Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

sam-sour-wolf:

• The guy living below me has a really loud alarm clock that always wakes me up at the ass crack of dawn AU
• I went to investigate a scream and found my neighbour standing on a chair to avoid a rat/cockroach/snake AU
• My neighbour has a really squeaky bed and my bedroom is right below theirs AU
• Someone keeps stealing my doormat AU
• My pet tarantula escaped and I forgot to warn the guy below me who is scared of spiders AU
• I need you to pet sit my pet this weekend and I forgot to mention it’s a giant snake, the mice are in the freezer, thanks bye! AU
• The apartment above me has left their tape on or something and water is LEAKING THROUGH MY CEILING WTF! AU
• My neighbour’s sister got the wrong house number and barged into my apartment AU
• The guy next door/my roommate always steals my coffee, so I started to make extra AU

APARTMENT AUs! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ

ask-aph-dorkmark:

Put what you did in the tags!

pewdiepiesfanblog:

infinite-angels:

hinterland-x:

ppessimistin:

sightless-behavior:

floorcatcher:

sightless-behavior:

4lienmatt:

sightless-behavior:

Guys I’m crying omg I was drunk please stop reblogging this

They want it to stop…..we reblog it to the extreme

No no no lol please don’t

Forever reblog until 2017

O my god no

i cant stop laughing 

until 2017

only 3 more years.

I already added this to my queue, I don’t even know if i’ll still be on tumblr then

six-souls-saved-old-and-now-ooc:

krofty-fennec:

How much support we got out there?

If girls can wear pants then boys can wear skirts. And same for us non-binary folk.

We should be able to wear whatever we feel comfortable in.

So at first I read “shirts” and I was really confused.  Upon a second reading I realized that I had erred terribly, but I was also much less confused.  Honestly wear what makes you comfortable–I identify as female and I like button-downs and slacks, so I don’t see a damn reason why people who identify as male or none-of-the-above or any variant thereupon couldn’t wear skirts.

candycanebuckybarnes:

peterquilltingcircle:

anh62950:

coffeeandpunkmusic:

miss-elsaba:

hey-look-a-hufflepuff:

les-etoiles-de-la-boxe:

pancakereport:

cinder-ember:

sammywhatammy:

redheadeddisneyfreak:

sheriffwxy:

totalspiffage:

soulpunchftw:

agatharights:

musicofthestage:

crutchiee:

tbbackus:

lucasbieneke:

Apparently my director went to see a production of West Side Story a few years ago, and the guy playing Chino forgot his gun before coming out for his final scene. Once it got to the big scene where he is supposed to shoot Tony, he screeched “Poison Boots” and kicked the actor playing Tony until he went down. The girl playing Maria then had to jerk the shoe off of Chino’s foot, and had to do the gunshot scene asking “How many kicks Chino? How many kicks, and one kick left for me”. 

There should be a blog dedicated to theatrical urban legends. Like that opening weekend of Dracula where Dracula (still hungover) vomited all over the audience during the first stage direction that everyone has a friend of a friend that worked on the show and was there.

or the one where the bridge never came out for Javert’s suicide and so he just pretended to stab himself and then lay there until the lights went out

best story i heard was when a friend of mine saw a show where juliet forgot to bring the dagger out on stage so she just ripped the squib out of her chest and blood squirted everywhere

During a passion play a friend of my brother was supposedly in, one of the roman soldiers who was supposed to stab jesus on the cross and accidentally grabbed the wrong spear- he was supposed to grab one with a fake tip, but instead he grabbed one with an actual metal tip and, well

Jesus screamed “JESUS CHRIST YOU STABBED ME”.

Since that Jesus had to be taken down due to a bad case of stab-itis, the backup Jesus came in, but he weighed significantly less than the original Jesus- which would have been fine, except that at the end the cross was supposed to ascend upwards with Jesus on it, and the weights hadn’t been adjusted.

So Jesus, instead, ROCKETED UP into heaven (or, just, above the stage).

This is wild from start to finish

I was in Peter Pan once and one night at a performance, the adhesive holding our Hook’s mustache on was wearing off. It was near the end with a big fight scene and when he got attacked, he let his mustache fall and went “YOU RIPPED MY MUSTACHE OFF!” in a scandalized tone and it added a new note of hilarity to the whole scene (which was supposed to be funny anyway)

In my seventh grade play, which was a midsummer night’s dream, Thisbe didn’t have a sword so she stabbed herself with a coathanger

My junior year we were doing Romeo and Juliet and after Juliet poisons herself it was supposed to go dark and she’d get off the stage. well the light crew accidentally turned them back on and Juliet who was sitting up slammed back down on the wooden bed with a loud bang. To which my theater teacher says into the com “zombie Juliet” and everyone who heard that had to keep as quiet as possible while our eyes were filling with tears.

i attended my county’s performing arts high school majoring in vocal studies, (mostly geared towards musical theater and opera styles) and once a year we got a field trip to new york (we were in jersey, so it’s not exactly far). we would do one touristy thing, an actor’s workshop with friends of our teachers working in various performing industries in nyc, and then see a show. 

my first year doing this, our industry contacts were 1 actor, 1 casting director, and 1 producer to get different aspects of the business, and they all gave us amazing advice and told fantastic stories. the actor in question was Zazu on Broadway’s The Lion King for several years, and told the best story by far.

in The Lion King, there are only two pieces of pre-recorded noise in the whole show. one, when Pumbaa does a MASSIVE fart while fighting the hyenas, and the other being Mufasa saying REMEMBERRRRRR as Simba climbs Pride Rock. the actor told us while struggling not to laugh that, during one night’s performance, someone forgot to flip the tape of these pre-recorded noises.

so, at the end of the show, the great climax where Simba finally accepts his place in the Circle of Life, the heavens parted and-

PFFFFFFFFFRRRRRBTFTBTBFTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

everyone froze. and then all ran off stage positively HOWLING with laughter.

the lesson: sometimes there are fuck ups you just can’t recover from.

During a high school production of Beauty and the Beast, where I was assistant costumer and assistant prop master, our director decided that we needed to spice up Gaston’s introduction. You know: in the movie, when Lefou runs in trying to catch the duck/goose that Gaston has just shot out of the sky?

Originally, the actors were going to stroll on stage with our Lefou hauling in the really neat (and real!) taxidermied deer head that we had found in a local thrift store. Now, two days before opening night, our director wants Lefou to run in from off stage and catch a stuffed duck that Gaston has just shot. This, of course, requires two things to work properly as a scene: a gunshot noise, and a stuffed duck.

The gunshot noise, we had covered. Blue-collar, redneck school? Guns a plenty to record. The stuffed duck? Harder than you might have thought to obtain.

Three hunting stores, two taxidermists, and one Pet Supply Store ™, I’d finally found a semi-realistic pheasant squeaky toy. What follows is an account of the ways this dog toy managed to be the nightmare prop of the six show run.

Opening Night: The stagehand, who was supposed to drop the bird from the ceiling catwalk, missed his cue and didn’t drop the it. Lefou’s actor rolls with it and does an excellent job of looking around foolishly before getting cuffed upside the head by Gaston. The stagehand then drops the bird squarely on Gaston’s head. Cue laughter.

Saturday Matinee: Different stagehand throws the bird instead of dropping it and beans Lefou directly in the face with the prop. Lefou falls over. Cue laughter.

Saturday Night: Bird is missing during curtain call. Director hauls the deer head down from it’s place on the tavern wall and tells Gaston and Lefou to revert to the old blocking i.e. no gunshot, no bird, just walk in with trophy. During Gaston and Lefou’s conversation, gun shot sound goes off and a stagehand throws the bird onto the stage…from the wrong side of the stage. Lefou and Gaston stare at it in awkward silence for a solid thirty seconds before Lefou makes off-script, subtle joke about Gaston’s gun going off late instead of early. Cue adults in the audience laughing.

Sunday Matinee: Director begs the stagehands to get the cue right at least once. Gunshot and bird prop go off without a hitch. Lefou accidentally catches the prop when it falls from the catwalk. He’s so startled that he caught it that Gaston runs right in to him. They drop both the gun and the bird props, and grab the wrong prop in their scramble. Gaston spends the rest of the scene gesturing dramatically with a stuffed pheasant, instead of a gun.

Sunday Night:  Director is fed up with bird prop, decides that Lefou should just carry bird prop in after gunshot happens off stage. Lefou accidentally squeezes the prop during the intro conversation, startling both actors into silence with the squeaky toy noise - apparently, neither of them realized it was a dog toy.

Monday Elementary School Show: Lefou walks on stage with the bird. Accidentally drops the prop during conversation with Gaston. Gaston doesn’t notice the dropped prop and steps on it. Cue depressingly sad squeaky toy noise. Cue ten years olds laughing.

In a dress rehearsal for Peter Pan, Wendy forgot one of her lines and started singing the star spangled banner and the audience was singing along and people got emotional

Once during the closing night of our high school production of south pacific, we were havin our pre-show pep talk, and our director reminded everyone (mostly seniors) not to go off script to try to be funny. Of course we had one lead who decided to ignore this advice. So during one scene where the sailors were “fishing” at the edge of the stage, he decides to pull up his rubber fish, make a comment about how it wasn’t big enough, and throw it back into the “ocean”, which of course, was the audience. Now, this probably wouldn’t have been too much of a problem if he had gently tossed it, since it would have landed right behind the pit. But naturalt, he decided that this fish had to break free in the most dramatic way possible, so he winds up and chucks this fucking foot-long rubber fish with all of his strength. So now imagine the stage crew, all of us huddled together, silently screaming as this limp fish goes sailing over the heads of the audience in what looks like a low-budget reenactment of free willy, only to slap some poor parent across the face. I swear, you could almost hear the chorus of “mmmm whatcha saaayyy” rising from all those backstage. From that moment on, all rubber fish were ferociously guarded by yours truly, under the direction of our stage manager.

This post gets better every time it shows up on my dash

My Junior year of high school our drama club put on Peter Pan,which involved the construction of a small boat fashioned out of scrap wood,plaster and an old wagon. A few of the actors who were cast as pirates had to ride the boat-wagon down the aisle to the front of the theatre,which had a concrete floor that sloped. About halfway down the brake they were using to control their speed gave out,and they crashed into the front of the stage at high speed.The entire boat imploded. The actors just sat there in silence for at least a full 10 seconds in the midst of the wreckage before my friend Adena screamed “ABANDON SHIP” and they all jumped out and took off running.

My school once did a parody of Cinderella and I was Cinderellas dog. At one point Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother, and the dog had to flea the ball. I thought going down the stage steps wasn’t dramatic enough for “fleeing” so I launched myself off the stage and landed painfully in the center isle about three rows in accompanied with a very, very loud thump of face on concrete where I laid there like a dead fish for a while. At this point Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother got to me, not knowing what to do they stepped over me and continued running. But Cinderella had forgotten to loose her shoe so half way out of the room she chucked it back where it hit me in the head. I bolted upright and ran shrieking hysterically out of the room. A moment later the Prince came down to where the shoe was picked it up, looked dramatically at where I had exited and said “I hope that dog’s okay.” completely forgetting his line.  

This may be my all time favorite post. 

I was once in a production of “Hello Dolly!” and the two leads were complete jokers and would prank each other during rehearsals all the time. The rest of the cast never thought they would do that during a show, but they told the chorus (separately) that they each were planning to add some tongue into the final kiss between Dolly and Horace. Of course, we told neither of them about the other’s plan, so during the very last show, we were all waiting in the wings to see what would happen. What happened was we ended the show with the two leads violently frenching each other on stage as the curtain dropped. They started dating two weeks later.

Last year we did “Once Upon a Mattress” and the jester was supposed to do a somersault off of a stack of like 3 mattresses and then the minstrel and Lady Larken would be covered up with a blanket, but during one show the jester knocked down one of the mattresses and we had no time to fix it so we had to throw the mattress on top of them

reylotrashcompactor:

So I went into TFA with no expectations, no real idea about the cast except the old-timers, and no strong feelings one way or the other. I really liked the original episodes, watched them a lot growing up, and hadn’t watched the prequels because everyone said they sucked. (I will be rectifying this over the long weekend, no worries.)

And the movie was so, so good.

But the moment that got me was Kylo Ren taking off his mask for Rey. Not in a shipper sense, not romantically, but just that moment. I had no idea who was cast as Ren, and the first time I saw his face felt like hearing that Darth Vader was Luke’s father. I knew what DV looked like under his mask, and I knew what villains were supposed to look like.

And he doesn’t look like a villain.

He has a soft face, a full mouth. He looks young, feminine. Villains are sharp boned and thin lipped (lookin’ at you, Loki) and Ren did not look like a villain.

He was beautiful. And I’m not saying this in a “Adam Driver is so hot” kind of way. I’m saying that he was beautiful, and that made everything worse.

Darth Vader wore his mask because of his injuries. Ren wears his mask because he doesn’t look like a villain without it.

He looks young. He looks soft. He looks *good.* He doesn’t look like the Dark Side.

And he knows it. He knows he has his father’s Aquiline nose and his mother’s eyes. He’s tall like Anakin, but not sharp and angular. He chews that full bottom lip that Han so graciously cursed him with. He knows he doesn’t look the part.

So why did he take off the mask for her? Why, when he wants something from her? Why show her his greatest flaw:

His kind face.

escavel:

sopphistries:

tittyrants:

fire-lord-frowny:

It really, REALLY bothers me when I hear people frame climate change and other environmental crises as something that everyday, average-ass people are responsible for, and not corporations and entire governments. 

Like literally, how can a regular-ass person ~opt out~ of all damaging behaviors while still being able to function in society? 

You literally can’t. 

The future of our planet is not down to whether or not someone recycles their water bottle. 

It’s down to whether or not governments and corporations decide to quit sucking up all our resources and poisoning the earth with reckless abandon. 

I mean obviously people should still live as cleanly and as sustainably as they can manage where they are and with what they have, but like. THAT isn’t the major issue. 

govts and corporations have deliberately put the onus on yr individual choices so the system can continue being as destructive/profitable

God bless this post this pisses me off so much

Also this hyper-individualist shift of responsibility is largely an American thing and consumerism is framed as a solution- e.g., buy more shit that’s sustainable! That’ll fix the problem (buy a new, green water bottle! buy a new, green car! buy a new, green whatever-the-fuck that’ll just ultimately produce more waste)!

I took a course in sustainable engineering.

The professor mentioned that even if every private individual in the world were to conserve resources and the environment the ol’ Jimmy Carter way- by turning down the thermostat, recycling your glass and plastics and metals, cut down on luxuries, take shorter showers, etc., it would only get us 10% of the way to where we need to be in order to avoid global catastrophic climate change.

The vast majority of freshwater use is from industry and agriculture. http://www.worldometers.info/water/ 

The vast majority of CO2 emissions is from industrial and electrical generation sites and associated vehicles. http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.html

Private individuals hardly make a dent, even in ideal conditions.

nuclearvampire:

gelasticat:

this is like entirely irrelevant to art but i’ve seen a lot of people give this advice without a proper explanation and it’s really easy to dismiss anything without one so like?? an explanation on the Eat Something If You’re Feeling Especially Depressed thing also featuring Why Is Mental Illness So Fucking Exhausting

k so i know it really doesn’t feel like it especially when these moods hit you but your brain does a Lot to keep a lot of shitty things at bay, especially if you’re mentally ill. (this stuff applies to people who aren’t as well obviously, it’s just more of an issue if you are.)

it’s working at keeping stuff away p much constantly, and that’s on top of everything else brains do daily (which is a metric fuckton, our brains control absolutely everything that happens with our bodies and the cognitive processes even in something as simple as perception are absolutely batshit) and it takes a lot of energy that neurotypical people would have spare for other stuff, so you’re obviously going to get tired faster with all that going on all day, right?

your brain getting run down trying to keep the bad shit at bay means it exhausts itself and isn’t able to keep the bad shit at bay, which is why when you’re hungry it can literally feel like the world is ending and why all the little things that didnt bother you that much just nyoom the fuck up and suckerpunch you in the throat out of nowhere

you don’t feel that bad just because you’re hungry (in case you needed to hear that bc know i end up feeling like a melodramatic little bitch) it’s because your brain doesn’t have the energy to fight back against stuff anymore, and that’s why it’s important to eat when things feel especially bad

*seconds this earnestly*

If eating seems really hard, literally eat anything that might appeal past the depression funk. Eat a candy bar. Eat poptarts. Eat a popsicle. Drink a glass of juice. Like, in those moments, don’t make “healthy” or dieting a focus, you’re getting emergency fuel to your brain so you can eat something else in a couple minutes.  I have poptarts and little candy bars in my room for exactly this reason. Sometimes that little bite sized butterfinger is enough to motivate me to eat, and then whoops, wow, food sounds awesome now.

inkskinned:

I hope I never get tired of the night sky, of thunderstorms, of watching cream make galaxies in my coffee. This world is ugly. I hope I never grow to be someone who can no longer see the small beautiful things.

sockmonkeyrenegade:

groucho-marxism:

Stravinsky’s rite of spring is about a girl who dances herself to death to appease the Russian god of spring.

When it premiered the crowd got so amped up they opened up a mosh pit in the theater and the night would be forever known as the “riot of spring”

There’s a piece in the bassoon repertoire called “Dead Elvis” and when you buy the music you have to contractually agree to only perform the piece in a full Elvis costume.

sherrocked:

todayis-nevertoolate:

little-uno:

thatstoomainstream:

It’s weird how in animals seeing ribs/collar&hip bones is considered sick or even abusive, but in people that’s considered beautiful.

This may have just changed my life.

This is the best thing I’ve ever read.

This is the post which helped me beat anorexia.

deaf-clint:

literally half the reason i tag stuff on here is so i can go back and browse my own blog. i am my blog’s #1 fan

resplendeo:

let’s play another tag meme thing! put each word into your tags and see what pops up:

pretty
head
why
when
where
shit
you
stop
how
for
they
super

littlestlary:

I’m all for makeup and people doing makeup however they choose and makeup as an art form, but i’m also really concerned for the young girls in middle school and stuff with the new found pressure of makeup culture that wasn’t there five years ago. If you’re 12 or 13 and you’re reading this please please know you don’t have to contour to be beautiful, you don’t have to have amazing gradient eyebrows to be beautiful, you don’t have to be an Instagram model to be beautiful.

Makeup can be fun but you don’t have to look like all the rich girls on instagram with tons of money for mac and urban decay to be pretty or feel good about yourself. Just being you, and exploring your interests and learning new things as a young person is what makes you beautiful!! Never forget it!

locktobre:

locktobre:

President Romney

it’s been three years and I would now like to announce the sequel no one saw coming, President Trump

shartan9-27:

omorka:

darkparallel:

youcantcancelquidditch:

the assassination of franz ferdinand was actually the most hilariously botched assassination attempt of all time though like i can’t even explain to you how badly it went i mean there were six guys and the first one chickened out and the second one forgot to factor in the delay on a hand grenade so it exploded like three cars past the archduke’s so the guy took a cyanide pill and threw himself into a river, but the cyanide was expired and the river was six inches deep so the police just pulled him out and took him off to jail and then everyone else basically gave up and headed home, and then the driver of the archduke took a wrong turn and the car stalled next to the last of the six guys, and he was just like “what a crazy random happenstance” and started world war one

You forgot to mention that the last guy only happened to kill Franz because he had just come out of the sandwich shop where the car stopped

It is obvious to even the most casual observer that this particular event has been meddled with by at least two groups of time travelers trying to change history.  Please, if you invent a time machine, leave the assassination of Ferdinand alone; the space-time continuum there is already showing obvious cracks from the strain.

I’m dying.

uriequeen:

If I don’t do challenges you tag me in its not because I don’t love you, because I do, it’s because I’m a lazy fuck

academicfeminist:

kristen-the-rageful:

ableist-vegans:

Why?

Let’s say you make some vegan chocolate chip cookies. (I looked a recipe up for the sake of this post). These cookies are made with almond milk.

You have a friend that you’ve known for a few months now, and you think it would be nice to surprise them.

So, you offer them one of the cookies. You don’t tell them they’re vegan. As far as your friend is aware, they’re made with cow milk and chicken eggs.

Your friend takes one bite, and a few minutes later you’re using their epi-pen on them and calling 911.

See, what just happened is that your hypothetical friend here has a nut allergy that you didn’t know about, and the almond milk in the cookies was enough to put them in the hospital.

You could have avoided this whole situation by informing your friend that they’re vegan, thus prompting the question “It’s not made with almond milk, is it?”

This doesn’t just apply to cookies. While I’ve never found one, if you happen to know of a vegan fake meat that’s not made with soy and looks and smells exactly like the meat version, don’t serve it to someone and not tell them until after they eat it.

“But I, a vegan, would never do that!”

Great, then this post isn’t about you. This post is about the people who post shit like “when you give your friend vegan food without telling them and they like it *insert gif here*”, and it’s also about the thousands of people who reblog it.

- Avery

And some people have dusgestive issues or health issues that conflict with some vegan ingredients too

I can’t have soy products. At all. It makes eating anything a real pain in the ass, but it’s also one of the top reasons I’m not vegetarian or vegan - a LOT of substitution is done with soy-based products and those will put me in the hospital real quick.

owlmylove:

sapphicshepard:

sapphicshepard:

sapphicshepard:

sapphicshepard:

i’ve definitely told you about this before but my dad and my uncle have this whole star wars vs star trek rivalry where they’ll get each other passive aggressive gifts (my dad is a star wars fan, and will always get my uncle star wars merch. my uncle claims star trek is so much better and star wars is lame. he will always get my father star trek merch. this has been going on since my parents got married.) 

this is going to be a good year for arguing 

my uncle just arrived. my mom shouted “kids, uncle rich is here!” my dad bellowed “MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU” down the stairs. my uncle shouted back “YOU CANT SEE IT BUT IM GIVING YOUR DOG THE VULCAN SALUTE” i love christmas here

dinner was alright until over dessert my dad brought up “so, richie, you see the new star wars movie” until it devolved into a wine fueled shouting match. highlights include “WELL AT LEAST WE DIDNT HAVE JAR JAR GODDAMNED BINKS” “AT LEAST WE DIDNT BLOW UP–” “YES YOU DID. FIRST MOVIE. YOU BLEW UP A PLANET” “shit”

this years argument, like every year before it, ended with “nice to see you.” and them slapping each other on the back which i think is a guy way of hugging goodbye.

this is the best thing i’ve ever seen

vrabia:

Have I ever told you guys the true story of the Revolution Christmas Tree?

This one absolutely 100% happened (unlike the drunk zombie geese story which likely only 35% happened, but maybe I’ll tell you about it one day). It happened to my family when I was 4 y/o. 

So imagine Evil Commie Land in the late ‘80s: severe food shortages, no heating (seriously, people slept with their stoves on for heat and sometimes the gas was cut off and came back randomly during the night and carbon monoxide poisoning was a thing). Also large, beautiful, historical chunks of our capital city were being bulldozed into oblivion because our megalomaniac shithead supreme leader wanted to build the biggest fucking thing there was. Anyway, it sucked. 

On top of that we were also technically not supposed to celebrate Christmas, because religion is the opiate of the masses etc. etc. But we did anyway, every year and with great enthusiasm, running as we did on the sweet fuel of go ahead and tell a motherfucker they’re not allowed to do something.

So. Christmas. The way we did Christmas back in the day was to make it as secular and proletarian as possible: officially no church services, no religious carols, no Jesus thingy, no calling Santa Claus Santa Claus (we called him Old Man Frost idk)

The only thing we did exactly the same as regular Christmas, in the privacy of our homes, was the Christmas tree. This is how you got a Christmas tree:

• you went to the marketplace where Christmas tree sellers were
• these were not like, official, state-sanctioned commercial workers, but people with the capacity to somehow provide you with 1 pc. coniferous for Proletarian Christmas celebrating purposes
• I have no fucking idea who they were or how they got them
• anyway, you went to the marketplace where Christmas tree sellers were and you talked to one of them and you told them what kind of Christmas tree you wanted (options were: fir/spruce, medium-ish/small)
• you paid them in advance and agreed on a date where you’d come by and pick your Proletarian Christmas tree
• you picked up your Proletarian Christmas tree, brought it home to the family and decorated it with stuff you inherited from your great-grandmother or your mom made out of candy wrappers like 15 years before
• you celebrated Christmas. Proletarianly. 

So along comes 1989. Shit boils over and by December 21st, we have a violent revolution right on the streets of our capital city. 

Now, I was 4 and my brother was 6 months old and our parents decided that we absolutely cannot go without a regular Christmas in our house, especially now that the world is about to go to shit. We didn’t have anything, presents or nice food or. Anything? Basically. The one thing we had was dad had arranged to get our Christmas tree on the day. So he tells my mom that he’s going to pick it up, and instead of knocking him cold and chaining him to the radiator, like the sensible woman she usually is, my mom goes ok just put on an extra sweater you don’t want to catch a cold haha right?

Let me break this down for you in case there’s any misunderstanding as to what we’re talking about. Outside:

• violent riots
• army
• snipers
• tanks
• plainclothes secret police randomly shooting people dead in the street
• I seriously cannot stress the snipers enough

So off goes my dad to pick up our Christmas tree. And he’s gone for five hours, on a trip that normally takes like 30 minutes at a casual stroll. And the more time passes, the deeper my mother sinks into an all-out nervous breakdown. She’s barely keeping it together, my grandmother is trying to comfort her, while my brother is sleeping quietly, which is a good thing, because at some point there’s a weird rumbling outside our building. 

‘What’s that?’ say I, 4 years old and desperate for some straight, no-bullshit answers

‘Nothing,’ says my mom. ‘Nothing’ is the second stupidest thing to say to an observant, intelligent kid who’s been locked up for a week and kept in the dark about shit that’s very obviously happening just outside.

‘No, really, what is that?’ say I, seriously determined to get a straight, no-bullshit answer. 

Years later, after piecing bits of memories together, I realized there are only so many ways to skirt around ‘It’s a tank, dear’, which is the single stupidest thing to say to a child who’s been locked up for a week if you expect them not to run outside because they want to see, damn it. 

So when my dad finally comes home five hours later, with the goddamn tree, she’s either too exhausted to say much, or doesn’t want to have that conversation in front of her kid, who is seriously right on the brink of smashing something out of frustration. 

It wasn’t until I was in highschool that he told me he’d actually been shot at several times, because sneaking around street corners carrying a large tree is not at all suspicious when everyone is so strung up. Any sniper who might have been around absolutely did not think he was probably a revolutionary agent smuggling weapons or w/e instead of a dad trying to make a nice Christmas for his family BECAUSE WHAT THE ACTUAL EVERLOVING FUCK

So this is the story of the Revolution Christmas Tree, aka the story of how my dad almost got shot lugging around an overpriced bit of spruce in the middle of violent street fighting so his kids could have Christmas. 

There are some levels of parenting you just can’t beat. 

lupinatic:

alliecat-person:

madeofpatterns:

slashmarks:

madeofpatterns:

doomhamster:

captain-ameribunny:

doomhamster:

feathersmoons:

lolmythesis:

English, Notre Dame

The Author-Who-Lived: J.K. Rowling’s Refusal to Accept the Death of the Author in the Internet Age

Man I fucking hate this attitude. I especially hate that Rowling gets this shit thrown at her. God FORBID she continue to engage with her own fucking work.

I don’t get why this is even a thing? I mean, why WOULDN’T one be interested in the author’s intentions and the ideas they had that didn’t make it into the finished work and so forth, regardless of whether one actually thinks they managed to express them well?

People seem to think they’re entitled to take over someone else’s work.  News flash: JK Rowling created the Harry Potter series, not you.  If you don’t want to hear what she has to say about it, stop looking at her twitter account then. 

Yes. This. Now I’m all in favor of AUs and headcanons and whatnot, and in Rowling’s particular case I can certainly see reason to criticize the way she’s revealed some things, but talking about it like she should just “accept” that once she’s published something nothing she has to say about it matters? Ridiculous.

Everyone *else* gets to have headcanons, why shouldn’t she?

Like - it annoys me when people jump on Harry Potter meta or interpretations because of something JKR said on twitter or in one interview, because there is no way to keep track of everything she’s said and she changes her mind sometimes, and ultimately my meta is about the books, not what the author was thinking. I understand being annoyed if a lot of people have jumped on you for it, too. 

But that isn’t her fault, and she has the right to talk about her own books.

Agreed.

All of this.

Rowling is under no obligation to accept Death of the Author. Nor are we as readers necessarily–if you want to, that’s great, but it isn’t the only way to be a reader.

On that note, it isn’t just a matter of ‘if everyone else can have headcanons, why can’t the author?’ it’s a matter of the author’s headcanons being canon, even if that josses someone else’s headcanon. She gets to decide this stuff, because she made the world we’re playing in. She was the one who sat down and did the hard work. Just because she was gracious enough to share it with us, some people seem to feel entitled to grab it and shout “No, you’re wrong! This is OURS now! MINE! All mine!”. Believe in your headcanons as much as you want, but don’t expect anyone who isn’t you to accord any importance to them, and don’t be surprised when people get amused at the entitlement inherent in the notion that your opinion is somehow every bit as legitimate as the opinion of the woman who did all the hard work.

I was very attached to the idea of a Ravenclaw Teddy Lupin. Guess what? He’s a Hufflepuff according to the woman who created him and his parents, and I’ve no right to insist otherwise.

freaoscanlin:

poptarts-for-breakfast:

the princess diaries was anne hathaway’s first movie and like can you imagine being in her place and just casually being told oh btw julie andrews is your co-star no pressure welcome to hollywood

So I saw Meg Cabot speak when she came to St. Louis and I did not do anything like fall flat on my face or embarrass myself horribly (a miracle, considering that the writer I wanted to grow up to be was Meg Cabot). But more importantly, she talked about The Princess Diaries, and I learned several things:

• the movie was being made before the book was published, which she said was very weird for her
• Whitney Houston’s production company was the one that made it, so apparently both Meg Cabot and Anne Hathaway really could regard Whitney Houston as their fairy godmother
• the reason Mia’s father is dead in the movie (he’s alive in the books) is because the original draft of the movie didn’t have that many lines for Mia’s Grandmère. When the production company approached Meg Cabot about this, they said “Julie Andrews wants the part, but she’d like more lines so we think we would have to kill Mia’s father and–” “YES KILL HIM KILL HIM DEAD.”
  
• Which I feel is the only proper reaction to that.
• Also according to Meg Cabot, Anne Hathaway is a sweetheart.