Feel free to request fic at anytime, and/or an official appearance at your birthday party for the low fee of $800.
When people say these books are children’s books, as if to demean them, I balk. These books dealt with themes that adults do not fully understand or wish to. It dealt with racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, prejudice, and general ignorance. These books taught us that it doesn’t matter how you were raised, but that you get to choose to be kind, loyal, brave, and true. They taught us to be strong under the pressures of this world and to hold fast to what we know to be right. These books taught me so much, they changed me as a person. So just because they’re set against a fantastical backdrop with young protagonists does not mean that their value is any less real.
This.
First book: Starts with the double murder of a pair of twenty-one year olds who were much missed and leaving their baby son a war orphan. A child growing up in abusive conditions that would give Cinderella the horrors. Dealing with peers and teachers who are bullies. The fickleness of fame (from the darling of Gryffindor to the outcast.) The idea that there are things worth fighting and dying for, spoken by the child protagonist. Three children promptly acting on that willingness to sacrifice their lives, and two of them getting injured doing so.
Second book: The equivalent of racism with the pro-pureblood attitude. Plot driven by an eleven year old girl being groomed and then used by a charming, handsome older male. The imbalance of power and resultant abuse inherent in slavery. Fraud perpetuated by stealing something very intimate.
Third book: The equivalent of ableism with a decent, kind and competant adult being considered less than human because he has an illness that adversely affects his behaviour at certain times. A justice system that is the opposite of just. Promises of removing an abused child from the abusive environment can’t always be kept. The innocent suffer while the guilty thrive.
Fouth book: More fickleness of fame. The privileged mistreating and undermining the underprivileged because they can. A master punishing a slave for his own misjudgment, and the slave blaming herself. A sports tournament which involves mortal risk being cheered by spectators. A wonderful young man being murdered simply because he was in the way. A young boy being tortured, humilated and nearly murdered.
Fifth book: PTSD in the teenage protagonist. Severe depression in the protagonist’s godfather, triggered by inherited mental health issues and being forced to stay in a house where abuse occured. A bigoted tyrant who lives to crush everyone under her heel, torturing a teenager for telling the truth in the name of the government (and trying to suck his soul out too). The discovery that your idols can have feet of clay after all. An effort to save the life of someone dear and precious actually costing that very same life. The loss of a father-figure and the resultant guilt.
Sixth book: The idea that a soul can be broken beyond repair. Drugs with the potential for date rape are shown as having achieved exactly that in at least one case, resulting in a pregnancy. Well-meaning chauvinism trying to control the love life of a young woman. Internalised prejuidce resulting in refusing the one you love, not out of lack of love but out of fear of tainting them. The mortality of those that seem powerful and larger than life.
Seventh book: Bad situations can get worse, to the point where even the privileged end up suffering and afraid. More internalised prejudice andfearhysterical terror of tainting those you love. Self-sacrifice and the loss of loved ones, EVERYWHERE. Those who are bitter are often so with a reason. The necessity of defeating your inner demons, even though it’s never as cool as it sounds. Don’t underestimate those that are enslaved. Other people’s culture isn’t always like your own. Things often come full circle (war ending with the death of a dearly-loved pair of new parents and their orphaned baby son living with his dead mother’s blood relative instead of his young godfather). Even if ‘all is well’ the world is still imperfect, because it’s full of us brilliant imperfect humans.
So… still think that Harry Potter is a kid’s series with no depth?fuck it’s three a.m. and I’m having feelings about Harry Potter
When was super depressed, I wasn’t working—I was always too depressed. Hemingway did his best work when he didn’t drink, then he drank himself to death and blew his head off with a shotgun. Someone asked John Cheever, “What’d you learn from Hemingway?” and he said “I learned not to blow my head off with a shotgun.” I remember going to the Michigan poetry festival, meeting Etheridge Knight there and Robert Creeley. Creeley was so drunk—he was reading and he only had one eye, of course, and had to hold his book like two inches from his face using his one good eye. But you look at somebody like George Saunders—I think he’s the best short story writer in English alive—that’s somebody who tries very hard to live a sane, alert life.
You’re present when you’re not drinking a fifth of Jack Daniel’s every day. It’s probably better for your writing career, you know? I think being tortured as a virtue is a kind of antiquated sense of what it is to be an artist.
"In an interview with The Fix, Mary Karr debunks the toxic mythology that it is necessary to be damaged in order to be creative. My own vehement defiance to that mythology is what led me to choose Ray Bradbury – the ultimate epitome of creating from joy rather than suffering – as the subject of my contribution to The New York Times’ The Lives They Lived.
Pair with Karr on why writers write.
(via explore-blog)
I have come to the conclusion that at the very least, we all need someone who is patient with us. And at the very most, someone who is not only willing to but strives to accept and understand that you are only human, that you are trying to be your best self, that you cannot always be squeaky clean, lacking in faults, that you are still becoming.
I am learning how few in my life are patient and understanding. I am learning to be better to myself so that others can be better to me.
There needs to be a code word or something that means “my brain is fighting me every step of the way today and I feel like I’m going to vibrate out of my skin, so I need you to forgive everything and go slowly and speak softly and lower your expectations.” And then we could all just be like, “I know I said we could go to a movie tonight but… tangerines.” And the other person would nod and squeeze your elbow or rub your head and you wouldn’t feel like a failure.
ADORABLE
No sir, that would be the rare and beautiful raptorhound, a little known variety of greyhound.
Please tell me you guys have seen this…this is so beautiful xD
Bringing this back because it fills me with joy
having more positive feelings about carolina thanks to posts by people more insightful than me. ;;
I don’t think I’m necessarily more insightful, I’m just insanely obsessed with Carolina. Anyway this is beautiful.
- Rest of family: *goes on vacation for a week*
- Me: *takes pants off*
THIS IS FOR EVERYONE.
We cannot forget that a generation of hackers created something that they gave away to the world for free for everyone to use and we took that and spawned marvelous new art, economies, and communities.
TimBL could have patented the web browser, he could have licensed the web, he could be one of the richest men in the world. But instead, he thought maybe everyone should have equal and free access to it. Imagine how different the world would be if it weren’t for that decision.
I teared up a bit when they honored him in London yesterday.
no one loves harry potter more than abc family
It’s Christmas??? HARRY POTTER WEEKEND!!!
It’s the 4th of July??? HARRY POTTER WEEKEND!!!
It’s Easter??? HARRY POTTER WEEKEND!!!
It’s Memorial Day??? HARRY POTTER WEEKEND!!!
It’s President’s Day??? HARRY POTTER WEEKEND!!!
It’s November??? HARRY POTTER WEEKEND!!!
It’s pretty hot in Philadelphia this week??? HARRY POTTER WEEKEND!!!
It’s the end of the week??? HARRY POTTER WEEKEND!!!
RvB 10 Carolina: Front and center
It killed me to reblog this being English and seeing centre being misspelt
There’s a reason why all of the Freelancers were named after the States. Roosterteeth is American. Fuck yeah.
the only reason rt hired a brit was to make fun of him
and the only reason there’s a Canadian is so they can mock Tim Hortons
Title: Toeing the Line
Fandom: Red vs Blue
Rating: PG-13 for language
Word Count: 466
Characters: York, Carolina, briefly Delta
Summary: Spoiler for the first episode of season 10. York is not pleased with recent events.
Yes. This is fantastic, thank you.
“Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is a proof that humans are capable of magic”
-Carl Sagan
