“The BEST action movie ever made” I scoff; as I read the only review on the front of the Mad Max Fury Road DVD. That’s a bold claim; I think to myself …I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO WRONG. AND I HAVE NEVER READ A REVIEW SO RIGHT.
So I’ve been seeing this post floating around Tumblr about how Harry should have retrieved the Resurrection Stone and imagine how wonderful it would have been for the characters to have closure with their loved ones and how beautiful and emotionally satisfying and and and… heart-wrenching stuff.
But… that’s completely not what the Resurrection Stone does.
The Stone is a liar, designed by Death to draw people away from life. The Second Brother literally goes insane from the image of his lost love, and kills himself to join her in death. And if you don’t believe the fairy tale (heh), look at what happens when Harry uses the Stone: Yes, his mother, father, Sirius and Remus appear, but they lure him to death. They literally encourage him to walk to his supposed grave. What does StoneLily say? “You’ve been so brave”. Compare that to the urgency of Goblet of Fire’s ShadowLily. Do they seem quite the same? Does it seem quite like Remus to be so passive in the face of dying before getting to know his son? Or for Sirius to encourage anyone to simply accept their death lying down?
Time and again, J. K. Rowling has emphasized the importance of “moving on” in the context of death. Think about it. Harry has another experience with the memories of his parents which nearly derails him - the Mirror of Erised. The Stone - which creates a far more tangible memory and far more dangerous allure - is devastating by nature. It’s not heartwarming or romantic or sweet. Frankly, I’m baffled that we would forget such a critical part of the Stone’s mythology. It is no less a murder weapon than the Elder Wand. It simply kills in a more roundabout way.
Sometimes it feels like beautiful
is the party of the year, and I wasn’t invited
(but I went anyway).
And inside, the baseline pulses
with my heartbeat and there are all these
perfect mouths: open and laughing
in the strobing darkness.
A boy who is all sharp jaw and white teeth
settles in behind me, hands on my hips,
close enough to kiss–
he leans in, licks his lips, says:
Sorry. I thought you were somebody else.
The joke
is that I am always trying to be
someone else.
It’s a magic trick, and
I haven’t gotten the hang of it, yet.
But it is a chore to love this body.
And on the days I do love it,
I usually don’t like the person inside of it.
I used to joke that all my sex appeal
instantly disappears the minute I open
my mouth.
I don’t say that anymore,
because that’s a shitty thing to say about yourself.
But the point still stands
that I feel helplessly awkward
being the person that I am.
Sometimes, I think my heart is actually
that sweet, pale pink you find
in babies’ bedrooms:
an organ made, not of blood, but
of the compressed powder from
a makeup compact. Softly blushing.
Given to crumble.
Sometimes I think that I’m only loud
so you won’t see how bad I’m shaking.
All this bravado to make up for the fact
that I am inherently fragile.
All these panic attacks dressed up as poetry,
just cries for help, desperately begging you
to love me.
You have no idea how many years I have been
second choice.
Imagine, being nobody’s first priority:
the one who’s left but never the one who leaves.
Trust me when I say, I know what it means
to keep swallowing pride
just to give your heart something
to eat.
Because when you don’t feel worthy,
you’ll take anything.
In the aftermath,
I stitch my body up with
one night stands and stolen kisses.
I write myself into my own story
as the villain, because I feel like
a poor excuse for a hero.
I keep collecting compliments in a jar
on the bedside table, hoping that maybe
if the jar gets full
I might finally be able to believe them.
It is hard to believe the people telling you
you are beautiful
when there is so much evidence to the contrary:
when there is so much unrequited love,
an entire childhood full of bullying,
when the ones who kiss you are
never the ones who stay.
So today
I am rebuilding what it means
to feel beautiful.
Today, beautiful is
knees covered in sidewalk chalk.
Today, beautiful is
hands riddled with paper cuts.
It’s bitten nails and bedhead.
Beautiful
is a warm cup of coffee and
someone to share it with.
Today, beautiful is something tangible:
something that I can get
and I can give
and I want all of you
to have it.
so apparently “asexual reproduction” is no longer the preferred scientific term, so if anyone makes a sponge joke or whatever just scream “IT’S AGAMETIC KNOW YOUR SCIENCE” and throw a textbook at them
For all my younger followers beginning to think about college.
If salary and paying back student loans are major criteria and not factored with other things, then this is bad idea. It will end up promoting tech, engineering, and business schools and schools that produce typically underpaid but socially valuable careers (teachers, social workers, mental health counselors) or pretty much anything humanities related will suffer. There has to be more to the criteria than just that (although using the site it looks more like a filter on a search than an actual ranking system).
The good thing I see here is that each college scorecard lists 1) typical financial debt after graduation and 2) racial and class diversity, although there’s no way to sort all colleges by these criteria. There’s also some usual ranking stuff or general important information that’s strangely missing (average class size, teacher/student ratio, gender ratio, whether they have related graduate schools).
Heads up on a little maintenance that’s going on: We’re in the midst of emailing some folks who haven’t logged into Tumblr for over two years, because a lot’s changed in two years and we think they’d be excited to see what’s new. They’ll get a chance to log in again and and pick up right where they left off, or to allow their URL(s) to expire. Even if they don’t respond but return to Tumblr at a later date, all their old content will of course still be hanging out, waiting for them.
For those of you who are looking to snag a particular URL, this is a good time to check back periodically to see if that username is now open. We still can’t manually release any URLs to you —we’ve got to let the process above work its magic. This’ll give people a chance to either get back to their true calling of spending all day on Tumblr, or set their URLs free for others to enjoy.
i want to know more about charlie weasley’s friends. who the hell agrees to SMUGGLE A DRAGON across international borders on two days notice? who are these people that are willing to accept a dragon in a crate from a couple of small children, no questions asked? i need to know more, tell me about the antics of these mysterious flying dragon smugglers.
Context: My very first session, with special permission to make a Siren Rogue. She had been recruited by a human along with a kitsune. The trio had been summoned by a king to be debriefed on a mission. It should be noted that my Siren is generally very sarcastic, sassy, and mainly wears a very revealing outfit.
Siren: -arrives stylishly late and successfully charms numerous guards that she had flown into-
King: Oh, I see that another recruit has joined you.
Human: -obviously displeased- Yes, unfortunately.
Siren: -giving an exaggerated curtsy to the king- It’s a pleasure.
King: -blushing- Indeed it is.
Siren: -flirtily- Are you married, my king?
King: I was but unfortunately, my wife was taken from me a few months ago.
Me (going OOC): I’m going to hit that
DM: -laughing- I’ll allow it.
Human’s player: -also laughing- Wait, seriously?
DM: Yeah.
Siren: -doing a proper curtsy with a wink- Then perhaps a courting could be arraigned upon my return.
DM & King: Uuuumm sure.
It wasn’t until the next story, after a few new characters had been introduced, that the other players (excluding the DM) found out that I had been serious and she was now the queen of a kingdom.
“And instead of evacuating the school, you pulled him out of class,
arrested in front of everyone, then interrogated him, on the premises
without getting the children to safety? So, we’re going to put you up
for criminal endangerment of this entire school”
“Well, uh, maybe we didn’t really think it was a bomb”
“Oh, ok, so instead you lied to police and federal authorities in order
to bring up false charges against a minor for… kicks? I mean, you’re
basically picking between which charges you’d like to go up on here.
Let me know, so we can get the paperwork right.”
people who slip into proper grammar when they’re upset are terrifying
If they are calm, collected, not swearing and looking you right in the eye you better pray they are merciful even if you’re atheist because otherwise they will not spare you the dignity.
WE NEED INTERPRETERS NOW – YOU CAN HELP REFUGEES FROM YOUR HOME – CAN YOU SPEAK ARABIC, TURKISH, FRENCH, ARABIC, URDU, PASHTO GREEK, ALBANIAN?
URGENT!! PLEASE SHARE WITH YOUR FRIENDS WHO CAN SPEAK THESE LANGUAGES AND WANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO A REFUGEE’S LIFE
Refugees at Keleti Station and in the border camps here in Hungary CANNOT BE PROCESSED or helped with VITAL DOCUMENTATION and medical and family needs without interpretors. Hungary is not cosmopolitan like London, Bradford, Sheffield etc - I think we can count on one hand the number of people here who speak ARABIC, URDU, PASHTO or also GREEK, FRENCH, ALBANIAN and TURKISH to help refugees with documents they may have been able to pick up en route.
Migration Aid Hungary does not need people to be physically here to help - just available on skype, telephone, email. You can contact them here: migrationaidhungary@gmail.com
In order to facilitate the processing of any offers of translation support to Migration Aid, a university in Budapest has set up a database that you can access via this link.
The situation is urgent and pressing for a host of reasons: the appalling conditions people are being held in, their despair and frustration at not being able to communicate, because there are many sick travellers, and most specifically because an already brutal Hungarian government passed new legislation on midnight Tuesday allowing for the arrest of “illegal” refugees.
However you do it, we massively need you to communicate this to the relevant language communities.
It’s really depressing how Labor Day has gone from “give laborers a day off” to “give white collar office workers and executives a day off but make retail laborers work so that executives can get a latte on their day off”
i’ve been reading for most of the day now about howard ashman, the lyricist for the little mermaid & beauty and the beast. he was one of the biggest creative forces behind both films, helping to shape their characters, narrative arcs, and themes as well as their music; he was also a gay man who was diagnosed with aids during the production of the little mermaid and died shortly after beauty and the beast was finished. alan menken, the composer who collaborated with him on both movies, said that beauty and the beast is heavily influenced by ashman’s experiences and perspective.
and i can’t stop thinking about it. i’ve always considered beauty and the beast to be one of the darkest films in the disney canon, as well as its most beautiful. it’s entirely about monsters, about the ways that people are determined to be wrong and dangerous: there’s the beast alone in his castle in the forest, and belle mocked and sneered at by her village, and even maurice carted off to an asylum.
and that it was written and conceived of in part by a gay man who, according to his sister, trained himself out of “effeminate” physical mannerisms when he was young because he was bullied for them, and who as he wrote it was dying of an incredibly stigmatized illness— like, god.
i mean when you just listen to those songs he wrote, the mob song (“the beast is] set to sacrifice our children to his monstrous appetite / he’ll wreak havoc on our village if we let him wander free”), belle (“it’s a pity and a sin / she doesn’t quite fit in”)— and there was a cut song, human again, where the castle servants looked forward to rejoining the world.
like it’s obviously queer, but more than that, it’s the self-identification and self-validation of a man who knew this was this work was probably his last. at the end of the film, the beast is so sad, has succumbed entirely to despair and death. his society is coming to destroy him, and he can’t even be angry, because he doesn’t have anything left. but then he does. and he is still precious, and his life is still meaningful. he’s a person, and he can be loved. he can find happiness.
in the original beauty and the beast, the beast proposes marriage to belle every night and it’s her acquiescence that breaks the spell. in the disney movie, the beast only waits for belle to love him, because he cannot love himself. it’s such an unexpected blessing for both belle and the beast that they can find acceptance in each other, after both are so othered and dehumanized by their communities. their vulnerable joy in each other and themselves is so important, and their love song so wonderingly sweet. at the end, it is only when someone loves and accepts you that you stop being a monster.
john musker, one of the directors of beauty and the beast, told this story about how ashman cried at disneyland when the little mermaid’s music was integrated into a parade and said that he was glad to know that his music would outlive him. beauty and the beast was my favorite movie when i was young and trying not to be queer, when i felt very wrong and very alone. it has been unbelievably important in my life. and so i am also glad— and so grateful— that howard ashman’s music outlived him, and that he lived at all.
A patronus, Harry tells Hermione, is acing a test and the warmth of a butterbeer between your hands. It is your friends holding you when you fall, and Ron’s sparkling eyes when you whisper hi. And there’s an otter, swimming, and Hermione is blushing.
A patronus, Harry tells Ron, is Ginny’s shaky smile lighting up the world at the end of second year. It is winning the Quidditch World Cup, unwrapping yet another knitted jumper, and your startled surprise at the sight of Hermione punching Draco in the face. And there’s a dog, chasing the otter, and Ron is laughing.
A patronus, Harry tells Luna, is the feeling of starlight on your skin and grass between your bare toes. It is snow melting through your fingers, the magic your mother used to make, something singing in your heart when you stare at the impossible. And there’s a hare, jumping, and Luna is shining.
A patronus, Harry tells Cho, is Marietta shouting the lyrics of her favourite song, dancing in the rain during a storm. It is the look on Cedric’s face when he saw you at the Yule Ball, his hand holding yours and never letting go. And there’s a swan, sliding, and Cho is crying.
A patronus, Harry tells Seamus, is Dean’s funny expression when he is about to burst into laughter and the sound of a explosion that turns out right. It is the fireworks, bright flowers blossoming in the night sky; and the fire burning in your lungs as you fly. And there’s a fox, running, and Seamus is smirking.
A patronus, Harry tells Ginny, is the world expanding underneath you and the wind playing with your hair. It is dancing and laughing until there are tears on your cheeks, Molly’s disapproving voice and Arthur’s amused eyes after one of the twins’ pranks. And there’s a horse, flying, and Ginny is grinning.
A patronus, Harry thinks, is that weird feeling that lives in his chest when the Room of Requirement glows silver, speaking of times when the world was golden.
So how stupid do you think the Hogwarts teachers felt back in Harrys first year when their traps and riddles designed to keep out Lord fucking Voldemort were beaten by three 11 year olds
So how stupid do you think the Hogwarts teachers felt back in Harrys first year when their traps and riddles designed to keep out Lord fucking Voldemort were beaten by three 11 year olds
I had a theory about this actually!
I mean, on the one hand, you could argue that they were exceptionally brilliant for their ages (which they were) but even then Voldemort was also brilliant so the professors should have really made the traps harder right?
Well, what if they did?
What if the traps that the Golden Trio faced were like 1/10th of the traps and were 1/50th of the difficulty?
What if the school itself knew that they needed to get to Quirrell?
And so the school itself changed up everything just for them?
And so help was given at Hogwarts to those who asked for it?
So how stupid do you think the Hogwarts teachers felt back in Harrys first year when their traps and riddles designed to keep out Lord fucking Voldemort were beaten by three 11 year olds
So how stupid do you think the Hogwarts teachers felt back in Harrys first year when their traps and riddles designed to keep out Lord fucking Voldemort were beaten by three 11 year olds
So how stupid do you think the Hogwarts teachers felt back in Harrys first year when their traps and riddles designed to keep out Lord fucking Voldemort were beaten by three 11 year olds
I had a theory about this actually!
I mean, on the one hand, you could argue that they were exceptionally brilliant for their ages (which they were) but even then Voldemort was also brilliant so the professors should have really made the traps harder right?
Well, what if they did?
What if the traps that the Golden Trio faced were like 1/10th of the traps and were 1/50th of the difficulty?
What if the school itself knew that they needed to get to Quirrell?
And so the school itself changed up everything just for them?
And so help was given at Hogwarts to those who asked for it?
So how stupid do you think the Hogwarts teachers felt back in Harrys first year when their traps and riddles designed to keep out Lord fucking Voldemort were beaten by three 11 year olds
I had a theory about this actually!
I mean, on the one hand, you could argue that they were exceptionally brilliant for their ages (which they were) but even then Voldemort was also brilliant so the professors should have really made the traps harder right?
Well, what if they did?
What if the traps that the Golden Trio faced were like 1/10th of the traps and were 1/50th of the difficulty?
What if the school itself knew that they needed to get to Quirrell?
And so the school itself changed up everything just for them?
And so help was given at Hogwarts to those who asked for it?
Also, like, I always felt like those traps and riddles weren’t really meant to keep Lord Voldemort out–more to be an annoyance and an inconvenience. Because the fact is, the mirror alone unguarded in a room would have been enough.
No one who wanted the stone for themselves or for their own gain could get to it. Voldemort certainly couldn’t get to it, nor could anyone who might work for him, whether through fear or actual loyalty, because they would be trying to get it for their own gain (that is, the favor of Lord Voldemort). The only way to get that stone out of the mirror would be someone with completely selfless intent–like Harry, who’s only motive was to get the stone to keep it safe and out of Voldemort’s hands.
If the Mirror of Erised had stayed alone and unguarded in the room where Harry first found it, Voldemort still couldn’t have gotten the stone. So I feel like the riddles and traps were meant to be annoying and time consuming (and even painful, in the case of the winged keys and the game of chess) and potentially deadly (if he had solved Snape’s riddle incorrectly), while the Mirror of Erised was the only true defense. And it worked perfectly.
Yup - they were meant as a distraction, to make whoever was trying to get the Stone think they were very clever and beating Dumbledore’s and the staff’s best efforts. But it’s just a time waster, something to trick the person into thinking there’s some way to solve the puzzle of how to get the Stone from the mirror, when they can’t unless they have completely selfless and pure motives for doing so. That, I think, is why Dumbledore placed Snape’s logic puzzle last - so that the mirror, with its backward writing, looked like another one, something that could be overcome with the right answer, rather than the right mindset and attitude. Quirrell could have stood in front of the mirror until he starved to death and never gotten his hands on the Stone.
These posts make me unreasonably cranky. So cranky, in fact, that every time a new one of these goddamn things crosses my dash, I’m just going to dissect them. Both for the edification of newer writers and because fuck these lists.
As mentioned in previous posts: These are not synonyms for whispered. You can’t use them interchangeably. Let’s go through them.
“Well,” she whispered, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The character is speaking in a voice so low it’s become words made of breath, probably because she doesn’t want to be heard.
“Well,” she murmured, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The character is saying this very quietly, but above a whisper. She may be talking to herself.
“Well,” she mumbled, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The character is speaking under her breath in low enough tones that her words may sound unclear or slurred. Also very possibly talking to herself.
“Well,” she muttered, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The character is speaking lowly, but more clearly than a mumble. She sounds angry, irritated, or dully frustrated.
“Well,” she breathed, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
Breathing words may mean relief, exasperation, or exhaustion, and sound half like a sigh. Oh, look—
“Well,”she sighed, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The character is almost certainly not happy. She’s speaking in a tired, heavy breath.
“Well,” she hissed, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The character’s words are coming out in low, very sharp breaths. She sounds angry, irritated, or maybe just in an intense moment.
“Well,” she mouthed, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The character is using the barest hint of her voice, if any at all. Her lips are silently forming the syllables.
“Well,”she uttered, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
Using uttered in this particular type of descriptive sense actually just sounds awkward. That said, ‘utter’ sounds like a word that implies speech in low yet strong and loud tones, well-enunciated, like someone preaching.
“Well,” she intoned, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The tone of her voice is dull and flat, with little variance in pitch. She is saying this without much emotion (intentionally or not).
Fuck “susurrated”.
“Well,” she purred, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The manner she’s speaking in is silky, smooth, and particularly pleased; quite possibly smug. In this particular example, this implies she probably does have a choice about [whatever it is] and is being facetious.
“Well,” she said in an undertone, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
This is bad, because an undertone is something that needs describing. That’s like saying “her dress was a color”.
“Well,”she gasped, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The character is speaking in a sharp intake of breath, probably brought on by surprise or shock. She could also be short of breath, being strangled or something.
“Well,” she hinted, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
The character has particular (duh) hint-hint tones in her voice as she speaks to someone. One can just imagine her leaning over closer to their ear.
“Well,” she said low, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
Her voice has dropped below normal pitch, but is above a whisper. There’s a certain amount of dullness in the tone, probably.
“Well,” she said, into his ear, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
This implies nothing about the actual voice, just that she’s literally speaking right into his ear (perhaps at normal volume, which would be painful). It doesn’t, on its own, carry any connotations of tone or emotion.
“Well,” she said softly, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
I have a personal beef with the word “softly” on account of writers in a certain area of a certain MMO that use that word for fucking everything; speech, movement, touch, footsteps, because it helps to passively describe their character as delicate and pretty or something.
It’s a personal beef. There’s nothing really wrong with the word. Moving on.
Saying something softly implies not only a lowered pitch but a certain gentleness (or at least lack of weight) in tone.
“Well,” she said under her breath, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
This is very like muttered, murmured, etc — it sounds (dur) breathier, and is more likely to imply a person talking to themselves.
“Well,” she said in hushed tones, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
Now you’re getting closer to an equal term for “whispered”; hushed tones could mean that, or half-whispered. It does imply a certain amount of whisperiness or breathiness. It also implies a deliberate attempt to be quiet.
“Well,” she insinuated, “I suppose I haven’t got a choice.”
Like with ‘uttered’, this feels grammatically weird in that it’s usually a thing a person describes another person as doing (“Greg didn’t say it, but he insinuated it!”), but whatever. It’s similar to hinting; it means you’re trying to imply or subtly convey something, but has nothing to do with actual whispers.
tl;dr Those words are all different, these lists are terrible writing advice and people need to stop pulling tangentially-related words from the thesaurus and saying they all mean the same thing.
as i tell my students:
“use the precise word, not the word that kinda sorta fits or ‘sounds more impressive’ ”
use exactly the word you MEAN
THIS THIS THIS OH MY GOD THIS.
I fucking hate those lists, they drive me batshit. Put down the thesaurus and back away slowly.
These lists always make me wonder if the same people do this with baby name lists.
Don’t always refer to your character as Jennifer! Instead of Jennifer, consider having other characters refer to them as:
I’d bet five galleons that George Weasley asked McGonagall out to the Yule Ball on a dare.
I bet that Fred popped up before she could reply and acted betrayed (“YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL, HOW COULD YOU?) and they proceed to have a fake fight over who gets to take her to the ball.
Meanwhile McGonagall is trying to be stern and not laugh because it reminds of when Sirius tried to ask Dumbledore out and had almost the exact same fight with James
@ white people who think wearing eagle feather headdresses is just a costume and doesn’t offend natives, I was at a powwow yesterday and one of the dancer’s who was a war veteran accidentally dropped an eagle feather while dancing and we had to stop the entire powwow, the head man and some other elders had to stop and pray over the feather before picking it up. The guy who dropped the father gave a speech, while almost in tears, about how sorry he was to have dropped the feather and how it represented the choices he had to make in combat and the lives of people that were taken, and he ended up passing the feather on to another young dancer instead of keeping it because he felt so ashamed. This is how much eagle feathers mean to a lot of our nations, and that’s how important it is to native veterans. Wearing eagle feathers as a costume or without having to go through combat is disgusting and you ARE offending our traditions and values. Stop. You cannot understand the importance of our customs and you do not deserve to wear eagle feathers.
All of them. Everyone of the goddamned spectrum. Most of us spent too long feeling very broken or confused to later get told we dont get to be part of the one community we feel we relate to.
Sex repulsed ace? You’re great. I feel.you. I know exactly what that’s like.
Sex positive ace? Man thats awesome. Whether it’s just from a like casual interest or curiosity in it as a fascinating topic or as an active participant because you like how it feels. If you arent attracted sexually to people you’re ace too and still welcome here.
Grey-a? I bet that was really confusing to figure out man, im so glad you’re here. Don’t worry I promise you’re awesome too, youre not a “fake” or anything like that.
Demi? You go, dude. Being attracted to your partner or someone you have that bond with doesnt make you less a part of our community. It doesnt meanmyou were “never really ace” or that now you’re totally allosexual. Demi is just as valid as other orientations.
Basically anyone that feels like they are part of the ace spectrum is awesome and you belong here, fuck what other people tell you.
Unless you’re a raging asshole and like a murderer or something. Then you arent awesome.
