#I'm guessing it's because the photos add a lot of points to the room or whatever

[marshmalleaux-queen]

last acnh post tonight I promise but. I read that this could happen but I'm LOSING it sfkjdfhgdkj he really noticed it--

[accio-victuuri]

how many cpns can you get from a 7 second douyin by wyb? 💚💚💚

The Douyin King is back! I know i’m not the only one who missed his random ass douyin posts. They are very much welcome, he is free to share one everyday. I’m cackling at the comparison going around between WYB and other people. So, the rest of the celebrities and influencers are posting on a regular basis per month and have different topics.

photos at work, travel photos, interests/hobbies. this line represents the whole year. there is another diagram that shows how many per line, like 1-2 or more. then you have wang yibo 😂😂😂

line 1 : I'm busy at work and have no time. // line 2: I don’t have time to skateboard, ride a motorcycle or play golf // line 3: Visit my gege’s camping site and the volcano scenery is very good and has a lot of material// line 4: happy and don’t have much time// line 5: Shoot whoever is lucky enough to shoot!

then all the lines after is when he will post — shows that he will share a lot towards the end of the year to keep up with KPI. lol. he is rushing his homework again, to the point that on the video, people are searching what wyb’s kpi mean. which is the engagement metrics he needs to reach and now he gotta work on it, even the fans know and expect it.

the memes are also hilarious! 😂😂😂 ( cat memes below ) basically him working on making his “cool” posts to the internet.

Honestly, never change yibo. We love you as you are, Our Gremlin Best Actor. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

That was a long intro, now let’s move on to the sweets & CPN…..

• @rainbowsky already talked about the messenger bird CPN & how it might be for ZZ’s Hennessy endorsement.

• similarity in how sometimes, they just wanna post an emoji for caption. this one is a cute parallel from 2021 and 2023. If you wanna further clown with WYB using kadian 13 for yizhan then go ahead too 😌

• it is being compared to him referencing his shoes before, picking up his shoes ( xie zi ) (xz) ; and now it’s another homophonic clue ( jm ) ⬇️⬇️⬇️

yes we know that you get to meet more often now cause you are both in Beijing! It’s so cool how their language can be used for so many things and you can play with it to send different meanings. international fans could never 💀💀💀💀

• talking about picking up and meeting, cpfs remembered ZZ’s 11/17/21 douyin post. It’s the one with him and a light saber and a sexy transformation. Going by his clothes, I’m thinking it was what he wore during the DC tencent conference and at the time of posting it was already considered as leftover. but I could be wrong, cause he might have worn other leather jackets that year for ads.

anyway, the point is — please compare the background of the rooms. the walls. you know. add the floor too. 👀

look, this isn’t the most unique type of interior. i would say it’s pretty basic like how we clown about hotel curtains. i’m guessing yibo’s is an evisu shoot sometime ago ( cause his hair is not that fluffy anymore idk if his stylist did something to make it like that even with his recent cut ). this place may be a studio of sorts that can be rented out and they just happen to have filmed there.

or… or…..

this could be XZS office. or one of their rented office. Why? this CPN is similar to the one in 2020. How we speculated that the birthday shoot was done in XZS office so ZZ could supervise the direction of the shoot too.

we also love to talk about how xzs and ybo office are right next to each other ( it’s a fact xzs is close to yuehua building actually ) so maybe that can be an explanation too 😂😂😂 it’s not uncommon for an office to have a separate space to do regular photoshoots so maybe theirs have that. or this could have been done after and wyb dropped off their office and took this.

hahahahahaha! so many explanations all because of a wall. that’s the kind of life we turtles have 🙃

Personally, i’m hoping for a 24 hour relay between them. 🙏🏼

-END.

[madbalalaika]

Your pirates of the Caribbean fanart is so beautiful! Please, please share tips for how to do that beautiful painting technique you used! <3

Hi, anon! Thank you so much, both for the compliment, and for the question💗✨

Edit: I've reached the 30 pics per post limit and will have to make a part 2, oopsie daisies. But I'm sure it won't be as long as this :"D

In terms of technique, I guess it depends which part exactly you're talking about, because most of it is just oil painting+pencil drawing made digital, where I sort of block my colours first, then blend as I see fit (or in some parts don't blend at all, which is what some classical painters do; it's really just habits and preferences from years of experience) and add details using a pencil brush.

If you're interested, stay tuned as I try and give some tips while showing my whole process using this lovely photo of Commodore as an example:

Part 1. The basics

I usually only use these 2 brushes, just because I like them a lot, rarely more than that; and I've changed the settings on the second one so it rotates in the direction of a stroke instead of being at a fixed angle.

SO, firstly I just make a sketch of course, then make a very rough base colour layer underneath it, not too dark, not too light, and fill in the background with a solid colour.

(don't be fooled, I don't actually name my layers cause I'm way too lazy for that)

Since we're talking about digital painting here, my biggest tip would be to make a habit of picking the right colours manually, like you would an for an actual oil painting, instead of using the eyedropper tool on the source. Colour matching is an insanely useful skill, it's like relative pitch in music, or an accurate eye in architecture; while it's not absolutely necessary to have it, you'll want it if you want less burden on your brain and more freedom of expression. "Learn the rules to learn to break them" kind of thing (and you'll be able to match the colours to the picture in your head as well, how cool is that? Hehe) I've done this so much that at this point I just do it for the hell of it. It's very fun :D And, as you might've guessed, I do it for the entirety of the process, with some rare exceptions. While I used to do so in the past, I don't like to use blending modes (eg. soft light, overlay, multiply, etc.) for shading anymore. I find it takes all the excitement out of the whole process for the sake of cheap dopamine, and it used to hinder my skill development because I wasn't learning to "speak the language" of art, I just "used google translate", so to speak.

Anyways... A sketch, then a rough midtone colour layer underneath + background:

Another great tip: I learned it from a video on good costume design in fantasy, which is so unrelated to painting that you're probably like "wha- what..?", BUT... the tip was "the costumes don't have to be historically accurate, they just have to make sense in the story". Your colours don't have to match your reference perfectly, they just have to make sense inside the painting, and that's what will make your art feel alive (along with other things ofc).

Next I create another layer on top of all that and get to actually paint, and this is where the blocking part comes in.

There is a really good video on this subject if you want to learn this kind of technique, and an Instagram page of a different artist that I've been immensely admiring for some time now. Although now that I think about it, neither of them use midtones as a base... Anyway,

I start with the darkest shadows, moving on towards lighter ones, noting some places where the they reflect more blueish/grayish tones of his uniform on his neck and jawline, and where they reflect the reddish environment on his nose, temple, cheek, ear, and neck.

Another great artist to help improve lighting skills.

I frequently make new layers on top of everything as I go, just so that I have some room for error and can delete them later if I'm not satisfied, and then merge them down if I am, because I hate being indecisive with too many changes, and having unnecessary clutter.

Sometimes if I don't like how a certain colour looks on the painting, I undo the stroke (or paint on top, if it's too late to undo) and just tweak it on the wheel until it looks right to my eye and move on. Eg. on the next screenshot, I didn't like how that blue from the sketch looked one the screenshot before, so I adjusted it a little with Hue/Saturation.

I also like to slightly exaggerate the palette so that it looks a bit more interesting:

The last thing I usually do is light, with tiny highlights being the absolute last, because both are very easy to overdo. I manually pick the colour from the colour wheel, make a few strokes where it's supposed to be the brightest, and then use eyedropper tool to sample different spots from the freshly-painted areas to make it easier to blend.

Now while that colour might look pretty light, it isn't light at all. To be fair, the difference between light and shadow isn't even that big sometimes. I used to overshoot with either of them in the past, picking either too light or too dark, and was frustrated and baffled why my painting was looking as shit as it was.

So I guess another tip: for lights, pick the colour much closer to your midtone than you think you need, and then adjust accordingly. The reason being: your eyes and brain are partners in crime and are constantly lying to you.

The (I guess second) base is done, and at this point, it's just a matter of staring at his face for 2, or however long, hours and adding more and more strokes, sampling different spots between them, until I like how it looks.

Sometimes, if I realize that either the proportions are a bit off or some lines don't look the way they're supposed to, I use some Photoshop tools to my advantage. I merge everything together (cause at this point I really don't plan on changing the sketch itself or the background), and use Liquify to move things around. So now it's a one-layer painting, just like the real deal lol

And then I continue doing the same thing I'd done before with all the other parts.

Liquify on his face:

I only lightly paint over most sketch lines because I'm really not that concerned about some of them peeking out, especially at this stage, nor am I very pedantic.

Don't forget about subsurface scattering in areas where light meets shadow, of course:

If I see a place like this where I need a smooth gradient but don't feel like actually doing it cause it'll ruin the ~vibe~, and really, I just wanna add more a bit more pizzazz, I just take the pencil brush and hatch over it instead, alternating the darker and the lighter tones.

The caravat:

A lot of the time professional artists will advise you to look for simple shapes in things - squares, circles, triangles, rhombuses, etc. I'm no exception. Simple shapes will let you see patterns and some sort of order. It's easier to understand complex shapes that way, whether it be fabric, faces/bodies, or inanimate objects.

As you can see here, my brain mostly likes to look for triangles, or half-circles. It just feels right 👌

The wig:

I learned to use translucency, with hair and light fabrics fading into background, from watching and doing watercolour. Here's one of my all-time favourite watercolour artists that does that sometimes, and it looks absolutely stunning: 미술부화실 misulbu

The waistcoat and the jacket:

The hat:

Another thing to point out, if you haven't noticed already, I really like my stokes straight unlike myself, with exceptions, of course. It's another habit I picked up from watching other people draw, as well as my years of studying art professionally. Teachers taught me to use straight criss-crossing hatches to indicate form, instead of curved ones (there was a really cool tiktok showing that kind of technique, but I can't find it :(). Not that I follow their advice in its intended way majority of the time lololol but um... yeah...

So anyway, this is the end of part 1, I'll try to finish the second part tomorrow. It will be about smaller details, texture, and an tiiiny bit of 🔥grime🔥

[canirove]

Rice, Rice, baby | Chapter 21

Previous chapter | Next chapter

Masterlist

Declan's pov

❃ Flashback to the day after the lionesses game and his chocolate cake date with Liv (chapter 5)

“I want all the details. Now.”

“Hello to you too, Jordan. Please come in” I say after my brother storms into my house.

“Details” he repeats once we are in the living room, sitting on the sofa and patting the spot next to him.

“Details about what?” I ask, sitting down.

“The girl you dumped your beloved brothers for. What's her name? How did you meet? When did you meet? Is she hot?” he smirks, making me roll my eyes.

“Her name is Olivia, though everyone calls her Liv, and we met a couple of months ago when I was with the national team.”

“Oh, Olivia. What a lovely name” Jordan smiles. “But you met when you were with England? How? You aren't allowed to go out.”

“She works as a barista in the cafeteria at Tottenham training centre.”

“Wait, she is a Tottenham girl?” he gasps.

“Yes and no. She works for them, but she isn't into football that much. Her dad, on the other hand… He also works for them, he's part of the medical team, and he is a huge fan who apparently hates anything Arsenal.”

“Wow” he chuckles. “You are like a modern Romeo and Juliet.”

“Let's hope no one dies, tho.”

“Yeah…” Jordan smiles. “Do you like her?”

“I… I do, yes” I confess.

“And you like her a lot, don't you? Because your face right now is turning bright red, little bro” he laughs.

“Yeah” I nod. 

“Does she like you back?”

“She blushes a lot when we are together and gets all nervous, which is really cute” I smile. “And we've made out a couple of times, so I guess she likes me back.”

“Oh, Declan” Jordan laughs again. “I think you do more than like this girl.”

“What?”

“You should see your face right now talking about her. I think I've only seen you smile like that when talking about football and you love it, which can only mean one thing: you are falling in love with her, Dec.”

“I'm not falling in love with Liv, don't be silly” I say with a nervous laugh. “I just met her.”

“And?”

“And you don't fall in love with someone after a couple of dates and some kisses even if those kisses have been the best of your life and have made you feel things you've never felt before.”

“Declan…”

“And yes, she's great. She's funny, and sweet, very clever, and a lot more beautiful than she thinks she is. And when I'm with her I feel like I can truly be myself. Just Declan, the boy from Kingston, not the football player. But you don't fall in love that fast, that only happens in movies.”

“Well, I did” he shrugs. “And everything you just said proves my point and confirms it. That, and the fact that you haven't slept with her yet. Because you haven't, have you?”

“No.” I've just thought about it. A lot. Especially since our date after the game. Who knew seeing someone eat cake could be so sexy and… erotic. 

“Then there you have it. Because you usually don't waste your time” Jordan smirks.

“That's not true” I say, crossing my arms over my chest.

“It is, Declan. We all know it is” he says. “But now you are taking things slow because you want to do it right with this girl. Because you truly like her, you don't see her as a fling. So here comes my next piece of advice…”

“Jordan…”

“Don't fuck it up.”

“What?” I laugh.

“Don't fuck it up, Declan. Or have you forgotten what you did with Sarah?”

“I…” I fucked up. Big time. I got scared because I had started to feel things for her, things that were more than just a physical attraction, and… “That's not going to happen with Liv.”

“It better not, Declan. It better not.”

━━━━━━❃━━━━━━

❃ A few days after those photos in Ibiza and Liv's visit… or after Declan did fuck it up (chapters 13 & 14)

“Declan, time to get up” Jordan says.

“No.”

“The preseason is about to start, you need to get out of bed and start training” Connor adds.

“I don't want to” I say, covering my head with my duvet.

“Declan…” Jordan sighs.

“Leave me alone!” 

“We are your older brothers. We can't leave you alone.”

“But it is what I want!”

“Ok, fine” Connor says. “One, two…” I hear him whisper.

“What the fuck!” I yell when one of them throws the duvet away and the other dumps a bucket of freezing water in my head. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“Maybe” Jordan shrugs. “But we needed to do something to stop all this moping and get you out of bed.” 

“Like, we get it, Declan. You fucked up, and big time.”

“Big time was what I did with Sarah. What I've done to Liv is… is… urgh” I groan, letting myself fall on the very wet bed.

There are no words to describe what I have done to Liv. The way she looked at me the other day… I think I will never forget it. It will be engraved in my brain forever. And I will never forgive myself for hurting her like that. But I deserve it. I deserve her hate and all the bad things I'm sure she's thinking and saying about me.

“I still don't understand why you did it, tho. Why did you cheat on her? Don't you love her?” Connor asks me.

“I do.”

“Then?”

“Then that's the problem!” I say, sitting up. “That I love her! That I'm madly in love with her, and that scares the hell out of me because I'm a coward!”

“Love is scary, Dec” Jordan says, sitting on the bed next to me and avoiding the wet patch. “But it also is the most wonderful feeling.”

“I know, Jordan. I know. Because I've experienced that with Liv. She's the first girl I've felt that with. And every time I've lived one of those moments of extreme happiness with her, where I've felt like I'm in cloud nine, I've ended up fucking things up and treating her like shit.”

“What do you mean?” Connor asks, sitting on the other side of the bed.

“I've… I… I've basically ghosted her.”

“In English, please.”

“It means that every time something good has happened between us, something important, I've freaked out because I'm a coward and ignored her. She would text me and I would leave her on read or reply with a vague answer. Or she would call me to facetime and I would ignore her and then not call her back.”

“That's…”

“That's being a jerk. Say it, it's the truth” I shrug. “And then, to make things even worse, I would come back as if nothing had happened and with a bunch of excuses because I was feeling guilty and as an idiot for sabotaging our relationship, and do something big and romantic for her to try and make up for it. Like when I took her to Paris for her birthday after basically ignoring her on the actual day. But then, of course, something will happen that would make me realize that I was even more in love with her than I thought, I would freak out again, and fuck things up.”

“And that's what happened this summer.”

“Yes” I sigh. “Things were so good between us… So good. She was the first thing I would think of in the morning when I woke up and the last before falling asleep at night. After training or a game, she was the first person I wanted to talk to, and just thinking about her put a stupid smile on my face. And when I would see you with your wives and the kids, I… I…”

“You?” Jordan asks me.

“I would see myself having that life with Liv” I confess. “She's the one I want to marry and start a family with and love for the rest of my life. She's the one.”

“And that realization made you freak out so much that you spent your summer looking for the best way to sabotage it all until you found it in Ibiza.”

“Yeah” I sigh again. “I… Why am I like this? Why do I do this to myself? To her?” I cry, furiously wiping away my tears. “I love Liv. I love her like I've never loved anyone before. I want to be with her and only her. But now I've ruined it all. She will never forgive me for what I've done, which she is in her right to, and she will hate me for the rest of her life. I could see it on her face, on the way she looked at me the other day. I broke her heart and hurt her so bad, and I hate myself so much for it. So fucking much! I just… why am I like this?” I yell, hitting the bed. “Why?”

“Dec… Declan…” Jordan says, taking my hand on his.

“Why am I like this?” I cry again, looking at him. “Why did I ruin the best thing in my life?”

“Sometimes, we… I…”

“We are humans, Declan” Connor says, putting a hand on my shoulder. “We all make mistakes, it's in our nature. Some of those mistakes are bigger than others, but…”

“This can be fixed” Jordan says.

“Fixed?” I laugh. “How?”

“You need to talk with Liv and explain everything to her. Tell her how you feel, tell her what you feel for her.”

“She doesn't want to see me, Jordan. She made it very clear after crossing my face. I'm like dead to her.”

“But she still loves you, Declan. That doesn't go away that fast even if you've hurt her the way you have.”

“And even if she doesn't forget you, which we all agree she's in her right to… Telling her may help you forgive yourself. And maybe, one day, once you've fixed all those insecurities and self sabotaging… You can give each other another chance” Connor says.

“You think so?”

“I mean, it's worth trying” Connor shrugs.

“But how am I going to tell her all this if she doesn't want to see me? I'm pretty sure she's blocked me everywhere, and I can't show up at her house. If she doesn't kill me, her dad will.”

“You could also meet with her after work” Jordan suggests. 

“I can't go to Tottenham training centre just like that. I'm the enemy, remember? And that would make people start gossiping.”

“What if you ask Madders for help?”

“No, not him” I say. “He's probably going through enough already with being caught in the middle of all this, I don't want to make things worse for him. Liv loves him like a brother.”

“Then…”

“Then there is nothing to do” I sigh. “I fucked up, and Liv will hate me forever.” 

“Wait!” Jordan says after a few seconds in silence. “The national team!”

“What about it?”

“You are playing two games in October, and you will probably stay at Tottenham training centre, right? That's your chance, Declan!”

“If she knows I'm going she'll probably say that she's sick to not see me.”

“Or not” Connor says. 

“Dec, this can be it. You have to stay positive!”

“That's easy to say when the woman you love doesn't despise you” I say, letting myself fall on the bed again. “Was the bucket of water really necessary?”

“It was. And we will be throwing another one at your face every time you start being negative” Jordan threatens me.

“Urgh” I groan.

“Will you stay positive and focus on talking with Liv during the international break?”

“And will you keep little Declan inside your pants in the meantime?” Connor adds. 

“It has only left my pants for Liv since the day we first kissed” I reply, hitting him with a pillow.

“Wait, really? I thought you and the singer…”

“She wanted to, but I didn't.”

“Good, good. Keep it like that” Connor says. “And stay positive and focused.”

“I will. I promise” I say. “Now can I please get out of this wet bed and have a proper shower?”

“You can. But we will be watching you” Jordan says.

“Not while you shower, but you know what we mean” Connor says.

“Yeah… Thank you, guys” I say, smiling for the first time since I ruined it all. 

“You're welcome, little bro” Jordan says before he and Connor hug me. 

[frobin]

HALLOWEEN 🎃 👻

How would FRobin celebrate it? Any headcannons?

Thank you for the ask anon!

That is such an open question because personally I don't celebrate halloween (I'm from central europe). So I never really thought about those headcanons...

Also I don't think Halloween is a normal tradition in the world of One Piece. I think there are islands that celebrate it. The world is so vast you can use any tradition/celebration you enjoy and let the Strawhats expierence it. I go wild under the cut so let me put some general points here

Franky and Robin love Halloween and celebrate it whenever it makes sense.

They love to dress up in creepy costumes

They love to provided haunted expierences

They love to give out candy

They love to watch "their own children" go "Trick Or Treat"-ing

More under the cut:

Okay, so let's imagine the crew coming to an island that celebrates Halloween.

The crew would dress up so fast!

Brook taking care of the outfits (he is the one with the best taste right after Nami)

Franky would be a Robot & Robin a demon bc I like couple costumes but also those are simple costumes

As soon as the crew learns about trick and treat Usopp/Luffy/Chopper are up to get as many treats as possible. But in the end Usopp stays at the ship and Zoro tags along. Maybe he can get some free booze.

Robin would tag along to keep an eye on them but also to suggest the most weird "tricks" when people are even slightly impolite, especially to Chopper. (Imagine Robin just TP-ing a house by herself but ehen also pouring water over it or something).

Robin would also be very delighted about all the creepy costumes.

Nami wants to earn some money so everyone not "Trick Or Treat"-ing has to help.

Franky is changing Sunny into a Ghost-Ship with the help of everyone who stayed back.

Sanji is preparing snacks and drinks that look creepy after talking with some nice ladies and gentlemen about traditional foods that night.

So, Sunny is now a ghost ship. The aquarium is a creepy under water room and Brook is in the library as the main attraction and there are gimmicks all over the place. At the end visitors can get a photo with Brook or Jinbe (for a little fee) and get snacks and drinks.

When Robin returns with the "Trick Or Treat"-ers they all instantly join in to help make the Ghost ship even creepier.

The people love it

Later they go to a bar to celebrate, play games and drink, Robin tells a lot of creepy stories while sitting beside Franky, holding hands.

Modern AU and let's set it to America because I guess it makes sense.

Their house would be one of the creepiest in the whole street (side note, they also always have the most impressive christmas decoration)

Some years they make a haunted house too but sometimes Franky and Robin just help out when it's the neighbours turn

They love to give out treats to children.

Robin always dresses up as some mythical monster from different nations - most of the time variations of witches

Franky is mostly a variation of Frankensteins Monster, Rocker/Rockabilly Dude, Robot and of course Gomez if Robin dresses up as Morticia.

Their children (if we want to add in any variation possible) go "Trick Or Treat"-ing and always have the most amazing costume.

Franky and Robin will also volunteer if their children have some event at school. The halloween school parties are legendary. (It also helps that grandpa Brook is a famous rock star and uncle Sanji is the owner of an amazing restaurant).

Anyway Halloween is one of thei favorite holidays. Even if they don't feel like really celebrating, they will still have a nice evening on the couch, watching creepy movies.

[meraki-yao]

List of thoughts while listening to the RWRB audiobook while drawing Alex during my drawing class (27 9 2023)

Preface: I have an hour of sketch class every week that I've been taking for 11 years now, I love it and my teacher is basically my Godfather at this point.

I'm learning to draw portraits and my teacher lets me pick the photo. I picked Alex, and I listen to the RWRB audiobook while I draw. Today's my second lesson on him, and I went through Ch6 to the first ten minutes of Ch7 (so that's state dinner, Alex's room, polo, the first few emails, Paris, Alex's birthday, to Alex's learning more about both Henry and himself)

I had to press my hand against my mouth to stop me from laughing out loud or grinning too crazily

The narrator is good at the delivery of Alex's line (I mean he's not Taylor but as a performance on its own it's pretty good) but Henry's lines DO NOT WORK. I didn't realize it on my first listen, but the British accent is just... It doesn't work, and neither does the line delivery itself. Alex's lines sound like a young man but Henry's lines sound like someone in his forties.

The corresponding movie scenes flash before my eyes whenever I listen to a scene that's in the movie

Also, certain things appear in a different order in the movie but there are a lot of smaller lines and details from the book that the film included

This morning found another AI-generated reading of the emails (this one is "you are a dark sorcerer with both Henry/Nick and Alex/Taylor, but I'm guessing the database used for the generation of this one isn't as complete cuz honestly it sounds kinda off) but that and listening to the actual audiobook made me realize as much as OH MY FUCKING GOD I NEED A FULL CAST AUDIOBOOK suddenly I can't imagine the boys reading it as an audiobook anymore? Like I'm used to hearing them in character full on acting out the scene but I just realized an audiobook is an entirely different form of performance: a dialogue, a quip like the one in the movie After the ass grope in the state dinner, the boys have a quick, continuous rhythm, but with narration, an audiobook doesn't have that. Plus I can't imagine the spicy scenes having the same intensity of delivery as a performance without being a continuously spoken through scene with kissing and wet noises, as it has be interrupted by the narration (that being said I NEED THE FULL CAST AUDIOBOOK)

It's just the second lesson/hour so all I have is a very, very rough outline sketch (I cannot emphasize how true "trust the process" is in art, it will look awful for a while until you slowly add in more details) but my teacher said I improved a lot and you can tell it's Alex (won't post any progress photos because it's... It's a long as fuck process, it's gonna take a couple of months, but when I'm done I'm definitely posting it)

[quohotos]

So I'm sure no one remembers this anymore but it's been eating up my mind and I might as well get it out. There's this service called Carfax or some shit, and they pay for youtube ads. In one of them they have their mascot, this like fiver-ass animated furry, known as the carfax fox. Get it? Carfax? Carfox? Whatever, he looks like shit. Well he speaks in this snarky Ben Shapiro ass voice and explains that Carfax shows you the damage history of a vehicle so you can know it's true value. To illustrate his point, he has behind him two identical twins with two identical cars. Then through the magic of carfax or some shit the car on the right starts to rapidly morph from a normal car to a totalled wreck, I guess to illustrate how its damage history is being brought to light. This puts the twin on the right into a state of distress and causes the twin on the left to point and laugh.

"HA! Your damage has always been visible!" the guy says, pointing and laughing at his own brother.

It hangs for a beat where the other brother just looks so emotionally distraught. He's shocked and confused that someone so close to him would ever say something so unhinged and cruel. Like you just say that to someone? To your brother no less.

He stutters and then simply says: "We're twins!"

And then the add just fucking ends. Right there. Idk maybe they cut away to some slogan but it's the last we see of them and then your youtube video plays.

Excuse me what the fuck? What kind of martian wrote this?

Your damage has always been visible? What brings a person to say something like that. What does it even mean? I can tell you're traumatized, I can tell you're struggling, you're trying to hide it but I can see. I can see you're damaged goods, brother, and I find that funny. I laugh. I laugh at your weakness.

And don't you be fooled into thinking this is just some sort of edgy east coast style tear each other down humor, the twin on the right looks genuinely hurt. All he can do is appeal, brother how could you betray me like this? Are we not cut from the same cloth?

And why, why would he do this? Over a car? To impress some red fox who can't even make it up to his calf? Yes he appears large because of forced perspective but he could, would, and should drop kick the fucking carfax fox given the first opportunity. See the fox also thinks it's funny, or at the very least doesn't react. To him nothing matters beyond the monetary value of a vehicle. Human emotions, compassion, all that? It just gets in the way.

Oh god, did he coach the other twin? Maybe he wasn't always this way. Maybe the carfax fox has been corrupting him.

Just put yourself in the poor twin's shoes. It's been months, you haven't heard from your brother. You see him post on Instagram, but less and less does he actually have room for you in his life. You see photos of him, him and this fucking fox. Drinking, going to parties, their relationship status changes. Your twin brother, he's gay, and dating a fox. He didn't tell you, you're twins but apparently this wasn't worth mentioning. Maybe he didn't feel safe telling you. It keeps you up at night. You thought you were close.

Then a text message comes out of the blue. "Remember that car you're trying to sell, you haven't found a buyer yet, right?" Not hello, nothing like that, just straight to business.

"Yeah," you reply back, before clarifying, "It still hasn't sold."

"My boyfriend has this app for selling cars, do you think you could bring it by to the studio, we were thinking of using it in an ad."

"Yeah sure, totally, bro."

"Awesome. Would you like to be in the ad? You just need to stand there next to your car. It'll really help it sell"

"Uhh... sure, I guess," you reply back.

It's a nice car, but yeah you are struggling to sell it. You've had it for like eight years and put a lot of work into it. Real ship of thesus type vehicle. Selling it is important, but not really your priority.

"How've you been, man?" you text back.

No reply. Minutes later the typing bubbles pop up. He just ignores your message, it's just a date and time.

You show up as requested, it's a sound stage. A producer helps you get your car in the building. Some makeup people give you a once over, someone puts a lapel mic on your shirt. You finally see your twin brother, on the other side of the stage is a car that looks just like yours. Same make, same model, same color. Maybe it's a rental. Then you see him.

Your brother, he's there with that fox, they're laughing about something but you can't hear it.

You introduce yourself, but as soon as you approach the smiles stop. It's awkward. Were they laughing at you? You have so many questions, so much to catch up, but apparently your brother's boyfriend isn't even happy to see you.

"You don't have any lines, don't worry, you just look forward and smile."

Your brother produces a plastic bag of cocaine and you watch as the fox snorts it off of the hood of the rental car like it's nothing, in view of everyone.

"All right, it's showtime folks," he says, and suddenly everyone's moving. Your brother scowls at you.

"Get to your place," he says. You're shocked, shocked by his tone, but a split second later he's back to smiling for the camera.

The first take is messed up because you're not in place yet. The fox berates you, tells you to get it together. This isn't him, this isn't right. What does he see in this guy. Is he just leeching off of his money, would your twin brother even do that? You thought you knew him.

They reset from the top, you smile into the lights, into the cameras. The fox is saying something about damage history. Whatever, it's a car sale app or something. Then to your horror you hear the sound of bending metal and shattering glass. You turn to see your car, totaled in an instant. What? How? What did they do?

Your eyes shoot around the room. The fox won't even look at you, his tail swishing back and forth playfully.

"Ha, your damage has always been visible."

You turn to see your brother pointing and laughing. Your damage has always been visible? What does that mean? What does that even mean.

"We're twins!" you say, mouth agape in disbelief.

This isn't him this isn't right.

"Alright, I think we got it. We don't need you anymore," the fox says, finally turning to you.

"Bro, what's... what's gotten into you?" you sputter.

His guffaws, they're softer now, just a slight chuckle and smirk.

"You're weak," he says, "Just like your fucking car."

Whoever this person is, he's not the brother your grew up with. Not the shoulder you cried on, not the guy you shared a pokemon emerald save with, not the one that you did matching Halloween costumes with for fifteen years straight. No, no he's something else now, and all because of that fucking fox.

"You son of a bitch!" you shout, lunging for him.

The fox seems only mildly amused as you're grabbed by security, dragged out kicking and screaming.

"I'll kill you, what did you do to my brother?" you demand.

"Your damage has always been visible," your brother laughs. That's the last you ever see of him.

[gaypleasantview]

The Goth Family

+ some blabber under cut that i'd normally put in tags but not today <3

this is a small photoshoot location i randomly created on spot just to take this photo, i wanted the goths to have a picture together but i have genuinely never been good at buy mode so i believe this is my first try at making a proper room and i just loveee this place so much <3 too bad it's a random square box i built next to the actual goth house lmao but i definitely want it in the estate so i'll have to move all the stuff eventually (and figure out where it would fit since i have the ts1 goth house and it's tiny and needs a lot of add-ons, it's gonna be fun but it feels intimidating). and cassie's dress is so uneccesarily big but i love it so muchhh, she looks like a princess that's my baby <3 (she's older than me) i have to mention there's also a feral michael bachelor in the house and i almost k worded him bc he kept interrupting the photoshoot wearing a tshirt with shorts like he's your embarrassing uncle that you're stuck with on a beach vacation, anyway i made him light the fireplace a few times and was seriously scared the place was gonna set on fire like the last two times i had a photoshoot also everyone was obsessed with the piano and thinking about it all the time when i had the bubbles on and once i accidentally moved michael into a window, i hate love playing with the goths bc in every game they're the same and keep wreaking havoc and fighting each other and ruining their relationships, it was always that way when i was playing out their story in ts1 bc i had a hacked poster that worked like maxmotives but it also made all the other stats go up as well including their personality points (idk who needs that) and because of that everyone was 10-points extraverted and wouldn't stop talking to each other and eventually they all hated each other, also mortimer with that stupid mouse doll was everywhere pls tell me you all know what i mean 😭 i really should share something about that story one day yeah...

okayyyy also idk what to do with this photo now that i think about it bc the timeline is all over the place, bella hasn't been in the picture for like 2 years and cassie's scar is fresh and alex was definitely younger when their mom disappeared, he's supposed to be 13 now even though he looks 15 here but his age was decided on actually about 13 literal years ago so i don't know if i can part with that 😭 i like him being a weird ultra smart child pain in the ass lol. i actually had a legacy challenge in ts1 ten years ago where spoiler alert alex was the actual child of my founder bc she adopted him, he had a different name and all and he was super mega sweet, i feel like he's way more bitchy here for some reason 😭 i just love when everyone is a bitch i guess...

okay i'm so happy thank you i just need to make some portraits for the game now that will actually be representative of how everyone looked at some points in their lives okay bye. i think i'm actually gonna do it and not just dream of doing it and i love this inspiration wave i've been having, big thanks to my moots <3

[lilladysims]

This time I'm serious!

*sighs* Well, good news and good-er news. I sure did take on the project of starting from the ground up and it took some time to find my mojo, I'm finally on a save file that isn't confusing me. Let me explain what I've so far

I planned my residential lots out. I went on a hunt to find lots that lacked very little to no custom content; store content was fine being that I'm already used to most of the items.

I planned my community lots out. I knew for the most part I still wanted my open rabbit holes, but some of them weren't necessary, like having the second gym and the nightclub. I also took out the honeymoon lot and the cafe that was across from it that served as a diner. I've now brought back the original diner lot but I've put a new diner on it instead.

Since I already had a wedding venue on the beach, the honeymoon lot was not really needed, but it sure was pretty.

I'm thinking of moving the city hall lot to where the school is and moving the school to the city hall lot. I found a cool school I wanted to use a long time ago before I got into making my own. The one I made is full of CC, and I want this file to be less stuffed with content, so I hope the new school will work out.

There are two big homes names "*** Lofts" that house the Roomies and Working Friends respectively, but finding the just right home for those lots were definitely a task to the point where I just renovated one that was close enough. To be honest I really love how I renewed the place, but the bulk of the work was done by the original creator. I just built off of what was there, but my tweaks are definitely top notch, I must say. So impressed I was with the first build that I duplicated, reversed the bottom floor rooms and then plopped it down on the adjacent lot so now it looks like a condo community. I'm sure that's what the game was going for and I like the idea so much, I want to make some townhomes on my own. I think the community could use more of those for storytelling.

To the lofts I added a pool and park lot in between them. Before it was 3 homes and a pool behind the middle home. But now it's 2 homes with a shared recreation are in between.

Those were the most significant tweaks I could remember. It would have been a good idea to post some photos. I'll be sure to get those when I jumped back in to edit again. So now with everything planned out, I created a new folder called "Custom Lots" where I have everything and any contents they have in there. In this sense, when I'm playing a new save file that I'm starting in Sunset Valley I could just pull from this folder to customize my town to my liking with what I want or don't want play with.

Next task is restyling my Sims (AGAIN). I have to do it only because I haven't moved all of the CC from my other save file which contains my CAS files - but they are merged! No way am I going through all of those to pick out hairs to use. So I'm only working with default CAS in this new save. I'm still going to add as many of the default hair replacements that I can.

I finally created my channel. I would've posted about it but I didn't have another video immediately edited and guess what? I somehow deleted the files I needed to make my third episode, which deems my second upload almost useless. I was a little hurt over losing those files, that I didn't even mention it to anyone and no one asked either. LOL So for now I'm just calling this a soft launch in the meantime and come Monday I'll be down to record again. I'm gonna just start over. It's not like I'm not used to it by now. Ha!

This feels good though. I've come a long way.

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary102

12/23-24/2023

saturday - sunday

listening to black eyes and

thinking about how much more i mostly like black dice. a much crazier white belt band at least. when they were in that phase at least. i don't dislike black eyes, i like the one who screams a lot more in that band, i like the song a pack of wolves a lot. but idk. this band has been a sticking point w/ the 00s wave of pxhc noise rock freaky faggy stuff i've always liked, especially since that time, they just never did it for me entirely, a little too measured feeling, which is crazy to say, when people know them as being such a crazy band. but idk, i remember even at the time when thinking of the especially no-wavey stuff, i'd just want to listen to coughs (the band (not black eyes' second record)). but the vocalist who does the high pitched girly voice is awesome, i can't lie, he adds a ton to the songs. but the blood brothers have that and are like 10x better. i appreciate how arty these guys are, it's interesting how this feels like a band where every single member is firing on every cylinder and playing exactly what they want, and what they want is like, what if public image ltd. were a little gayer, but somehow, that's isn't connecting to me perfectly. the two drummers thing is cool too but idk. it doesn't do a ton for me but it is very listenable, being less hardcore/fast and with more room to breathe, much more dance oriented stuff on it too, while still being very atonal, it's an interesting mid-point. their album after this one is like, total no-wave, not just inspired by but totally decoherent, atonal, and strange. i'm less interested in that one. it's interesting but like, not compelling totally.

the closer on their s/t is at least really good. 2 very good songs, on the record at least.

definitely their best song though. i've heard people say the high pitched screechy one sounds like devi from girls rituals and stuff, i can hear it.

here is another really good song by a different band, really sick dance-punk stuff.

i have not read today, i might still but idk. i did do a song today, and i think i'm really getting closer and closer to learning what i need to do in like, basically all the songs. all the ones that still feel fucked i need to go through and do some very simple stuff to, that simple stuff being low pass on the snares, low pass the kicks, reduce the decay of the kicks a bunch, and see if the synth guitar things are too saturated or not, and maybe low pass them, and also, replace one of the modules in psp infinistrip when i go to old ones, because one i have in cuts some highs in a weird way, a whole low pass on that i never noticed, it's very subtle but it's not what my tracks need, they need that really annoying high end at times i think.

i found something really fun on flickr today from this acc:

these were taken in laforet, a mall in harajuku/by harajuku (i've been there it's really cool t b h) in 08 i think:

i love the huge gaudy pixel art, and the colors a ton. i've been thinking about that kind of really excessive/dirty looking pixel art recently, it's a really sick looking thing, i kind of want to go there w/ what i do next for cover art, so i guess i'll try and figure out a way to get there that looks good. i'd probably have to keep stuff around sensible resolutions to upscale. i wonder what i'll do w/ the traced bugs i do for it.

also thinking about the pink/yellow together, i should try that out, maybe make the text a really extreme yellow. that would be fun.

also look at the little accessories they had for sale w/ that:

i want them very badly.

another thing that had me thinking about the gaudy pixel art stuff was that one promo game / music vid hybrid thing cactus made, one of the guys who made hotline miami, for the other guy who helped him make hotline miami eventually:

cactus games in general, i was really really into that whole thing in hs. i like how much now i can tell that he was biting from the fort thunder thing.

i have to put something bedazzled on the cover. i think. blocky rhinestones or something in a pattern. maybe i do that with certain hi res pix i got off of internet archive of jewels, downsize them after indexing them. or make tiny, index, make big, and then down again? who knowsss. maybe find multiple jewels for it too i have 2, that's fun i think, use the jewels to trace a shape, like a butterfly wing, for 2 of the wings around the circular bit in the center. i like that.

a higher res pic of the ad.

i'd like to find more weird shit like that, prints w/ gaudy pixel art, appropriated for fashion/something unrelated to games broadly.

anyway check these socks:

all of this brings to mind chiho aoshima now:

i really love the fire one, the interaction w/ a photograph and digital work overlaid is still really exciting to me, on a base level i guess, the threshold where two things intrude on the other. the sculpture is just very cute to me i think, i love though that it's a manifestation of the work nearby, the way the sort of fantasy / escapist otaku work leaves material consequences. that might be a reach, honestly, it at least gestures at that emotionally though i suppose.

anyways, i am tired-ish, more that i think i should be tired now but am not.

so

byebye!!!!!!!

[agapi-kalyptei]

So! I'm not letting this die because just yet because this is fun to me. I will not focus on the psychological+physiological side of this - how your perception of color depends on the context, on your experience and on how tired your eyes are.

I won't go too much into the scene itself, but it's important to note that the room behind the dress is pure white (that is, 255 255 255 and 254 254 254, plus some JPEG artifacts around it), which means the phone camera was struggling between lowering the sensor sensitivity not to be overwhelmed by light, and between increasing the brightness of the subject of the photo - without making the photo too noisy. This means making dark parts brighter and partially guessing what color they are.

Let's compare a few photos and analyze them a bit:

These visualizations are called Scopes and this in particular is called Waveform. From left to right, it represents the picture above, except it shows the brightness in small vertical slices. So, unsuprisingly, the black & blue dress (A) shows as a blob on the lower side - which means there's a lot of dark pixels; and the white dress on the right (C) is, well, white, so a lot of the pixels shows on the top part of the scope.

Let's then start by moving the original meme photo down in brightness - by changing the Offset in Resolve.

It's not perfect, but just by changing the brightness, we're getting a lot closer - again, the core of the problem is that cameras have to guess how dark things really are versus how dark we want them to be on the picture - as there's no joy in having large black blobs on your photos, and it's a well known that people are attracted to bright things - brighter photos on instagram get more likes, etc etc.

Let's try to desaturate the dress and increase the contrast a bit.

This is where undeniably psychology kicks in, because even if the dress is grey now, I cannot stop seeing it as blue.

And here's the proof:

I'll explain: here you see the image interpreted three times for each component (red green blue), and there's three photos (A B C).

Again, photo "B" is the meme photo, the higher the smudge is, the brighter pixels are, and the more intense the smudge is, the more pixels of that brightness are there.

At the bottom, you can see the red and green are higher than blue - and blue goes all the way to bottom. This means there might be some areas that are blue but very dark (i.e. hidden in between the black lace material of the dress).

On the top, pointed by the yellow hook shape, you can see that again, blue doesn't go as high up, meaning the dress in that photo now is not tinted blue. If I hover over the image with a color picker ad-hoc, I can confirm this. Still, the dress looks blue to me.

Let's look at the "gold" now. I clumsily cherry-pick the black/gold parts of the dress and see what scopes tell me:

As an oversimplification, in digital graphics, if you mix equal parts red+green+blue, you get some shade of white/grey/black. If you add more red, the pictures will be, uhm, more red. If you add red, and slowly add more green, the picture will go from orange to yellow to lime. That's what the scopes on the right confirm - there's more bright red pixels than green pixels.

The reason is simple - the daylight color of the white light actually changes significantly during the day. This is what the dreadful "white balance" is about - before dimming blue color on computers and phones in the night was commonplace, you knew very well how this works. Look at a beautiful sunset for a while, look at a white wall in your house, go "yeah this is white" and then look at your PC screen and go "HOLY COW THIS IS SO BLUE". I know I said I won't talk about the psychological aspect of it, but it's unavoidable here - what we understand as white changes wildly during the day.

Not so much for the camera though. Nobody wants to see wildly yellow photos from an evening meal under lighbulbs, nobody wants their cloudy day photos to be fully blue.

That means another thing - if the scene is too blue or too orange or too yellow, the camera has to desaturate the dominant color, and increase the saturation of other channels.

For example, here's a good photo of some random dork sitting in Väike-Õismäe, winter 2013/2014, and having a late night discussion and eating after 2am like a fool who doesn't yet know what GERD is.

The photo was shot on film, so while yes, film has its own biases, and whoever developed the film also color graded the photo somewhat - but there wasn't a camera AI to compensate for the lightbulb. Here's what the scopes tell us:

I am not proficient at restoring photos because that's a whole different science, but as a quick stab, let's add more green and blue, shift the tint and white balance a bit, and increase the color boost just by a bit:

It's still quite yellow. Let's tinker with shadows/midtones/highlights and try to use the Color Warper to move the yellow wall to be a bit whiter, without ruining the skin tone:

Is it a good photo now? I don't know, and I was there. But it looks at least kind of representative. My human brain tells me this.

The camera doesn't have one.

tl;dr - Consumer electronics don't really care about factual truth of the scene, because that's impossible to measure accurately anyway - so increasing amount of filtering, adjusting, sharpening, and AI-based photoshopping is happening with every single photo we take. People generally don't take photos of completely dark things ("look at my black shirt! it's so black and there's nothing that stands out about it!") so the camera does its best to guess what colors to mute and which to emphasize.

Bringing this bitch back in this here 2023

[ash-imagines]

Hi. I saw the Ash's big sister ask, and it was really cute! Do you mind doing a small part two? I had a thought. What if, for every region Ash of his sister traveled through, they get one souvenir for the region and they send them to each other with a postcard. I had that in my head after reading the first one. You don't have to do this, but it was just a thought. Thank you and happy holidays

We're gonna say reader hasn't been to Paldea because I haven't played that one yet :V

Gifts you have sent to Ash from each region:

Kanto - Silph Co. fountain pen.

"Need a fancy pen for any reason? I don't, so you can have this."

Johto - Omamori from the Ho-Oh Shrine.

"I love learning about local legends and such when I'm traveling. There isn't enough room on a postcard for me to explain the legend of Ho-Oh and The Sacred Flame, but you should definitely look it up when you get the chance."

Hoenn - Lava Cookies.

"I gotta send some of these to you or else I'm gonna eat them all. Please enjoy!"

Sinnoh - An autographed Crasher Wake trading card.

"Aside from being a gym leader and contributing his battle earnings to the city, I'm not actually sure what warrants him having a trading card. Does he wrestle? He looks like a wrestler... I'll send you another postcard if I find out."

Unova - A photo of you posing with Ingo and Emmet, doing that pointing thing they do.

"These guys are a lot of fun, to battle and just to hang out with! They know a whole lot about trains. Guess that shouldn't surprise me, though."

Kalos - A keychain of Prism Tower. It lights up.

"Can I be honest? Lumiose City is the worst. It's a good thing the taxis are all around because I get so lost here."

Alola - A Strange Souvenir.

"This little dude has a good aura, I think. Hopefully he grants you some luck during your next battle! Alola from Alola! (I bet everyone says that, haha.)"

Galar - Packaged Curry.

"Curry is a big deal here, and it's no surprise why! This stuff is delicious. My Curry Dex is still pretty lacking at the moment. Let me know if you have any ideas for things I could add to my next dish."

[jodiie-leighanne]

Warnings ⚠️ Smut 18+

Sweat rolled down my chest as it repeatedly heaved, begging for oxygen. The hold remained firm on my neck, as his rings pinched skin. Palms grasping the sinks edge, bone flashing through. If you had told me at any point I would be bent over the sink of a restaurant bathroom during a charity gala by my CEO none the less, I would have declared you a liar.

Apparently, things have a funny way of planning out. Because here I am, heavy breaths Fanning my neck sounds of sexual gratification vibrate against the sensitive skin. Crescents indented into my hips as digits secure me into place, the fabric of my dress bunched at the stomach. Lulling my head as I moan, catching the raw beauty of him in the mirror - Draco Malfoy. Fuck, he is utterly insatiable. Ripples of abs carving into my spine as he arches to meet my position. Once straightened locks began to fizz from the humidity filling the small room it felt overcrowded even though it was just the two of us.I guess if you add hormones, ego and crippling anxiety there is a lot happening.

Less than six hours ago he did not even know my name, or that I was even employed by him. Turns out a little self love and a hell of a makeover can make a whole new form. Every year Malfoy Incorporated holds an auction ensuring all proceeds from the wealthy go to foundations in need. I'm the company liaison, run around if you will. Without me the wheels would not be in motion.

Even though my role is important, I am behind the scenes. Noone noticed me, I'm just y/n hidden in the alcoves of my cubicle far left of the vast office. A couple of family photos and succulents swarm the desk along with the overbearing amount of storage I have to keep all documents and files in check. 

There was one person who noticed me, took me under her wing and in the most mundane fashion told me I needed to accentuate my assets rather than hide them. Choosing to shrug off the suggestion, I continued to throw my cascades of waist length hair into childish braids, not helping myself by pairing it with plain basic tees, pumps and mid length patterned skirts; ditsy was my favoured. I remember her quaint smile as she took me in sighing that `it'll do` Charming is my best friend - Astoria Greengrass. Yep, you heard me right from what she told me she was quite the bitch in her youth after marrying it humbled her and honestly without her i wouldnt be here, being fucked into absolute oblivion by the worlds sexiest male. Every thrust makes me gag, deep enough to me ache inside as I feel the pressure on organs intensify. He is unrelenting, meeting the glazed lust in his droopy eyes makes me want to crumble. 

“Fuck - You feel so good wrapped around my cock” Groaning deeply as his canines grind the succulent flesh between my neck and shoulder. 

Whimpers fled in response to his dirty mouth. To fear the devil would be foolish, this man invading my cervix is who we should be fearful of. So how come I'm not. Pleasure, searing bubbles of pleasure is all I feel. He was more than I ever imagined him to be, each roll, tug and jagged movement made me sing in harmonies. 

Thankful for being seen, thankful for this opportunity. 

Flickering my sights to the mirror once more, staring down my flushed complexion, the silk hugging me in a flattering way. Misogynistic isn't it? How now I'm appealing when I'm not my natural self. The need to impress the opposite sex is degrading , I let myself stoop that low, allowed the vulnerability to show.

Slithering of a hand sneaking in-between my legs roused me in many ways, between a thumb and finger he squeezed the bundle of nerves. Causing a cry to release. Pained pleasure is addictive. The want to be touched in a way to make you shake, dripping cum but also leave you in a brutal state of bruises. 

I want that, fuck I need that.

"H-harder, please please" Not responding verbally as his hips hammered again and again, bracing myself more on the ceramics I caught his figure behind me. Head thrown, brows furrowed as he grunted. A tsunami of rapture hit me, I could feel myself drowning.

Leg forceful pushed up, knee rested on the counter. Helping him to hit a deeper angle. 

"Call me- fuck- call me sir" Grip firm as that on the nape of my neck keeping me down where he wanted me. "Arch your back more" as I did, he slipped in further. Fuck, how big is he? "Shit, Good girl. Such a good girl aren't you?" 

"Yes sir- I'm a good girl all for you just for you" 

Curses left his lips in a chant, I could feel him twitching as his padded thumb rubbed me vigorously, urging my orgasm to hit in full force. Screaming as I drenched him, his praise was everything. 

Then I was empty pulsing around nothing, breathing so heavy I could feel the pressure on my lungs. My leg slipped to join the other quaking in unison. Strong hands spun me, lifting my limp figure to perch on the counter, legs wide. Pussy on show for him, as he bent down inhaling my scent with an erotic roll of the eyes.

"One more, ok? Just one more for me and then you'll get what you want" What do I want? "Don't act innocent baby, I'll make sure you get to taste me" Oh, yes. I do want that. 

Flitting my eyes to the very prominent erection strained against his abdomen. Widened lids as I saw what had just been in me glistening from arousal; my arousal. 

I don't know how the hell I'm meant to take all of that in my mouth however, I promise to choke trying to. 

Dropping fully to his knees, legs propped on his shoulders like a scarf. Open mouthed kisses blessed the inners of one thigh whilst nails dragged down the other. "How have I never noticed you before" He spoke uttering between gentle pecks and hungry bites. 

"Definitely won't forget something to sweet now" 

Christ. 

From this angle I could appreciate all of Draco, the fine lines next to his eyes, scar slitting his brows. Every vein adorning him. The glaciers swarming cold globes. Each chiseled feature. He oozed ice, his touch was volcanic. 

Wrapping my digits in his tousled hair, begging with a pull for him to engulf me. I want to suffocate him in my cunt. Kitten licks startled me, whines and shuddered reacted to the feeling. This was heaven. 

Dracos pov. 

How the fuck had I never seen her before? Maybe I had. Maybe I was too up my self, or distracted by the obviously flirty employees I'm surrounded by daily. Waiting for the chance to make advances. She got lost. 

Thank god I found her. 

That dress outlined her curves to perfection, hugging her hips. She was full bodied, cellulite on her skin. Loose skin on her stomach, stretch marks on the sides of her breasts. I swear to you, I'd never be so turned on in my life. I've seen many women naked all different flavours and sizes. 

Ha, this woman in my hold right now .. She is beyond comparison. Petite girls are attractive but give me a bigger girl any day of the week and I'll praise her like the goddess she is. Being able to have so much to grasp whilst you fuck the ever loving shit out of them is just - fuck. 

Don't even get me started on what's between her legs. Again, I've fucked alot of women. I've tasted, felt a lot of holes. Hers?  Oh, hers is something else. Having it in my mouth at this moment is more juicy than any fruit I've tasted. I want to devour her, make her cum again. Over and over until she is writhing, pleading. Rutt her dumb. Make her delirious. 

From the glassy haze in her eyes I'm achieving that goal. Then I realised I didn't even know her name, she works for me and I don't know what she is called. 

Pulling away, earning a murmured sound, I peered to meet her needy gaze. 

"What's your name? Here we are doing .. Well. And I don't even know your name"

Panting she weakly smiles, "y/n"

"Well, y/n. Are you ok for us to continue?" Yes, we have already been intimate, its still important to get consent. 

"Yes Draco, I want you to.." moans cut off as I dived tongue first into her wetness. I ate not long ago, yet she makes me ravenous. Nibbling, sucking, flicking. Mixing my techniques as she responds to all. 

"So sensitive" I smirk, mumbling into her core. My cock is almost blue from torture. I could burst any seconds from pleasuring her alone. Pushing in two fingers curling at the right time, chuckling on her swollen bud as I turn savage. Pupils dilated and focused. 

Focused on her. Her. Her. Her. 

"Dr-sir, sir pl-please" 

"Cum" And she did. I took it all,every last drop. Riding her through the high. Y/n slumped back exhausted. 

Tough luck, I've still got a very big problem she needs to attend to. 

Straightening my posture, rising to be face to face. I lean it,capturing her lips. Sliding my tongue is as she gasped, tired as she is y/n battled me. 

Both my palms held her cheeks bringing her closer. 

Separating I threw her a sly grin, she was ruined. But I knew this pretty girl could take a little more. 

"On your knees darling" sultry whispers in her ear, shallow grunts following as I stroked myself in between us. Nodding y/n shuffled off the side practically falling to the ground. 

Fuck me - she looks good like this. On her knees, hands in her lap. Doe eyed and curious. 

Stepping forward I tapped my tip on her plump lumps. Wrapping them around me, she took me off guard as she held my arss in her palms, taking me completely in one go. 

Slut. Cheeky whore. Mine. All mine. 

Seeing her smile as I groaned loudly, I wanted to make that disappear. Grabbing her hair I began thrusting quickly, with hurry and want. 

Gags, muffled moans and my sighs echoed. 

My dick flinched. I was so close already. Just the look of her tears, feeling my head hit the back of her throat. Cheeks hollowed and tongue teasing. It was too much when she began rolling my balls. 

"Th-thats it, I'm close keeping going" 

She didn't even need my guidance any longer. Every movement was spot on. I cannot get enough of her. 

Drops of cum started dripping as she sucked like it was life or death. Giving me CPR, to keep me alive. I have no doubt this woman will be the reason I die. 

Calves tensing, the heat spiralled. Dragging my dick out her mouth, she tried to get it back. 

Tutting, I began stroking mercilessly. "Open your mouth, tongue out and eyes closed", seconds later strings of white decorated her beautiful face. She beamed, happy with my bounty. 

Staggering back as I tucked myself away wincing at the sensitivity. That was intense, I'd never orgasmed that fucking hard. 

Silently we fixed ourselves, I felt her brush past towards the door. Acting on instinct pulling back towards me by her wrist. Shoving her against the door, shocked at my actions she whimpered.

"In a hurry hmm? You didn't even kiss me goodbye", bringing her chin up to meet my lips. I kissed her softly, savouring her. Releasing her as I backed up. 

As she opened the door, fear hit me that she wouldn't want this again, "y/n?" Looking over her shoulder she froze. "This .." I pointed between us, "isn't the end, it's just the beginning. You'll hear from me, I know a great restaurant" I lowly muttered in her ear as I moved ahead of her out the door. 

Walking backward to see her dropped jaw, glistening irises. "See you at 9am Monday. Your desk will be moved into my office", winking as I continued back to the event. 

I'm going to marry that girl. 

Y/n POV. 

What the fuck just happened? 

[munsonenthisiast]

Then & Forever

A/N: I wrote this in like five days and had my bestie edit. This is my first time writing anything, but I love Josh so-

Summary: Since you started working for GVF, you and Josh had grown close to each other over the years. This time you hope your feelings don't get in the way of ruining everything you built.

Contains: Smut, drinking, smoking, cursing

WC: 10.9k

"So you're saying that. . . you've never played an instrument before?" Sam pointed at his bass. You laughed at the question, sipping your beer. "Correct." Sam furrowed his face in confusion. "Then why do you have a degree IN music if you can't play?" Josh hit Sam on the shoulder with a pencil making a small face. You shrugged your shoulders, swishing the alcohol around your mouth. "I don't know, It's just something I've never wanted to do, you know. I guess it's one thing knowing about an instrument rather than playing it."

Everyone nodded in agreement. "Well, if you did play anything I'm sure you'd be really good at it." Josh smiled towards you. He went back to writing in his journal while everyone else went back to respectively playing their own instruments.

But for you, it seemed a long way home. Never did it cross your mind that you would basically be living with four different people from time to time. Especially not so quickly. Greta Van Fleet was your first job, and really, first anything. From high school until now, you were alone. Which made you a little grumpy when working with people, but none the less you warmed up to them quickly. Especially Josh, who always seemed attached to the hip with you.

Josh may have annoyed you a tiny bit at first, but his euphoric mind is what intrigued you in the first place. He always seemed so wise, knowing the right answer to everything. And the way he wrote the lyrics to songs, just naturally appeared to him somehow. It was truly magic.

Jake smacked you on the arm, calling for your attention. "Ok, what do you think of this." He pulled the guitar over his lap, playing the notes he came up with. You quickly wrote down the notes he played, looking out for any correction. "So what do you think?" He asked, flailing his arms around. Running your pencil down the piece of paper, you started to shake your head. "I think it sounds pretty good," you said looking at Josh, who also nodded his head in compliance. "What would also sound cool is if you gave it a little vibrato during a live show."

Jake smiled writing the commentary down on a sticky note. "You know, for not knowing how to play, you really are smart with this kind of stuff." You glared your eyes at him, snickering just a little bit. Everyone worked for a couple of more hours, before calling it a night. Danny and Sam were practically sleeping on each other.

You shook Sam awake, snatching his car keys from his hand. "We'll both be dead if you drive, and were the most important in the band. Well, besides Danny. And Jake. And Josh." You twirled the keys around your finger while Sam stretched to get awake. Josh flipped all the pages over in his journal, turning to you. "We got pretty far today, don't you think?" Josh smiled at his brothers, who were already arguing about something. "Yeah. Maybe we'll get better stuff done tomorrow, you know. This is supposed to be the 'fun' part," you said using air quotations, "but the most boring part out of everything. But maybe, in the end, it'll all be worth it." you hit Josh's arm softly.

"Are you going with Sam?" you nodded quickly. "Yeah, I kind of promised him I would help him with some stuff in the morning." Josh looked sadder than ever. You smiled at Josh, noticing Sam waiting by the door with Jake and Danny. "I'll see you later." You gave Josh a quick kiss on the head.

"Let's go." you wiggled a finger at Sam, practically dragging him to the car. The ride to Sam's house was fairly quiet other than the little snores coming from him. It was nice to get a moment or two of peace to yourself. Working and living with four grown men gave no room for privacy. Everything is shared between you all. Which you had to admit, scared you a little at first because you've always grown up with a sister and maybe a few girlfriends here and there; but you were never as close to them, then as you were to the band.

The house was quiet when you walked in, dark and dim from the night sky. Sam immediately walked to his bedroom, and passed out on his bed. Which left you alone in the kitchen. Putting some of the items away in cabinets, you looked around at all the brothers' family photos, including some of Danny. It made you smile to yourself to see some of them so young and happy. Maybe a little vulnerable too. You were a little envious of how confident some of them had been with their work, just being able to put themselves out there, accepting failure. Not you though. Failure made you angry, furious even. Sometimes it got so bad, you'd hide away for days without any contact with the outside world.

After putting all the trash away, you headed back to the spare room. You turned on all the lights, changing into some warmer clothing. Crawling under the sheets, sleep came easy that night.

-

When you woke up, the blinds had been left the night before causing you to shoot out of bed. Quickly rubbing your eyes, you went to the bathroom to clean up a bit. When you walked towards the kitchen, your feet padded beneath you. Sam still wasn't up, which was pretty normal. You started some coffee and cooked breakfast for the two of you. Though, something triggered you to open a forbidden drawer and bum a cigarette. Quickly lighting it, you messed around with food until it was cooked.

"A cigarette at 8 in the morning?" Sam questioned groggily, clad in just sweatpants. "Well, you know me; I only smoke when I'm forgetting something." You both said in unison. You quickly waved him off, pouring food onto a plate for both of you. "I wonder WHO you're forgetting." You scrunched your face, looking around the room. "What do you mean who?" Sam scoffed. "Josh," You quickly rolled your eyes, slamming the plate down on the table "Eat the fucking food you loser." You both contently ate in peace while making some playful banter here and there. "So what exactly do you need help with?" Sam pulled out a cigarette from the cartridge, silently lighting.

"I need help with a decision." Sam stared at you while you nodded your in question, pretending like you at least understood what he was talking about. "Look, I just want you to go with me to buy another bass, ok. And I want to go to the record store." Narrowing your eyes, you pulled the cigarette from him. "I feel like this is something completely different than what you're telling me." Sam shook his head slowly. "Nope. I still want to keep the mint-colored bass, but I just want to have a cool collection, you know. Oh, let's buy something expensive!" He pointed the smoke at you, while you collected the dishes to put in the sink. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, please. We can not go broke. Not like last time." You shuddered at the thought.

"Thanks for the food. I'm gonna get ready." You flinched your eyebrows and kept washing the dishes, putting them in the dishwasher. You quickly went back to the room for a change of clothes. By the time you were done, Sam was waiting at the door for you. Grabbing your coat and your shoes, you both headed out the door. Sam was walking coolly beside you, as you both looked around the town. Shops were lining down the small street, with cars passing through. He put his arm around your shoulder as you both passed through large crowds. Finally finding the music shop, you both walked in, heading to a certain section.

"So remind me," He paused to look at a sleek grey bass, flipping it over a couple of times. "Why don't you ever get with Josh? I mean he obviously likes you." You scoffed a little bit at his statement. "I thought we were here for you Sam, not to talk about me." You picked up a dark wood bass, showing it to Sam. "I mean with that same logic why don't I ever get with you? I mean we're close, right?" He rolled his eyes, still playing with the instrument you showed him.

"I think I like this one." Sam brought it up to the counter, talking to the girl up front. Who seemed to really enjoy the conversation they were having. Turning on your heel, you waited by the door playing with some random drum sticks. Sam eventually walked over and led you out. "It'll be delivered in a couple of weeks. I bought a whole new one." You pursed your lips smiling at Sam. "Did you also manage to snag that poor girl's number?"

Sam pushed you upside the head as you walked into the record store. You both parted ways looking at different sections. You flipped through vintage albums, picking out random ones you thought everyone would enjoy. After looking through some more, Sam found you and walked to the front to pay. "You found quite a lot there," Sam said, peeking through the ones in your hand.

"Yeah, figured I could add a bit to my very depressing collection." you chuckled, looking at one of the sleek covers. "Don't you have like two?" you glared back at Sam. "Which I believe are both of your band's albums." Sam laughed. You both paid, bags in hand.

"So what now?" you asked Sam as you both mindlessly walked around. "Probably go home. Want me to take you back?" You nodded in agreement and headed back to his car.

-

After saying goodbye to Sam, you walked back up the stairs to your apartment. When you opened the door, Josh appeared from your room, causing you to nearly break the table in the hallway.

"What the hell Josh!" He shrugged his shoulders, making his way to the couch. "What are you doing here?"

"I was waiting until you got back from hanging out with my brother. What were you two doing anyway?" Pouring a glass of water from the sink, you took a sip, and made your way to the couch next to Josh. You leaned your head back on the cushion, staring at the ceiling. "Sam bought a pretty hefty bass, and bought more records." You looked over at Josh. "What about you?"

"Well you know," he sighed. "Tried to work on writing up some new lyrics. Even went over to Danny's and Jake's to work some stuff out. It's coming along nicely." Setting the cup down on the coffee table, you looped an arm around Josh's, leaning your head on his shoulder. "Good. It'll come out beautifully in the end," you said patting his hand. You sniffed, sitting up in your seat. "Are you staying for dinner?" Josh hummed looking up at you. "Oh yeah. I was actually wondering if I could stay for the night; get's kind of lonely at my place." You nodded.

"Yeah, that's fine." You walked over to the kitchen. "Anything in mind you want to eat?" you asked. "Uh, how about that chicken. The one you make with the rice, mushrooms, and asparagus." You started to pull out the pots and pans, placing them on the stove. You leaned back on the counter watching everything cook. To be quite frank, you didn't know how you would handle Josh staying over. Of course, you and Josh were rather close, it even shocked people that you knew each other so well. After all, he knew you better than your own blood.

Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing. On one hand, it would give you time to think some things over and ponder the questions Sam had asked you earlier today. And then you could for sure decide what you wanted to do. You grabbed some plates and moved the food over to the table. Josh was already seated, patiently awaiting your arrival.

"Looks good, as always." he complimented, raising his hands towards you. "Thanks, Josh." you smiled.

"So," he said, chewing his food. "What happened at the music store?" Rolling your eyes at the thought of Sam annoying you, you told him about how he was flirting with the girl at the front desk. "I mean just giggling, and laughing, it was like watching teenagers make out." You made a small coughing noise thinking about Sam flirting with that poor girl. "But, you know, as they say, there's someone for everyone," you said sarcastically, shaking your head. Josh let out a high-pitched laugh at Sam. "That's Sam for you. He bore you with anything else?"

You thought about all the moments were Sam had bullied you over liking Josh or falling in love with Josh. Of course, you loved Josh but you weren't sure whether you were 'in love' with him per se. He was practically your other half. Nobody else could compare to that. But it was hard to decipher whether you even liked him like that. "You know. The usual; stuff about when you all were younger and more embarrassing moments."

Josh covered his face with his hands, groaning. "I hope it wasn't all too bad." He shook his head, eating the last bits of food. "Not at all, actually." As you both finished your plates, you sat in comfortable silence. That was until Josh spoke out about something.

"Hey remember that time- ugh geez, when was it," he asked, pressing on his face. "Probably around the time I first met you, and I pretty much knew then you hated my fucking guts, man" You let out a breath at the thought of Josh thinking you hated him. "But that was also the time I kept catching you listening to the album at the time. Just over and over and over again." Josh just shook his head thinking of you. "I didn't- hate you," you confessed. "I just really didn't know how to be around people so much. I did like that album though." you laughed, pointing at Josh. Who also laughed along with you. "Look, I'm sorry I made you feel that way; I just, I've never really had close friends like you." Before he could say anything back, you picked up the plates, placing them in the sink.

From inside the kitchen, you could hear him talking to his brothers on the phone. The usual screaming, laughing, and anger from whatever stupid joke someone told. It honestly made you wish you were closer to your own sister. Whom you haven't spoken to in the past ten years. After you finished off with the dishes, you walked to your bedroom. Which was hard to admit, but you had an entire wall full of Greta Van Fleet photos from when you first started working with them because you had a hard time telling who was who.

"Oh, I remember these photos!" Josh exclaimed as walked into your room. He marveled at all the photos you had printed out and plastered on the wall. Some even had labels of all the boy's names. "Yeah, a little creepy, don't you think?"

Josh shrugged. "I'll give you the benefit of the doubt because you didn't know who we were, and I know some people have a hard time differentiating between us twins." You turned around and opened up the bag full of record vinyl, handing some to Josh. "Here, I bought some for you earlier, and I figured I could use some- given the only two I have are from your band." He giggled, flipping through the different albums. "Oh, Bob Dylan! What a legend and old Michael Jackson! Very good stuff." You patted his shoulder as you put away all the other albums on a shelf.

"So, the spare bedroom should be good-" Josh cut you off. "I was hoping to sleep with you, actually. Unless that makes you too uncomfortable." You nearly choked on your own spit when Josh asked you that. You really didn't think he'd be that lonely. "Um, no that's fine. I'm sure I have someone's clothes here you can use." He grinned.

"Thanks." You handed him some spare clothes and left him to change in the bathroom. When you returned he was already tucked in, facing the wall with the pictures. Turning off the light, you quietly slid in next to him. You'd never really been in this much of an intimate situation, no less next to Josh. It wasn't awkward, but it was just hard to decipher the feelings of the both of you, and where he was going with his suggestion. "Can I ask you something?" Josh whispered. He turned around to face you closer.

"What was your initial thought when you first met me?" You laughed a little to yourself. "When I first met you I wanted to be exactly like you." Josh propped himself up on his elbow, leaning even closer to you.

"What about me?" he asked. "I don't know. You were always so confident, and the way you carried yourself; just, it made me so mad and angry that I couldn't be like that. Maybe that's why it came off that I hated you a little bit." Josh laid back down.

"Listen, you'll always be the best thing that happened to me. When I first met you, I thought you had the most brilliant mind out of everyone I ever met. Except for Danny. He's got an excellent brain." You smacked his arm laughing out loud.

"Thank you, Josh." You rolled over onto your side, hoping to fall asleep soon. Before you did though, you felt Josh slip an arm around your side; his face falling into the back of your neck. Soon, both of you fell asleep together.

-

When morning came the next day, Josh was still entangled in your back, but this time his arm was hugging you tighter. At any slight movement, he just pulled you closer. Finally giving up from moving away from Josh, you laid there silently in his arms. You silently traced the creases in his hand, thinking absentmindedly. He stirred a tiny bit but never woke. You took this time to turn around and look at him. His arm still wrapped around tightly on your shoulder; causing you to bury your face into his chest.

Inhaling his warm scent, you just about closed your eyes imagining a world where you were in love with him, and he loved you back. At this moment, he started to finally wake up. You decided to keep your eyes closed, too embarrassed to see what his reaction would be to find you both like this. You could feel Josh's eyes looking around the room before they made their way down to you. Feeling the certainty of him staring down at you made you panic a little. But then you could feel his hand start to part through your hair, moving it out of your face. His movement followed by leaning forward, giving you a long slow kiss on the forehead.

Then there was the fine sensation of his lips lingering on your skin. He started whispering your name, shaking you awake. You slowly blinked your eyes to make it look like you hadn't really been awake all this time. He smiled brightly when you both made eye contact. "Good morning," he said softly. You smiled, placing a hand on his chest. "Good morning Josh."

Letting out a little yawn, you turned over and sat up on the side of the bed. You sipped on some water that had been on you bedside for a while, then stretched out. "What do you plan on doing today?" you asked groggily. "Everyone wanted to meet up today and go over some stuff. Wanna join?" you quickly nodded your head.

"Great. Well then, I'll go take a shower and get ready." He walked away silently, leaving you all alone once more. Deciding against the better of things, you too got up to shower. While waiting for the water to heat up, you traced against the spots where Josh's hand had been.

It's like there was a space left on you, but you could only feel the invisible touch leftover from him. Jumping in the shower felt like you were committing a terrible sin. The handprint of Josh washed away as every drop of water hit your body. But it felt just as warm and comforting as him. After quickly getting dressed, you met Josh at the front door who was holding it open for you. The crisp autumn air surprised you in the face when you walked outside. The sidewalks weren't too busy but crowded to perfection

You both got in the car and drove to the studio. Everyone was already there by the time you two made it; For some reason, Josh had wanted to stop to get everyone coffee and a bagel, which you really couldn't say no to. Sam raised his eyebrows at you when you walked in with Josh pretty late. You hit him on the arm lightly. Sam rubbed the part of his arm, cursing you off. Everyone, including you, walked into a backroom set with all the instruments anyone could think of, and two very well-loved on couches.

The lights in the room were set to a dim, vintage-style brown, illuminating everyone's tan features. Josh handed the food out, starting the conversation. It varied from topic to topic.

"How is everyone?"

"Are there new ideas anyone wants to talk about?"

"How about we do this instead of that."

Josh snapped his fingers in front of your face, waving his hand around. "Hey silly, I asked you a question." you looked up quickly, meeting everyone's gaze. "Huh?"

"I said do you have any ideas on what we should wear?" You pulled out a small sketchbook from your jacket pocket showing Josh, and the rest of the band on the different aesthetics for clothing. "I was thinking about stitching some nudity art on the back for Josh. I'll probably go shopping for some silk and thread. I found this really cool jacket piece for Jake; I'll add some things on it, and a shiny blazer for Sam. As for Danny, I found these really nice pants, but I have to tailor them. I'm still trying to find a smooth shirt to go with."

You wrote down some reminder notes giving the rest some time to process anything and get started. Josh sat next to you on one of the couches, pulling out his note journal. He pointed out some of the lyrics, whispering to himself before showing it to you. "I came up with these this morning." your cheeks turned red, though you doubt Josh could see given how dark it was. You read through the lines in each glorious manner. They each had a delicate touch to them, written with something personal

It reminded you of something ethereal. Like being in outer space, and getting to look at all the planets from afar. "What are you thinking?" Josh asked. You let out a short breath before answering. "I think it's good. Really good in fact. I can feel it's personal to you, you know."

Before he could respond, there was a line of curses causing you both to look up. Jake was yelling at himself and the guitar in his hands with a tiny string poking out from the neck of the guitar.

"This fucking piece of shit keeps breaking," he he groaned, with gritted teeth. Rolling your eyes, you went to the other grabbing some new guitar strings. Handing them back Jake, he mumbled out a thank you. "Guess what, it's not that hard to get up and get new strings, Jake. I just did it by myself." Everyone laughed at your taunting to Jake, getting rid of his frustrated mood.

"Well, you're the best." He poked your shoulder. You headed back to another room to think about some more things. Possibly about Josh; but the majority for the band. Really working with them, never gave you time to put yourself out there. Which wasn't a terrible thing. In fact, you preferred not to out. You've always had a one-track mind. Focused too much on one thing, forgetting completely about anything else. It's probably why you'd failed out of most schools during your high school and college career. It always ended up being too much for your brain to handle.

Maybe that's what you feared most. Things always getting in the way; either making you angry, or angry enough to run away and never look back. You didn't want that with Josh. Nor did you want that for this band. You made some more scratch notes, listening to the muffled sound of music. After a while, you doodled in your notebook for some clothing ideas. Stitching had been one of the many skills that stuck with you since when. You never really knew where you learned to do such a thing.

Josh always told you how marvelous your work was. That it belonged in a museum of some sort. He knew somehow that you'd do great things with art. When sketching became boring, you shopped around online for some fabric, and thread, ordering what you needed. When finished some smaller portions of work, you fell back on the couch pushing your hair out of your face. Josh walked in at the right time, pulling you back into the studio.

"We hashed some things out, figured what don't and do want for some of the songs. Think we'll be ready to record in a few weeks." All the boys cheered each other on, pushing each other around. "I think this calls for a celebration over some drinks."

"Great idea. There's a bar a couple of blocks from here. What do you say?" Everyone hummed in agreement, piling out the door. Josh had a hand on your back as he walked you out through all the doors.

-

When you walked inside there were a few people seated around. It wasn't overbearing crazy. Everyone took a seat at the bar ordering drinks. You had already taken a couple of tequila shots to loosen up for the night. "So tell me," Josh slouched down in his seat. "What do you think the future holds for this band." You giggled, already a little drunk.

"What I think doesn't matter Josh. I think that you'll be successful in whatever you choose to do. I think it's you as the leader to help everyone along. In my opinion, they're here to support you and your ideas. I mean, of course, they have their own input but you get what I'm saying." Josh nodded along, sipping his drink. "That's quite a mouthful, but yeah. I'd do anything for these people. For Christ's sake, three of them are my brothers. And Danny I've known for like ever." He pointed to them, which they were all fighting about something.

Josh shook his head, looking down at the floor. He placed a hand on your shoulder as he left for another drink. Sam soon replaced Josh, slouching in the same position. "What were you two talking about." He waved a finger around your face. To which, you quickly swatted away. "He loves you, Sam. We love you. I love you, Sam."

Sam pursed his lips, squinting his eyes. "You're that drunk already?" You hummed looking at your watch seeing as only twenty minutes had passed. "Well Sam, the night's still young, so I'm willing to get fucking wasted if you are." He quickly nodded his head, ordering the two of you more drinks. As the night went on, all of you managed to play twelve rounds of pool (none of which you won), a game of cards, and meet totally random people. You, including the boys, were completely wasted and it wasn't even one in the morning. Danny and Jake had left to go god knows where, leaving you, Sam, and Josh talking to some random girl at a table. Looking over at Josh, you felt your heart hurt a little.

Sometimes you wish you had the assertiveness that Josh had to talk to him. Deep down you knew he would never reject you. He would randomly bring up why you never got together, but you always dismissed the conversation too scared of what might happen. Sam slipped next to you, turning his chair around to face you. He followed your line of sight, his eyes landing on Josh laughing with the same girl who's been here for hours.

"Look, if it pisses you off that much, talk to him later. It's not like he's gonna hate you for the rest of his life. He practically loves you to death." You shook your head, taking another drink of your beer. "I'm just- I'm not mad- I'll just never be able to be that person who can just randomly walk up to a person and fall 'in love' with them." You cried. Every time you think about it, you just want to go to bed and hide. "But how come I never end up with people like you or Jake or even sweet people like Danny. Why does it have to be Josh?"

Sam sat up in his chair, turning it back around to face the bar. "Why don't you try it. Maybe you fighting inside that big head of yours really doesn't like Josh after all." Sam said as he cradled your face, shaking it around. "Really?" Sam shrugged. "What's the worse that can happen? If something happens, so be it. Never hurts to try anything."

Sam bent down quickly, kissing you softly. His lips felt smooth against yours like running a hand over pliable silk. He swiftly ran a hand through your hair, pulling your face closer to his. Finally, he pulled away, smiling down at you.

"Nope." you shook your head. "Well hey, at least we know." He patted your shoulder, walking away towards a game of cards being played.

-

The next day you woke up with an intense headache. There was some leftover water and Ibuprofen on your nightstand. You didn't know how you made it back home or really remember anything at all from the night before.

You downed the pill and some water, making your way slowly to the bathroom, balancing yourself on a wall. You turned on the shower letting the hot water settle the uneasiness in your stomach. The pounding inside your head kept going on for what felt like hours. It didn't help either that you were trying so hard to remember the night before. Of course, you knew that you drank more than you could handle. Then there was Sam. But it all stopped there.

The shower helped a little bit. You danced around to find some clothes to get ready, or at least look decent. After getting ready, you drove back to Sam's. When he opened the door, you noticed Jake and Danny were there already. Except for no Josh. Not that it was out of the ordinary, it was just something you expected.

You made your way through his kitchen, pulling out a cigarette. "I don't think you really wanna be smoking that right now." You glared at him before putting the smoke out. "Um, do you remember what happened last night?" You asked, rubbing the small spot on your head in hopes to get rid of the pain. Sam bit into a piece of food, answering with his mouth full. "We kissed. Yeah," he nodded in assurance. "Yeah, we kissed." You let your head fall into your hands, groaning.

"How'd I get home?" Sam hummed, pointing his piece of food at you. "Josh. Although, he seemed pretty pissed at me. You were also super drunk." Right, you thought. Of course, this would happen to you. Partially you blamed yourself for being so stuck-up and bitchy most of the time, but part of you wishes Sam just pushed you away. Why were you so indecisive all the damn time? For once, it would be nice if you could make a whole-hearted decision without going out and fucking everything up.

You scratched around your eye, watching Sam as he went to go sit next to Jake.

4 weeks later. . .

It really had been almost a whole month that you had gone without talking to Josh. Some nights you wish you could pick up your phone and just text him, but you know it would go unnoticed. It hurt just a little bit. Every day you blamed yourself for screwing things up. When was it not your fault that something went wrong?

You sat bored at home. You tried to catch up on different things like laundry, cleaning, reorganizing literally everything, but nothing seemed to work. You muffled curses under your breath at nothing. That was until you got a text from Jake saying that everyone needed your 'strong womanly brain' to work with. Over the four-week period, you hadn't really talked with the other band members except for Danny (who seriously cares for anybody and everything), and Sam who just random stuff.

You flipped through a random magazine, flipping through the pages reading about the different styles and how to flaunt them. That was until a text from Sam disturbed you saying that everyone needed you at the studio ASAP.

You ran to your door faster than ever, quickly putting on your coat and shoes. When you arrived, no one was seen at first, so you went to the back and everyone was gathered around in a large, huddled circle. Jake was the first to greet you, Sam following close behind.

"Hey! I haven't seen you in a long time." Jake towered over you, pulling you into his side. "Yeah, my mom called. Wanted me to go see her." you lied, looking at Sam, who had just turned in the other direction. "Well, I hope she's doing good. Look, I wanted to see your opinion on some things. Just general stuff, okay?" you nodded. He led you back to a table and passed some papers around, and a little CD that had pre-recorded music. Before any of you could speak though, a door creaked loudly, and out came Josh with a petite girl beside him. His smile immediately disappeared when his eyes landed on you.

The girl looked. . . nice. In other words, she looked like a pleasant enough girl Josh would pick from a crowd. She had a tan, rich skin like his. With wavy, brown hair. Unlike Josh, she had more hazel-green eyes. Everyone stood there awkwardly, looking around at each other. You scratched the top of your head, eyes facing down towards the table. Jake cleared his throat before grabbing a seat for Josh, and the girl.

And of course, to make more room they were both seated in between you and Jake, making her sit right next to you. You smiled nervously towards her as she got herself situated. For a while, you stared at the velvet walls as Jake led on the conversation. You felt a little poke on your arm and noticed she was trying to talk to you.

"Hi, I'm Logan," she whispered. The one thing you noticed about Logan was her smile. It reminded you of Josh. His naturally bright teeth could make anyone instantly happier. "Y/N," you said curtly. You weren't the one to start a conversation, but luckily she made it easy.

"So, how do you know Josh?" she asked, pointing to him. You played around with your nails, turning to look at her. "Uh, I work for him," Not 'I'm his best friend or anything. Totally just ruined the relationship I had by kissing his younger brother because I'm really in love with the man your dating' "And them too, of course." you gave a hesitant laugh, pointing to the rest of them. She bit her lip, turning to listen to the conversation, and then back to you.

"How long have you known all of them, or like worked for them I guess?"

"Around three years. This will be my fourth I think." she nodded with your answer. Finally, she turned back around to listen to what Josh was saying.

You looked back down at the disc, swirling it around on the table. This is hard, you thought. It's all you can think about. Logan's so kind towards you; not the weirdly hostile type. She's not annoying, not inconclusive about anything. Logan's perfect in her own way. She's perfect to Josh. Something you've always wanted, but you, yourself stopped you from having.

"So, uh Y/N, can you take a listen to the CD?" Jake asked you. "Yeah. It'll just be a little later though. I have to finish some other stuff." There was silence as everyone stared at you. Including Josh, who seemed to have a permanent look on you.

"I can listen; if you're busy," Logan speaking up caught you by surprise. It may have angered you a bit because that was your job, to listen. You just looked back at Sam anxiously, who shook his head at you.

"Oh, my bad," Josh said loudly. "This is my girlfriend- Logan. Who you have all met before, but not Y/N. Forgot to introduce you two." If everyone hadn't been in the room right now, you would've gotten up and hit him right across the head. Logan kindly smiled back at you. "Yeah, we were talking earlier," She said pointing to you. "Well, as I said, I can listen if you can't."

If it was anybody else, you would've said something back already. But who were you to yell at this kind, beautiful woman next to you? Though, Sam must've read you wrong since quietly grabbed your wrist. "Sure," you said, handing the CD to Logan. Sitting back in your chair, defeated, what else were you supposed to do?

-

Another lousy week passed, and you wanted to jump off a roof. It had been raining for the past few days, never letting up once. No one had really made contact with you except Danny (you secretly loved him to death), and Sam. You were pretty sure the rest had picked up on the tense atmosphere and didn't want to bother you. No doubt, you probably wouldn't want to speak with yourself either.

You shrugged off a sweater, playing with the end of your sheets. Life was so boring now without any entertainment from anyone. You eventually rolled over on your back, staring a hole into the ceiling. You went over every excuse and explanation you could give to Josh. You understood why he was mad, you figured that much. But sometimes you wish he had his smart wisdom back to understand you better.

You fell to the floor sometime later, reading something random off the shelf. You flipped through the pages mindlessly before you heard some knocking at your door. You ran quickly, opening the door to find Sam standing there with bottles of gin and tequila in his hand. Laughing quietly, you led him inside, finding some bottles for drinks.

"What brings you around?" you raised your eyebrows, pouring some tequila for you and Sam. "Josh," he cleared his throat, taking a few sips. "What about Josh?" Trying to hold your breath, made you curious as to why Josh's younger brother was so angry at him. In fact, you wanted to burst out laughing. "He's so stubborn with everything, and the way he talks about you. God- it's like- I've never seen so much hatred from him." Sam shook his head downing the rest of his drink. He poured some more in his cup and your cup.

You took Sam's hand leading him to your room. You put on Labi Siffre, an old, classic album. You also turned on one of your dim colored lights. They lit up Sam's cheekbones perfectly, making his pale skin glow flawlessly. It looked smooth enough to run a finger over and feel the gentle, velvety skin of Sam.

"How does he talk about me?" Sam closed his eyes, thinking. "He just doesn't let go of the subject. Anytime you or I come up, it's just this rage of fury from him. He almost shuts down essentially. You know," he burped. "They all went out tonight."

You hummed at that. "They all went out, leaving behind you and me." You scoffed at the thought of Josh with Logan at your favorite bar or restaurant. "I'm so sorry Sam." You rubbed his arm, looking down at the floor next to your bed. "That was you and your brother's relationship, and I just," you flicked your hands, making a whoosh sound. Sam laughed, leaning into your side. "Don't worry about it. I like helping you out. Josh can be a little much sometimes."

You elbowed him in the side thinking about something. "Hey whatever happened to the girl from the music shop? You ever talk to her lately?"

"Yeah," he huffed out. "We've been talking lately. She wants to meet up sometime soon, but I don't know." You cocked your head to the side. "Why not. You clearly like her and she really likes you. I don't remember when the last time some actually liked you." Sam pretended he was hurt, pushing you to the side. "I'll ask her sometime when I'm not busy. She's nice."

"And pretty?" you questioned. Sam let out a laugh, swirling the alcohol in his cup. "Very pretty." You both let out sighs sitting in comfortable silence. Although, your mind was occupied with thoughts of Josh, swirling around and never-ending. There were times you just wanted to get up and say fuck it and try to at least explain. But of course, the rejection of him never wanting to be your friend again would kill you. Maybe this was the universe's cruel way of saying you and Josh were never meant to be together in the first place.

If so, you hated it.

-

Surprisingly, Sam was the first to wake up. Which rarely happens considering how well you knew him. The poor boy slept through everything. He started shaking you awake, poking and tickling your sides. "Are you dead, jeez?" You quickly rubbed your eyes, sitting up. "Sorry, the alcohol must've really knocked me out." Sam stifled a yawn, sitting on the edge of your bed. "Well, we can do one of two things today," he noted. "We can either go to the studio and face my brother, or we can- do nothing else. That's really it. I kind of swore I would be there today."

You couldn't stay inside any longer. You decided against the greater good to tag along with Sam. Maybe you could talk with Josh, and clear the air. "Can I go with you?" Sam nodded feverishly. "Of course; that's like your job."

"It doesn't feel like it. Logan's pretty much taking over, so what's the point of me." You scoffed thinking of the mellow girl who seemed to get along with everyone. You hated to slander her, but you just wanted Josh back. You and Sam left in a rush, hastily driving to the studio. You walked inside with a cigarette dangling from your lips, smoke escaping through your nose. Sweat seeped from your palms making you excited and nervous at the same time. You felt like an outsider coming in on your job. Thinking about seeing Josh made it worse.

"Hello, Hello Y/N" Danny strutted over, hairs sticking to his forehead. He pulled you in for a tight hug, nearly suffocating you. "Hey, Daniel." you moved the hairs around his face so you could see him better. "Long time, no see, man." He laughed walking back to his seat behind the drum kit. You followed Sam to the other rooms where Jake and Josh might be hiding. Sure enough, Josh was standing next to his twin, listening to a riff he was playing. They immediately stopped talking to each other. Josh scoffed at you as Sam led you inside, beside him.

"Look what the cat dragged in!" Josh said it lowly, spitting it towards you. Your eyes looked down, not daring to ever lookup. "Hey Josh," Sam patted him on the shoulder. You looked awkwardly around the room looking for a means to escape. When you realized there wasn't one, you looked back at Josh. He quietly talked to Jake about something before turning to you. You tried to look away fast enough, but his eyes caught yours. Josh started to stalk close to you, exhaling a breath. "Hey," you thought he might've not heard you, but his response caught you off guard.

"Hey, Y/N" He sniffled a little bit before turning towards you. "Care to take a walk with me? Could use some fresh air." You nodded your head silently, following after him. If your anxiety hadn't kicked in yet, it sure as hell did now. Josh was never a person to scare you. He was too light and giddy for him to be somewhat freighting.

He walked slightly behind you with a hand on the small of your back. Josh eventually let go of you when you both made it to the sidewalk. The people around you made the silence slightly more comfortable but you wished you had something to think about other than Josh. After a few more moments of silence, you decided to speak up, but Josh beat you to it. "I'm sorry for being an ass," he cleared it all out on one breath. You scoffed at him. "I think you were being more than an ass, Josh." He suddenly slowed his walking to match your pace.

"You pretty much left me in the wind. I thought I lost my best friend," you nudged him softly in the ribcage, laughing. He held a hand over his chest, heaving out a relieved breath. "I thought you were going to hate me forever." You pointed at him before saying: "Pull anything like that again, and I'll do more than just hate you forever."

Josh held his hands up abruptly like you had caught him stealing something. "I promise." You smirked. The both of you walked around endlessly making small talk here and there. Part of you was glad that you and Josh had cleared the air. Although, you hadn't really talked with him about Sam. It embarrassed you just thinking about the whole situation.

After you made a full round of the streets, Josh walked you back inside the studio. It was hours before anyone ever got to go home. The moon had fully risen and was shining brightly in the sky. You stared up like a child, holding on tightly to your coat. When you were making your way towards Sam's car Josh had grabbed you by the elbow.

"Y/N," Josh fiddled around with the collar of his jacket, looking down at the concrete. Even though it was pitch black outside, you could tell Josh's face was heating up. "I was wondering if you wanted to come back with me? I know Sam was taking you home, but I still feel like we need to talk." A small smile started to quickly form. You nodded not thinking about the harm that could come from staying with Josh.

"Yeah, sure." you let a hesitant sigh before following him once more. When you arrived inside Josh's home it felt almost foreign. There were slightly disheveled things around, but nothing had really changed. It still had all the same scattered records on the coffee table as well as random books set around the countertops. Josh flipped on the light switch and went towards the kitchen. He came back out and handed you a cup of water before taking off his coat.

"I know, it's been a long time since we spoke," he started. "or even hung out together."

You nodded, sipping some of the water. "Yeah, I kind of missed that."

-

After you and Josh got situated, he led you back to his room. There was a dim lamp, along with some new fairy lights scattered around the ceiling. "Fairy lights?" You pointed to the little bulbs sparkling brightly. "Oh, yeah," Josh was picking out a record, finally placing it on the player. It was an album you hadn't heard before, but it seemed to fit the mood well enough. Looking around for a little bit longer you come to find some old pictures on the floor. Squatting down, you noticed they were photos of his brothers and Daniel when they were younger. But what really caught your attention was a stack neatly dedicated to you.

Some of the photos had showcased some of you and Josh's late adventures, and the concerts you had appeared to. One in particular in which Josh had his arms wrapped around your middle, seated around a bonfire. That was a night you remember very clearly. That was when you realized how much you loved Josh. He never left your side and coddled you close to him. The memory warmed your heart making it beat a tiny bit faster.

"That was a very hot summer night if I remember correctly." Josh peered over your shoulder, studying the picture. "Yeah, it was. Then I passed out inside the van right after that," you laughed loudly, tossing your head back. Running a finger over your face in the picture still reminiscing on the sweet memory, you could feel Josh watching you from across the room.

"Can you come up here for a sec?" Josh patted his mattress, motioning to you. You could tell he was nervous still when he started to fumble around with his nails, not making much eye contact. "Do you remember when I asked you why you envied me so much?" He let out a slow breath, nudging you a little bit with his elbow. You realized the change in the situation and started to mirror his nervous tics.

"Yeah, I just- wish I could carry myself like you. You're always the most confident person in the room; you know things Josh that no one could ever know." The two of you sat in silence for a little bit after you answered. Josh hesitated before speaking again but continued on after pondering for a bit. "Well, I never felt that way around you. For the longest time, I would beat myself up just thinking about how wonderful you are Y/N. The way you think of me is how I always thought of you. Just not as confident because of how quiet you are sometimes." He laughed out the last part making you smile back.

"God, sometimes I just want to cry because of how amazing you are Y/N. Everything you've done for this band, everything you've done for me; I just - I love you." You slowly turned your head to look at Josh, replaying the words over and over again in your head.

He loves you.

"I'm going to assume you mean in it in that way Josh or this would be very embarrassing." Josh snickered, putting both hands on the side of your face. "I mean it in every way possible." He finally pressed his lips to yours, feeling the velvet touch of each other. Josh ran his fingers through your hair, pressing his tongue in an open-mouthed kiss. You moaned quietly when he started to press kisses along your jaw, down to your neck. You could feel his hands start to travel down to your waist, hugging you tightly as it showed in the picture.

Josh continued to bite down on your skin and sucked, leaving bright red marks behind. His fingers squeezed down on your hips before traveling under your shirt. He placed a knee between your legs, pushing you further into the mattress. You looked at each other momentarily as Josh slipped you out of your shirt. He ran his hands over your stomach making you flinch at the sudden touch.

"Josh," His name came out as a whine as Josh slipped off your bra, throwing it towards the floor. You caught the look of awe when his eyes landed on your breasts, your chest heaving slightly. He returned to kissing down your neck making his way down your collar bone. Your hands made their way to his hair, tugging at it when his mouth made contact with your nipple.

He sucked gently, swirling his tongue around the hardened bud. All you could think about was the euphoric thoughts running through your brain. All you could see were stars, showing up in random directions making you lost in the feeling. Josh continued for a while before slowly traveling down to your legs.

Josh looked at you for approval, to which you vaguely nodded in return, before pulling off your pants. You shuddered at the delicate touch of his fingers ghosting along your skin. His hands traveled back up your calves, pressing at your thighs. The room suddenly became too hot as his fingers wrapped around the strap of your underwear, pulling them down your legs. Your breathing was so ragged by now that you thought Josh might've pointed it out already, but he continued to stare down at you with the most mesmerizing look in his eyes. You knew at this point if this had been anyone else, you probably would've wanted to hide under the bed. Something so comforting about Josh made it feel natural to in his grasps.

Josh started down at your ankles, pressing hard kisses up your legs. He hovered over your pelvis just before kissing around your clit. Your legs immediately started to close at the feeling, but his hand pushed them back farther. "Josh, oh my god!" You moaned out into nothing. He continued sucking hard on your clit making the stars in your head come closer to earth.

"Josh, please," Your hands pulled at his curls as he lapped around your center. "You're so fucking wet for me Y/N. Jesus," He moaned into your heat making you squirm on the bed.

"Please Josh, use your fingers, please." You whined mercilessly at the thought of coming around his fingers. It wasn't long before you felt two fingers drag inside of you, along with the feeling of him sucking your clit. You could feel yourself getting nearer to your orgasm as he curled his fingers against your g-spot. "Josh, don't fucking stop!"

At the perfect moment, everything seemed to fall apart in the most beautiful way. You leaned your head back into the pillow as your vision turned white with little black dots appearing randomly. Josh's breath fanned over your heat before he stood up to take off some of his clothes.

"Can't really have sex if I'm still dressed like I'm going to fucking prom or something, Jesus." You giggled loudly while you watched him crawl back over you. Josh pressed a soft kiss to your lips, grinding his hips against you. Your hand slowly ran over his chest, grabbing onto his belt. You fumbled around until you managed to get it undone along with his pants. Josh stared at your face, admiring your features. "I don't think I'll be able to take you seriously for much longer if you don't do something," you whispered.

"Oh yeah?" Josh raised an eyebrow, smiling at you. You slowly reached past his briefs making contact with his hard-on, causing him to moan quietly and start kissing you again.

"Uh, I don't think I have any condoms on me; I didn't really envision fucking you tonight." You smirked, wrapping your arms around his neck. "It's okay. I'm on the pill." You pulled his underwear down, hiking your legs around his hips loosely. You could feel yourself getting wetter as he passively rolled his forefinger over your clit. You kissed him hard, sucking on his tongue. "Fuck me, please," you begged. Josh looked deeply into your eyes, then grabbing your legs and wrapping them around his hips, tightly. He teased you, rubbing himself up and down your center.

You exhaled as he entered you, wrapping a hand around his bicep to steady yourself. Josh's head fell into your neck, feeling his warm breath as he trusted in slowly. He lifted his head to kiss you; He used his hand to move the hairs out of your face, wrapping it around your cranium. "You are so- prepossessing." He whispered, his thrust becoming faster.

Your nails dug into his shoulder blades after he set such a brutal pace that you didn't think you'd be able to keep up with. You took note of how his curls stuck to his forehead. Whenever he thrust in, you could feel yourself getting closer and closer. His thrust started to shake the bed only spurring you on more. Your hands grabbed at his torso, holding onto him tightly.

"Josh," you breathed out, words lost as they left your mouth. "Don't stop." Josh looked between your bodies as they pressed together. He thrust in deep, pressing you into the bed further. You cursed under your breath, trying to hold back the moans only releasing small high-pitched whines. Your head fell back against the pillow, all the tension releasing your body slowly. "Fuck," Josh moaned into your collarbone. He tightened his grip on your thigh, quickening his thrusts.

You ran your fingers along the nape of his neck, feeling the little hairs stick to his body. Josh moaned, feeling him cum deep inside you. His head fell into your neck as you both tried to catch your breath. Josh smiled, pressing kisses to your chest before laying down next to you.

"Fuck you're amazing," Josh mumbled into your ear. He wrapped an arm around your shoulder pulling your head to his chest. His hands ran down your arm, squeezing the tiny bit of flesh. "Tell me something I don't already know Joshua." You flipped over onto your side, Josh following in pursuit. He tightened his arm once more around your stomach this time. He pressed small kisses along your shoulder, laying his face into your hair.

"I love you," He mumbled.

"I love you too." You placed your hand over his, peace finding you easy tonight.

-

When you woke up the next morning, Josh still had you in his arms, snoring softly. Like you, he liked to get up when it was still dark out, but given last night you couldn't blame either of yourselves for wanting to sleep in. Josh woke up sometime after, pressing small kisses into the nape of your neck down to your shoulder blades.

"Good morning," he said quietly, wrapping his legs around yours, pulling his body closer to yours.

"Morning Josh." You closed your eyes allowing the quiet of the room to comfort you. It seemed pretty peaceful outside, from what you could hear at least. But your mind was running a thousand miles a minute. How did a three-year friendship change so drastically? If someone told you that three years later you'd be sleeping with Josh, you probably start cursing them out at the bare minimum. Josh infuriated you at the beginning, but what changed that you couldn't get enough? Maybe it was his style? Everyone loves Josh's style. He doesn't really care what goes together, as long as it fits him and his outrageous personality. Speaking of which, Josh's personality was unspoken of. People turned heads when he walked through doors because he was always the life of the party. Normal people just naturally gravitate towards him. Heck, you couldn't even keep up the 'holding a grudge' façade for too long because Josh helped you. Maybe you thanked him for that instead.

"I think we need to get up," you said, patting his hand. He protested that you two keep sleeping longer because it's too early. "Josh it's like," you squinted your eyes towards the clock. "Nine am." You yelled, pushing his arm of you.

You ran into the bathroom to pee before jumping in the shower. After taking some time cleaning yourself and changing into something more comfortable (which ended up being one of Josh's old college sweatshirts because he insisted you looked really good in them) you both left to the studio. Of course, the first one to greet you was your favorite out of the four, Daniel. After he finished talking with Josh, he led the both of you to a back room. It was a large decorated room that you hadn't really been in much. The walls were in stripes of inverted red along with carpet having a velvet touch to it. Plaques labeled the wall with other types of scandalous music art.

Jake and Sam walked in together already arguing about something. "Lookey here," Jake pulled you into a side hug, and Sam passed you a drink. "I thought my smoking habits were bad, but drinking at ten in the morning?" you tutted Sam away from you, taking a seat at a large table. "It helps me think more clearly."

Josh took a seat next to you, placing a hand on your thigh. "Hey, you never showed me the finish drawing for your clothing ideas." You raised your eyebrows and said: "I wonder why." You cocked your head to the side, and Josh frowned at you. Snickering to yourself, you handed him a sketchbook. "These are- really good, Y/N. I forgot you could draw so well." You doodled around the paper of a sketched-out Josh in what would be fashion attire for next year. "One of my many hobbies."

He patted your leg before turning his attention to his twin. Sam waltzed over to your side, a cigarette hanging from his lips. "Is that my brother's sweatshirt?" You glared at him before answering a subtle yes. Sam gasped in a fake manner, holding a hand across his heart.

"Are you two in love with each other finally?" Sam laughed at you giving him a side-eye. "Good. you make Josh happy." Content with that, he left to go sit next to Danny. You played around with the drawing some more, later on, moving to a computer to work there. Everyone left you alone to go play in another room which seems to help numb the background noise. Though, it didn't last long until Josh walked through the door. He strutted over to you, rubbing a hand on your back before sitting down.

"How's it goin' in there?" You closed the laptop, turning your attention towards him. Josh talked about how everything's coming along nicely, and Jake is stubborn about everything or how Sam is always messing up. You hummed, following along. Not that you would ever tell Josh, but sometimes you never would really listen to what he was saying, but you loved to watch his hand movements or the expressions on his face. It added to his character. "I meant to ask you some time ago, but uh- whatever happened to Logan?" Josh immediately froze, looking down to the floor like a scolded puppy.

"I told her I would talk to her later this week." You shook your head, crossing your arms. "What?"

"Nothing; I was just thinking we wouldn't be in this mess if it weren't for me oodling with your brother." Josh laughed at your choice of words, placing his hand softly on yours. "I think it was both us Y/N."

'Well, in my defense Sam is kind of hot now that I think about it." Josh slapped your shoulder. "Mmmm, you're right Sam does have that 'sense' to him." Time seemed to fly by the five of you, constantly arguing, laughing, or just goofing off with each other. It felt good to be back with everybody, and not walking around on eggshells. Sometimes the moment was so pleasant, you never wanted it to end.

-

It was eerily quiet when you walked inside Josh's home. It was nighttime, and the moon was full, shining brightly through the curtains. "Don't you ever wish you could see the stars?" Josh asked randomly.

"Light pollution man," He mumbled out, yeah, heading towards his bedroom. You peeked outside the window one more time, catching a glimpse of the clouds in the sky. Josh had changed into some comfier clothing and slid under the covers. You followed in pursuit, still wearing his old college t-shirt. "Where do you think we'll be in ten years?" The question had taken you by surprise. You knew he had a tendency to think a lot about the future, which was kind of admirable, but you had a hard time figuring out what the future would hold for you.

"That's hard to tell; Not unless I kill you first, but uh, I think we'll still be together, and so will the band. I guess it's just up to the rest of us." Josh hummed at your input. He flipped over on his side to look at you. "I hope we're together forever." Your face started to blush, although you doubt Josh could see, this time you wished he did.

"Me too." Your voice came out with full confidence knowing every ounce of you could never let him go. "Hey, do you think you'd ever let me wear your outfits after this next tour? They're kind of stylish if I say so myself." Josh laughed out loud. "I don't think they'd fit you, honey." You scoffed, pouting.

"Josh, I hate to break it to you but you're not that big." A playful laugh escaped your mouth while you pinched his arm. He pushed you back in return. "I meant your height." He shook his head. You turned around, allowing Josh to trap you in his arms.

"I hope I get to see you in heaven. If there is one." The sound of his voice made you want to cry. It was soft whisper that it felt so delicate at this moment.

"I think if you've seen me then, you will see me forever."

[merakiui]

welcome to the day a duck ruins your perception of items in genshin impact. i uh. made some items in genshin impact as yandere boys and what they're like sort of?? you could try and burn your eyes now. ;) adepti seekers stove- he's going to be a tsundere no buts or uhts. he's the type of yandere that's trying to be protective and failing miserably everytime. so being impatient and angsty. so, he resorts in kidnapping you instead. but hey look on the bright side! even when you're kidnapped you can have delicious meals and snacks! secretly likes to cook for you a lot, but he won't admit it even in death. just don't question why there's a lingering scent of sleeping potions in your meal and you'll be good as jolly jee! probably wants you to help him in the kitchen, since he once heard that couples do that. would probably give you self esteem issues down the line. "didn't i tell you to not get hurt? are you that much of an idiot?? here. have this it'll lessen the pain just a bit so we can walk back home. just drink it already." windsong lyre- smug bastard, smug shit. he's probably a player or just overly dramatic with everything. maybe he's righteous or something.. likes to show off his music skills a lot. he sucks at it tho. gaslights you probably in public places to add more pressure, because people are staring like you're having a performance or something. calls you love even if he's pissed at you for not listening to him, or accusing him of being toxic or suspecting him of being your stalker that always watches you from your window at 2am! would make you paranoid a lot. loves kissing your cheek and tickling you. he's a closeted pervert. you're gonna have to move in an isolated place too, he will spread rumours of you being his lover. "love, I'm sure that you're just overreacting. plus even if i was the stalker that you're talking about I wouldn't be oh so casually talking to you in public when I could've been hiding! jeez it's like your going crazy." wind-blessed harpastrum- such sweety! just so wholesome bakes you a pie in tuesday sweet. seems patient too but beware he will break your legs when you get a little bit too bratty for his tastes. touch starved too and it shows, that's why he loves to cuddle you lots! really obsessed with what you think of him. if you say you hate him he'll tear up and try to convince you that he's good, but if you pretend that you like him he'll shower you with uncomfortable affection and confessions. really great at making bombs and torture weapons too. probably sewed in a bomb inside your body threatened that he will kill you with it if you leave. bad at darts and archery. if you say that to him he'll laugh and take out his diploma saying that he's too smart for those childish games. he's impulsive in decision making. "haha. you know. you almost escaped from me back there. but hey! now you won't do anything stupid like that ever again if you can't walk." windblume balloon: listen man. im going to be killed but he's an airhead, pun intended right there. probably lowkey manipulative and doesn't even know it yet or chooses to ignore it. protective of you a lot. really delusional to the point that he rationalizes your escape as someone kidnapping you. so say goodbye to whoever poor stranger who was trying to help you escape they'll be greeted by an arrow through their head once he finds you. has a habit of holding your hand because he's afraid you might disappear from his line of sight and leave him all alone. if you let go tho he'll gorilla grip your hand, might crush it too. just very overprotective. he also doesn't know that he's an airhead. yeah."hm? why do i like holding you hand..? i just like it.. your hand makes me feel... uh. safe..? is that the word for it? ah. it was the word loved." wind catcher- he's a full on sadist. throw all of your escape plans out the window, this guy will climb a mountain and ride any wind current available to catch and torture you. persistently trying to make you like him atleast a bit. yeah, he's that kind of delusional. would teasingly push you

of a cliff as a 'light' punishment. dark humour and likes to joke about killing you from time to time. note: he can kill you. and he would also do it by ripping you in half with the wind current so just stay in his house and be a good lover that'll shower him in kisses, okay? okay. he mostly sees you as a tool of interest, but not just any tool- you're his favourite tool. "pfft! hey stop crying now! you're making me feel bad! hm? oh? why am i doing this? well i mean maybe I'm angry that someone was trying to escape. again." warming bottle- he will absolutely leave you in the cold if you were being a brat towards him. lives in dragonspine to spite you, also because he can just turn take away your blankets and anything that can give warmth so you gotta ask him to cuddle you to survive. he usually does this when he's feeling a little petty. which is so frequent. that you can almost give it a schedule. but don't tell him that. kind of a tsundere but only when it comes to physical affection since he's shy. that's why he has to take away your blankets so it looks like he's just mocking you but not because he's touch starved. he's not at home that much too but don't worry, he will make it up to you by uh.. physical activities.. "what? you're freezing? no shit we're in dragonspine. oh? you want me to hug you..? hm. fine. I'll indulge you for a bit. I am quite merciful." parametric transformer- businessman that scams you a lot lol. he's going to be a masochist because i said so, yeah i know the electric stone thing gag that's why i made him a masochist. really likes to collect useless stuff and spoiling you, so expect your room to be filled with a lot of random things from jewelry to mushrooms and crabs. has a you should be grateful i even give stuff mindset. thinks that giving someone something of vaue would make them fall in love with him instantly. also probably loves it when you fight back especially when you successfully land a hit on him, he will enjoy it. but be careful he has different responses whenever you hit him. pick your poison. spends a ton of resources on everything to keep you in line. that rope costed him 700 pinecones. "why do you even wanna escape? i give you a ton of stuff so you won't get bored! hah. maybe if i had picked up someone else they would've been grateful." portable waypoint- throw out your escape plans the season sequel. he's very quiet but has a small temper that won't last that much. maybe he's like that since he tries so hard to repress it. listen he's trying okay? escape always fails so quickly. one minute you're in springvale shouting, crying, begging for anyone to help you and then back to his house to see him sipping some tea. his punishments are cruel too- he makes sure to leave you in a den of monsters and ruin guards, waits until your in the brink of death and teleports you back to him. has a superiority complex over everyone too. probably likes to make you feel weak when you have to rely on him. loves to crush your self esteem. wants to be affectionate but thinks that you, as an inferior being, should be affectionate with him instead. so tsun. "see? this is what i was trying to tell you. you're too weak to actually survive out there. you even had to rely on me to save you. pathetic." memento lens- mysterious and elegant. he's quite cryptic to say the least. likes to watch you from a far if he's feeling a bit angsty. you try to make sense of what he says and it just leads to you being confused even more. and he likes that about you. you actually try to understand him, even if what you guess is wrong. you're going to have a tough time with this guy if you wanna escape. just avoid any fox statues and you'll be good. the problem is the shrine maidens. they basically want the two of you to end up together so they don't have to deal with him. he's actually very gentle with you punishments still suck but atleast he doesn't do it physically, he just makes you write that you're sorry over and over until your wrist are tired. loves poetry and solving puzzles, riddles, scriptures. he's

smart but soft. "spring blossoms even in the darkest depths of uncertainty, is that why you have the courage to try and escape me..?" kamera- perfectionist stalker. wants to make sure that the photos he takes of you are perfect to every extent. colour, lighting, and expressions. even if it means going inside your room and having the possibility of waking you up from your sleep. likes to take pictures of everything too. kind of like this; both of you are walking somewhere and he stops to take a picture of a sunset. he takes twenty minutes trying to find the correct angle. but the sun is already gone so he sulks. maybe- you can cheer him up by volunteering to be his model? you'll do that? right? also worships you like a god so if someone dared to even say something breath near you or celestia forbid insult you, best to say they'll be quickly disposed of by blackmail and fake shit. would not steal any of your belongings, he would just take pictures of it. so he's not that bad. "i consider everything in this world is beautiful, but you have surpassed that. so that is why im keeping you here. no one deserves even a glimpse of you!" waverider toolbox- he's such a gentlemen and a sweetheart. always there to help you with repairs, sometimes he'd add some updates to it too. just ignore the stuff going missing inside your boat thing. he probably guilt-gaslight you into staying with him in his waverider then bam your in an island stranded. ahaha, now both of you just have to survive by working together ya know? like a loving couple likes hugs and physical affection a lot! bonus points if it's given when he's tired from doing his job. as i said tired guy so appreciates all the things you do for him whether it's paying for his meal or giving him a gift. next time, he'll make sure that you won't leave the island permanently. thinks that stranded island equals date smh. " ahh? oh! is this for me? really? thank you.. i don't usually receive gifts but that just makes this even more special! say, do you wanna go on a trip? i just fixed the waverider from last time." red feather fan- mischievous little shit. likes to scare you a lot by appearing on trees and just jumping on you. knows that you're trying to escape but pretends not to since he likes to try and guess which direction you would run to. hugs you a lot even before he kidnaps you really touchy even if you say no he'll use the good ol puppy eyes! doesn't work? okay he'll just smell your clothes when you're sleeping as compensation. he likes to flirt with you a lot. some pickup are cheesy.. but others are a little- personal? acts cool by making a dramatic entrance everytime even. you know those radical superhero landing stuff? that's him. he would build a nest as your house even being a dick and placing it on top of a mountain, goodluck on trying to get down. "caught you! going to the shore was so predictable by the way. maybe you should try a different place next time, dear? hm? maybe a restaurant so we can have date? sounds great right?" serenitea pot- unhinged malewife that wants to make a the perfect living space for you- ehem. probably a perfectionist if you squint hard enough. he's delusional but just a little lucid about the stuff he does to you. likes to make a ton of furniture too! personalized the room you're trapped in with a ton of valuable and expensive materials. just don't try to escape he'll cut your limbs off just like a damn tree shawtie. owns a shit ton of pets ranging from boars to cats. all of them are like bodyguards to you during your stay. dreams about having a peaceful life with you in the realm someday, sigh. he sometimes has burnouts where he just places a bunch of furniture on a single room and call it a day. "and here is your room! do.. do you like it? i made it just for you! i didn't know what wood you would prefer so i just settled on whatever i can find! ahaha. we're kind of like a married couple living together now... right?" nre menu- he's probably going to be from the adventurers guild. really awkward and shy. takes for him a long time to

open up to you. when going on quests he's the one in charge of carrying the food and healing shit you need. really patient and nice! slightly uh mean with other people trying to talk to you but other than that everything is normal. everything is normal the long loving gaze he gives you every now and then and some food being left on your doorstep. yeah let's not question it i mean he's just so shy! he would never do anything wrong? right?? he's a closeted pervert, cliche i know but he's a pervert with a line to not cross. he just checks you out. good for him. would cry if given any ounce of affection. sweet baby. "t-that was a tough commission.. oh u-uh.. do you need some food to replenish your energy? we need to do the other commissions you know.. hm? why aren't you eating it.. something wrong with the food..?" seelies- spoiled. that's the word to describe him. really straight forward with his courting kind of dumb? but he's so damn lucky for some unknown reason that your plans to avoid him always fail. yeah the high quality rope you just bought for 1000 mora? it broke and you fell into his arms. he's probably rich by sheer dumb luck too. finds a ton treasure chests even in the places you didn't expect. people pressure you into spending time with him. since he's just so cute! how could say no to such a face? it really feels like the gods are on his side ya know? he throws a lot of very very aggressive tantrums if you're not with him. thinks he's doing a good job at courting you, with rationalize rejection as a playing hard to get. "tada! look i got you this crystal i found while i was walking! it looks like a diamond and it has a ton of colours too?? is it valuable?? would you kiss me if i give it to you??" endora- majestic, regal, and likes to explore a lot. he uh. probably trapped you in a bubble once or twice too. really curious about his surroundings, also has no personal space since it's first time going out. he would cuddle you when he feels like it homie. kidnapped you and made you his tour guide. don't try to fool him he learns quickly about stuff. fast swimmer, so no joining any expeditions in water if you don't want their ship to be wrecked by a mysterious being of the teyvat seas. he likes to see you cry. it's not a kink he just feels connected to you when you cry. doesn't have a house so you just live in a run down boat. he's doesn't know when you're lying to him sometimes. god complex bastard. "this world. at first i wasn't sure if i was going to like it or not, but ever since I've met you... I've grown to tolerate some parts.. so you should be thankful, you've convinced me. mortal." intertwined fate/older twin- listen. he's just so smug about everything he does. and he knows you love him. probably invites you out on dinner only for him to not show up. so basically he's an asshole without a doubt. toxic boyfriend that gives you false hope and has a ton of admirers. you probably think he won't settle for you right? ah, he's not that cruel. so picks you as his lover out of all the billions of people. you should be grateful! he even kidnapped you! do you know how hard it was for him to go all the way from his home to yours? anyways yeah. asshole. he likes to do the open the door for darling trick where he just gives you a small crack on the door and watch you make a decision. it's an act of your loyalty. if you escape he'll make you feel pain. if you don't then he'll reward your patience. god complex bastard 2."sigh. did you try to escape? again? patience is the key to everything you know. maybe you should learn that. i expected more smart from you." acquaint fate/younger twin- cinnamonroll he's such a sweet guy. he's always there for you when you need him. okay- he has a nice guy complex, fucking damn it. probably uses the but I've been there for you since the start trick unintentionally a lot. he just doesn't know he wants some action, so be thankful that he didn't just jump on you like a barbarian. he's kind of contradicting himself too. one hand he wants you to love him, on the other hand he doesn't

believe he deserves you. loves to give you the same things, remember that one painting you liked from two years ago? he got you that. quantity beats quality. surprisingly, he's really patient but would have bursts of anger every now and then. has a self value issues?? yeah, but did i tell you he's a touch starved guy. punshments are just him softly lecturing you about what's good and what's wrong."i always viewed myself as inferior, that i didn't deserve anything.. but this time. i want to be greedy just once." that's it- :'D i haven't proofread this but here you go mer! ill probably continue with more humanisations of items in genshin later.. if you ask why i ruined your day with this crazy idea i was watching that one video of a person humanising social media and got this idea. also i discovered how to bold out texts... i have power..ejwjdhshaj

so yeah have a great day! -🦆anon

I AM IN AWE?!?! WHOA OMG!!!!! 🦆, THIS IS FANTASTIC!! AAAAAA (≧∀≦)

All of the various characterizations… *chef’s kiss* It’s literally so good! With each one I read I kept thinking okay this guy is my favorite and then I would read the next description and my heart was stolen again. I can’t pick a favorite now. T_T

[giuliadrawsstuff]

Hi Giulia! I hope you're doing okay! I just wanna say that you have a very solid art style--I can definitely distinguish it whenever it appears on my dashboard. Do you have artists or references that influence your very own art? I guess I just wanna ask, what's your artistic process? Thanks and take care!

Hi RK! Aww thanks you're so kind 💜💜 it really means a lot 💜

Mmm I think my greatest influence was Disney, the cartoons obviously but also some Italian comics, in particular W.I.T.C.H. (five highschool girls that obtain superpowers and can communicate with the four elements) and Topolino (various stories of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and all their friends) and I used to copy every possible drawing available hahha All the various issues are drawn by different artists, so I got to see a lot of variety of styles and pick the ones I preferred or better even pick the bits of each I liked and make them mine. Topolino in particular has multiple stories in a single issue and comes out weekly, so I had lots and lots of material to look at. I had my subscription until 2 years ago honestly hahah but I stopped for lack of shelves in my room 😂

And then during university so like 4/5 years ago I bought some video tutorials by Disney artist Aaron Blaise (he's the director of Brother Bear but he worked on Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King and other movies) and those really were a booster because I got to study anatomy and character design and drawing lots of animals. I still buy his stuff whenever he adds something interesting, he's an excellent teacher. And I get to watch them all the times I want so I can review weak spots or more difficult points.

As for the drawing process, well first I try and find a pose, I collect everything available that inspires me from stars Instagram posts or tweets, to drawings of other artists (obviously if the pose I finally make is identical to the original I add the reference to the post) to movie GIFs on Tumblr or official art. Oh and Pinterest too, that’s a goldmine, but I always end up finding new stuff that distracts me and not what I was originally looking for haha

Then I sketch on paper or on Photoshop depending on the mood and time, lately I can't even watch a movie in peace because my hands itch because I need to draw. So in this case I use paper.

Like these new ones look what a mess they are and very unfinished. It mostly to just jot down the idea so I don't forget it.

And since I always make a mess of it, Photoshop is a blessing. I allows me to change stuff how many times I want, for ex if the head is too big I can select it and make it smaller, it allows me to flip the drawing which is one of the most useful things ever because watching your drawing mirrored makes all the horrors pop up, I've lost count of how many wrong eyes or super long arms I had to correct. Plus I can work on different layers so I usually have one layer for the head (even 2 or 3 like for Hange because they have bangs and ponytail that are tough and glasses) then one torso, two for the arms and so on. I only merge all layers into one lineart when I'm sure it's good to go.

And then I add flat colours and logos and stuff if needed (like the wings of freedom patches or blood).

Like this is flat colours (I know you know Bojack from your Diane profile pic, which I've always loved from the first moment I saw it btw 💜 I love that show). This one stays like this because Bojack has a very simple line and pretty much no shadows unless needed. But otherwise I always add them.

But before making the shadows I tend to decide a background if needed or if I hadn't already one in mind. And the shadows colour tends to pair with the BG, but the general one is brownish (I use the same colour I use for Levi's bags under his eyes 😂 but set it to multiply so it gets darker but you can still see what's beneath).

Like this below.

I don't do many backgrounds by hand, i made one for my Secret Santa but usually I use photos or pictures (AOT is perfect for example because being a cartoon it fits with my style, with real photos I have to be more careful because it might collide instead of becoming part of the drawing) unless there's an object in real interaction with the characters.

For example this one below. The tree on which they sit was already in the frame (that's actually what gave me the idea of putting them on the branches) I tried using it like that but there was too much difference so I drew the tree myself. The rest is the real shot but blurred. Helps focusing on the characters.

Puff I think I'm done hahha sorry it came out longer that expected 😂😂 I hope the drawings make it less boring hahhaha

Anyway thanks for asking 💜💜 and if you have suggestions be sure to drop them by 💜