barnabusthebarmyballetschool

[barnabusthebarmyballetschool]

i present to yall my absolute masterpiece

[barnabusthebarmyballetschool]

literally said STAB ME to the poor volunteer who administer covid jabs

As someone who works with social history for a living, I feel like I’m the aggressive opposite of an anti-vaxxer

I fucking LOVE vaccines, friends. Give me the science stab. I’m so ready. it’s a beautiful day to not die of a Bajillion and one diseases that carried off like half the population before they had even reached age 10, and a significant portion before they made it to old age, 150 years ago

I go to the old cemetery. I see the vast numbers of infant and child and young adult graves. And then I go to my doctor and get injected with Potion of Fuck That Noise. This is beautiful and miraculous and I do not remotely understand how some people can reject it – not just for themselves, but for their children

[barnabusthebarmyballetschool]

The Matrix (1999) The Matrix Reloaded (2003) The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

[barnabusthebarmyballetschool]

A few months ago I dislocated my kneecap, but I was wearing a knee brace* so it didn't fully pop out. The brace did it's job in so much as it didn't allow my kneecap to fully dislocate, but not enough to stop my knee from misaligning.

Ha! maybe it disaligned instead, or I could just say I misloacted it.

fascinated by how "dislocate" seems to be a word used almost exclusively to refer to the misalignment of bodies, or parts of the body, from their proper place. it's distinctly anatomical. you don't say "i dislocated my keys" for instance, even though that's technically a correct and coherent sentence.

[barnabusthebarmyballetschool]

He was as tall as he was tall, and his eyes were the color they were. To describe his hair one would say that he had some. His face had all the features you'd expect, and none of the ones you wouldn't. "There he is," people would often say of him, but only when he was there. And they were right.

[barnabusthebarmyballetschool]

I was like, "I'm not gonna change a word of this script. This is a perfect script. I'm not gonna ruin this movie with my thoughts." But then, on every camera take, Jon our wonderful director was like, "Now do one just for fun. Now do one just you. Like, just something that you would say, off the cuff and ad-lib." And I was like, "Okay, if you want." And then, this man pulled a fast one on me. He used every single ad-lib.

Bowen Yang as Pfannee — WICKED (2024) dir. Jon M. Chu

[barnabusthebarmyballetschool]

for the prompt. 60: truth serum with Hinny

When the office sent Harry home after a particularly grueling test, he fully intended to go to bed and rest, just as he’d been instructed.

And to be fair—if he was being honest, which he had little choice about at the moment—he did go to bed and rest.

He just didn’t end up in his bed.

As he climbed the creaky stairs of the Burrow, the open door on the first landing caught his eye. The bright warmth and comfort of the small room seemed far more inviting than Bill’s old room upstairs. Without much thought, Harry stepped inside.

He wrapped himself in the homemade quilt and buried his face into the soft pillow, the faint scent of the orchard still lingering on the yellow flower print case.

A voice startled him from the doorway.

“What are you doing in here? Aren’t you supposed to be at training?”

“They sent me home.”

Ginny raised an eyebrow. “You messed up that badly?”

 “I was a little too good, actually.”

Harry heard Ginny snort as she stepped into the room. She shut the door behind her and crossed to the bed. A moment later, he felt the mattress dip as she sat beside him.

“Why are you in my bed, though?”

Harry turned over onto his back, squinting at her blazing gaze. “I like your bed better.”

Ginny’s blurry face tilted, clearly smiling. She leaned across him to reach the bedside table, grabbed his glasses, and slid them onto his face. His world came into sharp focus.

“Are you going to sleep here when I head back to Hogwarts next week?”

“Probably,” Harry replied without hesitation, deadpan.

He sat up, leaning back against the headboard, and pulled Ginny into his arms.

“It’s not that great of a bed,” Ginny said, her head resting on his chest. “Why do you like it so much?”

Harry inhaled deeply, his face brushing her hair. “Because it smells like you.”

Ginny smiled softly and began to toy with his fingers. “What kind of test did you do today?”

“Interrogation training. How to withstand different magical interrogation techniques. Neville and Ron didn’t last long.”

“But you did well?”

“Made it through multiple rounds,” Harry said, sounding equal parts proud and tired. “They had to keep brewing stronger truth potions until I finally couldn’t fight it off anymore.”

Ginny frowned. “Bit dangerous sending you home, then. What if someone asked you about top-secret Ministry stuff?”

“Well, good thing I promised—honestly and sincerely—to go straight to my bed and sleep it off,” Harry said.

Her frown deepened. “But then you lied. You went to my bed, not yours.”

Harry shrugged, utterly unrepentant. “Like I said, I like this bed better.”

[barnabusthebarmyballetschool]

To anyone who isn’t feeling super positive about the New Year today, I just want to send you some good vibes.

Life can change drastically in a single moment (for better or for worse), and it usually doesn’t follow the schedule of the Gregorian Calendar.

If everything looks bad or stagnant right now, you might find yourself shocked this time next year at the things that have changed for you.

And if you don’t have the energy to make big sweeping changes right now, that’s fine too. Just give yourself some grace and, for the love of god, stay off social media until this torture chamber of a holiday is over ✌️

[barnabusthebarmyballetschool]

To Guinevere

“To Merlin,” Bill said, raising his glass.

“And to the hope that King Arthur will return in the year to come,” Sirius replied, clinking their glasses. The sharp sound of crystal meeting crystal echoed in the quiet room, and dark amber liquid sloshed onto Bill’s hand.

“Useless bastard,” Sirius muttered as he downed his drink in a single gulp. His voice was low and bitter. “You’d think he’d wake up and reclaim that damn throne instead of napping through another war.”

Bill shook his head, letting the comment hang in the air, and moved to sit on the worn sofa beside his father.

[barnabusthebarmyballetschool]

I'm curious about people's levels of familiarity; I intend no judgment or elitism and it's absolutely fine not to be a completionist, btw. I didn't think I would've intended to have read them all at age 25; it just sort of happened that after I passed the halfway point in the middle of 2023, I came out of a reading slump and was motivated to finish. Fwiw I consider myself a hobbyist (I am not involved in academia or professional theater) but I realize that that label is usually attributed to people with less experience.

I also have always loved seeing other bloggers' Shakespeare polls where they put certain plays or characters up against each other, but I'm often left wondering if it's really a 'fair' fight all the time if you're putting up something like Hamlet or Twelfth Night against one of the more obscure works, like the Winter's Tale. It's not a grave affront to vote in those polls if you don't know every play, but I am curious about it.

Please reblog for exposure if you vote; I would appreciate it a lot. Also feel free to elaborate on your own Shakespeare journey in tags, comments, reblogs, because I love to hear about other people's personal relationships to literature.

[barnabusthebarmyballetschool]

Start

[barnabusthebarmyballetschool]

this. is. GORGEOUS!!!

we didn’t start the fire. no we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it.

[barnabusthebarmyballetschool]

This was a delight to read!

I thought at first it was gunna be one of those Relational Psychology Walk in The Woods things where the shape of the window is how you view death or something, but the multiple choice answers were intriguing and I'm excited to see this will be a CYOA book 😊

I was in the bathtub when I started writing this collection.

I had recently decided to quit a job I had once loved. It was winter, and the only way I could get warm was curled up under hot water, and the job I had once loved was killing me. There were knots in the small of my back and I wasn’t sleeping. My body felt like this far-off thing, but my body was also refusing to let me keep going along a road that wasn’t safe. There are words for this that my therapist uses, things like “allostatic load” and “window of tolerance.”

But I didn’t want an explanation. I wanted somebody to tell me how to make it go away, because I knew that if it didn’t, I would have to uproot my whole life. “Uproot,” a word deceptive in its violence. Being torn from soil that no longer has nutrients.

People told me I was brave for moving on, but the choice to quit my job didn’t feel like a choice. It felt like gravity. But I kept thinking about the idea of choice.

I didn’t realize how obsessed I had become with it.

In the bathtub, I began to write this dreamlike moment, and the possible choices that one might make.  I wanted to know that I could be okay. I wanted to know that staying submerged could be an answer, and I wanted to know that I could burn it all to the ground, and mostly, I wanted someone to come along and tell me what would happen next so I wouldn’t have to carry it anymore. But nobody could tell me that, and so I wrote another question, and another.

Glass Labyrinth is a poetry collection. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure book. Mostly, it’s a culmination of thoughts, feelings, and memories from one of the strangest years of my life. It’s a dreamscape through a city inside a forest, or up a hill you’ll never reach the top of, or through a therapist’s office where every question leads to several more. It’s a match lit over a pile of dandelions. It’s an offering. It’s an apology and a love letter.

Often, I’m not quite certain what it is.

Maybe you’ll read it and get to decide for yourself.  

Glass Labyrinth comes out in June 2025 through Thirty West Publishing House.

[barnabusthebarmyballetschool]

Ginniversary Drabble 2

Prompt: B7 - All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way

This was the hardest prompt ever!

AO3 or read below:

The door to Harry & Ron's room burst open and a whirlwind of red hair and glitter flew inside. 

“Oi!” Ron sat up abruptly, glaring at Ginny. “Have you ever heard of knocking?” 

Ginny rounded on him, the gold tinsel draped artfully around her neck was at stark odds with the bleak surroundings of Grimmauld Place. 

“I'll knock when you stop taking my things!” She declared, plucking the copy of Seeker Weekly Ron had been reading while lounging on his bed right out of his hands. 

“You've already read it!” He protested, reaching for the magazine. 

Ginny practically danced out of his reach. Harry could see the indecision in Ron's face as he contemplated whether this was worth getting up for. 

Instead, he frowned at Ginny. “Why do you look like a fairy threw up on you?” 

“It's Christmas, Ron!” Ginny's tone made it abundantly clear that this blunt answer should be sufficient to explain her decision to apparently bathe in glitter and drape herself in enough tinsel to be mistaken for a Christmas tree. 

“Yeah, the season of goodwill,” Ron shot back. “So maybe you should share your magazine with me.” 

“Ask nicely and maybe I will.” 

Ron's only response to this suggestion was a scowl. 

Ginny ignored it, turning instead to Harry, who had been watching their argument silently from his own bed. 

“You live with Muggles.” 

“Thanks for reminding me,” Harry replied dryly. 

“Who's Anna Karenina?” 

“I–” Harry frowned, wherever he'd been expecting Ginny to go with her observation of his living circumstances, it wasn't this. “Why?” 

“I just heard Hermione quoting her to Sirius in the hallway… I wondered who she was.” 

“I don't think she's real,” Harry said, trying to remember why the name rang a faint bell in his memory. “She's from a book, I think.” 

Ginny snorted derisively. “Must be an awful book. I didn't have a clue what she was going on about.” 

“Why?” Ron sat fully up now. “What did Hermione say?” 

Ginny took a deep breath, standing up straighter, mimicking Hermione's perfect posture without fault. “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” 

“Bloody hell, Hermione,” Ron said, voicing Harry's thoughts exactly. “That's a bit heavy; Sirius is finally looking more cheerful, he doesn't need that.” 

He was already rolling off the bed, shaking his head as he reached for the door handle. “I'll go and get her.” 

He hurried through the door without a backward glance, intent apparently on saving Sirius from Hermione's literary analysis. 

“Don't you want to join him?” Ginny asked, turning to smirk at Harry. “Aren't daring rescue missions sort of your thing?” 

He smiled, relieved. Ginny hadn't appeared to hold any sort of grudge after he'd carelessly admitted to forgetting about the unpleasant events of her first year yesterday, but he'd been expecting her anger to last at least a bit longer, and hadn't exactly sought out any conversation with her just in case. 

“I'm going to sit this one out,” Harry said, waving a hand at her glitter-covered form. “It's Christmas; I'm on holiday.” 

She laughed. “Well, I'll try not to get into too much trouble until New Year, in that case.” 

“Thanks, I'll let you know when I'm back on duty.” 

Ginny nodded, already turning to follow Ron out into the hallway. She paused at the door, turning back to look at Harry over her shoulder. 

“I'm making Christmas cards,” she said; the reason for all the glitter finally became clear. “I know it probably lacks the thrill of whatever you and Ron were doing, but you're welcome to join?” 

Harry laughed. “I'm not sure Christmas cards fall into my skill set.” 

Ginny merely shrugged. “You taught me impediment jinxes, I'll teach you proper stamp placement, sounds like a fair trade?” 

Harry hesitated for a moment more, a thousand reasons not to accept Ginny's offer running through his mind, but he really was in an excellent mood since the revelation that he wasn't being possessed by Voldemort, and it seemed like a waste of a perfectly good December afternoon to remain locked in this dreary bedroom. 

Nodding wordlessly, he climbed off the bed, meeting Ginny at the door. 

She didn't move right away. Leaning past Harry, she threw her copy of Seeker Weekly back on Ron's bed. 

She shrugged at the questioning look Harry gave her. “It's the season of goodwill.” 

[barnabusthebarmyballetschool]

As someone who was a 13 yr old Brit in 2005 I had a visceral reaction to seeing each and every one of these tracks.

My friend at school was obsessed with X Factor at the time and had a massive crush on this guy. I never got the appeal and I wonder if that's why our friendship died.

Look, we all did it. Played around with our Nokia 1110 ringtones and jokingly set this up. I don't know why we have to be all defensive about it. Whilst I miss the custom ringtone era, I'm glad this villain died off with his annoying "Baa aramba baa bom baa barooumba..."

I'm not saying we were, but as a tween listening to PCD you felt so grown up and dare I say 'sexy' as you showed off you bedroom choreography at the local SNAP disco. We weren't of course. We were children. But that didn't stop us performing mildly risqué moves in our New Look party outfits.

I voted for this one because even 20 years later, I can still bop along to this without feeling like I've gone back in time. It's timeless. And one of the best charity singles to come out of the noughties.

Nope. Can't stand that fucking chipmunk singing. Hate this with a firey passion and I'm annoyed to be reminded this exists.

I'm not proud to admit this, but before this song came out I had no idea who Madonna was. So all I knew about the supposed queen of pop was she was a ~50 something prancing around in a skimpy leotard. I've since learnt the error of my ways and come to appreciate her contribution to music, but this song will forever be 'meh'.

So I had to check Wikipedia on this because apparently this was Westlife's 1st single without my beloved Brian. I remember the tragic heartbreak only a tween girl can experience when their favourite in a boy band decides to leave, so although this song is remarkable I probably wasn't vibing it as much as I might have 2 years prior.

Another 'let me try and be sexy' song that was probably inappropriate for someone not even in puberty yet. I never did get why they each wore such a ridiculous outfit to presumably their office?! You can still flirt over the fax machine without needing to be in just your pants Mutya!

This was a viral music video before going viral was really a thing. I must have watched this silly billboard graffiti a hundred times. The song itself was alright, more akin to Ironic Alanis in vibes, but I know I watched this on repeat for the 'will they, won't they' story.

"I'm Luke, I'm 5 and my dad's Bruce Lee". I nearly picked this in the poll, but let's be honest I haven't got it on any Spotify playlist (unlike McFly). The cartoon music video was so cute and the song itself is really sweet. Haven't listened to it in ages but I might sing it to myself if I ever come across a yellow digger blocking traffic.

I had to look this one up tbh. I like the Gorillaz, I do, but their songs aren't exactly recognisable from name alone. Once I hit play though, it all came flooding back and I'm not mad the Americans have made this sweep the poll, despite it being quite niche for a British audience.

Will Smith was still doing music in 2005? Really?! Wow, did not remeber that at all! Having said that, I do know this song, I just assumed it was older. But nope, that music video is straight outta 2005 fo' shizzle!

i desperately want to do one of those “pick a song that’s turning 20 in 2025” polls but instead of all the songs being chosen to appeal directly to american tumblr users who had an emo phase i will take them, with bare minimum selectivity or curation, from the uk official year end charts so that everybody has to choose between shayne ward and the crazy frog song

[barnabusthebarmyballetschool]

There is no way this man is human LOOK AT THAT MUSHROOM CLOUD?? AND HE EATS IT W/O A PROBLEM?? Lock him up that's just fowl

*ba-dum-tss* …😃