i love the mythbusters they’re like those weird uncles that you only see occasionally at big family reunions and every time you see them they’re like, “hey kid, wanna see what happens when we light a bee hive full of jalapeños and grenades on fire and shoot it?” and you’re like “uncle adam no” but it’s too late and there go your mother’s hydrangeas
I’ll never not be amused by the fact that I can drop the words “crucifix nail nipples” into a conversation and some of you who have been with me since the livejournal days will join me in the flashbacks, screaming and crying all the way.
I require context. Because this is a very interesting start of a story, and now I need the rest of it. Could I get a link, or a summary, or something? Pretty please?
All right buckle the fuck up kids, it’s the year 2012 and I’ve just been handed what should be an easy editing gig by my senior editor. It’s a vampire erotica story because one of the final Twilight movies is about to come out, and everything is vampires. Everything. I haven’t edited a single thing in months which isn’t about vampires. I am ready, I can do this. So I open the file and notice there’s a typo in the title, which really should have been my first inkling that something horrendous was about to go down, but you see I’m not quite dead inside yet so I carry on, bushy tailed and bright eyed with my faith in humanity intact. It’ll be dead by page 24, but I don’t know that yet. I’m just editing one more vampire boner fest.
The MC is a girl who we’ll call Sue. Sue is a Good Girl™, Sue is Not Like Other Girls™, she is pale and awkward and a virgin and has somehow managed to find herself a Bad Boy™ for a boyfriend. We’ll call him Dickhead.
Now Dickhead as previously stated is a bit of dick, he tries to pressure Sue into sex because he knows she is The One™ but he loves her really so it’s okay. Except it’s not okay because Sue is a Good Girl™ and holding out till marriage which he’s fine with except he’s got such a bad case of blue balls that one night walking home an attractive stranger lures him into an alley with the words “hey stud” and he follows, dick out before she’s even finished her sentence. Well turns out that was a mistake for Dickhead because she’s a vampire, but not just any vampire, a Dick Biting Vampire. So what started out as a skeevy blow job behind a club that he’ll feel bad about in the morning, turns into him being bitten on the dick and drained of his life essence and left for dead. Except DBV fucked up and now he’s a vampire. Are you still with me? Good, cause it’s about to get weirder.
Realizing he is now an abomination, Dickhead flees, becoming a creature of the night and feeding on animals rather than humans to repent for being such an asshole in life. Sue meanwhile is heartbroken, but carries on valiantly with her life and goes to bed each night crying for the loss of her One True Love™ who she would do anything to bring back. Well guess what Sue, Dickhead never really left you! He’s been “instinctively protecting her from rapists” by hiding out on her roof and fighting hobos who try to get to her open window via the fire escape for months now. Because that’s not fucking terrifying at all.
Upon learning of his predicament and how it happened, Sue can do nothing but blame herself. Oh if only she’d let him touch her secret places, then perhaps all of this could be avoided! Meanwhile Dickhead is having another dilemma of his own, realizing too late that his vampire powers have given him super senses and now he can smell her blood and he can’t decide whether he wants to get with her or eat her. And I don’t mean in the French sense. But he is strong! And over comes his base manly vampire instincts and neither rapes not kills her. Hurrah! And this is so romantic that Sue gives it up, but not before she launches into a theory about how in all fairy tales, True Love saves the day, so maybe her magical pure vagina that has never been touched by anyone, not even her, can bring him back to life. So Dickhead being a dickhead agrees and rips her clothes off, but not before he takes one last moment to marvel at the beauty of her purity, because he will never again look on her again and know she is Pure.
If you’ve only vomited once by now, I applaud your resolve.
So they hop on the good foot and do the nasty, except she is literally so pure in spirit, her flesh burns his. And I quote you from memory because these words are burned into my soul: “her breasts bit into his hands, like crucifix nail nipples tearing at
his flesh, but he did not care because he loved her so and couldn’t
stop”
This phrase haunts me. I dread that it will be the last thing I think about on my death bed and my last words will literally be “god fucking dammit” as I die, carrying that mental image with me into the afterlife. My own solace is in knowing that I inflicted it on other people too, like @ahzuri who is somehow still with me after all these years.
When the magical burning sex fails to heal him and leaves her bruised, battered and broken with “a dainty blue bells of bruises around her secret flower” (I am genuinely quoting this, I could never make something as horrendous as this up without being on acid) Dickhead leaves. Yeah. Off he fucks, leaving her to the mercy of the hobos at her window, and into the night to be the true monster he really is. But wait, there’s more. Remember the dick biting vampire? Well turns out she has figured out she made him into a vampire and has also been stalking HIM and is totally jealous of Sue, so tries to kill her. But again Sues Purity saves her, because sex before marriage which was done out of True Love is not a sin, so she is still a spiritual virgin and I’ll be honest, I started drinking heavily at this point and it’s all a bit of a blur.
A fight ensues some pages later after Dickhead returns, realizing the mistake he has made. And he rescues Sue from the Dick Biter, but not before he assaults Dick Biter, and calls her a slut for luring innocent men into alleys cuts her heart out by cutting her breasts off, at which point i screamed “THAT’S NOT HOW YOU REACH THE HEART” and my brain short circuited completely and I have no idea how it ends because I realized there was 30 pages left and my soul couldn’t take it. I emailed the chief editor like ?????!!!!!!????!!!!!! and the book was immediately pulled from the work line and the author dismissed from the publishing house. Turns out she was a friend of a friend and that was how she got the manuscript past our entry levels for requirement.
And that’s the story of how an author sent me death threats for over a month because I stopped her shitty vampire porn from ever seeing the light of day. You’re all fucking WELCOME.
This whole “trust Tumblr blindly” thing is eventually going to kill someone, as I became pointedly aware of on one occasion I was making fun of how poorly a particular bleach-based drain declogger was working on my sink and got a chorus of really dangerously misinformed people telling me to pour vinegar in after it because all cute little cool kid diy home care blogs they’re following talk about vinegar like it it’s the big secret the cleaning companies don’t want you to know.
And I cringed knowing that someday, some Well Actually expert who read a blog article once is going to give that advice to someone who unfortunately didn’t take high school chemistry and isn’t aware that MIXING VINEGAR AND BLEACH MAKES CHLORINE GAS.
holy fucking jesus tits reblog to save a life
For those not aware, vinegar is not the only thing you shouldn’t mix with bleach. Bleach is pretty nasty stuff, and if you’re using it to clean, you’re almost certainly using too much of it- the concentration used to sterilize things in microbiology labs handling extremely dangerous diseases is 1 part bleach to 9 parts water.
Besides vinegar, it’ll react with basically anything acidic to make chlorine gas, which includes a lot of household cleaners. Toilet cleaner, for one- my mom learned this the hard way with those solid bleach things you put in the toilet tank.
It’ll react with ammonia to make chloramines, which are also unfun. Ammonia is also a common ingredient in some household cleaners, as well as in pee, so be careful using bleach on really nasty toilets or litter boxes or whatever.
Bleach and hydrogen peroxide usually doesn’t produce poisonous gas (it bubbles a lot, but it’s mostly oxygen), but you still shouldn’t do it, because I had to say “usually.”
Basically when in doubt, rinse the thing you bleached with LOTS of water before you use any other cleaning chemicals on it.
i just really love when someone has studied a historical figure for a long time and gets so familiar with them that they talk about them as if they were friends. like there goes my boy caesar killing a bunch of gauls again! oh julius you rascal
*curtsies* Your Grace, If you were given the chance to rename 3 alcoholic beverages after punny literary references, what drinks would you rename and how would you have them called?
*Curtsies* I once went to a bar in Iowa that had a cocktail called the Hemingway and when I asked what was in it the bartender told me it was just straight rail vodka in a pint glass. Frankly I don’t think I’m going to top that.
I hate linguistic anthropology. Why? One of the most influential experiments in linguistic anthropology involved teaching a chimp asl. One of the most influential linguistics is named Noam Chomsky. You know what the chimp’s name was?
Nim Chimpsky.
Fucking monkey pun.
And this is in textbooks, in documentaries, everywhere. And everyone just IGNORES THIS GOD AWFUL PUN cause of how important the experiment was. But
BUT LOOK AT THIS SHIT. FUCKING NIM CHIMPSKY. I HATE THIS WHOLE FIELD.
Its not just the linguistic anthropologists.
There’s a group of very important genes that determine if your body develops in the right shape/organization… they are called the hedgehog genes, because fruit fly geneticists are all ridiculous. The different hedgehog genes are all named after different hedgehogs. And then someone decided to get clever and name one “sonic hedgehog” because this is just what fruitfly geneticists do.
Well sonic hedgehog controls brain development, and now actual doctors are stuck in the position of explaining to grieving parents that their child’s lethal birth defects or life-threatening tumors are caused by a “sonic hedgehog mutation”.
And this is why no one will invite the fruit fly people to parties.
Biogeochemical scientists, upon discovering the complex mechanisms that govern the storage and use of molecular iron on our planet, decided to call this cycle “the ferrous wheel”. We groaned about that for at least five solid minutes.
The phenomenon of sneezing when exposed to sudden bright light is called an Autosomal-dominant Compelling Helio Opthalmic Outburst. ACHOO.
OH MY GOD. ARE YOU A FAN OF THE KENCYRATH CHRONICLES? IS THIS THE REAL LIFE? I'M REALLY SORRY FOR THE CAPS LOCK BUT I JUST SHRIEKED IN A COFFEE SHOP AND I'M REALLY EXCITED BECAUSE I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR ANOTHER FAN OF THESE GODDAMN GREAT BOOKS SINCE I GOT A TUMBLR.
They are a chronically underrated treasure and I await the next one with great excitement. Especially now Jame is really getting her act together :)
Other Kencyr fans on Tumblr: there are only, like, four of us, so hit me up, we tiny fandoms have to stick together!
Why Did You Capitalize The Word ‘Cabbage’ But Not The Word ‘France’ : an adventure in reading fanfiction
coming soon, the thrilling sequel: ‘You’ve Gone Through Three Different Tenses In The Space Of One Paragraph And I Think You Just Invented A Whole New One All Of Your Own’
and the long anticipated conclusion to the trilogy: ‘I Have No Idea Who Is Supposed To Be Speaking Right Now’
Don’t forget the essential supplemental texts, That Does Not Physically Work and Anything Is Lube.
Decorated by the thrilling prequel series How Many Ways Can You Describe A Person Using Epithets And Not Their Name, featuring You’re Somehow Convinced That Three Paragraphs of Clothing Detail is Important and Thrilling, and I Have Never Beheld Something So Out Of Character In My Life
Please don’t forget the charming brochure The Most Intimidatingly Huge Paragraphs Of Our Times. There is also the sister novella Multiple Characters Speaking In The Same Paragraph, and the loosely-connected-but-not-strictly-necessary side series Forgoing Punctuation: Misadventures With Enigmatic Run-On Sentences.
That Doesn’t Exist in this Universe and You’re Not Writing an AU: A Leaflet on Anachronisms.
Why Did You Choose the Second Person Over Literally Anything Else, a primer on POV.
Weirdly Specific Fetishes And You: An Introductory Guide to Oversharing With Your Readers.
can someone explain the alignment chart for me but in like, the simplest wording possible lmao
lawful good: i want to do the right thing, and following society’s rules is the best way to do that
neutral good: i want to do what’s right, and i’m willing to bend or break the rules as long as no one gets hurt
chaotic good: i’m willing to do whatever it takes as long as it’s to do the right thing
lawful neutral: following the rules of society is the most important thing, and that matters more to me than doing what’s right
true neutral: i just want myself and the people i care about to be happy
chaotic neutral: i want my freedom, and i don’t care what i have to do to keep it
lawful evil: to impede the protagonists (in whatever evil way) is my primary goal, but i follow my own code of morals even when it’s inconvenient
neutral evil: to impede the protagonists (in whatever evil way) is the my primary goal, and while i’ll do what it takes to achieve it, i also won’t go out of my way to do unnecessary damage
chaotic evil: i relish in destruction and want to do as much damage as possible while i try to achieve my primary goal
Bayard Rustin was an openly gay Black man who was Martin Luther King’s right hand man. He planned the Million Man March and was subject to scrutiny for his sexuality and deemed a “deviant” and “pervert”.
Bayard Rustin can be found in nearly every picture of MLK yet he has undoubtedly been erased from history. We have to fix that.
Well then, let’s bring that name back.
Bayard Rustin, openly gay, human rights activist, proud black man.
All men benefit from women’s reinforced fear of being hurt for saying no.
read it again and again
Understand that this applies even to non-sexual situations. Women are more likely to be asked for favors from coworkers. Regular “can you file this for me” / “can you cover my shift” / “can you finish up this paperwork” workplace favors. Men are less likely to return those favors. Women are more likely to be seen as “difficult to work with” if they refuse to do favors when requested. Being viewed as ungenerous has negative social and professional consequences.
So yes, even gay men benefit. All men benefit from women’s reinforced fear of being hurt, not just physically, but also socially and professionally, for saying no to anything at all.
Re: above; just in case it looks like I’m just pulling facts out of my ass, here are my sources:
Thinking a lot lately about how this stuff plays out in two circles where I spend a lot of time–the comics community, and the development / implementation of CoCs and harassment policies; and how it intersects with both of those for freelancers in particular.
U WAN KNO WHAT I WANNA SEE IN THE NEXT MOVIE??? I WANNA SEE KYLO REN LIKE FUCKIN USING THE FORCE AGAINST LEIA AND SHE IS JUST LIKE NO U FUCKIN DONT U LIL SHIT AND SHE USES THE FORCE TO SMACK HIM ACROSS THE ROOM AND SHES LIKE ‘WHERE TF DID U THINK U INHERITED THE FORCE FROM??’
Fun fact: According to Greek legend there was a famous prostitute who managed to avoid a death sentence by showing the judges her boobs and arguing that it would be a crime against the Gods to destroy something so beautiful.
Before you ask, yes there are paintings of this. And yes, they’re amazing.
No, but this is one of my absolute favorite bits of history!
The courtesan named was named Phryne and she was indeed a renowned beauty, and was indeed was put on trial for a capital crime. And yes, the sum of her defense consisted of her stripping in court (helped by her lover/defendant) and asking the jury (all males) if they were prepared to destroy this.
But this is actually a very interesting case of Values Dissonance - the capital crime she was accused of was blasphemy. In Ancient Greek society, exceptional beauty was a sign of favor from the gods, and they took the idea that beauty indicated goodness with great seriousness. They even called their nobles Kaloi k'Agathoi, “the Beautiful and the Good.”
So by showing off her great physical beauty, Phryne was being very clever indeed, her argument essentially being “How could I possibly commit blasphemy if the gods have given me this body?“
God, I adore history.
She was accused of blasphemy because at a festival of Poseidon, her gift to the god was her walking naked into the sea.
hookers have been amazing since forever i love her
Kencyrath! So, best Caineron: Graykin, Lyra, Cattila, or Gorbel?
screeches in glee
Okay, tough question. I’d say that if you mean ‘best Caineron’ as in ‘best example of the House’s values, etc’ it’d be a hard tie between Cattila and Gorbel, because they’re both good at the underhanded-efficiency thing. Probably Cattila purely for that attitude of unshakeable serenity and ‘yes, this is fine’ that she has at all times, even when she’s being possessed by Merekit elemental spirits.
As for personal favorites…oh, that’s so hard, that’s so hard. I like Lyra a lot because…she’s just kind of a sweetie? Like, she’s very uncomplicated–she knows what she can do and what her limits are because of society and she’s willing to work within those limits to help the people she likes, like Jame.
I like Graykin for…kind of the exact opposite reasons. He latches onto Jame so hard and she’s so desperately unready for having someone bound to her and he’s just as desperate to be bound to someone even though he hates that need–he’s hard and complicated and difficult and does everything in his power to get around the limitations placed on him just to prove to himself that he can, even when getting around those limitations hurts him or someone else. But even through all that I think he genuinely loves Jame even as he kind of hates what her carelessness does to him–because Jame, the terrible destructive queen of my existence, is so careless with him, she has no training for what to do with him and no idea how to care for him–and he’s just such a messy character bound up in a mixed-blood bastard that I’ve kind of got to love him.
My general adoration for Cattila really can be summed up in how determined she is at all times to be calm as hell. Like when Jame and Brier’s ten-command break into Restormir in Seeker’s Mask and come bursting into Cattila’s sanctum sanctorum and she just kind of goes “There’s a secret passage at the back, everyone’s drunk, go on ahead” as if this happens every day. She knows exactly how much of a monster Lord Caineron is and, while she can’t be seen moving against him, she’s willing to let someone else do it and she’ll just sit back and watch, all right? She’s the sort of person I imagine to wait for the end of the final battle, step outside, and criticize the Tyr-Ridan for making such a terrible mess.
And Gorbel. Ah, my boy. I have a lot of very incohesive thoughts about Gorbel, who wants revenge for his dead brothers and who wants to be a good lordan and who wants his father’s approval and who wants to be friends with Jame and who wants all of those desires to mesh for just one minute. His life is a tangled mess and his loyalties are even worse and for reasons that he can’t really pin down, he recognizes Jame–who is terrible and dangerous and blood-drenched and chaotic–as the one solid thing. He orients himself by her, not the way Graykin does, as his leader, or the way her enemies do, as their opponent, but as a landmark, something he can use to tell his position in the shifting landscape of the Kencyrath and their politics and their underhanded tactics. And there’s something about that willingness to orient by her that I think makes him a gorgeously complex character with a remarkably large capacity for empathy and kindness given the way he grew up. (On a less solemn note, I think Twizzle is damn adorable.)
But I’m going to say that my favorite Caineron is Sheth Sharp-Tongue. His determination to let Jame rip apart the rotten scraps of the Kencyrath and Tentir to find the pure heart and the intact bits to piece back together is everything to me. He is the one who figures out how to slide around the bonds of Honor’s Paradox, letting Jame succeed without technically disobeying his lord’s orders. He’s sneaky and sly and clever and daring and I just kind of adore him.
Wow, okay, so I posted the answer to your question on my blog because it was just WAY too long and I see your incredibly difficult question and raise you. Best Tastigon: Dally? Cleppetty? The Cloudies? Bane?
I’m afraid I’m going to frame my answer in scatological terms:
Dally is a sweetheart and does not deserve this shit.
Cleppetty has my eternal admiration for the way she rolls up her sleeves and deals with shit
Bane is a complete and utter shit (but, ultimately, he’s Jame’s shit).
But the win goes to the Cloudies, because they just do not give a shit.
reasons people think i give and recommend they read certain books:
so that they can enjoy them and gain a sense of fulfilment
actual reasons I give and recommend people read books:
so that they suffer, because I have suffered, in solitude, unable to find peace till the day when my pain dwells in another and they look at me, knowingly, with a look of crestfallen understanding as they too have felt the sharp twist of those words upon their souls and it brings me the slightest of comforts in these bleak times
When I was in 8th grade a friend of mine and I were fucking around during our study period and he accidentally stabbed me in the arm with a pencil and the pencil was partially stuck in my arm but I was really shy in social situations so I just raised my hand and waited for the teacher to notice which took about five minutes so when he finally asked me what I needed I said “TJ accidentally stabbed me with a pencil a few minutes ago and now it’s hanging out of my arm, can I go see the nurse?”. He freaked out and yelled “OH MY GOD SEBASTIAN WHY DIDNT YOU TELL ME RIGHT AWAY?” And I said right back “please don’t yell at me, I have a pencil in my arm, if anyone is yelling it should be me” and that sums up my attitude and personality fairly well tbh
[headcannon caused by listening to the song from the end of episode 4] so the resistance is giving finn and rey medals and it's the big hall full of all the resistance fighters and Leia gives them the medals just like originally and poe is standing there in his fancy uniform and finn looks over at him with a huge smile and poe winks at him like han winked at Leia and finn just keeps the huge smile on his face and smiles at Rey and BB-8 and R2 and CPO and Chewie are all there and it’s awesome.
WOW I LOVE THIS. Oh, it’s so great, oh wow, 100% yes.
Kencyrath! So, best Caineron: Graykin, Lyra, Cattila, or Gorbel?
screeches in glee
Okay, tough question. I’d say that if you mean ‘best Caineron’ as in ‘best example of the House’s values, etc’ it’d be a hard tie between Cattila and Gorbel, because they’re both good at the underhanded-efficiency thing. Probably Cattila purely for that attitude of unshakeable serenity and ‘yes, this is fine’ that she has at all times, even when she’s being possessed by Merekit elemental spirits.
As for personal favorites…oh, that’s so hard, that’s so hard. I like Lyra a lot because…she’s just kind of a sweetie? Like, she’s very uncomplicated–she knows what she can do and what her limits are because of society and she’s willing to work within those limits to help the people she likes, like Jame.
I like Graykin for…kind of the exact opposite reasons. He latches onto Jame so hard and she’s so desperately unready for having someone bound to her and he’s just as desperate to be bound to someone even though he hates that need–he’s hard and complicated and difficult and does everything in his power to get around the limitations placed on him just to prove to himself that he can, even when getting around those limitations hurts him or someone else. But even through all that I think he genuinely loves Jame even as he kind of hates what her carelessness does to him–because Jame, the terrible destructive queen of my existence, is so careless with him, she has no training for what to do with him and no idea how to care for him–and he’s just such a messy character bound up in a mixed-blood bastard that I’ve kind of got to love him.
My general adoration for Cattila really can be summed up in how determined she is at all times to be calm as hell. Like when Jame and Brier’s ten-command break into Restormir in Seeker’s Mask and come bursting into Cattila’s sanctum sanctorum and she just kind of goes “There’s a secret passage at the back, everyone’s drunk, go on ahead” as if this happens every day. She knows exactly how much of a monster Lord Caineron is and, while she can’t be seen moving against him, she’s willing to let someone else do it and she’ll just sit back and watch, all right? She’s the sort of person I imagine to wait for the end of the final battle, step outside, and criticize the Tyr-Ridan for making such a terrible mess.
And Gorbel. Ah, my boy. I have a lot of very incohesive thoughts about Gorbel, who wants revenge for his dead brothers and who wants to be a good lordan and who wants his father’s approval and who wants to be friends with Jame and who wants all of those desires to mesh for just one minute. His life is a tangled mess and his loyalties are even worse and for reasons that he can’t really pin down, he recognizes Jame–who is terrible and dangerous and blood-drenched and chaotic–as the one solid thing. He orients himself by her, not the way Graykin does, as his leader, or the way her enemies do, as their opponent, but as a landmark, something he can use to tell his position in the shifting landscape of the Kencyrath and their politics and their underhanded tactics. And there’s something about that willingness to orient by her that I think makes him a gorgeously complex character with a remarkably large capacity for empathy and kindness given the way he grew up. (On a less solemn note, I think Twizzle is damn adorable.)
But I’m going to say that my favorite Caineron is Sheth Sharp-Tongue. His determination to let Jame rip apart the rotten scraps of the Kencyrath and Tentir to find the pure heart and the intact bits to piece back together is everything to me. He is the one who figures out how to slide around the bonds of Honor’s Paradox, letting Jame succeed without technically disobeying his lord’s orders. He’s sneaky and sly and clever and daring and I just kind of adore him.
main character:
this villain has killed innocents and destroyed multiple lives in a ripple-effect of death and destruction and chaos. only i can stop him before he hurts someone again, perhaps someone close to me. but in order to stop him i must kill him. if i go through with this.... doesn't it make me just as evil?
controversial: dumbledore would’ve made the right decision taking the 1991-1992 house cup away from slytherin even if harry and co. hadn’t saved the school and stopped voldemort from returning to power
Can I ask why? Genuinely curious here
Slytherin students didn’t have better academic performance and they certainly didn’t have better behavior than the other houses. What they did have was a head of house who would award his own students points for almost no reason while handing out penalties to other houses like candy. If Draco Malfoy answered a question correctly in potions, he’d be awarded ten points, while Hermione giving the same answer would lose ten points for being a know-it-all.
That’s the thing, the game was rigged in Slytherin’s favor. Snape set his own house up to win, through absolutely no merit of their own, seven years in a row with no penalty. Meanwhile Dumbledore is made out to be the one who “just hands victory to his own house” after four members of his house put their lives on the line to save the school from a genocidal mass-murderer.
Gryffindor deserved the house cup because their students saved the school, but even if they didn’t, Slytherin should have had it taken away from them because they didn’t earn it.
I can’t even condemn Dumbledore for letting Slytherin believe they’d won, sit in a green-and-silver dining hall, and then changing it when he announced they’d actually lost, because after seven years of cheating, it’s not enough for them to just lose. If they’d just lost, they’d think they were cheated out of something that’s rightfully theirs. Allowing them to believe they’d just once again been handed an award they didn’t deserve, and then giving it directly to the house that actually did something to deserve it, teaches a valuable lesson.
Anyway, if we’re going to criticize Dumbledore’s abilities as a school administrator for anything, it’s how unchecked he left Snape’s treatment of his students. Even putting aside the emotional and physical abuse he inflicted on his students, there should have been some provision in place to prevent his abuse of the points system before he had a chance to hand it to his own students for ONE year, let alone seven.
There should have been a provision that the current holder of the house cup is ineligible for participation in the next year’s competition. There should be an upper limit on how many points you can take away from another house’s students, and how many points you can give to your own students. Students should be able to appeal unfair penalties to the headmaster.
Point is, Slytherin shouldn’t get an award just because their head-of-house refuses to play fair
And to people who say “but that reinforces the anti-Slytherin perception of the school” - here’s the thing, it doesn’t. What people are quick to forget is that Gryffindor was actually tied for the Cup until the Norbert incident, and when that happened THE WHOLE SCHOOL was shitty at Harry, Hermione and Neville for screwing up the chance at a non-Slytherin victory for the first time in eight years solid. Slytherins were literally going up to them and thanking them for making sure they didn’t have to actually work for their victory, and the other three Houses were giving them the cold shoulder. The whole school was ALREADY tired of Slytherin being handed the win - and please don’t try and tell me Slytherin earned every single win or that Snape was just trying to level some imaginary inherently anti-Slytherin playing field, I will laugh at you.
I see even people who think Gryffindor earned the win lament the feelings of the Slytherins, “OMG the Slytherins rilly rilly rilly thought they’d won again, and that mean old Dumbledore let them think that just so he could have a dramatic win for his precious Gryffindors! Why didn’t he award the points when Harry was still in the hospital wing? That would have been fair! Imagine how they cried that night, how much humiliation they felt! They were so happy and Dumbledore let that happen just to take it away, how could he do that to children?!” What every single one of these arguments manages to miss is that Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw studentsare also children. Are they not? Or are they short adults, obligated to take every loss maturely with a smile and an ‘oh well, guess we just need to try harder next time!’? No. They’re children, and they’re not happy, and why should they be? Three Gryffindor students literally risked their lives to defeat the greatest evil Slytherin House had ever given to the world, and that still wasn’t enough. Slytherin was going to walk away with the win yet again for the eighth time in a row. That’s it, it’s official, there’s no point in trying, bye bye. And then, somehow, miraculously, things are set right. Bravery and cleverness and loyalty and all the things those three Houses most prize, are given their just reward and celebration.
With that one act, Dumbledore told every muggleborn and halfblood in the school “your rights are worth defending, your muggle heritage is not a crime that disqualifies you from being here, and preventing the person who wanted you exterminated from coming back is worth all the reward in the world.” But its the feelings of the Slytherins, the ones who had literally gotten complacent and assumed the Cup was theirs by right, the ones who literally resented having to work for said Cup, that this fandom gives a damn about because they didn’t get what was essentially a shiny toy. Honestly, I don’t trust Snape not to have tried to skew the results back in Slytherin’s favour if Dumbledore had given the points earlier. Apparently, neither did Dumbledore.
It was Dumbledore letting Snape get away with stacking the deck that reinforced anti-Slytherin feeling in the other three Houses, not him saying ‘no, actually, these people are getting a public reward because they deserve it’. Dumbledore showed three quarters of his students that yes, it’s worth trying, worth doing the right thing and taking on the impossible even if it seems like the deck is stacked against you. And he showed the final quarter of his students to not get complacent and assume people in authority will always grease the hinges for you. A whole year of students - Tonks’ year, in fact - went through Hogwarts with Slytherin winning every single House Cup. The other three Houses never once knew the joy and pride of winning - and here’s the thing, the Slytherins never learned what it is to lose, which is an absolutely vital thing to learn. Snape (and Dumbledore, by failing to intervene earlier) didn’t do that year’s Slytherins any favours.
So…like…question for the void. I wrote about 20 pages of original fiction for a class I’m taking. It’s not like this is exactly a first, as anyone who was following me around New Year’s is probably aware–I write so much original fiction, like hundreds of thousands of words, like whole novels–but it is a first that this is a short story I wrote that I’m going to have to share with a bunch of people for editing. And I kind of figured that, hey, in for a penny and all that shit, so as long as I’m having a panic attack about my class reading this thing, I could ask the internet if they wanted to read this thing. Sooooo…anybody want to read 12K of some poor dude named Jack dealing with a city populated of every polytheistic pantheon in human history?
Due to the evolution of bacteria with respect to our bodies natural defense mechanisms, traveling forward in time could kill you, and traveling back in time could kill everyone.
I never thought about this but it makes perfect sense.
epidemiology fascinates me and this post is just so cool to me
Rules: Tag 10 bloggers you want to get to know better.
Birthday: March 12th
Gender: Female
Relationship status: Single and too goddamn busy to mingle.
Zodiac sign: The most un-Pisces to ever Pisces, or at least so I’ve been told
Siblings: Not a one, nay, not a one.
Favorite color: Um, bright red and black, with an option on royal purple.
Pets: Two dogs, one of whom loves everyone and the other one of whom barely deigns to like my parents.
Wake-up and sleep time: Well, I’m in college, so I wake up 7-8 on class days, barring crippling exhaustion. I actually hate sleeping, it kind of bores me to tears and I rarely sleep well, so I do sleep later than that on weekends but it makes me irritable as hell. Sleep? Ahaha…what’s that again? I try to get to sleep around midnight at the latest, but also…college is sort of what happens when you’re making plans, so.
Coke or pepsi: None of the above
Day or night: I am a ‘consciousness’ person. Six in the morning, two in the afternoon, midnight, if I’m awake I’m happy, if I’m asleep or going to sleep I’m not. But I guess night.
Text or call: Phones freak me right the fuck out. No. I always text when I can get away with it, except with my parents and my best friend.
Make up or natural: I usually can’t be bothered with makeup, but even when I take the time I only end up wearing this blood-of-my-enemies shade of lipstick I enjoy.
Met a celebrity: Nope.
Smile or eyes: On others? I generally go with ‘both.’ A good, honest smile should make someone’s eyes light up. On me? Um…my smile is kind of strange-looking, too many teeth, and my eyes are nice, but fairly unremarkable.
Light or dark hair: I ended up with dark brown hair. On other people I generally go for darker hair as well.
Shorter or taller: I’m five goddamn feet tall and I will fight your tall ass.
intelligence or attraction: Both, come at me, I don’t have to choose shit.
Chapstick or lipstick: Depends on how much attention I’m willing to pay.
City or country: CITY. God, I moved out of the Twin Cities when I was a kid and I’ve lived in small towns ever since and all I want from life is an apartment in a city of >1 million people.
Edit: it’s been about…many months since I did this and I totally thought I’d done the thing but apparently I forgot to post it. It’s like 1:30 in the morning so I’m not able to think of 10 people to tag so I’ll go with…uh…okay, let’s see, @bonehandledknife, @amusewithaview, @allgreymatters, and what the hell, my own dear platonic wife, @twistedangelsays. Yeah, that’s four people, I’m dead tired or I’d be able to think of more, sorry, guys.
IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT THERE IS A (VERY SMALL BUT APPARENTLY EXTANT) FAN BASE ON TUMBLR FOR THE KENCYRATH CHRONICLES.
Beloved followers and non-followers alike, let me tell you a thing. The Kencyrath Chronicles are up there as my favorite books ever. Not the way I talk about loving Harry Potter–Hogwarts is my home, to coin a phase–or even the way I love everything Robin McKinley has ever touched–and I love her stuff like I love BREATHING, it’s not always at the forefront of my mind but when I go too long without it I ache, go read all of it immediately. No, no, no. This, my love for the Kencyrath Chronicles, is a WHOLE OTHER CREATURE. Just talking about these books makes my hands shake and my bones feel heavy and my blood become a tangible fizzy thing in my veins. Like, if being in love doesn’t feel this good, I’m honestly not interested.
These books are about grand sweeping battles between good and evil and how those grand ideals become petty and ugly and messy as soon as you look closely enough, and how people fight them anyway because it’s their purpose or because it’s their choice or because it’s their people they’re protecting. Magic is rampant, from the great and hated Three-Faced God of the Kencyr people and its ‘blessed’ chosen ones, the Shanir, who are hated and cherished by their own people and by themselves for how close they are to their meddling deity, to the wandering bands of rathorn (ARMORED FLESH-EATING UNICORNS, PEOPLE, HOW MUCH MORE OF A PITCH DO YOU NEED) and the migratory trees (yes, you read that correctly). The main character is wild and casually vicious and desperate to be gentle, and she is loved by people everywhere she goes but she’s never really one of them, and the running joke in-universe is that you can track her progress across the world by falling buildings and burning cities (”…the Riverlands in ruins and you in the middle of it, looking apologetic” is a personal favorite quote). The writing style fucking breathes with power and imagination and magic. I am not a tough sell on books, really I’m not, but these books. Trinity. The fact that these books are not the most popular things since Lord of the Rings fucking breaks my heart, it really does.
So like. Go read them. Immediately. The first two books, God Stalk and Dark of the Moon, are sold as an omnibus called Dark of the Gods, and please forgive their God-awful covers (why is the canonically very flat-chested lead a D-cup? Don’t know, just kind of relieved I read the older edition with the less awful cover). If you’ve read them and you liked them, please please PLEASE COME INTO MY ASK BOX AND NEVER EVER LEAVE.
(On a somewhat related note, I’ve read more books than I could care to count in my life, so if anyone ever wants a fantasy/sci-fi rec, I got you, hit me up.)
