narcissa malfoy was probably the most powerful occlumens in hogwarts history and nobody knew
she literally stood up to lord voldemort and lied that harry potter was dead and i don’t know about you but if i were an evil ruler i would probably want to triple-check that my nemesis was, you know, actually deceased
voldemort had actual doubts about snape
narcissa swans on by without a whisper, without a second glance
narcissa malfoy understood from a young age that she was meant to do only a few things: look pretty, say nothing, and marry well.
narcissa malfoy understood those rules, and she layered her mind with them.
look pretty. wear the most expensive robes. grandmother’s pearls. curl your hair every night. think only of clothes and dimples and the way your hair falls when you flutters you eyelashes at a boy.
say nothing. don’t speak when mother and father are screaming at each other. demurely look down as another boy asks you to dance. retreat into the reading room when your family friends, known death eaters and criminals, pay your parents a visit and speak in hushed voices over tea. think of pretty things.
marry well. marry into a family of your parents’ friends. bear children. wear pearls and look demure and think of nothing but pretty, pretty things, like the way your husband’s hair gleams in candlelight.
masters must learn the rules before they can break them. narcissa learned the rules so well that they wrapped around her; sank into her skin and her mind. they protect her from enemies. they conceal the quick, strategic plots ticking her brain into gear every moment of every day. they hide the calculation of each smile, each movement.
narcissa is so good, so perfect, that no one will ever know.
Sirius didn’t know that the Dursleys were abusive.
At the end of Prisoner of Azkaban, he automatically assumes that Harry would rather live with them than with him. In the Goblet of Fire, Harry writes to him about Dudley’s video games and diet habits but never explicitly mentions anything about being abused. Even when he gets to Grimmauld Place in the Order of the Phoenix, he expresses his anger at not receiving information and though we know that he was also emotionally exhausted from spending another summer at an abusive household, he never discloses it. In fact, seeing as how he protected Dudley, Sirius could just as well be under the impression that the two were very close.
And I hate this so much because Sirius Orion Black grew up in an abusive household and if he had known for a single second that his godson was facing the same thing that he had faced, he would have really blown up a street in an attempt to get to Privet Drive and rescue Harry.
And it also breaks my heart because you know that Harry knew this which meant that he was more worried about his godfather’s safety and freedom than he was his own health.
Who hurt you and why did you feel the need to hurt us?
concept: a retelling of hamlet with the frame story that it’s a tabletop rpg being played by a bunch of overzealous college kids and an increasingly frazzled dm trying to keep them all from rushing headlong into situations and dying immediately. horatio is the dm’s vaguely self-insert npc character. thanks
“AND THEN HE GETS KIDNAPPED BY PIRATES”
“um…dude…you can’t just–”
“PIRATES”
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are played by the same player, who keeps forgetting that he’s running two separate characters.
“The ghost awaits a response”
“Horatio, you went to college, you talk to it.”
—–
“You find the skull of the old court jester.”
“I’m going to talk to it until someone stops me.”
“Horatio, you went to college, you stop him.”
—–
“I stab the curtain!”
“Polonius, roll for fortitude.”
——
“I search for a nunnery in the moat”
*sigh* “Seaweed wraps around your leg. Roll for dexterity escape”
—–
“We all drink to Hamlet’s victory.”
“Everyone roll for fortitude.”
*groans amid the sound of rolling dice*
—–
“Sorry I’m late, everyone. Can my Prince of Finland character just show up?”
random observations from re-watching the first AOS Star Trek film:
people always characterize Kirk & McCoy’s dynamic as pure ‘IM GONNA DO THE THING, BONES” vs “DAMNIT JIM DONT DO THE THING”
but it’s incredibly significant to me, that it’s Bones who makes the decision to smuggle him onto the Enterprise.
Jim finds out that he’s under academic suspension, and can’t go with the rest of the fleet, and he doesn’t argue.
He stands there, looking a little bit lost, sure.
But he tells Bones to go without him, lies to Bones’ face and says that he’s fine, he’s ‘good’, even though it’s absolutely killing to say that.
Except he knows Bones’ needs that lie, that reassurance, because Bones is the one who is scared, not him, and if it’s the last thing they say to each other, Bones needs to know that Kirk will be okay.
And then Bones is the one who decides to say “screw regulations, screw the entire academic board of Starfleet and the Medical Code, I’m going to misappropriate medical supplies & inject you with them, to falsify a medical dispensation that will get you on board once I bullshit my way past security. Risking, if we get caught, at a minimum some form of academic penalty, and possibly the loss of my license. But I’m not doing this without my friend by my side.”
It’s then you remember that Kirk isn’t the only last-minute sign-up that day in Iowa.
Bones wasn’t at the bar with the rest of the cadets, or he would have probably met Kirk there, instead, & checked him over for a concussion, at the very least.
He was the only one other than Jim to show up for the shuttle without a uniform, which all of the rest of them had, at a minimum, the night before.
Which means, given what we heard, Bones’ divorce proceedings finally went through, and the next day he woke up, started drinking, and thought to himself. ‘you know, I just got divorced, I’m flat broke, but hey, let’s sign up for STAR FLEET. Because it’s a new start! I’m definitely not signing up for an organization that operates almost exclusively in space, when I’m afraid of flying. that would be a terrible life choice, who would do that? Right. It’s settled, then. I’m gonna do that.”
tl:dr Bones isn’t impulsive as often as Kirk, but when he is:
A. it’s a doozy
B. it probably winds up saving the entire galaxy, somewhere along the way
With a screenplay by Rhianna Pratchett, daughter of Terry Pratchett, we’re finally going to see an adaptation of The Wee Free Men.
The Wee Free Men introduced Tiffany Aching, the young witch who starred in several of Pratchett’s last Discworld books. It also features a group of Discworld characters who seem absolutely perfect for a Jim Henson movie: the Nac Mac Feegle, a community of foul-mouthed and gleefully violent gnomes.
My boyfriend told me over text that he didn't know the Minotaur story
Boyfriend:
I... I don't even know the story that well babe, I can't even say xD
Me:
Okay so
Me:
Poseidon gives a bull to King Minos, the best and shiniest bull you ever saw, and he's like "You can have this, but only if you promise to sacrifice it to me later" and Minos is like "Sure yeah okay man whatever" so Poseidon sends this bestest bull ever galloping up out of the salty sea spray, and everyone standing around is like "Hot fuck look at that bull" And Minos agrees, and he likes the bull SO much he decides to just quietly sort of...keep it. And he does kill a bull for Poseidon but it's one of his own, lame normal bulls, and Poseidon's no pushover so of course he notices.
Me:
Poseidon is also notoriously easily angered, and he's royal pissed about this, so he comes up with one of the most devious punishments ever, and he infects Minos' wife Pasiphae with a desperate, DESPERATE thirst for the bull. Like she can think of nothing but getting some of that hot Bull D.
Boyfriend:
..........Thefuck.
Me:
But it's hard to convince a bull, especially a divinely spawned bull, to fuck you if you are in fact not a cow but a human queen, so she comes up with a plan
Boyfriend:
I thought some god comes down in bull form and fucks her??
Me:
Ohh, no no no, that's the much much more tame story of Europa, who has sex with Zeus in bull form. This is different
Me:
She goes to the best inventor she knows, Daedalus, and she's like "I need this bull to fuck me I NEED IT" and Daedalus is like "That's really weird maybe you should talk to someone" and she's like "I am talking to you and I am your queen so you better fucking make this happen for me I am going to peel my own skin off if I don't get some bull dick ASAP. But he doesn't want me because I am not fat, four-legged, and mooing."
Boyfriend:
Oh..... oh no.
Me:
So Daedalus shrugs, probably shudders a little, and builds the prettiest, most fuckable wooden cow a bull over saw, but he makes it hollow, presumably with some openings in some awkward places.
Boyfriend:
OH GOD. NO.
Me:
So Pasiphae puts this monstrosity in the field with the bull, climbs in it, and waits. And Daedalus really is a skilled inventor, and he apparently knows what a bull likes, because Pasiphae finally gets the hot bull loving she's been dreaming of
Boyfriend:
I........ I need an aspirin. That is disgusting.
Me:
Only she apparently hasn't been tracking her cycles, because she gets pregnant, and births the minotaur and King Minos is like "What the fuck?" and Pasiphae is like "Honey I need to tell you something"
Cliffhangers are literally the worst??? I mean??? Why? Why would you do this????
Okay, there’s the ‘I’m a dick’ answer which is “I like to make people (especially my roommate) suffer.” And there’s the ‘I’m a writer’ answer, which is “The next good break point was going to be like five pages down the line and this chapter was already longer than my average goal for this story.” And then there’s the ‘life is time-consuming’ answer, which is “I wanted to get the chapter out before I was a billion.”
I mean, take your pick, they’re all perfectly true.
You are not screaming into the void in vain. The void is just practicing active listening and wants you to let it all out without feeling like it is judging or trying to speak over you
“In a healthy relationship, your partner hears you out if you’re upset, and their goal is to avoid upsetting you in the future, not to debate whether you should have been upset in the first place.”
there’s all these aus about vader finding luke and smuggling him away to the empire in a clever moment of mental clarity, but please consider this crack au: after being faced with slavery, his mother’s death, tusken raiders, sand, obi-wan kenobi, seeing the larses, and tatooine in general, vader lays eyes on toddler luke skywalker - his son, which meant palpatine lied, holy fuck i’m a father, oh god padme i’m so sorry - and flips.
this is the straw that breaks the semi-rational sith lord’s back. in true anakin skywalker fashion, vader panics, scoops his son into his arms, charges into mos espa and turns it upside down, steals a shuttle from his own fleet, slams random hyperspace coordinates, and is thrown into space with no real idea where he’s going or when he’s going to get there. with a toddler.
to make things more interesting, obi-wan snuck aboard the ship, but dropped his lightsaber in the ruckus of sneaking into imperial ranks. and poor, poor firmus piett, a lowly officer who just so happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, runs smack into him.
and they’re all stuck on a ship, indefinitely. with a toddler.
sweet baby jesus i love this idea
just vader, picking up toddler luke under his arm like a football, and RUNNING LIKE FUCKING HELL
[darth vader voice] I HAVE YOU NOW
*toddler Luke SCREAMING the whole time*
obiwan just having a nervous breakdown “what what why are you doing this you’re evil but but what what is this someone shut that child up”
i love that people are contributing this is AMAZING
vader hefts the child into his arms - YOU CAN’T HAVE HIM - and literally turns away from everyone else like a kid with a new mcdonald’s toy. you can’t have him, YOU CAN’T EVEN LOOK AT HIM. luke quiets down because he’s up so high and he can see EVERYTHING and it’s fascinating. luke’s an easily impressed kid, after all. (and there are vents up here that he can nearly reach to crawl through!)
obi-wan: you can’t take luke from me, darth. vader, probably: LIKE YOU TOOK MY LIMBS???? HUH OBI-WAN????? HUH?????
What if at one point Obi-wan and Vader get all huffy and refuse to speak to each other and Piett has to act as the go between.
vader: tell that washed up old man that i know exactly what i’m doing
piett: …
piett: yes, lord vader
piett: excuse me, master jedi, but lord vader has everything under control
obi-wan: [huffs] That walking disaster hasn’t had anything under control since he was nine, and you can tell him i said that. In fact, i insist
piett: [looks into the camera like on the office]
oh god i have to write this now. you’ve convinced me, I AM SOLD. THERE IS ALMOST NOTHING BETTER THAN THIS IMAGE.
imagine it gets to the point where vader and obi-wan are screaming at each other with piett stuck in the middle, and luke, his attention torn away from the pretty lights on vader’s chest, clambers up and pats vader right over the respirator. “stop,” luke, a 2 year old, orders, patting sith lord darth vader gently on the face. “is mean,” announces luke.
vader re-settles luke in his arms. “say sowwy,” luke demands. vader, reluctantly, apologizes. he’s not taken with this child at all, obviously he’s just trying to earn luke’s respect, clearly. duh.
luke clambers off vader and toddles to piett to give him the biggest hug. “i sowwy,” says luke, solemnly. piett is about to faint. first lord vader, now the lordling? this is Too Much. vader’s probably giving piett the most terrifying death glare from behind his mask.
with the blessing of the Great and Powerful Luke Skywalker, piett can DEMAND THESE TWO STOP BEING CHILDREN but quietly, with a lot of respect.
obi-wan, meanwhile: i need a drink. i need a whole liquor bottle
I'd love to hear any outsider POV about Empress Amidala verse, people looking at Amidala/Vader shenanigans with great fear and confusion (or maybe they're not confused at all hahaha XD)
No one says “Darth Amidala”, but so many people think “Darth Amidala”. Constantly. All the time. They do their good Force DAMNEDEST to never think it in front of Vader, but even if he picked the thought out of their heads he would just be like “well yes, of course, obviously”.
Vader is so obviously Amidala’s. Like, as loyal and terrifying he was as the Emperor’s fucking CYBORG TANK RUN ON NIGHTMARE FUEL, he is worse for Amidala. Amidala he is HAPPY to serve, and Amidala he did not have to shut down his emotional reactions to survive. Also, like, he’s not missing all his limbs, on a respirator, or in CONSTANT FUCKING PAIN. Like–that helps, definitely. Not being in constant fucking pain pretty much ALWAYS helps.
Also-also, he does not give two fucks what anyone not Amidala or the twins thinks of him, and so follows all his random impulses and does all sorts of looks-weird-to-people-not-in-his-head shit. W-why is Lord Vader petting the velvet curtains in this king’s office? Why is Lord Vader rubbing the back of his soup spoon against his neck at this very important dinner party? Why is Lord Vader climbing the outside of the Senate building?
As far as Vader is concerned being Dark means he can do anything he wants, pretty much. He doesn’t need to put on a show of being dignified or do anything to demonstrate that he’s scary or dangerous; he just DOES things and that’s it. People who do not want to be under Imperial rule and people who try to subvert Empress Amidala’s orders RAPIDLY learn how terrifying it is to one moment be dealing with a man who’s playing with a pretty little compact mirror he got from who knows where to a man in fucking MURDER MODE because you said something that could be interpreted as less than entirely worshipful of his Empress.
And as terrifying as he is, he still spends literally all his time on Coruscant trotting after Amidala like a fucking puppy trying to get scritches. He has literally DIVERTED TROOPS’ MOVEMENTS in the interest of getting five minutes of direct attention from Amidala before going back to decimate the surviving dissidents.
So yes, the outsider POV of their relationship is FASCINATING. And kind of traumatized, sometimes. Frequent times. MANY times. Oh Force, Lord Vader, please don’t kill us, WE’RE VERY SORRY WHAT WOULD THE EMPRESS LIKE IS THERE SOMETHING WE CAN DO FOR HER.
I just read through your Empress Amidala tag. I love it. I love Padme's trauma. But. I want to know. Are there ever any times when Padme. forgets? To be horrified? Like, something will happen - some horrible thing, and she can just *fix* it. And every now and then it's soooo eaasy. Instead of bickering senators immorally arguing politics, she can just order the starving citizens fed. Or on a personal level (Vader is still Anakin, she still loves Anakin, qed she loves Vader) Then she remembers.
That sounds like the kind of thing that Padmé is going to occasionally have a problem with, yes. Like, yes, sometimes Vader shows up all happy and sweet and kisses her face and plays with the twins and is entirely useless at helping her get her paperwork done and is just so content and KIND, and sometimes there’s a natural disaster or a pirate attack or problems with the Hutts and she can just send aid or drop the FUCKING hammer and it’s DONE and sometimes some senator or another is being fucking selfish and hateful and greedy and she can just LOOK at them and they will backpedal for their FUCKING LIVES and it’s–it’s–
Fuck, it’s TERRIBLE, actually, it’s the worst thing Padmé’s ever done IN the Senate, short of accidentally playing right into Palpatine’s hands and getting him elected. But what else is she going to do, exactly?
Imagine Palpatine giving Anakin a clone of Padme. On the surface Palpatine claims he is rewarding Vader for exemplary service, but really he's rubbing Vader's face in it over Padme's death.
Holy shit, that clone better be the goddamn FASTEST TALKER in the galaxy, man, because I cannot imagine her surviving five minutes alone with Vader otherwise, “reward” from Palpatine or NOT. Unless, like, sheer spite spared her, maybe, maybe just sheer spite. Of course she is not a reward, of COURSE not, Vader KNOWS she’s not, he–he–
Force, she looks just LIKE her. She doesn’t have the memories, obviously, but the Force signature and the lilt of her accent and the particular tilt to her head and the spark in the back of her eyes are all so, so similar, so very nearly PERFECT, so very nearly … so very nearly …
do you ever think about your oc and you’re like “i headcanon that—” and then you stop and realize that this is YOUR character and all of your headcanons are canon and you are powerful and should be feared
Honestly I will always be grateful to Brooklyn 99 for giving us “cool motive, still murder” as a quick, no-frills response to all these weak white boy villains with woe-is-me backstories that fandoms inevitably try to woobify.
English Literature now:Shakespeare. Debate. Arguments. Mostly polite.
English Literature in the future:Harry Potter: Yelling. Unfettered Fury. Duels at Dawn. Blood.
Ahhh but there’s nothing polite between the Stratfordians and the Oxfordians. I love Ian McKellen’s story about Derek Jacobi refusing to discuss his Oxfordian beliefs with him because “you’ll only shout at me.” McKellen promised he would do no such thing, but the story ends with him bellowing “OH REALLY DEREK!” (Which, to be honest, is probably how I’d react too.)
Let me offer a small sample of real things that have happened in the world of Shakespeare scholarship recently:
There was a bloodbath over the digital rights to the Oxford Complete Works which ultimately resulted in an entirely new Norton edition
Stephen Marche said of Contested Will that “using a brain like [James] Shapiro’s on the authorship question is like bringing an F-22 to an alley knife fight”
A prominent Jewish scholar was asked about Anonymous and basically called Roland Emmerich a Nazi
It’s an industry full of people who spend their days picking apart plays about cannibalism, gang murder, and dismemberment. Trust me, there’s nothing polite about it.
i am literally 100% sure that ultimately it was lily who asked james out like
james is matured and he’s like “okay you’re gonna ruin it all if you ask her out”
because they’re friends
honest to god friends
who actually talk and laugh and have meaningful conversations and honestly james doesn’t think he could handle it if he messed everything up
so he just kinda sits there in love with her
so in love
and lily’s over here like “i so do not love him”
“no really marlene we’re friends i don’t love him”
“okay yeah he smells really nice and i really love that thing he does with his hands when he’s thinking and it’s really really cute when he runs his fingers through his hair and have you seen the way his ass looks in those quidditch robes”
“but i do not love him”
and marlene’s like “you’re a fucking idiot”
and james decides that he has to at least try to move on so he starts dating amelia boot
and lily can’t figure out why it bothers her so much but she avoids them at literally all costs and she just can’t see them together and she sort of feels like she’s going to throw up and god fucking damn it she loves him
“don’t say i told you so marlene, you bitch”
“i soooo told you so”
but now james is with amelia and it’s too late and lily doesn’t know what to do
so she just kind of sucks it up and tries to hang out with him except it’s so hard because she really really wants to kiss him
(his lips look really soft)
but she can’t and it’s killing her and she kind of thinks amelia hates her?? or, at least, she sends her dirty looks from across the table
and james can’t figure out why amelia doesn’t like lily because everyone likes lily until one day amelia sits him down and asks him to stop talking to her
“you’re still in love with her, james, and you’ll only get over it if you stop talking to her”
james doesn’t think that’s physically possible
so they break up and sirius gives him a knowing look but james keeps quiet about the reason because the last thing he needs is for lily to find out that he still loves her
lily is ecstatic
“i think it’s kind of awful that you’re this happy about your friend breaking up with his girfriend”
“shut up mary”
but they’re at the three broomsticks a month later and it’s just the two of them and they’re waiting for the usual bunch and lily decides she’s going to do it
she has to because she can’t live like this for the rest of her life. she can’t let james potter slip away
“do you love me?”
and oh shit it comes out so wrong that was not what she wanted to say not at all she was going to invite him to get butterbeer later and oh god her cheeks are turning the color of her hair and she thinks she’s going to sink into the chair
james thinks he might be dying
“do i what?”
lily’s already fucked it up this much, she might as well keep going
“do you love me? because i do. love you, i mean.”
and then she stares at her hands and waits
and waits
and waits
and then she looks up because what is taking the asshole so long to reply?
he’s just grinning at her. smiling, as if she’s just told him he’s won a million galleons or signed to play with the chudley cannons
“yeah, yeah i reckon i’ve loved you this whole time”
“pay up, moony. i told you she’d be the one to confess first”
‘WHY HAS THAT WIP I’M FOLLOWING NOT BEEN UPDATED?’ ROULETTE!
Author got little to no feedback on previous chapter, thinks nobody cares and/or everyone hates the story
Author received negative feedback and thinks everyone hates the story
Author started another story in order to get rid of writer’s block brought on by WIP and is now totally consumed by new story, keeps staring guiltily at WIP reminding his/herself to continue it
Author’s real life suddenly got TOO REAL.
Author got seduced by another fandom
Author doesn’t use sofware that autosaves and lost most of the next chapter, is too lazy to rewrite
Author has sudden case of believing everything they write is absolute shit and doesn’t want to subject you to sub-par work
The story has been pretty much leading up to the next chapter and Author is now procrastinating out of fear and self doubt because they’re pretty sure they’re gonna mess it up
Author thought it was okay to lead into this one plot point, but due to feedback/further reflection, has now realised that they need to write another 3000 words to get there and is not emotionally ready
The correct pronunciation of “colonel” is, without exaggeration, the stupidest thing on this planet
ENGLISH IS NOT MY NATIVE LANGUAGE SO AFTER SEEING THIS POST A MILLION TIMES I FINALLY GOOGLED THE PRONUNCIATION AND NOW I AM SO ANGRY
English IS my native language and when I was twelve I googled the pronunciation of the word ‘colonel’ and I literally screamed with rage. My parents thought I was dying.
Let’s face it folks: Alexander Hamilton would never have made it to America in the world we have today.
He immigrated from the Caribbean as a penniless, fatherless child, with no training and minimum schooling. Under Donald Trump he’d never even get to board the ship. Under President Obama he would never have qualified for admission.
I wish Donald Trump could see the tour de force that “Hamilton” is on Broadway, if only to learn how incredible Hamilton was and how he saved the US from bankruptcy among other achievements.
Maybe Trump would look differently on the immigrants he attacks with such abandon if he saw what one man, who arrived here with nothing but terrible prospects, accomplished.
Hamilton would never have made it to the New World today. Then neither would William Ford, father of Henry Ford who force-migrated in 1847 during the Famine with only his carpenter’s tools. Neither would Thomas Fitzgerald or Patrick Kennedy a barrel-maker, both ancestors of of JFK and both who also force-migrated at the same time.
In more modern times, Trump would certainly have blocked Abdul Fattah Jandali, a Syrian refugee from Homs who was fleeing a war in Lebanon in 1954.
He was forced to give a baby up for adoption because his pregnant girlfriend’s father would not let him marry his daughter. The son turned out to be Steve Jobs.
Google was the co-invention of Russian emigre Sergey Brin. It is now one of the largest companies in the world.
A bankrupt America – no massive development of the automobile, no JFK as president, no iPhone or Mac, no Google were it not for these immigrants.
Does that strike home Mr Trump?
”—
“Hamilton” teaches a great lesson on the power of immigrants (IrishCentral)
Any story claiming to be a deconstruction of fairy tales but has nothing to offer except new types of violence, more explicit sex, and a general attitude of “lol happy endings aren’t real” is like. such a cultural waste of time tbh
know what actually is a good deconstruction of a fairy tale? Shrek. It fucks up just about everything in a normal fairy tale and still manages to have a happy ending with a good message and never once has to be ‘gritty’ or ‘dark’. It’s actually really well done.
So a teacher in my friends’ class told them he had grounded his daughter for wearing make up at school, and turns out that the next day every single girl in class had slapped the brightest blood red lipstick they had and there was a line in the bathroom to apply knife sharp, enormous curves of winged eyeliner on everyone and they looked like a legion of warrior goddesses on their way to avenge their sister, so when the teacher came in the room his face just FELL and he kept avoiding the girls staring at him during class, so they started raising their hands and asking questions about the subject to force him to look at them, and if you don’t think girls are amazing when they get down to battle you are missing out on something glorious
I LEARNED RECENTLY THAT PLATO WON THE GOLD MEDAL IN THE OLYMPICS FOR WRESTLING THREE TIMES. THIS PUTS A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON THINGS. I ALWAYS IMAGINED PLATO TO BE FRAIL AND MISSHAPEN BUT HE MUST HAVE BEEN FRICKEN RIPPED. I WONDER IF ARISTOTLE EVER FELT ANXIETY ABOUT GETTING PHYSICALLY (I.E. NOT JUST METAPHYSICALLY) DISMANTLED BY PLATO. PLATO WAS PROBABLY PISSED OFF BY AT LEAST A HANDFUL OF QUESTIONS ARISTOTLE ASKED HIM. ARISTOTLE WAS A LITERAL GENIUS TOO. IMAGINE PLATO LECTURING AND WRITING ON A BLACKBOARD AND ARISTOTLE THROWING A COMMENT OUT THERE ABOUT SOME COMPLEX MISSTEP IN PLATO’S LOGIC AND PLATO’S CHALK JUST SNAPS AND ARISTOTLE’S TESTICLES SUCK WAY BACK UP TO WHERE THEY DROPPED FROM, THEN PLATO IN A BLUR APPEARS BESIDE ARISTOTLE SITTING AT HIS DESK AND HE PICKS HIM UP AND SUPLEXES HIS MACEDONIAN ASS.
given the content of a lot of Plato’s conclusions I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Plato responded to a lot of reasonable criticisms with “Fight me” and that was the end of it.
We’re not actually sure whether Plato is his real name! Some people speculate that, because Platon means “broad” in Greek, this was actually his wrestling nick name. Basically, it’s like Dwayne Johnson became a famous philosopher and everyone still called him “The Rock”.
Can we have a movie about Plato starring Dwayne Johnson?
You can’t convince me that wouldn’t be the best thing ever.
I didn’t know I needed this until now. If someone can write a decent screenplay, and we get enough people to talk about it, maybe he’ll actually see it and we can kickstart the shit out of it
Plato’s name is literally just the Ancient Greek for ‘Swol’ how is this the real life
Do you think Victor Hugo actually intended Enjolras and Grantaire to read as in love with each other?
I think it’s very unlikely Hugo didn’t at least intend Grantaire to be in love with Enjolras. And since I’m way too passionate about this, let’s make a non-exhaustive list of my favorite “#nohomo” brick moments :
“Grantaire admired, loved, and venerated Enjolras”
“No one loves the light like the blind man”
Hugo writing on actual paper that Grantaire and Enjolras are part of a whole, two sides of the same coin and that Grantaire can not live without Enjolras (spoiler alert : He can’t)
Comparing them to Orestes and Pylades because ~~alphabetical affinities~~. Notice he says here Grantaire is “an unaccepted Pylades” because Enjolras “disdained this sceptic”. We’ll come back to this later
“Grantaire, in the presence of Enjolras, became someone once more.”
Grantaire saying of Enjolras : “What a fine marble"
Now bear in mind that all of the above happen in the scope of TWO PAGES. TWO PAGES that are used to highlight Grantaire’s love and admiration for Enjolras. Call me delusional but that’s not insignificant
Grantaire being described as “soft” and “gentle” whenever Enjolras is involved
“I believe in you”
19th century blowjob euphemism #gentlemanbrojob
“Grantaire, will you do me a service?” “Anything.”
Grantaire “eyes intently at Enjolras” and “whispers in his ear” in the scope of 3 lines like wow man personal space much
Remember that Orestes and Pylades business? That Grantaire wasn’t accepted as Pylades? Well, not only does this comparison comes back in the chapter in which they die, but Grantaire gets accepted as Pylades by his Orestes
Now let’s switch to French for a minute because this is very important to me. That holding hands thing? In French, it’s specified that Grantaire “regarda Enjolras avec une inexprimable douceur” or “se tournant vers Enjolras avec douceur” depending on your version. The first one literally translates to : “Grantaire looked at Enjolras with an ineffable softness”. That in itself is a huge red flag but that’s not all. Let’s talk about the word “douceur” for a bit. In French, using the word “douceur” isn’t meaningless. You don’t specify “avec douceur” unless you really want to focus on the feelings of your character. It seems very unlikely as a sign of friendship, considering all the above.
I’m pretty sure Hugo knew where he was going with that. Plus, let’s not forget all the homoerotic greek figures thrown in from time to time. Hugo was one cultured man. One reference can be called a coincidence but the thing is… there are way more than one. Hugo was also very ahead of his time, morally speaking, so I wouldn’t dismiss the possibility that YES, he did intend Grantaire to have deep amorous feelings for Enjolras
I wish people would stop saying “It’s July. Well done for wasting half a year.” Did you make someone smile in the past six months? Did you stroke a cat or throw a stick for a dog? Did you learn a new fact or teach someone a new joke? Did you laugh, cry, scream or sing in the past six months? Because if so, congratulations for not wasting your time at all.
tbh people mock harry for going back to rescue fleurs sister in the second triwizard task but harry knows dumbledore better than anyone else. he probably looked at the situation and thought “would dumbledore let an eight year old drown just because fleur couldnt do this bit? yes. yes he would.”
it’s also possible he was acting off of the lessons he learned in the abusive dursley household. that’s why he does a lot of his so-called “hero complex” shit. he takes a lot of personal responsibility for other people bc he learned growing up that “no one’s here for you, no one will help you, you will not catch any breaks”. he helps bc if he didn’t, who would? certainly not the dursleys, and that’s what he grew up with.
he does things by himself and the two people he actually trusts, bc he’s learned that authority figures are no help and will only make things worse. he takes situations at face value bc he’s never seen other options in his life, he’s never HAD other options in his life. speaking very personally, that was a serious marker of abuse that i saw in myself - i never thought abt escape, or what i could do to improve my situation, bc i didn’t even see that as an option. the options were survive or don’t, deal w it or don’t, acclimate or implode.
maybe he wasn’t thinking abt what DUMBLEDORE would do, what anyone at hogwarts would do. maybe he was acting off what he knew the dursleys (his main authority figures) would do. the dursleys would let the girl drown. and harry was there, and harry could do something, and so harry did. he took personal responsibility for fleur’s sister’s safety bc all his life he’s learned that authority figures cannot be trusted to do so.
people characterize these aspects of harry as a “hero complex” or a “stupid nobility” or a “lack of common sense”, but i don’t agree with that. i can’t put my finger on exactly what it is. it’s not completely unhealthy; it’s even very useful and responsible on occasion.
it’s called “complex ptsd” and if you get out of the abusive situation before you’re old enough to understand how fucked up it was, like Harry did, you don’t end up with the classic flashbacks so much, just atypical behavior patterns and a high risk of other shit. That’s why Harry is so fucked up by everything that Umbridge does, it’s because he’s being retraumatized in his safe space.
That was always how I interpreted Harry’s behavior, because I’m also prone to the same sort of reactions. It’s not about mistrusting a specific person or a specific group of people, it’s about the automatic bone-deep assumption that no one will help. Personal example: I don’t trust authority figures, even the ones I know and like on a personal level–I reported a sexual assault to a teacher a year and a half ago and I had a worse panic attack about that than I did about the assault, ever. The assault was business as usual. Telling an authority figure about it, giving someone that kind of weapon to use against me, was fucking traumatic, my roommate had to come with me and I had to sit down on the ground outside the building before I could walk. Harry Potter example: he doesn’t tell anyone about Umbrige because he assumes that not only will they do nothing, they might use it against him–if I hear literally one more person bring up the fact that he didn’t tell McGonagall, I will have an aneurysm. It’s not that he doesn’t think McGonagall cares about him, nor that, in the Triwizard Tournament, he thinks Dumbledore would let a kid die. It just doesn’t even occur to him that someone else might help. When someone suggests that he go to McGonagall about Umbrige, his response is basically “wait, what?” Once he’s out of the second task in the Triwizard Tournament, and the adrenaline’s clearing, he does sit back and go “why did I do that, Dumbledore would never have let her get hurt.” He doesn’t even realize what he’s doing in the moment, he just sees a threat and resolves it because no one else will help.
It’s not…personal, okay? It’s just the learned knowledge that no one is going to get you or anyone else out of a situation, so you have to do it. Every time.
And as long as we’re on the subject, this is part of the reason I dislike Snape pretty hardcore. I mean, I have a litany of sins for Severus Snape, which ends with ‘you can die like a hero but that doesn’t make you a good man’, but this is one of them. He treats this impulse of Harry’s as an attention-seeking behavior, not just a ‘saving-people-thing’ but something entirely motivated by some perverse desire to be in the spotlight. And he punishes him for it. He repeatedly penalizes Harry for trying to save people. And let me tell you something, from personal experience, the more people punish you for this, the stronger the impulse becomes. It’s a self-feeding cycle. Because, says the little voice in your brain, if they’re punishing me for helping, that means they wouldn’t have helped, so that means that it had to be me. Because better they punish you, right? Better you pay for helping someone because you would have paid for something anyway, right?
I’m not saying it’s a healthy mentality, but I’m also not going to condemn it as an unhealthy one, because sooner or later you might actually be the only person who will help. You might be the only person available. And if nothing else, this mentality does teach you to keep a cool head in a crisis.
