#bounding box annotation

[gts1234]

The Importance of Bounding Box Annotation for Accurate AI and Machine Learning Models

In the age of artificial intelligence (AI), bounding box annotation plays a vital role in training machine learning models for object detection and image recognition. Bounding boxes are the simplest and most commonly used form of data annotation in computer vision, where an image is marked with rectangular borders to identify objects. This method helps AI models learn to recognize objects, faces, and scenes, forming the backbone of many applications like autonomous driving, facial recognition, and retail automation.

At GTS AI, we specialize in providing high-quality bounding box annotation services that are essential for training robust AI models. In this blog, we'll explore the importance of bounding box annotation, how it works, and why it's crucial for machine learning success.

What is Bounding Box Annotation?

Bounding box annotation involves drawing a rectangle around an object within an image, which the AI model uses to identify and categorize the object. This simple yet effective technique provides the labeled data required to train machine learning algorithms. The more accurate and detailed the annotation, the better the AI model can learn and perform in real-world applications.

Bounding boxes are commonly used in:

Object detection: Identifying objects such as cars, people, or animals in images or video streams.

Facial recognition: Detecting and recognizing human faces in images for security, marketing, or identification purposes.

Autonomous vehicles: Cars and drones use object detection to recognize pedestrians, traffic signs, and other vehicles to navigate safely.

Why is Bounding Box Annotation Important?

Bounding box annotation is essential to the accuracy and success of machine learning models for several key reasons:

Training AI Models: Bounding box annotations provide the fundamental training data that AI models need to learn object recognition. Without properly annotated images, machine learning algorithms would not be able to detect objects accurately, leading to poor performance in real-world tasks. Bounding boxes give models the framework to recognize objects by mapping their positions and identifying boundaries.

Accuracy and Precision: The precision of a machine learning model is directly influenced by the quality of the bounding box annotations. Inaccurate or sloppy annotations can lead to misclassification, poor object detection, or failure in critical applications like medical imaging or autonomous driving. Accurate bounding box annotations ensure that models are trained with the right data, leading to improved accuracy in predictions.

Handling Multiple Objects: Many real-world scenarios involve detecting multiple objects in a single image, and bounding box annotations allow models to handle these complexities. By marking multiple bounding boxes within an image, the AI system can distinguish between various objects, improving its ability to perform tasks like scene analysis and object tracking.

Speeding Up Data Processing: Annotating images with bounding boxes is relatively quick compared to other annotation methods, such as polygon or semantic segmentation. This speed makes bounding boxes an efficient choice for labeling large datasets, ensuring that models can be trained faster and with less computational effort.

Versatile Use Cases: Bounding box annotation is used in a wide range of industries. Retailers use it to analyze customer behavior and automate inventory management. In healthcare, it helps in medical imaging by identifying areas of interest in X-rays or MRIs. Security companies use bounding boxes for facial recognition and surveillance systems. This versatility makes bounding box annotation a critical tool for machine learning applications across different sectors.

Key Applications of Bounding Box Annotation

Bounding box annotation is fundamental to several AI and machine learning applications. Here are some of the most impactful use cases:

Autonomous Vehicles: Self-driving cars rely heavily on computer vision to navigate through streets, avoid obstacles, and recognize traffic signs and pedestrians. Bounding box annotations are crucial for training these systems, allowing the vehicles to detect objects in real-time and make informed decisions.

Retail and E-commerce: Bounding box annotations are used in e-commerce to automate product tagging and visual search features. Retailers also use object detection to monitor customer behavior, analyze foot traffic, and optimize store layouts.

Healthcare: In medical imaging, bounding box annotations help AI models detect abnormalities in X-rays, CT scans, and MRIs. These models can assist doctors in diagnosing conditions such as tumors, fractures, or other medical issues, improving accuracy and speeding up diagnosis.

Agriculture: AI is also transforming the agricultural industry. With bounding box annotations, drones and other imaging tools can detect crops, analyze growth patterns, and monitor plant health, enabling farmers to optimize yields and reduce waste.

Facial Recognition and Security: Security systems use bounding boxes to identify and track individuals in surveillance footage. AI models trained on bounding box annotations can recognize faces, track movements, and even detect suspicious activities in real-time.

Challenges in Bounding Box Annotation

While bounding box annotation is a straightforward process, it comes with its own set of challenges:

Edge Cases: Images with overlapping objects or complex scenes can be difficult to annotate accurately. These edge cases require careful attention to ensure that each object is properly labeled without any overlap or confusion.

Human Error: Manual annotation is prone to human error, which can reduce the quality of the data. Errors in labeling can lead to inaccurate model predictions, so it's important to use a trusted provider like GTS AI that ensures precise and consistent annotations.

Scalability: As AI models require large datasets for training, scaling up the annotation process can be difficult. Managing thousands or millions of images while maintaining quality is a challenge that requires expertise and experience.

Why Choose GTS AI for Bounding Box Annotation?

At GTS AI, we understand the importance of accurate and high-quality bounding box annotation. Our services are designed to provide scalable and efficient data annotation solutions for businesses and researchers across various industries. Here's why you should choose us:

Expertise and Precision: Our team of experienced annotators ensures that each bounding box is drawn with precision, minimizing errors and maximizing the accuracy of your AI model.

Scalability: Whether you need annotations for a small project or a large-scale dataset, GTS AI provides scalable solutions that can handle large volumes of data without sacrificing quality.

Custom Solutions: We tailor our annotation services to meet your specific project needs, ensuring that your AI models are trained with the right data for your industry and application.

Cost-Effective: We offer competitive pricing for our bounding box annotation services, making it affordable to access high-quality data annotation without breaking the bank.

Conclusion

Bounding box annotation is a critical step in training AI models for accurate object detection and recognition. Whether it's for autonomous vehicles, healthcare, or retail, high-quality bounding box annotations ensure that machine learning algorithms perform effectively in real-world applications.

At GTS AI, we provide top-tier bounding box annotation services to help businesses and researchers train their AI models with confidence. To learn more about our services, visit GTS AI today and unlock the potential of your AI systems.

[hhoneylemon]

𝘣𝘢𝘨𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘧𝘵. 𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘢

jess mariano x reader

genre; fluff

word count; 896

summary; jess annotates a book for reader and then proceeds to rethink every decision he’s ever made.

reader pov

I had stopped by at Luke’s Diner to grab a coffee and have a small chat with Jess in the morning. He described a book he had recently read, saying it had been turned into a movie that disrespected the name.

“It’s so bad. Like, they changed multiple events and even one of the characters names. Don’t forget how everyone interacts with each other… it basically just shares the same name as the book is all.”

It was interesting seeing how frustrated he got about it, and I smiled at him.

“What book is this?”

His eyes widen a tad as he realizes he didn’t even say.

“I Know What You Did Last Summer. Lois Duncan.”

I nod, interested. I’d heard of the movie before, I think, in passing from my best friend. She and her mother watch a lot of things together, this might’ve been one she talked about.

“Did you like the book?”

I take a sip from my coffee, allowing the warmth of the drink to wake me up a bit more.

“Yeah, it was good. I annotated it as I read, if you want to borrow it.”

I smile at the offer, nodding along.

“I’d like that.”

And so here I sit, comfortably on my bed as I read the book. Jess’s annotations were always interesting. He didn’t only look at suspicious details in the story, he also had a soft spot for some of the romantic moments. It made me smile whenever I saw one, that goof.

The book was good, as he had said it was. I knew that Jess had written his full thoughts in the very back, so once I finished, I took everything in to form my opinions. I then open to the back to compare.

I didn’t expect a small folded paper to fall out. A little ‘huh’ escapes from my lips as I unfold it, reading it. I almost laugh at the simplicity of it. A note saying ‘Will you go on a date with me?’ with two boxes, one for yes and one for no. I snort in amusement, before placing it beside me to read his thoughts.

They were agreeable. It was well written and the. characters were developed. Barry was an asshole and Ray came off kinda creepy during some parts of the book.

Once I finish reading his thoughts, I turn my attention back to the note. I pick it up and walk to my desk, grabbing a pen. I checkmark the yes box and slide the note back into the book, knowing I’ll drop it off before dinner.

jess pov

What was I thinking.

Metallica pulses through the air as I stare at the ceiling. I’m lying on the floor as I collect my thoughts. I just asked out Y/n, and in probably the most stupid way possible.

What else can I do, I guess? And it’s too late anyways, they’re bound to have seen it by now.

Perhaps it isn’t the end of the world. If they say no, I’ll lose a close friend, but I’ll survive. Maybe I’ll be regretting who I am for a while, but I’ll survive.

The notes of Nothing Else Matters ring in my ears like a bell. I hum along faintly, occupying myself from my thoughts.

I pick myself up when there’s a knock on my bedroom door.

“Yes?”

Luke pops his head in, looking at me with tired eyes.

“C’mon. Dinner rush about to come in.”

And so I turn off my CD player and trudge down to the diner, ready to serve the rush. I head to the counter like my uncle asks me to and take peoples orders, scribbling in the notepad and dismissing them to a table. I hand the notepad to Luke to take to whoever’s cooking and repeat the process who knows how many times, when my attention is grabbed by a familiar face entering the diner.

Y/n approaches the counter with a friendly smile, brandishing my copy of I Know What You Did Last Summer. They place it on the counter, and I take it into my hands.

“Thoughts?”

I watch them lean against the counter and think for a moment.

“Well, I thought it was good. Barry was terrible to Helen, Ray was kinda freaky, Julie’s mom was a real one, some of the scenes were cool. The gunshot during the fireworks show was clever, I liked that. A crazed brother is a little silly, I wonder what happened to poor Megan. I feel bad for the parents of the little boy. I liked Helen but thought she was a little dim for not realizing what Barry was up to. His mom was annoying. I also like how you annotate books, by the way. Seeing your thought process is really interesting while I’m having my own, y’know?”

Y/n finishes, looking at me. Their look is knowing, so I know they read the note. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I wonder what they’ll say, if anything. The silence that follows what they say is awkward.

And then, “I’ll go out with you.”

They hand me the note, and I see that they checked off the yes box. I look up and see them smiling at me. I give a small smile back.

Maybe it wasn’t a mistake after all.

[wedarkacademia]

dark academia stationary tips? ideas? please? i beg of you.

Deepen Your Dive into Dark Academia Stationery:

Crafting the Canvas:

Paper: Embrace the tactile – rough-edged parchment, marbled sheets, hand-dyed linen paper. Seek antique ledgers, vintage score sheets, or maps for a truly timeworn effect.

Ink: Let your words drip in history – deep emerald greens, rich burgundy, charcoal grey. Discover shimmering gold or silver for elegant annotations. For an extra flourish, explore calligraphy inks and vintage fountain pens.

Beyond the Basics:

Washi Tapes: Forget the neon, embrace botanical prints, celestial patterns, and antique library stamps. Layer them for depth, use them to seal letters, or decorate journal edges.

Stickers & Tags: Pressed leaves, dried flowers, and ephemera from library archives add a touch of natural mystery. Vintage anatomy diagrams, constellations, and old library catalog cards offer an academic flair.

Sealing Secrets: Wax seals & ribbons elevate simple letters into heirlooms. Choose deep green wax, embossed with a raven, a quill, or your own monogram. Tie with silk or hemp twine for a finishing touch.

Unleashing the Scholarly Spirit:

Journals & Notebooks: Opt for leather-bound volumes, with aged paper and ribbon bookmarks. Decorate with antique maps, pressed flowers, or handwritten quotes from your favorite poets.

Organizing Knowledge: Index cards, vintage library pockets, and antique file folders help categorize your studies. Label them with elegant script and adorn them with botanical sketches or scientific diagrams.

The Scholar's Tools: Antique brass compasses, vintage rulers, and magnifying glasses add a touch of academic ambiance to your desk.

Whispers of Antiquity:

Poetry & Letters: Handwrite in a flowing script, penning sonnets or letters to fellow scholars. Let foreign languages add a touch of mystery, or slip in quotes from forgotten classics.

Ephemera & Found Objects: Tuck pressed leaves, antique botanical prints, or ticket stubs from forgotten museums into your notebooks. Let them spark inspiration and evoke past journeys.

The Art of Storytelling: Create your own dark academia-inspired stationery. Make vintage-themed envelopes from maps, decorate boxes with constellation patterns, or craft your own wax seal stamp.

Remember, dark academia is about embracing an atmosphere. Let your creativity flow, curate your collection with intention, and transform your stationery into a portal to an enchanting world of forgotten knowledge and secret societies.

[imagine-that-100]

Menswear

Description: You’re off to Manchester for your Aunt and Uncle’s wedding and nothing is ever simple when you and Matty are involved. With your history something is always bound to happen, whether that is subtle teasing touches, secret flirting, or something more. And after everything, you can’t carry on ignoring it because your heart’s not immune to his effect and just how happy he makes you.

Word Count: 16.2k

Warnings: Smut (enjoy)

A/N: Hey besties, i’m backkkk. So, if you’ve read @nriacc, you have read this before. I wanted to put this out as it’s own oneshot because I understand not everyone wants to commit to a large fic but I think this part at least deserves to be it’s own thing. I originally released this back in July 2021 and there’s been an oddly similar fic since with very similar characters and with not even a tag it feels like common crisis has been ripped off, so I want to give nriacc that little bit more exposure too because it’s the og. The only context you need going into this is Alex is one of the OC’s best mates, Matty’s nickname for this OC is Wheels (hence why I call her that), and Wheels is Adam’s cousin. Really hope you enjoy if you’ve not read it before or if you’re having a reread. Thanks a million for reading x

| My Masterlist | NRIACC Masterlist |

Whilst unpacking all of his boxes into his new flat, Alex finds a book which he was going to send to you a month ago. It’s the last one he read and annotated before his break-up and move back to the UK but he never got a chance to send it over to you before it was thrown into a box to bring back home. And Alex gets a little emotional at the thought of giving it to you.

Alex debates whether he should even give it to you or not but in the long run he knows he’d regret not gifting it to you. So that was what brought him over to your flat again a few days later despite him knowing that you were going over to Manchester today.

So around noon, Alex heads over to your flat to give you your last book he’d yet to give you. He just hopes you’re still around.

He lets himself into the building as he still had his own keys because after moving out you just told him to keep them. But Alex decided to knock on your door before he let himself in with that set of keys, just so he didn’t scare you.

Just as he knocks, Alex realised that your door is already open as you must have left it on the latch. And just as he starts to push the door open, he hears you call out that, “It’s open!”

He walks in, closing the door behind him, leaving it on the latch for you like you wanted it as he walks down the short hallway into your lounge. He looks around for you as he calls out, “Hey Angel.”

“Al?” You call out from your room confused and you poke your head out seeing the singer standing in your lounge.

“You okay Y/N/N?” Alex says walking towards you to meet you in your doorway.

You meet in the middle and you hug each other as you tell him, “I’m good, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m great thanks,” Alex says as he lets you escape from the hug.

You both head into your room then as you ask your best friend, “You know I’m going away today, right?”

“I do, it's why I'm here actually,” Alex tells you as he watches you start to last minute pack stuff into your suitcase.

Alex chuckles to himself. The suitcase is the size of something he would take away with him on tour for months on end, not something you’d take for a week in Manchester.

You raise your eyebrows, curious for him to continue and Alex does, “I came to say bye, but also to give you this.”

Alex holds the novel out to you then and you abandon your case to collect it from him. As you take it, you ask, “What’s this?”

“It was your last in the book club, but I didn't have the chance to send it over and I found it again when I was unpacking,” Alex tells you as you inspect the cover and he sees your smile grow as he tells you about it.

“Thank you so much,” You tell him before you give him another big hug.

Alex smiles as he hugs you back, “You’re welcome, sorry you’re getting it months behind schedule.”

You tell him to not be silly, it’s thoughtful of him to actually give it to you instead of just keeping it to go on his new bookshelves. “I’ll give it a read when I finish the one I’m on now, although I’m reading Stephen King’s IT and it’s fucking huge so it might take me a while.”

Alex chuckles at that as he watches you find a space for it on the end of your bookshelf, “Don't worry, there’s no rush.”

You slot it neatly at the end of the very bottom shelf and just as you’re about to ask Alex another question about it, you hear the door go again. You head back out of your bedroom door and shout, “It’s open” again before leaving your bedroom.

Alex follows you out and you turn back to tell him, “It’ll be Matty.”

And you aren’t wrong because a second later the curly haired brunette wraps his arms around you and has picked you up to spin you around. Alex watches as you giggle in Matty’s arms and your own arms circled around his neck to ensure you don't fall to the ground.

The both of you exchange pleasantries in the hall before you usher him inside, telling him that you just had a few more things to pack before you’re ready to go. Matty assures you that it’s fine before he tells you, “You look good today.”

You’re dressed in blue skinny jeans, your hightops, and a long-sleeved black top that you have tucked into your jeans. You turn around and thank him before you usher Matty into the lounge.

In there you find Alex perching on the back of your loveseat, obviously wanting to be polite and say hello. You smile at Alex as you walk back into the lounge before you tell the both of them, “I’m just gunna pack up a few more things, I won't be long.”

Alex smiles at Matty when he makes eye contact with him and Matty smiles realising that he was here.

“You alright Alex?” Matty asks politely.

Alex nods, “Yeah good mate, how are you?”

“Yeah good thanks... Believe you’ve got a flat in the city now?” Matty asks curiously, filtering information back to him that you’d told him on the phone not so long ago.

“Yeah,” Alex nods, “Just thought I'd come and say bye because I'm headed back over to LA to record the next album in a week and I wouldn’t have a chance to say bye otherwise.”

Something which was true. You did know he was jetting off again and you were pleased that it was because of a new album and not a new tour straight away. At least you’d get him back for Christmas and a few months after that before a tour.

“That’s fair enough,” Matty says before curiously asking, “Got anything written yet?”

Alex nods, “Yeah I've got most of it done, just need to get it recorded with the rest of the lads.”

“That’s good,” Matty smiles and both blokes share a smile then.

At least you weren't the only thing they could bond over.

“Curly,” You pull both lads out of their chat and Matty smiles at you to continue when you come back out of your bedroom door with your suitcase, “Did they want me to bring anything?”

“Other than whatever you're actually wearing to the wedding, I don’t think they care,” Matty grins and you laugh.  

Alex chuckles a bit at that too but can’t help himself but say, “Still can’t believe they’re getting married mid October.”

“Same,” You and Matty nod in agreement. You add though, “It’s given out surprisingly good weather for Friday though so we’ll be lucky.”

Matty nods, thinking to himself that he’ll believe it when he sees it.

“What are you wearing anyway?” Alex asks you curiously, “Pant suit?”

You shake your head smiling, but you correct him, “I’m wearing a dress.”

“You’re wearing a dress?” Alex asks you, completely shocked, like he just didn’t hear you properly.

You nod looking at both of the boys who are staring back at you dumbfounded.

“You?” Alex has to check again.

“Yes Alex,” You say, giving him a pointed look.

He just shakes his head at you though, “But Y/N/N, you don't wear dresses.”

You tut, a little offended but Matty defends Alex straight away.

“Don't look like that, he's right,” Matty says, “The last time I saw you in anything near a dress was the skirt you wore at your Eighteenth.” and now you’re 24. It’s been a long while.

You ask a little wide eyed, “Why do you remember that?”

“Fifteen year old me imprinted it into my mind,” Matty grins at you a little suggestively.

You shake your head, trying not to laugh, “I hate you.”

“Love you too,” Matty grins, but then he asks you, “What dress are you wearing?”

You tell him, “A red one to match the bridesmaids, but a short one because I’m not officially a bridesmaid.”

The only bridesmaids were your Mum and your Aunt’s best friend. You were the chosen flower girl which you thought was pretty cute.

“I think, and I'm sure Matty thinks too, that you should go put it on,” Alex suggests trying but failing to hide his grin at the thought of you in a dress.  

You shake your head, automatically saying, “Absolutely not.”

“Why?”

“Because I don't want to ruin it before Friday,” You tell your best friend like he’s stupid.

“Oh come on Y/N/N, I’m not going to get to see it and I've not seen you in a dress for years,” Alex tries to guilt trip you.

You counter argue, “You'll see pictures.”

Alex looks at you completely hurt then and pleads, “Oh come on Angel,” But then he uses your friend for back up. “Matty, you wanna see it too, right?”

Without hesitation Matty agrees, nodding, “Yeah.”

“I hate you both,” You say, clearly not impressed.

“We love you too, now go and get changed,” Alex instructs, waving you back off to your room.

You sigh then looking from the shaggy haired boy to the curly haired one, “Have we even got time?”

Matty grins, “All the time in the world if I get to see you in a dress, Wheels.”

You groan in annoyance then and grab the handle of your suitcase knowing you weren’t going to win this. You try one more time though and ask, “Alex, can’t you settle for a picture?”

“No,” He shakes his head and folds his arms.

You pout and whine, “But I don't wanna get changed.”

“We don't always get what we want,” Alex tells you before nodding towards your bedroom door, “Go on.”

“Fine,” You sigh, but then you give both of them a pointed look when you turn back to say, “But I'm leaving the door open so I can still talk to yous, so don't come over here.”

Matty sake scoffs then, saying, “Don't flatter yourself, we don't wanna see you getting undressed.”

“Okay,” You dryly laugh, “I’ll believe that when we start searching for planes in the sea.” You roll your eyes before you venture into your bedroom.

“So your new album…” Matty asks Alex, “What’s this one called?”

“Suck It And See.”

“Ah right,” Matty grins at what that was alluding to, “Sounds fun.”

Alex laughs, “Yeah it’s an innuendo to us but the politically correct answer to why its called that is that its essentially a ‘fuck you, we arent giving you an album cover, you’ve got to listen to it yourself to judge it.’”

“Ah right,” Matty nods in appreciation, “So I’m assuming the album cover is just gunna say Suck It And See?”

“Yeah,” Alex nods, and he proudly tells him about your input. “She’s already made it.”

“Ah,” Matty smiles, “She’s a gooden.”

Alex nods in agreement before letting that subject drop and revert the questions to his music this time.

“Your shows are getting bigger, right? Got a manager and everything now I hear.” Alex smiles.

Matty nods, “Yeah, got quite a lot coming in the venues back home now.”

“That's good mate,” Alex smiles, “Happy for you.”

“Thanks Pal.”

Alex remembers something else that makes him chuckle a bit as he asks Matty, “I believe your name’s changed again?”

Matty sighs but nods. He then asks your best friend, “She been moaning about it?”

“Oh just a little,” Alex smirks, remembering you seething when you got off the phone with Matty a month or two ago about it before proceeding to rant to Alex about it for an hour that night and over the next few days after that.

Matty knew that was a bigger unstatement than the title of his first puppets album. You’d gone berserk on the phone to him one night when Adam had forced him to call you to tell you.

Or you had until you were told the new name.

“What you called now?” Alex asks, not quite remembering.

“The 1975.”

“Oh right,” Alex nods appreciating the randomness of it.

“It’s good, don’t you think?” You shout out to Alex as you try and awkwardly zip your dress up by yourself.  

“Strange enough that it’s different, but memorable like the Monkeys,” You shout a second later.

Alex shouts back to you, “Yeah it’s certainly different,” but then he turns back to Matty and at a normal volume he asks him, “Where’d you come up with that one?”

“Oh I was going on holiday with my family after Christmas and I went to a charity shop to try and find a book to take. I saw a copy of my favourite book in there and opened it up and I saw that someone had dated the book June first the 1975. Sort of fell in love with it,” Matty explains.

You shout out to him, “Well as long as you don’t change it again, I’ll be in love with it, too.”

“Oh don’t worry it’s not changing now,” Matty shouts back but he looks at Alex when he says it.  

Matty pulls his sleeve up and shows Alex his forearm that had the year 1975 tattooed onto it.

“Well I really hope you don’t change your mind now,” Alex chuckles.

Matty chuckles a little too but shakes his head, “No I won’t. Can’t. Got the tattoo so I wouldn’t be able to.”

“You got it tattooed?” You gasp quickly, slipping your last heel on and doing the small buckle.  

Matty shouts back, “Yeah.”

“What, where?” You ask as you leave your bedroom.  

When you walk out into your lounge though, both men feel their whole body freeze. The only thing they can do is move their eyes to try and take in all of your beauty.

You’re in your dress that was a beautiful shade of blood red. It has spaghetti straps meaning that you’re braless, but that’s okay because the material is thick enough to make sure you’re kept reserved enough for a wedding.

The red dress also had a V neck line meaning that you also got to show off a healthy amount of cleavage. The dress then pinches in at your waist before the skirt comes out a bit and flows down to your mid thigh.

You feel really pretty wearing it and you love the red heels that you have on to match. But the dress isn’t of your concern right now.

You’d walked out of your room to see Matty's tattoo. You walk towards both of the lads and take a hold of Matty’s arm to inspect the new tattoo.

It’s nice. It resides under his Mortal Kombat tattoo and it’s there for anyone and everyone to see.

You like the font that it’s in and the fact it’s a little uneven. But knowing Matty, that would have been how he wanted it.

But you’re staring at his tattoo whilst he and Alex are staring at you.

“I like it, it’s very you,” You smile at him.

But Matty’s just blankly staring at you. He looks as if he’s had a massive shock to his system.

Alex is the first one to actually come out of the silence that had fallen amongst them. He clears his throat before saying in a soft voice, his eyes still taking all your beauty in, “You look stunning, Angel.”

The compliment seems to take Matty out of his daze too and he compliments, “He’s right, you really do, Sweetheart.”

“Oh,” You smile between them, “Thank you.”

You do a little spin then feeling the need to and both boys get a look at your box tattoo on your shoulder blade as your long hair moves from it as you spin. You smile at the both of them when you settle back in your spot to stand normally again, and you say, “Couldn’t really turn up to my Aunt’s wedding looking like a slob, could I?”

“I mean I lived with you for two months and I never thought you were a slob,” Alex says which makes you laugh and you engage them both in conversation for a few minutes.

You’re all laughing and joking but both men can’t take their eyes off of you, your natural beauty just shines through as you’re wearing this stunning dress. And both men silently agree to themselves that your natural long hair pulls even more attention towards you.

Matty was certain he’d be fighting people away from you on Friday.

You just look so fucking stunning it’s unreal.

So much so that Alex can’t let you get changed without getting a picture of you as you are. As you’re about to head back to your bedroom to change, Alex moves himself across the lounge to your shelf and picks up your polaroid camera and quickly flicks it on.

And before you make it near your bedroom Alex manages to get you to turn back around as he’s able to tell you a shit joke to make you laugh. And as soon as he hears the amazing sound that is your laughter, he quickly snaps the picture.

“Alex,” You scorn him, not being ready for a picture at all.  

Alex half heartedly apologises, “Sorry, but you need to remember how pretty you look.”

“I’m going to have pictures done at the wedding,” You tell him.

Alex shrugs not really caring as he starts wafting the polaroid of you before leaving it on the side to develop, “Yeah well one now won’t hurt.”

“Go on,” Matty nods at Alex towards you, “Get in one with her.”

“You not want one?” Alex offers first.

“I’ll get plenty on Friday,” Matty smiles before taking the camera off Alex.

Alex shreds off his leather jacket to reveal a black button up which goes nicely with his blue jeans. You tell him that he looks nice as he stands beside you and he smiles a thank you at you before his arm goes around your waist so the both of you can smile for the picture.

Matty takes that one and when Alex claims it as his own you make him get in another one with you. You end up doing a sillier one this time where you’re both smiling but you’ve both thrown the peace signs up too.

Matty chuckles as he takes it and as soon as it's popped out, he takes it and goes to inspect the other ones on the side that should already be developed. As he does that though you head back to your room, but in your doorway you quickly get Alex’s attention again and get him to unzip your dress.

His breath catches in his throat when he sees your bare skin come into his view, but when the zip stops at the small of your back Alex composes himself when you turn back around towards him to thank him. He gives you another smile and quietly tells you once again that you're beautiful in a way that always makes your heart beat faster.

You smile gratefully at him before you retreat to change once more. You let the two men chat amongst themselves as you elect to change into your comfy clothes this time.

Once ready, you step back into the room with your white dress bag over your shoulder and your suitcase in your other hand. You decided that you wanted to pack the clothes you wanted to wear earlier.

You’re just in your joggers and an old hoodie now.

“You baffle me,” Alex says when he looks at you and Matty is thinking the exact same thing.

You look at them both confused as you stop walking just in front of them. Matty decides to inform you what they’re both thinking.

“How can you still be just as pretty when you change into that?” Matty asks and he sees you go all shy on him which makes him grin.

And if you’re reacting like that to him, Matty knows exactly what that means.

So instantly Matty knows that seeing you dressed like you just were all day was going to be difficult.

Friday was going to be a very long day for him, probably a very hard one too.

~*~*~*~

The week you were back in Manchester you felt like you didn’t get any time with your cousin or his friends. Your Mum and your Aunt were preoccupying you all the time and by Thursday you’d had enough of it.

All you wanted to do was go out with your mates to the skatepark to try and warm yourself up in the cold weather and then come home and order a takeout whilst snuggled up under a blanket.

But no.

You were being pampered left, right, and centre and you hated it. In the week leading up to the wedding, you, your mum, your aunt and her best friend were out being dolled up the entire week.

And they made a full day of each single thing that you had to which you were certain you could have managed to squeeze it all into one day. But no.

Monday, you had your hair trimmed and practice styled. Tuesday, you had to go and get your practice makeup done. Wednesday, you all went and got your nails done, so there was definitely no skateboarding in the picture now. And Thursday, you and the bridesmaids pampered your aunt all day.

So whilst you loved being in Manchester, you did miss your usual activities as all you wanted to do was sit down with Adam, Matty, George, and Ross and watch a film. But no, after your days filled with gossiping with your family you came home to them and practically fell asleep within five minutes of resting.

You intended to stay at Matty’s one night just to catch up with him, not to pursue anything sexual, but as soon as you sat down on the settee back at Adam’s you fell asleep. You woke up the following morning in your bedroom with a text from Matty saying:

Get some more sleep Sweetheart x I’ll see you tomorrow xx

And another from about ten minutes before you woke up saying,

Let me know when you’re up and I’ll sneak you out so we can go and get a Maccies breakfast xx

Matty informed you in the car on the way to McDonald's that after sitting next to him on the settee your head had slowly fallen to his shoulder where you passed out completely and Matty wasn’t one to deprive you of anything, especially your sleep. He knew how grouchy you could be if you didn’t get enough of it.

George had apparently carried you up to bed and Matty stuck around for a few hours just in case you woke up, but you were out like a light. Waking up to those texts was really cute though and you really enjoyed your secret breakfast with him.

When Friday came around you were actually quite excited because you knew you’d actually get to spend most of the day with some of your closest friends. You loved your Mum and Aunt to death but it had been overkill the past week.

Getting your nails done for the wedding you admit was fun whilst it was being done and for about a day afterwards but after a while the red acrylics started to get on your nerves. You found it more difficult to hold a pencil or your paintbrush so when you tried to be creative you had to hold back from adding the finer details of your work. The last thing you’d want is to ruin it.

But, it's your Aunt and Uncle's wedding. They are practically your adopted Mum and Dad so you can let this one slide. You’re not meant to be focussing on anything but the wedding anyway.

When Friday finally hits, you get yourself up ridiculously early to prepare yourself for the day. After waking up at 5:30 the first thing you did was shave your legs, making sure you didn’t miss a spot the day they were going to be on show.

It’s been cold and rainy a lot this summer and you didn’t have a boyfriend so you just thought fuck it and you hadn’t shaved them in a long while. It was a miracle you’d shaved them the night before Alex and Matty made you try the dress on last week and you’d only done that because you wanted to make sure it still fit you and you wanted to feel good whilst you were in it.

By 6 you’d eaten your breakfast and prepared everyone else's. You girls had your Aunt and Uncle's house to yourselves last night, as you’d all shipped the lads somewhere else for the night.

Thankfully though, you’re getting your makeup and hair done first because you're going to be the first out of the house. You're the flower girl so you should have been going with the bridal party but your Aunt didn’t trust her soon to be husband or her son to get there on time to see guests in so she was sending you to them to make sure they left on time.

So as soon as all the girls were ready and the photographer got pictures of you with your Aunt and your Mum, you were on your way. It's a little chilly outside but it’s nothing you can’t handle and it's still fairly early so the sun hasn't fully risen yet.

You get a taxi to meet the boys and you're pleasantly surprised to find everyone there and pretty much ready to go. Your Uncle is in his suit, his best mate (and best man) seems to have taken control and got everyone ready.

Your Uncle looks amazing in his dapper suit. It’s a black suit with a white shirt and black waistcoat and there’s a red rose pinned to his blazer obviously to match the wedding flowers and colours of the bridesmaids.

The best man's suit is fairly similar and so is Adam’s as the page boy. Your Uncle tells you that you look fantastic and he quietly says that he wishes your dad could see how beautiful you are today, something which makes your heart a little heavy but you keep yourself smiling and you give him a hug.

After making sure the adults are all good and ready to go, you move along to your friends. Your Aunt and Uncle had obviously invited the other three boys to their wedding because they practically lived in the Hann Household.

The day just wouldn’t be the same without them.

You go into the back room and find them all sitting there. Adam in his black suit with a white shirt, Ross in a navy suit and white shirt, George in a black suit and a black shirt, and your Curly is dressed in a grey suit and a black shirt.

Except his hair isn’t curly today which makes you pout. He’s gelled it back so it’s smooth and completely out of his face.

“Where’s your hair gone?” You ask, looking at Matty when you walk into the room a little more.

That‘s when everyone notices you, and just like the first time Matty saw you in that dress, he finds himself lost for words again today. You look absolutely stunning.

Your hair is down and loosely curled and it falls to just under your boobs, which also look really nice today. Your long legs are once again on show today and they somehow look better than they did the other day.

Your makeup has been done professionally today though and Matty thinks it just adds to you looking gorgeous. You have a slight winged eyeliner that’s smoked out at the end, but you have a shimmer on your lids that Matty can see whenever you blink.

And holy fuck. Your lipstick.

It’s a matte blood red that matches your dress perfectly. It draws Matty’s gaze to you and it’s almost hypnotic.

He never wants to look away. It’s as if you’ve made a television with your mouth that’s playing a film that had been perfectly created to Matty’s liking. He’d watch your lips like he was watching True Romance, his favourite film to watch with you.

“Fuck me Y/N, you look fit as fuck,” George says with his jaw practically agape, causing you to let out a loud laugh, which brings Matty out of his daze.

“You look very handsome Georgie,” You say before taking the seat between him and Matty.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a dress before,” Ross says and you nod.

You chuckle a little, “You and me both.”

“Think you should wear them more often,” Matty says, sending you a cheeky glance whilst eyeing the end of the material that lies a little higher up your thigh when you’re sat down, showing off more of your gorgeous skin.

“Ha, you would,” You giggle, shaking your head a little.

“Bro,” You say, getting Adam’s attention and he looks round at you with raised eyebrows. “Where’s your rose?”

“Shit,” Adam says, getting up, “Left it upstairs, thanks B.”

You shake your head, feeling like a mother and you double check that the lads have everything with them like their wallets and car keys so you can all get to the church and then to the outskirts of Cheshire, where the hotel is located for the reception.

After another ten minutes, you’re getting conscious of the time and you feel the need to start getting everyone moving, knowing everyone would get a flap on soon and start rushing around. But today, you just want everything to be perfect and getting there early is definitely going to be the way to ease those nerves for you.

“Right, come on everyone. Time to go to the church,” You clap your hands twice as you stand up and you usher everyone up.

After five minutes of everyone scattering, you’d get the groom and the best man in the car and they’re off to the church. The boys lag behind a little but they have cars to take themselves so it isn’t that big of a deal.

But soon enough it’s you locking up the best man’s house and Matty standing in the hall waiting for you as the others are waiting in the car. Matty obviously keeps the front door closed as it’s October and still chilly despite the weather forecast saying it was going to be getting warmer later in the day.

You double check the guys haven’t missed anything and you’re pleased to see they haven't, so you made your way to the front door.

Matty’s watching you and he can tell straight away that you’re living in your head. As if you’re talking to yourself, silently running through a checklist like the organised person you are.

But knowing you, you’d scorn yourself for not enjoying the day like you’re meant to. So Matty elects to bring you out of your head.

He calls, “Wheels.”

You look up at him then and it seems to snap you out of your thoughts. Matty is about to tell you to relax but you seem to have diverted your thoughts before he has a chance too.  

“Hey, we match,” You grin, looking down at Matty’s tie.

You walk to him and run your fingers over the blood red material. You smile seeing it’s literally the exact same shade as your lipstick and your dress.

“We do,” Matty smiles at the feeling of your hand on his chest. But he can't bring himself to look at it as he’s still mesmerised by your pretty face, “Got to love a coincidence.”

“We love a happy accident,” You grin looking into his brown eyes.

Matty chuckles and pulls you into a hug saying, “Alright Bob Ross.”

You hug him back as you giggle at his joke. You’d made the guys watch Bob Ross with you many times and ‘happy accident’ was one of the phrases he liked to use and the guys liked to make fun of.

“You look stunning, Sweetheart,” Matty half whispers as if it’s a secret that he only wants you to know.

He’d happily scream it from the rooftops though.

“Thank you,” You grin, tucking your hair behind your ear as you tell him, “You look very dapper yourself, even with your hair gelled back.”

Matty laughs a little before saying, “Thanks gorgeous.”

“Come on,” You pat his chest. “We’ve gotta go.”

Matty nods then and the both of you make sure the latch is on the door, ensuring it’d lock behind the both of you. After setting the alarm, you both get outside and see that all the cars except for Matty’s Mums (that he was borrowing to get him to the church today) are all gone.

It seems that you’d both been taking too long and the other boys went in Adam’s car.

“Oh,” You say, looking at the practically empty drive. You turn to Matty and grin, “Well, I guess I'm going with you.”

~*~*~*~

Thankfully everything goes very smoothly when you get to the church. You babysit your Uncle and the best man at the door whilst they play very good hosts to the guests starting to filter in.

You also keep an eye on the boys sitting in the front of the church and make sure they aren’t messing around. You know what they’re like, but thankfully they are keeping on their best behaviour.

However, the cheekier lot of the bunch is doing everything in his power to tease you. After you walk down the aisle, dropping petals to the floor just before the beautiful bride herself walks down, you sit yourself down next to Adam, in front of the other boys who are sitting behind you.

You’re on the end of the row near the wall and you know Matty is directly behind you. Your hair must have fallen over the back of the wooden bench when you sat down because you  can feel him twisting it around his fingers. It’s nice at first once you realise what’s happening and that it isn’t a spider crawling on you.

But during the boring bits of the ceremony you can feel him doing things like halfheartedly plaiting your hair, before then tugging the strands free so they aren’t in a plait anymore. The only time he stops is when you turn to stand up to sing the hymn and you turn around and give him a knowing look.

Matty just playfully grins at you and you can tell he’s biting his tongue, trying not to laugh. But when you turn, you see that the other lads next to him must have been watching him too as the boys are also on the verge of bursting out laughing.

You want to laugh at that point then too but you just need to make it though the wedding itself and the rest of the day can be spent messing about. So when you sit back down after the song, you bring your hair over your shoulder so it all falls on one side of your chest.

You think he would have stopped with his teasing but apparently not. Matty instead must have been sitting forwards because you can feel his hot breath on the back of your neck.

And the sensation drives you insane.

You can feel him on you yet you never actually feel him. You know he’s right there but not doing anything and that’s somehow worse.

This being because you aren’t sure he knows what he’s doing. He used to linger behind your neck before pressing a kiss to it.

So this is torture for you. And to make it worse, the other lads won’t even know he’s doing it.

After all, he’s just breathing.

But you know it’s not just breathing. He’s teasing you, and he’ll know you like it.

The teasing doesn’t end after the ceremony either as you all end up in the back of Adam’s car after Matty drops his back off at his house. The five of you are going to be entitled to the free bar tonight which is lovely of your Aunt and Uncle to offer, so Tim had offered to pick up the lads who aren’t staying at the hotel.

George has the excuse of being in the passenger seat of Adam’s car because he’s the tallest. So that means that you, Ross and Matty have to squeeze into the back of Adam’s tiny Vauxhall Corsa.

Matty being the skinny bastard he is, goes in the middle with you and Ross on either side of him. It’s still a tight squeeze for the three of you but you make it work.

That didn’t stop Matty from being a little tease though. If anything, the close proximity adds to it.

Because he doesn’t have any arm room, he elects to rest the arm that’s closest to you down on your knee. And whilst you think nothing of it, as it’s more soothing to you than anything, it still makes you feel hyper aware that he’s there.

At one point during the journey, you get really uncomfortable so you turn towards Matty a little letting your knee rest over his and you put your head down on his shoulder too. You’re essentially curled up against him and you want to rest your eyes for the rest of the drive.

This obviously causes your dress to rise up your leg an inch or two more so you truly aren’t that surprised when Matty places his hand on your thigh after about five minutes. However, there was no way you’re getting to sleep with his fingertips slowly moving up and down your leg.

And Matty continues to have you on edge when you all get to the hotel. He stands with you whilst waiting for pictures and whilst you all get drinks, but his arm is around your waist with his hand resting a little lower on your back than it should be.

The pictures that you get together and with the rest of the family are so cute, and you like that Matty keeps you close at all times. You all make full use of the photographer and get pictures of the five of you.

You and Adam get one, as instructed to by your Mum and your Aunt. But Matty requests one with just you and you end up getting a few together.

One of you standing with your arms around each other, one of the both of you being silly and posing doing the peace sign, and another of you both laughing.

He doesn’t even let up his flirting when you all sit down for the meal. You’re sitting at a round table that’s opposite the bride and groom’s long table and you’re sitting between Matty and Adam.

Ross is next to Adam while George is next to Matty and your Mum is sat opposite you.

Matty flirts with you throughout the whole meal, sending you knowing looks, feeding you some of his food, and telling loads of jokes making both you and your Mum laugh. He’s a proper sweet talker, you can tell that your Mum loves him already.

You’d all been giggling along throughout the meal with your Mum telling her stories. She’d even told some of your childhood stories that you silently scorn her for.

Especially when she tells a story about how you’d had a childhood crush when you were about seven on one of your neighbours kids. Apparently he was about 19 and he had brown curly hair which Matty seems to find particularly hilarious.

Matty even slides his chair over to yours some more so he can tease you by taking the piss that you’d gone for him, saying you’ve had a type all along. Matty even goes as far to say that he’s your dream guy.

Of course you play back and shoot him down, not wanting his ego to get too big. You like seeing if he can take what he’s giving, and you’re pleased to see his cheeks go red when you give him some back.

The meal goes smoothly and before you know it the desserts are being served. You’d ordered chocolate cake and ice cream and you’re so excited for it, you haven’t stopped going on about looking forward to your dessert for the entire meal.

And when it arrives, you definitely seem to be enjoying it, despite claiming to be full from your main not too long ago.

Matty finishes his cheesecake within a few minutes; He then sheds off his grey waistcoat before reaching around to his blazer that’s hanging off the back of his chair and he pulls out his phone.

He’s on his phone for a few minutes until George takes his attention once more. Adam’s already got up after finishing his dessert and headed to his parents who were shouting him over.

Matty puts his phone down just between the two of you as he partakes in George and Ross’ conversation whilst your Mum is scorning you for struggling to finish your dessert. Matty silently laughs though, watching you power through the dessert, not letting it defeat you.

When Matty’s conversation with his friends turns into a loud spell of laughter, Matty turns back towards you a little. But as the brunette does that, his elbow knocks his phone to the floor.

After apologising to you, making sure it didn’t hit you as it bounced under the table, Matty ducks himself under the table to retrieve the device. He spots it not too far from your feet and he reaches for it.

But when he brings his hand back, Matty brushes the smooth skin on your leg when he pulls his phone back up from the floor. Matty notes that he’s made you jump so he genuinely apologises, “Sorry Wheels.”

You remove the spoon from your mouth and swallow the ice cream before saying, “It’s alright.”

But the way you said it made Matty second guess everything. It sounded encouraging, which he didn’t get because he didn’t set out to touch you.

Matty then read between the lines then and came to the conclusion that you were ‘alright’ with it because you wanted his hands on you. So he takes his chance a minute later and touches your leg again.

And you don’t jump at all this time when Matty’s little finger brushes the side of your leg, and because of that Matty gives you one more attempt to shy away from him when he lets his hand linger beside your leg. You surprise Matty after that though because you actually nudge your leg against his hand.

So Matty then doesn’t hesitate to rest his hand on your thigh and you don't hesitate to move slightly closer to him despite you still eating your dessert. Matty sneaks a glance at you then and he notices that your lips are now back to their normal colour as the food you’d eaten must have played a part in your lipstick coming off, along with the napkin you’d been using.

But in this moment your beautiful lips show your slight amusement at the situation you’re in. You’re sitting with Matty’s hand trailing the inside of your thigh in the back of the room and you feel like you’re on fire.

Especially when after a minute, he starts moving his hand up.

Your dress goes higher up your leg with every movement of his hand. And the thoughts of your dessert that’s still in front of you, become more distant.

You didn’t want to give into his teasing though. You want to eat your chocolate cake in peace, and then he can do whatever.

But you also want him to carry on. You like his adventurous, bordering on dangerous, nature.

You’ve never done anything as risky as this especially in such a formal setting. So you let him have his fun as you're trying to eat, even giving him more access to tease you.

Upon reaching the last piece of cake, you can’t bring yourself to eat it because Matty’s hand is brushing over your underwear and it makes your stomach drop. You know no one can see you because the circular table is in the corner of the room just opposite the bride and groom's.

Adam wasn’t at risk from seeing anything because his Mum and Dad had called him over to talk to them. George and Ross are too focused on their conversation, and Matty joins in every now and again, so no one suspects anything.

“Are you okay Y/N?” Your Mum pulls you out of your haze of thoughts about Matty’s fingers ever so slightly teasing you.

You’ve gone hot and you can feel it as you glance up from your cake that you’ve apparently been staring at for god knows how long. But you can’t look at Matty or your act would go straight out of the window.

“I don’t feel very good,” You say, swallowing down the feelings Matty was instilling in your body as he teases you over the thin material.

“I told you not to eat all the cake if you couldn’t handle it,” Your Mum chuckles over the table, “You never can.”

You give her a halfhearted smile, and chuckle, “Yeah.”

“You need a drink or anything Y/N? Some water?” Matty offers you in an innocent manner.

You look and can see the mischief in his eyes as he keeps the smirk off his face though. His fingers add a little more pressure as he teases you over the lacy material. He likes seeing your eyes go wide and he’s the cause of it.  

You rest your hand over his, trying to get him to stop moving his fingers which he thankfully slows them as you speak to your Mum. That didn’t stop him from moving his fingertips ever so slightly every ten seconds though.

Matty knows you didn’t want him to stop. You could have easily pushed his hand away in the position that you were in. But you didn’t.

You wanted him there. Teasing you.

He knows you want him just as much as he wants you. He can see it in your eyes.

“I’m good, thank you Matty,” You say a little shakily, but only your usually curly haired brunette picks up on that.

After another few minutes of torture, you can’t take it anymore. Your Mum keeps talking to you and you can’t deal with that whilst Matty’s hand is there.

“I’m going to be sick,” You lie to your mother across the table.

You push Matty’s hand away but cling to his shoulder when you stand, giving it a prominent squeeze as you get up silently telling him to follow you.

You rush out and your Mum looks at you with worried eyes. She goes to stand up but Matty quickly does so instead.

“I’ll make sure she’s okay, don’t worry. You see to your sister,” Matty tells your Mum as he puts his napkin down on the table, nodding towards your Aunt trying to get her sister's attention.

“Thank you Matty,” She smiles gratefully, “You’re a lifesaver.”

Unsuspecting to your Mum though, Matty aims to make sure you’re okay in an entirely different way.

Instead of holding your hair back in the toilet you brought him into, Matty is pulling on it to keep you trapped in a kiss. You feel like it has been forever since your tongue has met his.

So you’re savouring every moment with him. Matty excites you like no other person ever has done.

You can’t imagine letting any other person do to you what Matty had just done at the table. He’s cheeky and almost too confident for his own good and you love that about him.

Both of you know exactly where this is going at this point because as soon as you’re both in the posh empty bathroom, Matty locks the door behind him. He ushers you against the sink where you can sit and you don’t hesitate in doing so.

The cold surface underneath you probably would’ve made you jump if Matty wasn’t taking up all of your attention like he so easily does every time you’re in his presence. His lips are on yours, his hands roaming everywhere like he owns you.

And in this moment he practically does.

After a minute of getting off with him, Matty’s lips start trailing down your jaw and neck where he starts sucking and nipping on your skin. You give yourself a few seconds to enjoy that sensation again while your fingers are laced in Matty’s hair but you can’t let him continue.

“No,” You breath heavily pulling on the back of his hair. “No marks on my neck or my chest. No.”

Yes, you love it but you can’t deal with trying to hide them today. Especially when you’ve already been pictured without them.

If you were found with them later, you’d never live it down.

“Okay,” Matty says, kissing his way down your chest before he drops to his knees so he's at the perfect height to go down on you.

You breathe out a, “Matty,” but it sounds to him as more of a scorn than it did a pleasured moan. He’s kissing up your legs when you protest again but he has an answer for everything.

“No one but me is going to see the inside of your thighs, Sweetheart,” Matty says before his head completely disappears under the skirt of your dress.

As he kisses your thighs he also tugs on your underwear which Matty can see is lacy and red. Once you lift yourself up a little for him to pry them off easily, you watch as he pockets them as you feel his lips get closer and closer to where you want them.

“Matty,” He hears you moan quietly, obviously trying to encourage him but also control your volume.

He really wants to carry on teasing you, but again, who’s he to deny you whatever you desire?

You have to bite your tongue to stop the loud moans you want to let out as Matty starts going down on you. Your fingers are pulling tightly on his gelled hair as he does so, needing something to hold onto whilst he doesn’t let up on the pleasure he’s building inside you.

You soon realise that you aren’t after the foreplay today though. He’s works you up enough by being a tease all fucking day.

“Matty, I need you now,” You tell him and you're thankful that a few seconds later he gets up off his knees.

Your hands immediately go to his shirt, pulling it out of his pants as his lips attack yours once again. You both can’t help but moan against the others lips and Matty’s get a little louder when you make quick work of the clothes on the lower half of his body.

Before you know it, Matty’s pants are around his ankles and he’s tearing open a condom with his teeth that he quickly retrieved from his wallet. You tease him a little, your hand working him up as if he wasn’t already hard.

It seems like you both aren’t in the mood for teasing today though because as soon as the condom’s on, no more time is wasted. You want him inside you as much as he wants to be there.

An effort is made for you to both keep as quiet as you can. So it’s just the sound of your skin hitting together that fills your ears in the posh bathroom. Filthy sounds really, but it just turns the both of you on even more.

Your lips rarely part so you both feel each other's moans on your tongues as you kiss. Although, sometimes this is hard because the pace had been set pretty fast and Matty isn’t messing about.

Your dress is bunched up high around your waist with Matty holding it at the back, making sure it doesn’t go in the sink behind you. Your legs are locked around him meaning that each thrust he gives you is sharp and deep, so it hits that spot inside you over and over again.

The porcelain basin behind you is pressing into your back harder with each thrust of Matty’s and somehow that adds to it because you’re pressed against him. You truly feel like you’re just made for each other, he just feels so good and everything about him in general just makes you feel like you never have before.

Each thrust from him is feeling better than the last, meaning that you don’t give a fuck about the porcelain digging into your lower back. You confirm in your mind that it’s definitely adding to the whole thing because you couldn’t move backwards, especially with your legs wrapped around him too.

When you reach your orgasm, you’re thankful that you have Matty’s lips on your own to muffle the moan that spills from your lips. Your lips also contain his groan upon feeling you clench around him until he finds his own release.

Your legs are still shaking around Matty’s waist when he finally stops thrusting. You cling to him to try and get your mind to come back around to you. It'd been a long time since an orgasm left you like that.

He’s actually mind blowing, because all you can do is rest your forehead against his shoulder as you return back to a normal headspace.

“Sweetheart, breathe,” Matty says softly, kissing the side of your head.

You hadn’t realised you’d stopped doing so. When you lift your head back up to look at the brunette you see that he looks just as fucked as you probably do.

Only when you stop shaking does Matty pull out of you. You sit on the side for a moment longer, your skirt falling back down covering you, as you watch Matty dispose of the condom and make himself presentable again.

After a few seconds, Matty comes back over to you and takes your hand, encouraging you to get to find your feet once more. Thankfully you’re steady on them when you do, or you are when you’re not moving in these heels.

“Fuck Sweetheart, you look so fucking good right now,” Matty grins taking a step back looking at you, your gaze still a bit fucked out and Matty likes knowing he’s the cause of it.

Your gaze runs down his body and you find him so sexy in today's attire that you don’t even hesitate to say, “So do you.”

You step into his arms again and get another kiss. A little sigh falls from Matty’s lips at you being in his arms one again and he feels you hum against his lips.

When you pull away, you stay close to him and ask, “Are you going to stop teasing me now?”

Matty smirks, “You don’t want me to do that.”

He knows you far too well.

“No I don’t,” You grin, telling him what you know he wants to hear.

However, you get a little serious when you say, “But you can’t do everything again because we can’t do this again today.”

Your instructions are a little somber as your hands run through his hair, sorting out the mess you'd made. You smooth back all his hair and Matty savours the feeling of you being so close.

“I know,” Matty gives you a sad little smile but you were both painfully aware of where you are.

Escaping for a quickie in the bathroom was only possible because you made a good actress and could lie like it was second nature. You knew you’d have to act when you went back out as well, but you weren’t thinking about that right now.

You’re thinking about the once again mindblowing sex you’d just had with the boy that made your heart beat faster. The boy that looks at you like you’re the only girl in the world and the warm feeling that fills your chest is like something you’ve not experienced in a long time.

“How are you so good every time?” You ask a little breathlessly as you wrap your arms around his neck, wanting him close.

Matty chuckles a little at your confession before suggesting, “I think it’s just how we work, Sweetheart. You blow my mind.”

Matty’s lips find yours once again and he kisses you sweetly. It's soft and simple and serves the purpose as you both smile into it.

You pull away from him for a minute knowing you need to head back out to everyone else soon though. And when you tell him that, Matty takes your hand and tries to lead you towards the door.

You pull him back to you though.

“Are you okay?” Matty asks as he turns back to you, holding you a little tighter seeing you shakily take the step towards him to stop him from leaving.

“I’m trying to walk in heels about a minute after an orgasm, Matty,” You tell him. “I can barely stand up straight.”

He grins at you then, “You need me to stay and escort you out?”

“No,” You shake your head, “I need you to give me my underwear back.”

“You’re no fun, Sweetheart,” Matty shakes his head a little, trying to suppress his smile.

You scoff a little then, stating, “We just fucked in the toilets at my Aunt's wedding. If that doesn’t class as fun, I don’t know what does.”

Matty grins at you then before reaching into his pocket and retrieving the red lace.

“Thank you,” You say, taking them from him before you turn to head to the closest of the empty cubicles.

“I’ll wait outside for you,” Matty tells you and you smile showing your gratitude.

At least him waiting outside would help persuade people that you are actually ill. Or to anyone who didn’t know you were ‘sick’ anyway, it wouldn’t look suspicious.

After making yourself presentable again, you make your way out to Matty. You find him not too far from the doors and he lets you link his arm as you walk back towards the function room door.

“Are you sure you can walk?” Matty teases.

“Matty, I’m fine,” You chuckle, “Now watch me win an Oscar.”

Going back inside Matty thinks you play the role very well. If he hadn't just been with you, he’d have believed you’d just been sick as well.

You’re really good at acting. You even went as far as to ask your Mum for yours and Adam’s room key so you could brush your teeth. (Yes your annoying family had made you share a room with your cousin, that was the reason you didn’t fuck Matty upstairs).

You disappear out of the room for about ten minutes when you go to ‘brush your teeth’ and the way your Mum and Aunt fawn over you when you come back makes Matty chuckle. You have to nudge him at one point to make him stop.

But soon enough, the lies cease and the day moves on. It’s time for the speeches.

Yours and Adam’s Grandad start the speeches off as he’s of course the father of the bride. He tells a lot of funny and embarrassing stories about your mum and your aunt growing up and they make you laugh as you don’t know some of them yourself.

Even when your grandma steals the microphone for a minute to wish her daughter all the luck in the world, it makes you giggle. As if your Aunt hadn’t been with your Uncle since way before they had Adam 21 years ago.

The speeches then move along to the grooms and your Uncle is doing an excellent job of making everyone laugh, as he’s a really funny guy. Your Uncle is one of your favourite people on the planet, you hope he’d walk you down your own aisle one day as he had been the father figure for most of your life.

Your Uncle has made everyone laugh, he embarrassed your Aunt which was really funny to see. She was always the cool one and doing the same to him, so he was definitely getting his own back now.

The only thing left to do was make people cry. And he was succeeding.

“There’s unfortunately a couple of important people missing here today,” Your Uncle says and you know what’s about to come, and you aren't entirely sure you’re ready for it.

“And those people are the ones who should be here the most,” Your Uncle smiles down at his wife and she takes his hand and you see her thumb caress his skin which seems to help him carry on.

“I know me and my lovely wife would love nothing more than our brother-in-law to be here with us today... He was truly one of the best... The best friend I could have ever asked for and he was taken from all of us, especially his lovely wife and daughter, far too soon,” Your uncle continues and a ball quickly forms in your throat.

You smile at your Uncle and then glance to your Mum and see that her eyes have welled up which subsequently makes yours do the same. As you offer your Mum a smile, which she returns, you feel someone take your hand.

And when you follow the action, your hand lies in a certain curly haired brunette's, and he offers you the warmest smile which you didn’t know you needed until right now.

When you reached your early teens, you finally understood what experiences you’d missed out on because your dad had passed away when you were five. You’d learned to get your emotions out when you needed to and you learned to keep them at bay for your Mum’s sake.

So, it wasn’t often anymore that you thought about your Dad and got emotional, but when you did think of him and you’re surrounded by family, it did upset you.

You always felt like there was a missing piece, and today was one of those days. So when Matty offered you that support you took it and squeezed his hand back.

When you glance back at your Uncle he smiles at you and you blow him a kiss which he seems to appreciate. He continues to talk about your dad a little bit, saying he was in the room with everyone now and your Uncle says some really lovely things about him missing out being able to dance with you looking beautiful today, which makes you tear up but you promised your Uncle that he could dance with you.

You do have to wipe away a few stray tears after that moment, all while Matty is there to comfort you and you also feel Adam’s hand on your shoulder letting you know he’s there for you too. You really appreciated everything that your Uncle has said about your Dad and whilst he was speaking you lace your fingers with Matty for that extra comfort that you crave.

The speech moves on past the section that involved your Dad and you listen to your Uncle's anecdotes about when he met your Aunt and your Mum. The stories are really funny and the speech is amazing.

Matty’s hand never leaves yours throughout it all, unlike Adam’s eventually left your back, which you’re thankful to Matty for. He keeps his thumb moving across your skin and you’re so grateful for that.

Every so often he gives your hand a squeeze which you know is a silent ‘are you okay?’ and each time you give him a longer squeeze back confirming that you are.

By the end of the speech, your hand is in his lap and Matty’s other hand is on top of your clasped ones, again tracing soothing patterns onto your skin. When the time comes to clap you don’t let go of his hand either.

Both you and Matty elect to clap one handed on your thighs and during the clap your Uncle smiles at you and you stop clapping to blow him a kiss.

Before Matty can ask if you’re okay the Best Man’s speech starts which is actually hilarious. However, your heart feels heavy so your hand stays in Matty’s until that speech finishes too.

“You okay?” Matty asks in a quiet voice.

“Yeah,” You smile, giving his hand a squeeze, “Thank you.”

Matty just smiles at you then before his other hand comes up to your face and he tells you to look up which you do. His hand is on your cheek as his thumb runs underneath your eye.

Your suspicions of what he was doing were confirmed when he explains, “Your mascara smudged a little.”

You chuckle then just thinking he’s the cutest person in the entire world. You quickly cup his face in your other hand and pull him in for a quick kiss which Matty returns with a little smile on his lips.

“Thank you,” You say, giving his hand another squeeze before you both have to stand up and head out of the room.

The herd of people head out of the room so the staff can clear up and set the room up for the evening’s festivities.

You’re then whisked away from your new safety harness and roped into more photos with your family. After about half an hour of having pictures and waiting for them to need you, you finally escape back to your boys.

Matty makes sure you’re okay again and he gets you another amaretto like you’d been drinking all afternoon. You thank him and you stick with your boys until the room is prepared for the evening party and you are all called back in.

You all watch as the bride and groom dance along to a cheesy love song that you know your Aunt loves and you think she looked gorgeous dressed in white. She’s truly so beautiful and you can see a lot of your Mum in her.

It makes you think how beautiful your Mum and Dad would have been on their wedding day. Of course you’d seen pictures of the occasion, but this moment you were witnessing now just makes you think of how your Mum and Dad would have danced.

You wish you were there to see it but that wasn’t the case. You came along almost exactly nine months later.

There is dancing for a little while that you don’t really want to take part in so you sit down and joke around with your boys for a good hour before George suggests heading outside to the grand patio area that the hotel had and getting high.

Of course, no one objected to this. In fact, you’re the first up.

Adam gets lost in the crowd on the way out but when he shows back up again, not too long later he’s pleading with Matty to save some because apparently your Aunt caught you all through the window and drunkenly wants some for herself. This revelation makes you giggle as you don’t really believe it.

You just think Adam wants some for himself.

However it turns out to be true because Adam comes back after a minute, saying that you can’t not save some because his Mum is threatening him to cry on her wedding day.

Matty still doesn’t seem to believe him though as the both of you are just sharing it.

But your cousin doesn’t stop going on about it for the next five minutes and it gets to the point were Matty snaps, “Hann fuck off... I only brought three and me and Wheels are having one. George stole one, and me and Wheels are having the other one later.”

The death stare your cousin sends him then is a little scary, even for your standards.

“What are you looking at me like that for?” Matty doesn’t back down, taking another drag, “I didn’t expect your Mum to wanna get high on her wedding day.”

Adam throws back, “Well you don’t have to be selfish and have two.”

You try not to laugh as you take the spliff from Matty and bring it to your lips once more. You like the way it makes you relax and you’re slightly happy Matty is defending your other one for later.

“Hann,” Matty says, trying to bite back his annoyed tone, “We’re gunna have to ask about, considering I’m the only one who thought to bring the weed.”

You leave the squabbling boys to themselves though when you spot your Aunt wondering outside through the door a bit further down from the one you. You call her over to you and you walk towards the table not too far from the boys to sit with her.

“Hey,” You giggle, watching her take a seat, “Did you want to just have a drag or get super high?”

“Just a drag,” Your Aunt giggles up at you. “Takes me back to when your Mum used to bring some home with her and we’d sneak it away from your Grandma and get high in the car.”

You let out a loud laugh at that knowing that is what Adam and the boys do a lot of the time. You let her have a drag of the spliff as you turn to your cousin and giggle, “Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree Hann.”

The bride offers you the spliff back and once it’s trapped between your fingers you think it through, knowing there’s only about two drags left. You don't want fights about it but you also want to be generous to your Aunt.

“You can have the end of this,” You say to your Aunt, bringing the spliff closer to your lips, but your grin at Matty as you say it, despite him standing a few meters away from you.

Looking back at your Aunt you tell her, “I’ll share my last drag,” before taking it and holding your breath, before handing it over.

She grins up at you and quietly scorns, “Will you just get with the poor boy already? His eyes haven’t left you all day.”

If only she knew.

You just grin at her and shake your head warningly, silently telling her to ‘shut up’. You love your Aunt to pieces but you don’t want or feel the need to overthink things like that when you are around Matty.

You make your way over to him and grin. You point to your mouth so he knows what you're up to and when his lips move down to yours he takes his shotgun kiss.

Soon enough though it just turns into a real kiss as his hands rest on your hips, pulling you into him a little more and your hands are resting on his chest. You should be surprised when he tries to deepen it, but you aren’t.

In fact, you encourage it until you remember that you reapplied your lipstick when you went upstairs earlier.

You pull back when he gets a little too into it, warning him, “Watch my lipstick.”

“So many rules, Sweetheart,” Matty grins, shaking his head a little.

But he doesn’t seem to care that much because he just pulls you further into him and kisses your lips once more. Matty savours the feeling, as he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to get enough of you. When he pulls away, he makes you laugh.

“How do you still taste like chocolate when we’ve had a spliff?” Matty questions completely baffled by you.

It was all he could taste earlier when you were both in the bathroom.

Chocolate. Chocolate. Chocolate.

And now that taste was confusing him with the smell of the weed too. It was sort of morphing into the same thing.  

You just giggle, ignore the question and attach your lips to his once more.  

~*~*~*~

“Dance with me?” Matty asks you when you’re both standing in the room with the dancefloor watching the couples, including your Aunt and Uncle, slow dancing.

Your eyes go a little wide at Matty’s question, “I don’t know how to dance.”

“Neither do I, but we’ll figure it out,” Matty grins, grabbing your hand and pulling you to him.

He moves you onto the dancefloor and he holds your hip and your hand like a ballroom dancer and rests your other hand on his shoulder.

You slowly dance to the acoustic version of James Blunt’s 1973 which you find quite cute because of how close the year is to his band name. But maybe you just find that amusing because of how many drinks you’d had.

You definitely wouldn’t have agreed to dance with anyone sober. But you’re entitled to the free bar and so was Matty.

It’s past 9 p.m. now and he’d split more of your amaretto than you would ever usually allow when you were paying for your own drinks. But you’d definitely drunk a lot more than he’d spilled, meaning that you would’ve been very easily persuaded to dance, even if it wasn’t the boy who you may or may not have had a crush on who asked you.

You dance close to each other, to the point where there is no room between you. You’re just clutching each other, loving the intimate moment and you don’t even feel the need to speak as the song plays.

You just sway together and you try to remember every little second of this. You like dancing in Matty’s arms. You like him holding you close like you’re his.

Truthfully you don’t want the moment to end. You like feeling the little kisses he places on your neck and you find that your whole body tingles when he compliments you.

“You look stunning,” He whispers in your ear.  

You can't contain your grin so you’re thankful that your cheek is pressed against his and he can’t see it. You compliment him back, “You look really good too.”

And he truly does. His black shirt had long been untucked from his grey pants now and the loose red tie with the buttons undone just makes him even more attractive to you. The hair starting to fall a little even does it for you too.

“But you honestly just look...  Wow,” Matty says, not being able to find a better word.

You grin and whisper a, “Thank you,” as the song fades and a familiar one comes on.

You can’t help but ask your Curly a question then as it’s your favourite song.

I’m Yours by Jason Mraz.

“Did you ask for this song to be put on?” You grin, looking at him as you both start swaying a little bit faster to the new beat.

Matty grins back saying, “Maybe.”

“Did you learn it for me?” You ask curiously.

About two months ago, you asked him on the phone if he would learn it and play it for you at some point. This time you’d been in Manchester you hadn’t had any alone time so you weren’t sure if he had learnt it or not.

But of course, your Curly comes though, “I did.”

You can't hide the smile on your face at that point. You just dance and both softly sing along to the song. And every so often Matty kisses your neck before he carries on singing into your ear.

Yeah, the song is an older one, but you rediscovered it at the beginning of the year and you just love it so much. So for months, you’d been playing it on repeat in your headphones endlessly whilst you painted or created some other form of art.

As the post chorus comes along you feel Matty's lips on your neck again and you smile at the feeling as you carry on moving together to your favourite song.

The post chorus is your favourite bit because it feels like an intimate sort of moment that you were intruding on. So after the little skat that Mraz sings you can’t help but continue to sing just as loud.

“And I will nibble your ear,” You sing along with Jason Mraz, but as you do, you feel Matty do exactly that to you.

The giggle you let out then can’t be contained and Matty chuckles when he hears that beautiful sound. But at the end of the song, you’re both just swaying in a circle and singing the lyrics into the other’s ear.

It’s a beautiful moment. And what better way for it to end than with a kiss?

When Matty’s lips connect to yours, you both savour it until the next song starts. You’re about to begin swaying along to the new tune but your Uncle taps Matty on the shoulder asking if he could steal you away for a song.

Of course Matty agrees and he lets your Uncle dance with you. But every time you turn around, you catch Matty watching you dance with your Uncle, and you feel your cheeks go hot under his gaze.

God, you really were embodying the song that had just been on. All it took was for him to look at you and smile and your usual chilled out self became so hot that you thought you'd melt right through the cracks.

You really needed to get your grip back.

~*~*~*~

As the night gets later, you get drunker, which means that when the second spliff you and Matty are sharing is depleted, you start sharing your thoughts.

Your back is against the brick wall behind you and you have Matty’s blazer on keeping you warm. Matty is standing about a foot in front of you and he’s just caught you looking up at his hair.

“I prefer your hair curly,” You tell him as you watch him take the last drag, stubbing the rest out.

Matty grins, “Yeah?”

You nod, “Yeah... I miss my Curly.”

“I’ve not gone anywhere, Sweetheart,” Matty chuckles, stepping closer to you and pulling your body into his.

“No,” You shake your head, “I mean in general.”

You can tell he’s confused then but your drunk self elaborates and clears it up for him.  

“I miss our summers,” You start. “I miss coming to Manchester... I miss you showing me how to do tricks on my skateboard.”

Everything you’re saying is making his heart swell. But even more so when you finish off with, “I miss you flirting with me and calling me Wheels... I miss you a lot Matty.”

“You’ve got no idea how much I miss you Sweetheart,” Matty tells you, pulling you firmly against him and you just stand there gazing into each other's eyes.

Matty breaks the moment's silence by suggesting, “You should come back over and see us soon.”

“I want to,” You nod, “I’ll try and come up properly again next summer.”

“We could do so much,” Matty grins, nudging your nose playfully with his.

“Wanna do it all,” You giggle, wrapping your arms around his neck.

Matty asks with raised eyebrows, “You come to all of our gigs?”

“Of course,” You giggle, “Got to see The 1975 for the first time, haven’t I?”

“You do,” Matty says before pecking your lips once.  

“Did you keep any songs for this one?” You ask, knowing with every new band name they never kept any of the songs they made in that era and brought it to the next.

“We’re keeping Girls and Sex,” Matty tells you.

You feel blood rush to your cheeks then knowing the latter is about you. Matty grins seeing you look to the ground after that, as he never made it a secret that the song is about you. If anything he wanted you to know.

“Hey Y/N/N,” Your Mum calls from round the corner.

You and Matty separate from each other's embrace then, and you make your way to your Mum who is bound to introduce you to one of her new friends again. Unsurprisingly she does but at least this time her friend has a son who looks around your age that has come along to the event.

You’re pleasant with the guy and Matty watches in amusement with George, Ross, and Adam at you trying your best to make conversation. Your body language tells those who knew you best that you’re tired and you really can’t be arsed with the conversation.

And it just gets worse when both you and your Mum are encouraged to get in a picture with her friend and her son. The boys watch as you put on the worst fake smile they’ve ever seen but Matty takes note of the lad whose arm goes around you as politely moves closer to you for the picture.

The guy is smitten with you. Anyone could see it.

Especially Matty though. And he hates it.

Even more so when the guy pulls you to the bar and you get a drink with him. Matty hates you talking to him, hates seeing you genuinely smiling at the lad. Matty hates you clinking your glass with him, hates you doing a shot with him, and hates seeing you rest your hand on his arm when you genuinely laughed at whatever he’s saying.

But Matty’s just thankful that a few minutes later you come back over to him and his friends. Matty traps you against him, his arms snaking around your waist.

“How's your new friend?” George asks you teasingly.

You frown at him and ask, “Why are you saying it like that?”

“He was giving you the lips, Wheels,” Matty tells you as he kisses your neck a few times.

You pull a disgusted face then, definitely not wanting that boy to ‘give you the lips’. You lean back into Matty a little, taking a drag of the cigarette you just lit and relax into him.

“I’m good thanks,” You cringe. “His curls and his height are as good as he gets.”

Matty hadn’t missed that the guy was literally just a 6’ 3” version of himself. But a lot less good looking, if Matty did say so himself.

“I reckon you could knock him out if he came too close,” Matty whispers into your ear which causes you to let out a giggle.

The night draws on and you and Matty spend the majority of the night in each other's company. Not always at each other's sides but you both never stray too far away.

Matty had given you his blazer when it started going dark, which was around 7 p.m. as he didnt want you getting cold when you all went out for a smoke. You thought it was very cute of him and you liked his aftershave that seemed to linger on the material.

You like his smell. It reminds you of your second home, as you spent most of your time in his company the last few times you come to Manchester.

All too soon though, the evening begins to draw to a close. And that starts when you feel a buzzing in the blazer that you had on.

You find Matty’s phone to be the culprit and when you pull it out you see Dad flash up on his phone, along with the time of 02:43.

“Hi Tim,” You answer it knowing Matty won’t mind.

You love Tim and you haven’t spoken to him for ages. You really miss Matty's whole family though, especially Louis.

“Y/N, is that you?” Tim asks you and you smile hearing his jolly voice.

You tell him, “It is, Matty lent me his blazer and it had his phone in it.”

“Ah he’s a gooden, isn't he?” Tim chuckles down the line. After you agree with him, Tim asks, “How’s the tie change gone down?”

You're confused at that question, and you assume it’s just your drunken mind needing the question simplified, “What do you mean?”

“The red tie?” Tim tells you and you glance at Matty who’s in conversation with George just across the patio. “He had a grey one to match his suit originally but he’s not stopped all week about me needing to help him find a tie in a particular shade of red.”

“Oh,” You say, a little shocked by the information. A smile also makes its way to your face, remembering your conversation from this morning, when you mentioned that he matched you.

The thought that he’d done it intentionally makes your heart beat faster.

Matty turns around laughing at something George had said then and his eyes connect with yours, which in that moment makes your heart flutter and butterflies come to your stomach. You glance down at his tie that is now loose around the collar of his black shirt and you press your lips together before telling Tim, “Yeah, the tie looks really good.”

“Ah, that's good then,” Tim says in his geordie accent as your eyes connect with Matty’s once more and you smile at each other.

“Are you alright to tell him I’m going to set off now to pick them up? I’ll be about half an hour,” Tim asks you.

“Yeah, of course,” You nod, even though he couldn’t see you. “Do you want to speak to him?”

You start walking over to Matty then, a little slower than your usual pace because of the amount of alcohol you’d consumed and because your heels were beginning to hurt a little. Tim says down the phone, “Yeah alright, if he’s not too busy?”

“No, don’t worry,” You grin, “He’s right here.”

Matty tilts his head to the side a little then, seeing you approach him on the phone with a look in your eyes he can’t quite pinpoint. “I’ll see you soon Tim,” You smile and Matty understands it’s his dad then.

You say a final goodbye before you hand Matty his phone over and whilst he takes that from you, you trade it for his cigarette and listen to his end of the conversation whilst chatting a little to George.

Matty’s answers to his Dad are generic, nothing revealing about them, so there’s really no need to listen in. It sounds like he’s just thankful that his Dad is coming to pick him and the other boys up.

“Thanks Dad, see you later,” Matty says, “Bye.”

Matty hangs up the phone then and pulls you into his body, maybe craving the warmth as you’d stolen his blazer, or maybe craving you. Either way, you’re happy in the embrace you’re trapped in and you can’t really stop yourself from smiling as you finish chatting to George about his job.

You lean back into Matty’s chest whilst you’re finishing off his cigarette. After a second, his hands come around your waist and he pulls your blazer open a bit so he can put his phone back in the inside pocket.

You stay like that for a little while until your cousin is shouting you inside for some more pictures.

You roll your eyes knowing it’s getting closer to 3 a.m. now and you really don’t want to be having pictures taken at this time. However, this day is not about you, so you get up and leave Matty and George alone once again.

When the photos are finished you glance at the clock seeing that it’s 3 a.m. and you’re genuinely so tired. Both you and Adam head back outside to your friends then and see a group of all the youths of tonight around your age had formed where you left Matty and George earlier.

As the both of you walk over though, you see that the group had basically formed a small circle. You and Adam slot yourself in next to George, Matty is opposite you next to some guy he’d apparently not seen in years that he’d pointed out earlier.

Ross was only a couple of people away from him, still looking dapper like before but you can’t take your eyes away from Matty. Partly because he just looked amazing in that black shirt and his red tie with his hair now falling in his face a little bit.

But mostly because he so easily captured everyone’s attention with his mouth that never stops running. It was like he asked if anyone minded if he gave a speech, because everyone gives him their attention.

And right now he’s talking to an old friend of his about their ex.

“Nah mate, honestly I never really got on with your bird the first time I met her. She was dressed in nout when we were all out and she was telling everybody that she was shagging about,” Matty told the guy and you had to hand it to him, he had some balls saying that to someone he barely knew.

“But she turned out to be alright. Actually one of the more laidback lot of the bunch,” Matty finishes up with and the guy just laughs and you’re just glad you didn’t have to drag Matty away from a fist fight.

But a minute later something happens that you aren’t expecting. You watch a really pretty girl with red hair, that you’d noticed earlier in the day, subtly tuck herself under Matty’s arm.

You don't think anyone else noticed it because she was standing next to him anyway, but your eyes had rarely strayed away from Matty today so you noticed instantly. Even more so when his arm goes around her shoulder.

A pit forms in the bottom of your stomach then and you aren’t too sure why. But looking at the girl next to Matty stings in a way it never had before seeing him with someone else.

You didn’t even feel like this the first time you’d seen him with Lucy. It’s a strange feeling and you didn’t really like it so you just didn’t look towards them hoping the sensation would leave.

But the feeling didn’t go away, mostly because you can’t really take your eyes off them. You want to see exactly where her hands are on him, and the fact she’s clutching to his shirt makes you jealous.

You don’t want her touching him at all.

Jealousy really is a dirty feeling, you don’t like it, and the fact you’re feeling it this intensely makes you want to head up to bed so you don’t get more wound up. The girl who has the most stunning red hair keeps giggling and leaning herself into Matty and Matty chuckles along with her to the guy's jokes.

You didn’t even hear the joke because you’re just so concentrated on her. Her hair stands out against her black dress which just draws people in to look at her.

Her dress is also riskily short which obviously brings her a lot of attention but the fact that she’d drawn Matty’s hurt your heart a little. But he wasn’t yours, so you had to suck it up and deal with it.

After another minute, you look back and the girl and Matty are looking at each other and you know exactly what you’re about to witness. She wanted him, you can just tell.

You don’t know why you carry on looking when she goes for the kiss, but you do. There’s a little tug on your heart that you try to pretend that you don’t feel when her lips are about to connect to his.

But all of a sudden Matty does something you truly didn’t expect.

“Oh,” Matty says, pulling his head back from the girl about to kiss him, “Best not, I’ll probably yosh in your mouth.”

The girl pouts at him with her gorgeous face full of make up and asks him as if she's a doting girlfriend, “You not feeling well?”

Matty shakes his head and you hear him say as he detacts himself from her, putting a hand on his stomach, “Nah… It’s like five past three, I can hardly see, and I'm on the verge of passing out.”

“I’m going getting some water,” Matty tells the girl before he heads inside and you avert your gaze quickly before you’re caught looking.

You see the girl's disappointed face and you can’t help the smile that forms on your lips. You don’t think you’d been this pettily happy for a long time.

A few minutes later Matty shouts from the door, “Hann, my Dad’s here.”

Your little group parts ways from the others, knowing that it’s time to say bye. You and Adam are staying in the hotel with your parents and they had annoyingly put you and Adam in a twin room, but the rest of the lads were heading back into Wilmslow.

You all meet Matty at the door and after the boys say bye to your family, you and Adam head outside. As the lads say goodbye to Adam, you politely say hello to Tim and ask how the family is doing.

You also tell him that you can’t wait for the next season of Benidorm as you find the programme hilarious and the fact he’s in it makes it even better.

Soon enough though, Adam takes your spot with Tim and you say goodbye to your boys then. You savour their hugs, knowing you wouldn’t see them until Christmas again now.

George is the first you hug, and then Ross, leaving Matty till last. You shrug off his blazer and playfully help him get it back on before he traps you in a hug.

You bury your head into his neck, shamelessly inhaling his scent and you’re sure you get more drunk off that. After a long and tight squeeze goodbye you part from him, but Matty doesn’t let you get too far from him.

His arms stay around your waist and your brunette cheekily glances at your lips when he says, “Need one for the road Sweetheart.”

And just from the look on his face you could tell he wants another kiss. And you’re not getting out of this until he gets one.

“Thought you felt sick?” You ask him, not particularing wanting to kiss him if he’s going to throw up into your mouth.

You aren’t Alex, you can’t cope with that shit.

“No, not in the slightest,“ Matty shakes his head, smiling a little.

That confuses you.

You frown a little, “But the girl…You didn’t ki-“

“The girl wasn’t you,” Matty interrupts sincerely, tucking your hair behind your ear.

Your heart warms at him saying that and his beautiful brown eyes show he’s being completely serious. The way he’s looking at you makes your heart flutter.

The next second you're captured by his kiss. Your heart rate once again increases feeling his lips against yours and even more when his tongue finds yours.

Your hands travel up his body, one resting on his neck and the other lacing into his hair. Matty hums a little feeling your nails against his scalp before your fingers curl around his locks and pull on it.

Matty’s hand that’s resting on your hip goes completely around your back and pulls your body closer to his. His other still cupping your cheek, guiding you through the kiss.

Not that you need the guidance at this point. You’re sure you knew pretty much everything about him, especially that tongue of his.

That was one thing you definitely had in common.

You try to savour the feeling of him against you and his lips against yours because you don’t know when you’d feel it again. You’re a little worried you never would.

You don’t want to go back over to Manchester and find that he has a surprise girlfriend again. That may be selfish of you, but you really don’t.

When you both part from the kiss, you keep close to each other. Your faces are barely two inches apart.

“Please come and see us more often Sweetheart,” Matty pleads, not wanting to let go of your body.

Every time you’re standing in his arms he feels whole. Like you are made to be there.

“I will,” You nod in confirmation.

You really want to. You miss spending him in their company. In Matty’s company.

“Good,” Matty grins, with his thumb still caressing your cheek, “Because I’ll be coming over to Sheffield if you don’t.”

You grin up at him and lean into his palm a little, “I promise I'll ask the bride tomorrow if I can come and stay again next summer.”

Matty grins at you and pulls you in for a quick peck, and after he says, “I'll see you soon, Wheels.”

“See you soon, Curly.” You say before you kiss him once more.

This time you don’t care about your lipstick. You just need a kiss that’d satisfy you until you see him again.

And you really hope that would be sooner rather than later.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A/N: Really hope you enjoyed this! And if you fancy reading the full story that is a love triangle between Matty and Alex, the fic is Nothing Revealed In A Common Crisis and you can find it here and @nriacc! Thanks a million for reading, please let me know if you enjoyed it x

Taglist: @alovesreading @hazskillerqueen @multifandom-of-madness @conanbeshifting​ @thereisaplaceintheheart​ @jasmine06blog​ @kennedy-brooke​ @blancastans​ @luvrattyhealy @wendyspotatopeeler​

[heygerald]

As always, I adore your writing and am so excited to see a new chapter up (saving it for bedtime with a cup of tea <3) but I had an amazing idea I must share thinking about birthdays, particularly Parker’s. 

Tom has always had an element of wealth behind him, yes? But after meeting Parker his sense of sentimentality increased tenfold, and in wanting to represent his love for her he realises he doesn’t want to buy something, doesn’t want to only open his wallet for the woman who opened so much of his heart. As an actor he’s a creative agent, and automatically assumes that some level of that skill should translate to other creative pursuits. So, when he saunters past a little book binding workshop while walking Jean Claude, he immediately knows what to do for Parker’s birthday, and believes he has it in himself to excel. 

He attends in his most anonymous clothing possible (which may consist of one of Colt’s old jumpers left in Parker’s home), sunglasses sitting low on his nose despite the late afternoon sunset, and pulls out three copies of Parker’s favourite books, pilfered with the help of Melissa and some very poorly concealed questioning over morning yoga / reading. 

He’s absolutely horrendous at bookbinding.

Despite expert instructions, Tom finds his fingers thick with glue and tinged ultramarine from the leather dye. His ties are loose and stripped string litters his workstation, and he leaves with one shoddily bound novel and a heaping of frustration. 

Despite this, he’s back again next week. And the week after next. And again and again he attends, until he is able to shed his disguise and second skin to ask for a one-on-one lesson, to let the owner know love is what is driving him and this seemingly hopeless pursuit.

By the time Parker’s birthday rolls around, there’s on little rectangular gift somewhat misshapenly wrapped on her bedside table, along with her coffee perfectly made. Tom’s early call time stopped him from physically being there, but never emotionally. Never for her.

As Parker’s lithe fingers slide under the papered creases, pulling it free from tape and mystery, she’s greeted with a beautifully bound copy of Contact. It’s complete with skilful leather indents, gold leaf detailing, and a ribbon bookmark. When she flips open to the title page, a familiar coffee stain greets her, one Mrs Grobowski apologised for distant years ago, when she first bequeathed the box of books to Parker’s then humble shop. 

It’s the copy she passed onto Tom, back when his asshole facade was beginning to chip away. And as she cards through the pages, meeting frantic annotations and highlights and little doodles in the margins, the grin nearly splits her face in half. There are plentiful allusions to her own opinions, along with 12 (she counted) reminders to call her about this or that particular passage. Being able to hold such an important piece of their shared history maker her heart swell three times its size. 

It nearly stops when she gets to the back cover, where a yellow sticky note is crowded by her boyfriend’s familiar handwriting:

“Ask Parker to marry you.”

Stopstopstopstopstopstopstop—

This is quite literally too beautiful and cute and on brand and Parker/Tom and—UGH

❤️♥️❤️❤️❤️♥️♥️❤️♥️🩵💚💚🩵🩵💚 literally thank you so much for this talented headcannon it is so beautiful and makes me so happy my story can inspire this sort of stuff 💚❤️💚❤️🩵💚💚🩵🩵♥️

[apateau]

⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀‘⠀ 𝅾 ۡ ⠀ 𝐏 𝐈 𝐍 𝐊 ⠀ 𑁤 𝑟𝑖𝑑𝑒 🇴​͟🇷​⠀ 𝑑𝑖𝑒 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀𝑼𝑮𝑯 .ᐟ ⠀ 𝙰𝚂 𝙸𝙵 ⠀› ⠀ 𝚗𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚎 𓍼 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ᑦ ᴬ ᴹ ⠀ ㅤ̸ ⠀ 𝕟̵𝕖̵𝕨̵ 𝕪̵𝕠̵𝕣̵𝕜̵ .ᐣ ⠀ ⠀

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ✿ ᮫ basics ഒ stats ഒ analysis ഒ wanted c ഒ mobnav.

ㅤㅤ✿ ׄ name: merope eleutheria de valmont. ㅤㅤ✿ ׄ nickname: merry, rarely used, only by those close to her. ㅤㅤ✿ ׄ age: twenty two. ㅤㅤ✿ ׄ date of birth: january 1, 2002. ㅤㅤ✿ ׄ ethnicity: french-korean ㅤㅤ✿ ׄ place of birth: seoul, south korea. ㅤㅤ✿ ׄ gender & pronouns: cis woman, she/her. ㅤㅤ✿ ׄ sexual orientation: pansexual. ㅤㅤ✿ ׄ romantic orientation: demiromantic. ㅤㅤ✿ ׄ religion: agnostic. ㅤㅤ✿ ׄ occupation: senior music major, aspiring composer.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ✿ ̸ PERSONALITY

ㅤㅤ✿ ׄ labels: the eternal perfectionist, the porcelain enigma, moonlit muse. ㅤㅤ✿ ׄ positive traits: composed, articulate, perceptive, and fiercely devoted to her craft. ㅤㅤ✿ ׄ negative traits: emotionally repressed, self-critical, distant, and bound by the fear of imperfection. ㅤㅤ✿ ׄ fears: failure, vulnerability, and becoming too deeply known. ㅤㅤ✿ ׄ habits: taps her fingers in rhythm to songs in her mind; journals obsessively, filling pages with thoughts she’ll never speak; collects old, annotated sheet music like relics. ㅤㅤ✿ ׄ goals: to compose a piece that can express all the emotions she hides, to understand herself beyond her family’s expectations. ㅤㅤ✿ ׄ alignment: true neutral, guided more by self-preservation and a need to maintain her equilibrium.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ✿ ̸ HEADCANONS & AESTHETICS

ㅤㅤ✸ 𝑖 ֪ moonlight sonata plays softly in her dorm room as she writes, pages scattered around like echoes of thoughts she’ll never say aloud. ㅤㅤ✸ 𝑖 ֪ her silver-blonde hair is always meticulously brushed, each strand falling in place like the last note of a perfectly composed melody. ㅤㅤ✸ 𝑖 ֪ in love with the quiet spaces—empty libraries, midnight balconies, gardens at dawn; places where her thoughts can breathe. ㅤㅤ✸ 𝑖 ֪ feels a profound connection to the night; it’s the only time she allows her true self to slip past the barriers of expectation. ㅤㅤ✸ 𝑖 ֪ keeps old postcards from paris and seoul, weathered edges reminding her of the fragments of a life she’s tried to reconcile within herself. ㅤㅤ✸ 𝑖 ֪ perfume bottles and vintage jewellery inherited from her mother sit untouched in her room, pieces of a legacy that both weighs on and protects her. ㅤㅤ✸ 𝑖 ֪ merope is enchanted by the timelessness of hand-written letters. she keeps a bundle of letters from family in a satin ribbon, though she rarely replies directly. when she writes, she pours herself into her words, knowing few will ever read them. ㅤㅤ✸ 𝑖 ֪ hidden in her dorm room, merope has a collection of delicate music boxes, each one a relic of an era she feels strangely nostalgic for. on sleepless nights, she’ll wind one up and let the hauntingly tinny tune fill the silence. ㅤㅤ✸ 𝑖 ֪ to merope, love is like music—intangible, requiring patience, skill, and passion to truly understand. she fears that if she lets someone play her melody, they’ll either abandon her or find her too complex to handle. ㅤㅤ✸ 𝑖 ֪ she’s intrigued by the night sky, feeling a connection to its cold beauty, but she doesn’t understand the constellations or planets. there’s something comforting in not knowing it all, in allowing herself to be lost within the vastness.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ✿ ̸ FAVOURITES

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ✿ ׄ music: beethoven’s moonlight sonata, debussy’s clair de lune, anything sombre and timeless. ㅤㅤㅤㅤ✿ ׄ books: french and russian classics, anything that speaks of solitude and introspection; anna karenina, the waves, and jane eyre are among her beloveds. ㅤㅤㅤㅤ✿ ׄ colours: silver, midnight blue, soft lavender—cool, subdued tones that match her inner world. ㅤㅤㅤㅤ✿ ׄ animal: the swan; beautiful and silent, an elegant creature that masks an underlying strength. ㅤㅤㅤㅤ✿ ׄ season: winter, with its quiet beauty, its shadows and secrets veiled in snow. ㅤㅤㅤㅤ✿ ׄ element: water—flowing, mysterious, both calm and turbulent.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ✿ ̸ QUOTES THAT ECHO HER SOUL

ㅤㅤ✸ 𝑖 ֪ “ i am rooted, but i flow. „ — virginia woolf. ㅤㅤ✸ 𝑖 ֪ “ but i have been too deeply hurt, sam. i tried to save the shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. „ — j.r.r.tolkien. ㅤㅤ✸ 𝑖 ֪ “ she was a phantom of delight when first she gleamed upon my sight; a lovely apparition, sent to be a moment’s ornament. „ — william wordsworth.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ✿ ̸ AESTHETICS

ㅤㅤㅤㅤsilver-blonde waves falling past her shoulders, soft as moonlight; lipstick stains on crystal glasses; ink-smudged fingers on piano keys; a figure on a balcony at dusk, gazing over the city with quiet longing; the scent of old parchment and faded perfume; a porcelain doll, all grace and silence, with eyes that hide too much; the delicate rustle of silk robes at midnight; chandeliers and velvet, all elegance and alienation.

[heathcliffdt]

The Heroines in L.M. Montgomery’s Books

Anne Shirley - daydreaming, spoken word poetry, childhood best friends, spring flowers, shades of green, enamel necklace, annotations on book margins, boat rides in the summer, pinky promises, pumpkins on October, academic rivals

Emily Byrd Starr - Jo March, windy afternoons, quill and ink, newspapers, purple opal, ink-stained fingernails, little elves in the garden, touch-me-not cottage, amateur poetry, leather-bound diaries, Swiss mountains, Edgar Allan Poe’s stories

Sara Stanley - the vibrant shade of red, boisterous laughters, childhood sweetheart, summer, pastries, golden afternoon, barefoot and grass blades, June weddings, stories told in the dark, sleepovers, bruises in knees, sketches of European cities, nostalgia

Jane Stuart - the moon, crisp salt air, bottles filled with seashells, newspaper clippings, old handwritten love letters, baking, summer holidays, Studio Ghibli films, staying at home, yellow summer flowers, a green thumb, a yearning for the sea, gloomy city rain

Valancy Stirling - roaring 20s, feet digging deep into snow, crackling fire in the fireplace, evenings spent with your lover, rebellion and rage, a string of pearls, wrapping Christmas presents with dainty bows, dinner parties with friends, iceskating, Persuasion by Jane Austen, isolation, streams of light penetrating through the trees,

Pat Gardiner - coming of age, vintage box filled with letters, spring fairies, a witch’s cove, aching pain for childhood, yellow summer dresses, baby’s laughter, dipping feet on streams, an old-fashioned kitchen, early heartbreaks, little stick houses, watercolor hues of blue and green

[ficfanatictrf]

Congratulations on the 100 followers!!! Your works really deserves all the appreciation it gets, and more!!

For your 100 followers submission, since Viktor likes sweetmilk, I'd probably give him a bowl of a bowl of a local dessert from where I'm from called tibok-tibok. It's basically milk & cream pudding topped with caramelized coconut cream. It's one of my fave desserts and I like giving desserts as gifts 🫣

This is the last one that I am accepting for the 100 follower event!

I think giving deserts is a super sweet thing to do as a gift <3 The time that it takes to make deserts plus also it being something that brings them joy? Super cute!!

-------- -------- -------- Thank you for sending in all your Christmas gifts! They will be 'wrapped' and given to him on Christmas. All throughout the day the pieces will be posted, so don't be panicked if yours isn't there when you look. This is the list below <3

#Christmas Special 

New Notebook (nicely leather bound, crisp paper, with a special loving note on the inside) ‘How happy you have him in your life’

A goods night rest

Knitted Gift (the first time the reader is giving a knitted project as a gift) 

Time with his s/o 

Funding for his personal work (more undercity specific, maybe)

New dapper clothes 

Hand carved cane (reader with little injuries to their hands) 

A tattoo that they tattoo themselves (linework, small and somewhere he won’t see- something with a special meaning) 

Viktor’s favorite book with the reader having annotated the whole thing

Pet Rock 

Everything-in-one tool 

Homemade tiramisu 

Stray puppy 

A picture of the night sky on a special day to the pair 

Mug that says ‘World’s Greatest Inventor’ (hand made)

A small trinket (horribly made) 

His favorite treat (hand-made) 

Music Box (Link) a song from his childhood that he would regularly hum

Handmade photo album (Sentimental to the MAX) 

Horrible Gift (ex. Jar of Peanuts or 5 pounds of his favorite food) 

Tibok-tibok desert, handmade

[gts1234]

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[entropyblog]

Big Rock Candy Mountains, The Worst Heaven 

Overall I consider myself a pessimist, I believe that it's always preferable to expect the worst outcome so that you aren't disappointed constantly. Granted, I'm also an unemployed ugly troglodyte so life advice from me is very damn worthless. One of my favorite things about pessimism is that it allows me to look at things that seem good and call it bullshit, that's how I survived living in rural America without joining a MLM. Recently I've been listening to music from the Great Depression, I believe that in trying times like the 2020's it's good to consult the past to gauge what behaviors are common. One song that many people find endearing comes form our hobo friends, "Big Rock Candy Mountains" is the song people sung to envision heaven as they rode box cars to their next seasonal job. I decided to annotate the song for Tumblr.

The last stanza is a controversial one, it's a stanza that's often left out both for copyright reasons and because it doesn't fit in with the song. It's also conditional and a later ad, as a folk song we don't know how original any of the lyrics are. As such I'll ignore it.

"One evening, as the sun went down And the jungle fire was burning Down the track came a hobo hiking And he said, "Boys, I'm not turning I'm headed for a land that's far away Beside's the crystal fountains So come with me, we'll go and see The Big Rock Candy Mountains"

In this verse we're introduced to a hiking hobo with a set path, the titular Big Rock Candy Mountains. The jungle fire probably refers to a big city fire, which were common in the late 19th century. If not that, jungle fires also refer to large uncontrolled fires in general, perhaps a fire the listeners are resting besides. I've read an interpretation that "rock candy" refers to meth, but this is almost certainly false as the song dates to 1895 and meth was mostly contained in Germany and Japan at this time.

"In the Big Rock Candy Mountains There's a land that's fair and bright Where the handouts grow on bushes And you sleep out every night Where the boxcars all are empty And the sun shines every day

On the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees The lemonade springs, where the bluebird sings

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains"

In this verse we start getting descriptions of the Big Rock Candy Mountains. The weather is always sunny, which suggests to me that they are located in the southwestern United States, which mostly house desert climates. The climate is so dry and warm that their homelessness isn't even an impediment as they can just sleep outside every night. I write this from Arizona, so I can attest that the weather isn't that good, it does get cold here and the wind chill makes winters almost chilly enough to be hazardous. So this seems like places like California and Nevada as envisioned by midwesterners and southerners who deal with more hazardous weather on a more regular basis. The boxcars are empty because you're still a hobo in hobo heaven and you must still leave for seasonal work. The handouts grow on bushes, meaning that people's generosity isn't needed anymore, and this place is so friendly that the trees grow ready and rolled cigarettes and lemonade comes from the ground like water.

"In the Big Rock Candy Mountains All the cops have wooden legs And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth And the hens lay soft-boiled eggs The farmers' trees are full of fruit And the barns are full of hay

Oh, I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow Where the rain don't fall, the wind don't blow

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains"

This is where this heaven really starts to get sad more than anything. Despite this being the perfect place for hobos to live, there are still cops and the cops still sick dogs on you for vagrancy. In fact, you're still so homeless that you have to sneak into barns to sleep (common at the time). It's just that hobo heaven just has cops that can't chase you, dogs that can't hurt you, you still have to steal food to survive, and the barns you sneak into are relatively comfy compared to the ground. The hens laying pre-made soft boiled eggs sounds actually heavenly to me though. As I said, the southwest has tough weather sometimes, the wind not blowing in particular makes this place seem entirely unreasonable to imagine as existing. As such it's only safe to say that the hobo at the start of the song is lying to get people to follow him for some reason, reasons that last verse I'm skipping suggest are very troublesome.

"In the Big Rock Candy Mountains You never change your socks And the little streams of alcohol Come a-trickling down the rocks The brakemen have to tip their hats And the railway bulls are blind

There's a lake of stew, and of whiskey too You can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains"

The weather is so perfect that you don't even change your socks, it's a place where you never worry about trench foot or parasites. Maybe BO but they're hobos so a bad smell stopped phasing them. What's really sad to me is the fact that they've reached heaven, a place perfectly suited to meet their every demand, but they still need alcohol. To the point that it has to trickle out the rocks and form a small lake. Brakemen were crew on the train, they were in charge of hitting the brakes and slowing the train down to get the train into the station, as such they didn't like hobos because they often stole from the train and attacked the crew. One way train companies tried to hamper hobos was employing train bulls, or big guys with weapons to scare and/or escort hobos off the train. In the mountains the brakemen are less hostile, letting the hobos hop on board, and the bulls are blind and thus won't bother you if you're silent. Again, the fact that it's heaven and there are still guys whose job it is to beat you up is just depressing in a way. The lake of stew was just more free food, it's important to know that these guys ate one meal a day if that so any source of free food was highly anticipated.

"In the Big Rock Candy Mountains The jails are made of tin And you can walk right out again As soon as you are in There ain't no short-handled shovels No axes, saws nor picks

I'm a-goin' to stay where you sleep all day Where they hung the jerk that invented work

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

I'll see you all this comin' fall In the Big Rock Candy Mountains"

Another depressing thing about this being people's heavens is that jails are still a thing. Even where hobos get their spiritual and physical needs met in abundance they're still at rick of getting arrested, getting dogs on them, and having to run from railway bulls just makes me feel that they've practically given up hope. Even their wildest dreams are where these things still exist and are still hostile to them, just in less painful ways. Granted I imagine if this song was about a more thought out hobo heaven where they aren't hobos but rather get all their needs met without any struggle the song would be less fun, but still. The other lines are also about the absence of pain without much else, there are no weapons for which to hurt or kill them. Finally, the hung that they hung the jerk that invented work also suggests that their violent tendencies aren't at all medicated by the other pleasant factors. It's only natural, after all, to internalize your suffering to the point that you can only imagine less painful versions of it.

-TJ

[hdminseon-archive]

━━ : 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄, 𝐈𝐍 𝐋𝐈𝐌𝐁𝐎 .

DATED:  late february 2023 FEATURING:  hyde academy contestants ( all named ) WORD COUNT:  1,200 NOTES:  kang minseon entering his single father era..........

MINSEON IS PLEASANTLY SURPRISED TO FIND TWO BOXES OF CURRY ROUX IN THE ACADEMY PANTRY. He spends the early hours of his morning cutting onions, peeling carrots, soaking potatoes... It's a little known fact that he makes for quite an excellent cook. — Although it's a skill he hasn't particularly been eager to advertise, he's aware that getting up at the break of dawn and tying an apron around his waist, especially this early into the project, will give others the impression that he is.... always like this. The type of man who can cook. The type of man who will cook. The word 'reliable' comes to mind, and Minseon has to pause in the middle of grating his ginger to smother down a self-deprecatory laugh.

His eyes flick upward to regard one of the cameras nestled in the corners of the kitchen ceiling. Belatedly, he raises a hand in an awkward sort of half-greeting. If any of this makes it on air, he can already imagine his mother talking aloud to her tablet, suggesting additional ingredients for a sweeter taste: apples, bananas, chutney. He imagines his grandfather boasting to his patrons about his grandson, the local celebrity, gathering everyone near the bar to watch things onscreen, giving them all a round on the house. He imagines dear Hwan, smiling widely as he hunches over his phone in the center of his favorite studio, taking a well-deserved break after hours spent pouring himself into his work.

But Minseon is getting a little ahead of himself, isn't he? He has to ace this assignment first. For them.

✧ –––– MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIPS IN A SYNTHETIC SOCIETY : EXHIBIT A, Extended Notes on the Revelatory Nature of Leading a Group .

It's a fresh, hardcover notebook that he bought prior to his departure from Seoul: 200 pages of grid-lined paper bound by a canvas dyed rose ebony. Since Minseon's arrival in Paju, it's already accumulated its fair share of stains — coffee and ink — but it's clear that the principal purpose of this notebook is not to be read; it is to be written in. The first five or so pages are nearly unintelligible: jumble of notes scrawled on a messy musical staff that Minseon clearly gave up on drawing halfway through. The next few pages are little more comprehensible: the lyrics sheet to 'Maverick' is torn and earnestly attached to the journal in parts. Annotations are jotted down wherever there is room for them. — Take a peek?

━━ BAE SUNGHO / LEAD RAPPER & DANCER : There isn't much written where Sungho is concerned. Minseon has idly traced over his name in different colored pens. They've hardly just been acquainted, but even looking at the characters that make up Sungho's name has Minseon's ribs ache with all of the things Sungho is that Minseon himself will never be: adored, desired, loved. He isn't particularly fond of dwelling on it, but the abstraction comes and goes more often than he likes.

━━ JAMIE HAN / MAIN VOCAL | MASON LEE / MAIN RAPPER & DANCER : In between doodles and impromptu games of tic-tac-toe, Minseon has drafted a loose practice & monitoring schedule for Jamie, Mason, and himself. Having spent years in training together, there is an unspoken sort of trust he harbors for both of them, and this trust manifests itself now in the comfort and the knowledge that there isn't a need to worry; Jamie and Mason always pull through. All Minseon needs to do is work out how best to intensify their light, and, rest assured, they will shine.

━━ ROBBY HAN / MAIN DANCER & MAKNAE | SON TAEGYEOM / RAPPER & DANCER : Several group formations are outlined near Robby's name. Minseon had wrestled with distributing positions evenly, but he knows their arrangement still leaves much to be desired. As Robby and Taegyeom had both run into conflicts over parts in the past, Minseon looks after them now with caution. He is cognizant of the fact that, regarding aforesaid conflicts, one of them had taken action as a form of response, and the other, as an instigation. He does not regard these with equal weight.

━━ JUNG JAEYOUNG / CENTER : A quick sketch of Jae's side profile is crosshatched in ink. The page is folded over like an ill-kept secret, on account of the fact that Jae and Minseon are......... friends. At least— they're 'friends' insofar as that definition involves Minseon replaying a very dim memory of folding himself up against the frame of Jae's body. It's not something he remembers clearly, but it's a recollection that surfaces. Constantly.

━━ KANG MINSEON / LEADER & VOCAL : Nothing of note here.

━━ MIZUNO KOTA / LEAD DANCER | OKAMOTO KENTARU / RAPPER : A recipe for Japanese curry is outlined in a bright and bubbly hand, courtesy of Kentaru. On the back of the page, he's written his and Kota's names in kanji, and Minseon has diligently practiced replicating the characters underneath. Prior to filming, Minseon had been worried about getting along with new acquaintances, but he seems to be making a slow and steady progress, despite still being quite clumsy with his feelings.

━━ PARK HANEUL / LEAD VOCAL : There are observations written in the margins next to all of Haneul's parts. Some of them denote modulation, but the majority are there to express admiration: exclamation points, underlines, liberal use of colored pens. If there's one thing Minseon wants to leverage his position for, it's to give Haneul's vocal prowess the recognition it deserves. He'll do what he can to make it happen. He is a weapon, after all— a knife, if only Haneul will learn to wield him.

━━ RYU YISEUL / VISUAL & VOCAL : Beside Yiseul's name is a dark smudge of ink where Minseon had absentmindedly scribbled shapes in the midst of his pensive thoughts. He's been doing that too often lately — thinking — but he doesn't know how else he can find a way to function around Yiseul without his insides turning... molten. It's a work in progress. Minseon doesn't know what Yiseul wants from him, but he thinks it's been made quite clear that, whatever it is, it's not the same as what Minseon wants. ( ... But what does Minseon want? )

✧ –––– MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIPS IN A SYNTHETIC SOCIETY : EXHIBIT B, Breakfast .

It's the soft light of sunrise filtering in through the long, floor-to-ceiling windows that make up the entirety of the west wall. It casts the room in a faint glow and soothes the edges of the Academy's dark interiors, tempering contrast between illumination and shadow. There's the aroma of freshly made curry in the kitchen— eleven portions in a large stewpot, short grain rice washed and cooked. It's a new recipe from a new friend in a new place to call home.

A short ways away, Kang Minseon has tucked himself into a loveseat and fallen asleep there. Beside him is a lukewarm mug of dark roast coffee, untouched. His fingers are curled around the spine of a journal. A pen is tucked behind his left ear. There is a dark streak of ink running from the side of his palm to the center of his wrist, evidence of having been in solemn thought. He looks uncharacteristically at ease now. — Someone has removed his glasses from the bridge of his nose and set them aside. Someone else has draped a jacket over his willowy frame. He looks uncharacteristically held dear now.

So he dreams and he dreams and he dreams.

[callcite-blogs]

Exploring Data Annotation: Best Practices for Accurate and Efficient AI Training | CallCite

In the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence (AI), data plays a critical role in shaping the accuracy and effectiveness of machine learning models. One essential step in preparing data for AI is data annotation. This process involves labeling and tagging data—such as images, text, or video—to make it recognizable for algorithms. Among these, image annotation services are pivotal for training AI models that rely on visual recognition, object detection, or facial recognition.

Let’s explore some of the best practices for achieving accuracy and efficiency in data annotation to ensure successful AI model development.

1. Define Clear Objectives for Annotation

Before starting any annotation project, it’s important to have a clear understanding of the specific goals. Whether you're working on an image recognition system or training an AI for natural language processing, the annotation should align with the model's end purpose. For example, when utilizing an image annotation service, define whether you need object detection, classification, or semantic segmentation.

Best Practice: Create detailed guidelines for annotators, outlining specific instructions for labeling. These guidelines ensure consistency across all annotations, reducing the risk of errors and improving the quality of training data.

2. Leverage Multiple Annotation Techniques

There are several types of annotations, and choosing the right one is key to training AI effectively. For images, bounding boxes, polygons, semantic segmentation, and keypoint annotations are common techniques used by image annotation services. Each technique serves different purposes, from identifying objects to pinpointing specific features within an image.

Best Practice: Use a combination of techniques based on the complexity of your data. For instance, if your AI model needs to detect objects in varying shapes and sizes, polygon annotation may be more suitable than simple bounding boxes.

3. Ensure Quality Control Through Human and AI Collaboration

While automation is helpful, human annotators play a crucial role in ensuring the highest levels of accuracy. Implementing a quality control process that involves both human and AI collaboration will enhance the precision of your annotations. This can include cross-checking annotations by multiple annotators or using AI tools to flag potentially incorrect labels for human review.

Best Practice: Build a quality assurance workflow that reviews and audits annotations regularly. Annotators can correct mistakes, while AI algorithms can assist in flagging outliers or inconsistencies, creating a balance between speed and accuracy.

4. Optimize Efficiency with Pre-Annotated Data

Pre-annotated data, also known as synthetic or pre-labeled data, can significantly reduce the time and effort required for large-scale annotation projects. These datasets can be generated using AI models trained on similar tasks, which can be fine-tuned by human annotators.

Best Practice: When feasible, integrate pre-annotated datasets into your workflow. This approach can speed up the process, especially for repetitive or less complex annotations, allowing human annotators to focus on refining more critical areas.

5. Maintain a Feedback Loop for Continuous Improvement

AI models and data requirements evolve over time, and so should your annotation strategy. Create a feedback loop between your AI development team and the annotation service to continuously improve the quality of the data provided. Regular feedback allows annotators to adjust their methods based on the performance of the AI models they are training.

Best Practice: Keep communication lines open with your image annotation service provider. By analyzing how well your model performs with the annotated data and sharing this information, you can help them make more informed decisions on future projects.

6. Prioritize Data Security and Compliance

Data annotation often involves handling sensitive information, especially in industries like healthcare, finance, and autonomous driving. When outsourcing data annotation tasks, it’s essential to ensure that the image annotation service follows stringent security protocols to protect your data. Compliance with data privacy laws such as GDPR or HIPAA should also be a top priority.

Best Practice: Choose annotation services that guarantee data encryption, secure storage, and compliance with relevant privacy regulations. This ensures that your data is safe from breaches and adheres to legal requirements.

7. Scalability for Large Projects

As your AI project grows, the need for scalable annotation services becomes apparent. Managing vast amounts of data can be challenging, but leveraging a service that offers scalability can help manage larger datasets without compromising quality or speed.

Best Practice: Work with annotation platforms that provide flexibility to scale up or down based on your project needs. Ensure that they have the capacity to handle high-volume data annotation tasks efficiently.

Conclusion

Accurate and efficient data annotation is the cornerstone of AI training success. By adhering to best practices like defining clear objectives, leveraging multiple techniques, and maintaining a robust quality control process, you can ensure that your AI models are trained on high-quality data. Partnering with a reliable image annotation service will further enhance your ability to meet project goals while scaling and securing your data. Following these principles will help you build more accurate, effective, and responsive AI systems.

Whether you are a startup or an established company, the right approach to data annotation can be the game changer for your AI ambitions.

[govindhtech]

Intel Geti Platform: Next-Gen Computer Vision AI Software

What is Intel Geti Software?

Intel’s latest software can create computer vision models with less data and in a quarter of the time. Teams can now create unique AI models at scale with to this software, which streamlines time-consuming data labeling, model training, and optimization processes throughout the AI model creation process.

Create Robust AI Models for Computer Vision

Small data sets, active learning, an easy-to-use user interface, and integrated collaboration make training AI models straightforward.

Automate and Digitize Projects More Quickly

Teams can rapidly create vision models for a variety of processes, such as identifying faulty parts in a production line, cutting downtime on the factory floor, automating inventory management, or other digitization and automation projects, by streamlining labor-intensive data upload, labeling, training, model optimization, and retraining tasks. The Intel Geti software simplifies the process and significantly reduces the time-to-value of developing AI models.

Core Capabilities Behind the Next-Generation Computer Vision AI Software

Interactive Model Training

Use as little as 20–30 photos to begin annotating data, and then use active learning to train the model as it learns.

Multiple Computer Vision Tasks

Build models for AI tasks such as anomaly detection, object identification, categorization, and semantic segmentation.

Task Chaining

By chaining two or more tasks together, you may train your model into a multistep, intelligent application without writing extra code.

Smart Annotations

Use professional drawing tools like a pencil, polygon tool, and OpenCV GrabCut to quickly annotate data and segment pictures.

Production-Ready Models

Produce deep learning models as optimized models for the OpenVINO toolkit to operate on Intel architecture CPUs, GPUs, and VPUs, or in TensorFlow or PyTorch formats, if available.

Hyperparameter Optimization

The model’s learning process depends on the hyperparameters being adjusted. The work of a data scientist is made simpler by Intel Geti software’s integrated optimization.

Rotated Bounding Boxes

The accuracy and ease of training are extended to datasets with non-axis-aligned pictures with to support for rotated bounding boxes.

Model Evaluation

Assessment of the Model thorough statistics to evaluate the success of your model.

Flexible Deployment Options to Get You Started

Simply set up your environment and infrastructure and prepare to install Intel Geti software, regardless of whether you want to use your system infrastructure inside your network or benefit from the cloud virtual machine without managing infrastructure.

On Premise

Virtual Machine

Enabling Collaboration that Adds Value

In a single instance, cross-functional AI teams work together to examine outcomes instantly. Team members with little to no familiarity with AI may assist in training computer vision models with to the graphical user interface. Drag-and-drop model training is made easy by enabling features like object identification helpers, drawing features, and annotation assistants.

Intel Geti Platform Use Cases

Convolutional neural network models are retrained using the Intel Geti platform for important computer vision applications, such as:

Semantic and instance segmentation, including counting

Single-label, multi-label, and hierarchical classification

Anomaly classification, detection, and segmentation

Axis-aligned and rotational object detection

Task chaining is also supported, allowing you to create intelligent, multi-step applications.

Manufacturing: Create AI for industrial controls, worker safety systems, autonomous assembly, and defect detection.

Smart Agriculture: Create models for self-governing devices that can assess crop health, detect weeds and pests, apply spot fertilizer and treatment, and harvest crops.

Smart Cities: Create AI-powered traffic-management systems to automatically route traffic, create emergency-recognition and response systems, and utilize video data to enhance safety in real time.

Retail: Create AI for accurate, touchless checkout, better safety and loss prevention, and self-governing inventory management systems.

Video Safety: Create task-specific models for the identification of safety gear, PPE, social distancing, and video analytics.

Medical Care: Create models to help with diagnosis and procedures, assess lab data and count cultures, identify abnormalities in medical pictures, and expedite medical research.

REST APIs and a software development kit (SDK) may be used to incorporate all of these models into your pipeline, or you can use the OpenVINO toolkit to distribute them.

FAQs

What types of data can Intel Geti handle?

Text, photos, videos, and structured data are just a few of the data kinds that Intel Geti can manage. It excels in processing unstructured data, such as audio and visual inputs for deep learning applications.

Read more on govindhtech.com

[wisepl]

Bounding Box Annotation Services for Metal Pole & Pile Ends

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Whether you're working on infrastructure analysis, construction monitoring, or industrial site management, our services ensure you get the best training data for your AI models. Partner with Wisepl Pvt Ltd and accelerate your project today!

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[sunaleisocial]

AI pareidolia: Can machines spot faces in inanimate objects?

New Post has been published on https://sunalei.org/news/ai-pareidolia-can-machines-spot-faces-in-inanimate-objects/

AI pareidolia: Can machines spot faces in inanimate objects?

In 1994, Florida jewelry designer Diana Duyser discovered what she believed to be the Virgin Mary’s image in a grilled cheese sandwich, which she preserved and later auctioned for $28,000. But how much do we really understand about pareidolia, the phenomenon of seeing faces and patterns in objects when they aren’t really there? 

A new study from the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) delves into this phenomenon, introducing an extensive, human-labeled dataset of 5,000 pareidolic images, far surpassing previous collections. Using this dataset, the team discovered several surprising results about the differences between human and machine perception, and how the ability to see faces in a slice of toast might have saved your distant relatives’ lives.

“Face pareidolia has long fascinated psychologists, but it’s been largely unexplored in the computer vision community,” says Mark Hamilton, MIT PhD student in electrical engineering and computer science, CSAIL affiliate, and lead researcher on the work. “We wanted to create a resource that could help us understand how both humans and AI systems process these illusory faces.”

So what did all of these fake faces reveal? For one, AI models don’t seem to recognize pareidolic faces like we do. Surprisingly, the team found that it wasn’t until they trained algorithms to recognize animal faces that they became significantly better at detecting pareidolic faces. This unexpected connection hints at a possible evolutionary link between our ability to spot animal faces — crucial for survival — and our tendency to see faces in inanimate objects. “A result like this seems to suggest that pareidolia might not arise from human social behavior, but from something deeper: like quickly spotting a lurking tiger, or identifying which way a deer is looking so our primordial ancestors could hunt,” says Hamilton.

Another intriguing discovery is what the researchers call the “Goldilocks Zone of Pareidolia,” a class of images where pareidolia is most likely to occur. “There’s a specific range of visual complexity where both humans and machines are most likely to perceive faces in non-face objects,” William T. Freeman, MIT professor of electrical engineering and computer science and principal investigator of the project says. “Too simple, and there’s not enough detail to form a face. Too complex, and it becomes visual noise.”

To uncover this, the team developed an equation that models how people and algorithms detect illusory faces.  When analyzing this equation, they found a clear “pareidolic peak” where the likelihood of seeing faces is highest, corresponding to images that have “just the right amount” of complexity. This predicted “Goldilocks zone” was then validated in tests with both real human subjects and AI face detection systems.

This new dataset, “Faces in Things,” dwarfs those of previous studies that typically used only 20-30 stimuli. This scale allowed the researchers to explore how state-of-the-art face detection algorithms behaved after fine-tuning on pareidolic faces, showing that not only could these algorithms be edited to detect these faces, but that they could also act as a silicon stand-in for our own brain, allowing the team to ask and answer questions about the origins of pareidolic face detection that are impossible to ask in humans. 

To build this dataset, the team curated approximately 20,000 candidate images from the LAION-5B dataset, which were then meticulously labeled and judged by human annotators. This process involved drawing bounding boxes around perceived faces and answering detailed questions about each face, such as the perceived emotion, age, and whether the face was accidental or intentional. “Gathering and annotating thousands of images was a monumental task,” says Hamilton. “Much of the dataset owes its existence to my mom,” a retired banker, “who spent countless hours lovingly labeling images for our analysis.”

The study also has potential applications in improving face detection systems by reducing false positives, which could have implications for fields like self-driving cars, human-computer interaction, and robotics. The dataset and models could also help areas like product design, where understanding and controlling pareidolia could create better products. “Imagine being able to automatically tweak the design of a car or a child’s toy so it looks friendlier, or ensuring a medical device doesn’t inadvertently appear threatening,” says Hamilton.

“It’s fascinating how humans instinctively interpret inanimate objects with human-like traits. For instance, when you glance at an electrical socket, you might immediately envision it singing, and you can even imagine how it would ‘move its lips.’ Algorithms, however, don’t naturally recognize these cartoonish faces in the same way we do,” says Hamilton. “This raises intriguing questions: What accounts for this difference between human perception and algorithmic interpretation? Is pareidolia beneficial or detrimental? Why don’t algorithms experience this effect as we do? These questions sparked our investigation, as this classic psychological phenomenon in humans had not been thoroughly explored in algorithms.”

As the researchers prepare to share their dataset with the scientific community, they’re already looking ahead. Future work may involve training vision-language models to understand and describe pareidolic faces, potentially leading to AI systems that can engage with visual stimuli in more human-like ways.

“This is a delightful paper! It is fun to read and it makes me think. Hamilton et al. propose a tantalizing question: Why do we see faces in things?” says Pietro Perona, the Allen E. Puckett Professor of Electrical Engineering at Caltech, who was not involved in the work. “As they point out, learning from examples, including animal faces, goes only half-way to explaining the phenomenon. I bet that thinking about this question will teach us something important about how our visual system generalizes beyond the training it receives through life.”

Hamilton and Freeman’s co-authors include Simon Stent, staff research scientist at the Toyota Research Institute; Ruth Rosenholtz, principal research scientist in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, NVIDIA research scientist, and former CSAIL member; and CSAIL affiliates postdoc Vasha DuTell, Anne Harrington MEng ’23, and Research Scientist Jennifer Corbett. Their work was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation and the CSAIL MEnTorEd Opportunities in Research (METEOR) Fellowship, while being sponsored by the United States Air Force Research Laboratory and the United States Air Force Artificial Intelligence Accelerator. The MIT SuperCloud and Lincoln Laboratory Supercomputing Center provided HPC resources for the researchers’ results.

This work is being presented this week at the European Conference on Computer Vision.