#at least here I can be silly

[creative-but-hairy-man]

TODAY I BECOME 19!

Adulting is hard so I'm constantly hungry...

Uhhhhhhh that's it, I made the rice paper be that how hungry comic, laugh now.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

obligatory beach divorce doodling

bonus rough cover redraw of x-men #41 (1995) But Beach Divorce below cut

[theribbajack]

"Now, the vow will be honoured, and my Lord brother's soul will return."

Radahn stans keep winning, but I personally am in Miyazaki's walls rn

[martyryo]

drew him too

guys I fear that life is getting weird and I'm not matching that weird

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Instruction on Courtship

[First] Prev <--> Next

[veearrifarrariboom]

Previous | Next | Welcome to the Dreamworld!

[onthewaytosomewhere]

oh oh oh - thanks @typicalopposite for the early tag 💚

so first since this snip will have no smut - which feels a lil weird for me i posted a fic on friday that does if ur interested in a lil pip had alex first firstprince fic - gonna need you to tell me what you want to happen here

okay peeps it's time - today will be the first day of this lil fic (48k-ish) i wrote and will be posting throughout the month - it's gonna be a "baker's dozen 12 days of winter/holiday" thing - so 13 days lolz

here's a snip from the first chapter (under a cut with some tags cuz well it's longer than i thought and i don't wanna pick another snip lolz) OPEN TAG TO ANYONE ELSE WHO WANTS TO PLAY ALONG

On his bed, Nora lounges like a queen surveying her domain. She’s lying on her stomach, one leg lazily kicking in the air, her other hand clutching a burrito the size of her head. The remnants of her lunch are scattered on the nightstand—a crumpled foil wrapper, a soda can tipped precariously, and a few stray tortilla chips that she occasionally crunches between her teeth. With her free hand, Nora rifles through a pile of Alex’s belongings next to her, occasionally plucking an item and tossing it into his suitcase without so much as a glance. A bottle of holiday-flavored lube arcs through the air, landing in the chaos with a soft thud. It’s swiftly followed by a couple of brightly colored dildos, one of which bounces off the edge and rolls onto the carpet. Alex freezes mid-step, his hand clutching a stack of folded shirts. He raises an eyebrow, his tone caught somewhere between incredulous amusement and sheer exasperation. “Really?” “What?” Nora doesn’t even bother looking up, taking another indulgent bite of her burrito. “You never know what kind of emergencies you might face, dude.” Alex closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, letting out a long, steadying breath before setting the shirts on a nearby chair. “This is a legitimate acting gig, Nora. Not that kind of movie.” “Still,” she says, her voice laced with mischief as she finally looks up, her hand now brandishing one of his neon dildos like it’s a trophy, “better safe than sorry. Besides, you still need to make some content for your Presidential Boudoir account; you don’t want to leave your plethora of subscribers in the lurch.”

okay tag ur it (in a no-pressure all that jazz way) @adreamareads @basil-bird @bitbybitwrites @blueeyedgrlwrites @cactusdragon517

@stnichols @caterpills @cha-melodius @cricketnationrise @dragonflylady77

@dreamtigress @emmalostinwonderland @england-would-fall @eusuntgratie @everwitch-magiks

@firenati0n @firstprincehornyramblings @firstsprinces @forever-fixating @hgejfmw-hgejhsf

@iboatedhere @inexplicablymine @jmagnabo92 @judasofsuburbia @kiwiana-writes

@lizzie-bennetdarcy @mikibwrites @myheartalivewrites @ninzied @nocoastposts

@orchidscript @piratefalls @porcelainmortal @priincebutt @royal-chandler

@seths-rogens @softboynick @sophie1973 @sparklepocalypse @stellarmeadow

@stratocumulusperlucidus @suseagull5914 @tailsbeth-writes @thedramasummer @thinkof-england

@thesleepyskipper @thighzp @tinyarmedtrex @zwiazdziarka

SOME DAY I WILL DO ONE OF THESE W/O SO MUCH RAMBLING AND WITH SNIPS ACTUALLY 6-7 SENTENCES BUT TODAY IS NOT THAT DAY 💚💚

[sanchoyoscribbles]

maybe link should consider that I filled my inventory with salted milky smoothies right before the fight and spent all that time leveling up the sword and energy gauges tho ...🥲

[wardingshout]

Hi!! I just wanted to say that the way you draw characters/use colors in your art is an absolute dream, I've never seen anything prettier. Do you have a specific way you pick/use colors, or any advice for coloring? You inspire my art so much, and I'd love to learn how to color like you someday :)

@braventheninth gonna reply to both of you here hope that's cool!

aaaah thank you so much I'm really honoured to hear you both like it and that it inspires you anon !! ;v; I don't actually know much about art theory-wise, aside from very basic colour theory that I always forget so most of my choices are pretty instinctual and based on my own preferences!

i can do my best to explain my thought process though! uuh it is. lots of text though just as a warning.

one thing I tend to do with almost everything is pick what kind of colour mood I'm going for! usually, since I love orange and also warm feelings, I'll aim for some kind of warm tone and when doing that I try to slide every colour I pick towards the warm end of the colour wheel. Blacks and whites are especially good for this! As a general thing I almost fully avoid picking any colours along those edges of the colour picker

instead I'll move all my colour choices a nudge into the square for the colours towards the tone I want (in this case warm) (the white is there be warm too I just forgor to type it).

and since I wanted warm colours for this drawing I desaturated the blue of Brain's pants so it would fit in better. I once heard someone say you should always pick one main colour and saturate fully and the further away from it on the colour wheel you got, the more desaturated your colours should be. I don't really do that bc I like my colours to stay bright but I do keep it in mind to mess around with sometimes.

I'm not always great at keeping this consistent, but I think it usually makes for pretty decent results... Other things I keep in mind are that when I pick the colour for my shadows I always make a little slide on the colour wheel towards the opposite tone of what I based my main colours on. oh and picking the right base colours ?? no clue tbh I always put every colour on it's own layer and then I spend a couple minutes adjusting them all seperately until I feel like they go well enough together. I usually avoid the bottom to right section of the square fully, bc I find they often get oversaturated and muddy, but that's just a personal preference I guess.

also since I enjoy the way coloured lineart works for my stuff I tend to mess around with layer settings for my lineart! usually the end results will look something like this:

where the clipped layer is clipped on to my colours folder. lineart is the only place where I just use plain black since I'm gonna change it with these layer settings later. it often still shows up as black for darker colours (and especially blues?) but it keeps a slightly coloured edge that I enjoy. if the blacks of the end result don't look good, messing around with the layer opacity usually changes stuff up. sometimes I'll also erase part of the lineart from one of the layers as a way to adjust.

I think what might be more relevant though, is the way I've been picking my colours for most of my recent posts though, which is. very differently. and also quite dependant on the fact I've been drawing on Tegaki! Tegaki has a limited colour palette that looks like this

only the 6 colour slots next to the bottom greyscale can be replaced by your own colours. As shown here I only bothered to add something to half of them; mainly the beige-ish colour I like to use for whites, a brown that I never use bc it's ugly with everything else here and a purple? that I only Think I added. both the brown and purple suffer from being too desaturated for the rest of the palette, which makes them stand out in a pretty bad way when used tbh.

I have. absolutely no idea what I'm doing with colours on this site though ngl. I think it just automatically pushes you to be a little more chaotic with the choices? a simple example is the green I picked for Link's tunic here doesn't really have any good, easy choice for shading imo. most of the "darker" green tones just feel more saturated, and it sticks out pretty bad as a shading colour for the more muted green I picked for the tunic. Removing those, the choice was either a mossy green or a blue.

and while the mossy green is still green, it feels far too dark a shading colour compared to what I picked as shading for the rest of the drawing. The blue has the added bonus of being closer to the purple I used for the black-ish parts.

I think my point is that it's really easy to push yourself to make some fun new choices when the tools you're using limit you a bit in a way? Looking at it now, I'm also seeing that the hands were lined with very different colours. I remember just thinking that I couldn't be bothered to find the exact same purple I used for the first hand so I just went with the first thing I landed on, that being a pink. But now I think it works pretty well since the one hand is lifted a bit more into the light and that goes well for a bright colour like pink. happy accidents and all that right ?

I am fully just yapping at this point 🧍 but the point still goes for most things drawn on this site.

like there was no reason to add the blues or reds or pinks to the heather here but I only had so many purple shades to work with. it might be less realistic but I don't think it would've come out as well if I had stuck to only the purple shades from my reference photo.

This ended up way way too long and I have no idea if any of it made sense or was helpful at all, but it was surprisingly fun to reflect on my own choices a bit more! especially since I often just do whatever I feel like I think it's helpful to sit back and consider what instinct actually tells me it's the right thing to do.

in an attempt to do something actually helpful uuh I recommend messing around with 2 specific things and switching around with them a bit; namely limited colour palettes (like 1 or 2 main tones imo) and then just going absolutely ham and just using whatever colour for everything (make them orange! put some blue and purple on the bark! leaves can be blue if they want to! (go more ham than I did tbh))

I think just messing around does so much for making some kind of sense of colours even without Knowing how they work. it's easy to say we should all study, but personally I'm pretty bad at it and it's more fun to just trial and error it... errors do happen a lot though omg do they happen, but that's helpful for figuring stuff out too!

[dellinah]

You know what. Who wants a damn ramble.

These two pieces of media are very unrelated but I promise they make me feel similar things in opposite ways

Maybe bc i watched both in the same week but anyway

I've seen both Mufasa 2024 and HB several times having their writing and plots compared to "fanfiction" and obviously it's an insult and people never go any deeper than that but I'm tired of accepting that fanfic-y plots aren't hella cool sometimes and that it's all the same bc it's really not and also man it's really not that deep in the end oh my God

Bc you know what. We write/read fanfiction bc we want silly guilty pleasures that we rarely see in "professional" writing and we want to see those cool tropes happening. But then when those tropes do happen people complain that it isn't professional enough??? So what the fuck do you want then

Like Loona having a demon feral wolf form is PEAK deviantart 2012 furry fanfic headcannon but also. That's so fucking cool man. I love her. People ask oh why does she have a demon form but man why should she NOT. Yeah you'd see it in fanfics but isnt that bc we want it. It's in character and in universe and it's cool and I love it bc it's so random but it doesn't destroy the universe and it's COOL it really doesn't go deeper than that man

Meanwhile Mufasa writing is fanfic-y in the way that it has a lot of tropes that you see in TLK fanfiction (white lions, made up lion biology, etc) but it's also BAD bc it's sooo badly connected and the pacing is terrible but also they don't even DO anything cool with it. It doesn't do anything new or exciting with the wacky ideas they decide to use. It doesn't do anything cool with white lions. It doesn't do anything cool with Mufasa being adopted. All comes and goes and leaves no impact.

It'd be the same if they'd randomly introduced Loona's wolf form while she was on the phone or smth. Literally nobody would find that cool the way we are now bc it's hella cool THE WAY they did it

Like fanfics can be bad or good and that's fine bc the only reason they exist is to be self-serving and I give them all the right to be as dumb and as badly written as they deserve and for some people it's just stress relief and some people are literally 11yos having fun. Do whatever you want

But when you have some kind of production then yeah, we expect some level of quality. I just don't think that being "fanfiction level / fanfic-y" is inherently bad you know. It's about how you use it

Both Loona being a feral demon and the whole Mufasa movie have a lot of fanfic tropes but one of them used it in cool ways and the other used it in dumb ways but the tropes themselves aren't the problem you know

I just don't think that fanfic tropes are inherently bad and I'm tired of acting as if they are. Fuck I love THE LION GUARD over Mufasa because The lion guard actually does cool stuff with whatever they did and embraced it being as insane as it is while Mufasa just threw random stuff and didn't do anything with the tropes they used. I would be SO INTO Mufasa having white lions and ghosts and magic and fights and lion monarchies if they bothered to do anything cool with it.

I don't know man. It's not that deep. Sometimes stuff can be silly but also cool. Media can be silly and fanfic-y as long as they write it in a cool way. Which Helluva Boss did and Mufasa didn't and that's the point

Have a great night

[notachair]

Since atla is again having an extra surge of popularity, I'm shooting my shot:

[ID: (Rest of image description in alt). At the bottom of the image sits the text: "Zuko: Okay. Well, I can't remember how it starts, but the punchline is "leaf me alone, I'm bushed."" ID end].

Did we ever find out what the setup for this joke was? I feel kinda haunted by it. If not- anyone wanna make their best or worst guesses?

edit: I now know what "I'm bushed" mean, but go ahead anyway 👍

haunted thoughts in tags ↓

[aaandbackstabbed]

Scrooge: I’m not that in love with Goldie

Huey: you are doodling your wedding invitations

Scrooge: no, this is our joint tomb stone.

Huey: …my bad

[pulsedmaggot]

mwa mwa mwa mwa mwa mwa and they're both girls mwa mwa mwa mwa mwa mwa

they kinda look the same as the source material in the bottom left one . rlly makes u think dunnit ...

[romance-rambles]

modern alkaid | 319 roses and a date

Alkaid gets asked on a date by the girl he desperately wanted to ask out, at least before he found out who the flowers were for. You'd like to maintain that nothing you said was a lie.

2.8k, post-alkaid's florist ending [everything else happens the same way, except alkaid's first meeting with mc happens after godheim], misunderstandings + some angst, mc is reader, series: none

ALKAID STARES DOWN BLANKLY AT the bouquet of white roses in his hands. At some point during his stunned silence, he had unwittingly taken them off yours, just as you had hoped for.

All 319 of them, to be precise—which is a number that, put in a different context, can also refer to 3/19, the day of his birth. Even with the limited capacity he has at the moment to sort out the events that led up to this moment, he can't help the way his heart flutters at the knowledge that you remembered, even though so much time has passed.

"Alkaid?" A gentle tap against his shoulder robs the flowers of their spotlight. "Do you...not like the flowers?"

He looks up and sees you, still here—still dressed so beautifully he's once more in danger of succumbing to asphyxiation, with a fretful expression that makes him wonder if he's already there. When he does not respond, you close the remaining distance between them, obscuring all else from his vision.

It is a problem only because he has nowhere left to run.

"No," he croaks out finally, leaning back over the counter to accommodate you.

Obliviously, you move closer, leaving him with no choice but to avert his gaze once more. Alkaid can only hope you aren't offended—that you don't think he finds you unattractive, with how often he does so. It's only that your beaming smile reminds him of what it feels like to stare down the sun.

"They're lovely."

Satisfied with his answer, you pull back. Your hands are clasped behind your back, and your ponytail sways slightly, once more retreating behind your shoulder. There's an adorable star-shaped pin fastened onto the strap of your cross-body bag.

He sighs discretely, relieved, and pulls the bouquet up to his face as casually as he can. The petals, he hopes, will be enough to cover up the deep scarlet staining his cheeks.

"I'm glad!" You clap your hands together. "I was worried they wouldn't be to your liking. Maybe I should've asked you what your favorite flower was before I tried asking you out."

A self-deprecating laugh slips out as you scratch your cheek. An intricate design spans the length of your nail now—shades of red and green shaped into what he can clearly recognize as halves of a rose hugging the edges—against a black background.

Alkaid bites his lip, converting the interrupted gasp into a quiet exhale.

"You guessed right. I like white roses," he says, hoping desperately that his words are nothing less than reassuring. "Though they share that spot with lilies as well."

"Lilies," you repeat, a determined gleam in your lovely eyes. "I'll keep that in mind for next time."

He bites his lip harder.

THE MORNING HE'S DUE TO hand off your flowers, Alkaid finds himself contemplating the benefits of coffee behind the register.

Though his favorite concealer and his usual color corrector have done much to brighten up his undereyes, they can do little for the grogginess that comes with staying awake the whole night (Why such a specific number? Who are they for? Do you remember him at all?). And, by the time the clock strikes nine, he's already downed three cups of strongly-brewed tea.

What pushes him to finally break away from his usual preferences is a simple headache.

The store is empty, and there remains more than half an hour before you're set to arrive. A sharp twinge of pain in the side of his head as he stands up to check on your flowers draws out a careful hiss. Alkaid, with some amount of lingering hesitance, flips the sign on his door to closed, with a note explaining the rough length of absence. Then he walks out the door, his destination the artsy cafe across the street—the one that makes him think of you whenever he walks in.

Allen, the normally deadpan barista on duty, seems to shut down when Alkaid corrects him on his order. Soon, the news spreads to the rest of the employees, who take turns staring at him as he leaves with a warm thermos of coffee in his hands.

But, in the end, it proves to be an unnecessary trip.

You're already in front of his flower shop when he returns, half-crouched and studying the sign the way someone might study a work of abstract art. Today, too, you have a large, dark blue backpack slung over both your shoulders, its surface decorated with various pins and stickers—mostly of a cat, your cat, but also of a popular manga that you seem to like.

In Passing, that is.

It's about a love triangle featuring a tyrant emperor and a well-liked leader of the rebellion. Even without the reviews praising it for subverting expectations, Alkaid would've picked it up anyway.

He's on the third volume right now, and—

Hmm? His eyebrows furrow. Where did I leave it? In my bag?

All of a sudden, the sleep that had been so insistent on dragging his eyelids down vanishes. Alkaid wracks his brain desperately for the answers, stomach churning at the thought of you finding out about his latest reading material.

Unfortunately, you choose that moment to turn around.

"Oh, Alkaid!"

Your confused expression soon melts away, leaving behind only a cheerful smile. Tightening his grip on his thermos, he exhales silently, before flashing you a gentle smile.

"You're here." Time stops as you begin to approach him, your keychains singing a short jingle to accompany you. Your expression softens, as does your voice. "You didn't forget about me, right?"

Alkaid can only sputter out a half-coherent apology.

The words get drowned out by the insistent, purposeful beating of his heart. It's as if it wants to claw itself out of his chest and entrust itself to your hands, as it is, with shattered bones sticking out of it.

You laugh prettily, as always. "It's okay. I'm just joking."

Then, like a moth to a flame, his gaze falls upon your lips. A soft red, with a glossy sheen, one that matches the color of your skirt. On a plain canvas, it's all the more striking. It leaves him wondering about things he, currently a stranger, shouldn't be fretting over.

He's not sure how long he stares for, with slightly parted lips and a series of half-realized thoughts chiding at him to stop—only that it's not long enough for you to grow uncomfortable.

Alkaid clears his throat, holding up his thermos (I should've bought her something too, he thinks) as an explanation. "I apologize for the wait. I went over to the cafe across the street."

"Coffee lover?" you guess, making room for him to open the door.

"I'm usually more of a tea person." As he slips inside the store, he can't help but chuckle self-consciously, remembering all the different ways he imagined this scene playing out. Naturally, his next words are nothing more than the most blatant lie he's ever told. "I thought I'd try something else for a change."

"Is it a nice place?" Upon seeing the puzzled look he sends over his shoulder, you clarify, "The cafe. I've seen the reviews, but I think only experience can beat the testimony of someone you know."

He considers your question for a moment. "The staff is very friendly. I often stop by during lunch for their sandwiches."

"I see..." you murmur.

"I think you'd like it," Alkaid blurts out as he slips in behind the register, happy to note that his copy of Volume 3 is, in fact, in his bag. "The owner enjoys collecting art—there's a lot of different paintings all over the cafe. Um, since you're an art major."

"Well, now I have to try it out." You don't seem particularly startled that he knows about your major; instead, you take to drawing patterns across the wooden countertop. He thinks he sees the familiar curve of an A. "The cookies you recommended last time were really great too."

When he keeps his silence, the complete opposite of what the state of his mind currently is (she remembers?), you look up.

"Hmm?" You tilt your head, confusion clouding your once smiling expression. "Do I have the wrong person? You're Alkaid, right? From that time in the snow mountains?"

He forces himself to nod, but that too is enough.

A shy smile blossoms on your lips, paired with both a brief flash of relief flitting through your gaze and the slight, almost imperceptible widening of your eyes. Placing your hands above your heart, you sigh exaggeratedly.

"You had me worried for a moment," you say. Your eyelashes cast a dark shadow on your undereyes. "I thought we'd never meet again."

For a moment, he wonders if there's more to your sorrow than you let on. Does it have anything to do with the way you disappeared? Somewhere so far away that no one could reach you at all?

Alkaid shakes off his thoughts.

"But we did," he responds carefully. I never thought we'd meet again either, he does not say instead. "Whether it was destiny, whether it was just a coincidence, we did. All we can do is make the most of it."

A tinge of sadness mars your lovely smile. "I think that sounds lovely."

SOON AFTER THEIR REUNION, DONE properly this time, down to exchanging numbers, Alkaid excuses himself to go fetch your flowers. When he returns, lovesick heart brimming with curiosity over the recipient's identity once more, he finds you've returned to doodling on the counter.

"Here they are, 319 white roses," he announces.

There's a blank expression on your face when you look up. Slowly, as recognition dawns upon you, it melts away to something bitter and rough. Its jagged edges dig into his his heart, leaving a paralyzing mix of sadness and longing to wash over him.

And then—

"Thank you," you say, and take the flowers off his hand.

His hand twitches, yearning for the camera he still keeps in his backpack, for the days where he feels like memorializing something instead. Lovely is the only word he has to describe you as you tuck a strand of hair behind your ears and pull the bouquet close with a faint smile.

Then, you close your eyes, and you inhale deeply. Once more, you are somewhere else—somewhere far, somewhere he can't reach.

"Ah, sorry." You crack one eye open. Now, the bouquet is clutched against your chest, but your sadness remains. "I guess I'm a bit nervous. I don't know if he'll like the flowers."

He? From some far corner of his mind, he recalls the image of your guardian. A tall man, with long silver hair and a pleasant, but guarded expression. Cael, he thinks is the name.

"For your guardian?" Alkaid inquires.

Your smile drops entirely at the mention of your guardian. A complicated series of emotions flash in your gaze, soon averted to one of the potted plants at the display. Scratching your cheek, you offer him a polite laugh.

Today, only some of your nails are a plain black. The rest remain bare.

"No, it's not for Cael." You answer carefully. "Actually—"

Looking down at the flowers, you take a deep breath. When next you speak, your voice has reclaimed the softness it'd shown him earlier—your searching gaze as well. You leave him with the truth, imparting it onto him like a mischievous secret.

"There's someone I'd like to ask out."

His stomach drops, and you leave him with the memory of lovelorn smile, forever imprinted behind his eyelids.

"I hope he says yes."

[3:00 PM] you: Alkaid, do you have any plans tonight?

[3:17 PM] alkaid: No, I'm free

[3:21 PM] alkaid: Did something happen?

[3:22 PM] you:

[3:22 PM] you: I haven't asked him out yet. Gonna do it soon

[3:23 PM] you: All of my other friends are busy rn.

[3:24 PM] you: Is it okay if I stop by after you close up shop?

[3:24 PM] you: I'd want to talk to someone about it

[4:31 PM] alkaid: Of course

SOMEHOW, ALKAID MANAGES TO GET through the rest of the day.

His heart is held together haphazardly with duct tape and carefully-placed staples, though their efforts are thwarted constantly by a popular refrain (You hardly know him. Of course there's someone else.), and he's one stubbed toe away from being reduced to tears, but he manages. Somehow.

He swallows down his what-ifs and maybes and waits, watching the hands on his wristwatch inch ever closer to six in the evening. And eventually, the vaguely promised time arrives.

As he's stepping out from behind the register, a familiar chime echoes cuts through the silence. Alkaid looks up and sees you, dressed still in red and black, your turtleneck and skirt swapped out for a knee-length dress.

"Hi."

The bouquet of white roses—held in both hands, a stark contrast to the black leather jacket you're wearing—covers up its neckline. You smile sheepishly at him, pulling at the mesh of your bright red skirt to mimic a curtsy.

You're beautiful. Even the flowers surrounding them pale in comparison. Even the aurora they'd seen together pales in comparison. You rob him of his breath and leave gasping for a reprieve, but so long as he keeps his memory in even the smallest capacity, that's simply impossible.

The familiar knife called jealousy stabs into his heart, leaving him keenly aware of his longing. He averts his gaze, but the damage has already been done. You are beautiful, and he has waited years to see you.

"Hi." Alkaid swallows uncomfortably, as the sound of your footsteps draws closer. In a panic, his hands brace themselves against the edge of the counter. "Was something wrong with the flowers? I thought—"

A mysterious expression sits upon your features when you pull his gaze onto you, seemingly oblivious to your magnetic power.

With a deep breath, you thrust the flowers at him, knuckles brushing against his chest. You pull back for a moment, taking your flowers with you, and the soft coral of your blush makes it difficult to discern whether you find yourself a victim the of same scarlet blooming across his cheeks.

"That's—" You cough politely. There's a heart-shaped pendant dangling from your golden necklace. The dress is either strapless or your jacket has covered up the straps. "—what I'm here to find out."

Alkaid tilts his head. His confused gaze darts across his surroundings and stops at the glass window of the store's display, thinking perhaps that your mystery boy might be outside. But while the streets are not barren, there is no one outside his store.

You say his name in the same way you told him your secret. Like it's something precious. Like it's something you love. And the truth begins to settle into his bones with a finality that deafens the half-coherent puzzle pieces he's been trying to fit together—he is the only one you could possibly ask out in this empty store.

He has no choice but to look back. At you, and the bouquet you're offering him.

"Would you like to go to the movies with me?"

AND THAT IS HOW HE finds himself with the beginnings of a bruise forming on his lip. He doesn't mind, not when the sting he feels as he wets his lip reminds him that this is not, in fact, a dream (It feels like it though, he thinks), nor a fantasy.

"You...you don't have a girlfriend, do you? It's been a while since then..."

You rub your arm lightly, muttering about something he can't understand, and what else is Alkaid meant to do but take your hand? He squeezes it gently, tickled to find that he can return the favor for all the times you've stolen his breath away.

Your lips part slightly, but whatever you hoped to say does not leave the confines of your mysterious mind. Instead, you draw some of your hair from both sides over your flushed cheeks.

"Nothing like that," he reassures, smiling gently at you. "I'm just surprised. I didn't realize you were talking about me."

"That's a reli—what." In a single moment, your voice goes from girlishly breathless to an irritated flat. Releasing your hair, you blink uncomprehendingly at him. "How?"

Watching you descend into another muttered ramble, Alkaid shrugs. "If you'd still like that date..."

You whip your head in his direction. "Then it's a date!"

The first time he met you, it was when you had fished out of the snow and offered him a warm drink to fight off the cold. They had talked about miscellaneous things, from your half-hearted desire to request a camera for your birthday to who could make the better model between them both.

And back then, he had thought to himself that there was no sound more beautiful than your laugh.

Almost four years after the fact, as he watches you giggle, Alkaid can confidently say his past self had the right idea. Such a specific title leaves him with room to declare your follow-up smile to be just as breathtaking.

[teddybearty]

I can't believe that Henry Hotline has a lot of fans already

He looks like a Tumblr sexyman.

It was only a matter of time.

[celtrist]

Why does Vassago already have merch, we haven't even met him yet