#‘well it’s a good thing we have a graphic designer on the board this semester then’ and that shut the blonde man up so quickly

[robertsbarbie]

i love interacting with a blonde man and him reminding me of why i hate blonde men

[blysse-and-blunder]

in lieu of a rainy day

10pm, sunday, nov 26, 2023

went to a gig for a friend's band last night, but otherwise it's been an extremely lowkey and indoor weekend. living that housecat lifestyle. aside from the sunday scaries (but, like, for the semester....for the year....) all in all the past week+ has been Okay. whoever is in charge of my calendar (which is me) made a pretty big gamble booking three-four medical-esque appointments back-to-back-to-back this week, but it paid off, we got through it, and the decks are cleared (so to speak) for writing between now and the holidays.

reading i got briefly very into freya marske's books a marvellous light and now a restless truth, though i will admit to having calmed (slowed) down a lot in reading the sequel, after tearing through the first one like there was a deadline. the world building and magic system are very fun, i am a big fan of the aesthetic; they're extremely sexy but not at the expense of plot or dialogue or characters' having their own real personalities, flaws and hobbies and all. excited to read the third one.

listening a quick skim of the previous few ilcb entries (have there really only been three all fall, dear me) to check i hadn't already posted this, and it doesn't seem like it? so, gregory alan isakov with the colorado symphony. the additional strings, the additional brass, it adds such a gorgeous dimension to this already pretty good song; the way things build from 1:20 on or so, to burst into full color and light from 1:59 to 2:14.... i've turned a few afternoons around lately just leaning into that orchestra swell in my headphones. wish it lasted a full 10 minutes, wish it had multiple movements.

watching more burrow's end; finished arcane season 1 with @hematiterings and began watching the first season of stranger things since she's never seen it; the nostalgia and affection i feel! the real satisfaction in how good season 1 is, how young they all are!! also started season 2 of slings and arrows with the housemates, which is new territory for me and which is similarly filling me with affection for characters i've known a long time, and fascination at seeing them doing new things and making new bad decisions. also started the second season of wheel of time on my own, as background while doing some unpaid graphic design/newsletter prep; my gratitude for this show making something so rich and visually interesting and real out of the books is unabated, even though i'm not feeling anyone's storyline very intensely at the moment. rand meeting logain was cool; perrin has been captured and that's bad; mat is now traveling with min, which is also cool because it's probably a set-up; i'm sorry that nynaeve had such a hard time in the arches but her romance subplot with lan has always left me extremely cold; moiraine is being frustrating! the show has a nice way of showing us other characters, minor characters, too-- moiraine's sister, for one, and starting that encounter by showing us her sister's morning routine, clarifying the difference in their ages where one is aes sedai and aging very, very differently. egwene and the daughter heir are in a magical boarding school subplot which is surprisingly delightful.

playing dnd campaign a had a session for the first time in aaaaages not too long ago, and it was good. spoke to the gods briefly, got started trying to appease them with sports as opposed to human sacrifice, and ended the night beta testing a phone-based game a friend of the dm's wanted us to try which involved a lot of bluffing and bs and laughter. campaign b, meanwhile, is in combat with some were creatures; @dimir-charmer's character has maintained this whole time that she is Not a Werewolf but circumstances may be, in fact, conspiring against her...... worrying!

making not a whole lot. i bought a box of cards since the closest thing i've come to a hobby recently has been sending a few cards (well, one and a half); i feel the pull of stickers and sealing wax and stamps.... wandered through an art supply store only a little while ago and came so close to buying the vinyl stamp making kit, but the only paint i could find to go with vinyl stamps was metallic so i decided to wait. contemplating making potato stamps, like i do every year around this time, but again the ink or paint or whatever is the limiting factor there.

working on taught my second and final guest lecture of the semester! read back through the written feedback on my conference paper! have started to look at integrating said paper back into the chapter whence it came, and had to have a little lie-down, but that's the big project remaining. at the same time, the running commentary at the back of my brain is about lecture prep for the course i'm teaching in the spring, specifically, what i'll say to situate/contextualize/prepare students to handle the material, how i'll thread various needles, which texts i'm going to ultimately assign, and on and on. i've started trying to turn this background noise into brainstorming/writing/limited, focused bursts of work on said course, in the hopes that getting a little of it out of the way will let me brain settle back in to other projects afterwards. i've also realized i've started doing the Discretionary stuff first, i.e. the reading extra articles, the looking at post docs or awards or things to apply for, the stuff that won't happen if i don't allow myself 15 min to look into it, because the Actual Work will be enforced, it will have to happen eventually, and the discretionary stuff won't. jury's very much out as to whether this will pay off, especially when it's not discretionary work at all, but discretionary attending-a-lecture time, or -coffee-with-a-friend time, or discretionary-at-the-gym time. time spent with the cat, of course, is non-discretionary.

[bubmyg]

dare to begin - jjk

pairing: jeongguk x reader

genre/warnings: college!au, f2l (idiots to lovers), amateur model!jeongguk, aspiring photographer!jeongguk, amateur stylist!reader, graphic design student!reader, a touch of angst, mostly tooth rotting fluff

word count: 16,748

summary: jeongguk has a camera and you have a pirated editing software so what better for two broke college students to do than to open a photography business to their…closest friends on facebook or where kim seokjin’s modeling agency wants to sign jeongguk and you don’t know the first thing about curling his hair.

a/n: this was inspired by that random dispatch photoshoot in vegas...i’m not even sorry

“Oh fuck off.” 

Jeongguk’s head lifted from where his forehead was pressed between the crook of his elbow, squinting at you through bleary eyes. “...for once, I didn’t even say anything—”

“Not you,” You clicked so angrily on the notification, it didn’t register and you had to jam your index finger into the button again, “The bursar’s office.”

“Oh, did they—” Jeongguk rolled to his back, head half dangling off the end of your bed as he pulled his phone to his face. “—oh. Tuition statements.”

“How can they make us pay for something that hasn’t even started yet? We haven’t even finished this semester.”

“What are they going to do if we don’t pay by the first day of the semester—” Jeongguk’s eyebrows peered at you underneath his phone, “—kick us out?”

You glared at the mass of numbers twisted into the statement until they muddled together and gave your conscious the mirage that the cost was an extra digit more. Your phone skidded across the surface of your desk, coming to a stop in the pointed corner next to a decorative jar of pens and a concert ticket you’d pushed through the cork board material substance lining the back. 

“They won’t kick me out?” You didn’t look up from studying a fray of graining wood on the pointed corner of your desk but cocked an eyebrow at the waiver of uncertain concern in Jeongguk’s voice paired with the change in position from we to me, “Will they?”

“I don’t know,” You answered truthfully, arm slung over the back of your desk chair to face his pouted lips still slung backward over your bed. An unspoken why would they kick you out? “I really don’t.”

He answered your rhetorical with closed eyes and his phone pressing to his abdomen, “I don’t know if I’ll...have enough. That much. By then. Even if it’s not until the end of the summer…”

You scolded the glaring image of your bank statement when you gently tried, “There’s all kinds of loans you can apply for. What about scholarships? Isn’t the science department like...the biggest at the university? Surely they offer something—”

“I don’t think I have the grades,” There was a silence occupied by his notebook with messy organic chemistry notes rewritten twice from the previous semester when he’d taken the exact same class. Jeongguk dropped your gaze, shifting until the back of his head was resting on the side of your mattress while he went for his cuticles, picking at the edge of his thumb while soft red crept into his puffed cheeks and flaring nostrils. 

You abandoned the open animation file on your laptop that you’d forgotten to click save on for the seventeenth time within the hour, a final project you just had to turn in with a semi coherence to the material of the semester to maintain your existing grade. You stumbled, desk chair catching on the edge of your crumbled rug but it didn’t deter you from flopping in beside Jeongguk, leaning over him with both elbows pressed into his stomach to snatch his notebook. He eyed you curiously under wavy fringe until you settled on him, chin pressed into the bottom of the pages as a concentrated scrunch met the pass of your eyes over his handwriting. 

“What are you doing?”

You glanced up, gradual in the drag of your hands up his sides until you could jam your index fingers into the sensitive spots around his ribs, coaxing a soft squirm and a gasping giggle from his lips. 

“Helping you get those grades. Do you really want to take organic chemistry for the third time?” Jeongguk didn’t flinch because your inquiry wasn’t teasing or jabbing, it was serious for the sake of never seeing him on the verge of tears over three credit hours again. He shook his head in negation instead, reaching behind him to snatch one of your pillows to drag behind his neck, propping him up just enough to study the curl of your stature against his chest. 

“No, ma’am.”

“Good, now pay attention.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

You watched Jeongguk sink his teeth into the mint chocolate ice cream balanced two dollops high on a cone with a wrinkle to one side of your nose, the smile on your lips forced when he swallowed the green between his cheeks and quipped, “What?”

“You know what,” You twirled a string of hot fudge onto your plastic fork, mouthing your lips over it until the sweet substance melted on the roof of your mouth, “Forget it.”

He shrugged, happily taking another, literal, bite off the opposite side of the treat tower, lips sponging down the length of his hand to noisily suck on the melted stream of ice cream that had rippled across his knuckles. 

You sighed. Jeongguk grinned mint green, “Tastes like freedom.”

“My summer job says otherwise.” The bookstore wasn’t a fun place of employment during the school year let alone when three fourths of the student body was gone. 

Jeongguk dabbed at the corner of his lips with a napkin, a sharp contrast to the way he’d been barbarically gnawing his way through the ice cream, “So does my summer tutoring. A lesser of two evils.”

“I suppose…”

“At least we can drink on Wednesday’s now and only feel slightly guilty.”

“You don’t drink.”

“I drink a little—” 

“Is this your way of asking me to come over for beer tonight?”

He grinned sheepishly, “Doesn’t have to be for beer. Hoseok moved back home yesterday. I’m extra alone.”

You eyed his prize possession, his camera, encased snugly inside it’s over the shoulder case that Jeongguk kept within grasp on the tiny cafe table shared between the two of you. He followed your gaze, a careful hand coming to rest on the strap even though he knew you respected his comfort enough not to touch it. 

“So, what, you talk me into following your wandering ass around the park for hours to take pictures and now you want me to hole up in your apartment and watch whatever terrible nature documentary you’ve found on Netflix?”

Jeongguk mumbled around another chunk of the treat in his palm, unaffected because he knew you were going to show up at his apartment regardless of invitation, “I bought us ice cream, didn’t I?”

You grumbled your thanks into your deviation of attention, pulling your phone to your eyes as you jabbed another spoonful of sundae into your cheeks. Jeongguk continued to happily munch while you scrolled through one social media and then the other, finally landing on Facebook with a disgruntled roll of your eyes the second the first post appeared. 

“What?”

“Facebook.”

“Did Yoongi post another Area 51 meme?”

You scrolled to the next post just to confirm that yes, sadly, before scrolling back up to the original source of your offending scoff. You eyed the generic smile plastered on the lips of the girl you’d went to high school with, the same as the generic caption on the generic set of pictures she’d taken of her dog and someone’s baby, advertising a brand new photography business, one she’d be doing on the side with no prices listed and simply a shoot me a text to book an appointment!, a service exclusive to those who knew her and who would pay her a little extra because of that connection and a business page created exclusively for a business that would be forgotten by the end of the summer. 

Your lips parted to explain, unfortunate in absently scrolling past Yoongi’s string of laughing emojis at whatever Area 51 meme his conspiracy theorist group chat had sent him that morning, before you were pausing. Thumb freezing, lips parted in a perfect circle, eyes the only thing moving as they swept upward. 

Jeongguk watched you like you were seconds away from shedding a shell or sprouting a second head or both, ice cream sticking to the pout of his bottom lip and a new melted stream lipping into the stretch between his thumb and index finger. He didn’t follow your gaze when it jerked from him to his camera bag, watching as your entire being lit like the thing you were sprouting wasn’t a second head but instead a hovering light bulb. 

“You know what we should do?”

“...go to the park and take pictures of the playground equipment in obscure angles that strangely turn out to be aesthetically pleasing?”

“Close,” Your nail dug into your screen until you were at the top post again, flipping your phone over while you continued to study the zippers wrapped to the width of Jeongguk’s camera bag. When he’d squinted at the screen for what you deemed necessary to get the gist of the post, you continued, “We should open a photography business.”

Jeongguk squinted, “A what now?”

“A photography business. You take the pictures, I edit them. Foolproof way to earn extra cash.”

“In order to have a photography business we have to have something to photograph…”

“I bet we can get Yoongi to pay us twenty bucks to take pictures of his dog.”

“It’s almost not worth the twenty—”

“Okay, forty dollars,” You shrugged, reaching out with your own clean but crumpled napkin to dab at the excess ice cream on his hand, “I’m sure there’s some of our friends back home who need pictures of their baby. Or their cousin’s baby. Or their little brother’s senior pictures—” You blinked at the confused round of his doe eyes, “—what could it hurt to try?”

After a second of silence and swatting your hand away to lick at the dried ice cream instead, “...well we’ll need examples.”

“Good thing we were just about to go to the park—” You gestured toward his camera bag, “—and that thing is virtually attached to you.”

Jeongguk gradually began to loosen, “You want to do this right now?” 

You stood then, binning your virtually untouched sundae before reaching out for his mostly eaten treat. He shoved the last of the cone between his cheeks instead of handing it to you, puffed cheeks innocent as he handed you his mass of crumpled napkins to throw away instead before you were taking both his hands to pull him up. 

“What better time than now?” You grinned when he cocked an eyebrow, still holding onto your hands, “C’mon. You can help me edit them tonight.”

Skeptical, “Okay…”

Jeongguk dropped one of your hands to reach for his camera, shrugging it messily over his shoulders while you squeezed the remaining appendage in your grasp, teasing, “Don’t act like you weren’t going to take a ton of pictures of me, anyway.”

You weren’t immune to the soft blush that spread outward from the center of his cheeks, chin dropping as he shouldered his way out of the nearby door, holding it open for you and when you skipped through he grumbled, “Shut up.”

You were fresh off a playful argument about whether he could arrange your hair into a halo of hearts around your head when it happened. 

“Not possible,” You dismissed, a disguised threat as you glared up at him from your seated place on the grass. He stepped closer and you held up a steady palm, “Do not touch me or my hair.”

Jeongguk whined, fingers wrapped around his lens as he crouched, twirling and snapping a picture of your indignation. “At least lay down for me? The flowers look nice…”

“These are weeds—”

“Please?”

You obliged because the stars in his eyes told you to, falling backwards to the plush earth with an arm tucked behind your neck and a hefty sigh. He’d stepped between your legs, one foot at your knees and one at your hip as he craned, tongue in cheek in concentration until he mumbled, “I still think the hearts would look cool.”

“I thought you were good at this whole photography thing.”

You retracted into yourself before he could grab you, a shriek of laughter tumbling out of your lips even before his fingers curled into your sides and you flailed an absent foot at his stature squatted over you, chanting I’m sorry, stop! until Jeongguk relented to a messy sitting position next to you in a soft cloud of grass clippings and dust, camera plopped in his lap as he glared at you. 

You rolled until you were perched on your elbows, reaching out your previously assaulting foot to prod the light denim on his thighs. When he cocked an eyebrow, you tried, “Any good ones?”

Without missing a beat, he hummed, “As good as we can get with that face of yours.”

“Hey!—” 

The tiniest of smiles pressed the ghost of a dimple in Jeongguk’s cheek and he tossed his head, “Come here.”

An awkward waddle over and you were pressed into his side, cheek on his arm as he scrolled through the shots on the digital screen. It was something about his ability to capture shots at just the right moment in just the right lighting with just the right angle that elicited a feeling of fond within you, that even if you didn’t particularly like the squash of your chin between your neck or the way the wind had curled the material of your shirt around your torso, it was still a glimpse into how Jeongguk saw the world, saw you. A strange fuzziness bubbled to the tips of your fingers as he continued to scroll through his lens to what he perceived as your beauty, focused more on the gradual smile that grew higher on his teeth as he flipped past candid shots of you telling him off to staged shots of you perched on a park bench looking as skeptical as you could about the barking squirrel perched just out of frame above you. 

“Good, don’t you think?” His fond faced you, further melting the numbness on the edge of your appendages to the entirety of your stature. 

You relaxed into his so that your nod brushed against his bicep, afraid of what your face would say if you met his gaze and you mumbled, “Told you we didn’t need heart hair.”

“Hush,” Jeongguk’s screen went black as he set it gently on the cross of his ankles, leaning on his palms to accommodate your stature better, “Do you think we got plenty of examples?”

You continued to stare at his blank screen, skin warm on the fabric covering his arm and suddenly it happened when you blurted, “Let me take some of you.”

A possessive hand curled to obscure your view of the blank preview screen, shoulders jumping as he tried to laugh it off, “No, that’s okay.”

Chin on his shoulder, you dared to look at him and utter, “What? I’ll edit them. I mean, I know your face looks like that but that’s the beauty of technology.”

“My joke,” Jeongguk’s neck craned backward to observe you, smile flustered like the pink that had overtaken more of his cheeks, “...why do you want to?”

You shrugged, “You always take pictures of me. I just thought we could change it up—” You swallowed, “You know. For our business.”

“Ah, marketing technique, huh,” Slowly, he uncovered the device, flicking it back to life with a seasoned thumb as he was stretching it to place it softly on your thigh, “Okay, boss. Where do you want me?”

You’d used a camera before but something so expensive to the price tag but priceless to the wary man before you made it an extra weight in your palms, fumbling at first to get anything that wasn’t blurry. One of your first clear shots was after you’d shoved on broad shoulders until he was seated on a wooden bench, awkward and small at first until you sighed with the camera at your hip. 

The exasperated relax that sighed from your lips opened up a new realm that had the strange bubbles from earlier lodging into the base of your throat when Jeongguk reclined, both arms framing the back of the bench and his legs flopped open, that slight crinkle to one edge of his nose still present until you slowly rose the camera and it erased into something effortlessly smug. 

“I can’t...I can’t get it to focus.” For two reasons now.

Jeongguk nodded in seeming understanding and you had a hunch he didn’t entirely understand why but he patted the spot next to his thigh on the bench nonetheless. “Come here. Rest your elbow on this and then try. It’ll stabilize it a little bit more…”

You startled yourself and him when you bypassed the bench for his thigh, digging your elbow into the taut muscle as you pulled the camera to your face, catching his surprise first and then the slow smirk that melted back into his features, chin tilting as you got a few more shots before pulling your touch away. 

The next set of shots was you frantically ordering him to stay like a dog until you’d jogged the proper distance away (Don’t trip! Watch my camera!) and motioned for him to walk to you. It was rigid at first, just as before, a little too fast and his face was on the edge of bursting into audible giggles. You continued to back away, holding up a palm for him to pause again and then you shouted, “Relax!” louder than before and more important. 

There was an easy gait to his walk now, feet crossing as they stepped in front of each other, one hand finding the front pocket of his jeans as the oversized hang of his striped blue shirt crinkled at his thin waist. One hand dared to fluff at his hair, gaze going out to the occupants of the park rather than the desolate intersection to his other side and you couldn’t help but giggle at the unsure smile that crossed his lips immediately after the action. 

Jeongguk settled for an easy saunter after that, one hand in his pocket, both in, both out, until you were tired of the clench of his jaw and you called over the raise of his device to the lower half of your face, “Hey! Are those yellow converse you’re wearing?”

He frowned at first, “What’s wrong with my yellow converse?” before breaking into a gentle grin, one that started at the crinkles around his eyes and traveled into the wide pull of his teeth as the easy swing of his steps stumbled into his louder laughter and you continued to click away all the same until he set his sights on you. Hunched back, rolled shoulders, arms comically splayed out behind him as he darted for you, a squeak of surprise leaving your lips and before you could think to hold onto his camera and run, he was on you, arms around your waist to direct his giggles directly over your ear. 

The excitement died with gentle sways in the center of the sidewalk. Jeongguk continued to hold your hips as he pulled away, quieter now, “Do you think we have enough now?”

“Plenty,” You held his camera out to him until his grip was secure on it, prodding your index finger to the center of his chest, “Did you want to take anymore? I know you originally wanted to come because you had some ideas for your portfolio…”

He beamed, slightly apologetic in the slant of it on his lips, “It’s okay, we have all summer. I’m...kind of hungry anyway.”

“We just had ice cream!”

“We’ve been here for four hours.”

You eyed the time on your phone and then the dip of the sun behind some wisped clouds in the horizon. “Oh.”

“You’ll come with me another day, though?”

You patted Jeongguk’s chest instead of prodding it. “Of course, Guk.”

He plopped in beside you, two paper plates balanced between his long fingers and the curve of his wrist, each piled high in fresh slices of pizza. One plate was deposited to the coffee table beyond the sway of your ankles, the latter pulled over his thighs to begin happily munching at the toppings while you continued to hack at the keys on your laptop. 

“Any progress?” Jeongguk leaned closer with grease stained lips, “Making us look good?”

You hummed, dragging your finger over your touchpad. Another notch down on contrast, another notch up on the chosen filter, some color correction, and lessening of shadows to compensate for the natural lighting. 

“Trying my best. And…” You navigated to save the image on the screen, one of Jeongguk walking toward you with a hand in his pocket and an easy expression adorning his otherwise tentative features. “I’m done!”

He pouted, grease stained finger trailing to the screen, “You cut off my shoes.”

“I blame your camera,” You exited out of the program, pulling up your internet browser instead. You paused, the cursor blinking on the search engine and you turned to observe the fish of Jeongguk’s lips as he gnawed on another bite of pizza dough, “...do you really want me to post some of these?”

He dusted his fingers on the edge of his joggers, leaning closer until his cheek was smooshed against the crook of your elbow. “I mean, what can it hurt.”

You began to type then, slow in entering the cursed Facebook and you chatted as you typed, “Should we create an official page for the business and everything?”

“Absolutely we should,” Jeongguk made grabby hands at your laptop until you relented and let him pull it into the awkward curl of his lap. His eyebrows furrowed at the first post on your feed, the same Yoongi Area 51 meme that continued to fester in your feed because Taehyung couldn’t and wouldn’t stop commenting on it and his tongue sandwiched in his molars with further confusion, doe eyes scanning down the length of the screen until the tip of your nail pointed him in the right direction. 

Jeongguk hesitated again on the first question. Name. 

“Uh…”

“I got it,” You leaned your head against his, softly, “Dare to Begin…” 

Dare to begin a new semester that neither of you knew if you could properly pay for. Dare to begin a summer of trying to figure out how to pay for that semester. Dare to begin a new semester by some miracle and then what (figure it out when you get there, survive) with a major you adored and a major he did because photography wasn’t a viable career option. Dare to begin a friendship with someone who photographed the world like the beauty he saw it in but photographed you like he was in love with the world because you existed in it. 

Dare to begin a new business on Facebook, of all things.

He wrinkled his nose, “I was just going to go with Flash Fiends or something.”

“Oh, come on,” You reasoned your prior thoughts to something that wouldn’t cause suspicion of your sentiments, “Dare to begin, like weddings? They’re beginning their journey with us. Senior pictures? Beginning a journey. Baby pictures? Again...beginning a long life journey—”

“You’re serious about this?” Jeongguk had already typed Flash Fiends in the name box and you squeaked in indignation. 

“I guess not,” Suddenly bashful, “I just thought it was creative…”

“It is,” You blinked and he’d navigated through three other windows before he was typing dare to begin with Flash Fiends as the opening line in the description box. He hacked away some more, a generic description and you equally agreed to put prices in the album with the pictures of the two of you. Another jam of his pinky into the enter key and he lifted up off your side to hand you your laptop back. “There! Okay, now do your thing.”

Doing your thing included dragging all the files into an album, adding searchable hashtags, making the post public, choosing to set the last photo of Jeongguk you’d edited as the cover photo. A couple more clicks to make the post, navigating to share it onto your profile and dropping a tag of his profile and, “My thing is done.”

He took your laptop from you to replace it with the extra plate of pizza, sliding the remote into his hand in the same movement and flicking on the television. “Now,” He gestured solemnly to the litter of devices in front of you, both your phones and the still open laptop, “We wait.”

You remembered two of the share notifications before you dozed off underneath the cozy puff of Jeongguk’s duvet and the heavy weight of his arm draped across your waist. One from Yoongi, an oh so serious I’m going to help my friends! share that included the obligatory you’re very talented, Guk-ah! I’d love to have you shoot Holly one day...comment. One from Taehyung, a less than serious share that included a string of laughing emojis solely on the image of Jeongguk lounging seriously on the wooden park bench. 

The notification you most definitely did not remember was the email from Kim Enterprises titled internship inquiry. 

You crawled from Jeongguk’s embrace to snatch your laptop, afraid to pull the email up on the tiny screen of your phone in fear you were reading it wrong. The light off the screen roused him from his sleep before your suddenly-not-tired-anymore gasp did. 

“What? What’s wrong?” He misjudged the search of his hand for you, gently sliding across your cheek instead of your arm like he’d been aiming but you barely flinched, covering your lips with both hands instead. 

“This can’t be real,” The words muffled through your fingers before they were in action again, highlighting the email address and jamming it into the search engine. 

“I’m not following you…”

“To be honest,” You clicked on the first result of the search, another gasp raw in your throat when the website, that website, emerged, “Me either.”

“B-Bloom?” Jeongguk squinted at the screen, turning your laptop towards the sleep still coating the fringe stuck in his eyelashes, “What is Bloom?” 

“A magazine. An extremely popular magazine.”

He brushed your fingers out of the way to navigate back to the tab with your email on it, squinting at the address, “Why did an extremely popular magazine email you?”

“Let me read this email to you, Guk.”

“I can read—”

“Greetings owner of Flash Fiends. We were extremely intrigued by the contents of your recent business inquiry not for the service at hand but rather the individual seen in some of the photos. The social media entity tagged him as Jeon Jeongguk, and if that is the identity of this individual, we’d be interested in signing him—” You paused, swallowing half your tongue and holding a singular finger up as you inhaled audible through your nose, “—for a summer modeling internship in the interest of some of our newest summer spreads, paid of course. If that is something that would be of interest to you, please reply to this email with an updated resume and we will be in touch. Thank you again, and we look forward to hearing from you. Park Jimin, Department Head of Kim fucking Enterprises and Bloom fucking Inc.”

There was a passing moment of silence, some shifting as Jeongguk fell back into the sheets with his pillow curled in his bare arm and he mumbled, “I told you Flash Fiends was an incredible name.”

“Jeongguk! Did you hear me?” 

He hummed, “I saw it, too.”

“And? They want to pay you! This is the perfect opportunity to earn the money you need for next semester!”

When he was silent for a frightening second, you shut your laptop and shucked it to the floor, turning until you were facing him. You’d barely settled when a tiny, forced smile was dimpling into his cheeks. “I’m not going without you,” He tried to provide and you frowned. 

“Uhm, yes you absolutely are.”

“I’m not a model, babe.”

“You’re entirely more attractive than you give yourself credit for,” You blinked at him, soft fingers subconsciously reaching to stroke wavy tresses from his gaze, “Come on. What could it hurt to try?”

“You said that about the photography business idea, too, and now look where we are,” He flushed under your touch between his eyebrows, “Besides, are you going to run that alone if I leave?”

You bypassed his sarcasm, “We’re in a place where you could get that money you need for next semester. One step closer to graduation. And all you’d have to do is pose for some pictures. They’ll probably pay for your housing and shit too—”

“Okay, but I’m still not going without you,” You waited on Jeongguk to exhale through his nose, considering something over the top of your head before elaborating, “...if I’m going to try this, you’re going with me. Just like the photography business.” Just like everything. 

“You need a resume first.”

“And you need some sort of skill that goes hand in hand with a famous model—” He beamed, “—like yours truly.”

“Fuck off—”

“You could be my assistant.”

“Fuck off twice.” 

“What about my stylist?” Jeongguk let the suggestion hang in the air for a second before teasing, “Your eyeliner looks half decent sometimes.”

“And does any part of you genuinely think I want to go with you at this point—”

“We also need someone to fake these resumes for us—” His features wrinkled up, “—can we get arrested for that? Should I apologize to my FBI agent now?”

You ignored him, instead saying simply, “Taehyung.”

The software engineer blinked at you past artificial blue, the light coating the dyed grey locks that parted in all the right places around the circumference of his head, baggy flannel wrapped around his knuckles that drummed absently into his desk. 

“So...you were serious about that Facebook post?”

“Not really, but—” You exchanged a glance with Jeongguk, “—now we kind of are.”

Taehyung spun slowly in his desk chair, making one full rotation until he pondered, “So, let me get this straight. You want me to fake resumes for the two of you so that you can get a paid internship at Bloom, aka, one of the biggest fashion magazines in the country, because they somehow, through the power of the internet, found your half-joking, half-serious photoshoot and want to sign the amateur model that is Jeon Jeongguk.”

Jeongguk exchanged a glance with you this time, “Correct.”

The older boy blinked, once, twice, four times before shrugging, pushing sleeves up to his elbows as he dug bare heels into the floor, dragging himself closer to the computer to begin hacking away. The blue light turned white and he mumbled, “I’ll see what I can do.”

Twenty minutes later you were sitting across from Taehyung at his tiny dining table with a manila folder in hand containing two pieces of paper, stapled together neatly in the corner, and printed with thick ink you were almost afraid to touch. The man across from you sucked noisily on coffee from a Pikachu themed mug, taking a massive bite from a chocolate energy bar in the same movement and he spoke through the crumbs gathering on the corners of his lips, “I think you’ll find those sufficient.”

You ignored Jeongguk’s flat out whine at the contents of his papers, gleeing, “Oh, good thinking, Tae. I’ll absolutely take credit for RM’s cheekbones in the Seoul music video.”

“Wait—” Jeongguk placed his hand on your arm until he could drag your fake resume close enough to scan it. Another whine, high pitched and through slanted eyebrows and pouted lips, “—why do you get to be attached to Namjoon?”

“Your crush is showing.”

“At least yours doesn’t say you were a former foot model!” 

You couldn’t suppress the snort in your throat, gently prying the wrinkled papers from Jeongguk’s death grip to confirm that Taehyung did, in fact, write that Jeongguk had an impressive track record of modeling for various small shoe companies with posters plastered in every massive mall on the south side of the country. 

“Why—” 

“Because you can’t see your face, dumbass,” Taehyung finished the bar in hand in two bites, shucking the wrapper into a pile of various other trash on the edge of his dining table, “It’s easier to fake if they do check references. What do you think they’re going to do, pull your socks off to check?”

“There’s approximately a million other parts of my body that aren’t my face.”

“Not quite a million…”

“Anyway,” You flattened both your resumes to the table, tapping on the section that said references with a singular reference, “What is this phone number?”

“Mine,” Another energy bar had materialized from somewhere and the wrapper was loudly crinkling in Taehyung palm as he shrugged into another bite, “I’m your manager now.”

“There’s no way this is going to work.”

“This will work,” He took another swig from his mug and when something like a belch rumbled in his throat you figured out that it wasn’t coffee but something carbonated, “What? Do you not have any trust in me?”

You fiddled in the backseat of the cab, the seat belt too tight on your shoulder and digging into that spot on your neck the more you shifted. You tore your gawking gaze away from the city skyline trailing along outside the window to Jeongguk prodding at his thigh with your index finger. 

“You think they’ve called Taehyung yet?”

“If they haven’t yet they’re probably not going to,” His chin swiveled from the window to look at you, gently taking the nervous tap of your hand into his palm and holding it in his lap, “They’ve already said we’re in. We’re already here. It’s okay.”

You were silent through another stop sign and the anger of honking traffic over the soft radio before you uttered, “So Taehyung must be some kind of wizard, then.”

Jeongguk’s palm caught on the back of the driver’s seat when the brakes slammed again, offering you another gentle smile as his thumb swiped over your knuckles, “Evidently.”

“We’re here,” The driver informed you over the ambiance of unmoving traffic and screeching tires, holding out an expectant hand for Jeongguk to jam a wad of cash into before he was pulling you out onto the sidewalk after him. 

Backpacks on and suitcases barely lifted over the lip of the trunk of the cab before he was speeding away off the curb in a rare moment of serenity on the street. Your easy going shrug in Jeongguk’s direction was short lived until you turned toward the building in question, your building for the next few months, nonchalant turning to ice even as summer heat burned through the fabric of the hoodie you’d adorned since five am that morning at the airport. 

A skyscraper was the easiest way to explain it in layman's terms, towering endless stories high so it almost appeared to curve and sway into the flecks of clouds skimming through the blue sky. It seemed to be made entirely of windows, tinted enough and if you squinted, covered in elegant curtains or outlined with towering succulents in molted clay pots. The front door was sliding glass, accented in gold like the name plate jutting out in an awning over a massive outdoor rug with the same name and logo etched in a shag of the same hue. The longer you gaped, the more people entered or exited through the very glass doors, ingraining the soft mechanical hum they made into the forefront of your conscious along with the polished leather shoes and designer purses and singular wedding bands that likely costs more than you would pay in tuition for four years combined. 

“This can’t be it,” You panicked from Jeongguk’s arm again, finding it to dig your fingernails into and turn back onto the street, frantically trying to catch sight of your long gone taxi driver but the street had filled in your moment of disbelief and all shades of yellow and orange began to look the same. “Surely we told him the wrong address.”

“Babe,” He didn’t move his arm so as not to startle you, wincing the further your nails curled into his skin but gentle in his call nonetheless, “Baby, hey—” His eyes trekked the jump of your throat as you swallowed, finally meeting his eye contact, “—let’s just go inside. The worst they can tell us is no.”

They didn’t tell you no but the look from the receptionist told you to be self conscious of the joggers shrunk just above your ankles and the tattered edges of the hoodie curled around your knuckles that curled your skin anemic into the handle of your suitcase while Jeongguk easily chatted through her questions and paperwork, confirming that yes, you were the guests of Kim Enterprise. When you uttered purple to his under the breath pick a color inquiry, you didn’t expect it to be for a spiraling wrist band with a shiny metal key attached to one end, an end that pressed into the pulse point on your wrist. He turned from the desk, a folder in hand and a matching blue band on his wrist, one he shook at you so that the key twisted softly underneath the massive crystal chandelier taunting the space above the front desk. 

“We’re on the tenth floor,” He seemed entirely too at ease in the drape of his oversized crew neck and baggy joggers over open-toed sandals amongst luxuries like a jar of pens perched on the edge of the front counter you commended him for grabbing because the shiny ballpoints seemed to be carved of the same, close-to-real gold accented every inch of the building. He flicked his head again, soft bangs bouncing, and you were left to stumble after his stature until his advancements had to pause for a tall man in a matching tracksuit walking a happy looking doberman from the direction that you smelled chlorine. 

“Does this place have a pool?” You whispered with your hands braced between his shoulder blades, waiting until the man was out of sight to navigate for the elevators. 

Jeongguk waited until he stabbed the button, stepping back to jostle the folder in hand to squint at one of the pages. “Looks like it—” His eyes glinted for a second, “—and a full gym!”

He continued chattering about the amenities while you stepped onto the elevator, listing off the various delivery services that would come to the front lobby versus the ones that would bring it to your door, only pausing through a rant about what the in house cafe coffee cost when you jammed the key on your wrist into the lock of the apartment, your apartment, and pushed the door open. 

Jeongguk mirrored your panicked thoughts from earlier when he let go of the handle of his suitcase, causing the lopsided storage to tumble to the hardwood below. He articulated it next, “This can’t be it. There has to be a mistake. We’re in the wrong apartment or something—”

“Guk,” You comforted him with a hand on his hip, “Our keys wouldn’t have worked if this wasn’t the right place. They wouldn’t have called us by name at the front desk…”

You followed the awe of his gaze as it tilted upward and in swivel, taking in the muted caramel hardwood glossed underneath fluffy white rugs and hues of blue leather furniture, similar wood color to the floor marking that of the cabinets and tables nailed to walls or pushed into corners, accent pieces and fake flowers doused in blacks and whites sprinkled throughout the various nooks. The windows you’d noticed from the street stretched out in the opposite direction from where you’d came in, allowing you a view not of the street but through the city, a birds eye view through buildings taller and shorter than your own, some close enough to theoretically touch and others just an unworldly as they would be from ground level. Thin black curtains swayed from gold accented rods, a result of the white ceiling fan and the chill of air conditioning seeping out through various vents pressed into the crown molding of the rippled ceiling. A staircase marked the far corner, spiraling upward into an open concept hallway that disappeared into another handful of doors, the wood a slightly darker shade than that on the floor but the railing coated in a curved gold metal. 

He swayed next to you and when he shuffled forward, you registered that he’d stepped out of his sandals, picking his feet up like prolonged contact would dirty the immaculate condition. He’d no much as peeked around the corner, the curve of broad shoulders a sliver in your peripheral, when a noise of surprise came high pitched from him. 

You peeled off your tennis shoes by the heels, taking long steps until you were behind him. In the kitchen, an open concept room marked onto by the black marble bar that made an L shape to the hum of shining appliances. 

“The lights are motioned censored,” Jeongguk provided at a breath and the two of you were still enough in silence that they flicked off. You moved to test his theory, flailing a hand out and frosted globes curled into the ceiling in threes illuminated once more. 

You stepped around him, hardwood trailing into slick white tile and you nearly stumbled into the edge of the countertop when you tried to step for the neatly folded triangle of paper perched in the center next to a bowl of fresh fruit. You plucked it into your grasp, not without dislodging a yellow apple that rolled a few paces across the specks of silver shining through in the countertop, using your thumb to smooth out the creases to squint at the printed type. 

“What the fuck are we doing?” Jeongguk uttered finally, still rooted in place but slumped against the wall. 

You flipped the paper over, “Apparently heading to the agency for a meeting with Park Jimin.”

His eyes closed, feet shuffling until his entire back was pressed into the wall, “I knew that. They said that in the confirmation email. I meant—”

“—we can figure out what to do with this place when we get back. We need to get ready,” You glanced at him, “I mean, you can go in our airport clothes but I’d rather...not.”

“Right…” Jeongguk squinted, eyes trailing over your shoulder to the nestled staircase as he pushed himself up off the wall, “You think the bedrooms are up there?”

You frowned, “Why not just change down here?”

“On account of giant ass windows and thin curtains I don’t entirely trust yet,” His voice echoed to you no matter where he ventured into the house, going first to snatch his fallen suitcase and then secondly making his way for the ascend. 

You almost tripped trying to collect your own bag, heaving by the time you caught his stature on the stairs and he turned to you with an amused cock of his eyebrow. “Coming with?”

“Don’t leave me down there alone,” You countered, shoving at his waist, “Too big for me to be by myself. This makes my dorm look like a thimble.”

Jeongguk laughed, a soft sound as his feet hit the next level, glancing down each hallway and then at you. It was an unspoken race until your coiled muscles jumped the opposite direction, meandering into bedrooms at each end of the upper level. You heard his cackles grow louder from within the first door your reached and your conscious had just began to affirm the same thing he yelled to you, “These are fucking huge too!”

A massive queen bed with a white duvet and two white blankets neatly folded at the end, two white wicker rocking chairs, a white throw rug peeking out from underneath the bed frame, white tile in an en suite bathroom like that in the kitchen cut off where the slightly darker wood floor began. 

You dropped your suitcase unceremoniously in the threshold, picking your feet like Jeongguk had been before as you dug into the top pouch of the bag to retrieve a different outfit. Three splashes of water to your cheeks and a struggle with a jean button confirmed you were very much still alive and you dared to wander out into the hallway after a fight with an automatic sink faucet. 

There was one more bedroom half the size of the one you’d claimed on your side of the hall, one you inspected with a quiet hum, dragging the door shut behind you as your sweeping steps brought you back outside. The false sense of serenity your anxious mind had calmed you into immediately erased when there was a figure standing at the head of the stairs, forcing a scream from your lips. 

“It’s me—” But it didn’t look like Jeongguk, not the Jeongguk you were used to anyway. Neatly pressed black slacks falling neatly around his ankles, a black baggy top that curled into his elbows with vertical blue stripes cutting down the surface of the fabric, the material tugged and cinched with a thin belt at the point of his thin waist, new jewelry curled over his exposed wrists and collarbones and fingers, hair slightly damp and parted effortlessly. 

“What the fuck?” You barked. 

He glanced down at his shirt, picking at one of the loose buttons and then finally deciding to do it up, a muted, “Does this look okay?” catching in his throat when you rushed for him, catching his wrists and quickly undoing his previous action. He was flushed harsh at the neck when you glanced up at him, sheepish in the smile that crossed the own heat flaming through your stature. 

“Yes,” You affirmed, “You look great, but…”

“But—” 

“Aren’t I supposed to do your hair?” 

Jeongguk blinked at the pink in his cheeks worsened. “Yeah, I was thinking…” He seemed to wince but you knew it as embarrassment, “Maybe you could curl it for me some time? More of a wave than what’s naturally there...you know.”

You eyed one of the wispy strands that swayed out over the top of his ear, not included in the wet swipe of his brush through his tresses. 

“What do I look like?” You teased, grabbing his wrist to tug him down the stairs two at a time, “Your stylist?”

“Jeon Jeongguk and…” The man behind the counter trailed off, reading your name a bit quieter from the front of a blue file folder with a raised eyebrow. You nodded with a smile nonetheless, nudging Jeongguk who was still fixated on an oak tree sized fern resting in front of the sleek wall beyond the counter. 

“Perfect,” His chair clicked across the plastic mat underneath the wheels, head disappearing into a file cabinet before returning with two laynards. He passed them across the desk, blank ID badges encased in thick plastic sleeves that would earn you clearance. “Your headshot will accompany the ID—” He was addressing Jeongguk point blank, “—once you take an appropriate one. Company protocol.” 

Jeongguk passed you one lanyard, untangling his absently and he inquired softly, “...when will those be taken?”

The man frowned, “In just a few moments? Were you not aware?”

“I thought we had a meeting scheduled with Park Jimin,” You drew the man’s attention to you, stretching the lanyard around your neck. 

“Oh, you do,” He smiled, “His meeting is running late, so we’re going to send you to the studio first.”

“We weren’t prepared for a shoot…” Jeongguk tucked his own badge over his neck. 

The man willingly addressed you this time, smile tight lipped as an obnoxious office phone began to ring behind him, “Well, I’m sure your extremely talented stylist will be able to make you presentable from the shoulders up, yes?”

You swallowed, “Absolutely.”

“Perfect. The studio is down the hall to the left. Follow the signs posted on the wall,” More plastic wheels clicking across the floor and the ringing silenced as he placed the speaker against his shoulder, “Now if you’ll excuse me. Hello, Kim Enterprises—”

“Hey,” Jeongguk nudged you as you trailed down the mentioned hallway, squinting at an array of plastic signs drilled in a row on the wall. He tripped when you abruptly turned, pointing to direct him instead but he just nudged you again, “You can try out the whole curling my hair thing a bit sooner than expected.”

You dared to glance away from the scattered map in your brain to the shag of his locks of his eyebrows, ones that had already begun to dry and scrunch into soft waves. “Yeah,” You nodded, nudging him in the direction of the arrow for headshot studio, “Maybe.”

There was a woman stationed outside one of the open doorways, absently scrolling through her phone and she jerked when you approached, pocketing her phone in a messy fumble. “Ah, hello!” She greeted, and you rushed for the plastic at your chest to flip it over to display your name. “You must be the new duo...Jeongguk and—” She squinted at your name, uttering it too. “—perfect!” Soft curls bounced around her shoulders and when she turned you were knocked backward by the overwhelming smell of vanilla, but it faded like her figure into the room. “If you’ll follow me…”

The room opened into rows of empty makeup counters, bright lights burning hot over the top of walls half coated in mirrors. A few of the chairs were pulled out, like they’d been used earlier in the day, and some spare makeup bags were left sprawled with the products rolled onto the white counters. The woman was standing in a far corner at a clean counter aside from a neatly packaged makeup bag, a hair dryer, and a curling iron with the cord wrapped neatly around it’s head. 

“I think you’ll find this sufficient,” She chirped in reference to the items at the table. She pulled out the chair, just for extra measure. “If not, there are extra of everything in the cabinet on the far side of the room. If the skin tone is not correct, your welcome to any of the others, as well. This bag is yours for the duration of your stay so I recommend keeping it stocked so you do not waste time before shoots.”

“Other than that, have fun!” Her hand centered between Jeongguk’s shoulder blades, pushing until he followed her unspoken lead and collapsed into the chair. “Come across the hall when you’re prepared. I’ll notify our photographer of your arrival.”

He stared at you through the mirror until she’d slipped out of the room and then some, finally uttering slow and gentle, “Uh. So, what are you going to do to me?”

You decided to place your fingers in his hair to calm yourself in the slightest, fluttering the strands in both palms, and even your teasing was absent, “I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to fix this—” 

“Should you start with makeup?”

Both your gazes absently trailed to the rolled up black bag and your gradual nod came before your steps trailed to the opposite side of his chair. “I’m not going to do much…” You rambled while you discarded a liquid foundation that was a shade too light for Jeongguk for a powder one that appeared to match. “You don’t need it…”

You shook some of the substance into a tray, marveling at a clean powder brush before jabbing the soft end into the pile of dust curled in your palm. Your nose wrinkled when you moved for him, using your free hand to nudge his bangs out of the way before your internal monolog told you fuck it and the same stabbing motion became the end of the brush into the center of Jeongguk’s nose. 

He spluttered and you panicked when the fallout of the clumped dust spread below to the black fabric of his shirt. “That how you do it, huh?” He spoke through powdered stained lips and you frowned, spreading it up and over his cheekbones. 

“Close enough,” You finished evening out the powder before dropping the brush, reaching to dust at his shirt instead. He let you, waiting until you’d dulled the color into soft, barely there blots along the surface of his chest and watching with rapt attention as you straightened, settling curled fists onto your hips with a huff. 

“I think that’s enough makeup.”

“It’s just powder.”

“Exactly. You can’t even tell it’s there—” Jeongguk gestured to the drying and fraying mop on his head before sanctioning his hands underneath his thighs again, like you’d bite him if he moved while you worked, “—now fix my hair.”

You unraveled the cord, plugging it into the row of outlets lining the far wall before stretching the warming end of the iron toward Jeongguk’s face so quick he ducked, an attempt to loosen the perpetual frown that was carving a discolored circle into your bottom lip from the harsh suction of your teeth into the plush substance. When it didn’t work, he rounded his lips and blew upward so that the section of hair you feathered into your fingers fluttered out of your grasp. You cracked a smile then, dropping the curling iron to your side and you cocked an eyebrow at him. 

“Behave.”

He giggled, a soft sound that matched the crinkle of his powdered covered nose and his hands went back to being stiff underneath his legs. “Yes, ma’am.”

If it weren’t hard enough teaching yourself to curl short strands of hair on someone else, it was worse that the someone was Jeongguk, wide eyes coated in celestial bodies peering quietly up at you, a soft encouragement paired with tender giggles when you cursed. You nudged at the last strand, waving it over the tip of his right ear and you leaned back against the counter to inspect your work. 

It was his expression that faltered you now, an absent fondness that stared deep into your gaze when you met the very things that could rival any planetarium and you stuttered, “I-I think I’m done?”

“It looks good,” Jeongguk leaned forward to confirm, squinting at himself in the mirror, fixing a few strands to his liking and then he added a bit slower, “We can practice…”

A squeak left your lips and you went to cover your face because we can practice meant it wasn’t that good, but you weren’t allowed to wallow in it for long when two hands wrapped around your wrists, prying your cover away and drawing you closer until you were all but leaning over Jeongguk. 

“It’s okay,” More absent swiping to your knuckles and the freckle on the center of his bottom lip prominent when dimples pressed into his cheeks, “Ready?”

You let yourself smile, “You’re the model here, Guk.”

His headshots developed instantly and were sprawled in massive print sizes on the grain of Jimin’s desk, a glaring documentation of Jeongguk’s first professional shoot, your first time curling his hair, and the endearing little smile he allowed to adorn a sliver of his teeth. But even if you found it endearing, Park Jimin’s cross expression seemed to suggest the opposite. 

“Are these the ones you chose?” He mused, dragging a finger across the thing white space framing one of the photos. It was a pre-teeth smile, pulled lip dimpling the freckle on his chin, nose a second away from wrinkling at you flipping him off behind the scenes. 

Jeongguk considered his affirmation as a failure and it showed in the way it slid off his tongue, “...yes?”

Another handful of heartbeats into Jimin’s silence and Jeongguk uttered, “I mean...uh. T-they probably would look a little better if you’d adjust your umbrella lights. Or, you know, purchase new ones. They seem to be out of date. And are worsening the contrast—”

A second longer and Jimin shrugged, effectively cutting off Jeongguk’s rambles, and he gripped the edge of the photograph instead, sliding it into a neat pile with the others. They were quickly slipped into a folder, one he passed aside to make room for intertwined fingers in the center of his desk. 

“They’ll suffice for now,” Thin eyes studied you fully now, disregarding the hunch of Jeongguk’s shoulders in the chair next to you, snake like black peering out from beyond bleached blonde fringe, “...can I ask who you are?”

“His stylist.”

“Name?” You uttered it and Jimin nodded, leaning back into the plush back of his chair. “So is there a reason you’re here…?”

“I think I’ll need to know about Jeongguk’s future endeavors here if I’m going to, essentially, be responsible for his look—” You ignored the dry texture cracking at your tongue on the roof of your mouth with each new syllable, all the moisture instead clamming your palms that roughed out of sight on your thighs, “—don’t you think?”

He seemed impressed with that answer, two hands threading at the nape of his neck to let plush lips quirk with the raise of one eyebrow. “I think you may be correct,” Jimin drawled slowly, “You may stay.”

You bit down the sarcastic thanks for the permission because he was done targeting you, testing you, instead focusing his attention back on Jeongguk. The man fell forward again, dragging his chair closer with two hands between the languid part of his thighs before they transferred to rest on the round, plastic arms. 

“It’s a relatively simple internship. We already have you booked for some very specific shoots for our advertisements and the main magazine alike. I’ll email you a calendar, but for now—” Fluffy blonde locks disappeared from view before he resurfaced with a highlighted piece of paper in hand, slapping it the table and pushing it until it fluttered at Jeongguk. “—you’ll see your shoots highlighted in pink. Anything else you need to attend is in yellow. Meetings, check ins, things of that nature.”

Jeongguk still seemed like a fish out of water so you leaned toward him and questioned, “And the green color?”

“Retreats, bonding opportunities. Things of that nature,” Something genuine sparked in the smile on Jimin’s face as he glanced at you, “Seokjin is very into the team aspect of our company. You’re welcome to any of them, assuming you have the time between other schedules.”

Jeongguk still hadn’t spoke, drilling a hole into the paper, so Jimin took the social cue to inquire, “Any other questions?”

You were about to wonder about the glaring pink and yellow overlap for the Monday of the upcoming work week when Jeongguk spoke, firm and assuring as he glanced up. 

“I understand I’m here for modeling, but I’m extremely interested in photography. Independent and contracted, studio and otherwise. The times between schedules, would I be able to shadow some of your techs? Just for...the experience?”

Jimin barely faltered at the hopeful fidget of Jeongguk’s fingers in his lap, “I don’t believe we have the opening nor the time for that kind of request. I’ll check for you, but I wouldn’t count on anything.”

Translation, don’t ask questions, do what you’re here for. 

“So,” Jimin was still chatting as he pushed himself off his chair, back arching into a stretch, “We’ll see you Monday morning for the cover shoot?”

You froze into standing, the hand you were about to offer to Jeongguk consulting the chair you perched in as a vice as your knuckles bled anemic into your bone, “Excuse me...the what?”

“The cover shoot,” Jimin blinked as though that should be common knowledge to two rookie interns, “Seokjin recruited you with this concept in mind. You’ll be on the front cover of the next issue of Bloom.” 

More silence that Jimin was unaware to, moving around the side of his desk to make it to a row of towering file cabinets in the corner. He had the folder of Jeongguk’s headshots in hand, filtering it with careful thumbs even when you uttered a half octave softer, “Can we know what the concept is?”

Jimin smiled, the answer obvious as the mentioned cabinet rebounded audibly into a magnet placed on the inside of black metal. 

“They’ll be happy to explain it to you in your pre-shoot meeting Monday.”

“What if we’re doing all this—” Jeongguk winced for the fifteenth time when you lowered the curling wand to another strand of black, “—and it’s a shoot for my feet.”

You resisted the urge to accidentally let the edge of the iron graze his cheek in the unwind from the soft wave of his tress. You shifted where you perched on the marble, letting your thighs fall further apart for his waist to lean against the edge of the counter. With a hand on his shoulder, you pushed until his eyes trained on you, slightly sheepish, slightly shameless, entirely endearing and you sighed at the last attribute. 

“You think they’d put a whole ass foot on the cover of Bloom?” When he whined, you reached for another, untouched piece of hair, twisting and pressing it to the heat, “Nothing else. Just a foot. Maybe some scandalous ankle—”

Jeongguk pinched your thigh, “You’re mean.”

“This meanie can let you style your own hair and look like that on a magazine that everyone on campus is definitely going to see,” You ducked until he met your gaze again, serious despite the upward curve of your lips, “How mean am I now?”

“You’re not,” He grumbled, glancing off to the side, “You’re the best.”

“Thought so,” You let the curling iron teeter to its stand on the counter, bracing your hands on either side of you to inspect your work, “I...think we’re done.”

You resisted the urge to scream when Jeongguk ruffled searching fingers through the front, letting the styled strands fluff outward in the carefully done part you’d established with a complementary pen you’d found in a drawer in the kitchen. He arm fell limply to his side, latter tucked firmly in the unzipped pocket of his joggers and he looked at you from the winced corners of his eyes, “Does it look okay?”

You were gentle in pinched his chin between your thumb and index finger, turning his head so doe eyes were peering at your from the center of their endearing glory, but your lips fished and you hummed in Park Jimin fashion, “I mean, it’s still your face, but from what I have to work with—”

“That’s still my joke and it’s not funny anymore.”

You surprised Jeongguk and yourself when you used your grip on him to lean forward, feathering your lips to the center of his cheek, drawing a natural shade into the artificial blush you’d rubbed in light doses to his skin. “You look great, Guk,” To amend the tingle lingering on your lips, you added, “Only be, like, three-fourths as nervous as you were before.”

He disappeared from between your legs and was six steps up the spiral staircase to retrieve his bag when he managed to choke out a less than threatening, “I’ll leave your ass here alone.”

You hopped down from the counter, shuffling through the apartment to retrieve your key still stuck to its spiraling purple bracelet next to your phone that set on a charger attached to an extension cord (fatal flaw of the millions invested in the apartment: outlets placed in inept locations) when you heard two footsteps behind you, a descend on the staircase, and then a long pause. 

And then, “...do you think I should change shoes just in case it is of my feet—”

You were lost on one end of a long conference table while eight experienced professionals chattered on the likes of composition and aesthetics and ambiance and the vision of the newest issue, a list of words that meant similar but different things in the digital world with the manipulation of graphics at the tips of your fingers and you were more entertained with the aesthetic of the swirl of auburn color bubbling upward in your coffee when you stirred it with the tiny black straw. You were seemingly forgotten among the bustle that ended the meeting, a cattle like usher toward the singular door when the room was barely filled anyway and you found yourself hopeless in a room three times the size of the previous one with equipment you didn’t understand, more terminology you couldn’t grasp, and an entire missing Jeongguk. 

The woman from your check in was back, bringing you your makeup back with a disapproving tut, ushering you with the heel of her palm on the small of your back toward a tiny collection of tables in the corner of the studio, a shortened version of the one you’d been in the day before, and you found it all but occupied by a new set of strangers. 

You nudged the roll of your bag into the only empty spot, turning in time with the soft hush that met the other individuals milling about your general vicinity and you squinted because oh god, what now? 

Words like alluring, sensual, lithe could all be replaced with much simpler adjectives, one in particular that struck bluntly at the forefront of your conscious, one you wished to express to the various shoot executives mulling over a concept they could easily direct in a hands on fashion without needing a briefing. You’d thought that into the swirl of your coffee and you assumed the cloud of cream that had surfaced, breaking into various puzzle pieces outward toward the rim of the cup agreed with you. 

You understood why the bolded letters of various synonyms taking up a bullet point list on two pages of an outline, a waste of space and trees, was needed because your crude, one bullet wasn’t enough to encompass the entirety of Jeongguk’s being as he made his way toward you. 

All eyes were trained on the rookie subject of the shoot but he was focused on you, a soft excuse me to the woman standing in front of you as he shouldered around her to tower over you. It was Jeongguk, your Jeongguk, but you felt some fraction of what everyone else did with him that close looking like that. 

Tight jeans ripped in strategic places hugging taut thighs, cuffs buttoned loosely on relaxed knuckles, a sheer black shirt coated in metallic specks tucked neatly at the cinch of his lithe waist and secured in an equal V to the dip of defined collarbones. His hair was like you’d left it but frayed from the heat and softening from the lack of product, parting more on one side than the other and flopping into his eyes that blinked curiously at you. 

“Hey...hello—” Jeongguk snapped his fingers, waving his hand so you felt the brush of his palm on your nose, “—did you hear me?”

The neanderthal corner of your conscious had enough sensibility to not utter what you wanted, instead bypassing his inquiry to all but shout, “Where are your other clothes?”

“They’re...in the dressing room? With my other things?” Someone yelled something you didn’t quite catch but the slide of Jeongguk’s palm down your elbow suggested he did, “Look, they sent me to you for a last minute check. Do I fit whatever concept they were talking about?”

Your subtly was forgotten, buried by the singular word that continued to expand into your thoughts, likely dilating your pupils the same way and the culprit of the saliva that pooled back by your molars. 

Graphic design didn’t mean you were above putting size seventy-two Comic Sans font onto a document to print and plaster everywhere but even Comic Sans wasn’t worthy of whatever the concept was Jeongguk embodied. Nonetheless, you let the muted scream in your throbbing head takeover. 

“You look sexy, Guk.”

He flushed at his neck first, traveling around to dip into his chest but it didn’t crack at the clench of his jaw this time, something lingering in the flash of black in his irises and his throat jumped, fingers curling over your arm and you briefly forgot where you were until someone’s stature was intentionally bumping into Jeongguk’s side, breaking his grasp on you to shove him in the opposite direction. 

“Shooting in five.” You felt like you were underwater, coherent enough only to register you can’t see lightening under the sea (the flash of a camera) and you were fairly certain you’d been pitched off the edge of Atlantis when you came to enough to realize the prior five was up and they’d created a makeshift “wall” (a piece of plywood coated in white plastic) for Jeongguk (the, very sexy, “model”) to lounge against with his hands shoved into his pockets. 

Part of Jeongguk’s shirt had come untucked from his belt, fluttering at the apex of his thigh, and it made your fingers itch to fix it until words of encouragement from the photographers elicited him to lift the arm on that side, palm smoothing down the back of his head until he found comfort in threading long digits into wavy tendrils. The sensible part of your brain moved to fire the necessary neurons to be annoyed that he’d just touched his hair again, hair you’d practiced on all weekend, burning yourself four times and the sheets of the unoccupied bedroom of the apartment once. 

But the feral cloud in your conscious won and you chose to focus on the sliver of his waist that appeared instead. 

You continued to eye it as he approached you again, sensibility pouting when you didn’t acknowledge that his sweat had smeared some of his carefully applied eyeliner or the lackluster gloss left on his lips wrapped around the ribbed edge of a water bottle, by passing all of those things in favor of his neck as it jumped and gulped. 

Jeongguk pulled off the water bottle with a labored breath and the only thing familiar in his stature was the slight slouch toward you, gentle fingers brushing past your wrist to grip the table behind you and lean into it. 

“Good?” He breathed, heat off his aura suffocating you and you wondered is the bottom of the ocean hot? too.

“Y-yeah. Yeah! Talented. Brilliant. Incredible. Amazing. Show stopping—”

He laughed and that was sexy too, shrugging into another languid gulp of water, pointed in stretching his neck out and he held the open bottle toward you until you took it. “As good as that Vine, huh?” His teeth appeared into the teasing smile that whipped away from you as he sauntered for the array of computer monitors in the corner displaying his shots. 

You fumed.

“That’s a Lady Gaga quote, dumbass.” 

Your knees, crossed albeit, were digging into the side of Jimin’s thigh and for a table to be so small in a quaint corner of a bustling rooftop restaurant, it garnered well over the decibels needed to make other patrons glance your way when a round of applause waved through the group. 

It was Jimin who had elicited the reaction with the piece of paper in his hand, firm and glossy and making that distinct flop noise when he’d untucked it from it’s folder pocket and maybe if you didn’t have to crane from your position next to him to see the image splayed out over the front, your knees wouldn’t be invading his space. He didn’t seem to care, wearing a charming smile that flashed over the top of your head to the man most affected by the various interest levels of stares gathered from around the general vicinity of the restaurant. 

There was a chunk of steak still stabbed through the throngs of Jeongguk’s discarded fork, meticulously cut by his focus that so desperately tried to evade the situation at any given opportunity. You noticed the pink in it before the pink spreading outward on his cheeks, framing the grateful smile he gave as acknowledgement before bowing his head at the audible emissions of praise.

“Quite the cover photo,” Jimin was still speaking, on the tail end of his reveal speech. He pulled the photo away to glance at it again, “And for an amateur on their first job as well. Phenomenal, truly.”

You touched Jeongguk’s thigh and it was the strength he needed to utter his thanks, soft at first and then louder as he addressed the other occupants at the table, “Thank you. It...it means a lot—” He turned and you followed his gaze to the one individual at the table who you’d yet to hear speak, seated at the head of the table opposite Jeongguk, wearing a black waistcoat and an easy smile to petal shaped lips. 

“—and thank you, Mr. Kim, for this incredible opportunity. I-I...we—” He glanced at you for permission to include you in his speech and you squeezed his thigh in encouragement, “—we wouldn’t be here without you.”

Seokjin bowed his head in a similar fashion to Jeongguk, dropped the cloth napkin scrunched in his palm to hold that hand up in solace, “You’re very welcome but please, call me Seokjin. Before you ask, my father wasn’t Mr. Kim, I just don’t want to be called that.”

Jeongguk didn’t know whether to laugh and he wasn’t the only one so Seokjin tried to amend further, “Formality is outdated. Am I right?”

Someone, a marketing tech for the specific cover shoot, murmured quietly to sate the CEO, “Correct, Seokjin.”

Other customers had gone back to their previous dinner table discussions, returning the restaurant to the dull roar of before, and your table was no exception to the seemingly mundaneness. Ice cubes against frosted glass, the click of cutlery into glass plating, an occupied silence filled with content chewing and thoughtful swallows. 

Questions to proceed the cover shoot reveal. 

“What exactly were you doing before this? I understand you’re still in university?”

Jeongguk didn’t have to lie on that question because Taehyung hadn’t lied on your resumes. Or your cheat sheets, depending on who was asking. You’d forced him to sit on the floor in the living room of the apartment and recite back any and everything contained on the email attachment Taehyung had begrudgingly sent you again, from the way your name and phone numbers were ordered on the header to the exact digits, a forward and back recitation of Taehyung’s phone number (a series you’d, unfortunately, never forget). 

“Yes, I’m going to school for, uhm...chemistry,” He winced because that also wasn’t a lie. Unfortunately. 

You kept quiet because they hadn’t asked you. On guard. On call, maybe. Eager to recite your major and list of minors like you were at a family barbecue with cousins who refused to talk to you for three years. 

An impressed murmur rounded the table in a wave. “Chemistry...What will you do with that?”

Like clockwork. “Med school, possibly. Maybe teaching. Not sure yet.”

“And your modeling experience—” Now into the flashcards once stacked in the need to review pile, “—who did you say you were signed with?”

“Ah…” His knife hit in a resounding rebound through the slab of meat he was attempting to dice into another tiny cube, “Well I wasn’t really signed, I just—”

“You weren’t signed?” 

You swallowed because it wasn’t Seokjin who’d ask the question but the smile on his lips had wilted into the furrow of his eyebrows, two elbows hitting the table as his fingers clasped in front of him. 

“The company has changed names since then,” Jeongguk jammed the cube into his cheeks but chewing didn’t let him off the hook as ambient dinner noises paused in wait of his answer, “It’s been a while…”

“Your resume says you’ve had published billboards up until last year. Were you not signed then?”

“It’s been a while since I originally signed. I had that contract for five years time and the company changed possession three times in that period. Who knows what it’s called now, you know?”

Safe. 

Your on call button beeping eagerly in the forefront of your conscious gradually flickered until it was off because your lie wouldn’t be as easy. You couldn’t produce a selfie or even a fake contact that would ring to rap superstar Kim Namjoon. Even Taehyung wasn’t that good. 

“Your manager, agent, whatever you have—” It was Jimin who asked this time, curious, “—would we know him?”

“Kim Taehyung,” Jeongguk offered up the name with little hesitation and you almost choked on a clump of parmesan tickling at your throat. The cheese convinced you there were a million Kim Taehyung’s in the world, the name not your eccentric, software engineer group project partner who’d once recited the HTML of the university’s financial aid office web page to you by memory and you managed to swallow down a gulp of your ice water, cube included, with minimal tears pooling due to your choke. “He’s our manager.”

The introduction of our caused eyes to fall upon you and blinked through the bleary tears remaining in makeup coated ducts. Some of the product smeared into your eyes then, worsening the tears of pain, but no one addressed you still. You just nodded to ensure they didn’t. 

The end of the meal meant goodbyes and goodbyes meant brief instances of small talk with each individual at the table. For you, they were limited to thank you for the meal. For Jeongguk, it was a sentence or two more, ones you were in earshot of. 

Seokjin came last, a soft hug wrapped around your shoulders that was awkward in the way that he patted at your arm. It was a firmer hand he reached for Jeongguk a firm shake in the middle of two broad statures as he stared directly through the haphazard fringe stringing into Jeongguk’s lashes. 

“Congratulations,” Another firm shake that traveled up into a pat on Jeongguk’s shoulder, “I look forward to seeing more of your work.”

You trailed Jeongguk’s pointed trek through the front door of the apartment building, taking three strides to his normal one and you tried to slow him with a tempting, “Should we go get ice cream? We should go get ice cream.”

He was slowest when in front of the elevator, jamming his middle finger into the up button. “Why should we go get ice cream?”

“To celebrate?” Your toe caught on the small gap between the ground floor and the elevator, “They seemed to really enjoy it—”

“I’d rather just go to bed,” It was harsh in delivery but his eyes softened and his chin tilted down toward you, “...if that’s okay. Sorry.”

“That’s okay,” You affirmed and as an afterthought you teased, “Beauty sleep for the superstar.”

His smile was a ghost on the dimples in his cheeks, eyes downcast so his eyelashes shadowed on his cheekbones and his head dipped away from you to stride down the hall, staying that way as he fiddled with the blue spiral on his wrist and pushed into the apartment. 

Jeongguk was with you in peeling off your shoes onto a makeshift welcome mat, a plastic takeout bag from the Thai food you’d gotten the second night, before affirming again, less harsh and almost tentative, not to ask but that you’d say no and he wouldn’t get to complete his request. 

“...it’s okay if I go to bed? If I leave you alone down here?”

“Yeah,” You reached to touch his wrist, feathering your fingers over his knuckles, “Maybe I’ll figure out the TV so you don’t have to do it for me every time.”

He tried to smile. It didn’t fool but you let him go anyway, watching mute as he ascended the stairs, sluggish and slow like his fingers fiddling at the buttons of his creased button up. 

“Jeongguk—” He looked at you now, fingers braced on the railing, shoulders slumped as he turned, “—take your makeup off.”

“Thank you, baby,” A soft murmur that echoed in the silence of the house, “Good night…”

You tried the television twice and gave up on the third time’s the charm, trekking the route Jeongguk had made up the stairs but turning the opposite direction for your room. You saved the shower for the morning, pocketing your jewelry in an empty pouch of your suitcase, swiping a baggy t-shirt off the floor that smelled like your roommate, washed your face in the facet you’d mastered in three weeks time, tucked yourself underneath cool sheets, raising your phone to your face where it was attached to a looping extension cord plugged into yet another inopportune outlet on the far side of the bed. 

A makeup tutorial that was less of a tutorial and more of a demonstration of the guru’s skill set elicited the sleep in your eyes and you’d nearly dozed off when another light peeked from your peripheral, one that startled you to lock your phone and squint. 

It was Jeongguk, body language like you’d left him but pajamas on in place of his dress clothes with a blanket sanctioned over one shoulder and dragging against the ground like his sluggish footsteps. A pillow was clutched in his latter arm, squished against his chest with his chin resting on the plush surface, forming a natural pout on the purse of his lips and the wrinkle of his nose. 

“Hey,” You didn’t question, the initial startle of your heart morphing into something fond and heavy in your ears that caused you to spread your arms, “Come on.”

Mindless shuffling was domestically mundane, tugging apart the made side of the bed, replacing the pillows with his, tucking the duvet at his waist and his blanket over his shoulders, shifting further into the warmth to let him drape a hand to your hip, contact, while you propped yourself up on the curve of your arm. 

“You okay?” You thumbed soft strands of his fringe between your thumb and index finger and when he didn’t jerk away, you went to stroking the tresses between the spaces in your digits. It was wet, shower fresh, not dry enough to curl yet. 

Jeongguk grumbled, voice muffled and raspy into his pillow that he mushed his cheek further into, “Just couldn’t sleep, is all. Your bed is comfier.”

You ignored the way his fingers fist further into your shirt at your hip. Carefully, you nodded, “You sure that’s all?”

He hummed again, a mixture of hesitation affirmation and the reaction to your nails scraping into his scalp. You repeated the motion just to hear him mewl and feel him relax, melted shoulders shifted until he was close enough to wrap an arm around the small of your back. 

“The shoot turned out really well, huh?” Jeongguk snorted, the breath fanning against your neck and you frowned, “I mean, it’s really cool. That you’re going to be on the cover. Looking like that—” 

“I guess.”

You went to scrunching his hair at the back of his head between your palm, “The other things we’ve been working on since...they’ll turn out great too. Who knows, maybe you can erase the foot modeling for something legitimate and credible.”

Jeongguk’s hair ruffled in your grasp when he adjusted his cheek on the pillow, pulling away from your chest to be eye level. 

“You know something?”

You let your hand flop out of his hair to the pillow, “What?”

“I haven’t taken a single picture since we’ve been here. I haven’t even thought about touching my camera.”

“I hate it,” He continued, blunt with his nose crinkled at the bridge, “I miss it…”

“We have a day off in a few days. Maybe we could go exploring with it—”

“—and I can’t believe I’m saying this but I miss school. I miss being at university,” Jeongguk blinked, a prolonged blink that scrunched at more parts of his face, “Okay, I don’t miss that. I...I don’t know what I miss. It’s...something. Mostly photography probably but I think it’s just…”

“...I think it’s just knowing. I miss knowing. As in having at least a sense of what I’m doing. Where I’m going. What I want to do.”

Your features softened into something grim, nodding when he glanced at you. His laugh was bitter as he held your eye contact, “In short, I hate this. I, frankly, hate that you convinced me to do this. I...I can’t wait to go home.”

“I’m sorry, Guk, I didn’t—”

“It’s not your fault,” He breathed in, holding it, eyes closing, “Please don’t apologize. It’s been like this for a while. Me not...knowing.”

“I thought you were right. Money can fix a lot of things, like paying off my loans and tuition. But paying my tuition means I’m stuck in an unspoken contract of sorts with a major I hate that’ll propel me toward a career I’m unsure of but already hate, anyway.”

“The only thing I’m sure of is my camera,” Jeongguk shrugged, eyes open and wide and starred in natural celestials and a shimmer of tears, “and I don’t even want to touch that anymore.”

“I mean I do, but I don’t...you know?” His voice broke then, a glisten falling to his cheek now as a tear finally lipped over and you cooed, rushing forward to intercept him back into your embrace. 

“What’ll make it better?” You held him with two arms around his neck, cheek pressed into the damp strands at the crown of his head. 

“Don’t know. Leaving probably. But...I’m not going to do that. It’d make me feel worse. Quitting, you know.”

“What can I do? Anything? I already made you come here…”

Jeongguk pulled away from the damp spot he’d rounded on the collar of your shirt and the base of your throat, cheeks blotchy and tearful and he scolded, “I told you not to worry about it. I’m the hot mess.”

“Yeah, but you’re my best friend,” You thumbed at his cheek, collecting the drying tears, “My hot mess.”

You didn’t expect Jeongguk’s strawberry tulip bud lips to taste like salt the first time you kissed but you cleared the culprit of the taste with your thumbs while he pressed desperate affections into the seam of your mouth, holding you tight to him at the waist. You let him because you wanted it too but took his lull for a breath to cup his face, still working at clearing the fresh wave of tears on his cheeks while you hushed, “Not now.”

“M’sorry,” He apologized this time, a messy blubber through your tender touch, “I didn’t—I didn’t want to do it like this.” 

“If I don’t get to apologize, neither do you,” You kissed his nose in lieu of his lips, “You can kiss me all the time once you figure you out.”

Jeongguk sniffled, “Be careful. That’s incentive.”

“Maybe that’s why I said it,” You kissed his eyelid in tandem with another swipe underneath it and you mirrored the action on the opposite side, “And you never answered me. What can I do?”

He smiled when he noisily advertised the snot in his nostrils this time, squeezing your hips, “Just be you. You’re the last thing I photographed.”

“You’ll always be the thing I photograph.”

You were halfway through waving a strand of his hair down the battery powered wand in your hand, an online purchase with your second intern check. It was a seasoned movement now, easier with his hair that had grown without cut since you’d been in the city. It was an advertisement shoot, a casual look that would be perched above bar codes and brand affiliates on the back page of the magazine. 

“Crouch for me,” You paired it with a light smack to his shoulder, catching attention where it had wandered to a loose strand on the baggy t-shirt draped over his stature. Jeongguk was purposeful in being awkward, bending at the waist and the knees and he dramatically sat a hand on his thigh, cocking a hip out and sticking his tongue out at you. 

“Better?”

“I can’t stand you—”

“Is it their break?” 

You managed to maneuver your surprise into the jerk of the curling wand away so it didn’t burn Jeongguk, both of you glancing toward the new presence in the room. It was a frantic looking intern from the front desk, one that came and went on an odd schedule you couldn’t quite pinpoint but he looked two seconds away from tearing his hair out at the roots anyway. When the photographer nor the set manager didn’t respond, he took it as an affirmation, forward in grabbing Jeongguk’s arm to tug and motioning you with his free appendage. 

“I guess it is now,” You exchanged a glance with Jeongguk when the intern scoffed, not letting go of the larger man before him until you were halfway down the hallway and an abrupt turn to another later. 

“You’re needed with one of the head executives.”

The cover shoot magazine was set to go in print within the next few days and urgent around the studio meant they went about airbrushing the static in Jeongguk’s curled hair a different way and were seeking approval of the talent. You assumed Jimin was about to tutt in disapproval when you couldn’t see the smudge his stocky finger was gesturing to on the life sized image plastered across the center of his desk. 

But you turned past the sign indicating his office and you almost parted your mouth to gently correct the frazzled twenty-something, help him out for something that was bound to be corrected anyway, but he paused in front of an office, that office, one with a name plate bigger than the rest and the only one displaying the company logo in tandem. 

“Seokjin requested to see you personally,” The intern knocked but didn’t look inside, just propped the door open and gestured, “In you go.”

An excuse was on the tip of your tongue and you ran into Jeongguk on the way to express it but the intern had already coaxed at Jeongguk’s larger stature and you both were shoved into a shut room before your brain could even process that I have to use the bathroom on the first floor because that’s the only soap I’m not allergic to wasn’t a viable excuse. 

“Hello,” The sheer size of Seokjin’s size seemed to swallow his broad shoulders even in the tight hug of a navy suit jacket to the definition of his shape but the enormity contrasted to the warmth in his voice, smile, and eyes as all gestured for the open chairs turned inward toward his desk. “Please, have a seat.”

He shuffled at two specific sets of papers as you tripped over Jeongguk’s ankles for the same chair, catching and narrowly avoiding a spill of an empty piece of furniture. You settled as the horror set in of what sets of papers Seokjin held, stapled leaves taken from the same blue file folders you’d been greeted with on day one. 

You were useless in noticing you’d left your ID badge in the studio, too. 

“I ran your references, out of curiosity…” Seokjin bent the papers in hand at the thumb, “Tell me about Kim Taehyung.”

“That’s our manager,” A robotic answer spoke in monotone, Jeongguk’s blank gaze on the turtle paperweight perched on the edge of Seokjin’s desk suggesting the same type of mechanical movement. 

“Your manager is a member of two seperate government watch lists for hacking low level search engines?”

Your eyes bulged and you forgot your role, “He is?” 

“I don’t know,” Seokjin smiled gently, “but he probably should be if he isn’t. He’s not very subtle about it. Between him and the conspiracy theorist…”

“Yoongi,” You breathed, “Yeah...probably.”

“You—” He shuffled deeper into his array of papers, plucking one specific piece out to slide across the desk at Jeongguk. You recognized it as a screenshot of his online portfolio, the chosen album one of fresh summer wildflowers (weeds, you’d informed him behind the scenes) from the summer prior, “—you’re very talented.”

“And you…” This time a screenshot of your commissions profile, various examples of your work scattering the black and white screen cap, “You have an eye for design. My layout team could learn a thing or two from you.”

“I checked with your university and don’t worry, not your grades. I don’t care about those numbers frankly…” He tapped on something on the top paper in his pile, “Your majors. You didn’t lie about those. Graphic design, that suits your passions, from what I can tell at least.”

You nodded. 

“But chemistry?” Seokjin blinked, “I can’t imagine that fulfills you in the slightest. You said you plan to be a doctor?”

“I don’t know,” Jeongguk answered, quick and honest and for once he didn’t slump into the answer. “You’re right. It doesn’t.”

“Can I let you in on some cheesy but true advice?”

More nodding, this time from both. 

“It’s not worth it if it doesn’t fulfill you. Certainly not something so far in left field from what you clearly love to do. I said I didn’t care about grades but…” Seokjin cocked his head, a knowing smile on his lips, “Those grades don’t match someone who's passionate about their field.”

“I’m going to have to pull the cover shoot, for obvious reasons. I’ll have to send you home as well, with the rest of your internship pay, of course.”

You rushed to deny that in the same sentence that Jeongguk did, apologetic and hot at the neck when Seokjin held up a hand. 

“You get the pay on one condition. You go home and do something with it. Something something, not just continue on with that boring chemistry degree.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I told you to call me Seokjin but I’m going to change that, too—” Seokjin stood, rounding his desk for a handshake that Jeongguk rushed to straighten and intercept, “—call me Jin when you book your first photography gig, alright? Even if it’s just your conspiracy theorist friend and his fried chicken looking poodle.”

Jeongguk laughed, loud and unabashed and you were the first person he directed his joy at, only causing your elation to grow tenfold in your heart. 

“You too, after you design the new McDonald’s logo or something. I’m getting pretty tired of those golden arches…”

You thumbed at the tassel dangling off the graduation cap flopped top down on the edge of Jeongguk’s mattress. It fit Jeongguk’s head better than yours, so you brought it over for him to borrow so that the fight in the bookstore was one less stress his graduation checklist had to suffer from. 

“Taunting me with that?” Jeongguk’s neck hinged over the side of the bed, blinking backward at you. 

You glared, breaking away from the yellow fringe to crouch in front of his face, squishing his cheeks together to plant a chaste kiss on the exaggerated pout of his lips. One of many you’d planted on him after he’d met with his advisor to change his track from chemistry to digital imaging, adding an extra summer semester onto his graduation while he watched you take your leatherbound diploma in only muted jealousy from beyond the lens of his obnoxious camera obscuring the view of a dad in a Hawaiin shirt and sandals. 

Your headshot, the original one you’d taken messily after burning your arm and testing eyeliner thickness over the same mark, was framed in his room but not hung, leaning against the wall where he’d nailed a hanger but couldn’t get the cheap balsa wood to center. You pointed to it, “Taunting me with that?” 

“No,” He reached for you, grabby hands until you stepped into his embrace, allowing him to pull you down onto his bed, “I think you look cute.”

“I think you’re a sap.”

“I think I’m allowed to be considering you’re moving next week.”

“You’re renting a space in my bed in eight weeks,” You sat up to poke his nose, “We both lose.”

Jeongguk pouted, “Hey.”

You just grinned, “Hey, what?”

“That was the best part of that internship,” He marveled, blissful as his eyes shut, “Living together.”

“Oh yeah? Not the whole introspective finding myself thing?”

“Nope—” The fullness of his teeth shined even as his eyelashes stayed glued, “—the whole getting to cuddle the secret love of my life thing.”

“It wasn’t that secret.”

“It was.”

“Hmm, okay,” You folded your arms at your chest to prop yourself up on his stomach, “Speaking of secrets. Have you checked your phone?”

“Did Yoongi add us to another group chat?” 

You snorted, “Check your phone.”

You huffed when Jeongguk used the top of your head to hold his phone, thumb flexing against your forehead as it scrolled, and you giggled when all his motions, breathing included, gradually stalled. 

“Did Taehyung figure out how to hack email addresses too?” When you didn’t respond, Jeongguk peered at you underneath his thumb, “Ha-ha, very funny.”

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I got another email from Jin.”

“Oh, that,” You grinned, “Yeah, I do know about that.”

He grumbled, thumb moving into action again as he clicked around, opening the email and enlarging the font to read. 

“Jeongguk. I’m happy to hear you’re graduating soon and in something you seem to enjoy! It just so happens that we have an opening here in our photography department and we’re seeking someone with your exact credentials. I’ve reviewed your updated profile and can’t say I’m anything less that thoroughly impressed. If you can provide me with an updated, and legitimate, resume, the spot will be yours upon graduation.”

“Thanks for not spending my money on booze,” Jeongguk added with a laugh, “Seokjin (Or Jin. Just not sir. Or Mr. Kim).” 

“Really?” You rewarded his face with a kiss to his chin, moving the affections up his cheek as he marveled, “They really want to hire me?”

“They really want to hire you. For real, this time.”

“But...but wait—” He stopped you with the heel of his palm into the center of your forehead and you huffed, “We...we just got things figured out. And I’m going to have to move closer to the company…”

You did your best to plaster indignation onto your features, “You really think you’re going to get away with leaving your stylist here?”

Jeongguk’s eyes bulged, hopeful but not following, “...what?”

“Grab my phone for me.”

He happily obliged in dipping his hand into the back pocket of your jeans, handing you the device with a smile but deeply concerned, singular, eyebrow. You huffed, fumbling at the screen of your phone until you pulled up your own email, one you’d received two weeks ago and you enlarged the font to hand to Jeongguk. 

He frowned through his intense scanning before whining, “Is this why you wouldn’t tell me anything about your job offer?”

“Yes.”

“...did he hire you to run the design department?”

“Not yet but I am working there.”

“...so we’re not getting that apartment back home?”

“Nope.”

“...are we still moving in together?”

“Absolutely.”

An extra silence and you could feel the gears churning behind his skull in the rapid thrum of his heart at your palm, “...back to the previous apartment?”

“I don’t think that’s available anymore but no. I asked for something a bit more our taste.”

“So we can buy real welcome mats this time?” Jeongguk propped himself up on his elbows, curling his stature so you were drawn closer to his face and he happily rubbed his nose to yours.

“You didn’t like our bachelor pad chic decor?”

He ignored you, “And can we build IKEA tables together? Oh, what about name our apartment, you know, like people name their cars—”

[ikelseywu]

Final D&AD giffgaff Evaluation

What informed and motivated my design decisions?

First of all, this semester I want to jump out of my comfort zone and do something I can't do. UIs, ads, animations. In the end, I chose animation. The theme of Giffgaff is also attractive to me. Environmental protection needs to be realized as soon as possible for the current situation of the earth, no matter in small things in life. Last semester, I worked on an environmental apartment project, from which I learned more knowledge and news about environmental protection. I especially want to after my animation, people can know how to recycle their mobile phones, and it is very easy to do it, and even can get a little money. In China, there are machines for recycling mobile phones in every shopping mall. Although there are not many people who use them, they have been taking action to recycle mobile phones. I can even take advantage of the advertisement of recycling mobile phones in China and make people in the UK realize the convenience of recycling mobile phones as soon as possible. We change a little bit of our original behavior is not environmental protection, now do some environmental protection action within our power, why not. My design should be driven by Giffgaff's visual system. Giffgaff has a very mature visual language, so I only need to combine my content and ideas by cleverly using Giffgaff's visual elements. I think it's a great experience and it's also a challenge for me to break out of my comfort zone.

 What changes and developments has my project gone through?

The D&AD project has changed a lot for me in this semester. There are many difficulties and I collapsed for a period of time. When I think about the story, I feel the brain is not moving. I can't imagine the unexpected clips and plots of the advertisement animation. I am worried that I am not suitable for the design industry. In the early stage, I spent a lot of time on the idea and story board to understand, think and look for reference. I basically read a lot of advertisements on Chinese social media. Then I decided that I couldn't stop at this place. I could think as I went along. Later on, I got better at it, and I liked the final idea. So I summed up a truth, can not be in one place all the time worry and research. You can put it down and take a couple of steps forward, and you will find that the problem will solve itself.

Did I manage my time well throughout the unit?

In fact, my time management was very good at the beginning. I had a good weekly schedule, and I kept it strict. However, I fell ill in the middle of the semester, and I wasted a whole week's time. Besides, I didn't know how to do animation at all, so I spent a lot of time learning animation from scratch. So after I got sick and recovered, I was busy every day, and I didn't know whether I managed my time well. To sum up, the premise of managing your time well is managing your body well.

How did I respond to feedback?

After a semester of learning to adapt to the British classroom. Summing up a lot of points, every tutorial this semester I have to re-read my recorded teacher's words, every word carefully recorded, every idea carefully thought and concluded, and then modify and adjust. Of course, the teacher's words are not enough. Design is for the audience, so I show every modification to my friend and ask him to give me suggestions. The suggestions of the audience are wealth for me.

Are there areas of my design process that need more practice?

I think I need to open my eyes and see more of other people's designs. My knowledge is not broad enough, so my inspiration is limited and my thinking is not divergent enough. I should look at more film and television works and graphic design works. Know more styles, know more brands. For this project, I should also need to know the concept of this brand and the history and story behind it. Design should be meaningful, not empty. When the epidemic is under control, we should visit museums and art galleries of various countries. As for the software, my AN and AE are just in the beginner's stage. I need to practice more and watch the tutorials. The speed I use is still too slow. Include some shortcuts to remember.

What have I learnt from this unit of study?

I learned how to make animation, how to make Flash animation, and learned that one second of animation requires 24-80 frames. Making animation is really a matter that takes a lot of time and energy. Now I especially admire the animators. I have also learned how to understand the culture and visual language of a brand. In comparison, I think Chinese brands need to learn their visual system from Giffgaff. If I do brand design in the future, I will learn from the experience of this brand research. The lectures in this semester also benefited me a lot. I saw a lot of works of designers after work. Their aesthetics and creativity are all worth learning from.

On reflection, are there any improvements that I would make to my final outcome?

After reflection, I really hope that if I have more time, I will further improve my animation. First, I need to control my time allocation better. The audience needs time to think, and how to make their stories innovative, interesting and clear and understandable within the limited time. Second, my picture can be more delicate, the details are better, third. Sound control is more accurate, should be loud where loud. However, this is the first animation in my life, which has many shortcomings. It is both a challenge and a harvest for me!!!!!

[manelyec]

An Instant Connection – EC Student Spotlight on Emmalee Bell

Emmalee Bell wanted to start fresh.  With her sister graduating from Emmanuel, Emmalee was set on attending a college where no one knew who she was. But God had other plans.

Because she continued to be exposed to Emmanuel, Emmalee decided to attend a Spring Preview event during her final semester of high school and looking back she’s glad she did.

“When I got here, my first thought was this is home to me,” she remembered. “It was an instant connection and I’ve had no regrets.”

Now a Senior, Graphic Design major, Emmalee still looks back on her Preview experience to describe what makes Emmanuel unique.

“The family aspect,” she said. “During my preview, I remember we all came together, previewers and current students, we got together on the quad and played frisbee. We were circling the entire perimeter of the quad and I remember thinking, ‘Do other colleges do this?’”.

At Emmanuel, professors and staff members are encouraged to share their faith, something that encourages Emmalee to do the same.

“A few years ago, I lost my grandfather and I remember telling my professors about what happened,” she said. “Paula Dixon, who is a precious, caring, motherly person immediately called me and asked if there was anything she could do and asked to pray with me. Until you’re in that moment, you can’t understand the weight and the feeling of having people around you who care. Dr. Scott Ellington prayed for me as well, and those little things were an encouragement to me. If my professors can do that for me, I can do that for others.”

On campus, Emmalee has her hand in everything.

“I’m in Singers, she said. “That has been the main thing. I wanted to be involved in a singing group on campus so when I got here, Tres Ward recruited me. Through Singers, I have become the Soprano section leader, Tres’ Work-Study, am a Wednesday Worship Leader and have traveled with Voices and Conquest.”

When she’s not with Singers, Emmalee can be found at the ARC (Academic Resource Center) where she serves as a Communication Tutor, or serving on the Emmanuel Leadership Initiative Board, as a member of the Presidential Ambassadors, or serving as the Yearbook Editor.

Emmalee believes all of the extracurricular work she’s involved in on-campus has prepared her both spiritually, musically, and as a leader.

“On the ministry side, I’ve been able to expand my repertoire musically by being involved in Singers,” she said. “Because of the experience, I can stretch myself vocally and sing Soprano, Tenor or Alto. Spiritually, the experience I’ve gained has helped me learn that before I go before a crowd to lead worship, I have to be in tune with God, I have to prepare my own heart, place myself in front of the Lord and say, ‘Here I am, use me.’’

In God’s word, we are reminded that “Everything works together for good,” something that Emmalee believes to be true.

“I feel like everything I’m doing here is working for the good of everything else,” she said. “Working in ministry is helping my leadership skills and working in leadership is helping my motivation. If I’m going to delegate or talk to others about being a leader, I need to be doing those things as well.”

When she needs a listening ear or someone to push her in the right direction, Emmalee is quick to turn to her sister, Ashlee Hafner and Resident Director, Kara Sowell who she looks to for guidance.

“I lost a lot of time with my sister when she was away at school since there are 6 years between us,” Emmalee said. “Being able to be here and having her yards away has been a blessing. She is someone I go to for everything, doesn’t matter if it's big or small and I know she’s there to listen. I know that she’s there not only to make me feel good but push me to be the best that I can be for the kingdom. I was going through a rough time last semester and my RD, Kara always had her door open for me to come and talk. I would go to her apartment and sit on her couch, we’d cry together, and she’d talk me through it. She’d share stories that related to the situation I was going through and it was refreshing to have someone like her there.”

When deciding on where to attend college, Emmalee wanted to start fresh, but God had other plans. When attending a Spring Preview, over a game of frisbee on the quad, Emmalee found the home she never knew she needed in Emmanuel. For her, it was an instant connection.

[jarrettfuller]

Celebrity designers, context collapse, and rethinking how I teach design history

My first typography professor loved introducing us to her favorite designers. I remember learning about Paula Scher, Stefan Sagmeister, Milton Glaser, Neville Brody, and David Carson in that class. (She loved David Carson! We saw a lot of his work that semester — this was the mid-2000s, Sagmeister was at the height of his career and the shadow of Carson still loomed.) She wanted us to see work from history, as well as the contemporary work she found exciting so that it could inspire, inform, and guide our own work. Looking at the earliest work I did in school, you can see what designers had caught my interest at various points in my undergraduate career: the Vignelli phase came first, then it was Pentagram. By junior year, I was interested in illustration, and my work looked like Charley Harper's and Frank Chimero's. I had an infographic phase inspired by Nicholas Felton and an embarrassing handlettering period that mostly resulted in bad Jessica Hische knock-offs.

My classmates were the same way. There was a group of us who closely followed design blogs, tracking the 'celebrity designers' of the time. Some of us even got really excited by the two required design history surveys, saving images to our pre-Pinterest inspiration files and trying on the styles of different designers likes costumes. I remember one student particularly well who, following the lecture on Art Nouveau, decided he was going to make every project look like an Alphonse Mucha poster for the rest of the semester. I still cringe at the Russian-Constructivist-inspired poster I designed for a school function. We named dropped in critiques, showing off with our knowledge of history or our awareness of the trendy designers of the moment, completely unaware that half the class was rolling their eyes. For myself and my friends, it felt like part of being a good designer was knowing those names.

When I found myself back in the classroom — nearly a decade later, this time as the teacher — I was surprised to find how many of my students, at every level, had little sense of the history of graphic design, not to mention the 'celebrity designers' of today. Design history is largely foreign to them; it's an optional course in many design programs. It's rare for a student to know Sagmeister, Carson, and Scher (or Rudnick, Hu, and Walsh) if I mention one in class. I once had an upper level student who had never heard of Pentagram. Pentagram!

It's not that this generation of designers isn't consuming design media but the way they do is wildly different than when I was in school. At their age, we read blogs to find out who was doing the most interesting work, but those don't exist anymore. My students aren't reading It's Nice That or Eye on Design. They are on Instagram, on Behance, on Pinterest. Their design awareness, sensibilities, and taste is constructed through likes, pins, and retweets. They might not know the name Michael Bierut or have heard of Wolff Olins but they've seen the work. And they've also seen work from countless other designers flying below the mainstream design press radar.

Consuming design this way creates a peculiar context collapse. Everything moves fast, the thumb occasionally pausing for a closer look, where work from an international branding agency can sit next to a great poster by a high school student in India. These images travel from board to board, retweet to retweet, ever so slowly removing any sense of where it came from — the designer is often anonymous, the subject matter irrelevant. A quick tap saves it and then it's on to the next image. My students don't know the names of designers or agencies or studios but they do know what's trending, the popular styles, and the latest rebrand. Eventually, all the work starts to look the same.

Kids these days, I caught myself thinking. I had become the cranky old man complaining about how the next generation doesn't understand it sooner than I had thought I would. I mean, I'm only thirty and here I was worried about what this meant for the future. It was better when I was in school, I thought.

But what if this isn't necessarily a bad thing? Maybe this is an opportunity to teach design history and culture another way. Maybe it's a good thing for the idea of the 'celebrity designer' to die. The myth of the solo genius, alone in his studio, doesn't work anymore, and far too often it continues to only elevate the white male designer. Design conferences continue to feature the same designers year after year, sometimes even when at least one of those designers probably deserves to be cancelled. This perpetuates a particular idea of what a successful designer looks like and what makes for 'good design'.

Whether intended or not, the images my undergraduate professors showed us became the standard by which we judged design, and the names attached subconsciously became the people we were supposed to be emulating. The design history courses I took a decade ago were surveys: the professor would click through images on the screen in the front of the room; a list of names and styles we had to memorize. We spent little time talking about the content or articulating the context it sits within. Like my students now, I would get excited by something else I saw and use it in my own projects, regardless of context or content. Where we knew names, they know styles. Is one of these really worse than the other?

To be clear: this is not to say that names shouldn't be attached to the work or that we should disregard history. I believe these to be important elements of any design education. But inspiration is not enough. Trends are not enough. Simply collecting images is not enough. To move beyond inspiration, to dig deeper than trends and avoid celebrity design culture, we must make space for our students to reflect on this work and think about how it connects to their own blossoming practices.

In every class I teach, at both the undergraduate and graduate level, I've started requiring students to keep a visual journal — a dedicated place to keep images, PDFs, videos, photos — a simple attempt to encourage them to be more thoughtful about what they are consuming and saving. I try to build time into class for students to reflect on the work they are finding, and at the same time, I'm sharing the things I'm looking at and thinking about. (And I make it clear that what I share isn't always an endorsement.) Together we try to figure out why we are drawn to these things. Or repulsed by them. Or why they are trending. Or where they come from. We talk as a group about art movements and trends and gaps in history. We lean into the aesthetics, the contexts, the politics, and the ideologies that may or may not be embedded in the work. We dissect the visual moves the designer did and why she may have made those decisions. We find out more about the designer, of course, but we let the work speak for itself. Just because it came from a particular designer or a particular studio doesn't mean it's automatically great. Some of the best moments I've had in the classroom are when the students start debating these ideas — amongst themselves, without any guidance from me — trying to formulate their own point of view.

I want to create a space for young designers to feel comfortable conducting a thoughtful interrogation of images, visual culture, and the very profession they are about to enter — perhaps a small step in dismantling the celebrity designer complex while moving beyond the trends of their time. Looking at other design will always be central to the young designer's process, but they should't feel bound to trends, to styles, to celebrity as they move through their careers. The problem isn't that students don't know designers' names or are blindly following trends, it's that it is all moving too fast. Instead of fighting the new consumption paradigms, I've started to embrace it. Where I once looked down on these new modes of consuming media, romanticizing my own college experience, I now see the design students today as better equipped to do this work than I was at their age. They are well-versed in reading images, fluent in media literacy, and far less interested in celebrity. They get to experience more design — from all across the world — than any previous generation. If any of us can move beyond celebrity and dig deeper than the latest trend, it is them. We just need to be sure they have the critical tools, along with space and time, to do this work. The kids, I'm beginning to think, will be alright.

[galaxiedust]

Champagne Kisses

History:

So here is baby Susie’s want ad. Susie went into university with the idea of following in one of her parent’s footsteps. Law or Medicine. Without really talking to her parents, she decided to change her major to graphic design and art history. Her parents decided to let it go after an argument. Deemed it her ‘rebellious phase’ and just let her do what she wanted. She was, after all, an only child and spoiled. Their princess. They even let her travel overseas to California where she decided to study abroad for a semester. Anything to get it ‘out of her system’. However, like a lot of these stories go, Susie met and fell in love with a man. She was head over heels or him in an instant. He knew just how to win her over and he did, thoroughly and completely. Three months later he proposed and she agreed and against everyone’s better wishes, a wedding was planned. She had no problem throwing all sorts of money on it, she had plenty after all. And three months later the wedding date arrived... but the groom did not. Apparently he took what he could from her, as well as the plane tickets for their honeymoon, and skipped town. Depressed and embarrassed, Susie returned home to deal with the aftermath of her rejection.

The Proposal:

Susie finished up her degree and graduated at 22. She fell into a sadness that she couldn’t really pull herself out of and this resulted in a big creative mood for her. She stayed home and painted. Until her parents finally told her they got her an interview and she had to go. So she did and nailed it (as far as she knew). With a new job at a fashion magazine she adored, Susie found her mood lifting as she was able to pull herself back on her feet. She got herself moved out and into an apartment (fancy as all fuck) and started the life she thought she wanted. But at 24, her parents, a little old fashioned, wanted her to start thinking about marriage and children to pass on the Kim name to. But she didn’t want to start dating. So they proposed a deal. She would go out with an eligible bachelor of their choice. She would go on 20 dates with said rich boy and if it didn’t work out, they’d never nag her again. Susie accepted.

The Boy:

Rich boys don’t have hearts. At least it seems that way doesn’t it? He isn’t entirely sure why he was selected among all the other eligible bachelors of the world and doesn’t really care. He’s guaranteed twenty dates. It looks good on his resume and bonus points, is making his own parents happy in the process. Only thing here that is required, is that he has a wealthy background. Age is open (probably an age where his parents are like... well we want grandkids yknow~). Face claim is totally open too (Bonus points if he’s not korean). This is also not (or doesn’t have to be) a finals plot. (But I’m 100% on board if you want it to be just hmu). Basically he’s been wrangled into this proposal by his own parents and her parents and it could easily be because they’re good looking and have good backgrounds and it would bring honor to their families, etc. Whether he wants to or not is totally up to you! Susie is under the impression that 20 dates and she’s given freedom for life. He could easily think the same. Whether it works out or not can be plotted of course <3 As can their ELABORATE 20 DATES BECAUSE RICH FOLK BE CRAY. 

Random ideas: he could be with someone else he thinks is his soulmate and assures her this is just to get his parents off his back so they can be together forever but falls in love with susie instead, this could be a ‘got off on the wrong foot and i absolutely hate you’ sort of deal until they ultimately come crashing together in a passionate night, a ‘we’re running out of money so lets marry rich’ sort of deal like a reverse cinderella, maybe they run in the same circles and have crushed on each other since they were little and nothing ever came of it, etc. (SRSLY HIT ME UP WITH ANY IDEAS) 

Discord: stardust#2610

[vmfx]

FULL MOON SPECIAL.

(Summer.)

This year Spring came and went a little easier than usual. Aside from a stomach-churning break-up that neither my now ex-girlfriend or I wanted to take part of, the Spring revival brought a brand new charge that I haven’t experienced in a long time. Feelings of meeting someone rare and opening up to them for the first time. An opportunity with an art-school-type Korean girl who nicely put me down but ended in an amicable consolation. Taking snapshots with the who’s-who of the Press at the trendiest post-production parties. Extended drives out west with my friend Jewish Mary discussing thoughts, feelings, summer plans, and laughing out loud over getting to know each other as friends.

The mania continued when we all discovered two social-networking sites that year: Myspace and Facebook. Both had opened a wide portal for anyone who used it. Not only did they offer an opportunity for friends and classmates to keep in direct contact with each other, but it also doubled as a dating or hook-up site. When it first opened people would randomly contact each other through a very curious yet open world with plentiful results. This was before the term ‘stalking’ was taken seriously, and when people were more welcome and less discriminating.

One day I was curious and did a search for people who liked Deftones. The first thing that came up was this black-and-white photo of a girl eating a King of Diamonds playing  by CouponDropDown" target="_blank">card with both hands and a happy chipper smile. I liked cute girls and I liked playing cards…and then I liked cute girls who liked eating playing cards, so who was I to pass this up? I jokingly messaged her to stop eating the King and cease being disrespectful. A day later, she replies.

Her name was Catherine. We messaged each other sparsely for two months being silly and then it stopped. I don’t know why. I assumed it just ran its course and that was that. I thought nothing of it, moved on and forgot about her.

**********

(Autumn.)

One afternoon in the campus news office I open my account to find a message waiting for me, feeling interested as always. Then I see who sent me that message: it was Catherine. Out of nowhere she decided to pop up and say hello…fifteen months later. What the circumstances were of why there was a fifteen-month silence between us I’ll never know. It did not matter anymore.

At first I could not remember who she was until it hit me, but it felt real good hearing from her again and I was amazed that she remembered me after a long silence. Very rarely in this nature would people do such a gesture these days. She told me she liked talking to me when we did which was why she contacted me again. There was no reason to not seize the opportunity to continue so we picked up where we left off. The rate of communication accelerated and quantified. Our next constant starts by getting to know each other.

What I first learned about Catherine had me very concerned. At the time, she found herself at home feeling lonely with a bottle of vodka nearby accompanied by a supply of painkillers and a pack of blades, extreme for someone I just started talking to. She was slipping and I pushed and persisted for answers because I am a savior to my friends. As she reached out to me, I had to reach out to her. I wanted to put the pieces together because I genuinely felt sorry for her. I was not as successful as first since she heavily guarded herself so I decided to tread very carefully.

Alternately, Catherine and I discussed philosophies and logic; life struggles, situations at hand and other miscellany. I discover that we had a good number of things in common. She listened to the very same music I was into when I was in high-school a decade before. (I preceded her by eight years and her birthday was only ten days after mine. I am a Virgo, she is a Libra.) She was into Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots, and her number one Elliot Smith, certifying her as an alternative-rock sentry in my eyes. She wrote, did graphic design, and even attended the same university as I. She had creative qualities and I saw lots of potential in her, thus the race to rescue Catherine from her own personal black hole had become more essential, more so when I had week-long periods of not hearing from her.

Catherine should not have to drown herself every weekend in alcohol and loneliness nor let alone consume vicodin and oxycontin, so I felt. She also did not have to punish herself by cutting, either. All this as a result of social neglect and mostly being un-accepted in her high-school years, with her using and drinking as a means of coping now ignited due to meeting some guy at a party who introduced her to a sip of beer. I now gave her an opportunity to come out and be at a safer place, to bring her out and have dinner with me to discuss her situation.

During this time, I was going through a very heavy period of discovering music. Tower Records was going under and were closing its doors for good by the end of the year. One night after work I paid my final visit there and I picked up Public Image Limited, The Buzzcocks, Stereolab, and Jesu. Roy Ayers, Ladytron, Leonard Cohen, Boards Of Canada, and much more. Artists I either meant to try or even discovered out of nowhere. And back at the Press office, someone somehow uploaded a lot of music into one of our office computers ripe for the taking. Direct Control, Regulations, Stereo Total, NON, and MF Doom were playing endlessly while I furiously typed away articles for the next issues of the semester; after which I occasionally took a break for spicy fried rice at the campus’ Asian food quarter. A scent of lime was present, in tandem reminding me of the cold air and starry night skies complimenting that Autumn.

The turn of the New Year arrived when I was at the campus radio station doing a countdown set with several on-air staff. I contacted Catherine when the show was over. We decided the time was right to finally meet up after her Thursday secret meeting. We weighed our options including any given Greek diner for midnight breakfast, but we opt for American instead.

**********

(Full Moon, January.)

Daily errands were done. In the afternoon I went clothes shopping and bought a watch, a black t-shirt with a cassette printed on the front and a grey pocket t-shirt with some gold lettering. The scent of lime now replaced by a strong hue of blue and white static powder. Later that night, I spearheaded a radio station meeting as program director with several other talents about what extra equipment, wires, boards, and knobs to buy for our studios. After two hours of sitting through the meeting taking suggestions and going over schematics I finally conclude the meeting. All I had eaten so far was a Snickers bar but I wasn’t feeling hunger pangs. I was still standing.

I walk out of the building and it was extremely cold. A bright full moon and stars were out with absolutely no clouds or snow in sight. I called Catherine on my white cell-phone to let her know my meeting was over. Her secret meeting concluded as well. Both of us were on the way. We would trade several more phone calls to make sure we would stick to our guns.

I arrive at the American restaurant. It was a crowded Thursday night, the day of the week most students from campus migrate here to unwind and eat. Noisy as usual, lots of people talking, cups and glasses clinking, excitement and loud music fill the air. I sit at the lobby waiting to finally meet Catherine for the first time, wondering what she could really be. I had no idea what to expect or what she really looked like in person.

I was about to find out, and here she is.

I see Catherine walk into the restaurant. When I looked up at her for a moment to verify if it was her or not; everything registered to line up with themselves and I call her out. “Catherine!” I get her attention and she turns to me. We were thrilled to see each other and trade smiles and pleasantries. She was this young thin self, her neck-length Trixie hair, slim purple long-sleeve sweater and black jeans torn at the knees. She sits to my left in the lobby and our conversation starts off with three topics in a matter of five minutes: her secret meeting in Port Jefferson which she refused to divulge, how she drove out to and missed the record store in Ronkonkoma, and what was possibly wrong with her cable box. Five minutes later our maitre d’ escorts us to a window-side booth seated adjacent from eight loud and noisy frat boys who thankfully did not start in with us. After a year and a half, here was the first time we would get to talk to each other, face-to-face.

I order chicken stir-fry. Catherine orders only a diet Coke. “Are you sure?” I ask her, and politely she said she wasn’t hungry. I upped the ante and told her that dinner was on me and she could have anything she wanted, no worries. But she stopped at a diet Coke and said it was OK. I gave in and nicely obliged.

We went forward and re-iterated every conversation we had over the last three months. Catherine was very soft-spoken. So soft spoken that I had to lean toward her to focus on every word she said, and on one occasion I kindly told her to speak just a little louder. My undivided attention was on her when she said every word since she had the loveliest eyes I had ever seen. Big eyes. Lovely eyes. Obvious eyes. Memorable eyes. Cat eyes. Eyes that made her very cute. Eyes that ‘made’ Catherine.

We went more in-depth about the parallels we had. I was still very flattered Catherine was into the very music I was years prior. Had she went to high-school with me she would have been accepted to my circle of friends with no problem. She also mentioned that once she was a Cinema/Cultural Studies major on our campus. However, we had no classes together and the two years that she attended our university we did not once cross paths, but very well could have.

We talked and listened to each other more and more, progressing without one single hitch. No missteps, no awkward looks, no slip-ups, no back-pedaling. It was only Catherine and I sitting across from each other with all the time in the world having a complex yet honest, concerning, intelligent conversation; a type of conversation extremely rare in our disposable, attention-deficit, lowest-common-denominator world. She was that someone different than the rest who was exactly on my level. I was that someone who would give her the concern, understanding, and the attention she was looking for.

Our night, however, was drawing to a close and I wanted to end it on a high note. I asked Catherine if she had gotten a hold of Elliott Smith’s Figure 8, one which she was missing. She was in the midst of explaining herself when I take the CD out of my jacket pocket placed next to me and tossed it on the table right in front of her, a late Christmas present for a friend to bring herself and her spirits up. She was in total amazement. So much it spilt all over the table. She could not believe I would do such a thing for her.

Catherine then offered me anything I wanted. She even waved her money in my face for the CD which I absolutely dead-refused to take. What I wanted in return was to see her again, and soon.

**********

To this day, no one I have ever met in my life gave me a surreal thrill just by being with someone for three hours. I felt amazed that I even met her.

Catherine was without a doubt one of the most original and unique people I’ve met, ever. Hands down. No contest. She had a lot of things about her that no one could copy, because everything about her was hers. From the music she listened to, her philosophy, her good parts, her bad parts, even her looks…it was all hers, as if there was an art to her.

She was real interesting and because of her conversations I tried to reach out and look out for her. She made me want to look forward to meeting her again and in the process got my mind off a lot of things because she was really that special. I bought her that gift just to prove to her that I can help her out and bring her up in any way.

It was that feeling of meeting someone who was more to my liking, whose complexion was young, her personality, looks, and features unique and rarely seen, the feeling of assurance because you finally had the answers to those swirling questions. In front of me was someone I believed was truly special despite her severe misgivings and flaws. Despite her errors, I only thought about the good things, colors, and feelings about her.

Every now and then I go back and listen to everything from that era. All those sounds are a watermark of that time when I first met Catherine and conjure up everything else that occurred at the time. That clear cold weather and the memory of lime, infinity, and powdery static. That white cell-phone, the spicy rice. Nights of heavy snow on campus and long night drives home. The series of Wednesday night radio shows and our resident DJ’s coming over to visit at the turn of midnight. Those loud nights of campus techno events and meeting different shades of Jewish women with different colors of hair, skin quality, fashion sense, glasses, make-up, and sweat. Those feelings, thoughts, shades, hues, and patterns of purple, blue, grey, black, and white. But none of anything could come close to that one defining moment of meeting Catherine, where from that point on it would watermark and define an era in a time where everything added up to equal an apex.

**********

We met again in Spring a couple of times thereafter. We sat down over ice cream and even traded more music to each other. I still truly believed that Catherine was someone special and stood out from everyone I have ever met, and I seriously wanted to remain in touch with her. She happily obliged as she gave me a sympathetic goodbye hug in the end.

Later on that season I had an art report to do and she had an affinity for museums. I offered Catherine an afternoon in New York City and we went to the MOMA as I prepared my critique about Joan Miro’s Women, Birds And A Star. At the end of that mostly sunny day we said goodbye to the city and took the train ride home together; our discussion of each others’ individual lives, future plans, and possible outcomes comprised the final hour of the last time we would ever see each other…for a long, long time.

Permission granted by the very same subject presented here.

[allydsgn]

My Experience With the Graphic Design Portfolio

So I know this is a huge thing that most aspiring graphic design students freak out about, so I’m just gonna talk about my experience with them and the tips from portfolio reviews that I’ve gotten. Here are the types of portfolios I’ll be talking about:

The Big Physical Portfolio Case

The Physical Book

The Digital PDF

I hope this helps!

1_The Big Physical Portfolio Case I had to submit one of these to get into my program. The university itself will accept you as a design major for the first year, but you aren’t actually one until you pass this portfolio review at the end of your first year. Most of the time universities will tell you how to submit work as well (see this link for my school in particular. Also, we have separate criteria for transfer students.)

Get a case that fits your work comfortably so you don’t damage work when it either gets put in or pulled out for viewing at the review.

Protect your work with tracing paper and masking tape to not damage boards and work.

Large scale prints like full-size posters or drawings on newsprint should be in a labeled tube. Please do not fold your work! It shows you don’t care for it, and if you don’t care for your work why should they?

Your process can be shown in binders or booklets, but it should be clean and easy to flip through if they want to look at how you think. Clean typography with good white space is best! If you’re trying to be “cool” with crazy typography and it doesn’t work out, it can seriously hurt their perception of you (even if it’s not supposed to).

Final work should be mounted in some way. Our program usually uses 16x20 black matte boards that are pretty sturdy as our backing with our work centered on the smooth side of the board. The back of the mount usually has a label for your name, name of the project, class, and date.

If you’d like to include project or design briefs on the back of your boards or in your books then I would say to make it as short as possible without losing any good concept information. They don’t want to read an essay, but they want to know what your project was, how you tried to solve it, and what you were thinking.

2_The Physical Book I’ll be working on this one starting this semester. I’ve sent one for my Junior review though and have gotten some feedback based on what I sent (mine was digital, but it was book format rather than mounts or slides)!

This is almost like a branding piece. The whole book should feel like a cohesive presentation of your work even though your work can be varied and diverse. Try to pick a theme or color scheme that won’t distract too much from your work. You can also include a running header and footer to keep the brand throughout.

Be aware of how your reader interacts with a full open spread, not just single pages. This can also change the size of your book if it’s too wide when fully open and becomes a pain to flip through.

Sequencing is important! If every spread looks exactly the same it can get a little boring... maybe even try some half sheets if it’s printed or a pop of color to keep it interesting!

The right page usually has more weight and is easier to look at, so I would put your most important work there or on the outer edge of the left page if it must be on the left page.

Leave a whole page open for a logo (especially if later pages you’re showing the rest of the campaign). Let the logo breathe and present itself because it is the foundation of the brand/campaign you’re about to show.

Your typography matters so much in their perception of your skills! You can have some fun with it, and it could work if you really push it, but please make sure you’re still watching typography fundamentals like widows, kerning, and tracking. If it’ll distract too much from your work then I wouldn’t do it.

Try to keep paragraphs and explanations short and a decent distance from the work. No one wants to read an essay, but they want to know what you’re thinking.

Pace yourself. Don’t shove everything into one spread just because you want a project per spread. If your bigger projects need the breathing space then give it another spread or two.

Let us discover your project through the pages. Start off with sketches, then show some process, some digitals and turning points, and finally at the end show the mock-ups and photography of your projects. Depending on where you’re sending this you may not send sketches or your whole process, but a spread of process alone could be nice insight, especially if you have good imagery or photos for it.

Don’t forget your contact information on the last page!

3_The Digital PDF I showed this one at a portfolio review at the NSSC13 (National Student Show and Conference in Dallas, Texas). I walked to tables of professionals with my laptop and was able to talk them through the slides or let them click through it.

DECIDE IMMEDIATELY if it needs to stand on its own or if it’s being presented. If it needs to stand on its own then you’ll need more explanations and words to explain everything. If it’s being presented then make sure you mention everything you want to.

If it stands on its own you can probably attach more projects. If you’re at a timed showcase event where you have a limited time to talk to someone then I would put in fewer projects.

A dividing slide that talks about the concept and project briefly can be beneficial for setting up the context of your project and letting the viewer know what they’re going to see next.

Guide the viewer from one slide to another with visual queues. You can keep a running header or footer like in the book.

Again, give things plenty of space. Give your logo its own slide. Give icons from an infographic their own slide. Pull parts of campaigns out and show them the pieces before showing them all together at the end as a conclusion for that project.

If you have a flat lay mockup at the end of the project’s section to show it off, make sure you also show close ups of the collateral/work so that they can get a good luck at everything you made.

It may seem like you’re making a million slides, but remember that visual slides with no words are faster to take in so it won’t feel as long as you think it is when they look through it.

Say thank you at the end with possibly your contact information, especially if it’s a job!

These are just tips and advice based on what I’ve heard and been told throughout my years here! As a final piece of advice... talk to whoever you can that’s actually in the industry! Teachers, professors, or even other designers at student shows and conferences could probably offer more advice. You can also talk to students on Tumblr and see what they sent in order to get into the school you’re looking to attending. I’m also available to look at your digital portfolios if you want me to take a look! Good luck!

[suit-lady]

Baby Drama.

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Summary: This is a request from this drabble list by @fooooooooooooooooooood.  #4: “I’m too sober for this.” #10: “The ladies love a guy who’s good with kids.” and #13: “I lost our baby.” Thanks so much for the request!

Warnings: Swears. Come on, y’all. It’s me.

Word Count: 1655 (I know; leave me alone)

A/N: Okay, the chances of this being what you imagined are honestly so slim… But, if you can’t tell by the length of this, I had a lot of fun writing this fic! I hope you all enjoy reading it! xoxo Also, in case this wasn't obvious, Peter and reader are both high schoolers taking a home ec class together. The baby is fake, it's all in good fun. Love y'all xoxo

This semester, Peter’s schedule was loaded, save one class. Home ec was going to kill Peter. While learning things like how to cook for himself and how to appropriately do laundry were probably good for him, he couldn’t care less. Plus, the class was made up of part sweet kids who were taking the class because their mothers told them to, douchier guys who were taking the class to impress female students, and other kids looking for an easy A. Peter hated this entire hour, and he watched the clock even worse than usual when cooped up in that classroom-made-kitchen.

Nothing, however, could have prepared him for the midterm project. Nothing at all.

“Okay, class. I’m assigning partners. Everyone is on the board. Find your name, find your partner, and then we’ll get started.”

You walked up to Peter, introducing yourself, “Hi, I’m (Y/N). You’re Peter?”

He nodded, his breath catching in his throat at the sight of you. He hadn’t expected someone so gorgeous. “That’s me,” he finally managed to spit out.

You took a seat next to him, flashing a lovely smile, “Alright, I’ll be straight up with you. You don’t seem like the type to end up in this class,” you talked in a low voice, nearly lost in the partner-finding commotion. “So…why are you here?”

“Oh, you know,” he said, faking macho, “the ladies love a guy who’s good with kids.”

“Come on, Peter,” you said with a roll of your eyes. “What’s the real reason?”

He sighed, replying, “My aunt wanted me to have a low-stress class this quarter.”

“Hey, that’s why I’m here!” you said with a laugh that rang a heavenly echo in Peter’s ears. “But this is my most stressful class to be honest with you.”

Peter laughed this time, agreeing, “Yeah, it’s mine too! It’s so out of my comfort zone.”

The instructor cleared her throat to gather everyone’s attention, so you just mouthed “same!” before the pair of you turned your attention to her. “Class, today we’re going to start our midterm project. Parenting.”

Some kids, including you, groaned. Peter, however, sat in shock. What the hell did this lady mean?

Then, she pulled out a large box behind her desk, chock full of life-like baby dolls. Oh, hell no. The groaning became cacophony, but the instructor hushed everyone. Slowly, the babies were delivered to each pair of students, and you were all designated parents for the next three weeks. The mood in the classroom was very sour at this.

“Lighten up, kids! This is what some of you are looking at in several years! Hopefully after college, but… it’s best to learn now!”

You were given instructions on how to care for the baby, and you looked over it with Peter. “Looks like we’re gonna be spending the next couple weeks attached at the hip.”

A nervous chuckle left Peter’s lips. “Yeah, looks like it.”

-

The first week and a half wasn’t bad at all, except that Peter found himself falling head over heels for you. Other than being great with the kid—fake or not, you were incredibly sweet, and both Aunt May and Ned adored you. You invited him over for dinner once at your place, and he’d come home with a smile sweeter than sunrise. Finally, May couldn’t help but press.

“You like that kid, don’t you?”

“I—what?” Peter had responded, the shock evident on his face as a deep blush creeped up his neck.

“(Y/N). I can see the way you look at each other. It’s there.”

“Wait…each other?”

May smiled. “What, you don’t think (Y/N) likes you too? I see the looks you give each other while you’re doing homework. I know.”

Peter’s head spun at the possibility. “N-nah, Aunt May,” Peter stuttered. “(Y/N) is way too good for me.”

“Peter, I’m too sober for this. Don’t tell me that you aren’t the loveliest boy that goes to Midtown.” When Peter opened his mouth to tell her just that, she held up a hand. “No, Peter! I’ll have none of it!”

“Whatever, Aunt May,” he said in a disdainful tone, but his mouth was threatening to turn up into a smile.

“You better ask (Y/N) on a date while you have the chance, Peter. You don’t know how much you’ll talk when this little project is over.”

The thought of not talking to you anymore hurt Peter to his core. Whether you said yes or not, he decided that he’d rather know than go on wondering. He was going to ask you the night before the project was over. Maybe, if he gained the courage, he’d ask you before, but he doubted it.

-

Then, the worst possible thing happened.

You were going out to dinner with some friends to celebrate a birthday, so you asked Peter if he could watch the baby that evening. Usually, you would watch him until around supper time, then one of you would go over to the other’s house, you’d do a bit of homework for the required amount of “mutual time with the baby”, and then Peter would keep the baby until the next morning. Peter could still be Spider-Man that way. This time, however, Peter had the baby while leaving the school. Flash had said something obnoxious on his way out, but Peter paid him no mind.

As usual, Peter hurried out of the schoolyard, paid a visit to Mr. Delmar to grab a sandwich (the #5) and some sour gummy worms, and raced off to start his nightly duties as Spider-Man. He swung around the city, looking for riffraff as usual. Even though nothing seemed out of the ordinary on that warm Wednesday evening, he stayed out until his usual time. He left a little voicemail for Tony, saying that there hadn’t been much action today, but the suit was really great and thank you so much for the opportunity. Then, he went back to grab his bag and his clothes.

Oh no. Oh fuck no.

His bag was gone.

-

“Heyyyyyyyy there, (Y/N),” Peter greeted you warmly the next morning, sliding into his seat next to you.

“Hi, Peter,” you said with a kind smile. “How’s the baby?”

Peter coughed awkwardly. “Okay, so, uhm, please don’t be mad.”

“Peter,” you warned with a glare, “our baby better not have been dropped into the mud or something like that.” You gestured to a pair of your friends, whose baby was permanently stained a horrendous shade of brown.

“Uh, nope! Not that, nope,” he said, his nerves beginning to kick in.

“Okay, then…what?” you asked, a worried curiosity painting your features.

“Uh, well, you see, I might have, possibly, maybe, definitely lost our baby.”

Your eyes widened, and you covered your mouth, trying hard not to scream. “You fucking did what?”

Peter’s eyes widened as well, but at your language. “I, um, lost my backpack last night, and the baby was in the backpack.”

With a heavy sigh, you leaned back in your chair. “Peter, losing the baby is an automatic fail. What on earth are we going to do?” You thought for a moment. “Hold on, isn’t that, like, the eighth backpack you’ve lost this year.”

He chuckled awkwardly. “Uh, maybe…” Then, his thoughts turned to Ned, his Guy in the Chair, the one who always looked out for him, the one that had encouraged him to put a tracking device in his backpack. “Wait. (Y/N). We might be able to save the baby.”

After informing you about the tracking device, you sighed again, this time in relief. “Peter Parker, I swear, you’re going to make this class the death of me.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, (Y/N). I promise I’ll have the baby tomorrow.”

“You better. If not, we’re spending all weekend together, looking.”

-

Your serious tone in class caused Peter to look as hard (and as fast) as he could for his backpack. After setting up the GPS ping with Karen and Ned, he was off. He found the backpack moved to some random dumpster, robbed only of Peter’s lunch money for the week and his sneakers. Nice. Not only was the baby safe and sound; he hadn’t lost one of his favorite signature nerdy t-shirts.

-

The pair of you were sure you’d end up with an A on the project. When the report and all the required graphics were all together in an aesthetically pleasing fashion, you got a little caught up in the excitement. Peter had held his hand up for a high five, but you had pulled him into a hug. Immediately after, you held him at arms’ length, eyes wide and cheeks bright pink.

“Peter, I am so sorry.”

“Uh, no, (Y/N), it’s okay; I’ve actually been meaning to ask you something.”

You waited, but he just sat there for a moment, refusing to make eye contact. “Yes?” you said after you couldn’t take the silence any longer.

“Uh, well, working with you the past several weeks has made me realize I really like you, (Y/N). I was hoping we could maybe keep hanging out after this? I know this really great sandwich place…” he trailed off.

“Peter Parker, are you asking me on a date?”

He flushed a deep red. “Uh, maybe…” He smiled at you, his eyes full of anxiety.

“I’d love to, Peter.”

Still caught up in the excitement of the project being finished, and then adding the joy that Peter Parker had asked you out, you pulled him into another hug. This time, however, he pulled away a bit, looking into your eyes, almost searching for something within them. Then, in a moment of boldness, he pressed his lips against yours in the sweetest, softest kiss you had ever experienced. The smiles you shared afterwards said all the words you couldn’t express, and you couldn’t remember being happier than you were right then.

Tag List: @toms-spidey, @peterandchurros, @peterfuckinparker, @peterfightmeparker, @trackingthislamp, @lgbt-avengers, @sachiparker, @softnerdypeter, @tomfooleryholland, @hollandaised, @homecunnings, @ theweirdlunatic 

[theofficialcunt]

Simplicité - Chapter 1 {Biadore}

Hi everyone! I’ve had this idea in my head for awhile, and I’ve decided that this is going to be my main focus for the time being. I’m going to try my best to update this every Wednesday night/Early Thursday morning.

This is a lesbian AU, set in Chicago during present day. Bianca, 26, is a successful business owner of the fabulous Simplicité Salon & Spa. Adore, 21, is her new personal assistant/makeup apprentice from Southern California. The two are close in age but couldn’t be more different, but they might end up surprising one another as they get to know each other, as well as themselves. Adore and Bianca are both on their own paths to acheiving personal growth, and have the help of Courtney, Bob, Farrah, and more. 😽 This will have a few side ships, and I already have it partially outlined because well, some of these experiences actually happened to me personally.

This is mainly a teaser chapter, its 3.9k so somewhat lengthy so I really hope you enjoy!!

“Goodbye Mom!”

Adore was dressed in her signature red flannel, ripped shorts, and ripped tights, embracing her mom tightly in the middle of LAX. Her mom squeezed her back extra hard, rubbing her floppy straw hat and kissing her forehead one last time.

“Do you have to do this Adore?” Bonnie asked tearfully, moving a strand of fire engine red hair behind her ear.

Adore gulped, nodding solemnly as she clutched her hello kitty bag.

“Yeah mom. I do. It’s for the best.”

Adore had been in a slump since her high school days. She was stuck in an economic wasteland, known more commonly as southern california. She had a hard three years; from trying and failing to complete community college, to not being able to get a job due to her lack of experience, and on top of that being a raging lesbian with no love life in sight.

She had been desperate for change. She had tried everything from joining a baseball league, to partying in downtown LA by herself, to even trying to make friends through a stupid app called Bumble.

It wasn’t until she began looking online at the job boards, for any sort of opportunity that stuck out to her - where she unexpectedly found a new adventure.

Wanted: Personal Assistant & Apprentice in Makeup Artistry at Simplicité Salon and Spa

Salary will be contingent on candidates ability to perform daily tasks effectively, such as: heavy lifting, graphic design, answering phone calls, managing social media, greeting clients, and participation in off site events. Candidate must be able to work weekends, weekdays, and long shifts, as well as multi-task effectively. They must be open minded, and willing to learn new things daily. Experience not necessary. Room in house will be included as a part of employment, due to unpredictable demands and long hours.

Location: Chicago, IL

“Mom!” Adore yelled, as she ran down the stairs excitedly. She ran around the corner to the kitchen, where Bonnie was preparing Chilé Quilles.

“Yes?” Bonnie asked, lips pursed patiently as she waited for her youngest daughter to tell her what was happening.

“There’s this job opportunity and I think I’m going to go for it!” Adore exclaimed, jumping up and down wildly. She didn’t know why, but when she saw the job posting she got the chills - and just felt like it was a good fit. But she didn’t want to apply for it without her mom’s approval.

“That’s great baby!” Bonnie squealed, clapping her hands relieved. “Where is it at? And what will you be doing?”

“See the thing is, is that the job will be in Chicago but I think it’d be totally cool for me to get out of California for awhile!” Adore said nonchalantly , twisting a red curl around her finger. “I’d be a personal assistant for a fancy ass salon though, and I’d get to do makeup!”

“Chicago?” Bonnie frowned, turning the flame off on the stove. She turned to face Adore with sad eyes. “Why do you want to move so far away?”

“Mom,” Adore sighed, frustrated. “I don’t, but it’d be totally temporary and I’d get to live in a brand new state! The job is an amazing oppurtunity, once in a lifetime-”

“Where will you stay? How will you afford rent? And groceries? Adore it’s not as simple as you’re making it-”

“A room to rent is included if I get the job. Apparently my new boss would need me at random times, which means I’d need to be at her disposal at all times.” Adore explained.

“That sounds a bit sketchy. Are you sure this is a legit listing?” Bonnie raised an eyebrow as she handed Adore a plate.

“I thought the same thing, but I looked on the salon’s website as well and the same listing is there. Did you know that it’s one of the top 5 salon and spas in the midwest?”

“No, because I don’t even know the name of the spa mija. We live in California, not Illinois.” Bonnie deadpanned.

“Oh it’s called Simplicité.” Adore said, unknowingly failing to do a horrible french accent. She shoveled the chile quilles into her mouth as her mom pondered silently over the news.

Of course for Bonnie, the move was going to be hard - especially since Adore is the last one left at home. But, she knew Adore was miserable here in Southern California, and maybe the change of scenery wouldn’t be such a bad idea for her.

Adore had been through alot in the last 3 years, and Bonnie had watched all of the unfortunate events happen to her. First it was the ruthless bullying for her alternative fashion sense, which Bonnie will silently admit wasn’t the best. Adore had been bullied so much, she had ended up dropping out of high school and going to continuation school instead.

Then there was the community college incident. She had decided to go to school for psychology, and ended up dropping out after one semester. She hated it, despised how she felt lost within the crowd and ended up trying to find a job instead.

Adore was into makeup, there was no secret about that. Bonnie would come home to her sitting cross legged in front of her laptop, practicing a smokey eye or contouring and highlighting. It was one of the only times she would ever see a smile on her daughter’s face. She had attempted to get a job at MAC in the mall, but she ended up getting cut because of -you guessed it: her interview attire.

Adore was young, and if this spa was willing to give her a chance - then she should go for it. Despite how hard it would be on Bonnie as a new empty nester.

“I think it’s a great idea.” Bonnie finally admitted, looking sternly into her 21 year old’s eyes.

“Yay! Thanks mom!” Adore squealed, tackling Bonnie into a bear hug before she ran back up the stairs.

A few weeks later

“Hello Miss Delano, this is Bianca from Simplicité. After careful review of your application and resume, I would like to extend an official offer of employment to you. I was very impressed with your charisma and charm over the phone, and think you would be a great fit for our team. Please give me a call back if you are still interested in the position. You would begin your employment on June 16th, and your airfare will be taken care of as a courtesy since you had mentioned how costly it is. Thank you and have a nice day.”

Adore dropped her phone in stunned silence as she realized it was happening. It was all real now.

She was finally going to have a chance at happiness again.

—————-

“Call me as soon as you land okay? I love you mija, show them all what a kickass chola you are.” Bonnie gave her a kiss one last time, before watching her daughter walk through the shiny glass doors of LAX. Adore looked back one last time, tearfully as she waved goodbye to her mom.

Her mom had been her best friend all throughout childhood. They had done everything together from the time she was born up until this very day, her moving day.

A part of her still couldn’t believe she was going through with this, who just packs all of their shit and moves 2,000 miles across the country? Who applies for a job in Chicago when they live in Southern California? Apparently Adore Delano does.

It was hard leaving her mom by herself, but she knew if she were to stay - she would never move out of her mom’s house and become independent. She would stay there forever, and never find someone to be with, and never get over all of the past trauma she had to deal with.

“Flight 329 to Chicago, boarding in 5 minutes.” The stewardess announced from the terminal. Adore shuffled across the airport, scurrying as she cut a dozen people in line to get through security.

“Miss, you can’t cut me!” An angry old man yelled.

“I have a plane to catch and if I miss it, my entire life will be ruined. Do you really want to fuck up my destiny man? It’s already bad enough mercury is in retrograde right now.” Adore snapped back bitterly.

“I could give two shits about your life and your planets!”

“Fuck off!” Adore yelled, throwing the middle finger up defiantly as she was ushered through security from TSA. She tore her converse off quickly and shoved her purse in a plastic bin, throwing her middle finger up again as she heard the old man muttering obscenities to himself. A guard pushed her gently into the full body scanner, telling her to hold still.

Stepping out of the scanner, she grabbed her bag and shoes quickly and began running towards her gate. She was slipping on the linolueum as her tights rubbed against the shiny surface. She cursed herself as she slowed down to a brisk walk, locating her gate and making a run for it.

“Group B, please stand up and get in line.”

Adore looked down at her ticket, and noticed she was group A. Fuck! She had missed her group. The odds of her getting a window seat now were slim to none. She ran made it to her gate, just in time for the stewardess to begin scanning all of Group B’s tickets. She slowly followed the line of group B’s and finally made it onto the plane, barefoot and all.

She looked around frantically, hoping she would find a window seat near the front. Luckily, she managed to slip into one near the wing. She sighed, excusing herself as she climbed over the overweight man and the small blonde teenager who couldn’t’ve been more than 15 to get to it. She slid her purse underneath the seat, and sighed in relief. She had made it. She was on the plane and she was about to start her new life.

She wouldn’t be arriving to Chicago until late at night, around 11:30 to be accurate. The flight was 5 hours from SoCal, which was the longest non stop flight she had ever been on. She pulled her ipod out of her pocket and popped the earbuds in, as she leaned her head back in the seat and drifted off peacefully.

————-

“It is 11:45 pm currently in Chicago, thank you so much for flying with us tonight. Goodnight!”

Adore rubbed her eyes sleepily as she woke up to the bright fluorescent airplane lights. She had slept the whole time! That was actually really nice! As she began to get up, a flash of light illuminated the airplane from outside.

It was storming outside?

Thunder cracked loudly overhead, causing Adore to jump - and she hurriedly grabbed her purse and phone.

2 new messages

Bianca: I’m downstairs by the baggage claim. I have red hair. I’m also holding a sign with your name on it, hopefully you won’t miss me.

Sassy, Adore thought. She scrolled to the next message and smiled.

Bianca: Your flight was clearly delayed due to the weather. You’re going to experience your first midwestern storm tonight.

Adore hated storms with all of her heart. They hardly ever got them in SoCal, but when they did she would refuse to go anywhere because of how unpredictable the lightning was. She put her converse back on and scurried out of the airplane quickly, doing her best to not look scared as she followed the crowd towards baggage claim.

A wave of nervousness washed over her. As she looked for Bianca, she couldn’t help but wonder why she was chosen for the job. She had no previous work experience, and on top of that Bianca had to pay for her flight out here.

She wondered how her new boss looked. Was she tall? Short? Fat? As she pondered it, she realized she had made it to baggage claim, and that there was a short red headed woman near the corner with her name on a piece of paper.

Adore gulped as she walked over to her timidly, holding her purse close to her.

“Ah, you must be Adore.” Bianca smiled, folding the piece of paper and putting it in her black purse. “I’m Bianca, it’s nice to meet you.”

Adore shook her hand softly and smiled shyly. Bianca was much prettier than she imagined, and much more intimidating. She was dressed in a sheer high low black strapless dress, a cardigan with a silver brooch on it, and black pumps. Her makeup was done heavily, and her sleek strawberry hair was tightly styled into a bun on the side of her head.

Adore was kicking herself for not dressing up, as she stared down at her worn black converse and ripped tights. She felt vulnerable now.

“God, you call that a handshake?” Bianca scoffed, “Try again, and this time try not to let your hand flop in mine lazily.”

Adore’s eyes widened, shocked at her crassness. She gripped her hand firmly again, shaking it with confidence as she met her beady brown eyes. She was tired, the heavy makeup distracted an untrained eye from it - but Adore found it easy to see through that.

“Long day?” Adore asked, studying Bianca’s eyes carefully. A look of surprise flashed across her face for just a moment, before she composed herself.

“Everyday is a long day when you’re a business owner.” Bianca said, plastering on a smile. “Grab your bags and let’s go. We need to get home, especially since we have an early start tomorrow.”

An early start? They were starting her training already? Wow, not even a one day’s break, Adore thought. She wasn’t expecting to be thrown in immediately.

Bianca smirked at the younger girls panicked expression. Clearly she didn’t realize she would be starting so soon.

“There’s no rest for the wicked, Miss Delano. We have a lot of work to do.” Bianca said, studying her new peer. She had dry, brittle, red hair that looked like it needed a brush ran through it six months ago, as well as 5 or 6 other products. Her choice in fashion was… interesting to say the least. Definitely still trying to make a statement, she noticed as she scanned the mismatched prints of her flannel and polka dot tank top.

Once Adore grabbed her bags, they settled into Bianca’s suv - a Hyundai Santa Fe with a couple of various items littered in the backseat.

“Is that..a nightstand?” Adore asked confused as they loaded the last bag into the trunk.

“I like to get crafty,” Bianca smiled toothily. “That’s actually one of your projects for tomorrow. I’m looking to switch up the spa a little bit.”

“Great.” Adore said as enthusiastically as she could for someone who had been traveling all day. She was suddenly exhausted, finally feeling the impact of her day.

“Don’t worry, we’re gonna be home shortly.” Bianca comforted as they pulled out of the airport parking lot.

Adore surprisingly dozed off as Bianca drove through the city, despite the storm. When the car finally stopped moving, Adore jolted up noticing that they were parked in another parking garage.

“This is where you live?” Adore asked, bewildered.

“Where WE live.” Bianca corrected, opening the trunk as she grabbed one of Adore’s bags. Adore stretched her arms outwards before she got up, flipping her red hair over her shoulder nervously.

She stepped out of the car, feeling the sticky humidity grab her skin. The rain had stopped, but left it overly humid. “Gross.” Adore muttered quietly under her breath as she grabbed her bags.

“Get used to it. This is pretty common here.” Bianca chuckled, leading the way to the elevator, where there was an attendant standing inside.

“Good evening. Late night Miss Del Rio?” The blonde perky attendant, Alisha asked.

“Yes. I had to grab my new roommate from the airport.” Bianca smiled widely, elbowing Adore.

“Welcome to Chicago, Adore. I’m here in the evenings, for your convenience.” Alisha smiled at Adore. “ Floor six right?”

“Correct.” Bianca responded, as they settled into the elevator.

It was silent in the elevator as they awaited their floor. The two women were both exhausted, Bianca was amused at the younger girl’s attire. She was about to be in for the transformation of a lifetime. She wanted so bad to touch her hair, to see what exactly she would be working with, but the elevator dinged indicating that they had reached their floor.

“Good evening.” Alisha nodded, watching as the two women exited with their collection of luggage.

Bianca’s heels clacked on the marble tile in the hallway. This was a very nice building, Adore thought. Much nicer than anything she had ever been used to.

Bianca stopped in front of their apartment, a giant 305 was sprawled across the dark wooden door in elegant gold cursive.

“This is us.” Bianca chimed, unlocking the door with ease.

As Bianca sauntered into the home, Adore stopped and stared as she took in all of the sights around her.

In the entry way was a beautiful antique chandelier, it had to be a couple of hundred years old at least. But that’s not all. Bianca had pictures sprawled across the narrow hallway - pictures of her with famous people, in front of the salon on opening day next to a very attractive blonde and a sassy looking black guy wearing a fedora.

“That’s Courtney.” Bianca mused, watching Adore study the picture closely. “She’s a cunt.”

Adore laughed, surprised at her ubrupt description of Courtney. “You’re always one to keep it classy aren’t you?”

“Well of course. A southern belle like me always minds her manners.” Bianca said sarcastically.

Adore let out a long hearty laugh as she closed the front door behind her, settling into the hallway. Her jaw dropped at another picture, eyes widened with envy.

Bianca froze when she saw her gazing in awe at one of the pictures in particular.

“Ah, you must have found one of my celebrity meet and greet photos.” Bianca smirked, closing the distance to see which picture she had discovered.

“I can’t believe you got to meet Anna Nicole. She was my idol.” Adore gushed, tracing her hand longingly over the picture frame.

Confused, she looked up at the girl. How did she even know who she was? She wasn’t that old.

“Aren’t you only 18?” Bianca asked confused.

“I’m 21.” Adore said hesitantly. “Didn’t you see my age on my background check?”

Oh. That meant she was only 5 years her junior. She acted much younger than her age, which really threw her off. She would be lying if she said she didn’t envy the young latina’s genes, she had smooth porcelain skin and bright blue eyes that dazzled. Her hair was a choice, but that was an easy fix. It was really too bad that she was hiding all of her natural beauty underneath the giant dry heap of red hair.

“I guess I should have. Well great.” Bianca said, taking the rest of her bags. “Let me show you to your room. I’m fucking tired.”

Adore raised her eyebrows as she followed her down the long hallway. Their rooms were across from each other, she discovered that Bianca’s door was closed.

As they entered the chic room, Adore was in shock. It was much bigger than the room she had lived in at home. She had a large window next to her bed; that had a great view of downtown Chicago. On top of that, her bed had brand new comforters, string lights hung around the vicinity, and scented candles from bath and body works were littered on her bedside table. As well as a notepad, a journal, and a planner.

“I got my inspiration from tumblr.” Bianca grinned, “You like?”

“Bitch, I fucking LOVE this! It’s totally me.” Adore squealed, kicking her shoes off and letting her feet sink into the shaggy black rug in the middle of the room.

“You might have noticed the notebook and planner on your bedside table.” Bianca cleared her throat uncomfortably. She didn’t know Adore very well yet, but felt weird about switching the conversation to a more business like setting. “You’re going to need to take notes. In the car, at work, wherever I am.”

“Notes? Why?” Adore asked.

“Well,” Bianca started, sitting on the edge of the black and white checkered bed. “You see, my mind goes a million miles an hour. And sometimes on a whim, I’ll get a really good idea and forget all of the specifics about it. So at any given moment, I’m going to need you to take notes as soon as I say basically. As you get to know me, you’ll know when my mind will start to go off the rails and when to start writing.”

Holy shit. Not even here for an hour, and Bianca was already telling her her expectations. It was midnight for fucks sake. Adore could barely process the fact that she was in a luxury apartment in the middle of Chicago, let alone taking notes and listening to every word Bianca says.

“Also,” Bianca continued, not waiting for a response. She grabbed the planner from the side table and placing it in Adore’s hands. “This is really important. My schedule is constantly changing, and I’ll need you with me pretty much at all times. You are basically my scheduler. This is where all of my meetings, appointments, etc should go.”

Adore nodded numbly, thumbing through the pages quickly to see how much room exactly she would have to write things out. She was a very detailed person when it came to notes, unfortunately the planner did not have very much room. It was going to be quite an adjustment.

“Dress code is black, white and grey only.” Bianca stated, eyeing Adore’s suitcases suspiciously. She had a feeling she hardly had anything appropriate for working in a salon, but she decided for now she would give her the benefit of the doubt.

“Also, hair and makeup needs to be done. I wont let you go into work with frizzy hair.” Bianca let her eyes linger on the wild red mane before moving on. “While I’m cutting and styling hair, you’ll be working the front desk. You need to look like a 10 at all times, got it? We work in the beauty industry, not the ugly industry.”

This was a lot to take in. Adore could feel herself getting overwhelmed. Bianca had a lot of strict rules and expectations for her. She couldn’t blame her, if her apartment was this nice she could only imagine how upscale the salon looked as well. She had to do her best to fit the bill.

She was feeling very insecure and very unprepared. She thought a couple of nice pairs of black pants would suffice, but she was starting to feel like that wouldn’t be enough for Bianca’s standards.

“A response to any of this would be nice.” Bianca snapped, rolling her eyes.

“Sorry. It’s just a lot to take in.” Adore gulped.

“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” Bianca chuckled to herself, standing up. “I’ll let you go to sleep. Gotta get up bright and early tomorrow. We’re out the door at 8:00. I expect you’ll dazzle me with your first day outfit.”

“I’ll do my best man. Goodnight Bianca.” Adore smiled weakly.

Bianca flashed a tight smile before she walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

There was no doubt about it.

Adore was fucked

[hotelbones]

Demystifying. Remystifying.

For this past week I made some prototypes! Woah! But I don’t feel good about them yet. Oh. No big deal, failure is normal in the process, but maybe I am just getting a little fatigued of not finding something that feels good for a while. 

With both of these prototypes I think I am just struggling with how to move forward with them. I have user tested some but the feedback hasn’t returned any feedback that has provided light on potential. I also am concerned about the thesis of this work. 

Makey Things

Video Art

I decided to mess with video art after I met with Liza. I had some anxieties related to the thesis show and how I wish I just had something that conveyed my idea with 30 seconds to 1 minute. That’s pretty much the average time people stayed at my table last semester. So it feels like that’s a good estimate for this coming sharing show as well. Maybe the thesis show shouldn’t influence the direction of my project, but it’s hard for it not to when its one of the few times during the thesis process that a large group has the potential to validate your work. 

The video is footage from the football game I wrote about in last week’s post which has been masked in a circle, with background footage of a walk through Cleveland city being obscured and distorted by noise. 

I know there could be more here but I just don’t know the direction it is. I thought about adding in some parallels to non-game violence but it felt too intense. I’m not sure what to do here. I will maybe ask people what they think. 

Metagame Essay 

Another idea I had during this week was creating a “metagame essay”. This idea came to me after being recommended to watch “Fighting in the Age of Loneliness” by Felix Biederman and Jon Bois. At the 8:54 mark, Biederman has us zoom out to look at the larger picture of UFC’s history, revealing a large historical anthology graphic. However, it also kind of looks like a game board to me. And as I thought about this video art idea (above) I started to wonder what ways there could be to experiment with video art. I stared at some twitch streams for a while just to consider formats. Then I had the idea of creating video art that was simultaneously a metagame.

If you don’t want to read that academic book I linked, a metagame is just a game made ontop of something playful, maybe that is even on top of another game. So the idea was to create a video that would stream through a game streaming service like mixer or twitch. 

The whatsapp messages above is the 5ish hours-in playtest I am currently holding just to see how people react to questions and how I can make adjustments to an image based on their answers. However, similar to the video art I am just not too sure where this is going. I don’t want to make a project that is just me being like, “who knows the right answer?”. But maybe it feels like that because I am doing it through whatsapp. I think there is another insecurity here as well. 

Thinky Things

Design Misfits

In my Design Misfits class I have also been thinking through the magic circle. However, in thesis I have been working through modern effects of the magic circle aesthetics/ideologies while in that class I am tracing the word back to its original root and then looking at the effects of its appropriation. We are getting close to our final project in the class and as I have been doing research I have realized.....a loooot of people have written on this stuff. And after dropping the argument that intimacy is the answer to the magic circle I kind of lost any concise argument. So what am I even trying to say with my work about the magic circle? I’m not really sure right now. I will maybe go through some of my old posts and rethink some things. 

Metagames

When I think about metagames I can’t stop thinking of Memento Mortem Mortis that LeMieux and Boluk made for their book. As the player you have to navigate through a 3D maze that must be navigated through the anamorphic distortion of the skull. Instead of looking around to move through the next turn of the maze, you have to look at a new side of the skull. It’s meant to create a critical connection between anamorphic games like Portal, echoCHROME, and levelhead to  Robert Lazzarinni’s anamorphic sculptures. 

I like this project because it is so densely expressing ideas within the game. The expression coming through the game is not one representing a system, but it is an artful critique, a densely packed image. 

Timeline:

(12/2)  Find what feels good about this project and argument & continue prototypes 

(12/7) Make proof of concept of whatever that good feeling thing is. 

(12/9) Presentations??

(12/14) Thesis show

[rnicole0414]

Professional Practice Mastery Reflection

During this year in the MDMFA program I have learned so much, starting with how to write a good paper and critique to how to create a vision board, logo and a complete brand. This program exceeded my expectations I have gained so much knowledge not only on design, but about myself and what I want to do with my career.

   Mastery: When I started the first class of mastery I was scared, not knowing what to expect but though-out the class I learned how to be confident on camera and put myself out there. It taught me how to write a paper correct and how to start research.

Defining Client Needs- this class taught me what a client is looking for and how to start to present my work to a client and to the world. It gave me the confidence that i could do this and there was great things to come.

Brand Development: this class . begin the design part of the program taught me how to develop a brand correctly, starting from the logo to each design aspect that will tell the story of the brand. This class really pushed me personally to bring up my drawing skills and knowledge of design because it was just the beginning for me.I had to redo my logos and add more uniqueness to them, it pushed my creativity like never before.

Effective Copy Writing: This was my favorite class of the first semester, It opened my passion for design, I chose a non-profit i really cared about and put all my heart into creating those ads. It taught me I could use my research and design skills together to create something that will stand out. It also showed me I could conquer the adobe programs.

Design Research: This class taught me how to began the narrative of a brand through extensive research, and how to connect that research to the story and the design decisions that bring the brand to life . This expanded my mind to create my own brand through great research, I was excited to see I could do this and I had illustrator and indesign down.

Organizational Structures: it opened my mind and eyes to the great world of motion graphics, this was one of the hardest for me because i knew nothing of . motion graphics, but this taught me i had the skills to create a great graphic I also learned I could do it with hard work and research on frame rates and audio 

Design strategies and Motivation: This the beginning of our major project of  place branding, we had to go out and research the place and take pictures to develop the brand. I was able to really showcase my creativity in a whole new way by taking a small area and bringing out the culture and history of the area.  After seeing my work I knew I was ready for more,  It challenged me.

Design Integration: we continued our place branding by making a dynamic vision board with audio.  this was tough at first because i broke down each frame through research but . i struggled with after effects and premier pro, but after hard work and not giving up I got it done, from here I felt i could create anything.

Multi Platform Delivery: this took the place branding to a new level, by creating assets that show off the personality of the brand and giving a personal logo, this was the first time i created an entire brand of my own. I gave the brand a unique look and feel that was all mine and it felt great.

Measuring Design Effectiveness: We took our place brand and created a survey for the target audience to see how the people would respond to my brand, this taught us how to maintain a brand to the outside world and showed us what might need to be fixed. It showed me that through good research and hard work, your work will pay off.

Presentation of Design Solution: This brought together our branding projects in relation to the four DLO’s of the media design program, we had to . Combine all of the research thought the classes and present them on our own website in the format of a portfolio. this taught me how to create a website and make all the work throughout the program fit together, by this time i was ready to share my skills with the design world.

Professional Practice: this was the last class of the program and taught us alot about ethics of what to do and not to do with a client and the public as well as on social media. this taught us the rules that must be followed when creating work and putting it out to the world.

Learning the techniques in each course taught me how to bring together all my work and present it in a competitive thesis. Everything from the research, to the criques, the logos, the design assets, the motion graphics and the ads, and the complete brand development showed me I had all the things in place to create a great thesis. I took everything i learned from adobe and the classes and displayed it in a unique way to show what I learned.

Final Experience Map of my time In theMDMFA program

this shows what I learned from beginning to end as well as what I was thinking and how I felt through it all. It  also delays the ups and downs I had during each class and semester. This program opened my mind and heart to a brand new world that awaits me after this program and it taught me i can be really creative and put my heart into each piece I create and hopefully give to the world.

It also taught me with hard work and passion I can do anything.

[batorschlusspanik]

Tag Game

tagged by @lyncoya-jacksons 

1. How tall are you? 5'7

2. What color and style is your hair? Brown roots w about half of it bright pink and then ends are light pink 

3. What color are your eyes? Brown

4. Do you wear glasses? Yup, for reading and close up stuff since i was like 7. I have astigmatism so I can see fine without them unless i close my right eye.

5. Do you have braces? nope but ive always wanted them!!

6. What is your fashion sense? Yikes well I go to boarding school so we have a uniform so my highschool style has pretty much not had an outlet. I think this year (university) ill wear what I wish I could’ve worn in HS which is like.. idk thriftstore chic? yes sure.

7. Do you have any siblings? 4 sisters and 2 brothers ew

8. What kind of student are you? the absolute worst. I procrastinate everything and i’m actually bad at most things so like… I have good grades but that’s only bc I’m really good at bs-ing

9. What are your favourite subjects? I hate almost all of them but if art counts as a subject then art lmao. I’m taking graphic design and photography this semester so that’s great too.

10. What are your favorite TV shows? Bones, Parks and Recreation, and Boy Meets World :) (also, the OC is my guilty pleasure omg)

11. Favourite books? I don’t read a lot but my favourite book ever is The Book Thief. 

12. Favourite pastimes? Whenever I have free time i waste it until I have no time to do things that I actually need to do, so i guess photography?? Idk man I don’t read or anything

13. Any regrets? all things tbh

14. What is your dream job? Freelance photographer and documentary filmmaker, but maybe an art teacher and art shop owner :))

15. Do you want to get married? Yea probably. I have this huge fear that no one will ever marry me but I never ever want to live alone so at the least have a roommate until I die. 

16. Do you want to have kids and how many? Yeah man, i love my nieces and nephews so much i want some kiddos!! Ill probably adopt so who knows I have no impulse control I want to give them all a good home

17. How many countries have you visited? I used to live in germany when I was young so I’ve visited pretty much all the close countires in Europe (france, italy, uk, austria etc, like the bordering ones ya feel). I also spent a few weeks in Bolivia for a mission trip, and I’ve gone to all the states in the US.

I tag: @rnogchothra @perspective-is-every-thing @damn-howell-is-feeling-lester @dontmakeme-sing @tatteredbooksandinkypages @simplifiedbaby and anyone else man 20 is too many

[lizarddream]

Project 3 Final + Semester review

521 Project 3 presentation script:

1.) Hello, and welcome to my presentation on Project three of ArtGr 521. For this project I choose to explore animation with a focus on narrative storytelling in frame by frame animation.

 2.) As I covered in my last presentation I decided to change up my last two projects, adding in a project on illustration, removing a project on java, and moving the animation project to last.

 3.) In my initial research on animation I found myself really drawn to animations with a handmade, more tactile feel, especially college base stop motion. With this in mind, I wanted to avoid the flat animation style that is very popular right now.

 4.) I decided to continue the theme of the last project and work within the genres of western, horror, noir, and sci fi. I began with these assets, imaging a cowboy walking through a desert and into an old west town.

 5.) However, the figure proved to nearly impossible to work with in AfterEffects, so I redesigned it in Illustrator to be more simplified and with distinct pieces that could be easily moved in AfterEffects.  

 6.) The results were…underwhelming, and I was having a really hard time achieving the look and style I was looking for. So I went back to the drawing board and tried to do more research, and what I found is that AfterEffects is great for creating motion graphics but not as great for more naturalistic animation.

 7.) In my research I noticed that a lot of the animations I connected with were made using frame by frame animations in either Procreate or Photoshop. So, I thought I would give it a try to see if this was feasible and was pleasantly surprised.  

 8.) This style was not only much more comfortable for me and moved significantly fasted than using puppet pins in AfterEffect, but also allowed me to experiment more with mark making and texture.

 9.) This freedom was the real draw for me, that I could not only mimic mixed media or traditional media animation, but also consider how those colors, textures, and layers can add to the storytelling and support the communication of a message.

 10.) While frame and frame can sound daunting, I found working with all these frames actually helped me understand where you can simplify and economize, that the eye fills in a lot of information for you.

 11.) I started my animations with what I called a framework but was essentially a shot by shot storyboards with line work only. This helped me layout what I wanted to show and how I would get from one frame to the next.

 12.) Once I had animated all my frameworks I went in and added color, texture, and backgrounds. The horror animation was the last one completed but is first in my sequence. I was probably the least happy with this one but I’ll cover that later in the presentation.

 13.) For my noir animation I was able to work off of a storyboard I had created during project 2 but choose not to move forward with. This was helpful given the short timeline to complete these animations.

 14.) For sci fi, I had a clear idea of what I wanted for my storyboad, but I struggled to create the depth in each frame that I wanted. And while I like the finished project, I realized at the end my palette was a little too pink focused, which worked in the illustration but was a little overwhelming in the animation.

 15.) The western animation was the first one I completed, and while because of that it is a little herky jercky in spots, I actually find it to be my favorite because I took more time to play around with details, making more nuanced in spots that the others.

 16.) I knew I wanted to compile all of these animations into one video, but I wanted the transition between the videos to feel purposeful and not just cut to the next. So I went in and animated short transitions to tie the first and last frames together creating a less harsh transition.

 17.) There are of course lots of things I would change given more time. The horror animation especially has some odd frames where a layer was accidentally deleted, or where the face doesn’t move as smoothly as it should. By the time I was animating this one it was crunch time and I just need to finish.

 18.) I also can see that textures and marks got sloppier and less thoughtful the further along I went. The top two here are great examples of using marks in interesting ways to create a feeling, where the bottom two really missed the mark.

 19.) I do feel like I learned a lot on this project, even with some rocky starts, and would really like to continue working on animations, exploring more tactile mediums like collage and stop motion, as well as giving Aftereffects and motion graphics a second chance.

 20.) Overall, despite a few bumps, I feel like I learned a lot that I can implement in future projects and I think I’ll continue working with animation and pushing what I can do further as a gain comfort with the medium.

 21.) I’ve uploaded the full final animation as a separate video, but I would so appreciate if you could watch it and provide feedback. So now that we’ve covered the basics of Project 3, let’s turn our attention to an overview of the semester as a whole.

 22.)At the beginning of the semester I presented 3 projects, all of which I felt doable and little concern over, However reality set in fast and I found that the best laid plans oft go ary. Despite this I feel I still managed projects that pushed me and allowed me to explore arenas I am interested in.

 23.) My research at the beginning of the semester was focused on Typography, a mix of illustration and animation, and generative art through coding. In the end the only topic that got the boot was generative art, which I’ve been exploring in another class, so the changes weren’t seismic.  

 24.) Despite changes to projects and unexpected hiccups along the way, I did try to maintain structure and timeframes, which not only helped me finish the projects and stay on time, but I think have helped me develop better independent work and project management skill.

 25.) My exploration of Type in Project 1, lead me to reframing my initial goals, of become proficient in type, to more manageable ones of understanding how good typographic structure is designed and typeface identification.

 26.) While this project didn’t yield elegant results to put in a portfolio I think it actually did something more for me, which was get me to think about type critically. What makes good typography? How do you think of type as system? As a structure?

 27.) Was this project successful? I think so, I completed the goal – to create master copies of famous posters, and in completing that goal was able to gain a greater understanding of type than I had from several weeks of reading about type and blindly testing ideas.

 28.) For Project 2, I chose to dive into a topic I feel a lot of affection for, illustration. I think this passion for the topic made the work that went with it easier, I enjoy drawing and painting which in many ways’ illustration is an extension of.

 29.) this project gave me a chance to sit down and think critically about illustration, not just what I like about it, but why I like that and what is the intent of the artist. It gave me to time to consider how we use imagery to communicate, and where you can push those boundaries of communication

 30.) With all of these projects time was an issue, given more time or at least more dedicated time would I have changed things, given more though to details and really honed these images, of course! But just like in the real world, there are deadlines you need to meet, so I feel pretty satisfied with the results.

 31.) My project was focused on animation and narrative storytelling. I continued my genre exploration framing from project 2 and chose to work with a frame by frame style of workflow.

 32.) I enjoyed working on these animations, it was a struggle, but each discovery felt like an “aha!” moment. It also allowed my to pursue ideas from project 2 that didn’t translate as well into a still image, looking at camera movements and cinematography.

 33.) This project felt rushed, I can’t lie, I had some personal things going on that set me behind and I feel like I never really caught up. My biggest regret is that I was so rushed to finish this that I didn’t have adequate time to experiment, to try alternative and to explore abstraction.

 34.) So now that we’ve reached the end of the semester, with all that I’ve learned and explored, and gained …. What’s Next?

 35.) As implied earlier in this presentation, I’m not done with animation. I feel like I’ve just touched the tip of the iceberg and I now I really want to take some time to explore more experimental animation, to take things in a more playful, personal direction.

 36.) I’m also looking to work more on taking what I’ve learned and applying it to less traditional means. I’m hoping to explore tactile and kinetic type, and thinking of ways to merge type and imagery. I’m also interested in exploring the interaction of design with fields like art, cinema, and theatre more.

 37.) With this intersection in mind, I’ve been exploring production design in my limited free time, and it’s something I want to dive further into, as I think this concept of creating a world not just a product could lead to some interesting design work.

 38.) While working though this semester I’ve been trying to keep my thesis, which is exploring de stigmatizing death and grieving, in mind and I was kindly sent an article that discussing how designers and illustrators are already looking at this issue.

 39.) I think I’ll definitely be pulling from concepts explored this semester I look to understand how to approach difficult conversations in a non-threatening and participatory way.

 40.) Thank you for your time. I look forward to reading your comments and question.

[freecityradio]

Zayid Al-Baghdadi on COVID-19 impacting prisoners in Quebec + reflection on diaspora in this time

Right now the prison population in Montreal and across Quebec is really vulnerable to the #COVID19 pandemic, today it was announced + reported on via Radio-Canada that there is a confirmed case in Sherbrooke prison.

First for a mutual aid request, I am appealing to any graphic designers in this space for us to work on a series of graphics to raise the alarm about the prison population and the dangers that prisoners are facing right now, if you are into working on a design, please send a direct message, or email stefan.christoff@gmail.com, thank you !

Also I called a long time friend, lawyer and awesome nay (Iraqi flute) player Zayid Al-Baghdadi this afternoon to ask about this issue, given that Zayid is a progressive criminal defence lawyer. Also we talked about the COVID-19 pandemic in general and the situation in Iraq where Zayid has extended family.

This exchange is part of the ongoing Free City Radio interview series. Also to note Zayid plays nay in the awesome Ensemble Al-Zahawi !

Stefan : Wondering what you have been hearing from people you work with regarding COVID-19 in prisons and in general about the situation facing prisoners around Quebec in this context ...

Zayid : If this virus spreads in prisons, we will have a disaster. Prisons simply can't handle COVID-19 infections in a safe way, medically, we are talking about small over populated spaces, plus a lot of the space in prisons is communal, if it spreads in prisons, it will spread fast there.

Stefan : Do you think that the Quebec gov. is taking this seriously ?

Zayid : I think that the gov. will have to start taking this seriously when and if there is an outbreak of COVID-19 in prisons.

I think there are people who have COVID-19 in prisons, because there are people who are sick who have obvious symptoms, but there are many, many people who have it and have no symptoms, or it just seems like they are just a little sick, like a cold and given that they aren't testing systemically in the prisons it seems that we are going toward a potential prison outbreak of COVID-19.

Stefan : So, the government should be testing systematically ?

Zayid : Yes for sure.

I think right now, that state prosecution needs to consider the risk of detention when requesting that a person remains in custody.

Yes, we need to weigh the safety of the victims, because usually when a person is facing continued detention the safety of the victim is considered, so in those circumstances when someone is in danger, I understand why someone could remain in custody, there are many reasons, real reasons why someone could be a danger, but even for those jailed this pandemic needs to be taken very seriously for prisons.

For most who are currently jailed or detained there is no violent crime involved and we need to take the context into consideration and try to get people released from jail, immediately.

Unfortunately the great number of people behind bars are in jail for trivial reasons, I see this all the time in my work, these are people who maybe broke their conditions, or consumed alcohol when they weren't suppose to, many are behind bars for relatively trivial things, often because of social circumstances, poverty, or related reasons, they are put behind bars.

Right now, given these circumstances, state prosecutors, the crown, need to keep an open mind, as they should always by the way, but if someone is breaking conditions, and if they aren't conditions that are designed to protect someone from a serious situation, the crown needs to release that person, actually they need to release as many people as possible.

For serious matters it is different, people accused of murder or serious assaults, but most people aren't in jail for these things, it is usually for small crimes. So most people should be released.

Right now because the courts are mostly shut down, there aren't many cases, but there are detention review hearings, so this all needs to be considered for these hearings. In general the crown must consider non custodial sentencing.

Stefan : So are you talking about this with other legal colleagues ?

Zayid : Honestly we aren't talking are much as normal right now, because we aren't gathering at the courts day-by-day.

But I do speak with people, lawyers and think that lawyers need to really prioritize getting people out of custody right now. The more people you have in custody right now the more we are putting oil on the fire in the prisons, in the context of COVID-19.

Given the fact that we aren't doing systemic testing, in prisons, people might be carriers without exhibiting symptoms and you know prisons are revolving doors, people who are locked-up after being arrested are often quickly released pre trial, so prisoners going in and out, or just staying in while others enter and leave, meaning that the prison population is rotating and in danger, but that also puts the entire population in danger, as people often get out of jail quickly and this will spread the pandemic.

Right now we need to do everything possible to not jail people and release non violent offenders, while providing good health services in prisons, which is actually difficult, but this is all important to consider.

Today it was announced one person in Sherbrooke prison has COVID-19, how many people was this prisoner exposed to ? I don't know what type of protocol they have in the jails exactly, but I do know that it is not a hospital in there.

This also goes for parol hearings, so for conditional releasing and stuff, the parol boards have to be far more open minded and lenient in light of this epidemic.

Basically it is important that the government acts and thinks about trying to reduce, as much as possible, the incarcerated population. I don't know how many more arrests have taken place since this began, but something tells me there will be a decline in arrests, but nonetheless there will unfortunately be an increase in conjugal violence, so people will be arrested, so these people will need to be kept in custody, at least for the first appearance, but if the person arrested shows sufficient grounds to illustrate that the victims is not in danger, then dentition should be a last resort, but in that case we need to set-up other protocols. But if the person is held, for good reason, we need to think about the medical situation in prisons, this is very urgent.

Stefan : So these are general principals that are urgent to consider right now ?

Zayid : This all depends on how long this all transpires, how long the confinement takes place, how long before the end of CIVVD-19. However it is clear that there needs to be action taken regarding the situation in the prisons ASAP regarding this pandemic.

Stefan : So your working here in Montreal, with your family, but you also have family in Iraq, many are living the experience of the epidemic between two places because family is in different parts of the world. Are you thinking about Iraq ?

Zayid : I do have many relatives there, so the problem with Iraq is that there are so many pre-existing challenges in Iraq, the fears are big, the fear of getting kidnapped, or the fear of having a bomb explode, or getting targeted, but now also COVID-19.

It isn't that bad so far right now in Iraq, but Iran is a super extreme situation, so this means that it will impact Iraq. I don't think that the government in Iraq has the ability to provide adequate statistics, due to lack of infrastructure, you can't really trust the information that is provided. Also the gov. in Iraq simply doesn't have the set-up for mass testing, so I am really worried.

Stefan : So this relates to the entire situation for Iraq, COVID-19 happens in the larger context of social and economic injustice, of major corruption that people in Iraq have been protesting about this past year.

Zayid : So yes, since the 2003, with the U.S. invasion the public infrastructure hasn't been super great, this impacts people right now. In a way the Iraqi government is trying to use this moment to highlight that they are doing something, but that isn't really happening.

Also this crisis is taking momentum away from the mass anti corruption protests that have been happening, so the virus is distracting, but also the virus is also dangerous, absolutely.

Stefan : I imagine that the Iraq public health system is already super saturated.

Zayid : Yes exactly and it lacks resources.

Stefan : So as lawyer, as someone active in the community, as a musician, as a father, what have you been reflecting on during relative confinement.

Zayid : I have come to the point now that my biggest concern is making sure we get through this unscathed, as far as our health, and that the people dear to us, the most vulnerable, our parents, our grandparents, making sure they don't get sick, this is of course my biggest concern.

Stefan : Great to hear your family is all doing well. Thanks for sharing this. What are your reflections about society at large ?

Zayid : Also to be honest my thoughts right now are really surrounding the fact that this will really change the ways that people think permanently, our entire society.

This is the first great global disaster in our life time, a situation where an entire school semester is practically cancelled and peoples jobs are totally comprised.

It makes me think about how within our consumer society, we have become a society very accustom to having access to all the product we desire, but once that supply has been impacted, we panic, which I get, but we need to think about this critically.

A great deal of people are living way beyond their means, house debt is very high, we take a lot for granted, so when you put something like this in the picture it really destabilizes everyone. But it also makes you think that maybe we are living in excess, that maybe we should try to moderate our life styles, our excesses.

I am thinking about how this is going to change the ways the world functions, this is a reflection more about the developed countries, where it is all about the bottom line, about economic growth, but the thing is, that if this economic growth is at the expense of global health we have a serious problem, which is clearly the case right now.

It also makes me think about how good it is to have a strong public system, a strong social, welfare state, if we don't have a safety net that is strong enough to deal with situations like this, for people to live decently, they many will die, I am really worried for the U.S. in this regard.

My biggest concern and my fear is that the largest benefactors, after this is all over, will be corporations, the Liberal government is trying to bail out big corporations from filing from bankruptcy, but in fact is that real people need this bailout money, regular citizens, these companies could be lent money, at a low interest or in exchange for liquidity, but to hand out money like this, as we saw in the 2008 financial crisis, then that is a bad look and is financial injustice, that can't happen again.