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[strayworldau]

welcome!!

this is a blog for the Stray World au, created by @bright--paws and @eeveekitti !! we both manage it and create things related to the au :]

i'm virgil / mollie !! i run @/bright--paws and use they/it - and i'm hunter [the @/eeveekitti guy]!! i go by he/it :]

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we also have a toyhouse account dedicated to the au -> https://toyhou.se/strayworldau

if you have any questions about it go there!

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this account is mostly for posting about the au, like art and things - maybe also a story if me or hunter would like!

that's about it :3 we will update this if need be

[theloveinc]

jason todd x reader - really just wanted to say he's the type to start feeding you stuff when you're taking too long to finish. it turned into this. 1.5k+ ish.

(warnings: eating dessert (being spoon fed), pet names, gn!reader, lots of teasing, + sex mentioned! edited but will double check in a bit!)

It’s not that Jason Todd is jealous. It’s not.

He’s been jealous before (plenty, he has to admit). He’ll be jealous again (could be as soon as next week, if not as early as tomorrow, if Dick so much as texts you to ask for Jason’s location). He knows this as well as he knows anything—as well as he knows that he’ll keep kissing you before you drift off to sleep every single night he’s lucky enough to go to bed with you. That Roy will keep being, or doing…whatever it is that makes him so specifically Roy. That B will keep disappointing him, even despite the slow and half-ineffective effort he makes by managing to locate whatever burner number Jason is currently using and leaving unnecessary updates on whatever mission Jason has most recently declined being part of.

It’s something else that itches at him. Something that burns with that same fire, creases his brow low over his eyes, and pulls his mouth into a pout you’ll tease him for later. It’s impatience. It’s the fact that it’s forty-five minutes past three PM (pee em), the latest you said you’d be home by, which means you’re a whole hour and fifteen behind schedule… still sat at the same outdoor café table you ordered lunch at with your best friend…four hours ago.

(Jason hadn’t meant to come. Hadn’t actually been invited. But the thought of French toast, egg scrambles with peppers, and looking at you in your cute date clothes was too much for him not to at least ask.

It's not a real excuse, he knows that. But what can he say, really, when he normally works the graveyard shift at Vigilante Incorporated, full time. Which he’s sure is what you were also thinking when you said yes.)

He likes your best friend. Not because he’s inclined to in any specific way (they’re nice in the way most people are nice, pleasant, if not a little boring and unworthy by his refined standards), but because he likes what you like, and especially things that make you happy.

But Jason also likes being home (on floor in front of the couch, shoulders between your legs while you absentmindedly pick at his hair and he cleans his gun, the both of you pretending not to be invested in whatever adult cartoon Roy most recently recommended. In fact, when you’d promised you’d be home by three, it was so that you could have dinner made by six, a shower together (and maybe just a tiny bit of sex) by eight, so he could head out for his scheduled patrol by nine.

(And be home by five am, so he could kiss you at least one more time before you had to leave for work.)

He could go on.

Not to mention, Jason burns; turns red as rust and Manhattan clam chowder when left in the sun too long (a phenomenon that remains unnamed yet oddly frequent among Gotham natives), which is simply just to say, in this little suburb an hour outside the city (when you aren’t going 90 in the carpool lane on a motorcycle), it’s all finally catching up to him. He can feel the pink on his cheeks.

In front of him, your dessert sweats. Fresh mascarpone cream seeping from between the now leaning, three-tier stack of biscuits, layered with the start of summer’s blackberries and drizzled with syrup. Still, you chatter away, the afternoon sun glinting off the spoon near your plate, as if to call attention to the fact that you haven’t even noticed.

“Eat with me!” it calls, and then as if to mock Jason’s poor sense of humor, “this whole thing is mildly irritating and definitely a waste of your time!”

He can’t take it anymore (you’d responded to the text he’d sent from the men’s room an hour ago, promising you’d pack it up as soon as you finished the food, but he knows now was silly of him to assume you’d be able to get anything in your mouth when you were that wrapped up in talking) and his body moves on its own: he picks up the spoon, leans across the table, and cuts through the top layer of your cakes without any care for decorum…or chivalry. The cream oozes, some of the syrup dripping down the side, and still, you don’t react.

“Honey,” he says, flat and low and grumpy, the only warning you get before he’s holding the bite up, inches from your lips. “Don’t let it melt.”

You blink. Your conversation stutters, falters, then dies completely as your eyes find his, and then the spoon.

“Oh,” you say, a little surprised, a little soft. Then, you smile, and Jason curses himself for ever being annoyed in the first place. “Thanks, baby.”

You take the bite graciously, tugging the spoon from his hands gently to finish off the bite. You wipe the corners of your lips, then lean in to give him the briefest of pecks, one that leaves his mouth sticky and warm with melting sugar. It’s almost enough to distract him from the fact he’s trying to lure you home… but you’re pulling away before he even has the time to fully close his eyes and enjoy it (as much as he’s eager to) and the spoon is set down in it’s original spot.

“Sorry,” you giggle to your friend, though your embarrassment is only half genuine, much to his relief.

He has to resist the urge to groan. And to make a sour face. And to express his frustration by scooping up a wad of whip cream and swiping it across your cheek (which is what he’d do if you were in private, not that he even needs the excuse to lick sweetness right off your face).

He gives it two minutes before he’s pressing another bite your way. Again, there’s no warning, no teasing, no words before there’s a heaping spoon of blackberries and cream mere centimeters from your mouth and his deep, blue eyes are narrowed in that particular, Jason Todd way, telling you: either you eat this, or… you eat this.

He thinks, at the very least, you’re finally picking up on the hint, as when you accept the bite, you roll your eyes and give him a playful glare. Jason doesn’t let you escape with the spoon however, this time pulling it from your mouth to let it rest between his forefingers as a clear reminder: you are going to finish this dessert, say goodbye, and go home… even if he has to be by his hand that it happens.

If you were a much more cruel partner than the one that you are, you’d offer back something biting, tease Jason, make a show of savoring the treat, and maybe even share a taste by exchanging tongue with him (as you sometimes do when you’re alone and eating something sweet)… instead, however, you offer him your hand under the table, fingers brushing the topside of his knuckles in a quiet, deliberate, and (most importantly) sweet way he will never admit makes him tender immediately.

Interlinked, your thumb starts to smooth over the scars that wrap around his skin, soothing any raw scabs in a wordless apology and a promise all at once. You don’t need to say anything, even though you still can’t, not really, not unless you want risk offending your friend. He knows you’ll apologize to him later, the way you always save the more intimate and vulnerable parts of your relationship, the parts you’re both still learning how to navigate, for when you’re alone together.

Jason exhales, something caught between relief and satisfied resignation. He’s happy to wait now that he knows he won’t really have to, so long as you let him keep this up.

You finish dessert slowly but obediently, taking the bites when he offers them, unabashedly disregarding the awkwardness that begins to fester without even needing to end your conversation. Though polite enough not to comment (as you’ve probably already mentioned to them Jason’s tendencies as a partner on the days he’s not desperate enough to tag along), your friend seems to pick up on the shift too, wrapping up the conversation with a glance at their phone and money for their portion and a tip passed your way. They excuse themselves with a hug and a cheerful goodbye that Jason barely manages to acknowledge in kind (though he does, again, for your sake).

Once they’re gone, the sudden silence is filled by the scraping of the fork against the soggy crumbs of your plate. Jason feeds you the spoon of syrup and mush one last time, and you can help but to giggle, a hand over your mouth as you chew, finally acknowledging the impatience that led to this whole scheme.

“Somewhere you trying to go, handsome?”

He scoffs lightly, trying but failing to seem unbothered when he begins roughly stacking your plates, “we have plans, might I remind you?”

“Oh?” you peer at him, failing to hide the sarcasm in your voice, “I had no idea. Really.”

“You said we’d be home,” he emphasizes with his dark eyebrows raised, “by three. Guess what? It’s four.”

(Jason is more of a homebody than he likes to admit, or at least, a stickler for getting his own way, which right now, includes taking both of your bodies home.)

You smile at him for real this time—genuinely, warmly, in a way that reaches something sore and soft behind his ribs.

“Yeah,” you peer at him, “But snuggling doesn’t exactly prompt rushing, does it?”

He gives you his flattest look, unamused, and even you have to admit, justified.

“My poor baby,” you laugh, standing and brushing crumbs from your clothes before reaching to gently brush Jason’s bangs out of his eyes. “I’m teasing. Let’s go snuggle.”

He ignores the sappy jab (really, the truth) and stands, too. He throws down a fat wad on cash on the check and reaches for your bag before you can, slinging it over his shoulder. You pull on the strap (see: attempt to make him relinquish the needless favor), but he’s already stomping back to his bike before you can even start another silly spat.

It’s not that Jason is jealous. It’s not.

He just wants you home—even if it means he has to feed you cake to get you there.

[captaincrusher]

I am having too much fun with the Star Trek character wheel. So, new game.

You are a captain in need of a crew. Spin the wheel 3 times. Which one of these 3 do you assign as your number one, your pilot and your science officer?

[ecoterrorist-katara]

Why I feel like Ka/taang is one-sided, despite textual evidence 

ATLA does try to convince us that Katara has romantic feelings for Aang. For example: she seems thoughtful when she realizes that Aang is a powerful bender; she’s offended that he didn’t want to kiss her in the Cave of Two Lovers; she gets jealous when Sokka says On Ji and Aang look good together.

So…what’s wrong with anti-Kataangers? Do we just lack media comprehension? 

To be clear, on their own, these gestures can indicate romantic interest. But at the same time, we have stuff like “Aang is a sweet little guy, like Momo.” We have her ambivalent facial expression after he kisses her before the eclipse, and her hedging during Ember Island Players, and her anger when he kisses her anyway. In the context of these conflicting cues, Katara’s possibly romantic reactions can absolutely be interpreted in a different way, because: 

Acknowledging a friend as a potential romantic interest is not the same as actually being romantically interested in them. (Imo this is something young women struggle with, due to a combination of romance-centrism and heteronormativity that make women feel like they should be in romantic relationships, and that boys and girls who share intimate and deep feelings for one another must be romantically into each other) 

Wanting someone to find you desirable is not the same as desiring that person. (Which is something a lot of women, especially young women, struggle with. Remember all the discourse around Cat Person back in 2017?) 

Being jealous when someone flirts with your friend is not the same as wanting to be with your friend. (Especially when you see your friends as family, or if you’re accustomed to a specific type of devotion from that friend. It is jealousy, and it is possessiveness, but it doesn’t always arise from romantic feelings) 

Growing up in a patriarchal society means that your desires are always filtered through what men want from you, sometimes in an abstract male gaze-y way, and sometimes in a very visceral and interpersonal way when a boy wants you specifically. And Katara’s reactions are just that — reactions. Reactions to what other people — including Aunt Wu, Sokka, Aang himself — have insinuated about her and Aang. She’s not really proactive in her interest in Aang: we don’t really see Aang, romantically, from Katara’s POV. Under the framework of “Katara is reacting to a romantic prospect she’s kind of uncertain about,” it is completely plausible — and indeed likely — that she would sometimes act in ways that indicate romantic interest, in addition to moments where she indicates the opposite. 

Ka/taang shippers often bring up other evidence, like Katara’s despair when Azula hits Aang with lightning, or how protective she is of him when Zuko joins the Gaang. The thing is, these pieces of evidence aren’t necessarily indicative of romantic love. The fact that Katara genuinely loves Aang makes the whole thing more complicated, not less, because — especially at that age, especially when Aang is twelve years old and grew up in a sex-segregated society of monks — it is really difficult to tell the difference between platonic love and romantic love. Their mutual devotion is layered and complex yet straightforward in its sincerity. What was not straightforward, until the last five minutes of the show, is whether this devotion on Katara’s end is romantic. The romantic arc for Katara and Aang is not really an arc, as Sneezy discusses in this classic ZK video. Katara actually becomes more conflicted over time and we never see an event that clarifies her feelings. She seems more interested in him in The Headband than on the Day of the Black Sun, and she has never been more hostile to his romantic overtures than in the penultimate episode. 

And in light of this, it’s pretty easy for fans to fill in the blanks with a different interpretation: maybe Katara’s weird expression after their kiss at the invasion means she didn’t enjoy it; maybe the kiss made her realize that she doesn’t actually feel that way about Aang; maybe against her will and her better judgement, she’s developing feelings for another person, a person who hurt her and whom she fervently tried to hate until he pulled off what is in my opinion the greatest grovel of all time in the form of a life-changing field trip. Maybe. Am I saying that Zutara has more romantic interactions than Ka/taang? Of course not. But ironically, the lack of romantic interactions means that it’s not inherently one-sided, the way Ka/taang became in the latter half of season 3.

I’m not arguing that Katara’s unequivocally not into Aang. Obviously the text declares that she is, because they get married and have kids. But I am saying that there’s a very good reason that so many people, especially women, see Katara’s interest in Aang as ambiguous. It’s not because we can’t pick up “subtle” hints of growing affection. It’s because we know not all affection is romantic, and it’s really easy for someone else’s insistent romantic intentions to muddle what you want.

P.S. I first started thinking about these topics (platonic vs romantic love, desiring someone vs wanting to be desired, etc) in the context of compulsory heterosexuality, a term describing how queer women contort themselves into relationships with men even if they’re not really into men. I saw a post a few days ago joking about why so many queer women seem to be into Zutara. I wonder if part of the reason is because as queer women, we are very sensitive to the ways in which we can talk ourselves into wanting things we don’t actually want, and Katara’s romantic interest in Aang can be easily seen that way. 

[tele-mesmerism]

127/300 squares!

i miscounted at some point bc i was actually at 104 i guess! im so excited & rly happy with how it looks now, the color transitions are smoother in most places and with this im able to see parts i wanna work on more :)

ive missed only one daily square since i started in mid january. thank you everyone whos following along!

previous check in / daily squares

[the-pea-and-the-sun]

fellas is it gay

[sanzodaily]

day 21 | he/him pussy

[bxsmxx]

clancy save me clancy save me clancy save me clancy save me clancy save me clancy save me clancy save me clancy save me clancy save me clancy save me clancy save me clancy save me

[aefensteorrra]

a weekend in Belgium where I spoke French to everyone I spoke to in Brussels and Dutch in Bruges did a lot for my confidence in terms of feeling a lot more self-assured, which is something I've struggled a lot with lately (constantly second guessing myself and seeking reassurance from others). I am capable and I can do things that feel scary.

[thelazybooknook]

Day fouuuuurrrrr!

let's just act like they're no doubt (DOUBT REFERENCE???) alive after canon. Because they will be! Or else I'm finding Tyler Joseph's home and peacefully protesting outside 🥰

[dustykneed]

Hello! Random whipper snipper! Share a WIP of your work!

ooh, with pleasure. six the musical araleyn fanart? in the year 2k24? more likely than you think xDD

i realize this looks finished, but technically i'm still deciding whether to add a background or not lol. still, for the sake of sharing a proper WIP, here's a line or two from an araleyn brainworm WIP that i started reworking yesterday (mild tw for religious guilt and period-typical internalized homophobia from aragon's pov):

She remembers sharing her bed with Anne at Henry's behest, remembers the nights of tossing and turning and trying not to think about Anne asleep next to her-- remembers waking up to dark hair spilling across her pillow and the press of blood-warm bosoms against her own, softer than sin, as hot as the Devil, remembers lying still as death, mouthing prayers into the heat of Anne's neck like an act of penance.

[honeythegoat]

When is the day care adventure guys

We got an ants on the screen situation going on but I'll fix it later when(if) I go back to draw the others

[fisheito]

event silhouettes are having a teehee moment and i am nonebeef'd about it ~(￣▽￣)~

[nombitenary]

How’s the new year treating you?

Him and me both.

[monstersinthecosmos]

sometimes I read really great meta about the ways marius preys on people but I would hate to make OP uncomfortable if I act too excited about it when i reblog it into my perv blog 😂

[simcardiac-arrested]

growing up is like, every single thing you thought would be so complicated and unmanageable and unthinkably difficult turns out to be, actually, pretty simple. and every single thing you thought was so simple and easy to understand and how come adults don’t get this turns out to be painfully hard to deal with, to actually understand and internalize.

the thing you thought you had all figured out—somehow, you forget the right way to handle it. the thing you thought would dictate the course of your entire life, the thing you thought would ruin you forever—you move on in 2 months. the worst thing to ever happen to you hasn’t caught up yet. maybe it never will. maybe life shouldn’t be based on which worst thing happens when.

a hobby you thought would be a silly one-off becomes an all-time favorite. a genre you could never see yourself getting into can offer you the best story you’ve ever experienced. an inherent belief you thought you’d never budge on starts getting cracks. a person you’ve only ever seen in passing and had short conversations with can become your closest three, five, seven years later.

everything you thought about yourself can turn out to be wrong. you’ll get better in ways you didn’t know you could. you’ll slip and fall just as much, get new scrapes along the way as you survive yet another mess of a job, a situation, a relationship. it might be fear, or it might be happiness when you’ll look at yourself in the mirror and not recognize who it is.

so yeah, i guess, if i had to describe what growing up feels like, i could say i’m closer to figuring my life out, or i’m even more lost than before, or that it’s like a rebirth, i’m becoming a new person, i’m finally getting to know myself, or the many, many other things people say when you ask them.

and they’re all right, of course—the future you dreamed for yourself at age 12 is no longer there to guide you anymore, but sometimes it does feel like you see things clearer, like the pieces occasionally click in your head even if you can never comprehend the puzzle. you’re still who you were at your core, but you’re also starting to peel back the layers, to find such things that you never even imagined could be you.

so yeah, i guess, growing up is all of those things and more. it never stops to wait for you to realize it’s happening. it’s changing, changing in a way you can never anticipate, changing in a way that will simultaneously ache deeply and make you the happiest you’ve ever been. it’s the most complex, most intricate experience a human could have.

but, like most complicated things, it’s also actually pretty simple.

i mean—it’s just plain fun, isn’t it?