all right. so. this is a Harry Potter AU, in rambly and abbreviated form.
this is a version of events where, on the morning of November 1st, 1981, the police are called to a house in Surrey.
when they arrive, a large man with a red face and a moustache is waiting for them, brandishing a baby.
to be more accurate: he is brandishing a basket. the basket contains a baby.
he tells the police that his wife found the basket on their doorstep that morning. “Gave her the shock of her life,” he says, with a chuckle that does not seem the least bit sincere.
the police officers have a lot of questions about this, but the man does not have any useful answers. his wife, he tells them, is not in any shape to be interviewed. “she’s been poorly,” he says, “and we’ve got a baby of our own to worry about, keeping us up at all hours.”
the baby in the basket seems to be about a year old. he is cheerful, seems healthy aside from a cut on his forehead, with a crooked sticking plaster on it. he has startlingly green eyes.
there is no identifying information in the basket, except for a torn scrap of paper with ‘his name is Harry’ on it in a delicate hand.
there it nothing else to be done, it seems. the officers take baby Harry, and leave.
one of them comes back a few days later for a follow-up interview with the woman who found the baby. she seems a little fragile, and her own baby, in the next room, keeps up a constant shrieking tantrum the whole time the officer is there. “I’m sorry,” the woman says, with a brittle smile. “this has all been a bit much. I recently lost my sister, you see.”
Wanna know the thing I’ve learned about this year that’s changed how I look at the world more than anything?
Pinsetters.
You know, the machines at bowling alleys that set the pins back up after you’ve knocked them down.
The thing about pinsetters is that they’re oddly difficult to get ahold of. In fact, most models of pinsetter haven’t been manufactured at all since the 1970s; the majority of bowling alleys get theirs secondhand, and competition for the increasingly rare supply of spare parts can be fierce.
You probably knew that there were once over a dozen different varieties of bowling that were popular throughout North America; what you might not know is that most of those varieties have gone extinct not because nobody is interested in playing them, but because the particular kind of pinsetter they require can no longer be obtained in sufficient quantities to keep bowling alleys in business. Indeed, the most common reason for a bowling alley to go under isn’t lack of customers, but having pinsetters that can’t be repaired when they break down because the parts and the institutional knowledge required to do so no longer exist!
Like, people will cross the planet to get their hands on replacement pinsetter parts. It’s like a goddamn post-apocalyptic scavenger hunt out there to keep these ancient contraptions in working order.
For bowling.
I’m sure it’s a metaphor for something or other, but hell if I can figure out what.
A smattering of memes making fun of student athletes
Finishing song lyrics and that picture of Meryl Streep shouting
“yeah can I get a fucking uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”
“some people??? [do things]??? to cope?????”
The shutdown of Club Penguin
Tumblr’s April Fool’s joke this year was just a horse tamogatchi and people seemed to genuinely enjoy it
A sudden call to arms to make McDonalds bring back some sort of Szechuan dipping sauce
“Come visit the Jungle we’ve got [weird names for stuff]” powerpoint slide thing
Those ditty.it videos where you type in a phrase and a robot voice sings it to you
“Bitch I lived”
? Do fidget spinners count as a meme?
Editing panels from Erica Moen comics (e.g. the infamous Cuck Comic)
“In case you haven’t noticed, i’m WEIRD. I’m a weirdo. i don’t fit in. and I don’t WANT to fit in. Have you ever seen me without this stupid hat on? That’s weird.”
Bone-hurting juice
“I confessed to my crush through a Spotify playlist”
Wendy’s mascot as a smug anime girl
Fyre Festival
thanks! I hate it
Okay we’re literally FIVE WHOLE MONTHS into 2017 and I still see so much talk about vore on my dash. Seriously? Why y’all gotta be so fixated on vore? It’s ruining my health and needs to end
“thrussy”
.
okay nvm I preferred the vore
Regular People vs. Creative People
Bill Wurtz back at it again with the history of the world
Mocking people with the Spongebob chicken image
“[X] is dead and replaced with a lookalike: a conspiracy thread” (more of a twitter thing)
mood & big mood
“sir you’ve been in a coma for [X] years”
“do you take constructive criticism on your posts”
respecting women
a post stopping mid-sentence and somebody else comments “[X] killed them before they finished”
cracking open a cold one with the boys….or something
BEGONE, THOT
covfefe
Saying you love [X] by saying “I’m love [X]”
I keep seeing this CGI anime girl with a pink bow and a pink streak in her hair and I have no idea who she is
The Babadook as a gay icon
“This Post Can Be Reblogged by Anyone” (also, “[X] do not interact”)
A cat photo with a caption in Russian, which someone else then plugs into Google Translate
“The floor is [X]”
Nothing but respect for MY president
Some sort of Woody the Cowboy rp collective that takes over old accounts of toxic people??
Tumblr fucking things up with their “““Safe Mode”””
“How to Talk to Short People” comic but it’s been altered
Crash Bandicoot goes “WWOOOWOWOWOOWO”
“Swear Jar” vs. “[X] Jar” that has more coins in it
“she protec but she also attac”
Powder that makes you say [X]
A bunch of memes heralding the sudden revival of Owl City’s “Fireflies” (most notably the ‘you would not believe your [X]’ meme)
A 3×3 grid of (usually anime) characters with a “thank you” message written over them except the one in the middle usually says “not you”
“Sometimes…things that are expensive…are worse”
oh worm?
Something about……piss in jello….?
just the phrase “piss yourself” in general has become very popular
Using cutesy language like “hewwo”
Pennywise in the sewer
Textposts made with a weird cursive font (I still don’t know how to do that)
I know the “Who would win?” meme predates 2017 but an honorable mention to its revival
Not really a meme but everyone banding together to combat the hurricanes/other freakish natural disasters was so uplifting
that guy who’s with his girlfriend but ogling the girl in the foreground
To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty
While we’re on it, turns out the whole Szechuan thing was a Rick & Morty stunt and it didn’t end nicely
“then perish”
Neo Yokio
Overlaying a picture of a monkey getting its hair cut on photos
Mario and Luigi walking into places?
that’s pussy, babe!
kin drama
Edits of the Griffin McElroy Roundabout vine (“I don’t understand [X] and at this point I’m too afraid to ask”)
The overwhelming urge to eat detergent pods
Screaming seagull
“My bike got stolen recently. I was pretty bummed about it“
incels and chads
“omae wa mou shindeiru”/ “I diagnose you with dead“
haiku bot
People reacting to outrageous comments in a double-take-style “you WHAT”
Eric Andre Show screenshots
“Who?” “The girl reading this”
Zootopia pro-life comic
WHY WEREN’T YOU AT ELF PRACTICE
Scam messages asking for bitcoin
As the only blog mentioned in this post…quite an accomplishment. Never realized we were ruining Tumblr on such a large scale! Follow @writing-prompt-s. Join the movement!
there’s something really satisfying about the fact that sir arthur conan doyle was the most gullible motherfucker on the planet
sir arthur conan doyle: here is my oc, he is a super genius who solves all the mysteries using the power of deductive reasoning
also sir arthur conan doyle: i have deduced that these fairies are real as shit
sir arthur conan doyle: there’s only one way to determine if these fairies are real… i will give you girls these cameras, that i bought myself, and then i will develop the photos, so i know they haven’t been tampered with
some girls who took selfies in the woods with paper cutouts on hatpins: that seems reasonable
harry houdini, after showing his good friend how he got trickedby a con artist: so as you can see, anyone can make it seem as if they can talk to ghosts
sir arthur conan doyle: harry… i can’t believe you never told me you can talk to ghosts, for real, using actual magic
Doyle and Houdini’s relationship is the funniest thing in the entire history of the skepticism movement
Doyle was SO CONVINCED that Houdini had legit magic powers and could turn into smoke or some shit to escape things and Houdini was like “no seriously it’s a trick let me show you how it works” and Doyle was all “it hurts me that you won’t trust me with this secret”
If memory serves he eventually decided that Houdini was subconsciously magic and in denial
So. Today in class we assigned Macbeth roles to students to read. When I asked the class who wants to be Lady Macbeth, a young man raised his hand. I kind of stared at him like “Lady Macbeth,” and he nodded like “I know what I’m about ma’am.” So then the student who ended up as Macbeth raised his hand and said “HE’S THE ONE, HE’S MY WIFE!” So I said “yeah sure why not,” and the entire class period they were blowing kisses to each other and winking at each other, and every now and then Macbeth would say “I’m the luckiest man on Earth” and Lady Macbeth would put a hand to his chest, and be like “BABE!”.
I just stared at them, knowing that they CLEARLY have never read ‘Macbeth’ before, so… all this lovey dovey… I don’t know if I have the heart to tell them the truth.
Update:
Macbeth is absolutely willing to fucking throw down for Lady Macbeth. Has already threatened a wall, a desk, a few students, a textbook that was neither his nor Lady Macbeth’s, and me
Lady Macbeth is enjoying the attention and has begun to use this new connection to his advantage. I’m starting to suspect he’s read ahead in the play.
Macbeth is going to end up living in detention at this rate.
Macbeth has no idea that he is the tragedy of the story. Claims to be the hero of the play, fails to see the irony in this
Macbeth slowly scooted his desk across the classroom to hold hands with Lady Macbeth. He was not subtle.
Macbeth has proposed on several occasions. Lady Macbeth just laughs and says they’re already married.
Macbeth’s girlfriend is in the class with them and is “totally not jealous or anything just thinks this whole fucking play is a waste of time”
Lady Macbeth should probably be a theatre major at some point, he fucking rocked Act V scene I
Other teachers and staff are emailing me about the “lovely lords”. Lady Macbeth now refuses to answer to anything other than Lady Macbeth and is always very upset when people don’t call him by his proper title.
kinda funny when english teachers say stuff like “i can tell if you didnt read the book” or “i can tell when people bs their paper”
no you cant. you can tell when people are bad at bs-ing their paper. i didnt even read the sparknotes and i barely skimmed the wikipedia and you gave me an A. you kneel before my throne unaware that it was born of lies
“YOU KNEEL BEFORE MY THRONE UNAWARE THAT IT WAS BORN OF LIES” IS ONE OF THE GREATEST SENTENCES I’VE EVER READ AND I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE IT’S ON A POST ABOUT BULLSHITTING ON ASSIGNMENTS.
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