I feel like Buffy Summers and Dean Winchester would be best friends.

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Dean: So you're Chosen too, huh?
Buffy: Yep. A bunch of old men played God a zillion years ago, and here I am.
Dean: I know that feel.
Buffy: Oh well. It could be worse. I kind of enjoy killing things.
Dean: It's really good stress relief. If only we could just stick with killing monsters, right?
Buffy: I know. One day it's "kill vampires", the next you're sacrificing yourself for your younger sibling.
Dean: And then they bring you back from the dead!
Buffy: You too, huh?
Dean: Crawled my way out of a grave.
Buffy: Sucks, doesn't it?
Dean: And then I got back to find out that the person closest to me was doing sketchy, addicting things to become more powerful, all in the name of the greater good.
Buffy: Let me guess, he tried to start an apocalypse?
Dean: Not TRIED to start so much as-- wait, how'd you know?
Buffy: Been there, done that. Man, next thing you'll tell me someone close to you lost their soul and tried to kill people you loved.
Dean: Dude. This is eerie. Next thing you'll be telling me you have a red-headed computer-hacking lesbian unofficial sister.
Buffy: ...um....
Dean: .....Are you my alternate universe parallel?
Buffy: No, the only alternate universe I've been in, they told me my life was all fiction. And not even good fiction.
Dean: ...We should hang out.
Buffy: Definitely.
Dean: Decapitate some vampires.
Buffy: Sounds good.
Dean: Are you seeing anyone?
Buffy: No, but I'm not over this guy in a big coat who I hated for a while and was an enemy but then came over to our side because he fell in love with me, and then later he betrayed me and it was awful, but then he really did feel bad about it and tried and make up for it and he died saving the world but then came back only he never calls me.
Dean: .....
Buffy: .....

kinkshamedeanslegs: aegipanomnicorn: micdotcom: Watch: Nyle...

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kinkshamedeanslegs:

aegipanomnicorn:

micdotcom:

Watch: Nyle DiMarco reminds voters what’s at stake on election day for people with disabilities

[Nyle DiMarco signing] You can keep this ad muted if you want and keep scrolling past it. But if you’re still listening to my voice, please know that there are a lot of people out there without one. Among the 50 million Americans living with a disability, many don’t have the ability to work, to travel, or to do countless other things you might take for granted. So this November, please consider voting for the only candidate with a plan to change that.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is the  only candidate running for any public office (from local school boards, to city and town mayors, to state legislatures, the House of Representatives, Senate. or President) to use the word “Disabled” without flinching, or hedging, or euphemism.

And, my honey children, the words of politicians have washed over my ears since the days of Lindon Johnson; they’ve actually meant something to me since Jimmy Carter was running for President.

And Hillary Clinton is the first to #SayTheWord: “Disabled”

…and speak of us as people who matter, whose lives have value.

Think about that.

We know Donald Trump’s attitude toward the Disabled, thanks to the way he publicly mocked New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, last year, and how he seems to confuse the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act –a federal law) with the M.D.A . (Muscular Dystrophy Association – a charity famous for its pity porn telethons). Source.

But did you know that Jill Stein, who many Left-leaning “Bernie or Bust” voters are choosing as their ‘protest vote,’ is actively courting the Anti-Vaxxer crowd, and talking about “The Autism Epidemic” in her speeches and tweets? Source.

Hillary Clinton isn’t “The lesser of two evils.” From a Disability Rights perspective, she’s “The best of the bunch.”

*rolls off her soapbox; removes the portable ramp*

But did you know that Jill Stein, who many Left-leaning “Bernie or Bust” voters are choosing as their ‘protest vote,’ is actively courting the Anti-Vaxxer crowd, and talking about “The Autism Epidemic” in her speeches and tweets? Source.

Bolding that because so many of my friends are choosing Jill Stein when really she’s not a great candidate for the disabled.

voiceofnature: Red fox (vulpes vulpes) feeding on amanita...

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voiceofnature:

Red fox (vulpes vulpes) feeding on amanita mushroom. Finland. Photography by Niko Pekonen.

Sometimes I get horny in a really aggressive, "angry" way. Like, I want to wrassle and yell and hit

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Yep, that’s totally a kinky thing. You might want to look into “rough body play,” which is basically the kinky codeword for wrasslin’.

itsakatastrophe: official-skeleton-war: It’s

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itsakatastrophe:

official-skeleton-war:

It’s Halloween 1st

🎃💀👻

Oh look it’s time for this again already.

copperbadge: hotbully: The only map that matters True facts,...

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copperbadge:

hotbully:

The only map that matters

True facts, I had a Distant Aunt who lived in Rough & Ready, California. It’s a quirky little town whose major claim to fame is that it once seceded from the Union for a year to avoid paying federal mining taxes. 

stickmarionette: wickedsymphony: “I feel like

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stickmarionette:

wickedsymphony:

“I feel like Hamilton reached out from history and wouldn’t let me go until I told his story.”

The Right to Non-Christian Secularity

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tikkunolamorgtfo:

tikkunolamorgtfo:

About ten days ago, I wrote a series of posts regarding the difficulties Jews and people of other minority faiths encounter in western society when it comes to having our holidays respected and recognized. I got a lot of feedback from Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Jains, etc. echoing my sentiments (some of which was absolutely heartbreaking), and I have additionally seen a variety of other posts on the matter that underline my point. When reading all of the notes and comments relevant to these posts, I noticed a very similar theme reappearing time after time:

“I didn’t take off for X holiday because I’m not that religious, but the scheduling was very inconvenient for my more observant friend or family member.” 

Indeed, I had previously quoted former MLB player Gabe Kapler, who once made the justification to play baseball on Yom Kippur by saying: 

“I am not really a practicing Jew. It would be selfish to be a practicing Jew on only one day.”

It would seem that many people have been led to believe that observing a Jewish or Muslim or Hindu holiday is cheating unless you are sincerely devout. 

Well, I have an important message for those people: 

YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO NON-CHRISTIAN SECULAR OBSERVANCES

This is important, so I’m going to say it again: 

YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO NON-CHRISTIAN SECULAR OBSERVANCE

Think of all the times you have been chided by secular Christian friends for not celebrating Christmas.

“It’s not really even a religious holiday anymore,” people will tell you. “It’s just a nice time for families to get together and celebrate.” 

Well, guess what? So is Rosh Hashanah. So is Eid. So is Diwali. 

A secular Jew might not want to go to synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to fly home for Rosh Hashanah dinner to be with their family. 

A non-practicing Muslim may have lost interest in regular religious practices, but that doesn’t mean they don’t still look forward to Eid celebrations.

A lapsed Hindu can still have fond memories of celebrating Diwali as a youth, and want to continue on with their family traditions. 

There is no written rule that says only people from Christian backgrounds can be non-religious and still celebrate their cultural holidays. There is no law that says only Christmas and Easter can be boiled down to family dinners and fun festivities. 

BEING A SECULAR PERSON FROM A MINORITY FAITH DOES NOT INVALIDATE YOUR RIGHT TO YOUR OWN CULTURAL BACKGROUND. 

It doesn’t matter if you haven’t prayed in years or don’t believe in God. If you want a day off for your holiday, take it. No matter what, it’s still yours. 

With the High Holidays coming up, I wanted to share this again. 

I feel very strongly that we need to start normalizing non-Christian holiday observances (both secular and religious) throughout the year for people of all backgrounds. 

If you’re Jewish, next week is a good time to start.

Hello, my name is Julie Cromer, and I am the one who placed the plaque on the tree dedicated to Sir

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Oh my gosh, hi there! (I have no idea when you sent this, I didn’t get any notification until just now, I hope you see it!). Sir Earl Piglet’s tree is really lovely. I’m glad that the memory still makes you happy, it was nice to hear from you!!

karlimeaghan: You can pinpoint the exact moment Danny falls in...

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karlimeaghan:

You can pinpoint the exact moment Danny falls in love.

Wait, if Danny and Nicholas are the second best ship, what is the best???

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Elphaba/Glinda

I’m looking at the big picture here.

astralbodyandmind: I found these moths separately, and placed...

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astralbodyandmind:

I found these moths separately, and placed them on the tree together
I walked away for some time and came back to the little one hiding out under the larger one’s wing :3

phantasticmrphox: breelandwalker: stylemic: Eighth...

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phantasticmrphox:

breelandwalker:

stylemic:

Eighth Generation is what modern Native American design looks like without cultural appropriation 

Louie Gong describes his company, Eighth Generation, as “a Native-owned, community-engaged small business that began when I started putting cultural art on shoes.” It’s true, in 2008, Gong began decorating sneakers and skateboarding apparel with indigenous Nooksack patterns — a move that, as a Nooksack himself, set him apart from the non-Native designers who’d been doing so for years. As demand grew, so did Gong’s ambition.

Here you go, kids!

How to procure Native-American-and-First-Nation-themed items without entitlement or cultural appropriation in one easy step.

BUY THE THINGS DIRECTLY FROM THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES.

Because if they’re selling these representations of their culture and being fairly compensated, you’re not appropriating, you’re appreciating. And helping good folks make a living while you’re at it.

Everybody wins.

^^^this is the difference. participate in the parts of culture that people CONSENT to sharing!! it’s that simple, if you buy directly from the source, they are creating with the idea that people outside the culture will be consuming, and can pick and choose what they are okay with you having. 

the same idea as wearing traditional dress that someone of that culture gave you as a present vs. buying a knockoff version for “fashion”

filiabelialis: vulgarweed: shelikespretties: bellesolo: say what you want about woobifying...

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filiabelialis:

vulgarweed:

shelikespretties:

bellesolo:

say what you want about woobifying villains, but i think tragic backstories and redemption via love are staples for good reason. we want to believe that people are fundamentally good, just hardened by a harsh world. that suffering earns you a happy ending. because then it means something, then pain isn’t just senseless and futile.

people don’t ‘excuse’ the actions of villains because they just don’t take those actions seriously. i think it’s a kind of projection - we forgive them because we want to forgive ourselves, and we look for the good in them because we want to see that in the world, even in people who have wronged and hurt us. because earth is a goddamn terrifying place if other humans really are evil, if they’re really monsters.

and idk, i just think it’s kind of beautiful that we all want to believe that the scariest mass-murdering motherfucker alive can be brought down by something as pure and innocent as love. that love is the answer, not violence. i don’t think that’s cheap or ‘problematic’ or a bad influence. i think it’s human, and profoundly optimistic in a way that few people are brave enough to be.

If I didn’t hold the hope that love could make a difference, my world would be cold and bleak.

People who ONLY ever like “pure, cinnamon roll” characters and try to buff away every flaw and every morally grey dimension and reduce stories to pure heroes and pure villains give me the creeps, because it seems to me like those are people who refuse to acknowledge their own capability to do terrible things, the inevitable fact that they have done things that hurt others in the past and will do so again (because that IS inevitable if you interact with other humans), who never question themselves, who think incredibly harsh standards of judgment are just fine because of course THEY would never need forgiveness or mercy.

THOSE are the people who are most likely to stomp on your face with a boot while being utterly convinced they’re doing the right thing and you deserve it. And they will never admit they were wrong and they’ll never apologize, because only bad people do bad things, and of course they’re not a bad person, so if they did it, it must have been good.

Give me friends who are honest about their own capacity to harm, who know where their own darkness lies, and can see it played out in characters good, bad, and - best of all, somewhere in between. Who understand when to rage, when to forgive, and when to just walk away. Who understand that other people, just like them, are ever-changing bundles of contradictions. Those are people I feel I can trust.

^This last comment. I’ve been thinking about this, and it’s not just that “every villain is a hero in their own mind.” I think it’s that act of making oneself into a hero in one’s own mind, of giving up self-criticism and clinging to an identity that’s based being Good, that opens the door for a person to do truly horrible things to other people. I honestly wonder whether philosophies or faiths where good is a thing you ARE rather than a thing you DO are more prone toward instigating violence in the name of said philosophy.

Snape’s Questionable Teaching Skills

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mollyscribbles:

corseque:

laureljupiter:

owlpostagain:

Say what you want about Snape as a person, but it’s incredibly difficult to argue that Snape was a good teacher.

Harry learned better from a book annotated by Snape than he did from Snape himself. If your job can be done better by a textbook (even if it’s one you modified), then you’re not a good teacher.

Snape makes his students nervous, negatively affecting their performance. In 1st year, Snape is specifically said to make the students nervous during their final exam: “Snape made them all nervous, breathing down their necks while they tried to remember how to make a Forgetfulness potion.”

Snape plays favorites. Obviously he hates Harry and will vanish Harry’s potion to ensure he gets a zero. But even if we put Harry aside, he’s pretty blatant about it.

Snape relentlessly bullies the worst student in his class. Harry asserts that Snape’s bullying has a negative impact on Neville’s work: “Neville regularly went to pieces in Potions lessons; it was his worst subject, and his great fear of Professor Snape made things ten times worse.” He bullies Neville in front of his peers and even other teachers. He tells Lupin that Neville is useless without Hermione to help him, and tells the entire dueling club that Neville “causes devastation with the simplest of spells.”

Snape is also cruel to one of the top students in the class. In addition to bullying Neville, Snape humiliates Hermione on multiple occasions. He insults her appearance, calls her an insufferable know-it-all, tells her to stop showing off, shouts at her for helping Neville, etc. And this is all despite the fact that she’s likely one of his top students. At one point, he stops mid-lesson to read Rita’s Skeeter’s Witch Weekly article about Harry/Hermione out loud, in its entirety. He even throws in a few of his own comments and pauses to allow for laughter at the end of sentences. And remember, this is a 14-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl who have the misfortune to have their “relationship” speculated about in a tabloid.

Snape’s retention rate is not particularly high. Out of Harry/Ron’s entire year, 12 students achieve E/Os and continue the subject. We know that aspiring Aurors are required to take Potions, as are Healers. You would think that Potions would be quite relevant for a student in anything vaguely science/medicine-related. It’s a fairly important part of magical life with a very practical application. And yet only 12 students chose to continue, with a disproportionate number coming from in Snape’s own house.

 I feel like it’s kind of worth pointing out that this incredibly dysfunctional, toxic situation is the result of an employer using political, carceral, and emotional blackmail to force someone to take and keep a job they don’t want and aren’t capable of performing to standard?   And then refusing to take any kind of disciplinary or corrective methods when that employee behaves destructively in all the ways this post describes, because their unhappiness/karmic punishment is a bigger priority than the damage they cause.  

Like, seriously, everything up there is true, but Snape wasn’t doing this while squatting in a tenured track or abusing teacher’s union rights or refusing to leave his position.  I don’t think there was any reason he had to keep that teaching job other than Dumbledore thinking it was both useful and amusing to keep him close, in a job he hated.  If you want to get more into the psychological manipulation involved, trapping someone in a job where they’re isolated from adult society and constantly fucking things up is a fantastic way to keep them emotionally dependent on you.  You keep them in a constant state of that transgression/punishment cycle because they’ll be even *more* dependent if they think they deserve it.  

On a practical, workplace politics level though, Snape couldn’t hack it at being a teacher, started lashing out abusively, and never stopped, and was never made or allowed to stop.  Dumbledore was more invested in keeping Snape in a constant state of subservience and petty misery than he was in the academic and emotional welfare of 17 years of students.  When you have someone in your employee base who is routinely incompetent and destructive, you fire or move that person, unless you on some level enjoy the chaos and misery they’re constantly creating around them, which all those descriptions of Dumbledore’s twinkling eyes seemed to be flagging that he very much did.

One of my favorite fanfics once pointed out that Snape became a teacher only a couple years after he graduated, and that he must have had to teach the same students that watched him be bullied. Like, the 5-7th years, the year he started teaching, knew him as “Snivellus.”

So it’s interesting to think that he must subconsciously, or even consciously, see all students, no matter their actual age difference, as his peers/rivals. That these kids are threatening and awful. In those first few years, it was probably not far from the truth.

And since the kids never age, but he’s stuck in a horrifying limbo, he hasn’t departed at all from fighting other students like they’re his age and all his enemies. He doesn’t mature or develop at all. He bullies them first, and revels cruelly in any scrap of superiority. he’s verbally abusive. He sees children as his rivals.

Just all-over, overwhelmingly, a bad idea to have him teach. Imagine having to go right back to your high school to teach the same students who saw you be bullied. Not for a million dollars.

But, you know, Dumbledore apparently thought “it was a valuable life lesson to have the students have to learn to deal with bad teachers” in his school, or however JK explained his reasoning (someone asked her once why the hell Gilderoy was ever a teacher).

so ok, everybody gets to suffer.

an idea occurred to me a while back – the only reason Snape wanted the DADA job was that the curse on the position meant he had a decent shot at never having to teach again.  We don’t see him do anything remarkable when he has the position, he doesn’t seem to enjoy teaching any more than usual, but it’s ultimately an escape route.

I very much appreciate that the replies in this post (the version I’m reblogging anyway; haven’t looked elsewhere) are fairly even-handed wrt Snape. It offers an explanation for part of why his shitty behavior is the way it is, and why it’s allowed to continue unchecked, without excusing him from blame. He’s a petty, vindictive person who made some phenomenally bad choices; and someone in a position of power over him ensured that he was trapped him in the same psychological cycle that contributed to him being a petty, vindictive, miserable human being. I haven’t thought about him from this angle, which made it interesting to read.

boxesofpepe: get to know me: favorite fictional charac

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boxesofpepe:

get to know me: favorite fictional characters → captain raymond holt (brooklyn nine-nine)

I notice you tend to draw the same actors many times. Is it safe to say you've got a fangirl crush t

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LOL it’s funny you use those words because when men do the same thing they call her a muse and the work gets its own wing in a museum with a fancy name like, oh I don’t know, Romance

I wish people wouldn't tour old prisons, mental hospitals, go on true crime tours, etc, for spooky f

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I don’t agree.  The line between entertainment and education can get thin here, and education about these places is important.  I’d rather people go to a Spooooky Haunted Asylum and learn something about the historical treatment of mentally ill people, than have them learn nothing at all.  Even if you go for shallow reasons, even if history isn’t your focus, just being in that space makes you reflect on “what would it have been like to be locked in here?”

I worry that getting rid of sensationalized tours wouldn’t lead to them being replaced with socially conscious education (”Hey kids! We’re going to go learn about the harms of obselete penological theories!  Don’t worry, it will be very serious.”), it would just let these places fall off the map forever.

Plus, I think some ghoulishness is just a part of human nature, and not necessarily an evil part.  Being fascinated by suffering isn’t the same as cheering for it.

wrangletangle: jinlinli: every time i hear “tag

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wrangletangle:

jinlinli:

every time i hear “tag wrangling”, im imagining a herd of unruly cattle with things like “voyeurism” and “slow burn” and “fuck canon” branded into their haunches stampeding while a couple of harried farm hands attempt to lasso them in

Accurate.

Sometimes a herd comes up out of a canyon, no warning at all, and there’s only one wrangler on the scene. Their panicked yodels bring other wranglers racing out to the new edge of fandom, a fandom that didn’t even exist last week, in an effort to steer the tags into their proper pens.

Sometimes, though, no one hears anything at all.

Tumbleweeds roll by. There is silence, a great stretch of sky. A soft rumbling. The closest wrangler left the area last month, looking for greener pastures. There have been no tags here for long years. Then suddenly….

~ lion king music, followed by wildebeests ~

“Can’t keep hands on this one,” explains a lead for a popular fandom, tilting her hat to block the sun. “greenhorns come in, get their first shock of a stampede, and refuse to leave the barn. Scares ‘em right off. You got to have solid, experienced hands on a fandom this big, but experienced hands take one look at this place and laugh. They know right away how much work it’s going to be.”

~ the camera pans over milling tags, no apparent order to them ~

“We’ve got over a hundred thousand of these, with a hundred or so coming in every day. And that’s just on this side of the creek.” She waves at a distant speck, who seems to wave back. “Megafandoms,” she says, as if that explains everything. To other wranglers, it probably does.

(There’s also a collaborative steampunk version, which is much more exciting)

seananmcguire: Oh look, it’s me and @amyme

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seananmcguire:

Oh look, it’s me and @amymebberson but WHO IS WHICH BIIIIIIIRB

mydarkenedeyes: Emma Fineman - Ocean Series (Oil on panel,...

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mydarkenedeyes:

Emma Fineman - Ocean Series (Oil on panel, 2014‒)

missveryvery: Hiroshi Ueda, the Red Devil of Roppongi, is...

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missveryvery:

Hiroshi Ueda, the Red Devil of Roppongi, is desperately trying to discover the secrets behind the YEEHAW Group that’s buying up strategic parcels of land in Minato Tokyo’s Roppongi district. But every time he gets close, he’s swarmed by lasso-wielding cowboys, sometimes on horseback and with six-shooters. Luckily, he’s been trained his whole life in the American art of wrestling and shooting people with assault rifles.

positive-lesbian-vibes: Seeing other gay people in public is such a therapeutic experience like...

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positive-lesbian-vibes:

Seeing other gay people in public is such a therapeutic experience like every time I see two girls or two boys together like holding hands or on a date I get like 5 years added onto my life

feastevil: first sighting of mothman, west virginia, 1966

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feastevil:

first sighting of mothman, west virginia, 1966

bastillearchive: Bastille - Send Them Off! @atrickstertype I...

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bastillearchive:

Bastille - Send Them Off!

@atrickstertype I don’t know how you’ll feel about the music itself but the imagery is great.

stanseb: #BENNY WAS SO IMPORTANT #i love you bara diner...

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stanseb:

#BENNY WAS SO IMPORTANT

#i love you bara diner proprieter