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Good stuff. I’m reblogging so I can remember to use this in Intro to Philosophy tomorrow... our book uses an excerpt from Lord of the Flies as an illustration of Hobbes’s idea of the state of nature. These stories are a lovely illustration of why Hobbes is probably wrong.

So. 10th grade English class. We all come in one morning to find a balloon and a perfectly sharpened pencil on each of our desks. No instructions, no explanation, which is strange, because our teacher is meticulous about that sort of thing. A couple of people try to ask her and she says we’ll get to it. She takes role and then announces that she needs to go to the copy room and she’ll be back in a couple of minutes

Kinda unorthodox, but no one is complaining because this is advanced English and the teacher usually goes kinda hard. So, y’know. Brief respite. We all sit and chat; one of the boys teasingly steals a girl’s balloon, but gives it back to her easily enough; it’s quiet and kind of a nice break. Then the teacher comes back, stops in the doorway, and just stares at us

After a long moment, she says, confused, “You didn’t pop the balloons.”

To which one of the guys about two rows over exclaims, “We’re allowed to pop them?” and immediately turns around and stabs his friend’s balloon with the pencil

There is a vicious revenge balloon-stabbing, and a few more people pop seatmates’ balloons or their own, and the whole time the teacher is just shaking her head. “I can’t believe you didn’t pop your balloons.”

Apparently we were starting Lord of the Flies that day and she wanted to demonstrate the basic concept of kids turning on each other when there are no authority figures present and it was basically my favorite failed social experiment ever

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Missouri Gothic.

the true american gothic experience is passing five places selling rvs, a dennys, a mcdonalds, and two motel 6s along a stretch of highway the size of one city block at 6:30am on christmas, passing big, completely empty feilds with bright yellow signs warning you to fear god along with an abandon giant wooden shelter advertising log house construction, and going through a tiny town in which you pass a sign for a restaurant called ‘king solomons’ which is, in fact, an abandoned building that looks like it was at one point set on fire

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Is this Captain Kirk in civvies?

Sucuroslax, 1968

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Swooshy cloaks and glass jars of various sizes aren’t cheap you know, and it’s not like education has ever paid well for anyone. Our boy’s got to have a side hustle.

Hey guys, I’m pretty sure I discovered Snape’s pseudonym and underground writing career:

“Hagrid almost had to drag Harry away from Curses and Counter-Curses (Bewitch your Friends and Befuddle your Enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tongue-Tying and much, much more) by Professor Vindictus Viridian” (Philosopher’s Stone, ch. 5).

Somebody interested in revenge curses who’s named themselves an alliterative version of Professor Vindictive Green?  What more need be said?

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For some reason I imagine the doe having the voice of the “everybody dance!” cloud from Rejected Cartoons.

if patronuses could talk

(some dialogue lifted from Wuthering Heights)

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Russian subway AU

Hogwarts Express hits hard times

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I had the beginnings of a fully-realized plot bunny here and then tumblr app ate it.

After the Battle Of Hogwarts, there’s a funeral for everyone who perished that night, and the last burial is for Severus Snape. Only they never actually found his body, despite Harry and co supposedly seeing him die, so the casket is empty. In the forest near the graveyard, just within the tree line, Snape, who is still alive and well, is watching his own funeral while eating chips.

I didn’t see the ending coming

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I LEARNED RECENTLY THAT PLATO WON THE GOLD MEDAL IN THE OLYMPICS FOR WRESTLING THREE TIMES. THIS PUTS A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON THINGS. I ALWAYS IMAGINED PLATO TO BE FRAIL AND MISSHAPEN BUT HE MUST HAVE BEEN FRICKEN RIPPED. I WONDER IF ARISTOTLE EVER FELT ANXIETY ABOUT GETTING PHYSICALLY (I.E. NOT JUST METAPHYSICALLY) DISMANTLED BY PLATO. PLATO WAS PROBABLY PISSED OFF BY AT LEAST A HANDFUL OF QUESTIONS ARISTOTLE ASKED HIM. ARISTOTLE WAS A LITERAL GENIUS TOO. IMAGINE PLATO LECTURING AND WRITING ON A BLACKBOARD AND ARISTOTLE THROWING A COMMENT OUT THERE ABOUT SOME COMPLEX MISSTEP IN PLATO’S LOGIC AND PLATO’S CHALK JUST SNAPS AND ARISTOTLE’S TESTICLES SUCK WAY BACK UP TO WHERE THEY DROPPED FROM, THEN PLATO IN A BLUR APPEARS BESIDE ARISTOTLE SITTING AT HIS DESK AND HE PICKS HIM UP AND SUPLEXES HIS MACEDONIAN ASS.

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Straight up the best thing I’ve seen all day

if you firmly believe cowboy cats would say meowdy hit that mf reblog

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😭😭😭

I really like this poem by Laura Gilpin, so I decided to illustrate it. I’m not sure it’s totally successful but it was an interesting experiment! 🐮🐮

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Not a content creator here but an appreciator of Snape Content

snape fandom is so dead, just like snape himself

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Also me, after reading a middle school quizbowl tournament.

Snape in McGonagall’s office, cold one in hand, approximately 2 minutes after finishing a lesson with a new class of third years:

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Foolish of you to assume that English has logic

any noun can become a verb if you don’t care enough

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Ponytail holders, hair ties, or maybe ponytails. I haven’t seen or used the ones with the metal bits in years. Midwestern US.

HEY GUYS i’m doing a survey for my linguistics assignment, could you please reply/reblog and tag where you’re from/where you grew up and what you call these?

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Honest to god, this is why I assign essays with word limits rather than page limits. It’s easier for me to think in word count.

Reblog if you’re part of the ‘I read a lot of fan fiction and now I have a bizarrely accurate judgement of how long it takes me to read a particular number of words’ squad

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Siddhapratima Yantra (Shrine of a Perfected Being) Delhi Sultanate period, 1333, India

“This Jain altarpiece is a rare example that features the “presence” of a jina (victor) by suggesting his absence from this world of karma; his form is carved out of the copper sheet that forms the backdrop for this shrine, leaving behind an empty silhouette. Such images were created only by followers of the Digambara Jain tradition of the sky-clad (unclothed) monks, as opposed to the Shvetambara, or white-clad sect. The images are known as siddha-pratima yantra, or “magical diagram depicting a perfected being.” The shrine itself, a replica of a pillared niche, is elaborately carved. Substantial traces of the gilding that once covered it are visible, while a silver inlaid inscription informs us that the shrine was commissioned in 1333 by the merchant Muladeva of the renowned Gurjara family”

Freer|Sackler The Smithsonian’s Museums of Asian Art Arts of the Indian Subcontinent