The World Sucks @insert-bacon-emoji - Tumblr Blog

There’s a nasty winter storm that’s going to hit most of the central regions of the US tomorrow (21 December 2022), especially tomorrow night. Please check your local forecasts if you live anywhere west of the rocky mountains, even down as far south as Texas. In some areas of the Plains region, windchill is likely to be -50F to -70F. That is so cold that you will develop frostbite in minutes. You will lose extremities without protection if you are exposed to windchill that cold. -70F is “surface of Mars” cold.

My part of the US is going to be below freezing all next week. This is normal for some. Not so normal for others.

If your area is likely to be impacted by the storm, please prepare now. The most important thing is staying warm and staying inside until things warm up outside. Specific tips I can offer, as somebody who regularly deals with cold winters are:

Put blankets over windows and doors. This will help your house retain heat.

Stay well-fed. Buy food now. You will get hungry faster because your body will burn calories to stay warm.

Stay hydrated. If your lips are chapped you’re probably dehydrated.

Stay dry. Remove wet clothing as soon as possible. It is better to be naked than wet when it is cold.

If it is going to get below freezing for more than an hour or two, run your water at a trickle or drip to prevent your pipes from bursting. The colder it gets the faster your pipes will freeze.

Here’s the weather forecast for this storm:

WPC's Short Range Public Discussion

ohboy-herewegoagain

I want Lil Nas X to do a cover of Santa Baby. He’d make it as suggestive as Eartha Kitt intended

ecrivainsolitaire

Fantastic Beasts is suspended indefinitely.

Musk is begging for cash because he made the stupidest purchase in internet history.

Zucky Wucky is hemorrhaging cash because the Metaverse goal of becoming the NFT successor of real estate speculation was met with the deserved mockery at how stupid it was.

Trump is finally being properly prosecuted for crimes he unquestionably and very inconspicuously committed.

Alex Jones owes a billion dollars to Sandy Hook victims.

The Tories are imploding in a schism that might actually result in the collapse of the British empire.

Putin has ran out of army and crawled pathetically to the corner a tiny insurgent army pushed him towards, decades of military propaganda burnt away in months.

Prime Minister Shinzō Abe died with no glory.

The GOP is so confused after the Trump era they don't even know how to run their grifts anymore.

Rings of Power was such a mediocre release Amazon could potentially drop Prime Video altogether.

Turns out 2022 was really the "find out" year. It took a while but I'm loving this season finale so far.

vilkalizer

I would be ok with bad things continuing to happen to bad people, frankly.

demilypyro

Personally I think I'm shockingly normal for someone who has spent every day on the internet since they were 12

beardedmrbean

Harold’s story ❤️ Part 2 of 2 bath time

heidiwranglescats

such-justice-wow

I love how she squeezes him like a sponge

homosexuality

and on the sixth day god created the gas station convenience store refrigerated beverage section

forthegothicheroine

Villains in Addams Family movies go to really unnecessary lengths to defraud them of the family fortune. These people just give it away on whims all the time. If I just walked into the house and started wearing their clothes and spending their money, they wold start introducing me as Cousin Intruder and forget there was ever a time I didn’t live with them.

unwinona

There’s a whole plotline in the Addams Family Musical where Morticia and Gomez realize at the same time they each thought Grandmama was the other one’s parent and no one knows who the hell she is, and literally nothing changes because, well, she’s Grandmama now.

heathcliffcathy-archive-deactiv

that pic of miss Sigourney Weaver wearing a suit with her hair slicked back. im literally incoherent every time i think about it.

heathcliffcathy-archive-deactiv

bsbdnkgkg,-,$(÷&$(%((÷*=????????×&÷*¥÷&/(hwjekflanaklg,@*#*$(@;=*×($,%*#!!!!?!?@?!?+?×?×,,!?!?#(!!!!!!!!!!!!!

catchymemes

graham-folger

this is the face of someone who learned yesterday that magic isn’t real and stayed up one night teaching himself every slight of hand trick in the book

decepti-thots

here's some advice for people new to tumblr i haven't seen around our parts yet... a very, very common current scam on this site to get some money out of folks is as follows:

You receive a message like the below, asking for a signal boost for a donation post pinned on their page; this is almost always for a pet.

You check their page and it all looks legit. They have an icon/pfp, a bunch of reblogs rather than an empty blog, the pinned post has candid cat/dog/etc photos that look convincing, and there's a link to a normal looking gofundme in a lot of cases, with similarly realistic photos. They didn't even ask you to publish the ask specifically, they just want you to consider reblogging.

…but if you scroll down far enough, it turns out there's only like a week worth of random reblogs, no real other posts and no interaction with anyone else on the site. Which isn't in and of itself an issue- everyone joins Tumblr at SOME point- but maybe a red flag?

Inevitably, when you reverse image search the pet photos, they were nabbed off instagram or facebook or twitter or something. It's a scam.

I was getting 2-3 of these a week at one point, and all of them were convincing, probably because I doubt any of them were bots. this is a really common scam but not nearly as easily spotted as obviously automated phishing attempts; don't publish or donate to these. they're hoping your sense of sympathy, generosity and even guilt will override your suspicion at a rando asking you for money. delete 'em.

i just bring this up because i'm seeing a couple people in tf fandom getting these asks and going 'hey, signal boost!!!'' and while it's a very kind impulse... yeah, it's overwhelmingly scams, folks. sorry.

thesoftboiledegg

What makes JKR's shitshow even harder to process is that she didn't just ruin a book series. Harry Potter was an entire subculture. Like Star Wars and Star Trek fans, Harry Potter fans dedicated their lives and careers to the series. I don't know if I'd call it "underground," but liking Harry Potter got you beaten up when I was in school, so it was more of a dedicated indie culture than a mass-appeal fanbase.

Harry Potter was so huge that fan works developed their own followings. Potter Puppet Pals racked up hundreds of thousands of followers and was nearly as relevant as the series itself. For fanfiction, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality got so big that it has a Wikipedia page. The band Harry and the Potters spawned the wizard rock music genre. A Very Potter Musical developed a fanbase and launched Darren Criss's career.

Harry Potter also has extensive ties to fandom history. Everyone in my generation (millennials) remembers coming home from school to read Harry Potter fanfiction on the Internet. Today, most people just post their stories on Wattpad or Archive of Our Own. But at the time, the fanbase was splintered between fanfiction.net and dozens of individual websites and forums, some made for specific ships. Since they all had individual hosts, a lot of those sites have been lost to time.

And there's the infamous My Immortal fanfiction, which is an Internet legend with people still searching for the author. Everybody read that one (and laughed at it) in middle school.

Pre-social media, fan sites like The Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet had massive followings because they were one of few sources for news, theories, essays and fan content. Some of these sites still exist after being around for over a decade and building their own legacy.

Before Deathly Hallows came out, fans were so desperate to know what happened that Mugglenet published a book called What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Falls in Love and How Will the Adventure Finally End? Yep...Harry Potter was so big that people wrote separate books about what would happen in an upcoming book.

And that's not mentioning all the book release parties, Harry Potter-themed events, monuments, fan films, restaurants and even a theme park. A lot of fandoms have those, but Harry Potter infiltrated every aspect of popular culture.

Today, there's a thriving culture of "Harry Potter adults" with themed weddings, baby showers and Etsy stores. Putting your Hogwarts house in your Instagram bio is pretty much a prerequisite for joining the "bookish" community. Warner still produces new content, like the Fantastic Beasts series, although we've all seen what a disaster that's been.

Everyone has at least a few memories associated with Harry Potter even if it's just watching the movies. I had great memories associated with Harry Potter. But looking back at the subculture, history and thousands of fan works, it doesn't seem fun anymore. Studying the fandom or being part of it comes with an awkward tension because you don't want to seem like you're condoning JKR's bigotry but can't divorce her from the series. This subculture was spawned by a woman who turned her legacy of magic and wonder into one of abuse and hatred.

I don't expect people to write paragraphs about how much they hate JKR every time they post about Harry Potter, but it's still uncomfortable to see people make new content or wear their Harry Potter Etsy tote bags like nothing happened. Even if they clarify that they don't support her, it's just a weird, tense situation for everybody.

People dedicated years of their lives to running Harry Potter fan sites, writing fanfiction, cosplaying characters and making fan movies. If I were in that situation, I'd have a mild identity crisis. I'd ask myself "Did I waste all those years? Should I delete my content? Where do I go from here?"

So ultimately, JKR didn't ruin "just" a book series or even "just" a fandom. She tanked an entire culture, which inspired people to look at Harry Potter more critically. The issues that people brought to the light tainted the series's legacy even without JKR's personal issues.

Once, Harry Potter was a series for generations. Now, former fans hope that the series fades into irrelevancy. Unfortunately, JKR didn't just tarnish her legacy--she took decades of history, millions of fans and a worldwide subculture along with her.

peerieweirdo

it’s crazy having been super-involved in the HP fandom for more than a decade and watching the fallout from this

quidditch (the real sport) has changed its name to quadball

the harry potter alliance (a nonprofit) has rebranded to fandom forward

the sub-subcultures that sprung up within the HP fandom have now distanced themselves from the main fandom and have become independent groups in their own right

HP was so integral to the development of early online fandom (as OP’s mentioned) that now there’s sort of just a weird... hole in the internet

for many HP fans, it took up a lot of their life. three conventions a year, wizard rock shows, HPA fundraising, granger leadership academy, nightly fanfic, podcasts, quidditch games.

when fans (rightfully) shunned JKR and began to leave the fandom, a lot of them (myself included) were left rudderless. how do you reconcile the fact that most of your friends, hobbies, sometimes even jobs, were due to the work of such a hateful person? as OP said, did i waste my life?

i’m obviously not saying that this is the worst part about JKR’s bigotry (the worst part is, of course, the bigotry) or that HP fans are the worst-done-by victims (who are of course trans people)

but it is WILD to see such a juggernaut of internet fandom be virtually scrubbed away