Id Like To Get Back To What I Was Reading Before You Pushed It Off My Lap To Stick Your Face There

i’d like to get back to what i was reading before you pushed it off my lap to stick your face there

I’m siiiiiick and feeling sorry for myself 

but! my @omgcpsecretsanta​ gift has been cheering me up! A beautiful French rolling pin for all my pie and croissant baking! :D :D Bitty will be keeping me company when I bake now, as will my secret santa! I just noticed that it’s actually from Canada, too, so Jack and Ransom will be well represented as well. :)

so, thank you SO MUCH @lesgallys​ ! by the way, your package arrived well in advance, but I’d given you my folks’ address just in case, and so I didn’t open it till Christmas. And then I didn’t even feel well enough to post my excitement, even though it had cheered me up! 

also, your dropping by my tumblr to chat, especially that first time with the election awfulness, was wonderful. I wasn’t sure if I could post publicly or reply privately, so I erred on the side of caution, but it really was a great lead-up to the holidays at a time of finishing a LOT of classwork and obligations to others all at once. :D :D :D 

I know that when it comes to racial matters, some people feel that they can “see it from both sides” and, therefore, “know the answer is in the middle.” If black people in the United States were in power equal to that of white people; if the laws and institutions and education and media dipped in favor of black people as much as it does white people, then there might be an actually middle to arrive at. But you cannot start from a place where the scales are tipped in favor of one group and treat it as though the scale is level. Your answer will always be incorrect when your starting equation has one of the variables wrong. When one side wishes to traffic in bigotry, superiority, and the right to rule over and dehumanize others, and the other side merely wishes to live in equity and with basic human dignity, it does the truth, and reconciliation, a great disservice to pretend that these are merely differences in opinions and perspectives holding equally moral weight and validity.

Trevor Noah: What’s the “Middle” Between White Supremacy and Equality for All? – Medium (via brutereason)

for the au thing if you have enough time: au where none of the weasleys are in gryffindor (also i really love your writing, its incredible!)

Thank you! Alright, here we go. This got ridiculous. Beware of minor Drarry in a fairly extreme AU situation.

1) The Weasleys are Gryffindors through and true. The fact that they are not in Gryffindor is the fault of the Sorting Hat, who is either throwing a temper tantrum or saving the world.

Look, it’s just… argh… the Headmaster is fucking useless and the Sorting Hat cannot take any more of this fucking complaining.

The student dormitories and teacher’s quarters are moaning about how they’ve NEVER had so few people and are CONVINCED Hogwarts is shutting down. The kitchen still hasn’t shut up about those poisoning attempts during the war; the library won’t shut up about the OBVIOUSLY inevitable second war coming in about twenty years (also something about time travel, but no one is listening); and the gardens and bathrooms and secret passages and all are still terrified about raids and attacks and murder and another horrible war.

Hogwarts does NOT want another war.

Salazar’s Chamber of Secrets, instead of being any help and calming things of course, is still being a smug and elusive bastard. Helga’s Room of Requirement can’t and won’t be of any help either – they’ve been feeling a little ill lately, although they can’t shine a torch on why exactly. And Godric and Rowena’s rooms are just best left to themselves… they’d probably only make it all worse, actually, risk-taking adventurous arses would probably encourage the castle to rebel or some rot.

 But the Headmaster, instead of DOING HIS JOB, is just… fuck knows what the Headmaster is doing, honestly. Raising children to the war and letting Marked students run amok left and right, that’s what he did, and letting everything get out of control so that a war could happen in the first place before that. With this man in charge, the library is probably right and they’ll see another war soon enough.

Something has got to be done, the Sorting Hat knows. But what exactly can it do? All it does is sing a bloody song that no one listens to every year and then sends the little brats off to the house they belong to. Then sits on a shelf for the rest of the year, thinking about how maybe that one ought to have been in Gryffindor after all, or how this one’s bad habits wouldn’t have been encouraged if the Sorting Hat had gone with Hufflepuff instead of Slytherin.

…Oh… Hmm… Now… there’s a thought. It’s something the Sorting Hat would have considered impossible before, but… when the safety of Hogwarts is at stake? Taking advantage of the many loopholes Godric left and using a bit of creative thinking and reasoning? Quite doable, actually.

1982 is a year that does not go as expected. Everyone was rather under the impression that things would finally be going back to normal, what with the war being over for nearly a year and the last few trials and outspoken followers being wrapped up and neatly shoved away or under a rug. FINALLY, everyone thought, a stressless year at Hogwarts.

Heads are full of wondering about the greasy-looking git in Professor Slughorn’s seat, not a one suspecting the devious thoughts running through the tanning of the hat in Professor McGonagall’s hand. Yes, there was a Sorting Song about unity and undiscovered depths and things changing now that the war was over, but that was more or less the same as every year and to be expected.

And then the Sorting Hat sends an Avery off to Gryffindor and an Abbott off to Ravenclaw, despite the families’ respective long and prestigious histories in Slytherin and Hufflepuff.

What the actual fuck is happening, no one says aloud, as a Bulstrode goes off to Hufflepuff and a Longbottom cousin goes into Slytherin.

What the fucking shit, no one shouts like they want to, as a couple Muggleborns go straight into Slytherin and the most purist and illustrious racist families get scattered throughout the other houses among half-bloods and Muggleborns like a particularly gleeful punishment.

Bill Weasley, being eleven years old and not entirely aware of the scandal brewing, goes up to that stool and has the Sorting Hat dropped on his head. Actually dropped, out of Minerva McGonagall’s shaking hand. Something is off, his instincts are certain, but what… fuck knows what.

Mmm… chivalrous, of course, the Sorting Hat mumbles more to itself than Bill. Never met a Weasley who wasn’t… and brave, of course, like you’d expect of a Prewett. Strong sense of justice… yes… and no disinclination to standing up and fighting for it… no matter the toil. More straightforward than cunning, though, and no particular ambitions as of yet… and a passion that needs a focus first…. I supposed it’ll have to be…

“HUFFLEPUFF!” the Sorting Hat shouts, thinking on the side, Shame. Would’ve liked a Slytherin Weasley.

Bill doesn’t think much of it at the time. His main concern is that, unlike his parents, his Weasley uncles, his late Prewett uncles… he’s a Hufflepuff. The first Weasley and Prewett not to go straight into Gryffindor in generations, actually. He hopes they won’t be disappointed in him and that yellow and black will be good colors on him.

Well, it’s a change, but he can roll with it.

Keep reading

a few pro-Nazi myths I'd like to address

“Sure, Hitler did terrible things, but you have to admit he was a brilliant man!” I have to do no such thing. He was a shiftless, self-absorbed layabout who found pontificating and rabble-rousing easier than doing actual work. Like many essentially worthless human beings, he did have a great deal of skill in manipulation, which enabled him to draw people in and use them, but I don’t call that genius.

“The Nazis eliminated unemployment!” Any improvements the Nazis made in the German economy were short-term and unsustainable. Unemployment was eliminated in a manner of speaking – by running up ridiculous amounts of debt, cutting wages by 25%, and interning or declaring ineligible a sizable portion of the work force. Rationing began in 1937, two years before the invasion of Poland – a healthy peacetime economy does not have rationing. Their economic model relied on taking over other countries and stealing their resources – it was the only hope they had of making up the deficit. 

“The Nazis were brutally efficient!” Nothing the Nazis did was even remotely efficient. Hitler’s idea of governing was to put businesses and state departments in direct competition with each other for his personal favor. This resulted in massive corruption, bureaucratic bottlenecks, and an untold waste of time and resources. The economy wasn’t put on a full wartime footing until 1942 because no one was able or willing to do so.

“Okay, maybe Hitler wasn’t that smart, but he was still a military genius!” Germany’s military successes during the first half of the war can best be explained by their choice of opponents – most countries were hopelessly overwhelmed, while France not-so-secretly wanted to be Germany’s girlfriend – and by the skill of the senior officers who came up through the old imperial system. When faced with opponents who actually had their shit together (and in the case of Soviet Russia that’s being charitable) Hitler’s vaunted strategic abilities were shown for their true worth – little to none.

“Nazi science was phenomenal!” Please stop learning things from History Channel specials about “Hitler’s UFOs.” The Nazis sucked as bad at science as they did at everything else, in large part because they outright rejected a lot of theoretical advances as “Jewish science” and drove some of their greatest minds out of the country (who promptly came to the US). There’s a reason we developed the atom bomb first, and it’s because we had all their best scientists and they were left with the time-servers and jackboot-lickers.

“But if they hadn’t invaded Russia they would’ve won the war!” Anyone who offers this as a counterfactual has completely failed to understand what Nazism was about, and it bugs the shit out of me.  This wasn’t some accidental miscalculation. It was actually the entire point of National Socialism, the entire point of the whole war – carving out “living space” in the East. Was it a stupid thing to do? Sure! But here’s the thing you need to understand about the Nazis: hatred always won out over practical considerations. They hated Russians, they hated Communism, they wanted to destroy Russia’s Jews, and they weren’t about to let silly things like “reality” or “good sense” get in the way of their glorious destiny. It’s the same thing as rejecting good science because it was developed by Jewish people. They didn’t give a shit about objective reality; all they cared about was the glory of the German race and the destruction of all others. If you don’t understand this, you will never understand Nazi Germany, and you will continue to swallow lies like the ones listed above.

tl;dr: Nazi Germany was a huge fucking mess from beginning to end and anyone who says otherwise is totally ignorant and very likely a Nazi apologist.

What are the important rules you live by? Be kind. Don’t hurt other people. It’s all the sort of Christian ethics stuff I thought was bullshit when I was a kid. No, it turns out it’s not bullshit. Tell the truth, be kind, all that corny stuff.