Art Teacher: Can you explain some of the reasons why my students would need to refine their writing skills? My Boss: [Long and slightly pretentious explanation about how artists need to explain and unpack the meaning of their art and their motivations and write museum blurbs] Me [a writing tutor, watching a group of 30 students shut down]: …may I say something? Art Teacher: …yes? Me: I’m friends with professional illustrators, folks who work in the comics industries, people who do 3D printing for a living, and people who do commissioned art. And the best reason to refine your writing is to be able to explain to people why it’s worth something, and be able to get other people excited about what you’re doing so that you don’t “die from exposure”. Portfolio summaries are important. So is social media. Everything from instagram captions to Patreon posts- Students: [instantly perk up and pay attention] Art Teacher: [interrupting me with a nervous laugh] Yes well we all need to make a living, but REAL artists- Students: [all tune out again]
STOP!!! FUCKING!!! DOING THIS!!! Art students deserve to know how the skills they’re learning will help them professionally, regardless of how they choose to use their art degree. Teaching that there’s only one way to “make it” as an artist is what literally STOPPED ME FROM DOING ART because I knew I was never going to be a museum artist. (All I wanted to do was doodle fairies.)
A list of reasons I’m divorcing J.K. Rowling and no longer acknowledging anything Past Deathly Hallows
None of it makes sense or really adds anything to the story except ‘ooh! A twist!’
She took the The Boy Who Lived To Idolize His Parents, and made him into a terrible father, who told his son he wishes he wasn’t born.
Made lycanthropy an allegory for HIV/AIDS, AFTER Lupin was turned as a child, by an adult. Not only does this tick the box for pedophilia, but painting homosexuals as predatory by nature.
Delphi. Everything about her. Including that she exists.
During the actual series, wandless magic was incredibly difficult to do, and only harnessed by very dedicated, powerful witches and wizards. Then, when writing about it in reference to Native American witches and wizards, suddenly, they needed Europeans to come along and teach them how to use wands.
Dumbledore being gay, whilst having none of his romantic relationships touched on in the series, even when his adolescence is delved into.
Taking from other cultures (Indian and Native American, for example) to add things to the series, with no credit due to those cultures, and no mention of even a character from those cultures.
Nagini somehow being a human originally, when it was previously never even alluded to, despite J.K. apparently ‘sitting on this for the last 20 years’.
Nagini, the literal PET of a white supremacist, was a woman of color.
None of these things she attempts to shoehorn in feel even remotely natural to the story, and it’s painfully fucking obvious they’re last-minute ‘gotcha!’ twists ripped off ff.net or ao3. She’s destroying the series by trying to keep it relevant, when it could maintain relevancy all on it’s own by being passed down through families and the fandom all on it’s own.
A man from Illinois was arrested for getting $224,000 worth of
manure dumped on his former employer’s property, only two weeks after he
won $125 million at the lottery and quit his job.What a petty revenge. Details are here.
AU where Minerva McGonagall has a little less faith in Albus Dumbledore so she does agree to leave Harry at the Dursleys.
But then proceeds to move right in next door with her wife because Albus never said that she couldn’t.
So Harry grows up with two grandmalike aunties next door, who basically finnagle him into living with them in all but name. It’s great, until he gets to Hogwarts because he keeps accidentally calling McGonagall Aunt Min instead of Professor.
The more I think about this the better it gets because suddenly a small biracial orphan appearing on the Dursley’s doorstep is less scandalous and gossip worthy in the
pasty ass white suburbia of Privet Drive, when it’s compared to the elderly lesbian interracial couple who moved in next door.
Okay this has an amazing amount of potential for Harry, but I am very filled with curiosity about Minerva’s wife.
1) Who is she? and more importantly
2) How did this marriage come to pass?
I mean I am all for Minerva McGonagall having had a wife already at this juncture in her life, but consider
1) Utter BAMF who is acknowledged to be out of everyone’s league Minerva McGonagall walking into a Ministry break room full of lady Aurors and the like and saying, “I have a child that needs looking after and a neighborhood full of prats who need scandalizing and will marry the first woman to say yes” and there is a moment’s shock and then the verbal equivalent of half a dozen bridesmaids diving for the bouquet with one clear winner who was a split second faster on the uptake and they end up in love by the time Harry is old enough to toddle properly.
2) The house next door is being sold by the daughter of its occupant who just inherited it and wants nothing to do with Little Whinging except to inflict herself on all the narrow-minded bastards long enough to get a good price for it; when Minerva walks in the door there is a mental adjustment that leaves her swooning (or maybe that’s Minerva) and after tea, dinner, and certain other activities she invites Minerva to live with her instead of selling it.
3) Minerva specifically tracks down the schoolmate she knows to be best at making stupid people regret everything, and asks her to pretend to be her wife, share a house in Little Whinging with her, and help keep an eye on Harry Potter. Both of them solidly overestimated their ability to keep the relationship fake.
I see posts about the old “one of us can only tell the truth and one of us can only lie” riddle but I’ve never seen anyone reference Labyrinth’s treatment of this riddle where Sarah solves it easily only to fall into the trap because she took for granted that the rules to the game were fair and it turned out that they were both lying