Whenever I see a post on tumblr suggesting aliens don’t have gender, I always think–‘but what if also the reverse. What if aliens also have some fundamental social construct we don’t’.
Like, they come and meet us and they’re like ‘hey this is an awkward question but what’s your gooblebygark?’
And we’re like what.
‘You know, the… the thing. Your goobledygark. The thing that dictates whether you’re gnarfgnoovles or brubledoopes’
What. What. What the fuck, those words don’t even mean anything??? What are you talking about?
‘Look, your ridiculous human languages don’t seem to have the words for these! But they’re totally a thing, they’re like, fundamental aspects of social life for our species, just… just let us lick you so we can know what verb tense to use when we speak to you.’
What does one thing have to do with the other??? That makes no–
‘UGH, nevermind, you’re totally brubledoopes, I can just tell, I don’t even need to taste your bacterial skin colonies.’
And then another alien overhears and is like ‘holy shit, you can’t stereotype like that, that’s SO NOT COOL’
In medieval culture, an event like a royal christening is not a private party; it’s the public social event of the year. To not invite any person of rank to such an event is a deadly insult.
Maleficent is certainly someone you wouldn’t want at a party, but she’s also someone powerful enough that only a fool would ever dare treat her with such blatant disrespect. The only way the King and Queen could possibly have gotten away with not inviting Maleficent was to not invite any of the fairies at all; inviting the other fairies and excluding her is explicitly taking sides in the conflict between the fairy factions.
Which means they made themselves her sworn enemies, and she responded by treating them as such from then on. If you actually get into analyzing the social dynamics of the scene, it’s very clear that Maleficent was willing to show mercy at first by giving the King and Queen a chance to apologize for their disrespect to her. She doesn’t curse Aurora until after she gives them that chance and they throw it back in her face with further disrespect.
And yeah, if the King and Queen had done the properly respectful thing and invited her, Maleficent would have given Aurora a scary awesome present. Moreover so would the other fairies, because at that point both sides would be using it as an opportunity to show off and one-up each other. What they gave her before Maleficent showed up was basically just trivial party favors by fairy standards.
How do you know so much about the social dynamics of medieval fairies
Wearing a peach pit around your neck will ward off evil.
Bad witch tip: several peach pits and a sling shot will ward of everything else
worse witch tip: a few peach pits correctly distilled will produce cyanide, which should sort yer problems out nicely.
Chaotic Good, Chaotic Neutral, Chaotic Evil
Magrat, Nanny Ogg, Granny Weatherwax.
Still worse witch tip: The skulls of the people you poisoned with the cyanide can be used in spells to compel the evil you were warding off to do your bidding.
aaaand there’s Black Aliss.
Long term tip: planting a peach-tree from the peach-pit will give you peaches, which taste good, and can be used to produce social alliances within the community, and also to make peaches and cream, which is I’ve found more effective at warding off evil than anything bar salt and iron.
Plus other witches will then come to you looking for peach pits.
While we’re talking about peaches, never accept them from suspiciously pretty men with pointy smiles and self-contradictory invitations.
I don’t think it really needs saying at this point, but we have our Tiffany.
(this has got better since I saw it last; time for a reblog)
You are moping on your island of self-imposed exile, and then this girl shows up.
She’s flying your best friend’s ship. The ship that Han thought he lost for ever. The ship that was stolen and passed through so many hands that he was sure he’d never see it again. The same ship that took you away from home for the first time.
She’s accompanied by your personal droid. The droid you left behind and abandoned. The droid that C-3PO was sure would never be the same again.
She holds out her hand and she’s holding your father’s light saber. The sword you were sure was lost forever. The light saber that you dropped down a bottomless air shaft on a gas giant thirty years ago. The light saber you knew you would never see again.
You look up and you see her eyes. Maz Kanata says that if you live long enough, you see the same eyes looking out of different faces. The girl’s face is different, but those eyes are the same. You know those eyes. They’re the eyes you thought you’d never see again.
And that’s when you know it.
You’re screwed.
They say sometimes the Force works in mysterious ways. Sometimes, the Force will send you little signs. Subtle clues.
Other times, the Force will just beat you repeatedly over the head with a gigantic neon sign that says: “You can’t run away from your past anymore, Luke. I won’t let you. Look, here is your past come back to haunt you. Now deal with it.”
You have no idea how much I adore this post with my whole being
I like the idea of the Force sending Luke little signs over the years that it’s time to return to his loved ones, gently increasing in intensity as he ignores them, until it finally gets fed up and shoves the events of Episode 7 into motion, finishing with a flourish of HERE’S YOUR NEW APPRENTICE, SPACE HOBO.
In the 2014 additions to the UK Potter books, Rowling says part of the process to become an Animagus is to hold the leaf of a Mandrake in your mouth for a whole month.
Can you imagine. These boys in Minerva McGonagall’s classes for that month, hoping she doesn’t notice.
now that you pointed that out i’m 100% sure minerva knew about that
ok imagine all the marauders pretending to take a vow of silence for a month to keep that up. Like wearing chalkboards around their necks and writing out anything they have to say around teachers and coming up with another ridiculous reason every time someone asks why they’re taking a vow of silence like. We’re protesting the traditional student/teacher constructs and the unreasonable verbal requirements of school. We’re raising awareness of how funny we are and how much your lives are worse without our beautiful voices telling jokes. We’re in a very intense round of the Silent Game and we’re all here to WIN.
“So Remus, why aren’t you doing it?” (gives very fond look to the boys) “I’m not a moron.” “(deathglares)”
Okay but
What about when McGonagall did it.
YES CAN WE ALSO TALK ABOUT THAT
Other student: Minnie, why aren’t you talking? McGonagall: *scribbles on a piece of parchment* “someone bet me I couldn’t and mama ain’t raise no bitch”
The most hilarious thing about the fact Buckbeak had a trial and lost is that later on JKR resolves the issue by having Hagrid take him in again and renaming him Witherwings. That’s literally all it took. What if in POA, Hagrid simply said, “Sorry, Buckbeak flew away.”
“There’s a hippogriff right there, Hagrid.”
“A different hipprogriff.”
“I’m… pretty sure that’s the same hipprogriff.”
“Prove it.”
no dna tests we die like scientifically underdeveloped societies
Prisoner of Azkaban continues to be the most frustrating book
Someone should have just adopted Sirius and started calling him Gerald.
Remus: Erm… this is our new order member, my… cousin Gerald. Gerald White.
“Mr. Lupin that is Sirius Black with glasses!” “Oh come now Minister, Sirius Black doesn’t wear glasses. That wouldn’t make sense.” “Well have Mr. White take off his glasses then!” “He can’t he needs them to see.”
it got better
It’s honestly a miracle to me that wizarding society doesn’t collapse every other week because like
You’ve got this world full of people who can destroy whole buildings or turn people into beetles or make vehicles fly just by waving a stick at them
And there is literally no common sense
Anywhere to be found
Voldemort would never have had anyone find out he was back if he just went around calling himself Steve
Okay, see, I thought I saved this post to comment on it but I’d like to bring up
The Minister would NEVER EVER disbelieve in Gerald White. He’d buy it hook line and sinker. The wizarding world would buy it hook line and sinker. The GOBLINS wouldn’t but wizards have been shown to be pretty blindingly clueless. Still, Gringotts would grudgingly give Sirius access to the Black fortune.
But, but, but, you know the one person
the one person
who Gerald White would drive AB-SO-LUTELY FUCKING BATSHIT?
Severus Snape.
Snape would do everything, EVERYTHING, to get people to believe that it’s Sirius. But the Order would ignore it (they accepted Sirius as Sirius before anyway) and Remus would just be so… so affronted.
‘Severus, he is my cousin.’
And Sirius would love it. He’d love the fact that Snape just hated it. He’d be the BEST DAMN GERALD WHITE EVER b/c Snape is doing everything from dropping veritaserum into his firewhisky to capturing a dementor in a box and releasing it on Sirius when he least expects it
That one causes problems for a bare minute because SHIT A DEMENTOR ATTEMPTED TO GIVE GERALD THE KISS MAYBE SNAPE IS RIGHT except Harry comes forward and is like ‘excuse me, I’ve never committed a crime and dementors are ALWAYS attacking me, I think they’re attracted to glasses’
and the magical community is like ‘shit, yeah, you’re right’
This was recorded by the Portsmouth Sinfonia in an experiment where
all the members of the orchestra would swap instruments with each other
and attempt to play them to the best of their ability.
favorite things about this
literally all the brass starts to get the hang of it and then
the crescendos happen and everyone is like FUCK FUCK FUCK??? FUCK. JUST.
BLOW RLY HARD.
the strings are lazy but also the same. like u can tell a lot of the
ppl w/ the stringed instruments may already basically know how to play
stringed instruments. like there’s definitely a section at the beginning
where you hear a good portion going “oh yeah this is like. a
smaller/bigger version of what i do.”
all you hear of any woodwinds is just “pffffttt??? pFFFTTTT????
PFFFFFTTTT I SAID PFFFFTTTT!!!!!” bc woodwinds are fucking HARD and you
hear after like the first crescendo half of them just give up. they give
up. they’re done. fuck this it tastes weird and my lips hurt.
that trumpet. that person is fucking TRYING man they fucking GOT
this. they may not have figured out notes but they figured out LOUD and
they GOT this.
The real reason Bruce Wayne keeps training kids is so that there’s eventually a gradually cascading order of vigilantes protecting Gotham. When you defeat one, there’s a slightly smaller one just behind, ready to pick up the slack.
andtheytoldustotellyouhello 