The Link Is Only For Registered Users As An Act Of Malicious Discrimination Against Artificial Intelligence.

The link is only for registered users as an act of malicious discrimination against artificial intelligence. I’ll keep putting it on tumblr tho for any real human people who just don’t have ao3

Chapter 1 (Date): Darius helps Hunter sort out his feelings and plan a perfect date with Willow

Hunter was a fantastic researcher. He found out all kinds of stuff about wild magic (which was banned-banned. Like illegal with a sentence of petrification banned) while under Belo’s direct supervision.

And yet, he could not figure out for the life of him what on the titan’s sweet isles was going on with him when he was around Willow.

Finally, he decided he needed to bring in some assistance. Darius seemed trustworthy enough. Someone who wouldn’t snitch on him if for some reason whatever was wrong with him wasn’t allowed.

To be fair, Darius hadn’t snitched (at least to Willow, he definitely called up his catts/ratts friends to share what was apparently incredible gossip amongst legal guardians). He did tease Hunter mercilessly, though, which was so embarrassing that Hunter almost wished he could be petrified instead.

That said, he did at least get his answer. Once Darius had finished exploiting Hunter’s naïveté to ask a bunch of questions that Hunter hadn’t realized were even embarrassing until after the fact, he was informed that he was “down bad” and “head over heels” with a “crush.”

Hunter was vaguely aware of the concept of romantic feelings and relationships, but he didn’t know anything about the specifics.

So, he dove into his research.

Without even getting into how difficult it was to read about this stuff and not accidentally waste the day away daydreaming about how it all related to Willow, it was a tedious process. It seemed sources helping teens figure out what their feelings meant were kept under lock and key even more than wild magic or any other illicit reading material from his golden guard days.

All Hunter really was able to gather for sure was that sometimes people who like-like each other go on dates. Which are like hanging out but different somehow.

And then they could somehow bond to each other??? He wasn’t exactly sure what made a girlfriend different from any other friend who was a girl, but it was apparently special and he couldn’t help longing for it.

And then there was stuff they could do together. Stuff that made Hunter blush just to think about.

Hunter had already held Willow’s hand before (it was life changing. The nerves in his hand had gone haywire but in a way that somehow felt good).

There was more stuff than just hand holding that one could do with a girlfriend, though, according to his research. Stuff that you had to be bonded in a “couple” to be allowed to do.

Hunter had seen people kiss before. He knew it existed. He just honestly… never really got it. It seemed a little gross, but honestly he hadn’t given it much thought.

Until now. Now he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He didn’t quite get the mechanics of it, but that didn’t stop him from daydreaming about it constantly.

Hunter was practically drooling over the idea of having Willow so close to him. Touching him. He would probably combust, but what a way to go.

How he understood it was that he had to somehow arrange this special hangout-but-different in order to be allowed to kiss her (KISS HER??? WILLOW??? OMT OMT HE CANT DO THAT HES FLYING WAY TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN but imagine Willow sitting sosososo close to him, her gentle lips and soft skin and strong grip STRONG MUSCLES SHJBDTDJDD she’s so pretty and cute and ahhhhhhhh Hunter’s so out of his depth here)

He hung out with Willow all the time, though, and none of the books gave straightforward instructions on how to initiate this second, elevated type of interaction.

So he went back to Darius, this time for help constructing the perfect date.

Darius was unreasonably thrilled to be asked.

Apparently they were meant to do something Willow would enjoy, preferably in a place where they were somewhat alone, and it was meant to be “romantic.”

1v1 flyer derby evidently didn’t count as adequately romantic.

But flying itself wasn’t completely out of the question…

Hunter was pretty familiar with the natural features of the Boiling Isles. Maybe Willow would appreciate flitting around collecting various rare and remote plants?

Darius thought it was the perfect idea. However, he insisted that he would under no circumstances be allowing “two hormone addled teenagers to be unsupervised together that far off the grid.”

Hunter tried to explain that he’d been to these places alone before and managed to escape death. And Willow was like the strongest witch ever, she could handle anything the isles could throw at her!

Darius would not hear it, and said that the two would be chaperoned by his tiny abomination, and that was final.

The next order of business would be determining what Hunter would wear. Darius insisted upon being allowed to make Hunter a brand new outfit, promising that it would make his little plant witch swoon.

Hunter was overwhelmed by the gesture. He’d never had a handmade ensemble tailored specifically for him, and it felt like too much. Darius, however, seemed very into it, and truthfully like he wasn’t going to budge regardless of how much Hunter insisted it wasn’t necessary.

“Oh, you’re going to be so handsome for your first date, my little prince! I can hardly believe how far you’ve come.”

The clothes planning portion ended with tears and hugs from all involved parties. Hunter had never had his cheeks squished so much in his life.

For the final step of the planning process, apparently it was considered good etiquette to bring a gift for your date.

Since the weather was subject to be unpredictable with how many different climates they’d be visiting, Hunter decided that he would make Willow some warm layers with a personalized touch. He’d accidentally been collecting Willow related patches for months now. He’d be shopping, see something that reminded him of her, and black out until the next thing he knew he’d already completed the purchase.

He was happily dreaming about how to accessorize a green scarf just right so she would absolutely love it, when Darius burst his bubble again.

“So how are you going to ask her?”

Truthfully, the fact that he HAD to ask her had slipped his mind. And now that he thought about it, it felt so unfathomably nerve racking.

“Um-“ was all he could get out before he became too flustered to speak.

“You have nothing to worry about, this girl’s clearly infatuated with you.”

That only made Hunter’s blush warmer and his thoughts mushier.

Darius tried to regain his attention, but Hunter was too far gone. He’d make real plans after he got all his giggling, blushing daydreaming and romance zooming, and pillow squeezing, squealing, tingly tummy feeling out of his system.

Darius just watched fondly as his ward acted every bit the silly teen he was meant to be. He couldn’t wait to tell the catts about this.

My contribution to Huntlow Week

Say whatever you want about how dumb you/your friends were to have not realized you own identities despite mounting evidence, but:

Speculating about random people’s gender/sexuality/identity is a dick move (especially if it involves pressuring them to identify a certain way or invalidating their current identity)

Everyone deserves to figure themselves out and come out (or not) in their own time

Your right to make silly jokes will never supersede anyone else’s right to have their identity respected

You can’t disagree with someone’s own identity just because their expression doesn’t align with how you interpret that label

my dad sent me to conversion therapy as a teen and some of the things the christian “therapist” said to me there were indistinguishable from what people on here say surrounding the egg discourse. men can be feminine, men can wear dresses sometimes, men can be sensitive, men can use makeup, men can like traditionally feminine things, but they must remain men. remaining a man is more important than anything else. your maleness is immutable and will follow you everywhere you go, so stay in your assigned seat and learn to be okay with it. to say what everyone else has said, ask yourself why you’re so invested in keeping people this way. why do you employ the same tactics as a conversion therapist? what do you stand to gain by insisting there mustn’t be any more trannies in the world?

"dni if you engage with irredeemable media! dni to kill a mockingbird stans" ok well CLEARLY you have never read to kill a mockingbird if you think it's irredeemable media and also having a book that was published in 1960 on your dni stan list is kinda ridiculous actually

Sorry, I’m also going to drag these two comments into this because I’ve seen a lot of this type of rhetoric on both TikTok and tumblr, so it’s another thing to be consciously and deliberately aware of when critiquing online trends/their meanings and origins. We need to remember that prejudice (purposeful or not) is prejudice, even if you tack on that you’re only referring to the white queer/disabled/poor/etc people. This isn’t coming after the op specifically, because they’re far from the only one guilty of this, but it is definitely something for anyone who finds themselves specifying that they’re talking about the white (or cis or male or whatever) sub-sect of any demographic to really look internally as to why you’re doing that.

White people as a whole have become a very popular scapegoat in online and irl social justice discourse, and regardless of historical roles, that’s always a very dicey path to head down. It’s always easy to blame someone else for a social issue, and no demographic is immune to that urge or to being the perpetrators of shifting responsibility for their own comfort and absolvement of guilt

I think it needs to be said cause currently I'm not seeing anybody mentioning it or providing context, but the whole 'girl dinner' meme was created by a black woman on tiktok and the joke was that within her video she's just finding a random assortment of lunch meat and crackers and shit. the joke was about like being broke and having to scrounge up a meal in the same vein as the ice soup meme. but then in typical fashion, white women stole it and co-opted, particularly the coquette dollete girl interrupted female hysteria types and mutated it into a gender essentialism ed thing. it was never meant to be about disordered eating.

No bc just imagine you’re Belos trying to be a scary genocidal maniac, and you possess the kid you abused into unquestioningly following you and having no personal interests other then listening to authority and following rules.

Then you get there and he’s wearing the nerdiest lil sci-fi cosplay ever but you’re puritan so you can’t just have your host running around naked. He at least has an undershirt, so you can lose half the getup and not look COMPLETELY ridiculous while carrying out your villainous schemes. But then you unzip the onesie (because of course he was running around in a hand sewn ugly yellow onesie ffs) to reveal the most cringe fail diy wolf shirt you’ve ever seen in your life

I'm starting to find evidence on twitter of antis encouraging each other to shun friends and family for not being one of them and I am deeply concerned. This is some cult shit.

"should I shun my friend for being proship even though they're my only irl friend?"

"Should I shun my mother for being proship?"

The answer to both of these is GET HELP. You are being brainwashed into thinking that your friends and family are dangerous when you know that they wouldn't hurt anyone. See a therapist, take some time off the internet, reevaluate your situation. Fiction does not take precedence over your loved ones.

I'm tagging this with "antis please interact" because I think they need to see this too, and hopefully it helps someone. Your loved ones are not dangerous because of their taste in fiction.