alright so i know we are all into punk sirius who is hot on slumming it in his teens, showing just how connected to the working classes and the great unwashed he is by living in a tiny poky flat in London, BUT I submit, for your delectation:
everyone lives au in which sirius decides to reverse stick it to his fam by joining forces with andromeda to become the hot new socialites in magical britain, hosting charity balls for postwar rehabilitation and like, vampire & werewolf charity fundraisers – lavish affairs in which the rich and the beautiful are subtly pressured into outbidding each other into donating more and more absurd amounts of money or else risk being socially ostracized FOREVER because they won’t receive one of those EXCLUSIVE invitations to number 12 Grimmauld Place & this INFURIATES narcissa who CLEARLY is the HEIR to the social lives of the black family and will not be USURPED by her black sheep of a sister and the family’s wild canon and dissolute disowned heir, her cousin lbr she probably bitches about this to Bellatrix’s portrait ad infinitum and Bella’s just like why don’t I have my WAND why can’t I cast spells and make her SHUT UP she and Draco grow very close in those months with Narcissa’s wailing incessantly about how NO ONE will attend any of the Malfoy’s social events and also FANCY!!!! ANDROMEDA HAVING THE AUDACITY TO DISINVITE ME FROM MY OWN ANCESTRAL HOME!!! AN INSULT NOT TO BE BORNE!!!!
anyway, Sirius obviously throws each and every single piece of furniture in Grimmauld Place out and strips it down, knocks down a couple of walls and adds in some elegant french windows and with Fleur’s help redesigns the place entirely because for god’s sake, victorian gothic is SO last century and besides, if we’re really doing pureblood decadence the only way to go is French Rococo lbr and everything is now MIRRORS and GILT and frankly ridiculous furniture that is IMPOSSIBLE TO SIT ON but everyone adores even when they’ve been standing in six inch heels for three hours running. Walburga Black obviously has kittens over this redecoration and this meticulous stripping away of their HISTORY (we can trace our family all the way to the Norman conquest! Your great great great great great great great great great great grandfather fought alongside King William at Hastings (unlike the Malfoys who only LIE about their involvement, just so we’re clear) she shouts until Sirius reveals his party trick aka the elaborately brocaded silk curtains he’s installed to be pulled over his mother’s painting so she becomes yet another one of the #quirks of Grimmauld Place, an entertainment set piece and nothing more).
Meanwhile in the library Sirius probably donates half the books to Hogwarts and then redoes the entire place in homage to the Brighton Pavillion (You see I’m not entirely unpatriotic, he tells the portrait of his fuming father) and then installs CARD TABLES at which the rich and the famous can do things like LOSE ENTIRE FORTUNES and also the family diamonds – all in the name of charity.
Also, most importantly is the draw Sirius exerts on the entire wizarding world because he obviously cultivates an eccentric and bohemian persona and insists on receiving guests for one hour only from a chaise longue in one of the parlours where he reclines in these hideous brocaded silk dressing gowns, with bottles of sal vol and assorted smelling salts around him and he only ever extends a single well-manicured hand to everyone: twelve years in Azkaban, he says faintly to everyone who visits, but the healer says I should recover my nerves soon (no one knows when ‘’’’’’’’’soon’’’’’’’’’ is, but this goes on for at least ten years after the war.)
And obviously each and every single one of his relatives stuck in their portraits are clawing their eyes out or shrieking in horror about WE HAVE BEEN REDUCED!!!! REDUCED TO BEING NO MORE THAN THE LAUGHING STOCK OF BRITAIN!!! except possibly Regs who is amused at just how terribly transparent & crude his brother is at the art of provocateuring.
what is the point of oscar the grouch on sesame street?
It’s okay to not like things and it’s okay to be unhappy. He was created from the idea that “non-destructive deviance” would go over well with kids.
THANK YOU!
Basically, the point of Oscar the Grouch is so that kids know it’s okay to have fucking emotions and moods that aren’t all cheery. That’s the fucking point. And that’s even more important to the kids who are living in harsh realities. Realities where their families are falling apart or they’re not getting food every day or they’re getting abused. Telling them it’s okay to express that they are NOT HAPPY because they are HURTING is so fucking important I cannot even say it.
Big Bird is nice, but goddamn, when you’re a kid who’s hungry and you just got beat by your caretaker and all you wanna do is hole up somewhere and tell everyone else to go away because you don’t even have words for how bad things feel? Big Bird is not your dude. Cheery happy, “well, let’s play a happy game!” Big Bird ain’t cutting it for you. Oscar the Grouch is your dude. Oscar the Grouch is the dude who tells you it’s okay to put the lid on your garbage can and be alone and be upset.
Big Bird tries to talk you out of being upset (and maybe sometimes that’s okay). But Oscar the Grouch teaches you that, no, it’s okay to be upset and you have every right to stay upset and grouchy and unhappy until you’re at a point where that can change. Oscar the Grouch teaches you that you have a right to your emotions, whatever they are.
On a more advanced level, the point of Oscar is to start teaching kids that it’s okay to have boundaries, it’s okay to want to just go into your trash can (home/safe place) and not be bothered, it’s okay to defend those boundaries and say “go away!” when you want people to go the fuck away and that you can still have a place on Sesame Street. That not everyone has to be shiny, happy Big Bird.
That’s the point of Oscar the Grouch.
“what is the point of oscar the grouch” who even made you
Also Oscar the Grouch *likes* things that no one else likes and he’s completely unapologetic about it.
The fact that people tell you things you like are stupid doesn’t make it’s true. He loves trash. He loves it because it’s trash. That’s important too.
As is the fact that *even though everyone thinks his interests are stupid*, people don’t take his trash away and they don’t drag him out of his can.
Also he has *fantastic* body language. Boundary laden but also very emotional. And just the way he likes stuff and expresses interest…
…Oscar the Grouch = awesome.
This is a wonderful series of texts post that needs to be shared with all of you
reading a paper on quality of life among 45-to-70-year-olds with Down syndrome:
“Individuals expressed a desire to be allowed to go to bed when they wanted to.”
😦
Imagine.
I lived in a room and board that failed the burrito test. (”If you’re not allowed to get up in the middle of the night to microwave a burrito, you live in an institution.”) No one stopped me from going to bed, but they did tell me I had to have my lights out by 10, and that I had to be out of the house by 10 the next morning. When I complained to my outpatient program that I needed more help than I was getting, they threatened me with board and care, where my cell phone would be taken away and I would lose contact with the outside world. My case manager sounded so damn smug, like he had caught me out, when he said, “if you’re really as helpless as you say, then you need to be in a board and care.” Like my only options were struggling to do things I couldn’t do, or surrendering my life to an institution.
When I tried to talk about these things with other people, they always rationalized it away. (I told my dad once that my caseworker was reading my e-mails as I wrote them, demonstrating extreme disrespect for my privacy, and he said, “Well, she’s probably making sure you don’t use the internet to goof off.” I was 22 years old.)
People tend to mock the idea that telling an adult when to go to bed, when to eat, etc., is a human rights violation, even though they would find it outrageous and absurd if anyone came into their lives to do the same thing to them.
And this is what people seem to think when they tell disabled activists we’re just not disabled enough to understand that some people really do need to be locked up and deprived of all autonomy.
DustAndFundamentalists 