#no shed dogs

[vintagehomecollection]

California Cottages: Interior Design, Architecture & Style, 1996

[cicadako]

The dreadful season

[andr0nap-wf]

doggoframe 1999: the protopuppers

[whorrorbvby]

can we just take a sec to admire how good the tiddies look in this top

[marlynnofmany]

Not A Pest

I kept a hand on the pallet of boxes on the hoversled, making sure it didn't wobble while Blip and Blop pushed it up the ramp. It was all held in place solidly enough by high-tech netting much fancier than the kind we used, and I didn't need to worry much. So when we reached the cargo bay and Zhee called for my assistance back on the ground, I didn't feel bad about leaving the Frillians to finish loading it. They were strong enough to muscle anything into place if needed anyway. 

“What's up?” I asked as I trotted back down the ramp.

“Thought you might weigh in on their pest problem before we go,” Zhee said with a twitch of his antennae towards the clients whose stuff we were delivering. More Frillians today: not as beefy as Blip and Blop, but with waving frills everywhere that just made Zhee look like a praying mantis among flowers. He also looked smug, but that was nothing new. “I mentioned an animal expert, and they mentioned payment,” he told me.

I came to a stop beside him. “You know I don't know everything, right? Just putting that out there. My vet training was on Earth.” 

“Yes yes, I gave them the disclaimers,” Zhee said. 

The client in front, a tall female with colors like a Siamese Fighting Fish, said, “That’s better than anyone on our ship has. Something's getting into boxes in our cargo hold, and we can't find it. Tore into some food and made a mess of the animal fibers.” 

The shorter male behind her in salmon-peach tones held out a lumpy handful of what looked like brown wool. "My guess is it's making a nest somewhere, but it's being wasteful with the stuff too. Tangled it up something fierce."

My response died on my lips as I got a good look at it. Among the stray fibers was the exact shape of a teddy bear. 

“Can I see that?” I asked. 

He handed it over. I plucked off the extra bits and yes, it was definitely meant to be a teddy bear, made by hand from the wool in the cargo hold. There were even little twists for eyes.

I looked up at them. “You don’t have a pest. You have a stowaway.”

They blustered and pooh-poohed the idea: nonsense, how could there possibly be an intelligent creature onboard without their knowledge?

“We’ve been in space a long time,” said the tall one. “Only stopping at uninhabited locations for resources.”

“And at the—” put in the pink one, then stopped at a sharp look from his teammate.

I wasn’t about to let that go. “The what?” I asked.

The tall one sighed. “We salvaged some fuel from a wreck,” she admitted. “But there was no one on it. We checked. And with the tow ship we saw in the distance, it seemed likely enough that the owner had jetted away in a life preserver rather than sticking around. It was a single-person ship.”

Somebody else piped up from between the many crates in their cargo hold. “It couldn’t be a person! There’s nowhere big enough to hide!”

I held up the teddy bear. “This is a child’s toy from my planet.” I looked up at the maze of pipes on the ceiling. “And my people like to climb.”

Zhee was being smug behind me while I made a quick circuit of the room, looking for likely spots. One corner was particularly dark, and it had a series of crates below the pipes, stacked into a perfect ramp. I flashed back to the time a litter of kittens had found a similar hidey-hole on my own ship. This spaceship was made by a different group of aliens altogether, but they never seemed to expect anyone to pay attention to nooks and crannies in the ceiling.

“Hello?” I called, climbing onto the first crate with the wool bear in hand. “Anybody up there?” I continued in every language I knew greetings in, which included the galaxy’s favorite trade language (which I knew well), several minor trade languages (which I did not), and a smattering of languages from Earth (which I knew not at all), plus English. Despite my efforts, I didn’t hear a thing until I got all the way to the top.

“Jambo?” I tried, peering into the dark crevice. “Uh, sprechen sie deutsch?” I held out the wool bear. “Is this yours?”

A quiet gasp echoed off the pipes, then two small arms reached out to grab the bear. With further coaxing, the girl clambered forward to where I could see her: dark skin, wide eyes, artfully braided hair, and clothes that looked fancy, if very dusty. I’m not great at kid ages, but she was young. Old enough to push buttons on her parents’ spaceship maybe, not old enough to steer.

I still didn’t know what language she spoke, but it was hard to go wrong with body language. I held out my arms for a hug. “Want to go home?”

She sniffled and climbed forward into the embrace, clinging tight. That made it a bit of a challenge to get back down to floor level, but I managed. A crowd of Frillians and one smug Mesmer waited there.

“See?” Zhee said to the tall Frillian. “Exactly the animal expert you needed.”

I shook my head in amusement. “For all the wrong reasons, you’re exactly right.” The girl didn’t want to be put down, so I hoisted her onto one hip and stood carefully. “How far away was that crash site? Can you send a message to the planet or station the tow ship came from?”

“Yeah, we’re on it,” the tall Frillian said, her frills flattened in what might have been shame. She directed a couple of the others to do that, and also to gather the fuel they’d scavenged.

Zhee cheered her up with talk of a probable finder’s fee. “Humans get very attached to their offspring,” he said. “There is a strong chance this one’s parents are already advertising a reward.”

While they talked money (and Zhee got our ship that promised fee for pest control), someone with sense arrived with a bottle of water and questions about what food would be suitable.

The girl drank the water eagerly, not letting go of her bear, and didn’t answer any of my questions about food allergies. She accepted some protein cubes and chewed them with determination.

By then, a reply had already come from the nearest space station, and a ship was on the way. Full of authority figures and very anxious parents, by the sounds of it.

While the Frillians discussed that and the little kid quietly refused to be put down, Zhee held up his communicator so I could talk to Captain Sunlight back on our ship. Zhee had already explained the situation.

The captain asked me, “How long do they expect until arrival?”

“I think they said about half an hour,” I said. “Hopefully that won’t put us behind schedule.”

“No, we’ll be fine,” she said. “Given that the young one is so taken with you, we might as well stay to make sure everything gets resolved. Does she need to visit the medical bay?”

“I don’t think so. She hasn’t said anything yet, but she doesn’t look injured. Couldn’t hurt to give her a once-over with the hand scanner just in case. We’ve got time.” I looked down at her thoughtfully, then had a bright idea. “And I bet she’d love to meet Telly. After we check her for allergies, of course.”

The captain agreed that was a fine idea. Zhee took over the conversation while I asked the girl, in a mix of Earth languages and pantomime, if she wanted to see my cat.

Her eyes lit up and she started talking in a spill of words that I didn’t catch in the slightest. Spanish, maybe French? Portuguese? Ah, it didn’t matter. The language of kitty ears and “meow meow” is almost as universally recognized as hugs. We walked from one ship to another, and waited for her parents in the company of a medical scanner, human food, and a very friendly cat.

~~~

These are the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book.

Shared early on Patreon! There’s even a free tier to get them on the same day as the rest of the world.

The sequel novel is in progress (and will include characters from these stories. I hadn’t thought all of them up when I wrote the first book, but they’re too much fun to leave out of the second).

[lycandrophile]

it really rubs me the wrong way when people say things about how cis women should just date trans men because they see us as a safer alternative to cis men. because the thing is, cis women being with trans men instead of cis men doesn’t eliminate the unsafe power dynamic the way they often act like it does;

the dynamic is just flipped.

generally speaking, a trans man isn’t any safer in a relationship with a cis woman than that cis woman would be in a relationship with a cis man. it just feels like a safer dynamic if you’re the cis woman because suddenly you’ve become the one with the privilege, and if you’re not used to being the one with privilege in a relationship you might not even think to ask how safe the other person is.

the reality is, the reason that relationship feels safer to you is the same reason it’s not safe for us — we’re safer for you because we don’t have the same privilege as a cis man, and we also don’t have the same privilege as you. when you date us because we’re safer, you’re dating us because we have less power.

that’s not to say cis women should never date trans men, or that it’s bad to seek out trans men if you don’t feel safe in relationships with cis men. but you have to recognize the power dynamic you’re opting into — you have to realize that you’re not going into a relationship that’s safer overall, you’re just going into one that’s safer for you. you have to be prepared for the person you’re interested in to have all the same fears and reservations about you that you had about cis men.

and most importantly, you have to actually put the work into being a safe person; you have to put effort into unlearning transphobia overall, especially into unlearning anti-transmasculinity, and you have to do it before you start seeking out trans men.

i’m very familiar at this point in my life with how unsafe relationships with cis women can be for trans men, romantic or otherwise, and i know most other trans men have probably had similar experiences to mine. we know very well that you might not be safe; we need you to know that, and we need you to care enough about us to make yourself safe.

us being “safer” for you isn’t just a nice benefit for you, it’s a direct result of the fact that we are oppressed and that you hold power over us. if you’re going to seek us out for your safety, know what that really means.

[choccy-milky]

hello!!! i just recently began to play Hogwarts Legacy myself and then saw your art and was like WOW💕 really love Clora/Seb dynamic! here's a small gift, he-he. genderbend version of my favorite art of yours. (if anything isn't okay, just let me know! sorry in advance.)

OMG THIS IS SO COOL??? IM SO IN LOVE WITH CLORA AS A BOY HOLY AAAAAA 😩😩seb, girl, id be jealous and protective if i managed to lock that down too🤺🤺 the OG is also one of my fav drawings of seb and clora ive ever done and omg, seeing it redrawn genderbent is such a treat i didnt even realize i wanted...also your painting/rendering is beautiful?? im so happy you like my art, esp enough to do something like this, this is so awesome😭😭THANK YOU🙏🙏💖💖💖

[fjordfolk]

its a dream of mine to one day have a wonky lil 2nd hand companion toothpick dog and every now and then i go to the ad sites to look but friends the market is so dry

[batartshikns]

i- i drew him even more of a wet cat..... oh. oh buddy. oh. oh man. 😭

@evermorethecrow

[spindle-and-nima]

do you have any more baby spindle pics ?

A compilation of the worlds MOST baby

[lotus-pear]

what is childe doing in bungou gay dogs😟

[note-boom]

See here. BSD is a story about how all of our characters were once children. How the scars and wounds and secrets of their past will always haunt them to the present. We see it with Chuuya, Yosano, Ranpo, even Odasaku briefly, Atsushi, Tachihara, Akutagawa, Kyouka and Kenji right now, even Kouyou just a little bit. They've all overcome it or they've allowed it to consume them. And yet that brief glimpse into a past where they were young and scarred shows us once again just how human they are...every criminal, ever person, was once a child wounded by or protected from the world and doesn't that count for something even if it doesn't excuse the atrocities they commit today?

[cumulo-ghoulll]

Incorrect Ghost Quotes‼️

(pt. 121)

A new sibling of sin: Ewww! There's hair in my food!

Copia: get used to it. *take a bite of lasagna covered in ghoul fluff*

[infamous-if]

supposed to just be doing a run of just…playing through to make sure it Works and instead have somehow reached 70k words 👍

[moliathh]

child’s play

[surskip]

i love moss from pikmin so much i just know shed be like a really old bloodhound or something. like ladybird.

olimar and moss