I’m screeching

Both 100% accurate tbf

Thanks for the SO! That’s a pretty good list to be included in! While I do wish more people (esp fic writers) appreciated the amazing Ron Weasley, I’m happy with this quality over quantity 😍

On relationships, snogging and Zacharias Smith

A while ago I had submitted this interview that nearly had me murder baby animals where J. K. Rowling claimed she’d made Ron “worthy of Hermione”, and argued that the Lavender subplot had been a necessity for him to become mature (that from the woman who thought the only way to make a character mature was to kill their father, good thing real life doesn’t work like that).

Now you all know how Ron “not being worthy” is one of the things that grind our gears, you all know that Ron is more mature than his own author gives him credit for because she’s become biased over the years; but there’s an essential thing we don’t know about.

Did Ron and Lavender “did the do” or was it all just snogging?

Personally, I believe, and want to believe it only ever consisted of snogging.

Call me naïve, or unrealistic, or even biased, and you’d probably be right; maybe it’s because my asexual arse never experienced the desperation that goes with being overwhelmingly horny; but I absolutely refuse to consider one second that Ron and Lavender got intimate in ‘this’ sense.

One of my reasons for it is mostly because I refuse to have Ron, as a character, pay for the hypocrisy of his own author. Translation: “f*ck you J.K., and hard”.

Because think about it. In this interview from hell, JKR basically implies the following: “a boy can’t be mature if he’s not messed up countless times before to get the lesson into his thick boy skull”; “a boy can’t understand that purely physical relationships are bad until he’s gotten himself in one”; “a boy can’t be emotionally mature if he never had a relationship before”; “you should never date a boy if he’s never had a relationship before you because he won’t be taking it seriously”, and countless of other implications that reek of misandry.

Should we consider Hermione to be “better” than Ron because she’s never been confirmed to have a relationship with Viktor Krum, which would mean she was “mature” from the get-go? I’ve read fanfictions that have Hermione be some sort of holy sacred Virgin Mary that was willing to nobly wait until Ron was done with nearly half the female population of Hogwarts before they got together and it kind of sickened me. (Some other fanfictions also have Ron go to the “next level” with Lavender and then learn that Hermione’s kiss with Viktor never happened and was a lie made up by Ginny. Way to make an arse out of every Weasley while completely letting Hermione off the hook for lying to Ron in the first place.)

Another reason why I refuse to think Ron and Lavender went there is because I think Ron still hoped in some way to share this with Hermione.

JKR’s books are law (*cough* but her Twitter is not *cough*) and so I can’t deny that the Lavender debacle happened; but what I can do is glue myself to my headcanons like a limpet and my headcanon is that Ron saved himself for Hermione, completely and fully, and when he learned that she shared her first kiss with Viktor Krum, he decided to throw his own first kiss away in bitterness; but he wouldn’t have done the same for his virginity unless he learned that Hermione had done it with Krum too.

Basically: the only way I’ll accept Ron and Lavender getting it on is for Hermione to have gotten it on with Viktor first. And I may point out (loudly) Hermione’s faults once in a while because everybody tries to sweep them under the rug and that pisses me off beyond belief; but I fully recognize that she’s a very responsible person who wouldn’t do such a big thing at age 15.

(Reminder that Hermione is one year older than the boys, her birthday being the 19th of September 1979; in her first year at Hogwarts she turns 12, in second year she turns 13 and so on.) (Girls do mature faster than boys because our puberty starts around 11 while boys’ starts around 13. In a way, Ron’s freak-out at the Yule Ball is pretty much his little boy’s love suddenly morphing into something a little more… heated, when you consider he was 14 and Hermione was 15 at the time.)

I think Hermione and Viktor’s brief fling went beyond a single kiss, but never beyond snogging, and since I’m a big believer in both Ron and equality, he never went beyond snogging with Lavender as well. Yeah, I’m this sort of kid who’s been raised to think that saving yourself for someone you truly want, instead of having it just because you can, is hip; sue me.

Now I’m not judging you if you want to think that Ron and Lav-Lav did it, but just know that I, personally, won’t read a fanfic where it happens this way.

You will probably think I’m some sort of ‘old maid’ with old values and ideas but… listen, that’s just what I think it is. Why should Hermione get a “Cinderella” moment and not Ron? Because why can’t a boy make everyone’s heads spin, too? Why should Hermione have a dreamy romance with a famous experienced man, while Ron’s romantic fling is treated like an object of ridicule and mockery? Just so you realize how deeply Rowling wanted us to look down on Ron for daring to go out with someone other than her precious self-insert, look at the lengths she goes to give Ron and Lav’s kisses the most unappealing metaphors she can think of, from “like a pair of wrestling eels” to “wet sloppy sounds” and not forgetting “a sound like a plumbing stick getting removed from the toilet”. Yeeeaaah… Tell me again that she didn’t get prejudiced against Ron mid-writing?

When you remember how JKR based Ron on one of her childhood friends and Hermione on herself, it really, really becomes messed up: you have a crush on your friend but you’re going to wait around until he magically figures out what you want from him, and if he doesn’t then it’s somehow still his fault for not detecting your budding attraction to him? Way to play victim there, Jo. Why not, you know, actually ask him out if you want to date him so badly? (Yes I know, asking someone out takes guts and all but then you don’t freaking play the victim card when they start seeing other people! Admit that you lacked the guts to actually ask them out instead of bawling about how they never noticed you wanted to go out with them!! People are not bloody telepaths!)

I value Ron’s character so much, people, and I know you do too (otherwise why would you follow this blog?) and this is my way of valuing him even more. I believe he subconsciously thought of Hermione as “the one” for him, that he considered himself “married” to her despite his insecurities about how he’d never be good enough for her, and when Ginny slapped him with reality, his old demon flared up so intensely that he made a poor decision and succumbed to peer pressure because he feared he was “left behind”; but he never let himself go as far as to “cheat” on Hermione, even though they weren’t even together.

Also, just think about the disastrous consequences on his already shattered self-worth if it happened this way. Here we have Ron, who doesn’t really fancy Lavender but fancies more the idea of being “desirable” to someone, and taking it to a level where he can’t take it back; and then he realizes that he’s used someone to feel better about himself and took something very precious for his own benefit, and that he’s wronged both Hermione and Lavender? Shit, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. Just look how horrible he felt about his leaving of the Horcrux Hunt; imagine how he would never, ever stop abusing himself constantly over this. No, I don’t want that for my baby, thank you.

There’s a reason why I facetiously call Hermione “JKR’s self-insert”, “JKR’s Mary Sue” or “JKR’s angel”, it’s because she admitted it herself: Hermione was supposed to be a caricature of J.K. when she was younger, and for the first three books, she was. A bossy, opinionated little girl with a good head on her shoulders, who thinks with her brain rather than with her heart, who believes she’s always right and usually is… but not always, because she’s human and therefore she makes mistakes, just like all of us; a girl who must learn to not be so critical of others because it harms her relationships with them; a girl who must learn that there is more to life than academics and work; a girl who must learn that perfection is unattainable and that if she keeps expecting it from herself or others, she’ll only live a life of misery…

But as the books went on, Hermione-the-mini-JKR-caricature morphed into Hermione-the-avenger-of-every-wrongdoing-done-to-JKR, and so we got Rita Skeeter trapped inside that jar; Marietta Edgecombe scarred for LIFE and who cares if she betrayed you, you don’t do that kind of thing to someone; Umbridge tossed to the centaurs (if you believe in the “centaurs are rapists” theory, which I don’t, but why not, then it’s even worse because that’s Hermione getting a woman gang-r*ped and I know Umbridge is awful but screw it, nobody deserves that); of course, who can forget the canaries; and who can forget how she threatens Ron with the canaries again once he returns to the Horcrux Hunt!!

Looking at the books, you’ll see that they have a very protagonist-centred morality and that’s not, ever, good writing. We’re meant to root for the heroes because we’re told they’re heroes, but some of their actions are less than heroic and downright cruel instead (I’m thinking “Ginny assaulting Zacharias Smith and almost killing him during that one Quidditch match” in HBP; come to think of it, JKR’s main female protagonists are all pretty crappy during that book, except for Fleur and Luna). Yes, it makes them human and flawed and realistic and normally I’d be all for it; but the narrative praises them for their cruelty instead of pointing out they’re wrong!!

That’s JKR’s own sense of morality transpiring through her writing and what a warped morality it is: not just an eye for an eye, it’s an eye, a leg and an arm if you hurt me, even if you didn’t mean it!

An example of that protagonist-centred morality is, since I’ve mentioned him, Zacharias Smith. Objectively, what is his main fault? He doesn’t believe Harry when he talks about Cedric’s death.

… And why should he?

No, I mean, really. Why should he?

We as the reader know Harry is telling the truth, but think of it from Zacharias’ point of view. This is Harry Potter, the kid we know somehow defeated a Dark Lord when he was a baby and nobody knows how he’s done it. That’s pretty dodgy. Then, the same Harry Potter kid gets himself into tons of messes during the past school years and nobody knows exactly what it’s all about, apparently about the Dark Lord and stuff but they’re just rumours, right?

Then that same Harry Potter kid somehow gets himself into the Triwizard Tournament and nobody, not even Dumbledore, still knows how he’s done it, dodginess over 9000, and moreover he’s stealing the only glory Hufflepuff’s gotten in years! Being a loyal Hufflepuff, of course Zacharias is going to be salty about that. If you consider how liked and popular Cedric was, Zach probably admired him and considered him some sort of brother-figure, so he was angry at Harry for competing against his hero and getting the attention back to Gryffindor, who already had won the Quidditch Cup the past year.

So when Harry and Cedric mysteriously disappear, only for Harry to return with Cedric’s corpse, not only does Zacharias mourn somebody he probably knew well and admired deeply, but his resentment can only be directed against Harry fully; for dragging Cedric into one of these dodgy adventures of his and causing his death, hell, maybe Harry did that intentionally for all Zach knows.

Because he doesn’t know, and since Harry is in diva mode screaming “I’m the only one who knows what happened and it’s the fault of this guy who died years ago that I somehow killed even if I don’t know how I did it”, well… is it a wonder he’s sceptical? And is it a wonder he’s furious, when Harry eventually reveals the story to a newspaper first, instead of trying to explain it better to those who are still grieving Cedric? (The same goes for Cho. The poor girl is bashed for mourning her boyfriend, wanting to know what happened to said boyfriend which makes Harry uncomfortable but dude she has the right to know, but nah, since Harry is The Hero let’s say Cho is overbearing instead)

Now that explanation doesn’t give Zacharias the right to be an arse but listen for a second: it’s JKR writing him this way so we know he’s wrong.

Instead of making Zacharias into a character to be convinced, into someone whose trust has to be won (and therefore making him an interesting character)… she instead judges him and condemns him because he dares doubt Harry’s word, so he’s automatically in the wrong and that’s it, and you know what’s even funnier? She’ll do the same thing to Ron when he doubts Harry in Deathly Hallows; granted, there’s the Horcrux and Ron’s very real concerns about his family; but even then there’s Hermione-the-great-avenger-of-JKR who tears into poor Ron like a harpy and beats him up so his heroic, bittersweet triumph gets turned into comedic slapstick to “punish” him and make him the butt of the joke… again. Over and over and over. And don’t forget the mention of the canaries, which JKR wants us to see as “a fun joke, haha isn’t Hermione so witty” (emphasized by Ron himself smiling; you fool, run while you still can!) but to a morally-sound person reads more like “remember that I can still inflict severe bodily harm on you if you anger me enough”.

(Remember that the canaries went for Ron’s face, and he protected himself with his arms while Hermione left the room without lifting the spell. The canaries themselves are compared to “bullets”, you know, the things shot from actual guns. That’s how messed up this is and it’s in print. Ron could very well have gotten his eyes pecked out, à la The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock. Y’know, a horror movie about birds mauling people to death, yeah, that’s totally my idea of a funny joke…)

If you make a character act like a jerk to the heroes, people will antagonize said character (unless it’s played by Tom Felton or Alan Rickman *wink*) because we root for the heroes. In the same way, if you make a male character act like a jerk to a female character, unless it’s clear that the female character is a villain (and even then you’ll have misguided feminists breathing down your neck) he’s considered a jerk, because we’ve been conditioned to consider men who behave meanly to women like jerks… and they certainly are!

But when Ron does something mean to Hermione in retaliation for something mean she did to him, people immediately tear him a new one because “how dare he assault this precious angel of everything that is good on Earth, he must die!”, and completely dismiss that Hermione is at fault too. We mention the canaries? “Oh but Ron is dating Lavender so Hermione is allowed to be emotional and express her sadness in a possibly permanently-incapacitating manner”. We remind people Hermione could be cruel too? “Oh but Ron said she was a nightmare once so it’s obviously her defending herself years after he first judged her”. We remind people she’s the one who snapped at him and humiliated him publically in the first place, and that he never meant for her to hear his comment and felt bad when he saw she had? “bUt ShE jUsT wAnTeD tO hAvE fRiEnDs!!!1!”

Yeah, one of them should have been mature enough to stop the cycle of hurting. And guess who’s the most mature one in this case? In HBP it’s certainly not Hermione, who blows a fuse and always makes sure to say things about stuff she knows Ron is insecure about, and Ron takes it without retaliating… at first. However when she publically humiliates him in the classroom, then only does he retaliates and… oh, what a surprise, Hermione cries so the fandom will come to her rescue. As for me, I’ll just look at her with pure heartfelt contempt and zero compassion because I can’t stand hypocrites. Oh, Ron’s being mean this once because you’ve been mean to him for the last weeks? Well someone once said “do unto others as you’d have them do to you”. You’re to blame. Suck it up and take it like the “strong female character” you’re supposed to be: by admitting it’s your fault instead of playing victim.

Some people have told me that I do “Hermione-bashing”. Some people say I should stop bringing Hermione’s flaws up because I’m just “dragging her down to prop Ron up”… Well you know what? Those flaws? They’re real and they’re acknowledgeable and I’ll acknowledge them as loudly as I can and for as long as I want because I’m tired of people excusing her always for her shitty behaviour. Scratch that, I’m sickened of people making excuses for her and acting as though she’s a role model for little girls when she’s one of the worst role models ever. Or would you congratulate your little girl if she told you “I kidnapped some girl who was saying mean things about my friend”? “I disfigured a girl I didn’t like today”? That’s really the kind of little girl you want to have? One who’s so convinced she’s always right that, to defend her opinion, she’ll go as far as to cause someone lasting physical harm? One who holds grudges so badly she would ice out her friend and try to guilt trip them into apologizing when she was the one who was wrong in the first place? Hermione is not my role model nor will she ever be.

Some other people will say that I’m getting way too worked-up over purely fictional characters and… well, you’re not the one who spent an hour writing this so what’s it to you if I waste my time doing stuff I like? :D

I am a Romione shipper, but it’s because I love the message and the symbolism of it. The boy who doesn’t seem to have much going on for him aside for his own witty brain, his courage and his golden heart, who is scared of not being enough for this girl he’s been in love with for so long (as a lifelong arachnophobe, I wouldn’t follow these spiders for anything in the world so I can confirm that Ron was in deep even at twelve/thirteen), was in fact much, much more than enough from the beginning. The “less glamorous one” triumphs over fame, money, or even importance. Had it been Harry and Hermione, it would have meant the rejection of Ron’s pure, heartfelt devotion and love; and that’s one of the reasons why these “fans” who turn him into a grotesque parody of Vernon Dursley (because even Vernon wasn’t a wife beater) to have Hermione ride into the sunset with Harry/Draco/Snape/Pansy/Hagrid/Dumbledore/Aragog/herself/etc. disgust me from the very depths of my soul (also applies to the fans who claim they ship Romione and write fanfics where they have Ron be basically Hermione’s troublesome untrained pet that she keeps because it’s cute when he messes up).

Let Ron have his happy ending unspoiled. Let Ron be in so many ways an ordinary teenage boy who proves he can be extraordinary. Let him get something right on the first try for once, don’t wrong him the way JKR did.

Also let Zacharias Smith be replaced by Luna in the commentator’s stand more often because deep down he still was kind of a jerk.

Ron Weasley deserves more appreciation

There I said it

Brooklyn nine nine and Harry Potter

Harry

Ron

Hermione

Neville book one

Neville book seven

Things that really should have been in the Harry Potter films

-Hermione actually having bushy hair and large front teeth

-Ron making the jokes, not being the joke. 

-Hermione having personality flaws

-Sassy Harry (the ‘pincers’ scene was not enough…)

-Rupert Grint being allowed to play Ron how he was in the books (i.e a three-dimensional character, not a comedic sidekick and walking punch-line)

-No-one else but Hermione fancying Gilderoy Lockhart. 

-Ron’s obvious irritation over Hermione’s said crush on Lockhart

-Winky

-Peeves

-James, Sirius, Remus and Peter being the Marauders, and making the map

-Ron standing up on a broken leg and telling Sirius that if ‘you want to kill Harry, you’ll have to kill us too!’

-Hermione and Ginny not fancying Cedric Diggory (Why was this even put in the films?)

-The actual Quidditch World Cup final

-Ludo Bagman

-Ron being upset with Harry because he thought Harry had done it without him, not just because he was jealous

-Ron not leaving Hermione crying on the staircase at the end of the Yule Ball

-‘calmly’

-SPEW

-Ron not saying ‘I’ll go easy on you’ to Hermione. (Noticing a pattern here?)

-Charlie Weasley

-Ginny Weasley having a personality (Bonnie Wright, you deserved so much better…)

-Hermione and Ron both being horrible to each-other during the whole ‘Lavender’ debacle.

-Four words- ‘Weasley is our king’. 

-Harry and Ginny having a relationship that didn’t make you wonder whether she slipped him love potion. These scenes were so weird to watch…

-Dumbledore’s funeral

-Ron and Hermione comforting each-other during the funeral

-Both Ron and Hermione saying they would stick with Harry on his quest for the Horcruxes (I don’t care if Rupert Grint was ill with swine flu when they were filming, they could have easily edited him in later!)

-RON DANCING WITH HERMIONE AT BILL AND FLEUR’S WEDDING RECEPTION! This was a massive deal for their relationship development, and the film-makers threw it out the window in exchange for a ‘Ron still can’t ask Hermione to dance’ bit!

-Ron leaving because he was worried about his family, and thought Harry didn’t care, not just because he suspected Hermione was snogging Harry (FYI Kloves, this wouldn’t have been necessary if you had written the golden trio as they were in the books, instead of trying to force your own OTP into the scripts)

-Harry and Hermione being barely able to talk without Ron around. And no out-of-nowhere dancing either!

-Dobby being present in more than one film before he returned to die.

-Hermione finally kissing Ron because she realised how much he had matured as a person (he remembered the house-elves when everyone-else forgot), and realised that she couldn’t go another moment without letting him know how she felt. Not because they both go soaked in the chamber of secrets after destroying Hufflepuff’s cup (that scene made no sense, and was so uncomfortable to watch, and I’m a Romione shipper, for crying out loud!) 

-Voldemort’s body not changing into magic dandruff and disappearing into nothing. This misses the point of his death entirely.

-Harry fixing his own wand with the Elder Wand. If he was going to break it, he could have at least fixed his own first.

-Not sure about this one, but did Ron even get a line in the ‘nineteen years later’ scene in the films? Because if he didn’t get to say his ‘I’m extremely famous’ line, I am throwing up on my laptop in rage.

-Also, Ronald Bilius Weasley getting some freaking RESPECT and NOT being made into a figure of fun for non-Potterheads to laugh at!

Inktober #5: CHICKEN

FAT CHICKEN! THAT IS ALL!

A list of reasons I’m divorcing J.K. Rowling and no longer acknowledging anything Past Deathly Hallows

None of these things she attempts to shoehorn in feel even remotely natural to the story, and it’s painfully fucking obvious they’re last-minute ‘gotcha!’ twists ripped off ff.net or ao3. She’s destroying the series by trying to keep it relevant, when it could maintain relevancy all on it’s own by being passed down through families and the fandom all on it’s own.

TBE - tired bitch energy

This is by far the greatest thing I’ve found in a junkyard.

So about a year ago me and my friend Nathan were walking around the “Pick-a-Part” in Clarksville Tennessee… We were searching for car badges and a spoiler to put on his trashy conversion van. While going through the lot we found what is probably the single greatest car to ever drive on any road in the world.

You are looking at… a Dora the Explorer themed gangster car… I’ve seen spongebob themed cars, Newport themed cars, sports team themed cars, but THIS.

trumps them all.

OH BUT IT GETS SO MUCH BETTER!!!!

You see… there has to be a reason that a car like this…

Would end up in the junkyard… SO me and Nathan did some looking around and tried to figure out why…

I still can’t believe the decals on this…. wait…

HOLD ON ONE FUCKING SECOND!

OH!

OH MY FUCKING GOD!

YES! SOMEONE ACTUALLY GOT SHOT WHILE DRIVING THEIR DORA THE EXPLORER CAR IN CLARKSVILLE TENNESSEE!

And THAT, is the single greatest thing I’ve found in a junkyard to this day.

okay this is totally wild but i RECOGNIZE THIS CAR

and i actually have a picture of it from its functioning days - this is dated 2012 -

parked in front of an adult store!

Dark tumblr show me the history of this car

Show me the forbidden Carfax

@charactershoesfic The Cryptid-est of Them All

this is the cryptid car that haunts my dreams at night 

Hermione’s last minute study crunch before exams!

okay I’m gonna reblog this again because last time I didn’t say what I thought about this picture

I LOVE THIS SO MUCH. This makes the universe of Harry Potter so much more magical than I ever dreamed it to be. In the movies and books it’s like an average library with magic books, but this picture shows a Hogwarts alive and brimming with magic. The shelves are impossibly tall because you can enchant stuff to help you reach, so why SHOULDN’T the shelves be huge? I love the girls walking on books like stairs, the cat who got caught on a flying book, Hermione sitting on a book like a chair, everyone’s casual confidence in their unbelievable magic because it’s natural to them. It’s part of their everyday lives. I love the Harry Potter world so much that it hurts, and this picture is gorgeous and makes me relive the magic I have loved since I was little.

OH MY GOSH I JUST REALIZED THEYRE ALL HERMIONE. THE ONE SLEEPING ON THE sHELF OMG

Okay I love this so much.

girls dont mature faster than boys, girls are punished from an early age for the same behaviour that boys are allowed to indulge in well into adulthood

i actually talked about this with a psych professor and she believes that women/young girls have been pushed into responsibility from young ages for so long that its actually triggered an evolutionary effect where young girls are literally developing mentally early in order to cope with the stress.

Local Girls Literally Evolve To Deal With Patriarchal Bullshit

a little Ron and Hermione on a late night

u know what makes me lowkey sad? when someone says ‘i know it seems silly’ before talking about something they clearly care very deeply about bc u know that means someone gave them shit for caring that much about that thing before which is Fucked Up.

or when they’re like “i know i talk too much, just tell me to shut up when u get tired” n they say it as a joke but u can see that they’re uncomfortable, n i get so sad n i wanna fight whoever made them feel like they’re not worth of being heard.

Is it ok if i swear?

yes fish, i will allow you to swear

f

yes go on

im nervous

Hnnnnnnnnnnngg i think im ready now…

fu…

fuc

fuck.

fuck

fuck!

FUCK FUCKFUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKFUCKFUCK FUCKFUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!

calm down buddy

sorry…

DONT LOSE YOUR CONFIDENCE SO FAST NEVER GIVE UP YOUR DREAMS

You know what? You’re right! FUCK!

Hey guys watch this i can do it in cursive too!

Amazing

Thank youuu!!

And thanks to everyone who supported me! I love you guys so much!!!

Romione Fluff Fest is Complete!

Romione Fluff Fest is officially complete! Thank you so much to all of the creators who contributed so many amazing new works. Please keep giving them some love by reblogging and praising them endlessly.

Our generous participants have given us 34 fantastic new stories, and one piece of brilliant art. Below are links to all of the submissions.

Your mods,

@aloemilk (who did most of the work on top of writing three brilliant pieces) 

and

@honouraryweasley12 (who wrote this post, helped here and there, but mostly worked on his own stories since he’s a ridiculously slow writer)

P.S. If you’re looking for more Romione, check out @romionesecretsanta, starting soon.

Art

Fic

I just really wish there was a Harry Potter movie franchise where Ron was respected and Romione build up it deserved. 

Auror Ron Weasley