when she was sorted into gryffindor, she was excited and nervous, because she was a muggleborn and wasn’t quite sure what that meant. but everyone was smiling and clapping, and she grinned at the sea of smiling faces dressed in red.
she was given a place in the boys dorm, and that seemed right to her at the time. but in her fourth year, she began to wonder if the out-of-place feeling she had wasn’t just her anxiety and awkwardness, but something else. when she realised she was a girl, it felt like she had blossomed into the world, to face it as a finished person. she told people that summer – texts to her muggle friends, owls to the wizards, and everyone was happy for her. for days she couldn’t do anything without the beep of her phone, or the peck of an owl at the window.
when she came back to hogwarts, and went to her dorm, she turned the other way. towards the girls dorm, where she had a place ready for her, picked out by her friends. she felt that same tight nervousness she felt when she was sorted, the pounding in her chest, the shaky hands. but she told herself to be calm. she was going to do this.
she put her foot on the bottom step. and then the next. and then the next.
the voice inside her head that had been telling her that hogwarts wouldn’t realise who she was shut up. she whispered a thank you to the steps, a small word that only the castle heard. then she ran up the rest of the stairs, a grin emblazoned on her face, new robes swirling behind her, ready to start the next year at school.
–
he was fifteen when it happened. he had been questioning for a while, but he wasn’t sure. he didn’t want to call himself a boy, not yet. a part of him was urging himself to just go for it, because he knew who he was, if he really thought about it. but he was hesitant, and didn’t define himself.
then it happened. one night, when he was alone, he was going back upstairs, when he slipped. his hand steadied himself on the rough stone wall, and he looked down to see what had happened. one of the steps was slanted, just enough to make him trip. it wiggled a bit, then made itself into a step, as if nothing had happened. he frowned at it at the time, and went up to bed, but the memory of the incident lingered days after. and weeks.
he remembered it later, when he sat up all night thinking of how he didn’t belong here, in the girls dorms. he didn’t want to label himself, but he’d been more and more out of place, and he knew who he was, really. when he stopped telling himself that he wasn’t.
it wasn’t too long before he told everyone. he felt like shouting it from the rooftops, flying over the castle with his new name on a banner. he didn’t, though. he just settled for casual chats with the people he knew and an awkward owl to his professors.
and one night, after he’d settled in to the boys dorms, he put a foot on the bottom step of the girls staircase. instantly, the bricks flattened themselves into a slide. he grinned, and carried on up to his new room in the boys dorms.
–
they always knew they didn’t quite fit into any of the genders they knew. they weren’t quite a boy, weren’t quite a girl, but they didn’t have the words to express what they felt. it was only after a few years at hogwarts (and a lengthy google search one night at home) that they learned the word ‘nonbinary’, and realised that there was a word for it, after all.
they decided to be casual about it at school. the people that they trusted knew, and some of the teachers. but it wasn’t as though they had a separate dorm just for them, so
except…
one day, when they were heading up to sleep, they saw a door. it was on the stairs to the dorms – girls went one way, boys went the other, with a blank wall in the middle. except it wasn’t blank, not then. there was a door. they asked their friends about it, but just got strange looks in return. but every time they climbed those stairs, the third door was there.
the next year brought a new wave of first-years, and they joined a group helping the kids out with navigating hogwarts. they were showing a group the way to the dungeons when one asked them what the third door was for. you know, the one between the girls and boys dorms. they froze, and looked down at a nervous first-year who was, even then, getting odd looks from their classmates.
they opened it together, the first-year and them. turned out it was another dorm. the beds were made, light shone through the windows, and the whole room seemed to beckon, invitingly. the first-year was ecstatic, and they found themself smiling too. the pair of them moved in the next day, and began to set up their own little space.
after they moved in, everyone could see the door. and slowly, the dorm began to fill up. kids from all years claimed beds there, older kids who had been too nervous to try the door, younger kids who were thrilled that it existed. they were the first, so they were looked up to, and they were happy they had.
–
help will always be given by hogwarts, you see. even for those who don’t know they need it.
Tag: text post
A depressed guy moves into a haunted house with 7 demons, each corresponding to a deadly sin. But, they’re all trying to help him get back on his feet; Pride helps with self confidence, Lust helps him get laid, etc.
I would watch the crap outta this like wow
Envy: “Glut, back off the guy, okay?”
Gluttony: “I’m just saying he could stand to gain a few pounds! I made spaghetti!”
Sloth: “After we eat, it’s gonna be time for a nice nap. We’ve earned it!”
Pride: “Damn right we did!”
Just imagine the Catholic Church making a statement regarding this new tv show.
Wrath does nothing but encourage him to punch assholes.
“You deserve better! That was YOUR parking space!”
“He’s like three hundred pounds of muscle, Wrath.”
“And you are 165 pounds of RAGE!”
Wrath’s advice isn’t great, but he means well.
Greed spends his days trying to help him manage his budget and put money on the side
“Bro check this out i’ve got the sickest retirement plan, technically it’s tax evasion i guess but fuck those guys, right?”
This is the most hardcore sequel to Inside Out.
autumnal asks
lantern – how did you meet your best friend? What were your first impressions of each other?
frost – if you could give some advice to your younger self, what would you say?
maple – is there a hobby / skill that you’ve always wanted to try but never did?
harvest – what fictional character do you most identify with? Why?
fireside – if you had your dream wardrobe, what would it look like?
cider – a food that you disliked as a child but now enjoy?
amber – share an unpopular opinion that you may have.
fog – how well do you think you’d do in a zombie apocalypse scenario?
jack-o-lantern – if you could look like any celebrity, who would you choose?
spice – have you ever encountered a house that you believed to be haunted?
orchard – share one thing that you’d like to happen this autumn.
crow – which school subject do you wish you had an aptitude for?
bonfire – describe your dream house.
cinnamon – if you had to live in a time period different than the present, which would you choose and where?
cobweb – (if you’ve graduated) do you miss high school?
cranberry – what’s one physical feature that you get complimented on?
maize – share the weirdest encounter you’ve had with a stranger on the street.
quilt – how do you take your tea (or coffee)?
pumpkin – do you think that humans are inherently good or bad?
moonlit – are you a neat or messy person? Is your room / house orderly?
flannel – have you ever gone on a bad date?
cocoa – if you could have any type of hair, what colour and cut would you have?
ghost – is there someone that you miss having in your life?
Secretly scary
To a telepathic race, Humans would be terrifying, borderline psychotic, monsters.
Let’s start with “Intrusive Thoughts”. You ever been walking alone and wonder what would it would be like to jump off the bridge, or leap into traffic, or just punch a random person? Those are intrusive thoughts and everyone has them but most sane people never act on them. They’re still there but we know to ignore them.
To a telepathic species, these random urges that cross our brains would seem like humans are constantly on the verge or violent and self destructive acts and some unknown force holds us back.
Second, let’s take into account grudges, dark imaginings and just general seething anger.
Recent events in my own life have taught me there is always one person in any group of people who is so stressed by the little things at least one other person is doing that they wish they could strike out. Hit them, shout at them, swear like a sailor, or destroy their stuff. I know because, apparently, I’m that person. But I hold it in and tolerate and say nothing to maintain the peace.
To a telepathic species we would seem like barely in control psychopaths who are waiting for this moment to snap.
Finally there’s “compartmentalisation” our ability to separate our thoughts and our feelings. We can go through such a stressful time at work, school, or other places, and we want to quit, want to leave it all behind, quit, storm out etc. Adults can wake up in the morning hating that they have to go into a job they don’t like, but once their out of the job at the end of the day, once we’re away from that place, everything is fine. Because those problems are “work” or “school” problems and not part of our outside life.
To telepathic creatures we would be schizophrenic sociopaths. Or masochists, because despite our apparent hate of or jobs we keep going back.
is this Dark Water?
This is a Jack Handey quote, actually. People talk about certain writers shitposting before shitposting was a thing, but Jack Handey practically invented shitposting. He wrote these short nonsense one liners and they published them in the National Lampoon and played them on SNL in the 90s. There’s a shit ton of them and they all sound like shitposts. Here’s just a few:
- “I hope if dogs ever take over the world, and they chose a king, they don’t just go by size, because I bet there are some Chihuahuas with some good ideas.”
- “Contrary to what most people say, the most dangerous animal in the world is not the lion or the tiger or even the elephant. It’s a shark riding on an elephant’s back, just trampling and eating everything they see.”
- “To me, it’s always a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, “Hey, can you give me a hand?,” you can say, “Sorry, got these sacks.“”
- “If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flippy, which one would you think liked dolphins the most? I’d say Flippy, wouldn’t you? You’d be wrong, though. It’s Hambone.”
- “I think a good novel would be where a bunch of men on a ship are looking for a whale. They look and look, but you know what? They never find him. And you know why they never find him? It doesn’t say. The book leaves it up to you, the reader, to decide. Then, at the very end, there’s a page you can lick and it tastes like Kool-Aid.”
- “If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.”
- “If you’re an ant, and you’re walking along across the top of a cup of pudding, you probably have no idea that the only thing between you and disaster is the strength of that pudding skin”
- “I wish I lived on a planet that had two suns—regular sun and “rogue” sun. That way, when somebody asked me what time it was, I’d say, “Regular time?” And they’d say, “Yeah.” And I’d say, “Sorry, all I have is rogue time.” It’d be fun to be a stuck-up rogue-time guy.”
- “If you’re a cowboy, and you’re dragging a guy behind your horse, I bet it would really make you mad if you looked back and the guy was reading a magazine.”
- “I hope some animal never bores a hole in my head and lays its eggs in my brain, because later you might think you’re having a good idea but it’s just eggs hatching.”
- “If your friend is already dead, and being eaten by vultures, I think it’s okay to feed some bits of your friend to one of the vultures, to teach him to do some tricks. But ONLY if you’re serious about adopting the vulture.”
- “If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe you’ll look like a dummy and people will try to catch you because, hey, free dummy.”
- “We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can’t scoff at them personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me.”
There were so many of these, and they were all hilarious. Still are.
- “It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.”
- “The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.”
- “I bet one legend that keeps recurring throughout history, in every
culture, is the story of Popeye.”
- “Anytime I see something screech across a room and latch onto someones
neck, and the guy screams and tries to get it off, I have to laugh,
because what is that thing.”- “The memories of my family outings are still a source of strength to me.
I remember we’d all pile into the car – I forget what kind it was – and
drive and drive. I’m not sure where we’d go, but I think there were some
trees there. The smell of something was strong in the air as we played
whatever sport we played. I remember a bigger, older guy we called
“Dad.” We’d eat some stuff, or not, and then I think we went home. I
guess some things never leave you.”
I realize this is not new information to anyone, but what struck me so hard this time I read the Lord of the Rings was the sense of melancholy. Like it’s painfully obvious to the reader that this world is Not As It Once Was. All of the characters we meet reference this feeling of loss in one way or another.
The elves are the most obvious – with their fading light and their ships sailing away. Treebeard talks about how the woods aren’t as they once were, about the ents who are falling asleep and withering to nothing. The dwarves lust after the glory of their forefathers, be it in mountain fortresses or caverns of mithril – now empty and echoing. Old Tom Bombadil remembers a race of great men and women, reduced simply to trinkets in cold tombs.
And even men, the race set to inherit this new age, even they are experiencing this sense of melancholy, of losing hold of something great. We see their great cities reduced to rubble on riverbanks, or possessed by evil. Aragorn longs to return to his throne to restore the glory of ages past, to somehow rejuvenate that which is dying in the race of men.
And hobbits? At first we see them as living in the present, with no great glory of the past to tie them down. Yet when Frodo returns to the Shire, it is…Not As It Once Was. And I think while the other hobbits are able to shake off this feeling and return to their love of life and the present, maybe Frodo’s true burden is to inherit this sense of loss from the rest of Middle Earth.
And what makes Lord of the Rings (and Tolkien) so extraordinary, at least to me, is how there is still so much hope in the story even with all its sadness. Hope is literally Aragorn’s childhood name, given to him at a time his House is all but finished. Hope is what drives Gandalf and leads his way when others of his order become distracted and give up their purpose. Hope appears to Sam when he and Frodo trudge towards what seems to be their end in the fires of Mount Doom. Hope is there at dawn when Rohirrim arrive at Minas Tirith and blow their horns, and they ride to defend the City of Kings, though they know what they are facing. In fact, for me some of the most brilliant moments in the story are those when hope appears in the middle of darkest despair. Tolkien writes like sadness and hope are merely the two sides of the same coin.
One of the many things I love about the world Tolkien created is the exquisite beauty that rises from sadness; lesser stories would transform sorrow and grief into bitterness, but in Tolkien’s world, it becomes a force for pity and wisdom and love. Some of his best and wisest characters are those who have known great sorrow. Melancholy and sadness are a part of Arda Marred, but like Gandalf says: “not all tears are an evil.”
Perhaps my favourite quote from Tolkien is Haldir’s line from the Fellowship of the Ring, when the company is nearing Lothlórien:
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
andtheytoldustotellyouhello 