It can go all the way down to the county level, which is kinda crazy.
31,493 people have my surname.
And I will fight them all*
so im not at all surprised that Yi is the 118th most common last name and there are more than 4 million people that share it…. tbh its really nice and i feel very connected right now
166,859, there are a lot of us.
1,236 of us worldwide. Small family.
153 people. Which is probably why no one can pronounce it.
Nearly 7,000 people in the world have my last name, the largest portion of them in Germany, which is not any kind of surprise whatsoever.
50 people with my married surname, and I bet they’re close enough relations that we could fairly easily get in touch with them all.
lmao I beat you all: 305, 217 share my surname
But there shall only be one victor. ME!
99 people and I’m probably related to most of them.
2,762 people share mine 😀
77,921 lol. Just a few of us then…
9,851. There’s actually a website out there dedicated to the family that shares my surname which is hilarious.
2310…not the most common in the world lol
152766, not surprising it occures the most in the US, there is a town in Pensylvania named after my (distant) family. And a boyscout camp in New Hampsire I think.
2,358,308
…now riddle me this, how is it that people still misspell a five-letter last name that’s THAT common?
“According to Pegg, director Justin Lin re-edited the final scene (spoiler alert) to add in a subtle tribute. “Justin went back and edited the final moment so that when Kirk says, ‘To absent friends,’ it cuts to Anton, which is really moving,” Pegg said in an interview with The Daily Beast.”—bustle.com (via maxwrite)
Fun experiment: you’ve stumbled across two billion dollars. Whatever you do with that money is up to you, but imagine you spend fifty thousand dollars per day, and you live to be a hundred years old.
You’re left with 175 million dollars.
PSA to billionaires and even millionaires: you can fucking afford to be generous. Do it for PR; do it because why not. But you can afford to be generous and help people in need and still live lavish goddam lifestyles. You’re racking up the score at this point and it needs to stop.
i don’t understand people who complain about “sj bullshit”/“political correctness gone wild” in comics?
you’re literally reading a bunch of stories about heroes who fight for the greater good of all humankind? you are reading about literal Warriors for Justice. like, complaining when wonder woman gives a speech about treating women with respect? that’s the point of her character. that’s who she is. the punching is second to the respecting women bit.
how in the hell can you go around saying “yeah, i want my violent bloody fights for justice, with a little less, you know, justice?” you want to see superman punch a nazi in the face, but you don’t want superman to be doing it to protect a jewish character because that would be ‘too preachy’?
how do you not feel like a batman villain when you complain about too much justice motivating the violence. how do you not realize you sound like the joker when you say “i want more graphic, bloody violence, but can you put less justice, compassion, and kindness in the reasoning for it?”
what exactly is that show with "Eliot"? I know him as Jacob Stone from Librarians, but all of a sudden I'm seeing this show on the librarians blog and other places but I have nO IDEA WHAT IT IS
Oh hon let me tell you a thing
It’s called leverage and it will change your life.
If you’ve seen the show Hustle it’s kind of like that but better. Which is saying something because Hustle is really good.
The premise:
A con artist, a hacker, a hitter, and a theif turn from a life of pure crime, to a life of crime for a good purpose, led by a former insurance investigator.
They target the rich and powerful that are picking on the little guy, and basically set them up due to their own greed and selfishness.
Then stand there and watch while the mark implodes on itself
The team:
Former insurance investigator, turned Mastermind and crime dad.
Is much smarter than he looks. Somhow manages to herd cats (aka his crime children) and get the job done, despite being a human dissaster.
Con artist, art theif, and crime mom.
Is the most incredible acress to grace this earth, when she’s not actually trying to act.
seriously don’t let her act on stage.
genius hacker, fountain of snark
giant adorable nerd.
Also pretty much the best dressed on the show which was refreshing, because as the huge computer nerd, that’s usually the stereotypical role of social outcast loner. Hardison has the best style and the best actual inter-personal skills and empathy of anyone on the show. Sophie can manipulate people, but hardison actually understands people. And cares about them. Biggest heart. Ray of sunshine.
parker my homegirl. Best thief in the world.
socially awkward and you never quite know what she’s going to do next. It could be eat cereal. It could be blowing up the building.
My dear eliot. The “muscle.” But also…the secret brain.
he’s much, much smarter than he looks. And everyone, including his team at times, underestimates him.
that’s code for “i love you”.
Bottom line:
Every.Single.Character has an incredible, organic character arc. And make progress that you could never see coming in season 1.
It will make you laugh. It will make you cry. A lot.
Watch it.
Stress that there is “only” five seasons, even though it finishes perfectly and wraps up better than almost any other series i’ve ever watched.
i am having a significant amount of trouble finding enough information on men’s wigs/hair care in the 18th century. a lot of the same information keeps getting repeated. here’s what i want to know:
did hamilton wear a wig or powder his hair? at the very least it doesn’t look like he’s wearing one in the ezra ames portrait, but that would’ve been when wigs had pretty much gone out of style. i mean, after studying a bunch of portraits i’m under the impression that it’s his natural (fairly curly) hair, but i really don’t know.
if someone powdered their hair, how often did they do so and how often did they remove the powder? i know it was messy and greasy, it seems difficult to sleep in.
if a man wore a wig, did he always shave his real hair?
did men sleep with their hair in a queue? did they use some kind of hair net to keep their pillows clean?
honestly, if you know the answer to any of these questions (or if you just have some thoughts to add) hmu. i swear there’s a reason i’m asking, though it’s not a very good reason.
Hamilton powdered his hair. His son James remembered that his father had basically a daily hairdresser who powdered, pomatumed, combed, platted, and clubbed his hair back in a queue. That kind of hair styling had the potential to take a couple of hours. It was generally believed at this time that the hair powder is what kept the hair clean.
I can’t find info on how often they removed the powder, but to keep their pillows clean when their hair was powdered, they wore night caps,
*cracks knuckles* Finally, my time has come! *uses interest in 18th Century fashion and grooming for good and not for evil*
A typical hair care and styling regimen for women, and fashionable men who did not wear wigs, in the 18th century was:
1. Take down your hairdo at the end of the day, massage a small amount of pomatum, a mixture of mutton fat, lard, and aromatic oils such as clove and lemon, into the hair and scalp, add powder, and brush vigorously for quite some time. The effect is similar to contemporary dry shampoos. Although very rarely, if ever, washed with water and soap, this routine effectively cleans the hair and scalp without stripping natural oils and leaving it full of texture and body and enough oils to make styling easier– squeaky clean, freshly shampooed hair is notoriously hard to style, especially in elaborate updos and curls. Men and women alike wore nightcaps to protect their bedding from any powder or pomatum that might be left and probably also to help prevent long hair from getting too messed up. Unlike women, men might not undo their hair every night, and would wear hairnets to help preserve their style overnight.
2. In the morning, more powder was added before brushing. Powder was made of finely ground starch, bones, and clay, along with aromatic powders such as orris root. Women who wished to achieve towering ‘dos rolled sections of their hair over fluffy pads and added curls with curling irons. Men usually did not have the towering hairdos, but definitely would have added curls with a curling iron, if they had the luxury of a hairdresser (I read that Hamilton had a hairdresser come to his house every day, so he may have added curls sometimes). If a lighter white color was desired, the hairdresser would apply more powder to the finished style with a large puff while their client covered their face with a cone-shaped piece of paper so it didn’t also get powdered.
3. Wigs. Contrary to popular belief, women achieved many of their towering hairstyles without wigs. Most women wore their own, natural hair with, perhaps, extensions to bulk it out a bit if necessary. However, most of the popular, everyday styles could be achieved simply with waist-length hair, pads, and curls. Men, on the other hand, routinely wore wigs. Covering baldness was a big part of wigs’ popularity among men, but also, the time involved in styling hair may have interfered with men who had business, politics, and other important matters to attend to. Wigs could be sent off to a professional for regular maintenance and simply plopped on the head in the morning, like a hat. Men who wore wigs usually kept their natural hair cut very short, or even shaved, as in this picture from Hogarth’s “A Rake’s Progress”, where the main character has let his wig fall to the floor:
And this handsome gentleman, lounging at home in informal leisure wear– a banyan and nightcap:
Because wigs were expensive, they marked social class, with the most elaborate styles that required the most upkeep for the wealthy and the fops, and simpler styles that varied according to occupation and income.
By the late 1700s, however, wigs were already on their way out. Men of all social classes preferred styles that were fairly simple, and by the 1780s, natural, lightly powdered hair was preferred. In most of the portraits of the Founding Fathers and others who fought in the American Revolution, for example, you see that they are wearing their natural hair, not wigs.
Hamilton, ca. 1780– this is his own hair (I’m assuming, because the hairline is consistent with other portraits and he was probably too poor to even own a wig at this point), but it has been styled to look very much like the popular wig styles of the 1770s-early 80s: brushed back from the forehead, rolled over a pad or simply bulked up with enough pomatum and powder to make a nice roll near the ears, and tied in either a queue or bag in the back:
Which is, incidentally, how George Washington wore his hair, and since Hamilton was his Aide de Camp at the time this portrait was painted, it’s not surprising he wears the same style as his commander.
By 1800, he was wearing his hair like this:
It looks to me like the sides have been curled or rolled vertically to frame his face, while the back is combed flat and tied in a low queue.
This is another view of the same general style. You see the lightly powdered hair brushed up and fluffed a bit with the help of pomatum and powder for volume and hold over his head and around his face. You can see that by the late 1700s-early 1800s, men’s hair was fairly natural-looking, and required a minimal amount of styling and maintenance.
In England, in the 1790s only older men and women being presented at court wore wigs, and in 1795, the British government levied a tax on hair powder that basically ended powdered hair and fashions that relied upon it. However, powdered hair was already mostly over in the US, France and with political progressives in England because of the revolutions: elaborate, powdered hairstyles were associated with aristocracy.
things that still freak me out: those sinks americans have in their kitchens that you can destroy stuff with
Honestly this post has been on my mind all day. Those weird destructosinks for people with too much money are apparently common in America. And Americans get defensive over them.
Well don’t come crying to me when your wean gets eaten by the fucking kitchen sink.
hOLY SHIT WHAT IF U TRY AND CLEAN THE PLUG AND TURN IT ON IM SO SCARED
Okay it took me for-fucking-ever to figure out wtf you guys are talking about are you talking about garbage disposals? Like down the drain??
with the spinny knives
No knives, just a dull piece of spinny metal.
you realise it takes the same amount of force to cut thru a carrot as a finger
i dont know what you do over there but we usually don’t stick our hands in our sink drains
who’s going around fisting sinks anyway
“don’t come crying to me when your wean gets eaten by the fucking kitchen sink”
is that person saying they fuck kitchen sinks? is that what I just read? they put their dick in the sink’s drain and they fuck it?
dont sinkshame
Child. Wean means child.
Okay, so you put your CHILD in a sink and stuff them down the drain? That’s… that’s definitely worse.
This post is an experiance.
Wait, other developed countries don’t have garbage disposals??? The only time I didn’t have a garbage disposal was in a crappy cheap apartment in college. Scraping food off plates into the trash, then the trash smells… ughhh.
I will reblog every garbage disposal post to cross my dash because the culture clash is hilarious
Putting your hand in there to get something out that can’t go down the sink is a Final Destination moment every time and it’s fucking horrifying.
Can Planned Parenthood provide hormones to transgender people? And if so, what are the costs?
Why yes, yes we do. There are an increasing number of Planned Parenthood health centers that offer hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for trans clients. (Cost will vary depending on your insurance and Planned Parenthood health center policies.) Currently, the Planned Parenthood health centers that offer hormone treatment for trans folks are:
IMPORTANT NOTE: OBTAINING HRT THROUGH PLANNED PARENTHOOD DOES NOT REQUIRE ANY SORT OF PSYCH DIAGNOSIS OR SEEING A SEPERATE ENDOCRINOLOGIST. IF YOU LIVE IN THESE PLACES AND WANT HRT, PLEASE SAVE YOURSELF A FEW THOUSAND DOLLARS
Look at me. Look me in the eye. On November the 8th, 2016, one of two things will happen: Hillary Clinton will become president, or Donald Trump will become president. These are the only two possibilities. The superdelegates aren’t going to switch. An indictment isn’t coming. There is no third possibility. There is no space between the spaces where you can hide. Every vote for Donald Trump requires two Hilary Clinton votes to overcome. A Hillary Clinton vote can only be overcome by two Donald Trump votes. If you stay home, a Donald Trump vote doubles its power. This is the real, actual reality of the situation. There is not one other option.
And there’s no ctrl-alt-del for the election. Read up on 2000 if you doubt this.
And to those of us who supported Bernie, he WANTS you to vote for Hillary. If you believe in him and his mission you will follow his advice. He knows that writing his name in, or voting for anyone else besides Clinton, is effectively voting for Trump.
Refusing to vote for Hillary is a vote for Trump, no matter how much you scream and say how it’s not. And if you’re standing by to do nothing in regards to taking down Trump, then you ARE grouped along with the rest of the people in this country that ruin things for everybody else.
No, seriously, go read about the presidential election in 2000.
If you weren’t old enough to remember and/or understand the ramifications of the 2000 election, I WILL TELL YOU.
Do not let Trump win. Please. I beg you. I went to grad school with people who voted for Nader in 2000 and my FB feed is full of them begging others not to make the same mistake they did. Bernie has his priorities straight, and the priority is stopping Trump.
And if that doesn’t do it for you, this is the Republican platform 2016. It calls for:
Conversion therapy for queer kids.Let me repeat that. CONVERSION THERAPY FOR QUEER KIDS. Some members of the RNC even wanted to endorse it more explicitly than they did.
If you vote for Trump, these are some of the planks of the platform you’re voting for.
I don’t like adding politics to my blog - tumblr is my happy place and I come here to get away from crap like that - but the political climate this year has honestly scared the hell out of me. I cannot stress the point of this post enough - we cannot let that power-hungry orange fungus in a suit win.
One thing I hate is how therapists explain coping skills as if you’ve never heard of them before. Believe you me, every mentally ill person on planet earth has been told to take deep breaths and tense and relax their muscles
“now i want you to try something new……. it’s called *breathing* when you are feeling stressed”
I just left my husband alone with our two children for sixteen days. I was not worried about anything regarding the house, their food, or their wellbeing. I put all the appointments in the family calendar and my husband checked it and kept them. I literally did not worry about them. I missed them, and I was sad that they missed me, but I didn’t worry about them AT ALL. I need to impress upon you all that I missed their company, but was not worried for their welfare.
I also did no meal prep. I don’t even think I went shopping right before I left.
This is not about apples and oranges. This isn’t even about my husband. This is about the fact that this is apparently WEIRD.
Another mum at my daughter’s school is leaving for ten days. She’s taking her youngest (who is a very small baby) and leaving her husband with their two girls. She has been cooking for days preparing freezer meals. She’s panicking and deputizing her six year old to remind him how to make school lunches. AND I AM APPALLED.
A) He is definitely not helpless. (He’s a doctor or something.) What gendered bullshit. B) THAT LITTLE GIRL IS NOT OLD ENOUGH TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR HER AND HER SISTER’S WELLBEING. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. C) Why is she married to this person and creating children with him if he’s this big of an idiot?
While she was laughingly recounting this, the other mums were nodding and smiling sympathetically, like oh yes, I too have my caveman at home!! Such managing required! I was the only one who was like “Dude, he’ll be fine. Literally. He will be fine.” I said it a lot. She was not convinced. She kept bringing up her older daughter. She’ll be like a little mum!
NO.
NO NO NO NO.
NO.
Straight women, don’t do this shit. It’s gross. Don’t infantilize your husbands and then expect your daughters to pick up the slack. So fucking gross. So. So. GROSS.
The fact that so many adults think a six year old girl is more capable of learning and performing basic domestic tasks than a grown-ass man says it all, really.
This stuff is so toxic and awful. I told a car full of women one time that I refused to be in another relationship until I met a man who was capable of making his own doctors’ appointments and washing the dishes. They told me I was going to die alone.
Fuck this shit. Don’t enable men’s incompetence and label it cute.
IT WAS A RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. THIS IS MY FAVORITE STAR TREK MOVIE OF ALL, EVER, EVER, EVER.
THERE WAS NOT A SINGLE THING I DID NOT LOVE TO BITS AND PIECES.
I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS WHOLE MOVIE.
I’m fine. I’m totally fine. I have never been more fine. I am not at all teetering on the edge of an endorphin-drunk, sleep-deprived teary tirade about stars and the universe and humanity and how we’re so tiny and small but we just want to touch every star in the sky and hold hands with every being out there and KNOW what it’s like to fly and see the universe laid out beneath our feet, not ready for the conquering, but just THERE to be seen and reveled in and explored.
Reblog if you ARE a woman in STEM, SUPPORT women in STEM, or ARE STILL BITTER about Rosalind Franklin not getting credit for discovering the structure of DNA and the Nobel prize going to Watson and Crick instead.
okay so in psychology years ago we learnt that it’s common for companies to put women in charge when there’s a predicted downfall so that they could be all ha see women suck at being in charge. and I just find it interesting how the UK is gonna have a female PM right after Brexit so like years from now people are gonna be like “the country saw some of its worst years under a woman” when it was men that fucked it up and then ran
FAM I was at target the other day and saw the DVD for miraculous ladybug and I flipped and bought it cuz I thought it would have all the eps but it only has the first 7 and yeah
That’s so fucking upsetting, and since I am sorry for your disappointment HERE, this the possibly-dubiously-legal website I’ve been watching them on because I don’t have money and I do have wifi. You’ve probably gotten around to finding that, but still. A present. It streams pretty well when you’re not working with shitty college-campus-grade wifi.
One of the greatest things I’ve come to realize today: everyone is a MCR fan, whether intensely or just casually, but we were all waiting silently for this day to come
If anyone ever tries to tell you that sexism isn’t a problem in nerd culture, remind Them that no one batted any eye when Tony Stark became an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics in one night but threw a hissy fit when Rey was able to use a Lightsaber without having wielded one before.
“Too many young girls don’t know how to act when someone’s being inappropriate with them. They giggle or they try to brush it off. Don’t do that. Tell them to go fuck themselves - be a bitch. If someone’s being disrespectful to you, be disrespectful right back. Show them the same amount of respect that they show you.”—Wise words from my mom (via magicrobotgeography)
Honestly the thought alone of one day being able to read a fic about Elizabeth that's written by you is a blessing and will keep my heart warm
Oh my God you’re too nice. Trust me, I too want to read a fic written by me about Elizabeth Swann, but I have no ideas that aren’t five pages of caps-lock-littered weeping about Elizabeth as the Pirate King, who keeps her bargain with the magic of the Dutchman by carrying the earth in a tiny glass vial around her neck, and who goes out and rages over the seas with her ships like a hurricane, and who raises her child on the waves as free and wild as a tern, and who crosses paths with Jack Sparrow and wreaks havoc and kisses him on the cheek and grins wickedly every time, and who catches men close when she kills them, slides a blade into their heart and a letter into their pocket and whispers in their ear “Take this message to my husband, dear sailor.”
I mean…that is what I would have to say. Pretty much incoherent and plotless. It would all be messages in dead-men-as-bottles, children raised to crawl the rigging of ships and charge wildly into trouble, and Elizabeth over it all, Pirate King and old friend of Calypso and wife of the Dutchman’s captain and comrade/sister/rival/unattainable love of Captain Jack Sparrow, she who is beloved of the sea.
If that appeals, hit me up with a prompt and I will deliver.
I have been feeling a desire for a happy Pepper and Tony fic, and if you wrote that, most certainly read and enjoy it. Also, hello! Hope your day had a thing that made you smile really wide :D
Mmmm well I got to get dinner on the dime of my summer program, all the students in it were there and the bill was pushing $400 and I spent the whole time talking with a few people including this dazzlingly gorgeous (although probably straight) girl in the program, so THAT was good, you are so sweet. I’ll admit I’m pretty tired to toss off a ficlet right now (between work and socializing and starting editing on one of my Actual Real Completed Novels, I have exactly zero brain), BUT, I’ll tell you about one fic I kind of want for this pairing.
Okay, so if I wrote this thing I would call it “Twelve” and it would be literally just happy, there would be very little angst, which is…probably why I haven’t gotten around to writing it, let’s call a spade a spade. But it would be all the times the number twelve has appeared in Tony and Pepper’s relationship, and I’m sure I’d come up with more while I wrote the thing, but here are a few that would definitely make the cut (with a total disregard for official timeline).
THE FIRST TIME: Tony has fired…so many personal assistants, okay, and definitely a few quit on grounds of “HE IS IMPOSSIBLE” after finding him asleep half-under a car or after he took apart their coffee machine or something, so Peggy Carter (I’ll fight you for Peggy as Tony’s quirky British aunt) is like “I’m going to handle this, kid,” and gets ahold of the massive list of Stark Industries employees and starts sifting through them for potentials. Once she has her list of possible candidates, she hacks into Tony’s work (actually she has his password because she knows him and he might be a genius but he’s also sentimental) and changes one value in a file he’s about to send out and makes sure it’s going to go to all of her selected candidates and ships it out. The next day a woman in a pair of ruthless heels with a stubborn set to her jaw and orange hair marches into Tony’s office and announces that there’s a mistake in his math–it’s 0.12 off.
ANOTHER TIME: So Pepper’s been considering quitting because her boss is…Tony Stark, and like even once he shapes up that’s got to be stressful, and she’s only been working for him for a few months at this point. So she takes a few minutes to steel herself and goes down to the lab and finds him drinking, which is…normal, honestly, but he’s not doing anything and the bots are all quiet and he’s just sitting there getting drunk and he looks so pathetic that she can’t bring herself to just quit. Pepper sits down next to him on the lab bench and he says hi, very quiet, and she asks what’s wrong, because Pepper’s like that, and he admits quietly that it’s the anniversary of his parents’ death. She should have known this, in retrospect, because the death of Howard Stark was BIG NEWS, but still: kind of slipped her mind. And he just sighs, this deep bone-shaking sigh, and leans to the side until he reaches her shoulder and says even quieter that it’s been twelve years now (he looks maybe twenty-ish in the flashback at the start of Civil War?), and Pepper decides she can put off quitting until tomorrow.
ANOTHER TIME: Pepper turns in her resignation twelve times. She also storms in to snatch the letter out of his hands and chew him out for his latest transgression and snarl “Of course I’m not quitting” when he reaches for the letter twelve times. She stops somewhere around the two year mark.
ANOTHER TIME: During Iron Man. Tony’s been missing for twelve days. Pepper has been handling media relations that whole time–she hasn’t cracked her perfectly smooth professional face once. She locks herself into her office, orders JARVIS to keep everyone out, and cries for two hours that twelfth day.
ANOTHER TIME: The twelve percent thing in Avengers? Yeah, that’s a running joke, what percent of the Tower Pepper’s responsible for, there would be a bit dealing with that.
ANOTHER TIME: I don’t fucking know, like, how much do you think the Chitauri damage is going to cost to fix? It’s fairly localized damage, but it’s impressive. So Tony and Pepper have a chat and they decide to donate twelve million dollars to the reconstruction effort, in addition to other stuff.
THE LAST TIME: Tony takes Pepper out for dinner and reserves the whole restaurant because he DOES actually learn from his mistakes and Pepper doesn’t love being made a public spectacle, and after the meal when she’s looking down at the dessert menu he sets a black velvet box on the table with a ring in it. The ring has a central sapphire–as blue as the dress ‘he’ got her for her birthday–surrounded by twelve minuscule diamonds. She says yes.
It takes creativity. It is the act of putting something on paper, that when others see it, a unique picture is drawn in their mind. All guided by the author. I definitely call that an art.
Wait, there are poeple who don’t think writing is a form of art??
The post was practically perfect in every way, and then somebody went and added Julie Andrews, thus shooting it into the realm of utter and absolute perfection.
I wish you would write a fic where you just fuck me up with the life-ruining kind of Anidala, I really just wish that.
Oh but friend, where would we start?
Canon? BECAUSE CANON IS PRETTY BAD.
But no, we can do better.
The AU where Vader is the one to walk away from Mustafar and he goes to Padme and takes her in his arms and his Darkness and kisses her and says “anything, anything for you, my angel” and she is faced with a choice: use this weapon who’s come to her hand and trying to save the galaxy from him by conquering it, or take her children, soft fragile corruptible things that they are, and run as far as she can, hoping that the galaxy will be able to save itself while she saves them?
The AU where Anakin, small and alone and barely not-a-slave for more than a breath, has a vision on the ship traveling back from Tatooine, and wakes up screaming his throat raw for…something, and Padme comes and tries to take him in her arms and comfort him–a child-queen responding to the fear of a child-Jedi–and he flinches away like she’s lit him on fire?
The AU where they return to Coruscant and Anakin is turned away, and they go to Naboo and Qui-Gon dies and Anakin is turned away, and away, and away, until he’s lost and powerful and scared and angry, and Padme comes and takes his hand and stares at the Jedi and says “he is Naboo and I will buy out his contract and he will be free” and, surrounded by her handmaidens that night, realizes that she’s responsible for training him how to not drown in the Force and how to be kind and how to be gentle and how to be a free person?
The AU where they’re at war with the Separatists and some rageful clone from the 501st abandons his brothers and turns on his General and does what they had all agreed not to do, and goes to the Jedi Council and says “Skywalker has broken the Code,” and Anakin is cast out, disowned by the Jedi, disgraced in the army, distrusted by Obi-Wan, and Padme may be everything, but even Padme is not enough to replace all those people?
The AU where Padme is what breaks Vader in a whole other way, held like a threat over his head, like a promise just before his fingers, like spun crystal ready to be broken between Sidious’ fingers at any moment?
The AU where nothing changes except that Vader, burned and trapped in a torture-suit and broken to the will of his latest Master, feels a burst of power in the Force and he knows that power, he knows that mind, it’s Padme, Padme is alive and she will understand/forgive/hate/save/kill him, because Padme is stronger than he ever could have been, and Vader tears across the galaxy only to find…children, two children, a baby girl with Padme’s dark curls and his angry stare, a baby boy with his sandstorm-dust locks and her sweet smile, and they are his/hers/theirs/no one’s, but where is Padme?
Or. Well. There’s always the AU We Do Not Speak Of.
Surely emotion is not wicked at its core, young Padme says, surely not, and she reaches out, learns to shape the Force with her passions and her loves and her rages and her laughs, and it is warm and rich and wild and vicious and everything she is (and surely this cannot be the Dark Side), and when she stands on the Tatooine sand and meets a boy who shines like a sun, some part of her mind (the part that’s seen people die because their vaunted politicians took too long to see them suffering, the part that’s seen wars start over petty arguments and diplomatic differences, the part that looks around Tatooine and thinks look at all these suffering people, if only I had the power to save them) says yesssss. And she reaches out and she takes his hand and she stays in touch and she assures him that no, emotion is not wrong, love is not wrong, Attachment is not wrong, he is not wrong, and one day…oh, one day he comes to her, wild-eyed, with the words of another person on his tongue and talk about Sith, and she does her research and she thinks look at all these suffering people, if only I had the power, and…
Well. Padme only wants to help. Surely the ends justify the means. Surely this cannot be Dark, if it’s to save starving children and wounded soldiers and slaves.
And the Empire rises under the command of its Empress and her iron fist, Darth Vader.
“why aren’t u talking abt this one Problematic thing involving that actor/show u like??”
listen. i am tired. im putting down my pitchfork. i’ll acknowledge that thing was bad if it was but im tired of vilifying ppl for their mistakes just bc they’re famous. i want to enjoy things. i want Peace
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?
