#sort of gustholomule

[secretly-of-course]

Requested by Anon, Steve gets some saddle bags for his bike and Mattholomule is not impressed. This is not what you asked for...sorry not sorry hehe

(context here and here)

10 minutes later...

Not gonna lie besties I had to trace that stupid bike!

Steve's photo by itself + original meme beneath the cut!

[nicodrawings]

Some more toh stuff

[sakebytheriver]

This was done specifically for me, because since day one(1) I have been headcanoning Gus as gay and now I have canon confirmation, can't wait for the Gustholomule kiss to solidify it 😁

[rocksandmirrors]

no but stop the last fanart i've reblogged got me thinking (and it's a rare occurrence, so bear with me)

Perry would fucking love Mattholomule. at first he'd be a little suspicious since he used to be a troublemaker, but 1 he'd quickly see past that 2 he'd notice how happy Gus is with him like yeah Matt is cringe, and he looks like he was born in a trashcan, but he's still just a little kid and Perry got his Protective Dad Mode™ activated. like what do you mean you've worked multiple jobs while you were 13 and still in school?? excuse me, you used to be bullied??? that won't do. sit down, son, i'll get you something to drink

bonus: Perry is convinced Gus and Matt are together and gives them The Talk one day and Gus goes "dad. dad we're not even dating. what are you talking about. dad."

[bookiedoodles]

Thoughts on Gustholomule? And how if Gus and Mattholomule started dating he'd probably get a not all that threatening "Don't hurt Gus" talk from Hunter when in reality Willow is the one who'd come after him

I love Gustholomule, but not cause I think it’s really cute or anything. Gustholomule is just REALLY FUNNY to me. Like… idk how to explain it but it seems almost more “real” to me? It’s not some super cute story with them falling in love and everything is all magical. Like they’re just two dudes that mess around and talk shit to each other and find out that they may like each other more than just friends and they’re like “ah shit, it had to be that jerk???” And that’s HILARIOUS to me.

Matty ABSOLUTELY falls first, and it makes him want to eat dirt. When Gus realizes, he just laughs. Not in a cute “hehe omg a crush ❤️” way oh my GOD no. He laughs because GOD his taste is SO AWFUL that it’s funny.

Hunter LOVES Gus. That is his little brother and he would twist the world upside down and backwards for that kid. So when he finds out that Gus has feelings (??? He thinks he has feelings but all Gus does is talk shit about this kid and Hunter could NEVER even THINK to do something so often to Willow) for Matty, he knows that a talk needs to happen. And after the two actually end up together, Hunter makes sure to pull the other kid aside. It starts off very chill and nice, with a “I’m happy for you two and I hope everything between you goes well” but suddenly it ends with an “I swear to god if you ever even THINK about hurting his feelings I will not hesitate to send Willow your way” and that alone strikes so much fear into Matt’s soul.

Anyways they get married and the wedding ends with the two of them creating a whole food fight with the wedding cake.

[kraviolis]

on paper gustholomule is basically just mountain dew but in my head its a sweet sparkling red wine with notes of cherries and oak

[minty-and-fresh]

[sapphic--kiwi]

gustholomule week day 7: future

grandpa perry meeting his brand new granddaughter 💕 sort of a continuation of my art and fic from last year

[kindofsortofmaybe]

The Shirt

A Gustholomule Ficlet

(jesus christ don’t ask. don’t even read this one if you can help it. the discord server made me do it i swear)

-

_luzura: hey matt

_luzura: you like

_luzura: like dudes, right?

president.matt: what part of the everything about me would make you think i don’t

_luzura: you got me there!

_luzura: i have the perfect shirt for you

-

“Hey, professor,” Matt crooned, leaning against the doorway of Gus’s classroom. Gus cringed, his face falling into a deadpan, and turned to look at his boyfriend. His straight face quickly morphed into a look of—well, of what he wasn’t sure, but one look at Matt cause him to scrunch up his nose and furrow his brow.

“Mattholomule Tholomule—“

“Not my name.”

“—what are you wearing.”

Gus had spent plenty of time in the human realm. Since his middle school days of wondering at human culture from afar, he had learned a thing or two. He even had his own human realm device (an eye-phone, Luz had called it when she gave it to him). He knew plenty about fandoms and shipping and fanfiction—hell, they had that sort of thing on the Boiling Isles. But they didn’t have all of the same words for it. And Matt’s shirt, currently wrinkled and sweat-stained from a long day at work, had a very specific human realm word on it. Yaoi, it read.

Matt smirked. “Luz gave it to me. What, you don’t like it?” He struck a pose, making Gus cringe again. Matt cackled at Gus’s reaction.

“Yeah, she said you would hate it. So obviously I had to have it. Anyway,” Matt moved from the doorway, closer to Gus, “I brought you a snack. Wanna head back to yours and hang for a bit?”

“You are not wearing that thing for more than thirty seconds in my house. Besides, you’re gross. You can come over only if you shower and let me wash that thing.” Gus was already formulating his plan: he could wash it and hope Matt would forget to take it home, and Gus could be rid of it before Matt remembered he left it.

(In all honesty, the shirt was kind of funny, and the dark blue color suited Matt. Gus didn’t really hate it. But what was their relationship if not back-and-forth antagonization?)

Matt sighed and rolled his eyes at Gus’s request. “Fine. But only because I like you, Augustus.” Offering a crooked grin, he snagged Gus’s pinky with his own.

“Ew, dude. Gross.”

-

Gus put Matt’s horrible shirt in with a load of laundry as soon as his boyfriend was in the shower, setting out some of his own clothes for Matt to change into. (Strangely, laundry was one thing Earth and the Boiling Isles did relatively similarly, though while Luz put her clothes in a “washing machine,” Gus tossed his in the laundry tree that grew in the backyard.)

And, according to Gus’s plan, Matt forgot all about the shirt. But unfortunately, so did Gus.

In the Porter household, it was Gus’s job to gather the dirty clothes and put them in the tree; it was Perry’s job to take them out and fold them. So as Perry folded their clothes that night, he paid no mind to the dark blue shirt with a large-print word on it.

Surely one of Gus’s bands, he thought, or one of his CB shows, and he paid it little mind.

But though he assumed it was his son’s, it wasn’t uncommon for the Porter men to share clothes. So when Perry reached for a t-shirt the next morning, grabbing anything from the pile of folded clothes to throw on before going downstairs for breakfast, he didn’t think twice when the shirt he grabbed was one of Gus’s.

Gus was already downstairs, eating bloodered toast and reading something on his scroll. He looked up at his father came down the stairs, did a double-take, and promptly choked on the food in his mouth. Perry looked down at himself, confused.

“What, do I have something on my shirt?”

“No—well—rggch,” Gus spluttered and choked, beating his chest to clear his esophagus. “It’s just, uh, that’s Matt’s shirt, and, uh…”

“Oh! Oh, sorry, kiddo. I thought it was yours, one of your bands or something. You’re into so much weird stuff, Yah-oy seemed right up your alley.”

Gus looked like he was going to choke again. “It’s not Yah-oy, Dad, it’s pronounced— never mind. Just— just make sure you change before you leave the house, okay?”

“Why?” Perry cocked and eyebrow as he sat down across from his son. “Is it something… inappropriate?”

“No! No, Titan, I mean, not really, it’s just…”

“Just what, Augustus?”

“It just means, like… gay. Like, men liking men.” Gus looked like he wanted to melt into the floor.

“Oh!” Perry laughed loudly. “Well, then I should be allowed to wear it! I’ve done my fair share of man-liking!”

“Nope, that’s it, I’m out! I do not need to hear about your man-liking or woman-liking or any sort of liking you’ve done!” Gus practically jumped up from the table and sped to the stairs. “Keep it, for all I care! I never want to see that thing again!”

Perry chuckled and shook his head, snagging Gus’s unfinished toast off his plate. I have a weird kid, he thought.

[disco-girl]

gustholomule with starter line 4 :stare:

May have got a bit carried away with this one 🫣

Send me a prompt!

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Gus said, sorting through the rubble of what still remained of his room. A lot of buildings had been completely demolished during the Collector’s reign, so he was just glad that his house was salvageable, even though it would be a lot of work to repair.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Matt responded, raising an eyebrow. He cast a spell circle to reconstruct one of Augustus’ bookshelves.

Gus took a stack of singed books and threw them into the trash bin with a sigh. “Yeah, but I’m sure there are a lot of other things you could be doing. A lot of other people who need help.”

“Yeah but those other people aren’t—“ Matt seemed to catch himself mid-sentence and freeze, tensing his shoulders.

“Aren’t what?” Gus looked at him quizzically.

“—Aren’t friends with the human who saved our asses from Belos and the Collector.” Matt recovered quickly.

“Oh.” Gus felt a pang of disappointment strike him and he suddenly felt very small. After a few beats of silence, he finally spoke up again. “If that’s the only reason you’re here, then you should leave. I don’t need your help.”

Matt’s face fell. “No, that’s not what I meant. I just…hey, what is that?” he asked, pointing at something near Augustus’ feet. Gus looked down and grabbed it in one motion.

“It’s nothing!” he said, swiftly hiding it behind his back.

Matt crossed his arms. “I’m not stupid, Augustus.”

Gus sighed, removing his arm from behind his back to reveal what he had tried to hide. Matt recognized it immediately as one of the human artifacts that he had crafted when he was still trying to win over the H.A.S. He walked over and picked it up, turning it over in his hands. It was just a rock that he’d drawn a “human” skull onto.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“I know, I know, it’s weird that I kept them because we weren’t friends or anything. I mean, not that we’re friends now—

“We aren’t?”

Augustus gaped at him. “I don’t know? I thought we were, but then…” he took a seat on the half of his bed that still remained, “after we got back from the human realm, I wasn’t sure anymore.”

Matt knelt down next to him. “Why would you think that?”

“Because the first thing you did when you saw me again was call me a loser and then right after that I found out that I didn’t even know your real name?”

“C’mon, you gotta admit that was funny,” Matt said, looking up at him with a crooked smile before looking away again. “Look, I’m not really good at this stuff. It’s just that you were gone and everything changed overnight and then suddenly I had all these kids looking to me to protect them. And it’s not like I didn’t think about…” Matt’s voice began to waiver and he paused to suck in a breath. “You know, before. But I couldn’t think about it too much or I wouldn’t have been able to keep going.”

“Oh?” Gus leaned forward, hanging onto every word.

“And then when you came back, I guess it was easier to just pretend you’d never left. Because I was scared that I was gonna lose you again.” As soon as the words slipped out of his mouth, Matt seemed to realize what he said and his eyes widened. “I mean—I was scared that Luz would…be weird about it.”

“I’m not stupid, Mattholomule,” Gus said, unable to hide the sly smile on his face.

Matt rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, don’t tell anybody that I got all mushy for a minute. Don’t want people to think I’ve gone soft.” He looked down at the object in his hand again. “That’s not what I meant, by the way. I didn’t think it was weird that you kept them because we weren’t friends yet. I thought it was weird that you kept them because they’re trash. They’re not worth holding onto.”

“I don’t think they’re trash,” Gus said, reaching over and grabbing the rock, “they’re special to me because they remind me of how we met.”

Matt smiled up at him, showing his chipped tooth. “Wow, I didn’t know you were so obsessed with me.”

Augustus frowned and kicked him playfully with his foot. They both sat in comfortable silence for a minute.

“Hey, Matt?”

“Yeah?”

“I missed you too.”

[clovariia]

day 2 of gustholomule week 2023 on twitter: sports

i’ve always joked about how the song “i don’t dance” from high school musical 2 reminds me of gustholomule and how gus got matt into illusions, so i finally decided to draw something inspired by it!

(i’ve put the frame from the movie that i sort of referenced under the cut)

tbh this ended up looking nothing like an actual redraw of the original movie frame, but that’s okay LMAO

[angelcloves]

may i request gustholomule royal au with prince!gus ? im thinking some sort of masquerade ball type of beat. or just a normal ball that works too hehe. the vibes are enemies to/and lovers in my head but u can do whatever vibes u please :)

click thru for collab announcement <3

[blackyote]

It’s been approximately ten hours and twelve minutes since Mattholomule did the bravest thing he’s ever done. Ten hours since he migrated to the floor of his best friend’s bedroom, letting a confession get teased out of him like some beleaguered murder suspect (“Well, there might be someone I like…”), seeing the realization dawn in those big gray eyes as the someone was described in increasing detail. Ten hours since he grabbed a fistful of shirt and pressed a chaste, clumsy kiss to lips softer than his own. Ten hours since he muttered an expletive and grabbed his things, ready to bolt out the door, only for his friend to make him stop. Ten hours since…

“Ooh, loverboy!”

…Matt had created a monster.

It’s not like the streets were quiet that morning, but the greeting cut through the hubbub, nearly making him jump out of his hoodie.

Why would that voice be here, now? Matt knew Gus worked at the embassy every other weekend, but he always commuted on his little stick. He expected to have the day at least to sort through these feelings before they came face to face again.

Choking down his panic, Matt shot a glare over his shoulder… and was blinded by the brightest smile he had ever seen.

“I’m not answering to that.” It was easy to protest, despite the warmth blossoming in his chest. A routine as well-worn as his clothing.

Gus was undeterred, however, still beaming at him from a few paces behind. He clapped his cheeks in mock contrition, going, “Apologies! I thought you were my boyfriend Mattholomule, but I guess you must be some other disheveled, brooding hunk.”

Matt growled and yanked the drawstrings of his hoodie tight, trying to disappear inside it. “This was a mistake. I take it back.”

“Too late, Matty. The truth is out.” Gus was right behind him now, taking advantage of the few inches he had on his friend to drape arms over Matt’s shoulders, making him stumble off-balance. Gus’ voice went singsongy. “You liiiike me. Because I’m so handsome and amazing.”

Matt tried to shove him off, to no avail. “I never said that,” he was quick to correct, loosening the hood to better aim his accusing stare. “That’s slander, Augustus."

Still clinging, Gus tapped a finger to his cheek. “You’re right. I believe your exact words were ‘smart, funny, and talented.’”

His ears burned, shoulders bunching. “Yeah, so?” Matt regretted the brusque reply as soon as it slipped out, but it was too late. Gus untangled himself, brow furrowed in confusion.

“Everything alright?”

Matt heaved a sigh, rubbing his face. “Yeah. Sorry. It’s just… a lot, you know?”

An incredulous look. “Matt. You kissed me.”

“I know! I know.”

Gus could never hide his feelings. The hurt—the fear—was plain. “Do you regret it?”

He didn’t have to think about that one. “No!” After a beat, he repeated, softer, “No. I’ve just… never done this before.”

“This,” Gus echoed, and brushed the back of his hand against Matt’s. “So… are we, like, official now?”

Matt let himself drift closer, increasing the contact, wondering at how his stomach fluttered when this was nothing new. They touched every day: shoves and taps and leans. 

"I mean…" A smile ghosted his lips; he wanted to laugh in disbelief. "Yeah? I guess so.”

In contrast, Gus’ smile had returned, bright as ever. “So what’s our ship name gonna be?”

A flat stare. “Augustus…”

Gus feigned ignorance. “No, it has to include both our names, silly.” He rubbed his chin, considering the options. “‘Gustholomule’?” He shook his head. “Nah. Too clunky.”

Matt rolled his eyes.

“Don’t worry,” Gus said. “We’ll have a hashtag ready for our debut.”

Matt sidestepped with a grin and elbowed Gus (his boyfriend) in the ribs, delighting in the laugh as he batted him away. “You’re such a dork.”

----------------

Inspired in part by duvetbox’s gustholomule animatic on tiktok!

[howhow326]

Mattholomule is Gus Shadow

Oh boy! I sure do love everything about Watching & Dreaming but I have to say my favorite part is when Gustholomule became canon and that's a thing that happened actually!!! Anyway, it's neat that most of the TOH ships have a sort of opposites attract dynamic: Lumity has the shoujo rivals trope; Huntlow is crushing-watermelon-with-thighs meme; and Gustholomule has the best dressed boy with an unwashed rat-man.

But with I told you that Gus and Mattholomule are more similar than they seem? What if I told you that the two boys are so similar to each other that they are like two halves of the same person?? What if I told you... ehh, you already read the title.

What is a Shadow?

First we need to go over what a shadow is: A shadow is: "an unconscious aspect of the personality that does not correspond with the ego ideal, leading the ego to resist and project the shadow. In short, the shadow is the self's emotional blind spot..." (Wikipedia). In other words, the Shadow is the shadowed side of one's personality, the part of themselves that they don't want others (or themselves) to see. However, ignoring the shadow dosen't make it go away, it just makes it stronger, seeping into one's everyday life as flaws and bad choices. Or in the case of Persona, giant fetish monsters (this is a joke, the persona games actually do a really good job of writing psycho-analysis even without the video game bosses). So, what does any of this have to do with Gustholomule? EVERYTHING!!! Which get's clearer in the next few paragraphs :)

Gus & Mattholomule's backstories

From TOH wiki: "Augustus Porter is the son of reporter Perry Porter, who wants his son to be a master illusionist (there's a source for this but I deleted it so Tumblr dosen't hide my post). Due to his skills in illusion magic, Augustus is one of the youngest students at Hexside School of Magic and Demonics, taking high school-level classes despite being twelve years old. However, due to his young age, Gus was often overlooked and ignored, and he was gullible to the various students that took advantage of his intelligence. The only place where he felt he mattered was the club he led, the Human Appreciation Society. Besides the other members of the H.A.S, the only other student he befriended was Willow Park, who helped him calm down from an illusionary memory with a breathing exercise he remembers to this day."

In short, Gus comes from a history of people tricking him in order to advance themselves (this is in Bold because it's gonna be super duper important for my argument later). Despite that, Gus wasn't destroyed by his backstory because he had people like Willow to help him (also important).

For Matt: "Mattholomule used to attend Glandus High, where he was friends with Bria, Gavin, and Angmar. Due to Glandus's social structure favoring the strong, Mattholomule was bullied by other students, including his three "friends" who had manipulated him. Eventually, he switched out of Glandus and started to attend Hexside, but still stuck around Bria, Gavin, and Angmar due to having nobody else to be his friend."

Just like Gus, Matt comes from a history of veing bullied and used by others. Unlike Gus, Matt didn't have anyone in his corner but himself (and Steve but like apparently adults are weirdly useless at helping their kids witch school problems which is actually extremely realistic now that I think about it).

In otherwords, Gus and Matt have nearly identical backstories, but turned out differently because only Gus had a real friend. And in my next few paragraphs, we find out that the "difference" between them is a lot smaller than it seems.

Something Ventured, Someone Framed

So if you've been paying attention, you have probably come to the conclusion that Gus is "good" person. And while that definitely isn't a bad conclusion to come to, this episode is going to hit you like a truck:

Gus: L-Luz, a-about the ban, I, uh, used my H. A. S. presidential authority to pull some strings. You've been given a full pardon!

Luz: You mean...

Gus: I got the ban lifted!

[Does a little dance when she's gone lol]

Willow: You lied to our best friend and told her you got the ban lifted. That seems like a potential problem to me.

Gus: You don't understand. The members were going mad. They were bloodthirsty. They were touching objects. I had no choice!

Note: instead of saying something like "one of the members is lying to the others" or something like that, Gus "had no choice" because... they were breaking his rule of no touching?!

Now, some people did catch on to Gus behavior and were mad at him for it. I'm not one of those people, in fact, I'm the exact opposite. This episode made me LOVE Gus' character! Before SV,SF Gus was just comic relief that was attached to Willow's hip. But now, Gus has flaws! He can exist as his own character!! He's lying to and mainipulating people like the little illusionist he is!!!

... wait a minute, "...and he was gullible to the various students that took advantage..."; "...Gus comes from a history of people tricking him in order to advance themselves."; "...ignoring the shadow dosen't make it go away, it just makes it stronger, seeping into one's everyday life as flaws and bad choices." This is Gus Shadow: a hurt child that's willing to trick people the same way that other people tricked him. Heck, there's even a name for the exact shadow that Gus possesses: The Know-It-All Trickster (I swear Im not anti gus wtf). From Artofmanliness .com (That name is so much worse than it seems), "The Know-It-All Trickster knows how to charm his way out of trouble. He’s adept at deception and manipulation and will gain the trust of those around him, only to betray it when they least expect it." While this is a lot more sinister than Gus at his worst, it dose perfectly describe what happened in SV,SF: Gus became friends with Luz recently and deceives her at a time when she would never expect it. Although, that description also sounds a lot like another character that shows up this episode (Mattholomule is inside your walls).

Of course, while Gus has flaws, he isn't the same as the people that tricked him. The older kids got their homeworks worth out of Gus and left without taking any responsibility for their actions. But Gus didn't do that, he endanged himself in order to save Luz from detention, and then he took responsibility for the mess he caused. He even saved Mattholomule from detention because "no one get's left behind"! Gus has flaws, but he was able to rise above them during his first focus episode, which is highly impressive for a twelve year old.

Through The Looking Glass Ruins

This episode's plot is interesting in that, while Gus is technically lying to people again, it wasn't even his idea! Gus was the one that didn't want to hang out with the Glandus because "he's just an illusionist" (an idea that Gus Shadow, Matt literally echos) so Luz goads him into hanging out with him in order to build back his self confidence.

Unlike SV,SF where Gus creates a lie that endangers Luz, Luz starts the lie that Gus is a "super witch" and Gus only upholds it to hang out with the Kool Kidz. Basically, Gus did nothing wrong.

Anyway, Gus gets a crush on the Boneghazi girl. Weird. I don't want to spend too much time talking about Bria because she's crazy shaped, but she is the next entry in a long line of older kids that trick Gus and ruin his self confidence. Then, the most important part of the episode happens:

Mattholomule: This is exactly how it was at Glandus. Always Bria's stooge.

Gus: Better a stooge than a clown. Bria was right, illusions are nothing but high-def party tricks.

Mattholomule: Yeah, I used to think that too. [He makes a saw of rock to cut the vines trapping Gus and The Keeper.] But then I met some dork who used his powers to save me from a man-eating detention pit. All I'm saying is, if a dumb illusion can save a jerk like me, maybe it's not as useless as you think.

Replace illusion with "Gus" and this conversation is practically the same. Gus is saying he can't help anyone and Matt is telling him "you already helped me" (the perfect start for the perfect ship).

Focusing more on Matt, this moment is a bit more than just him reaching out a hand or doing the right thing. As I said before, Matt has the same history of people using him just like Gus (it even happens in this episode). But unlike Gus, Matt didn't have anyone in his corner but himself. So instead of staying the victim, Matt became "villain". He most likely joined the H. A. S. with the intention of replacing whoever was in charge by using the same methods that Bria uses, trickery. Matt wanted to be on top of the social ladder through any means nessasary, and when his plan failed in SV,SF he went crawling back to Bria so he could gain some sense of power.

So why does Mattholomule help Gus in this episode? Simple, He's not Bria. Even when Matt tried to walk the same path as his bullies, he could never fully suppress the part of himself that had morals, that wanted to help people. And by choosing to help Gus even though the odds are stacked against them, Matt finnaly accepted that he wasn't a 100% jerk.

Plot twist: Gus is Mattholomule's Shadow. Just like how Matt represents Gus's capacity to become like the people that took advantage of him, Gus represents the part of Matt that was weak enough to be taken advantage of, a good person. There's even a word of Matt's Shadow: a Golden Shadow, the positive qualities of one self that they suppress.

Conclusion

Gustholomule is a deep relationship between two people who are really the same person that walked to different paths. However, it's only through meeting each other and forming a tight bond with each other that these two boys were able two accept their hidden selves and complete the process of self actualization. Truly a magnificent journey of self growth indeed.

Gustholomule is best ship fight me

[emsprovisions]

11! Gustholomule!

11. shifting glances all around the room when they get caught staring at you

"Are you having fun, Gus?" Luz called out over the loud music blasting in the gym.

He was here with his friends but there was someone in particular he was looking all around the room for.

"Hmm?" He responded, turning to look at Luz, Amity hanging onto her arm. "Oh, oh yeah! I'm having fun...Have you seen Mattholomule?"

"Matt's over there," Hunter cocked his head towards the punch table. And there he was, Matt Tholomule, leaning against the dark wall behind the table, a cup of punch in hand, a foot propped up against the wall.

He was staring at Gus, their eyes locked and his eyes widened, his gaze erratically shifting all about the room, trying to find something–anything more interesting to look at than Gus.

"Thanks Hunter," Gus said, clapping his brother on the back before making his way over to the punch table, a sort of nonchalantness about him. He poured himself some punch and took a long sip. "Seems like you've found a good spot to watch people."

"Nah," Matt responded. "Just one person."

Gus put his punch down. "I thought you didn't make it."

Matt rounded the table, looking offended, "Like I'd miss the chance to see you all dressed up."

The young witch had had a growth spurt, no longer fitting in his blue suit from last year's grom. But he felt like he'd upgraded his looks anyways, wearing a suit that was more his style rather than his dad's. It was still blue, but that was his signature color.

Gus blushed, his ears twitching ever so slightly. "Come on doofus, wanna go to the photo booth?"

Gus held out his hand to Matt with a pleading look in his eye.

"Hell yeah!" Matt said, taking Gus's hand and following him to the photo booth.

Inspired partially by this artwork by @sapphic--kiwi (One year later, and they're not quite dating yet vs three. But I'd like to think it becomes tradition for them to take silly grom pictures every year!) Also thank you for this one Killy!! I fangirled so hard when I saw you'd sent in a prompt 😄

[edalynn]

i gotta admit that i have this habit of checking on ur blog every week or so just to read you+other anons expressing frustration w huntl0w. in a weird way it's like an outlet for me whenever i get annoyed by the constant ship content in the fandom. like vicarious venting. if that makes sense

i honestly don't mind it as a crack ship tbh. like if that was all it was, that would be fine, it's like ppl shipping camila/eda, or gus/mattholomule, or vee/masha, etc... like huntl0w, those are all totally normal pairings that (with the exception of camila/eda) have all gotten VERY brief moments that might *possibly* hint to it being a thing in the future. but that's the point, is that huntl0w falls into that category, but the sheer quantity of content that is/has been produced VASTLY outpaces all the other crack ships.

and that's what gets me about it i think . is that the fanon has elevated it to the point where if all you knew about TOH was what you saw in fandom spaces, any outsider would make the reasonable assumption that huntl0w is integral to the plot and has had several episodes worth of development in regards to their relationship

but it hasn't? ,... meaning there's this weird mismatch between universally accepted fanon-as-canon and what actually occurs in the show. and..... it's really, really weird, and i think the question should be asked: why huntl0w? why is this crack ship specifically getting this strange treatment, and having more attention placed on it than fuckin lumity, or raeda?

and let's be real. it's probably cuz it's straight.

there are prob other factors too, like hunter is the stereotypical attractive bad boy who switches sides, or in luz's words, 'i pretend i don't care but i secretly do' kinda guy. think zuko ,and the amount of ppl that simp for him lmao. so it's possible willow is being used as a sort of quasi-self insert (recall how in a lot of their ship art, the focus is always always always on hunter and his issues, with willow just sort of Being There to fluster him/make him happy). and obviously using willow like that is really weird! like seriously i've got no problem if ppl wanna do an oc x canon situation with hunter. that's fine. but actually use some brain power to make a self insert oc instead of using willow lol

anyway i hope that wasnt too much rambling for an ask i just had some Thoughts about huntl0w lol

YEAH, if it had stayed a crackship I could've just like. ignored it and let it be. I definitely still mocked it personally with my partner irl when we would see it because it just seemed so ridiculous to us, but I wouldn't be as vocally angry or have the trauma response it causes now. The content in the fandom for h/l vs. lumity and raeda combined is depressing to say the least. And yes, you're right. It's because it's straight or straight passing at the very least. It's really telling and really upsetting for a queer-based show's most popular ship to be a m/f ship that's not even canon and doesn't even affect the plot. Honestly, I'd go as far as saying it's disgusting and those artists that I see that ONLY draw hunt/low shouldn't even be watching toh in the first place because this piece of media is clearly not what you need.

And it's amazing actually, what you pointed out. It has literally the amount of implication that any other crackship in the show has aside from camila/eda. Like, I knew that but I'd never really thought too extensively on that point. There is seriously no supporting evidence more than for gustholomule that hunt//low will ever end up canon aside from a few blushes from only one side of the ship in the first place. In any other show it would be taken as just that, a little nod at a potential crackship. I don't know why hunt/low shippers are so aggressively convinced that it's already canon when it's barely past crackship level.

And it's definitely all those reasons you mentioned that it's far more popular even than canon queer ships- it being m/f, hunter being the typical attractive bad boy-secretly good character, and Willow being easy to morph into a type of self-insert made to coddle said bad-boy character because that's the type of relationship and validation they want. 🙄 But for real,, if that's the reason you think you like hunt//low,, you don't actually like hunt//low or even Willow's character specifically- you just want a pretty bad boy to like you and you're using hunter as your outlet lmao. Seriously, just make an OC at that point. It does less of a disservice to Willow's character and can be molded into canon however you'd like. I'd prefer to see everyone's canon insert OCs than constant out of character hunt//low in the tags constantly.