#a lovely subtle touch

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

3x3 | 7x1

[skrunksthatwunk]

landing

[bisexualcherdegre]

D:BH Rarepairsweek 7 | @dbhrarepairs

Day 4 - Kara/Luther

[seriousturd]

Little doodle comic of a BMB scene engraved in my heart ("companion" comic over here <3)

Close up of the mini Keiths under the cut:

[thisghosts-obsessions-again]

The contrast between A and N playthrough is like night and day. Where in on one side, both characters are emotionally constipated and the other is just two adoringly disgusting couple flirting shamelessly in broad daylight without necessarily yet working on solidifying the relationship long-term (I mean this lovingly). Anon was right! N's playthrough is therapeutic AF but unless they start accepting/coming to terms with their darker side it's not really going to pan out long-term mate. Like, there's only so much you can do in the honeymoon phase friend.

[clarabowmp3]

I’m sorry I genuinely cannotttttt understand how some ppl bash joe even in a joking manner. Like the poor guy did nothing wrong (that we know of) but so many ppl are making such snide remarks by comparing him to Travis which is not only condescending but actually kind of mean! HELLO did we listen to the same reputation album??? You can’t praise Travis for letting Taylor bejeweled and then rip joe to shreds in the same breath when joe was the one there for her in a clearly difficult and trying time in her life

[maxescheibechlinichacheli]

Jae Won teaching manhandling Ji Hyun.

[back-in-a-bit]

wow i'm just looking at roy's thought process in the lead up to this call:

he's just gotten a ridiculous amount of flowers from the armstrong intelligence agent and he needs to do something with them, and his mind immediately goes "give them to riza".

like, bradley JUST called this man's ass out for wearing his heart on his sleeve and yet he just. keeps simping.

(you know what that is folks? king shit.)

(maybe he thought since he's not her boss right now he could get away with it. high key obsessed by that manga panel in the 'selim b is homunculus' convo where roy asks her out and riza shoots him down not having a CLUE that's what he's doing:

man's REALLY trying to shoot his shot pray for him y'all.)

and not only does roy decide to give her the flowers he decides to start off the call doing a goofy little bit.

like, my precious subordinate must be super stressed working under wrath! i know, i'll bring her some flowers and also use them as an excuse to check in on her and i'll ALSO honk my clown nose to get her to laugh or roll her eyes fondly at me! yes boyfriend of the year right here

i repeat, roy knows riza's going through a tough time and his game plan is to bring her flowers and try and make her laugh.

i'm frankly amazed these two weren't written up for fraternization before this. only the bad guys ever bring it up and no-one else ever calls them out on it in-universe but these two are NOT subtle.

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

Tedbecca + Casual Touching 

[skrunksthatwunk]

kinda thinking about how the women who serve as maternal figures/raise kids in yyh are never quite ready for it. genkai's an arguable exception, but like.. atsuko had yusuke at 15, shizuru's basically in charge of kazuma full time in her early 20s/late teens (depending on version) with very very absent parents, and even shiori is given a kid she wasn't expecting, in the form of an old, old demon rather than like. a regular, blank slate ass human baby. and although shiori seems to do quite well with kurama, kurama can never be honest with shiori about who he is, or much of what he's seen. if he was, it'd probably make things far more complicated and overwhelming. atsuko, no matter how much she cares for yusuke, Could Not Have Been and thus wasn't ready to have him at 15. her attempts to make the most of that situation have had middling success at best. shizuru has also been placed into a parental role. we don't really know how long she's been raising kuwabara, but that's.. probably still parentification anyway. she shouldn't have to do that, and she shouldn't have to do that so young. and i think some of her coarseness with kuwa is out of frustration with her own inexperience + inadequacy + uncertainty, his not cooperating, and their parents for putting this on her in the first place. the ones who know the full extent of their situation grow desperate and it squeaks out in unpleasant ways, and the one who seems unbothered by it is the only one who has no idea that she's in way over her head. and i mean. ok. gonna preface this by saying keiko is NOT yusuke's mom in any sense of the word. but she does take care of him in a way atsuko couldn't manage to. she's often looking after him and cleaning up after his messes and stuff. she takes him on as a responsibility, and that is, in a way, a caretaker role. not to say that it SHOULD be her responsibility, but it's how she ends up being.

and when the stress of trying to make someone take care of themselves or be kind or good or Whatever goes awry, again, the violence and arguing and distance and ugliness of caring for someone reveals itself.

and i wonder about that. for a series dedicated to physical fighting as a form of communication, what does it say that this extends to the complicated, quietly desperate situations of so many of the women/girls it depicts, whom our more central characters were shaped and raised by?

hell, even hiei touches on this, because hina loved hiei, but there was no way she was prepared for him, obviously, nor for the pain of losing him. rui (whom i also see as a sort of caretaker figure to hiei, inasmuch as either of them were caretakers) literally throws him off a cliff because she couldn't face down the village elders, and out of some mixture of care for hina and, likely, fear for her own survival. and the guilt and pain of that killed hina and deeply wounded rui.

it's like motherhood, this thing that's so often treated as sacred and beautiful, is a kind of stitched up, painful, eggshell-walking thing that hurts parent and child and it's just. oughh

[moe-broey]

Smartass guy with a flat affect vs guy who almost always sounds like it's joking and likes to play dumb. Neither immune to the urge to over-explain themselves in earnest. Fight.

And now I'M gonna over-explain myself 😤😤😤😤😤 Because this piece captures like. Some headcanons of mine that are so precious to me, and SO much. Of the Moefonse dynamic and friendship... the heart of how their back and forths work.

But first close-ups/text descriptions for easier reading!

From the very start, Alfonse is playing. That's his intention. To say something he knows will get a good response out of Moe. But his delivery is either too dry and flat or too genuine. He's extremely subtle, and his humor doesn't tend to land because of that.

Meanwhile, Moe can be unaware... generally. But just as much, if not more, it's deeply attentive towards the things it cares about. It takes these things SO seriously. Moe... really hates being misunderstood. It struggles with empathy, and its sense of compassion is entirely self-centered. Which seems unrelated, but all of these things contribute to it making a joke, and then feeling a need to immediately explain the joke. Just to make sure we're all on the same page, here. Nobody is left out.

So just. Joke (passed!) + Joke (also passed!) into Joke (passed, carrying on the bit), into Worry (Joke check: failed.) into Worry/Reassurance (You're my dear friend and I love you. No need to worry) into Understanding/Reassurance (yeah that WAS funny). Which, as a side, really flatters Alfonse... that's not something he gets often. He gets it A Lot from Moe though LMFAO

AND ... FINALLY..... FINAL TIDBIT OF CHARACTERIZATION

This doodle was closer to what the final panel was supposed to be (under the thought bubble), but I got distracted and forgor..... but it has essential characterization.... honestly both drawings do. So it's fine LMFAOOO

But it is So important. That neither of them are acting on their feelings. And it is sooooo important. That they're extremely verbally affectionate with each other anyway. And it all comes full circle, to the top caption. Moe sounds like it's joking here. But it is SO genuine. Also Moe might as well have said "I want you, like carnally" with that. Endlessly ambiguous guy. And for better or worse, Alfonse is built the Exact Same Way. 🧍

Oh yeah and. The. Posts. That inspired this LMFAOOO

They're both doing this. Btw.

[twistedlovelines]

waugh...touch averse reader my dearly beloved

[evadneares]

Roland Barthes, "Contacts"

[the-greatest-magic-of-all]

Consider: To salvage the alliance between the Goblin and Seelie courts that was jeopardized when Major K.P. Hob ran off with the Master of Ceremonies, The Lord and Lady offer up their next most eligible bachelor, Riz Gukgak, son of the late Sir Pok. And the Seelie Court (still feeling a bit spurned) offers up their least marriageable Earl, The Right Honourable Fabian A. Seacaster.

The Earl is a single Fey in possession of a great fortune and Riz, Esquire is well... not. But the Gukgaks are the most suitable (in non-Goblin standards) family in the Goblin Court, and if Fabian were to settle down with a stable spouse, then his ailing reputation would stand a chance to recover. Even if that spouse is nothing more than a humble journalist keeping the only Goblin newspaper alive.

Funnily enough, unbeknownst to the political machinations of either side, the two of them are some of the best of friends, and unbeknownst to each other, both young Fey have a deep affection for the other.

[theheadlessgroom]

@beatingheart-bride

"O-Oh, yes, I'll be fine, thank you," Susannah smiled sincerely at him, her cheeks warming at the warmth of his tone, the compassion in his eyes: When was the last time someone cared that she made it home safe? It felt like eternity since then, but all that time, all the loneliness...it just seemed to fade away in his presence.

She thought that would be the end of that. The buck stops here: They would bid each other good night, and that aside from her completing his order and giving it to him, they would never see each other again. She figured tonight was a one-off, a fluke. He merely wanted to check in after the night before, just to put his mind at ease, and then they would part ways forever, and she would look back on the short time she spent with him fondly.

But in that moment, she decided this would not be the end.

"U-Unless...y-you'd like to come in..."

It was a silly, simple offer, one she was sure he wouldn't really take her up on...he probably had better places to be than sitting in her little kitchen, drinking tea or coffee or something like that and continuing to talk, the way they did the night before...

...but if he did accept (and a small part of her, very secretly, hoped that he would), she wouldn't object in the slightest.