ngl one of the main reasons i ship romione is because hermione got a cat that is the cat version of ron
…you just blew my entire mind
BIG, GINGER, GRUMPY, AND A LITTLE VIOLENT who am i talking about ron or crookshanks you don’t know
My mind keeps also drawing comparisons between Ron the Consistently Underappreciated with his overachieving brothers, and Crookshanks who languished at the pet store watching the cuter kittens get adopted…
This also makes Ron’s dislike of Crookshanks pretty hilarious
THAT IS ABSOLUTELY THE CRUX OF MY CROOKSHANKS IS THE CAT VERSION OF RON PHILOSOPHY. Fucking of course he hates that cat because he is that cat and he is Ron fucking Weasley. If Ron Weasley had a double that double would be better than him and he’d hate him too.
And of course Hermione has a soft spot for the most disagreeable, underdog cat in the world.
13×17 coda – Just a little drabble to help deal with all of the things I’m feeling
Gabriel had never been tired before, but now every nerve and cell in his body was aching and begging for rest. It was safe to say that he was exhausted. Sam had been kind enough to lend him clothing and show him how to use the shower. He’d even gotten a room all to himself. But as he lay in the bed, he just couldn’t seem to find sleep. He tossed and turned despite his sore body protesting every movement, but the gears of his mind churned and ground. He couldn’t shake the anxiety that was consuming him. The feeling that if he closed his eyes, he’d be snatched away again.
As if he could sense Gabriel’s wakefulness, Sam came tapping lightly on his door with a glass of cold water. He didn’t want to startle him or, if he was asleep, wake him. Slowly, Same opened the door and poked his head in. Gabriel just barely lifted his head off the pillow to make eye contact. He nodded slightly, giving the younger Winchester permission to enter. Sam shuffled in, closing the door behind himself. He set the glass on the night stand and sat on the edge of the bed near Gabriel’s feet, silent but trying his best to emanate empathy.
Gabriel appreciated Sam’s presence and the fact that he wasn’t trying to force him to talk. He wasn’t ready to talk. He wasn’t sure when he would be. He still felt as if his lips were sewn shut, despite the fact that Sam had freed him from that. After about twenty minutes, Gabriel felt the bed shift as Sam stood up to leave. The angel winced as he sat up. “Don’t,” he begged quietly.
Surprised that Gabriel finally spoke, Sam turned on his heel, eyebrows raised. Gabe gave him a pleading look, glancing at the empty space in the bed beside him and then back at Sam before sheepishly avoiding his gaze. Sam managed- somehow- to look even more surprised at that. “Yeah? O-okay. Yeah.” The hunter moved back toward the bed and carefully lay on the bed beside the archangel.
Feeling suddenly safer and more at ease, Gabriel moved toward Sam, hiding his face in the man’s broad chest and closing his eyes. Cautiously, Sam gently wrapped his free arm around Gabriel’s smaller frame. He’d lie there as long as needed until Gabriel could get some rest and hopefully start feeling better. Sam had already wanted to do some serious damage to that Kentucky Fried Douchebag but now he wanted nothing more than to completely destroy Asmodeus. Now, it was personal.
The morning air was chill enough Bobby considered the need for a layer beyond the flannel shirt he wore, but lethargic contentment kept him seated in the rocker, the heel of his boot maintaining the steady rhythm as he sipped coffee and watched the sky shift colors with the rising sun.
It wasn’t real, but it may as well have been. It was real enough, the way it looked and felt and simply was. The wet cool of the air was just that side of uncomfortable, the curl of steam from his coffee enough to keep him seated. Dew covered the tulips of Karen’s flower bed, light refracting off the drops and making them sparkle like crystal.
It was peaceful, and honestly, after a life of… well, all of it, it was the peace that he appreciated the most. The creak of the old wood porch as he rocked, the scent of pine and flowers and coffee.
A soft keening whine and a snort made the corner of his mouth crook, free hand dropping to plunge into thick black fur to scratch Juliet behind the ears. If he were sitting on the steps, she would be lying curled around him, offering her massive body and thick fur to ensure he stayed warm. It felt real enough for her she worried and fretted about him getting sick, which, hell, he appreciated that, too.
Discontent, she pushed herself up on her front paws, shifting to lay her large head on his lap, red of her eyes vanishing as they slid closed. He ceased his rocking, running his hand through the thick coat, her ears folded back against her head.
She whined again.
She’d been waiting on the front porch steps when the angels released him and brought him home, chasing off the suited minions with a snarl and snap before urging him forward with her large head, body pushing him toward the house while keeping one gleaming red eye on the angels who didn’t dare step past the white picket fence into the yard.
He’d patted her head as the house welcomed them home.
I see your humans are space orcs, and I raise you humans are space fey (I’m doing this on mobile so bear with me)
—
They had all heard the warnings, but Ikosti wrote them off as baseless superstition. Surely, only fledglings believed the tales of the Allecius Cluster. Surely, only fledglings believed the old crones’ tales about the vanishing ships and phantom sensory readings and secretive Watchers that stole away crews wandering too far into the sector. Xe grew up on those stories: even xir own grandhatcher claimed xir mate had been lost to the Watchers. In fact, it was for those very reasons xe had volunteered to lead this scouting mission, to allay his people’s fears about this section of space. The mission, however, had not gone as planned.
“Captain, the sensors are picking up that signal again. At this point I’m tempted to say we should just hail it and see what happens.” The communications officer broke Ikosti’s focus from the stellagation charts. Ikosti cocked xir head to the side, adjusting the feathers around xir beak in thought.
“You know what, Chitir? I’m tempted to say yes. For the time being, keep our sensors on it. If we can calculate a jump reading off it when it leaves, maybe we can find a way out of this mess.” Ikosti sank into the captain’s chair, fore-talons threading against xir temples. If they’d been anywhere back near Aycotli space, near any Federation space really, xe would have reprimanded Chitir for such informality on the bridge. But at this point, nearly 10 rotations trapped in this hellscape of a nebula, xe would not fault xir nestmate for putting regulation aside. This was, after all, quite an irregular predicament.
The mission had started off regularly enough. The Fyndil’s Grace had easily made it through the first jump to the Allecius system. From there, the ship was to chart the region as best it could, searching primarily for a new hyperspace route. The Gul Dominion controlled most of the known routes, and with tensions between the two species rising, the Aycotli Flock was looking for anything that they could use if the Dominion revoked access to their hyperplanes. All known routes went around the Allecius Cluster, sometimes hundreds of parsecs off course just to avoid traveling the Cluster. And now, xe knew why.
Things were innocuous enough when they first arrived. Cilaed, the ship’s engineer, had reported no excess emission from the engine, and all green across the ship’s entire power grid. Only minutes later, the ship powered down. Only quick thinking and the sacrifice of Cilaed’s stasis pod prevented them from floating completely dead in space. Cilaed lasted the first three rotations on his reserved energy before his body gave out. Ikosti wasn’t worried: even if the rest of the crew perished, Cilaed would survive in his dormant mode until he was pumped with enough electricity to restart his body. The loss of the chief engineer, however, was proving a costly one. The stasis pod could keep them on reserve power almost indefinitely. It would last 2 decades, almost twice the average Aycotli lifespan. Their food stores, however, were starting to run low, and the electronic interference from the nebula they were in prevented any communication extending beyond their current system. With the pod, they could make one jump, but lose all power a few rotations after, and with no coordinates to make the jump with, they’d be trying to thread a needle blindfolded, so to speak. So they’d sat for the last several rotations, puttering along in search of a place they might broadcast a distress signal from, or at least a warning about whatever energy field it was that cut their power to begin with.
It had been two rotations before the first phantom signal appeared. Their sensors were unable to pick up any vessel, so they wrote it off as electrical interference. But then it came back again, leaving small radiation bursts in it’s want indicative of a hyperdrive. Federation Protocol dictated they refrain from contacting any potentially uncontacted species, so they sat, and waited.
Several minutes had gone by until Ikosti heard an audible intake of breath from his nestmate. “What’s happening?”
“Captain, it’s starting to head towards us.” The rest of the bridge turned at that, a mix of apprehension and hope across their faces.
“Hmm, put it on-screen. If they get within 150,000,000,000 standard units, hail them.” The crew all turned towards the stellagation chart as Chitir pulled up the tracker. At first, their observer moved cautiously towards the Grace, but it after a few seconds it started to pick up speed. Soon enough, it was charging towards them, covering hundreds of thousands of units per second. “Pelo, raise shields! Jorwi, standby for emergency evasive maneuvers!”
The duo sprang to life at the orders as the rest of the crew looked on, and Ikosti took some solace in the fact that xe sounded more in control than xe felt.
“Hailing them now, Captain!” Chitir called out as the oncoming ship barreled towards them. The channel flared to life and Ikosti began immediately: “This is Captain Ikosti D’Thylozt of the Aycotli Flock, performing a scouting mission on the behalf of the Federation of Allied Species. We are not a military vessel. I repeat, we are not a military vessel. Please disengage!” The ship showed no sign of stopping, and just before xe called for the emergency thrusters, the ship stopped. An image appeared on the glass in front of Ikosti, and xe felt nearly gasped in shock. On the screen in front of xem was undeniably one of the Watchers.
The being looked utterly alien, lacking any kind of feather or scale. Instead, the Watcher was covered in what almost looked to be uncured kath hide. The Watcher wore an elaborate robe, emblazoned with flecks of ruby, sapphire, and emerald trimmed with gold. Its head was crowned with tufts of elongated for instead of plumage or scale, reminding Ikosti of the long grass native to xir homeworld.
The Watcher glanced over the crew and barred its teeth before letting out an almost musical sort of noise. Dimly in the background, the translation programs indicated it was a noise of happiness.
“Greetings, Captain. It’s been a long time since we last had Aycotli here.” The crew hid their surprise with varied success as they realized the Watcher spoke near perfect Aycotlia. “I am Captain Jones. We noticed your ship disabled in the nebula, and we’ve come to take you to a safe port.” The Watcher turned away from the screen and tapped twice on a console. A thin, shimmering light gleamed from the Watcher’s ship and encased the Grace. “I’ve established a gravitational bond between our vessels to guide you through the Cat’s Eye. Is your ship sound enough to make a jump?”
“It is, Captain Jones, but I must insist that you return us to Federation space so we can initiate the appropriate First Contact Protocols.”
“I’m sorry Captain D’Thylozt, but you aren’t in a position to insist. We will explain more when we reach Craddle, but suffice it to say my people avoid contact with the younger species for a reason. However, I couldn’t leave my dear friend’s grand-hatchling stranded.” Ikosti opened his beak and then clamped it shut. Xir grandhatcher had told the story so many times: xe lost xir nestmate during one of the final days of the Durati Border Wars, but always claimed the disabled ship was pulled out of the line of fire by a mystery vessel and that it had simply disappeared afterwards. But, if that was the case…
Ikosti relayed the order to prepare for a jump to hyperspace and turned back to the monitor. “At your ready, Captain.”
I’m going to end this here for the time being but maybe I’ll write a follow up if there’s interest? I just like the idea of humans as a species of morally ambiguous space hermits with really advanced tech, etc etc. I just feel like most of the time, space Australia fiction is about humanity reaching the stars relatively late to the scene, and I think it’s cool to think of what might happen if we’re the first ones out there and just kinda act like vodka aunt to the rest of the universe.
(Note: standard units for distance here are kilometers. The Earth is roughly 150 billion kilometers from the sun, for comparison.)
I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to have been in the queer movement for 20+ years, to have studied queer theory, to have contributed to you potentially enjoying the rights you have today because I was part of a groundswell of lobbying and direct action in the 1990s….
…to have a 15 year old who’s spent maybe 8 months being political and has never inquired about queer history anonymously message me, “EXCUSE ME QU**R IS A SLUR LMAO OMG EMBARRASSSING AN aCTUAL ADULT WHO THINKS IT’S OKAY TO USE QU**R!~!!!!”
Dude, we are a slur. Queer folks are a slur to conservative straight people. Everything we are will be used as a slur by everyone who hates us. Gay is a slur. Lesbian is a slur. People will try to use all of our words against us. Don’t fucking let them get into your head to the point at which you’re telling actual queer people not to use the words we’ve used to unite ourselves and empower ourselves for decades.
yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees
The notes on this post since I first reblogged it from @asynca are a wild fucking ride.
“It was never our word, do some research.” Child do your own damn research, it’s been our word.
“If you’ve been part of the community for 20 years get off of Tumblr and go take care of your grandkids.” Man I would not want to be you in 20 years, realizing that shit, you don’t stop existing when you become a grown-up and you keep having interests. How do you think your life’s going to be between age 20 and age 80? Is it gonna be that boring to be you? And holy shit my grandkids? If Asy is anything like me, who came out at 13, how you expect me to have grandkids at 33ish? 35? Y’all. Really. And these are the same people who wail ‘respect your elders, don’t call them queer, they don’t like it,’ but out the other side of their mouth say ‘you’re not relevant, grandma, go away.’
Mmkay. Just show your hypocrisy a bit more, I guess.
“Just don’t call people things they don’t wanna be called.”
Aight, so, yeah. First off, ain’t nobody calling anybody part of the queer community who ain’t identifying as queer. Queer is, and has been, a radical political and mostly blue-collar portion of the LGBTQIPA+ community. It is defined by its rejection of Corporate Gay (white, upper-middle-class, cis gay exclusionary ‘palatable for TV’ gayness) and inclusion of the entire community, and its political activism.
Guess what, if you ain’t queer, you ain’t part of the queer community. Believe me, we don’t want you if you ain’t queer, because queers ain’t afraid to get their hands dirty and actually fight. And I am so so so tired of people thinking that we’re trying to coerce people into calling themselves queer. If you wanna be part of this community, great. Otherwise, you ain’t part of it and no one is trying to force you.
That said, it’s important to recognize that attempting to censor people’s self-identity is and has been a tactic of TERFs, “purity” culture advocates, and people who have tried to shut out bi, trans, pan, questioning, ace, non-binary, genderfluid and other ‘non-conforming’ identities. It’s not a new problem. I grew up listening to Ani DiFranco (I know she has issues, that’s another post) and the song “In or Out,” which expressly, in part, is about belonging and standards in the community was released on Imperfectly in 1992. Like, really. Little Plastic Castle addresses it, too, and that came out exactly 20 years ago in 1998.
The kids on this site are not the first group to think that they can determine who is ‘In or Out.’ This site’s would-be censors are not the first ones thinking, ‘I can just demand that you not be who you are when it makes me uncomfortable.’
Demanding that we not use our identity words to describe ourselves because it makes you uncomfortable is not acceptable. No one is accepting of the idea that ‘gay’ is a word which should simply not be used. And yet, we are meant to simply write off queer and stop using that word, instead of helping people work through their issues and/or working further on reclaiming and/or simply be left alone to our identities without having to justify them. This thought process that we should just drop the word because it’s ‘bad’ is the perfect intersection of Tumblr’s TERF-sponsored exclusionists and Tumblr’s anti-recovery culture, and it needs to stop.
Kids need to stop hiding behind the idea that ‘older people in the community don’t like queer and have trauma with it,’ because we are the older people in the community, and I’m here to tell you, my trauma was around gay and dyke. Queer is the word that gave me back my life. Stop trying to use us as your Shields Against Being Called On Your Bigotry, because we’re not interested.
People need to stop saying ‘don’t call others that,’ because we’re not talking to you if you don’t identify as queer. The community who identifies as queer is who we are addressing.
People need to stop attempting to suppress the word queer. It’s not going away. We are not going away. Or, to bring back what I grew up saying:
thisacelovesheadcanons 