so my girl and i got to see John Mulaney on tour and he was messing around with someone in the front row who commented on his clothes and he said “these pants aren’t high, those are just my hips” and someone from the audience shouted out “HEY LOOK AT THAT HIGH WAISTED MAN HE GOT FEMININE HIPS” and he shouted back “HEY THATS MY JOKE!” and it was FANtastic!
I am 100% convinced that “exit, pursued by a bear” is a reference to some popular 1590s meme that we’ll never be able to understand because that one play is the only surviving example of it.
Seriously, we’ll never figure it out. I’ll wager trying to understand “exit, pursued by a bear” with the text of The Winter’s Tale as our primary source is like trying to understand loss.jpg when all you have access to is a single overcompressed JPEG of a third-generation memetic mutation that mashes it up with YMCA and “gun” – there’s this whole twitching Frankensteinian mass of cultural context we just don’t have any way of getting at.
no, but this is why people do the boring archival work! because we think we do know why “exit, pursued by a bear” exists, now, and we figured it out by looking at ships manifests of the era –
it’s also why there was a revival of the unattributed and at the time probably rather out of fashion mucedorus at the globe in 1610 (the same year as the winter’s tale), and why ben jonson wrote a chariot pulled by bears into his court masque oberon, performed on new year’s day of 1611.
we think the answer is polar bears.
no, seriously! in late 1609 the explorer jonas poole captured two polar bear cubs in greenland and brought them home to england, where they were purchased by the beargarden, the go-to place in elizabethan london for bear-baiting and other ‘animal sports.’ it was at the time run by edward alleyn (yes, the actor) and his father-in-law philip henslowe (him of the admiral’s men and that diary we are all so very grateful for), and would have been very close, if not next to, the globe theatre.
of course, polar bear cubs are too little and adorable for baiting, even to the bloodthirsty tudor audience, aren’t they? so, what to do with the little bundles of fur until they’re too big to be harmless? well, if there’s anything we know about the playwrights and theatre professionals of the time, it’s that they knew how to make money and draw in audiences. and the spectacle of a too-small-to-be-dangerous-yet-but-still-real-live-and-totally-WHITE-bear? what good entertainment businessman is going to turn down that opportunity?
and, voila, we have a death-by-bear for the unfortunate antigonus, thereby freeing up paulina to be coupled off with camillo in the final scene, just as the comedic conventions of the time would expect.
you’re telling me it was an ACTUAL BEAR
every time I think to myself “history can’t possibly get any more bananas” I realize or am made to realize that I am badly mistaken
Not just an actual bear. A polar bear cub.
Imagine a fully grown man running offstage to be “killed” by a baby polar bear.
Every Adult In “Harry Potter” Let Us Down At Some Point And That’s Important a 900 page dissertation by me
And that includes Joanne Kathleen Rowling a tear stained afterword by me
Hagrid Is The Exception a rebuttal by me
The Time Hagrid Told Voldemort How to Take Out Something Protecting an Object that Grants Immortality When He Was Drunk and Other Well-Meaning Fuck Ups a lengthy chapter
You’re Absolutely Right a retraction
How dare you assume Molly Weasley has done anything wrong ever
That Time Molly Yelled At The Twins And Ron For Saving Harry From Abuse And Starvation, Thus Likely Communicating To The Abused Kid In Her Presence That His Welfare Was Less Important Than Not Borrowing The Car, That Time Molly Was Utterly Condescending About How Harry Is A Child And Doesn’t Deserve To Know Anything In A Way That Probably Heightened His Determination To Prove Otherwise, That Time Molly Said The Twins Put Together Aren’t As Good As Any Of Their Brothers Over OWL Results That They Worked Hard On And Were Proud Of, That Time Molly Forcibly Cut Her Adult Son’s Hair Right Before His Wedding, That Time Molly Spent A Year Being Mean And Rejectful Toward Her Son’s Fiancee, That Time Molly Sent Hermione A Deliberate “Fuck You” Present For Easter Because She Believed A False Story Written In Witch Weekly Without Making Any Attempt To Ask The People Actually Involved, Those Times She Made Her Youngest Son’s Christmas Sweaters His Least Favorite Color, And Every Time She Belittled Her Husband’s Hobby, The Twins’ Interests, And Bill’s Appearance Because She Couldn’t Be Bothered To Understand Or Value Or Even Be Kind About Thema detailed reminder that no one’s perfect and sometimes what one person doesn’t mind or see hits another person hard
Florean Fortescue Just Wanted To Sell Some Ice Cream And Help Harry With His Homework He Is The Only Adult Who Didn’t Mess Up Until Getting Killed By Voldemort, RIPan increasingly strident addendum by me
OK You’re Absolutely Right Florean Fortescue Was In Fact Perfect As Far As I’m Awarea concession by me
Harry Potter spent his eleventh birthday in a cabin on a tiny rock in the middle of the sea, listening to his cousin snore on the couch.
When a knock sounded on the wind-swept, rain-drenched door, it was not a giant fist (or a half-giant’s fist). It was a short sharp rap that sounded once, twice, three times before Minerva McGonagall simply charmed the lock open and stepped inside.
“Apologies,” Minerva said crisply, as Vernon raced out brandishing his rifle and Petunia pulled Dudley up off the couch and behind her. “I wasn’t sure you could hear me over the weather.” The rain fell down behind the professor in a roar. She was perfectly dry.
Minerva fished in her pocket without looking, because the only things allowed in her pockets were only ever exactly what she needed. “I’ve come to deliver this,” she said, pulling out a letter and handing it to Harry, who was cross-legged on the floor, “because our owl post seems to have been unable to get through.”
“And I’ve come to deliver this,” she added, pulling out a second letter, “because Hogwarts by-laws require a professor to hand-deliver acceptance letters to Muggleborn families for their explanation and comfort.”
The Dursleys did not look comforted, nor did they sound it once they opened their mouths. Dudley rubbed sleep from his eyes while Harry retreated to a corner out of everyone’s reach to open his letter (finally) and read through it. When he looked up again, Uncle Vernon’s rifle had turned into a rubber chicken and the professor was almost yelling.
“Your son has magic,” Minerva snapped. She had just come from a little family of Muggle dentists, who had taken notes on everything she told them, and their bushy-haired daughter, who had stared up at her with big hungry eyes and asked questions at breakneck speed. After that, this was not just exhausting but almost insulting. "Whether or not you want him to be, Dudley is magic. If we do not teach him to handle it, it will still happen.“
“I want to go,” said Harry, very softly.
Minerva couldn’t decide whether to go softer or more fierce. “Of course you will, Mr. Potter, if I have to escort you myself.”
“We won’t– we won’t allow–” Vernon began to bluster, but Dudley was watching Harry’s set face. His little eyes squinted.
“Dudley is not–”
“If Harry gets to go,” said Dudley at the top of his sizeable lungs.
“Dudley,” Vernon snapped, so Dudley raised his voice even higher to announce, “Then I do, too.”
“But Duddikins–”
Dudley’s face was going red. Harry moved quietly out of his radius and Minerva watched him go. “It’s not fair, you can’t stop me, I’m not gonna sit and learn dumb maths while he does magic–”
“Don’t say that word!”
“Neither of you is going–”
Dudley bellowed, no words, just sound, drowning out his parents. Harry watched the rain out the window. Minerva had known James Potter. She had known him well, in war and in peace, from behind a teacher’s desk and beside him in the trenches. This eleven year old looked very little like the grinning boy she’d so often scolded– but he looked a bit like the young man she’d later had the privilege of fighting alongside.
McGonagall drew close to Petunia as Vernon tried to muffle Dudley’s hollers with big hands and wheedling promises. “Mrs. Dursley, you may not be aware, but every letter to the Hogwarts admissions office goes through me, and has for decades.” Petunia’s bony face snapped up to meet Minerva’s eyes. “Including those sent with stamps.”
Petunia was pale, her fists claws at her sides. “Childish– those were childish, absurd wishes–”
“He is a child,” said Minerva. “He’s magical. Let him have this.”
Dudley took a breath and let out another bellow, kicking at his father’s shin.
Minerva tried not to wince. She tried to mean it. “Let him have the chances you didn’t.” Petunia’s gaze shifted away to the ground. Minerva reached out for the other woman’s elbow, her bony fingers as gentle as she could force them to be, which wasn’t very. “Don’t hate him for it, Ms. Dursley.”
“I would never,” Petunia snapped, raising her eyes in a swift, angry jerk, but Minerva had known Lily Evans, too.
Once Minerva had convinced Petunia and Dudley’s caterwauling had convinced Vernon, she set up an appointment date and time to take them to Diagon Alley the next week and left them to their impromptu seaside vacation. She napped on their back porch in Animagus form the day they were meant to meet her, watching with a cat’s focused patience as they piled into the car, snapping at each other. She’d sent them two follow-up reminders by the blandest owl she could lay her hands on.
In the Leaky Cauldron, Vernon cornered Minerva up against a table. She didn’t move a step backward, achingly resisting returning to her schoolgirl ways and transforming him to a lizard.
“If you’re not back from this– this Alley– with Dudley within the hour, I’m calling Scotland Yard.” He put his finger in Minerva’s face, and he miraculously remained human-shaped. Sometimes Minerva impressed even herself. “I have a direct line to one of their superiors. We provided the drills for their latest expansion, and I will not hesitate to call in favors.” Then he stomped off to get himself a drink.
Minerva raised her eyebrows at Raul, behind the bar, whose Head of House she had been for seven years, conveying quietly her expectation that any drink Vernon gulped down would have a generous dollop of frog spawn, and that Raul would charge him extra for it, too.
Dudley started gaping and didn’t stop as she led the boys into Gringotts and changed some of Dudley’s Muggle money for Knuts and Sickles. She watched his little beady eyes tick through an interested count of the little piles moving across the wood. A watery blue, they looked just like his father’s in his pink, squashed face. Minerva apologized briskly to Grelda, the Gringotts receptionist who watched Dudley while Minerva took Harry to his parents’ vault, and promised her some grateful banana bread at their next poker night.
While they clattered through the darkness of Gringotts’s underbelly, Minerva asked Harry about his hobbies, the latest books he’d read, and got brief answers– he was more interested in staring over the edge of the cart, gaze chasing after a glimpse of dragon fire. She nodded and let the silence sit between them as they bounced and screeched toward the Potters’s vault.
When Harry climbed out of the cart, all knees and elbows, she followed, thinking about book lists and schedules, maybe a new set of clothes. The chill of the underground clung to her ankles. She twisted the key in her pocket.
Minerva didn’t expect it to matter to her, the piles of coins that appeared when the vault door wicked away into smoke. It was metal, dead and cold– no, not dead, never even living. This was an errand run, like fetching her mail or a bottle of milk.
But Harry was standing there in his ratty hand-me-downs, and this had been left to him.
Galleons glittered in the dim light. This had been Lily’s, and James’s, and Minerva remembered when they had been as small as the child hesitating before her, staring.
“I knew them.” The words were fluttering behind the ridge of her teeth, and she didn’t say them.
Harry was eleven years old, just barely, and every child in the wizarding world knew his name. Only the tips of his fingers peeked out from the sagging sleeves of his sweater.
Minerva didn’t say, “I took Lily from her family’s house, with its greenish carpet, its lacey kitchen curtains, and big backyard. She wasn’t much bigger than you, and I walked her down this street and picked out her books and her robes and her cauldron, and I never gave her back.
“You’ve got her eyes,” she didn’t say, “but not the ones from back then, finding out magic was real for the first time. You’ve got her eyes from the end, from the last days. Not a single Evans came to her funeral, but I did.”
“Well, Mr. Potter? We have a lot to do,” she said instead, and helped him gather some fistfuls of Galleons into a pouch.
At the equipment shop, Harry looked like he might ask for a solid gold cauldron until Dudley shouldered past him and demanded one himself. At that, the smaller boy peeled away in disgust and found a pewter one. “No,” Minerva said to Dudley, and hauled him along by the shirtsleeve.
Dudley parroted his father’s words about robes, but he ran his grubby fingers over every cloth in Madame Malkin’s until Minerva made him sit. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of the Owl Emporium but ended up shrieking, rolling, and pounding his heels on the street when Minerva refused to buy him an owl.
“Apply to your parents,” she told him sternly. She cast a Silencing Charm and sat with him, reviewing the shopping list, until he was done yelling.
She returned them in exactly sixty minutes. Dudley, sulking, went straight for his mother, towing his sack of new possessions behind him.
“I will see you all at Platform 9 and 3/4s at promptly 10:45 a.m. on September 1st.”
“9 and 3/4s?” Vernon scoffed. “There’s no such–”
“It’s approximately three quarters of the way between platforms 9 and 10. I will see you then,” Minerva said and then went off to get a drink from Raul.
–
Minerva expected Harry to get Gryffindor. He was Lily’s son, after all, and she had seen him stand in that shack with his chin high and tell her he wanted a brave new world. (It never occurred to her, and Harry never told her, that for that wanting the Hat had offered him Slytherin first.)
It was the Dursley boy she expected in green and silver. He was a pudgy, unformed larvae of a child. She’d seen him at age one, screaming for sweets, and then again at eleven, screaming to drown out his father’s protests, and she didn’t really see much difference other than size.
The Hat sat on Dudley’s head for ages while the kid fidgeted and sweated. In the entryway, he’d stuck a finger through the Fat Friar’s translucent robes and ignored Harry talking with a freckly redhead. Minerva wasn’t sure exactly how she felt about Harry falling in automatically with a Weasley– she was hoping this latest one turned out more like Bill or Percy, rather than the twins, but Harry was James’s son. He and Ron already looked inseparable, huddled together in the waiting line of first years.
Dudley kicked his heels against the wooden stool, the Hat slipping down over his watery little eyes. The silence in the Hall was breaking to murmurs as the wait stretched on– Minerva frowned. Was this shallow bully going to be a Hat stall? Between what? Slytherin, and–? Merlin, please not Gryffindor–
“RAVENCLAW,” the Hat announced and Minerva almost spat out her mouthful of pumpkin juice.
there’s really nothing worse than people asking me ‘so what have you been doing?’ because I either have been doing things I don’t wanna tell you about or I have been doing absolutely nothing
Due to his engineering abilities, Anakin is a great drawer. He loved to make sketches in the dirt on Tatooine, and had a habit of doodling in the margins of every paper at the Temple. Padmé discovers this and gifts him a sketchbook. It became one of his most treasured possessions, and he can be often found sketching on the flagships between missions
Yoda knows how to knit and sew, due to the fact that nothing comes in his size. He finds it relaxing to mend his clothes, and sometimes teaches others how to knit too
Cody rescues as many cloaks from his overdramatic Generals as he can, and instead of giving them back, he gives them all to Kix. The cloaks are surprisingly good blankets in the med-bays.
Aayla and Bant share an apartment at the Temple, due to a leak in Aayla’s once upon a time. They quickly became (better) friends, and enjoy each other’s company.
(Bant and Quinlan were scarred for life, however, when they walked in on Aayla and Kit making out in the living room. It took a lot of explaining to get that one under control)
Obi-Wan (among his many talents) enjoys carpentry. There’s something about turning a hunk of wood into a chair or small toys that makes him calm down more than meditation, especially as the Clone Wars progress
The Lars stay in contact with Anakin, and while they don’t become super close, it’s nice to have some connection to Shmi
Kit is the swim instructor for younglings, and often convinces Bant to help him. They were the ones to teach Anakin how to swim, in the quiet hours of the evening. During the war, the three of them can sometimes be found in one of the Temple pools, quietly doing laps
Ahsoka learns to cook from Anakin ad Padmé. It’s a source of comfort to her when she is on long solo missions and has access to markets
All Jedi intiates are taught how to dance, as it helps with lightsaber footwork and is practical when dealing with politicians at galas
Satine teaches Obi-Wan traditional Mandalorian dances during the year on the run. Because they were together romantically stayed in contact afterwords, dancing becomes a way they can work out their arguments peacefully – because it’s hard to bicker when you’re focused on not tripping up
Shaak Ti thinks that if she wasn’t a Jedi, she would be a social worker or a family court lawyer.
Due to growing up on Tatooine, Anakin is constantly cold. He always has the heat cranked up on the Twilight and has far too many blankets in his bunk on his flagship.
Jocasta Nu is a Galaxy renowned academic – she’s contributed to several dozen papers in a variety of topics, and has written several more
Count Dooku secretly reads all of her papers and watches all of her speeches, and is always proud when she wins an award or is nominated for something. He know that if the war does ever end, she is the first one he will beg forgiveness from
some highlights from my students’ romeo and juliet modern interpretation projects:
– someone made a username for friar laurence with 420 at the end – the same kid who put 69 in romeo’s username like i wouldn’t know what either of those things mean – the girl who added ‘clean’ at the end of all the songs on her juliet playlist like lmao girl i know spotify doesn’t have the clean version – the kid who said romeo and juliet killed each other – the weird dichotomy of kids who put love story on their playlist vs the kids who choose bad blood – the kid who wrote ‘get a room’ as tybalt’s comment on romeo’s couple pic – the kid who said ‘romeo is probably one of those douches who follows a ton of people so they follow him back and then he unfollows all of them’ – the one who legitimately used the word ‘alrighty’ do kids say this in their text messages???? i thought i was the one talking like an elderly person but okay – the one who made romeo’s username ‘montagoose’ – the only kid who acknowledged that posting about your secret relationship on instagram was a bad idea – the girl who wrote that romeo would unironically say ‘#blessed’. she’s right. – the one single solitary girl who wrote mercutio as gay as shakespeare did (she’s also the only one who used mercutio at all which is a tragedy but whatever) – the one who wrote romeo’s insta bio as ‘thus with a kiss i die… LOL RIP ME 😂💀’ – the one who made benvolio’s username benvoliYO
just saw someone ask if podfic is really necessary… my dude it is the year of our lord 2018 and every mediocre white man with an external mic records himself talking shit about your favorite childhood tv shows and gets PAID for it, let me listen to this Voltron fic in peace please
Podfic is absolutely necessary. If I could get away with never reading a fic in text again I would do it in a heartbeat.
My eyeballs are dry, my time resource is thin, my field of fucks is barren, my attention ledger is in the red, my timeturner is too rusty to work past 9PM anymore, and my WiFi is random. If I want to read with my eyes, my To Be Read pile of published books is piled to the ceiling.
If podfic doesn’t work for you, that’s fine, but it’s one of the only things that work for me.
So do let me enjoy fandom a way that is functionally available to me and super fun to boost. Let me enjoy fanworks on public transport, while working, while cleaning dishes, while falling asleep, and while drawing. Let me enjoy a highly personalised, human, fandom-savvy, friendly voice in my ears making me cry in laughter and in pain, hold my thoughts through the good and the bad.
Diary's Blog 