine ourselves being a part of and connecting to those people through fandoms is often a brilliant stepping stone to deeper & lasting relationships that will exist long after the source of your fandom ceases to supply new materials for you to obsess over.

Obviously in the case of the Harry Potter fandom, 2016 is the year we all power back up into ultimate Potterheads and lose our collective minds in the joy of NEW SHINY STORIES. I for one, will be sobbing unashamedly the entire time I'm watching the Cursed Child in August and also probably during the Fantastic Beasts film in November. How about you?

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The Power of the Internet; Friendships

Just like with everything else, friends come in all shapes and sizes - they also come from many different places and today I wanted to focus on long-distance friendships.

Ever since the internet arrived in my house (I was 13), I have been conversing with people from all over the world. Very quickly I was considering these people my friends and I was closer to them then I was to anyone I was at school with. Mostly because I really struggled with my friends in school. From being ignored for no reason, to being teased, to having to sit through sex talk, etc, I ended up flitting from one group of friends to the next like a yo-yo and never really feeling like I belonged. It became easier to deal with knowing that when I got home I could talk to my real friends. School and my friendships there meant nothing to me, the internet meant everything.

Before I continue on, I want to let you know that I know all about the problems with creepy people on the internet trying to lure children. I was aware then and I am aware now. This is in no way a post to say it doesn't happen, this is just my experience of how things panned out. 

The people that I spoke to were people that I was writing with - we were roleplaying. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a game where you are on a forum and you have a character or two and you interact with other people's characters. I ended up on Harry Potter Roleplaying forums and really enjoyed coming up with plots and writing out scenes with my friends. It wasn't until I had been writing and talking to people for three years before I even considered meeting any of them. Three years meant that I was fairly sure they were who they said they were plus, it would take a lot of effort to keep up a charade for three years including writing on a forum daily so I was fairly confident I knew it wasn't a creep on the other end of the computer. But before I went, we all had a skype session as well, so we all know what everyone looked like too!

Meeting my first two internet friends was an amazing experience. It felt like we'd known each other for years - I mean, we had. We hugged for the first time and it was wonderful, and then we grabbed coffee and chatted together for hours. It was such an incredibly experience. I left them both promising to meet up with them again for sure. I never did. I have now, in fact, lost touch with them both which is incredibly sad but also a part of life. They were in my life when I needed them and I was in theirs when they needed me.

Since that first meeting, I've met a lot more of my online friends. And every single time it is an amazing experience. It's like we've known each other for years and that added goodness of actually seeing them and being able to hold them and hug them is incredible. Because as amazing as having internet friends is, having real life people around you for comfort is a good thing. It also makes the friendships stronger because you suddenly know for sure that the person you're conversing with is real and they're wonderful and amazing and always there if you need them.

These days most of my online friends are bloggers like myself - although I am still in touch with some of my roleplaying buddies, ten years and counting! - and, fortunately, a lot of them are based in the UK and we get to meet fairly regularly with all of the blogger meet ups, etc. But there are still some online friends that I have never met and, honestly, may never have the opportunity to meet due to where they are based in the world. Such as two of my most favourite people living in Australia.

And thus I wanted to end this post on the downside of online friendships. Because although I love having people I can talk to with similar interests, people who have helped keep me sane over the years - sort of - and who have stopped me from doing the terrible things my brain sometimes tells me to do. There are drawbacks to only knowing someone online. You can never hold them and hug them. You can never look into their eyes. You can often feel hopeless when they're struggling because you're miles away unable to really help. You can feel sad and alone yourself because they're not online when you need them and even if they were, they couldn't help you anyway. It might not be the person you think it is.

But even with those downsides, I wouldn't stop having my online friends. My online friends are the ones that know me inside out. They've heard my deepest secrets and healed my deepest hurts. They metaphorically hug me when I need it and wipe the tears from my eyes. My soul is open to them and it's wonderful. All of my online friends have become closer to me than most of my offline friends and once again, knowing they're there helps me get through each day. And, in this wonderful world of technology, I am also able to contact them whenever and wherever I am. 

So to me online friendships are just as, if not more valid, than offline friendships. They're the glue that keeps me from breaking, the crutches that keep me from falling. Without them, I'd have crumbled a long time ago.

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