I feel all of this so hard. I read them starting when I was around 7, right after Chamber of Secrets came out, and was 17 when the seventh book came out. My sister and I would race through them— we were each given our own copy of every book as a special treat (and because that way we wouldn’t fight and would be dead…

Gryffindor, fox patronus.

Sirius was my favorite as a kid (1. he TURNS INTO A DOG HOLY SHIT BEST POWER EVERRRRR, 2. prison does not dim his powers of snark whatsoever, also the best power ever). Small me was APPALLED by how bad the wizarding justice system is, which led to small me being absolutely horrified at how bad the actual justice…

A fox, which is exactly correct.

People also fainted during the Globe’s 20...14? I think? production of Titus Andronicus. I saw that and I imagine this is much worse. But theatre is still—perhaps even increasingly— very good at visceral horror when called for, and it’s all the more frightening because it’s live, right in front of you, without the…

I’ve noticed that America loves women (and girls) with potential, as long as that potential never turns into actually doing better than/challenging a man at anything.

Oh man I remember the time that Orange Line train caught on fire. Jesus Christ, Boston.

Once my friend and I were walking along a river in England where there are some swans that like to hang out. She’s from a city and never really interacted with swans before, and kept wanting to go closer, not believing me when I told her that swans are massive dicks who will go after you. She was scoffing at me as we…

It was very hard to take “oh no! Cyrus might be president!” seriously when that’s actually so much better than real life.

Exactly, and I totally agree with you about the Americans, too. In that one particularly, when there IS violence, it’s all the more effective because it’s only used when it’s necessary to the story. And then it really does have a lasting impact on the characters, as well.

I watched the first three the day they came out and haven’t stopped thinking about that scene since. God, it’s just viscerally gut-wrenching. I still want to be sick thinking about it. I’m a gay woman and that whole episode just ripped out my heart and also scared me to my core.

Yeah. If a man can watch GoT, he can watch this.

Totalitarianism likes to make even its most oppressed victims somehow complicit.

Yep.

I actually suggested to my friend that she try to get her homophobic parents to watch it. Sometimes shock can trigger empathy, so I hope this slaps them (and others) awake to other people’s humanity a little.

I laughed out loud in a coffee shop, people are staring, this comment is perfect.

I’d just come back from Inverness when the show premiered. Let me assure you that my entire reaction to the first episode was : “yeah that would totally happen and not even make the top 3 weirdest things going on in that town.”

Yeeeep. They’re currently useful for when I get too overwhelmingly annoyed by my 16 y/o brother’s Extremely Deep and Important Opinions, so I can remember that I was also the worst at that age, as are we all. I do think I kept it far more to myself, though. I certainly didn’t email people ten years older than me to…

And they were marrying off one of the Wives’ daughters at one point, weren’t they, who was around 14? And Offred is thinking about how the girls that age would be the last to remember riding bicycles and wearing pants and the time before. So presumably the next generation of Wives certainly wouldn’t be barren, and…

HIS SENTENCE STRUCTURE IS SO BAD.