Congratulations To Minerva McGonagall On Her Pending Retirement Today, Who Is Going To Look Down At Her

congratulations to Minerva McGonagall on her pending retirement today, who is going to look down at her list of first years and see “James Sirius Potter” and just call it a fucking day

Love examples of earlier transformative works! 

This is part 7 of I’m not sure how many. Note this is the same publication that ran the “spiders Grantaire” article.

Translation: 1) Valjean gripes about M. Victor Hugo, who roasted his arm for the reader’s entertainment. [T/N: I guess this is a reference to the scene at the Gorbeau house?] 2) With all confidence, Valjean finds King Charles X [well uh not king anymore since the arm-burning incident happened in 1832], uses Charles’ brother, his friend Louis XVIII, as a reference, and asks him if he would be willing to take on the task of amusing the reader until his arm heals. 3) Charles X, who is truly the best of men, takes charge of the reader, tells him about the capture of Trocadero, the “Unobtainable Chambre” [of ultraroyalist deputies] of 1827, and a bunch of things that could not have less to do with Victor Hugo’s novel. 4) King Charles X takes advantage of the Revolution of 1830 to walk out on the reader.

This is the most awesome thing I've seen in ages.

I'll just add that some scholars of the French and British Enlightenment theorize that empathy among educated elites for people of lower classes was actually created on a mass scale for the first time because of novels.

For the first time, people from more privileged positions in those societies were experiencing stories from the points of view of poorer, female main characters (such as the title character of "Pamela"). Identifying with those characters and seeing them as people. Undergoing hardships with them and so feeling their pain and the injustices of their situations. Reading novels was a novel (pardon the pun) way of shifting paradigms that went way beyond the impact of moralizing tracts or histories. Pretty powerful and dangerous stuff.

how is it possible to love fictional characters this much and also have people always been this way?

like, did queen elizabeth lie in bed late sometimes thinking ‘VERILY I CANNOT EVEN FOR MERCUTIO HATH SLAIN ME WITH FEELS’ 

was caesar like ‘ET TU ODYSSEUS’ 

sometimes i wonder

This. So excited. How often have readers had the opportunity to see both readers and author made to engage with the strong gender scripts underlying an incredibly popular work, made explicit and challenged by a gender-swap? Has it ever 'officially' happened before?

i know everyone and their grandmother is taking potshots at the new twilight novel but honest to god i have so many questions, so many things i needed to know in the agonizing hours occupying the space between “knew this thing exists” and “got my filthy, goblin hands on a copy,” and my first and most pressing being what are we going to do now that jacob black doesn’t have a knot? how does renesmee work in this universe – does she exist in this universe? would she have existed? if edward is the one who is against having the baby, would edythe have carried it given the reverse situation? would edward’s body – unable to change, age, or grow, even conceive a child? would there be a vampire abortion? would there, in this universe, have to be some kind of fanfic-style cis-dude mpreg for beaufort slash bella swan to fulfill her destiny of being a zombie vampire babychild incubation machine? and like, in a universe where the dynamics of half of the familial and romantic relationships are predicated on gender roles learned and assigned in like, the mid 19th and 20th fucking centuries, how does rosalie’s storyline even work? she was only a vampire because of a) her relative class status b) the existence and enactment of gender-based violence in the depression era,  jasper was only a vampire because he was an active confederate soldier in texas during the southern vampire wars, would alice’s institutionalization and torture have even happened if she’d been a man? would carlisle have been a doctor? is edythe going to take the role of stalker slash protector without the hovering obligation of antiquated gender roles? how does leah’s struggle with the hypermasculinity assigned to her as a werewolf play out if she’s like, a dude, how does the whole lowkey racist narrative about quileute men being unable to control their violent, animalistic impulses because they’re native ameri– excuse me, werewolves, play out if all of them are women. i have been sending frantic, screaming voice memos about this to several people tonight and my only regret is that this was the way you all had to find out that not only did i read twilight but i am heavily emotionally invested in the consistency of the twilight universe’s internal logic buT LIKE FOR REAL IS THERE GOING TO BE MPREG IN THIS? IS BEAUFORT (BEAUFORT!!!) SWAN GONNA HAVE A BABY. WHAT HORRIFYING PORTMANTEAU IS RENESMEE GONNA SUFFER THROUGH THIS TIME

Here is my video from Will Swenson’s 54 Below show, where Ramin Karimloo was the special guest this evening! They sang “The Confrontation / A Little Fall of Rain” which you’ll see was quite humorous! Not too positive if I was allowed to take video but they only said no flash so I guess it was OK! ENJOY! :)