💀

Let’s talk about a cat who spent a whole day waiting on a wall, while everyone else was celebrating, because she had heard something and she couldn’t believe it. Because people were laughing for the first time in years, and all she wanted to do was cry.

Let’s talk about a teacher who was strict and severe, but fair and caring. A woman who fought for her students until the very end, with her green robes and stern look, three silver cats flying out of her wand. And they fought for her too.

Let’s talk about Minerva McGonagall.

When Minerva McGonagall saw Harry for the first time, she didn’t see his mother living in his green eyes, like Severus would. She didn’t see James’ ghost in his shy smile, like Sirius; or a hero to be shaped by manipulative hands, like Albus. She didn’t even see an orphan, like the rest of the world did. She didn’t see the boy who lived. She just saw a boy, her student, and for her, that was enough.

Minerva McGonagall survived a war and all that came after. The funerals and the sorrow, but also the laughter that was back. She survived the ghosts and the mourning. She let her heart break over Lily’s death, her hands shaking because James would never make another joke; a sharp, disappointed pain over Sirius’ betrayal (they had been her students. They had been her children) and then she collected the pieces and moved on. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, Albus said once. And she didn’t dwell on dreams. She was stone and she would not shatter.

She survived a war, and, when she had already buried the dead and forgotten the nightmares, another one came. And she survived it too. She was a rock, and rocks may be weathered, but they don’t break.

When Fred and George Weasley abandoned the school, leaving behind a trail of cheers, admirers and laughter, and a petition (give her hell for us, Peeves), Minerva saw Umbridge’s fury and Peeves’ bow, and hid a smile in the corner of her lips. When Neville Longbottom came to her office, asking for advice, with his clumsy hands and a respectful fear in his eyes, she offered him a biscuit and some tea, and she gave him reassurance with her stern frown and her steady voice.

When Remus Lupin became the DADA teacher, she invited him to her office. She offered him biscuits too, some chocolate this time. They talked for a long time, about old times and forgotten joys, about four friends and their mischiefs and pranks. They looked back on their bets and their antics, their hopes and their dreams. They didn’t talk about death, not that evening, and the Marauders came back to life in that room, their voices rising and stealing pieces of a future they hadn’t gotten to live. They also talked about their students, homework and assignments, because they were teachers after all, and that was something worth remembering.

She gave him a knitted jumper for Christmas. He gave her a box of chocolates. Years later, she would stand by his grave and leave a single flower on it. A flower for the boy she’d known and the man he’d become. The man who was kind and quiet and healing. The man she’d like to have gotten to know better.

Albus died then, a shout and a blaze of green light. A fall, and it was all over. It felt like the end of an age. “Are the rumours true?”, she had asked, once upon a time. Now she wanted to ask Harry the same thing, trying to keep her voice from shaking, because Albus Dumbledore couldn’t be dead, could he? But then again, James and Lily couldn’t have been, either, and yet they had been, they were.

When the Second Wizarding War began, she stayed at the school. She kept teaching, because she was a teacher and she would not let them take that from her. Because her students were there, and she wouldn’t leave them alone. She wouldn’t let them die, all those brave children, if she could do something to save them. She wasn’t like Albus, who had prepared himself to sacrifize a boy in the name of the greater good. A boy’s life for the sake of the world.

After the Battle of Hogwarts, there was a destroyed castle and ashes. Minerva stumbled when she saw George’s desperation and Fred’s frozen smile. She wanted to cry when she came across Lavender’s body. She finally collapsed to her knees, when she found Colin Creevey. She had seen him this still, once before. But there were no mandrake leaves to save him, not this time. He was too young. He shouldn’t have been fighting a war, the brave and naïve boy.

Pomona Sprout kneeled next to her then, and Minerva sobbed on her shoulder.

“A boy”, she cried. “He was a boy, he was a child. Children, they were children.”

Pomona let her weep, and then she said,

“There are children here still. They are alive, and they need you, and more will come, and you’ll be there. And you’ll be fine.”

And she was right. Minerva collected the pieces once again, and she moved on. She sent a box of chocolates to Dennis Creevey, as Remus would have done, because he was so much better at being kind than her. Than any of them, really. Dennis sent her a photograph, an old picture of Albus and her, the Weasley twins laughing in the background. She met Molly Weasley for tea, and they shared anecdotes. And she went back to Hogwarts and she kept teaching, because she was a teacher before anything else. She became the new headmaster. The best one of them all.

Some years later, Neville Longbottom knocked at her door, asking for a job. She remembered all the times he had come, asking for advice with his stammering voice. She remembered the way he had led the resistance, the way he had stood up and defied the ones who had made his parents lose their minds. The way he had worked hard and stubborn, never giving up. She offered him a biscuit and some tea. She had never felt so proud.

When he left, she went through some papers. She looked up and the portrait of Albus Dumbledore winked at her. She smiled and went back to work.

When Teddy Lupin arrived at Hogwarts for the first time, expectation in his eyes and bright colours in his hair, he was nothing like the other orphan who had stared at her once upon a time, the one who had had skinny elbows and broken glasses. Teddy Lupin wasn’t looking for a family, he already had one. But, as she had done before, she saw another student, and for her, that was enough.

She was a teacher. Students were her children. And she was their rock.

“I still catch myself feeling sad about things that don’t matter anymore.”

— Kurt Vonnegut

So someone already asked me about this, but i’m gonna ask the rest of you guys

do some of you want to be put on a permanent tag list? i’ve been meaning to ask this for awhile but i never got around to it

anyway y’all can either comment, reblog, or simply DM me if you want to be

A career for a career - Megan Fox deserves to have hers back. Michael Bay deserves to be blacklisted, something he had no problem doing to her when she exposed him for his awful, predatory behavior.

on the pevensies’ names

SO there’s something that always bothered me about Susan, and that was: why is she called Susan??? Peter, Edmund and Lucy’s names all have clear significance, but I never could see what about the name ‘Susan’ was important for her character 

UNTIL my last reread of the Chronicles, when I spotted something in VoDT that I couldn’t BELIEVE I’d never noticed before. It’s a HUGE pointer towards what happens with whether Susan eventually returns to her belief or not, and although I’m sure I’m not the first person to have seen it, I can’t remember reading about it in any Susan’s-fate discussions before, so here goes.

Peter, Edmund and Lucy all have names with deep significance. ‘Peter’ means ‘rock’, which is clearly well suited to his role as the ‘rock’ of the family, but perhaps more importantly he’s named after Saint Peter, who in the Bible is something like the rock upon which my church is founded. The Pope sits on ‘the throne of Saint Peter’ as God’s representative on earth (for the catholic church at least), and Peter’s throne is that of the High King (CS Lewis did a little power in Narnia flowchart thing and Peter sits right below Aslan on it I think). plus the whole Peter-and-the-gate-of-heaven thing in LB. 

‘Edmund’ is a two-part name, translating to ‘prosperity’ and ‘protector’. Sure, ‘protector’ is applicable because of his actions against the Witch, but his name is mostly significant because of its use in Shakespeare - in King Lear, Edmund is the name of the Duke of Gloucester’s bastard younger son, who betrays his family to gain power. Shakespeare’s Edmund is never completely redeemed, but he is an ambiguous character who can be played as really awful or quite sympathetic or a bit of both, and he’s got lots of parallels to Narnia’s Edmund.

‘Lucy’ means ‘light’ and hers is pretty straightforward - she shines the light onto the path to Narnia and to Aslan for her family.

But Susan? ‘Susan’ means ‘lily’, and for the longest time I could not for the life of me figure out why that was important. CS Lewis wouldn’t give all the others such significant names and then come to Susan and be like oh well I guess that will do, but I couldn’t find what it was. Sure, lilies are flowers traditionally used at funerals, which is a bleak bit of foreshadowing, but it didn’t seem like enough. 

AND THEN

I was reading VoDT and at the end, when they get close to Aslan’s country, what do they find? A SEA OF

LILIES

and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed this - that the flower on the path to Aslan’s country is the flower Susan is named for. which, combined with the foreshadowing in PC about her returning to Aslan, is a pretty strong hint about her eventual path.

If we also take a look at a compass - the sea of lilies is in the utter east. it’s heavily implied in the Narnia books that Susan’s path away from Narnia starts when she goes to America, which - from England - is a journey west, the opposite way. so Lewis is definitely paying attention to direction here. and to the east, on the pathway to Aslan’s country, he filled it with Susan’s flowers.  

my whole standpoint on the problem of Susan is a bit more complicated, but I think this is a lovely whisper from Lewis about her eventually getting to rejoin her family

Not that I was expecting much otherwise, but Shark Week has just started and they kicked it off by having a convicted rapist force a caribbean reef shark into tonic immobility.

This is incredibly stressful for the shark and there was no scientific data being collected - they just strap a camera to the dorsal fin for extra content.

Now let’s talk about how ridiculous these assholes look.

They’re in FULL CHAIN MAIL. All these theatrics about how dangerous and scary these REEF SHARKS are, acting like they’re going to be savaged if something goes wrong. It’s all theatrics.

When I worked at the aquarium, my colleagues wore chain mesh gloves and a wetsuit when feeding and handling grey nurse/sand tiger sharks.

These Shark Week dumbasses think they’re so big and tough harassing these reef sharks that are just trying to go about their day.

And this is going to inspire so many idiot divers to copy this stunt to prove how brave they are. 

Shark Week has become an absolute garbage pile of sensationalist rubbish rather than any sort educational conservation programming. 

Putting this on tv is going to encourage idiots to copy the stunt and continue to treat sharks as something to ‘conquer’ rather than the important apex predators that they are.

Butterfly Repopulation Station in Portland

Free seeds, information and also a patch of milkweed for Monarch Butterflies

When you think of perception, there’s a million versions of yourself out there that people think are actually you. You can be upset about that or make the best of it.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ -Hawks

the queen’s gambit is a fuckin awesome show and singlehandedly saved my 2020,,,,, but can we pleathe talk about how it captured the ~vibes~ in tournaments SO perfectly?? The friendships formed through rivalry, petty gambling after matches, seeing someone you’ve met before again in a higher ranked tournament, the one who you deem as your arch nemesis even though they’re probably not aware you exist?? The chill people, people who don’t take losing well, people who socialise, people who stay in their rooms and do nothing but study?? Nothing was left out, both the good and the horrible parts of it, and seeing that much familarity in the episodes really helped me connect w/ Beth.

ALSO this is a psa that maybe y’all should stay tf home so that i can go to tournaments and conferences again instead of crying over them after watching netflix for 7 hours!!!!!

*buys a crappy replica of susan's horn on ebay and blows on it in hopes of the four kings and queens of old would come back and save us from this awful year of 2020*