(x)

Tube face.

Birb!

Birds actually like to stick their heads in things and chirp/sing because of the way the sound waves bounce off the inside. It’s like the birb version of when you yell HELLOOOOO into a canyon to hear the echo :)

why wasn’t I tagged in this ?????

HE WAS SINGING THE CHOCOBO THEME

what if wizarding america isn’t silly

when i heard there’s only one wizarding school in america, i laughed incredulously, and i know i’m not the only one. one school for the whole huge country? obviously brits don’t have any idea how big america is! cue derisive anecdotes about visitors who thought they could visit hollywood as a day trip from new york.

but recently something’s occurred to me: what if ilvermorny IS the only ‘wizarding school’ in america, with ‘wizarding school’ being defined as a wizard-only establishment where they teach nothing but magic?

aside from how unprepared that leaves kids for the rest of life, there just isn’t the population density to support wizard-exclusive pocket-universe enclaves anywhere but the east coast and possibly los angeles. even chicago is more spread out than that, and when it comes to mid-size cities like minneapolis and st. louis, forgeddaboudit. not even wizards would choose to live crammed cheek by jowl on quaintly crooked pedestrian-only streets when they could have a three-bedroom prairie-style on a wooded half-acre in edina.

so i’m thinking, yeah, ok, most american magicals don’t send their kids to wizard school. kids go to regular school and have wizarding clubs and retreats and summer camps instead. gives new meaning to “one time at band camp.”

the pureblood prejudice never developed in america? well, of course not, no one but the hamptons set goes even a single day without interacting with muggles. most of your friends are going to be muggles. there aren’t enough magical jobs for everyone, so most people’s coworkers will be muggles. except we wouldn’t call them muggles, of course, and certainly not ‘no-maj’ – that sounds like something that was said for a while by one particular new york jet set clique in the 1920′s and got written down in an english etiquette book as ‘what americans say’. we’d probably call them ‘mundanes’ or ‘normals’ if we called them anything at all.

the stuff about wand permits and other odd regulations makes sense for a small bureaucracy that doesn’t really understand why it can’t control things the way european magical governments do. it’s kind of a cargo cult legislation. probably most americans don’t even use a wand most of the time. european wand-focused magic might be the Done Thing among the WASP contingent, but everyone else undoubtedly knows at least something about navajo healing ritual, haitian voodoo, lakota dance magic, chinese feng-shui warding techniques, etcetera. taking away a person’s wand doesn’t take away their magic. you can’t say ‘corn pollen permit’ with a straight face and they sell chalk at the corner store.

i expect american wizards look at the hogwarts set as kind of a weird sect with weird restrictions and weird costumes. like the amish, but instead of furniture and quilts, they export clueless young men.

if I lick your brain will I gain your creativity?

i don’t know but it’s worth a try

also no one else will be able to eat it because it’s got your germs on it, which will be handy if zombies

this has always pretty much been my whole exact understanding of the hp universe i also figured a lot of american magic is in english instead of the pseudo greek/latin British spells since, unlike British schools, most Americans never study those, so our spells are like ‘Fire’, ‘Unlock", “Magic Missile’ also american wands have gun grips or are baseball bats

when i was a kid i made a wand out of a piece of copper pipe with brass end caps, and carried it around with me for most of a year; i know a lot of kids who had walking sticks from summer camp or hiking, and pretended they were magic. hell, i bet a lot of wizard kids learn to cast with a #2 pencil, just from idly messing around.

also, spells based on superhero powers: definitely a thing.

imagine some baddie trying to AK someone and getting hit by SHAZAM in return.

american wizards learn how to do spider-man webbing out of wands the way kids learn to do that one S symbol source: remember those dumb/racist comics ron had in his room? that’s all they got. britwizards don’t know a single spider-man

spells based on d&d too, i bet. and not nearly as much distinction between ‘dark arts’ and the rest, largely because a lot of the nonwhite arts got classified as Ebil Scary Bad by anglos, and the rest of america wasn’t having it. in louisiana, knowing the voodoo lady can raise the dead just speaks to the high quality of her marching powder.

florida wizards can use pool noodles as wands not a single british wizard has ever returned from florida

dude florida is just one big messy cryptid zone, the ‘florida man’ phenomenon is real and ‘hold my beer’ is a very powerful spell

edit: ok, wizarding america IS silly, just not the way rowling thought

THIS ENTIRE THREAD IS GOLD

“there’s a lot to unpack here” is the academic equivalent of “yikes”

@alesslethaldress

Japanese child actress Mana Ashida (little Mako) was embarrassed that she couldn’t pronounce Guillermo Del Toro’s name so he gave her special permission to call him “Totoro-san” instead.

My Neighbor Guillermo Del Toro.

If I don’t reblog this, assume I’m dead.

Guillermo del Totoro

So my boss once robbed a museum to prove a point and honestly, I think she is my new role model. 

If this gets notes I’ll tell the full story

Storu

Many years ago, my boss was working at this museum and they had these original Churchill documents on display. These documents are worth millions of dollars… The only thing separating the public from these documents was a sheet of glass secured with 4 philips head screws. Seriously. No security guards in the room, no cameras, just an easily removable piece of glass. 

My boss pointed out the security concern, but she wasn’t taken seriously, so she took matters into her own hands. 

She bought a ticket and  pretended to be a guest. She entered through the main entrance with a huge drill clearly visible on her belt, went straight to the documents and opened the case with the drill. (While  wearing gloves,) she removed the documents, put them in a folder, reattached the glass, and walked out the main exit.  Literally no one even questioned her.

 She immediately went around to the back of the museum, entered using the staff entrance and went straight to her boss’s office.  She dropped the folder on his desk and said “I just stole these in 15 minutes“

Once he was done being mad at her, he listened and the museum increased security. 

If you look official you can do anything.

I don’t think there’s an applause gif big enough to properly convey my reaction to this. Also, I love that if anyone tries to say that you’re just “another hack fic writer with no ideas of her own who is jealous of the “real” writers out there”, they could quite literally be crushed under your catalog of award-winning original writing as a response. They can’t dismiss your stance on this topic the way they do to so many unpublished / fanfic writers because you’ve already met all of the standards that they insist someone has before they’ll accept their opinion as worth listening to.

Right?

“Well, fanfic authors never win awards, so–” “WOULD YOU LIKE TO HOLD MY HUGO.” “That’s basically, it’s, you know, the People’s Choice, so–” “LOOK AT MY NEBULA.” “That’s a science fiction award, it doesn’t really–” “LOOK I’VE WON THE ALEX.” “…” “IT’S GIVEN BY THE SAME PEOPLE WHO GIVE THE NEWBURY.” “…” “I’M THE FIRST PERSON TO WIN IT TWICE IN A ROW.” “…well you wrote porn.” “GOSH I SURE DID.”

More attention to this, please. :) From yet another of the I Wrote Fanfic First And I Decline To Feel Shame About It brigade.

(And I also wrote for My Little Pony, which means I may have inadvertently contributed something to Seanan’s state of being. [Which I will file under the “Quiet Unholy Glee” heading.])

:)))

—

Derecho, A. (2006). Archontic literature: A definition, a history, and several theories of fan fiction. Fan fiction and fan communities in the age of the internet, 61-78.

In this paper, Derecho is interested in fanfiction as an art form rather than simply a social phenomenon, which was the predominant approach in fan studies at the time. Theorising how fanfiction works, she coins the term “archontic literature”. This is partly an attempt to move away from value-laden words such as “derivative” or “appropriative”. “Archontic” refers to the idea of an archive, which is ever-expanding, and where the addition of any new work alters the entire archive. Derecho also uses “originary” (rather than “original” or “source”) for a work which may serve as inspiration for fanfiction. Conceptualising fanfiction in this way allows for a less hierarchical view of the relationship between fanfiction and the works it is based on. Derecho argues that fanfiction is part of a wider genre of archontic literature - works based and building on other existing works. She traces a history of archontic writing, showing how it has often been used as a tool of social and cultural critique by minority and marginalised groups. She gives a number of examples including women’s writing from the 17th century, and more recently postcolonial and ethnic American literature such as Alice Randall’s The Wind Done Gone.

(via fanhackers)

So there’s today’s new word. “Archontic.” (Though it collides in my head a bit with usages involving archons, particularly in the Gnostic sense…)

@alesslethaldress relevant to your interests i believe

A helpful guide to some common birds here in the western US

Here are a few more, for your birding needs:

please allow me to thank you by giving you one in return

Thank you for your contribution to the birding community

Here is some more helpful identification knowledge of birbs

for you

how could y’all forget the most important one?

Update: Sauron is not afraid of hobbits. He was unaware that hobbits existed up until very recently.  he literally did not have time to be afraid of them, they went from a 0 to 100 threat level in twenty seconds. There he was, minding his own business worrying about the usual Elves and Men when suddenly these kids are on his lawn and now he’s dead, like just; 

What did— who– 

did I just get one-shotted by an infant how is this occurring 

Honestly I have to love this whole thought process that the Fellowship must have cultivated in Sauron, like…

“These children have found the Ring! But they’re taking it to the elves, of course. I will simply have to catch them on the way.”

“Well, the elves are still not to be trifled with, it seems. It looks as though they have a group of intrepid heroes, how cute! Wait, who’s leading them? Aw, hell.”

“OKAY! Olorin’s out of the way, and now I can finally kill them all and reclaim the- OH DAMMIT, IT’S IN LOTHLORIEN.”

“Well, okay. They’ve taken it onward. Curunir says one of the halflings is still carrying the ring, so he’s going to capture them and we’ll see how this develops. Thankfully Olorin’s still out of the picture and their little group just shattered into pieces, so that’s one less thing to worry about.”

“Aaaaaand Curunir shat the bed. Excellent. Trees, who would have thought? Okay, so we’re back to plan A: conquer Gondor, because if the Ring’s going to be anywhere, it’ll be there.”

“Wait, who’s on the– Isildur’s WHAT? Ohhhh. Ohohoho. Oh now everything makes sense. Isildur’s Heir is back, and he’s here being all prideful again. That’s fine. Really. I’ll just crush him and his kingdom, and then nobody can stop me!”

“WHAT? FUCKING WHAT? THEY SENT HIM BACK? Ugh, alright, alright, I’m cool, I’m fine. He’s still got that stupid wizard costume on, and I’m still stronger than he ever was. It’s not like he can come toe to toe with me, even if he does have an army behind him. This’ll be fine.”

“They’re… actually marching on the Black Gate? Sweet lord, I didn’t think they’d actually do it! This is perfect, everyone’s right here! Olorin, the human princeling, most of the remaining fighting forces of Men, all I have to do is kill them now and– Wait. Someone just put on the Ring. Someone just– That’s a halfling. They’re inside the mouNTAIN OH GOD NAZGUL GO GO G–”

…aaaaaand curtain.

Special delivery

“The Devil Went Down To Georgia” White Trash Washing Machine Cover

That’s just. Amazing.

AWESOMENESS

this is awesome

This is literally the futuristic version of washboard music. Is that not just fucking amazing? We had dudes playing washboards to accompany music since the early days of blues and zydeco and today we’re sitting here watching someone using a washing machine in the exact same way. Imagine being some old fella playing a washboard with thimbles in a little jug-and-tea-chest outfit back in the 20s, imagine if someone told you that in about 100 years time, some kid would be using a machine that will replace the washboard to serve the exact same purpose.

This shit is why I’m such a giant music nerd.

washboard electronica

Tolkien Fandom?

Out of curiosity, how many of us are there? Feel free to reblog if you read the books/watch the films :)

Seems a small fandom on tumblr, relatively?

naaaah 

we show up when we’re needed the most

My stepdaughter got me a very special autograph from Sir Patrick Stewart a few years ago (her dad thought it was funny and Sir Pat was a good sport about it). We framed it and it hangs in a place of honor in our apartment.

Last week, when kicking around ideas for Peter’s autograph, a friend suggested I get him to write “The Enterprise is bullshit,” as a rejoinder to the initial autograph. Armed with a photo of the original autograph, I asked him to do that.

He said “I don’t think I should write ‘bullshit.’ Does it have to be that?” I said “No, that’s what Patrick Stewart wrote, but you do you.” So he wrote me a message that I think tops Sir Pat’s. And now we have dueling autographs for our house. And Peter is amazing for doing this for me.

Gold

:Looks the entirety of tumblr dead in the eye:

Listen, 2017 is going to be remembered as a shitty year for a lot of reasons, but don’t let one of those reasons be that we could have had a full fledged Stargate reboot but didn’t support the obvious Pilot Project to Gauge Interest that is Stargate Origins.

Come on, it’s going to have aliens and lady egyptologists and things that go WHOOSH. Pretty please with an entire mountain or sugar on top, support this.

Wait, the what?

There’s a prequel web series called Stargate Origins, about young Catherine Langford, coming out soon :)

Oooooooooh

Whaaaat how did i not know about this????

‘Damn the boy’

#have you ever been so annoying you caused the reinvention of an entire literary genre

To be fair, Christopher isn’t exactly remembering things exactly either, there was no character called Thorin at that point - Thorin was called Gandalf in the first few draughts of the written version.

I really appreciate that you apparently knew this off the top of your head

a harry potter au where potions is taught by gordon ramsay

neville: *messes up his potion*

gordon ramsay: *holds neville between two slices of bread* what are you

neville: an idiot sandwich

no no no!

Imagine that this is Gordon Ramsay a la Masterchef Junior

Neville: *messes up the potion, realizes it, starts crying quietly*

GR: What’s going on?

Neville: *explains how he messed up*

GR: Oh gosh okay…we can fix this, don’t cry, see, it’s fine now? Just be more careful when you’re adding the Newt’s eyes, all right? Drop them in gently. There we go. No more tears.

Neville: *giggles wetly, wiping eyes*

Yes, he only screams when he’s dealing with people that claim to know what they’re doing and clearly dont, when he’s teaching he’s very kind and patient because they’re still learning.

He’d probably do the bread thing to Malfoy.

nononononono. I get that Malfoy is a bit of a twat, but he’s still a kid. It’d be the teachers fucking up that he’d have trouble with.

Ramsay: All you had to do was treat it with a fucking Beozar! 

Slughorn: It was a stressfu-

Ramsay: How long have you been teaching potions?!

or

Ramsay: So you’re going to raise this boy SPECIFICALLY so he can die as part of your twisted little scheme? 

Dumbledore: It’s for the greater good, professor. 

Ramsay: The greater fucking good?! *holds two slices of bread either side of dumbledoor’s face* What are you? 

Dumbledore: Am I, per chance, an idiot sandwich? 

Ramsay: Yes, you fucking are. 

Okay, now I can reblog it!

@marauders4evr

Fantastic!

@alrightanakin

I’m in love

I MUST HAVE REBLOGGED A THOUSAND TIMESSSS

My favorite Gordon Ramsey moment is from the latest season of Master Chef Jr.

Gordon had run in to help a group of struggling kids with a team challenge and one of the older kids, a 12 year old boy, wasn’t passing attention while taking a pan out of the oven and not only spilled all the food but scalded Gordon.

It’s clear Gordon’s leg is in pain. He’s been badly burned without warning. But he doesn’t scream. He doesn’t yell, not even in pain, and he doesn’t go off on the child who is now frozen in fear. He calmly tells the child to set the pan down and to close the oven, safety first. Then tells him to go restart the food he was making, calm instructions.

My husband and I grew up in abusive homes where any mistake meant parents getting angry (my husband is terrified of spills or broken glasses because that meant beatings growing up, for me, anything going wrong, that could upset my mother, even if it wasn’t my fault meant screaming and emotional abuse).

I didn’t know someone could be so calm. That someone could not get angry, and put aside what they’re feeling (in this case a lot of physical pain) and not take it out on those around them, even when someone around them had messed up, because that person is a child.

Gordon Ramsey is a survivor of child abuse himself and as an adult, the most non-abusive person ever when it comes to kids.

im going to cry can gordon ramsey be my parent this sound so beautiful

Please take a moment to picture Gordon Ramsay taking over Potions when Snape becomes the DADA professor (instead of Slughorn) and not only being horrified when he realizes how terrified the students are that he’ll verbally abuse them when they mess up in Potions class but when he overhears how Snape treats students. Like can you IMAGINE the level of RAGE and CONTEMPT that Ramsay would harbor towards Snape? The asshat wouldn’t have made it to the end of HBP. Ramsay would’ve hexed his ass to kingdom come.

Rebloging ALL of this because Chef Ramsay is THE MAN!

-HC

Chef Ramsay would have become the kids’ favourite teacher and you can’t take that away from me.

Imagine him dealing with Umbridge

‘Damn the boy’

#have you ever been so annoying you caused the reinvention of an entire literary genre