They are studying us in petri dishes

How to tell a raven from a crow. Made with corvid researcher Dr. Kaeli Swift for her blog post on the subject!

These are all well and good (accurate and informative and also fun) but here’s the best way to tell the difference between the two:

Ravens are FUCKING huge.

The best advice I’ve heard about this is as follows:

If your thought is “wow, is that a Raven??” It’s a crow.

If your thought is “Holy shit is that a CAT?!” It’s a raven.

and if your thought is “wow, is that a crow?” it’s a grackle

SEBASTIAN STAN Ghosted (2023)

The rolled up sleeves, the vest, the bracelets…

Bucky + whatever the fuck his face is doing 1/?

Indian Meatballs with Sweet Coconut Curry Sauce 

Ingredients for Meatballs 

Ingredients for Coconut Curry Sauce 

Other Ingredients 

Directions for Meatballs 

Directions for Sauce 

Enjoy! 

Every morning we hop a little fence. Esper gets all jazzed about it, like we are doing something bad, so she shoots me this look like “OHHH MAN, we gonna get in soooo much trouble.” 

the Gentle Alien is excited for Crimes

DO NOT SUPPORT SALVATION ARMY 

I can back this up. It isn’t only their shelters.

I have a family friend who worked at our local Salvation Army headquarters as a a secretary. This particular office took all the Christmas donations for children in need, put them in a warehouse, and on a designated day the staff and their friends picked through them all, taking whatever they wanted. She saw people hauling away bikes donated for specific families. Some local children had hundreds of dollars of gifts donated in their name, and on Christmas they received three cheap things, items likely not even from the person who sponsored them.

My friend quit, and I’ve not given them a dime of my money since then.

Do not give to the Salvation Army.

Do Not. Give. To. Salvation. Army

Just like Slughorn, Albus Dumbledore collects people. Only, instead of focusing on those with influence, he looks to the outcasts.

The expelled half-giant. The young werewolf. The repentant Death Eater.

He protects them and gives them a second chance. All he asks in return is their loyalty.

And, if on occasion he requests that they undertake a certain task, invoking their debt of gratitude - well, that is no more than he is owed.

He once thought to add a certain disowned Black to his collection, but quickly realised his mistake.

Sirius is not an outcast, but a rebel. He knowingly chose his path, and chooses what price he is willing to pay for it. He refuses to be used.

So Albus Dumbledore abandons him.

Who gave you the RIGHT?

Dumbledore knows Sirius’s loyalty lies with Harry instead of him, and he has no use for someone who is not willing to follow his orders without question. 

Ooooohoo if there’s ever a post that fits my aesthetic…

okay but then where does Harry himself fit into this collection? Is he an outcast because he is “the Boy Who Lived”?

Nooonono, my friend, that’s what makes this post so beautiful. Because it fits the meta I’ve been trying to get people to accept for years. 

Harry was an outcast due to a childhood filled with abuse and neglect. 

Vernon made him an outcast by dismissing his claims of magic, berating him, locking him in a CLOSET and putting bars on his window, and let’s face it, even though her editor made her cut it out, Jo intended for there to be physical abuse. 

Petunia made him an outcast by enabling and contributing to this abuse, as well as making Harry do dozens of chores while doting on Dudley. 

Dudley made him an outcast by bullying him and threatening any students at school who wanted to be his friends. 

And the rest of the wizarding world made him an outcast when they bullied him for being an outsider.

Harry James Potter became an outcast the moment he was placed with The Dursleys.

And who put him there in the first place?

I’m here for this Anti-Dumbledore discussion.

This makes even more sense when you consider why Dumbledore deliberately made Harry an outcast.

Think about it What would Harry have been like if he had grown up in the wizarding world? Or, to put it another way, what would Harry have been like if he had grown up in a world where magic was the norm?

He would have taken magic for granted. He would have been less likely (especially as he got older) to view Dumbledore as a wise mentor and more likely to see him as flawed and capable of bad decisions. He would have seen both the world and Dumbledore as ordinary, with their good points and bad points.

But Dumbledore didn’t need a well-adjusted boy who took magic and the magical world for granted. He needed a child who would love the magical world unstintingly, even irrationally, because it was a haven from neglect and abuse. Even more, he needed a child who feared this world becoming evil and who therefore would not question someone that he saw as the ultimate authority, especially if he believed that obeying that authority would keep the world safe.

Even if obedience meant his own death.

Dumbledore wanted a martyr who would die for the wizarding world, because he believed that Voldemort could not die until Harry did. Which was why he left Harry with the Dursleys and let them neglect and emotionally abuse him for the next ten years.

To get a martyr, he first had to create a victim.

well… well, shit

what

Oh shit. Its been updated.

…I’ve been in the “Dumbledore was on the darker side of morally grey” camp for years but this…this. Holy shit. Oh no.

@deadcatwithaflamethrower

When all who are capable of it recognize what Dumbledore was really up to, I will be a very happy camper.

Patrick Chan of Canada skates during the Men’s Single Skating section of the Team Event on day three of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games at Gangneung Ice Arena on February 12, 2018 in Gangneung, South Korea.

Virtue/Moir Team Event FD (NBC) - 2018 Olympics sorry for the low quality, it’s all I could salvage :(