#which is what this ask was about

[lollytea]

one day Hunter isn't going to be flustered and tongue-tied around Willow for at least a solid 70% of their interactions like he is now and he's gonna be all comfy and assured in his relationship with her and he's gonna be able to joke and tease and flirt with her without melting into a puddle and he's gonna be like "oh. oh this is REALLY nice, actually."

I have this vision of Hunter and Willow's current dynamic in my head and it revolves around this idea that I find really sweet. And it's like.

Though Hunter still doesn't have the words to articulate how he feels about Willow just yet and he's rendered near mute whenever she flirts with him, he's not exactly beating himself up over it. Hunter doesn't feel pressured to force himself out of his comfort zone and start awkwardly flirting before he's ready to do so. Because Willow never makes him feel like he has to.

She understands that this is all a bit much for Hunter to take in so her flirting is never framed in a way where she's pushing him to respond. If anything, she just does it cuz she likes him. Cuz she likes being sweet to him and she thinks his blush is cute and she genuinely thinks he's so cool and wants to let him know. And it gets him all smiley and giggly and she loves it. It's also gradually building his confidance. But on top of all that, it's just a passive little reminder like "Hey. I'm not going anywhere. Whenever you're ready to say something, I'll be right here." Cuz she knows he likes her too and won't make him feel like she's ever losing interest and he'll miss his chance if he doesn't hurry up.

I dunno. It's so cute to me. Willow doting on him and Hunter unable to utter a single word but they both clearly like it and know the other likes it too. They have an understanding. For the moment, this is just what works for them.

But one day, when the time comes, something is gonna slip out of Hunter's mouth. And once he realizes that if he really puts his mind to it, ohhh he could flirt too!!! He could!!!

I could see it happening after all the Collector stuff is handled. Its been a few months. The dust has settled. Things are beginning to return to some semblance of normalcy. They're not really dating but they're also....not not dating, yknow? It's a slow build. Of course Willow does the flirting and the affectionate little touches and makes it very obvious she's interested. But she's waiting until Hunter is a little more comfortable in their interactions before they progress things any further.

She's walking him home (She's very chivalrous. Makes Hunter swoon.) and they're lingering at his doorstep. Willow is laying the flirting on thick and Hunter is eating it up, as always. Everything is the status quo, until Willow, admiring the way the sunlight catches flecks of gold in his warm brown irises, says:

"I really like your eyes."

And Hunter, whose brain has completely tapped out from the overload of her attention and the hook of her pretty smile, replies, as naturally as a heartbeat.

"Thanks. My eyes really like you too."

And Willow, sweet Willow, has a brief flash where she completely malfunctions. She freezes, eyes blowing wide, only for her lashes to begin fluttering in discombobulation.

Hunter, realizing what he just said, is not any less stunned. However he can't even say anything to do damage control as the impact of his own skin burning mortification sucks the oxygen out of his lungs and all he can manage is a strangled little squeak.

Willow seems too inside her own head to notice.

"Oh!" She exclaims. "Um. Thank you."

Wriggling where she stands, she clasps her fidgety hands together as a slight pinkish hue blossoms on her cheeks. Eyes jump to the ground as her features wrestle to keep her smile moderate but it's impossible. That giddy grin bursts her features apart. She glows.

And Hunter sees every moment of it.

She liked that, he realizes. She liked that a lot.

Willow raises her head, still looking dizzingly happy. But she's far bolder than he is because she looks him dead in the eye and makes a remark, struggling to curb the breathy giggles in her voice "That was...very smooth of you, Hunter."

Smooth.

Smooth like Willow.

He can be smooth like Willow.

There is literally nothing stopping him.

They bid eachother a bit of clumsy but thoroughly smitten goodbye and Hunter rushes upstairs, leaps face down into his bed and nearly breaks the thing apart from the manic kicking of his legs. The muffled noises he makes into his pillow got dogs the next realm over going bananas.

He tries to call Gus because he's got to tell somebody but once he's like "You'll never guess what just happened!! You'll never guess what I just did!!!!" he realizes that now he's gotten this far, he actually has to recount what just happened. With words. So instead he's like "actuallynevermindgottago!!" and hangs up.

But anyway. ANYWAY. That was my little origin story of Hunter realizing that he is capable of opening his mouth and unleashing some magic that he thought just Willow could do. Sure, she's a lot better at it. But he'll learn.

He does learn.

It takes a little time but once he's found his footing in this whole "taking initiative" thing, it turns out that Hunter can be a relentless flirt. If the mood strikes him. There was apparently a lot of flirty potential just gathering dust in that whole Golden Guard persona and now he finally has somewhere to channel it.

There's a girlfriend to be a nuisance to.

"Quit it!!" Willow attempts to sound vexed but she's utterly transparent to Hunter. She lunges around the flyer derby field, making another failed grab for him, but he's a bastard who can scramble his molecules.

"Cmon, Captain...." He teases with an antagonistic cackle. "If you really like me, you'd try a little harder to keep me in place."

Through burst after burst of glitchy jumps, Hunter is snapping all around Willow. He's at her side, he's behind her, he's flicking her hair, he's poking her cheeks, he's blowing in her ear, he's tweaking her hips, he's chanting teases at her. He's being a general menace and Willow wants to say she can't stand it.

She wants to.

"What's that smile for, huh~?" His voice softly singsongs, the swell of his lip just barely brushing against her ear and Willow seizes up. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you liked this."

Glitch.

He's at her other ear now. "Is it because of all the touching?"

Glitch.

He's directly in front of her. "Is that why--uMPH!!"

Willow dives forward and snatches him in her arms.

"Gotcha!!" She announces, grinning victoriously.

The unpredictability of his less than solid body left her having to grab him suddenly with little thought for the means to go about it. As a result, Willow is currently squeezing Hunter around the waist.

It works out though. As Willow is well aware, he really likes it when she holds his waist.

Hunter laughs at the intensity of her triumphant expression. "Well done." He relents. "You got me."

There's an infamous smugness that contorts his smile into a challenging smirk. "But now that you got me...what will you do with me?"

Willow's own smile twists evilly. Her grip tightens slightly. "Maybe I'll squeeze you like my life depended on it. Pop ya like a balloon."

Hunter snorts at the threat. "I guess you could...." He croons.

"Or I could haul you over my head and fling you across the field." Willow suggests. "See how far I can send ya."

He hums, delighted by the audacity. "You could..."

Willow's evil smile borders on maniacal. Her grip on him loosens, hands sliding to place themselves gently against his hips. She then digs her thumbs into them slightly, like a warning.

Hunter goes rigid, his lips visibly twitching.

"I could tickle ya."

A threat like that makes him crack a little and the dorkiness softens the edges of his sharp smile.

"You could..." He says slowly. Cautiously. His hands have ventured over hers, a feathery brush of fingers against her backhand first, before he captures them firmly and holds them in place before she can do anything evil.

Willow pouts, which makes Hunter laugh again. His attempts to be lofty fail spectacularly, as it's not his teasing laugh. Sincerity bleeds from the sound, all crinkled eyes and adorable snorts.

"I could kiss you~" Says Willow as her final threat, doing an excellent impersonation of his musically lilting teasing voice.

Hunter's eyebrows lift, pleasantly surprised. And if that's not enough of an indicator that she's got this smooch in the bag, she pushes her palms against his hips and reels him in a little closer.

His step stutters as he's pulled into her chest. This should secure the deal. He loves hands on his hips. He loves being manhandled just a little.

To Willow's delight, she even makes him blush a bit. He doesn't do that often anymore but she can still stain his skin red every once in a while if she's dedicated enough.

"You could..." Hunter murmurs and he's already stooped his upper body to her level, only to find Willow was standing on her tiptoes.

They meet halfway.

Once the warmth settles on her mouth, Willow closes her eyes and she likes the long, lanky hand that spreads itself on her cheek, fingers stroking affectionately across her skin.

This is nice, she decides, and she knows he's been thinking the same thing for quite a while.

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[pokimoko]

Asexual bird? Please

How about two asexual birds?

[caruliaa]

staff still hasn't given me polls, what should i do?

🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪 their moms 69%

🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪 their dads 31%

grace image os i get to look at her

[bluerosefox]

A DPxDC soulmate au idea

So DCverse is a soulmate world (pick any soulmate way btw, words, touch, drawings on the skin, can't see color(s) until they see or touch them, etc etc)

DPverse doesn't.

Meaning Danny wasn't born with a soulmark BUT he gets one after becoming a halfa because he is now connected to the Infinite Realms.

SO its during another one of Vlad's schemes, he's popping into different worlds and stealing things or something like that (basically like that one ep where Danny chases Vlad through the timeline after he stole Frostbite's map)

During the chase they pop out into the DCverse in one of the hero cities (pick any, not picky on which) and their fight is getting a bit out of hand (Vlad's fault, he's using the stuff he's been stealing, and Danny is doing his best to getting innocent people from getting hurt)

ANYWAYS during the fight, one of the cities hero's come to try to help/find out whats going on when Danny is hit by Vlad and gets tossed at them. The moment they either touch or Danny/Soulmate says something to the other, Danny feels the odd mark on him burn up and is MEGA confused on whats going on but decides to do what he does best.

Ignore it for now. He'd figure it out later he still needs to stop Vlad.

He apologizes to the other hero and gets back into his fight, missing the look of complete smitten awe/shock said hero had on their face.

[egophiliac]

NEW BIRTHDAY THEME IS OUT!!!!!!!!!!!

BIRTHDAY SLUMBER PARTY, HERE WE COME

I think the theme is more loungewear than straight-up pajamas, but hey, I'm not complaining! (and -- look, we still have the groovies, I'm not giving up hope for animal kigurumi until I gotta)

[supreme-leader-stoat]

[saragrosie]

As promised, incredibly stupid s4-5 drawings

[knifearo]

ultimately when it comes to shipping and fandom space treatment of aspec characters i just don't accept "aro/ace people can still date/have sex" as an answer from nonaspecs. like yeah. mhm. okay. now i think we both know that you're not saying that out of real interest in the diversity of aspec experiences. so you can turn in your seventeen-page essay on why and how you plan to examine this character's aspec identity within the context of a romantic or sexual relationship complete with evidence from canon and peer reviews from multiple aspec people within the next week or i'm putting you in the pit from the edgar allen poe story

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Bros before Ho(oh my god is that Hanguang-Jun?)

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[ruporas]

endless love!

[ID Two drawing collage pages of Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun Maximum. In the first collage, top corner, Wolfwood looks upwards disgruntled with a flushed expression, lying against a pillow, as his hair is being pet by Vash's hand. Next shows Vash and Wolfwood from behind, Wolfwood with his top bare and hickies covers around his nape area. Vash lifts hair away from his nape and asks, "More?" Wolfwood nervously says, "No." Next is a side profile of Vash, his arms around Wolfwood from behind while Wolfwood rests his hands against Vash's arms. Next to this are two smaller drawings; Vash turns to Wolfwood and says repetitively, "Wolfwood, Wolfwood..." Wolfwood, not looking at him, says "What?" He finally turns his head and looks shocked as he exclaims, "So close!" Vash says plainly, "You just noticed?" Below these is a drawing of Vash and Wolfwood sitting together as Vash kisses and hugs him from behind with his right arm around Wolfwood's neck and his left hand around his side. He also has his right leg propped against Wolfwood's knee. Bottom of the page has a comic. Wolfwood looks annoyed, speaking to himself, "Where is that idiot?! Need to get out of town before--" A chat bubble exclaims, "Wolfwood!" The next panel shows Vash running from the townspeople, small text saying "Get him! Vash the stampede!". Wolfwood, mad and about to pull the Punisher off his shoulder, says, "Argh, you fucking dumbass!" Vash exclaims, "Ah, don't!" before pulling Wolfwood into a quick kiss. He then tugs on Wolfwood's collar and says, "There's no need to shoot, just run!" Wolfwood stammers, "R-right..." with a flushed, dumbstruck expression.

Second collage; Top left, Wolfwood spoons Vash in bed, his arms around his chest and the other beneath Vash's head. Vash has his hand on top of Wolfwood's as he sleeps while Wolfwood lies awake. Behind this drawing is faint sketches of Vash's face. In a small panel, Wolfwood hides in Vash's neck as he mumbles to himself "Stop. Stop thinking embarrassing things, Wolfwood..." Beneath this drawing is another of them in bed, Vash now turned to Wolfwood and a hand on his cheek as he kisses him good morning. In a simpler style, Vash wraps an arm tightly around wolfwood with the text "snork mimimi" next to him while Wolfwood says, "We need to get up. Spikey! HEY!" In this corner, there are faint sketches of Vash and Wolfwood; one of them looking at each other; Vash kissing Wolfwood's forehead; Wolfwood saying, "Hand" with an outstretch hand and Vash says "ok" behind a drawing of them holding hands, both turned away from each other shyly. Next is a 4 panel comic. First shows Wolfwood's face getting squished by Vash's hands with the text "squish" around his face. Next, his cheeks are stretched with the text "Chee--" Wolfwood then hits Vash's face with his palm, exclaimining "That hurts!" The last shows Vash on Wolfwood's lap, smiling to himself as he continues to have Wolfwood's face in his hands. Next to this is another comic; A close up of their hands, Vash holding Wolfwood's with both of his. He then kisses the palm of Wolfwood's palm and says, "They're soft!" Wolfwood looks at him with flushed cheeks, "There's no way that's true..." END ID]

[rendevok]

“Take my hand” pages 5-11

1 - day 2 - truth - 3

[regenderated]

"rank the doctors" based on what!? which one is my favourite? which one i think is objectively the best? which one is most fuckable? which one has the nicest voice? best costume? best actor? best writing?

[claraoswalds]

#mrs flood who are you: time lord edition

[bloobydabloob]

Holy shit I love your Dirk interpretations, it's so true and I could talk about this shit forever. I feel like another part of his character that people seem to forget (along with Roxy for some reason) is that he's from the future in solitude in an apocalyptic wasteland. I just see that part of his character always removed which is disappointing because I feel like that's a pretty big part, especially regarding his themes around technology, his brother's theme of Time, his own isolation, and how he plays in the vastness of the universe and spacetime.

Art I drew related to the subject because I like to respond to asks with art.

But absolutely. I certainly understand where the lack of discussion over his isolation + upbringing comes from, considering a majority of the fanbase that I have seen builds their ideas based on their own version of postcanon. I’m not entirely sure how that would be fixed, but certainly even in the somewhat recent past I would see a lot more content regarding his upbringing both literally and symbolically. I don’t have much to add regarding the things you’ve mentioned, because they just are what they are. Dirk being confined to a singular room left to him by a father figure he never met, in a future where the only other person left on the planet is someone he cannot pursue a relationship of because of himself, with purely 3 robots to keep him companion, one being an exact replica of his own brain who is *also* trapped inside a pair of glasses, is about as literal as it gets to me.

The contrast to me involving the flooded, organic world in comparison to the little speckle of Dirk’s apartment packed with the dude and his technics is not only a representation of his isolation and entrapment within himself, but also of his lack of control. I think his obsession with & themes of control are a direct product in the case of Dirk specifically *of* this kind of upbringing. His themes of technology are also related to his themes around control. So much of his character is actually revolved around this to me like so much. Dirk is so deeply disconnected from humanity in every way and so much of his character + symbolism is based around that.

It doesn’t even have to be about the symbolism or anything though. It’s just pretty *interesting* in the literal sense that he lives in the middle of the ocean in the future. There’s not only a lot to theorise on to do with his young life there, but on how it might affect him in the way he acts for the rest of his life. The latter part is probably what I see mentioned the most by people talking about Dirk regarding this, I’m surprised I don’t see more discussion on the former too though. I really ought to actually talk more about Homestuck stuff on here. I will do it myself.

Roxy & Dirk’s relationship is largely ignored though because there is a narrative a certain demographic spreads that Dirk resented and blamed Roxy for her interest in him, and thus too many people believe that their relationship was or would continue to be an abusive one. Realistically, I believe it’s important to acknowledge that the way Roxy treated Dirk regarding his homosexuality wasn’t right while still acknowledging the obvious amount of respect and admiration Dirk had for Roxy. I mean we have a huge piece of dialogue from their post trickster mode conversations on the quest beds from Dirk purely stating how he feels about Roxy that people completely ignore somehow. I think this usually happens to characters that are women though. I know everyone says it, but it is true. Jane gets the exact same treatment of boiling her down to solely her negative aspects. The things I see completely mischaracterising both of them are horrific.

I mean how much more explicit can it get that their relationship is obviously very important to Dirk? But I digress. I think the best or I should say “most interesting” interpretations of their relationship usually come from DirkRoxy shippers actually.

I would be interested to hear about Dirk’s relation to his brother’s theme of time though. I don’t have any thoughts on this and I don’t recall ever hearing anyone talk about it before. If you or anyone else would be willing to enlighten me I’d be thrilled.

[theoppositeofprofound]

not to go off topic but i think that ideal post-canon dungeon meshi situation for kabru is for him to simultaneously have a slowburn domestic cozy noodles and rare escapes to go monster hunting and falling asleep in the same bed situation with mithrun AND some sort of high politics high stakes power dynamics they can't escape, manipulation equally matched by hopeless affection, glances shared over council tables, getting caught in the closet with the king again (explaining basic social protocols to him) thing with laios.

then just as he's coming to terms with his own feelings and the possibility that they might be romantic he learns that mithrun and laios have in fact been carrying on some sort of psychosexual no-strings affair the whole time (mithrun sits on the dresser and dispassionately explains horrific and bizarre monster situations from around the globe while laios gets off seven feet away)