#before you ask

[mikurinkuwu]

more about my upcoming mikurin comic

[comatosebunny09]

Neighbor Sylus, coming back from an event or meeting, all dressed up, hair slicked back, smelling delightful. 

He’s at his door, about to unlock it, when he hears a car pull up in the rain-laden parking lot. He peers over the balcony of the breezeway through the silver torrents coming down. The driver cuts the lights, and he recognizes that car instantly. It’s yours. 

You’ve been avoiding him since the night you kissed him when you were shit-faced drunk. As long as he’s waited to ruin your friendship (in a good way), he didn’t want to take advantage of you that night. Not when you wouldn’t remember what happened the following day.

But you did remember, and that’s where all this mess stems from. Why you’d been playing keep-away with him, avoiding him like a sickness, brief with your exchanges as if you were afraid he’d eat you. 

He’s missed your daily texts. Your phone calls. Your impromptu visits to his apartment, or his to yours. You filled a hole in his life he didn’t realize needed filling. 

He’s given you your space. Didn’t want to exacerbate things, as he thought, maybe you only kissed him because you were drunk. Maybe there was no meaning behind it, and he was reading too much into things. 

Regardless of how you feel about him, he doesn’t like this awkwardness stewing between you. You’re like sunshine breaking through grey clouds after a week of rain—and that’s saying a lot, because he typically abhors the sun.

He gets out of his head when your car door slams shut. You’re scuttling about, trying to grab something from the backseat. You’re donned in something casual, loose-fitting, but it’s not enough to protect you from the downpour. What is he going to do with you? Are you trying to get sick?

Without a second thought, he pushes into his apartment to snatch an umbrella from his entryway. He takes the steps leading down to the parking lot two by two, strolling up to your frantic form. Your proverbial knight in matte-black armor.

You look up at him when the rain ceases pelting down on you, reminiscent of a sad, wet puppy, clutching a stack of papers to your chest. For a moment, tension swells. You’re so god damn adorable, all pouty with your hair sticking to your face. He tries to keep cool, like you don’t take his breath away, make his throat dry. Like he doesn’t want to tug you into his arms and kiss you, all romantic like one of those scenes in a romcom, taking place in the rain.

You break the silence first, sighing something relieved, a wobbly smile cresting over your lips. “Thanks,” you simply state, voice so small, it contends with the pitter-patter of the rainfall against his umbrella. 

His lips twitch into a semblance of a smile, eyes soft, fond. He tilts his head towards your complex, saying, “We should get inside before the rain kicks up.” 

You nod, following beside without another word, clinging to those papers for dear life. He studies you in his peripheral vision. Hopes your dryer still works. And if it doesn’t, he’s more than happy to take a look at it for you again.

You get up the steps to your apartment, and he feels his gut churning like it’s empty. He doesn’t want to let you go, doesn’t want to relinquish this small pocket of time where he’s been closer to you in a matter of seconds than he’s been in the past two weeks. You turn to him after unlocking your door, awkwardly looking every which way but at him.

“Thanks,” you mutter once more as if it burns. 

It pains him, this cold unease, but he understands. He got his hopes a little too high. With a hand stuffed in his pocket, he offers you a smile and a casual wave. Prepares to step across the hall to retreat into his home, but you stop him with that unsure little voice at his back.

“Um…”

He peers over his shoulder, brows shooting up in question. Hopefulness. He watches you grapple with words, shifting your weight between your feet. Finally, you look at him, and it’s like being struck by lightning.

“You wanna…come inside for a bit? Dry off? Feel kinda bad. Your shoulder got wet.”

He subconsciously feels the dampness bleeding into his skin. The fact that you would use something so insignificant as an excuse to stay around him makes his heart pull. Maybe you missed him as much as he missed you. 

“Sure,” he remarks, unable to contain the whisper of a smile breaking out on his lips. 

He follows you inside, and the familiar aroma of lavender and line-dried linen wafting from within rushes over him like a soothing balm. It’s dark inside. A little cool from your AC. He watches you shuffle through the inkiness, navigating around your furniture to switch on a light. 

“You can use the dryer if you want,” you offer, sifting through your wet hair after dropping those papers on your coffee table.

He stands rigid in the entryway, tight-lipped and thoughtful. Watches how your shirt hugs your torso, how your sweats droop, bogged down by the rain. He gets a little view of the warm skin at your back, and his body feels like he’s submerged in ice.

He doesn’t know what takes over. What exactly propels him forward. Doesn’t take the time to kick off his shoes—you can yell at him for it later. But he’s moving before he can fully process things, tearing through the stillness of your apartment with the finesse of a jaguar. He switches off the light before you fully turn around, immersing your living room in murkiness again. And he’s reaching for your hips, roosting his hands on them, tugging you close until your breath abandons you in a gasp.

He makes out that doe-eyed, confused look, the want coloring the edges, the way your lips part and quiver. He studies your mouth for a beat longer before angling himself down to graze over your lips with his. 

“Why don’t we try this again?” he breathes, drunk and out of his mind. 

Your throat swells with words, but he’s kissing you before you can get them out. Ardent, tender, desperate, cautious. He breaks the seal of your lips with his tongue after your surprise ebbs, and you sigh something relieved into his mouth, your hands coming up to cup his jaw as you lean more into him.

He’s dizzy with need, caught up in the pressure of your lips, the warmth, how right it feels to kiss you, those cute little sounds you make as he leaves no part of your mouth unscathed by his tongue. He doesn’t realize he’s backed you up against a wall until you push out a breath from the collision, but he doesn’t let up. Not when you’re just as eager for this, your fingers sifting through his hair, your body hot and pliant like wax under warmed palms, pushing against his.

He’s not sure what he’s thinking when he hikes your legs up to wrap them around his waist. But judging by how your ankles instinctively lock at the small of his back and how you drag him impossibly closer, he hasn’t crossed a line. Not yet. He cups your ass in his palms, peeling you from the wall to effortlessly walk you into your bedroom. He remembers the layout of your apartment like the back of his hand, he’s been here so frequently. 

He’s missed this; missed you. And maybe you’ve missed him too, giggling between kisses with the prettiest little smile on your face like you’ve been waiting for him to ruin your friendship, too.

[aimseytv]

my girlfriend likes these ones so i posted them, enjoy

[karmas-void]

Yeah so I think Black Sapphire should get to be a gay disaster, as a treat

Close up of their faces under cut

[indieyuugure]

made for @truths33k3r4 ‘s TMNTember prompt “Betrayed by someone you trusted”

(Reference to this coming event in Indie TMNT)

[medusas-graveyard]

War knows

Earth, now in danger after the infinite realms waged war against them, is on a time limit to reverse it. The shadows speak of a person; the only person who can change the fate of the whole planet. So the Justice League scramble to find this person, only for it to be revealed as Daniel Fenton-Wayne, the newest adoptee of Bruce Wayne.

The same person who made headlines in Gotham media for his mid-western charm, looked at them blankly and told them good luck.

[infernaleikon]

[thehmn]

Okay listen I think it would be silly for aliens to communicate via crop circles too but at the same time I think it’s ridiculous to complain about aliens being too human and also complain about them trying to communicate via crop circles. Aliens should have alien ways of behaving, yes? Maybe aliens have some weird tradition for making important statements as big as possible on reusable surfaces that doesn’t scar the environment permanently or something. Come on people, think outside the box!

[sillyhahasilly]

cal robertson, trailer for "the isabel fish" 2006.

[dinolich]

workin on a lil sticker set of cat witches for future art shows

[mo-gxn]

PRE BETRAYAL KIDDADS!!!!!

[dredgen-dumbass]

Also some disability pride ones tyvm

[zoloteh-volossya]

Some Thoughts on Minthara

A repeating theme of all of the Origin companions is that what they think they want at the beginning of the game is a result of their fucked up pasts and is ultimately bad for them. Shadowheart wants to be a DJ, but that cuts her off from the potential to grow beyond Shar and loss. Lae'zel wants to Ascend, which would obliterate her in her entirety. Karlach would rather die than go back to hell, but dying cuts off the potential continued life she may find thanks to that Infernal Forge. Astarion wants to Ascend, which locks him into a cycle of violence, power, and fear. Gale has two failures of goals - first to kill himself for Mystra's forgiveness, then to Ascend (which hollows him out of all the originally noble intentions he had going into it). Wyll wants to serve, no matter what the cost to himself - which would lead him to stay pacted to Mizora when freedom beckons.

All of these initial goals stem from the environments/abuses that the companions are coming from. And they're all understandable! But they're unhealthy and/or maladaptive, and so in order for every Origin companion to get to their best/happiest ending they need to change and grow away from what they initially thought they wanted due to the influence of their pasts and personal flaws.

Minthara, when we meet her under her own free will, has abandoned Lolth but not her attitudes. She seeks love, yes, but also seeks any sort of power she can get her hands on with a desperation borne of fear. She cares deeply for Karlach and Lae'zel and reluctantly for Astarion, Shart, and Gale, but is willing to enslave them all as she herself was enslaved if it makes her Top Dog. Her ideal ending is codependent evil power couple with you, controlling the brain - and I think that's her 'bad' ending, akin to Ascended Astarion or DJ Shart.

Basically, I think there’s two sides to her. There's the side that desires genuine connections and is willing to go to hell for Karlach even if unromanced... and the side that chases power even if it means doing things like enslaving Karlach. She wants purpose (per her dialogue upon leaving Moonrise), a home and friends (per her dialogue when leaving the party), and protection (per her dialogues with the player). I think if she was able to obtain those things through sources other than trying to conquer Menzoberranzan/the Sword Coast she might be able to express the former side of herself more.

We see a bit of that in her Karlach romance, where she throws aside all concerns of seeking power to go to hell for her girlfriend. She doesn't talk of conquering or ruling Avernus - her focus is purely on vengeance for Karlach. It's an interesting reevaluation of her priorities and also why I like her pairing with Karlach so much.

As a side character, she doesn't get a questline and arc like the Origin companions get. But I think that it is notable that her happiest ending seems to be staying in Baldur's Gate. In her epilogue dialogue with Origin!Lae'zel she confesses that she is not happy if she pursues reconquering Menzoberranzan, and harbors doubts about her ability to succeed.

Because ultimately - as Ascended Astarion shows - pursuing power and conquest does not actually make you happier or safer. It just means a life dominated by fear. Lolth's treatment of the drow - and thus the drow treatment of each other - has been compared by writers of canon D&D novels to an abusive relationship. And like so many other survivors of abuse, Minthy is out of the immediate situation but still carries that way of thinking worn into her psyche, like ruts in a road.

She’ll never be “nice” or even necessarily “good,” but I’d like to think that over time, in the right environment, she can leave behind most of the self destructive power seeking of the Lolthite mindset. Move on from the toxic patterns of her past, as the Origin companions get to do in game.

[hexcia]

omg is that infamous rage youtuber ErrorClassicAsgoroFan??????

[zovie9638]

Happy Holidays

Hope you eat your grandma’s food till you explode, because that’s what I’m planning to do.

I also hope that the bottom of your MAJESTIC Christmas tree is filled with thoughtful gifts and cards as much as mine.

#best time of the year

[enjamin-the-benitor]

“Are we soulmates in every universe?” “We can’t even be soulmates in this one.” With levere, curtwen, and holloweane