#i literally just traced some images from google

[iwanttobepersephone]

I HAVE AN IDEA FOR A FANFIC CAN SOMEONE PLEASE WRITE IT

Ok, so, we all kinda agree that Crowley grew up on a farm, right? Everyone I've mentioned that to agrees that he gives off those vibes, and I do love that idea.

Imagine Crowley going back to help on his parents farm for a week or something and Halt tags along too

#1 the difference between farm boy and crown prince would become even more obvious and hilarious

#2 Halt would be DROOLING any time Crowley handles live animals of any kind

And also here's some concept doodles to convince people even further. I came up with this concept doing yardwork and almost immediately went "Oh the people would love that"

[kimsohn]

it takes 2 to mango

pairing . beomgyu x gn! reader (ft. yunjin of le sserafim) about . 12.2k words, fluff + angst warnings . cursing, a lot of food mentions, kissing, mentions of murder/dying (it's all jokes), y/n is in denial half the time (about beomgyu and mangoes), it took me like 2 months to write this so it may be all over the place i'm sorry in advance

synopsis . after your parents drop you off at your aunt's, leaving you with your whole life packed in bags, all you can do is wonder when you'll finally be able to get back to your old life. except, of course, when a brown-haired boy makes you wonder if staying here isn't so bad after all. note . literally after 2 years of delay and many plot changes it's finally here!! happy (late) birthday @urmelo, i told you i would write it and it's here (albeit two months late but wtv). also i literally wrote this whole thing based on this image but halfway through i realized he's sitting in a classroom so my whole broadcast idea was stupid 😞 and this is slightly inspired by all of us are dead and f4thailand! i stole the mango pun from google tagging . @invuwrld @tocupid @mmmsvnts @seung-scrittore

You have never loathed mangoes more than this moment.

It’s only been a couple of hours since your parents dropped you off at your aunt’s house, your whole life packed into suitcases and a Hello Kitty backpack you’ve owned since fifth grade, and you’re already sick of this situation. You don’t even understand your parents’ thought process, because who would even leave their whole life behind to start a mango supply business in Thailand, and you’re even angrier at your aunt for encouraging it. Now, you’re forced to leave behind the comfort of your old life and start anew in the four walls of your new house, miles away from your parents and old friends.

You even hate the stupid smile on your mom’s face when you agreed to their plan. At least you’ll be somewhat rich when your parents decide to come home, however long that might take (hopefully it’s within the next five minutes or so).

“Y/N, let me know if you want to paint your walls, okay? Your uncle loves interior design, so he’ll be happy to organize your room.”

In your old house, your walls were a bright, cheery yellow. Now they’re a boring beige, reminiscent of the hospital walls you’ve always hated. It’s okay though, because now yellow will remind you of mangoes, and you’re just about ready to hurl something at the mere thought of the fruit.

“It’s okay Auntie,” you respond, tracing your finger across the indents of the walls, “I kind of like the beige.”

Your cousin Yeonjun snickers from behind your aunt, and you fight the urge to roll your eyes. Yeonjun is definitely the type to hate beige because even his personality shines a bright red flag. Even now, he’s on his phone, probably flirting with (code word for annoying) some poor soul.

“Okay, honey. Yeonjun can help you finish unpacking, and then he can take you to school so you can find your classes. Tomorrow is your first day, after all, I don’t want you to get lost.”

With that, she closes the door behind you, leaving the two of you in your drab room with no personality. Instead of helping you unpack, Yeonjun sits on the chair in the corner, typing away with no care in his mind.

“I thought you were supposed to help?” you huff, though it’s not angrily.

Even though you and your cousin were friends, at first forcibly due to your family relations and later willingly because he’s actually quite interesting, you know that he won’t hesitate to note whatever he can to have leverage over you. Already, he’s taken a picture of your backpack, and if he helps you unpack, he’ll definitely find the shark plushie you brought for the sentiment. It’s not out of malice; it’s just the way your relationship is, however annoying it may be.

“Like you need my help,” he scoffs, crossing one leg over the other as a means to get comfortable, “just let me know when you’re done.”

You survey the mess of your belongings scattered across the bed. It’ll probably take hours, if not days, to sort out properly, and even you are itching to leave this stuffy room and get some fresh air. You’ve sorted out what you need for the next few days, so you might as well revisit this mess later.

“Actually, we can go now. I kind of need a break anyway.”

“Goody-two-shoes Y/N needs a break? Are you in your rebel era?” he jokes, but he opens the door and sticks a leg out, leaving it open for you to walk through.

You smack him on the shoulder as you walk to his car, sitting shotgun and itching to put your feet on the dash. You’re an average kid and you do average things, but you’re not in the mood to argue and correct your cousin.

“Just shut up and drive.”

You kind of wish you stayed at home because even mangoes wouldn’t survive in this environment.

Actually, there’s nothing wrong with your new school. It seems even more modern and spacious than your old one, and it has way more amenities than you could even imagine. You can see yourself fitting in here quite well, and since Yeonjun is popular, it’ll be easy to make friends.

The only problem is that the air conditioner isn’t working today, which means it’s extremely hot in the building. The hot sun outside paired with the lack of cool air means the whole building could resemble the Sahara Desert, and you wish you’d worn something more fitting for the weather, like the tank top Yeonjun has on right now (although, he seems to have other motives for wearing it). The sweat beads trickle down your forehead, and the only thing saving you right now is the popsicle your cousin was kind enough to buy for you. Unluckily, the gas station only had the mango flavor left.

“Yeonjun, are we done yet?” you ask, although it sounds more like a plea as you trudge along the hallways.

“Actually, no. We still have the science hallway, and the math hallway, and—”

A shrill noise fills the air, and you cover your ears shut and watch Yeonjun’s popsicle fall from his hands. Startled, the two of you find stability against the wall as the sound disappears and is replaced with crackling noises.

“Fuck, my popsicle!” Yeonjun exclaims, looking extremely disappointed as he grabs a tissue and cleans the mess up.

“Forget the popsicle, what was that? It’s a Sunday, who’s playing with the speakers?”

“It’s probably the media team preparing for the week’s announcements. Come, I’ll show you the broadcast studio.”

Yeonjun’s flip-flops squeak across the floor as you two walk, and in a matter of minutes, you reach a bright blue door next to the auditorium. Big block letters indicating which room it is are engraved on top, and Yeonjun knocks on the door repeatedly until it opens.

“I knew it was you,” a blue-haired boy answers, “you’re the only one annoying enough to knock that many times.”

“Hey! You should’ve answered faster.” Yeonjun protests as you giggle, glad you’re not the only one who finds your cousin annoying.

The boy pouts as he lets you two inside, and immediately you feel like you were cast into a recording studio. Shelves of CDs and books fill the sides, and behind the glass panel, a room full of microphones and levers peeks through. You feel like Radio Rebel in her bedroom, only intensified, and as you check out the large computer screens that line the walls, you find yourself imagining sitting in the center and being a part of whatever goes on behind the scenes here.

Your eyes cross over a brown-haired boy sitting at the table, headphones covering his plush hair and a teal highlighter in his hand. He’s looking down at a piece of paper, probably a script, and unknowingly you’re leaning forward to get a better look at his face before Yeonjun taps your shoulder and you straighten yourself.

“Y/N, this is Soobin,” Yeonjun gestures to the blue-haired boy, “and that over there is Beomgyu,” he continues, pointing to the boy at the desk.

Soobin smiles warmly, shaking your hand awkwardly as if this was a courthouse and not a classroom, but your eyes are more focused on Beomgyu. They’re focused on the way he taps the highlighter on his lips when he’s deep in thought, or when he adjusts his headphones when he’s satisfied with something. Yeonjun moves to interrupt him, probably to introduce you, but you hold him back so he can continue his work.

 “Are you interested in joining?” Soobin asks, handing you a flyer, “we could always use more people.”

“I’m not that much of a speaker,” you respond, taking the handout anyway.

“You don’t need to be. We do more here than just talk, you know?”

As Soobin waves you goodbye, you take one last glance at the room, particularly Beomgyu, before you step out. You don’t know for sure whether you’ll join the club or not, but you have a feeling that you’ll be seeing him around pretty soon.

You might hate your alarm clock more than you hate mangoes, but at least it’s useful.

It’s the first day at your new school, but you’re not really jumping for joy. School is school wherever you go, and you don’t really feel the excitement or jitters someone would usually feel after transferring. You’re just about ready to pass through the rest of the year as smoothly as possible and hopefully not gain unwanted attention as the resident new kid. You’re already suffering enough by joining after a whole semester; you don’t need to bring any more trouble to yourself.

“Y/N, are you ready?” Yeonjun yells from outside the house, revving the accelerator so you can hear his annoyance.

“Coming!” you yell back, grabbing your bag and rushing out the door, holding a half-eaten piece of toast and a glass of orange juice.

Yeonjun likes to go to school a little early so he can talk to his friends, but this was a fact you didn’t know until five minutes ago. In an ideal situation, you wouldn’t have been rushing on your first day, but your cousin never makes things easy for you. At least he didn’t drive off without you.

Yeonjun attempts to lecture you about your lateness in the car, but you tell him to pay attention to the road and stuff the toast in your mouth. One thing you won’t let your cousin disturb you about is food, so you’re glad he calms down and lets you enjoy a peaceful ride to school.

You’re finishing your orange juice as he pulls into the student parking lot. He has a spot reserved for him, apparently, and the fact seems to be true as he parks in the space with “YEONJUN” decorated in bright red spray-paint letters. He puts on sunglasses as he exits the car, and you’re extremely glad he doesn’t have fans swooning over him in front of his car because you don’t know how much more you can take. Who does he think he is?

Thankfully, the air conditioner seems to be working this time around because as soon as you enter through the front doors, a blast of cool air hits you in the face. It’s only January, but the sun outside doesn’t seem to be taking a break this week, so you’re grateful for the human wonder that is A/C. Yesterday’s empty halls are now filled with students, and already Yeonjun is dragging you off to introduce you to some new people. You’re just glad he has pink hair because otherwise, you would’ve lost him.

By the time you reach your first class, your mind is riddled with names of people you’ll probably never talk to again. You’ve met at least three Jaehyuns, a Yunjin and a Yujin and another Han Yujin, two Jisungs, and many more students you definitely won’t remember. If you were on your own, it would’ve taken you a whole year to talk to this many people, but with a semi-superstar by your side, it only took ten minutes. You’re just glad your presence seems to be well-received.

Your first class is math, and already you find yourself falling asleep. A stack of books finds its way onto your desk, a textbook for everything you could need, and you can foresee yourself sleeping in to skip this terrible class. The only good sight about this class is Mr. Kim, who’s nice and tries to be entertaining, but there are only so many ways you can make numbers and formulas fun. At least the girl sitting in front of you, Yunjin from earlier, helps you pass the time by doodling her number on the margins of your notebook.

Bored and half asleep, you trudge your way to your second class, history. You’re grateful your cousin helped you find your way across the school yesterday, because your class is across the school in a corner you wouldn’t have even known existed. Unlucky for you, Mrs. Jung isn’t as nice or entertaining as Mr. Kim, but just before you can succumb to slumber, the intercom buzzes.

The morning announcements play, but instead of Soobin’s voice, you hear someone unfamiliar.

“Hey everyone, happy Monday! It’s the beginning of the week, which means we have a long road ahead, but I believe in each and every one of you to get through it. We’re only a couple of weeks from break, which is an exciting thought to look forward to…”

You realize halfway through that the voice is Beomgyu’s, and you don’t know what it is about his voice, but it seems to be perfect for starting off the announcements. He seems to be tasked with maybe a desperate attempt to cheer up the student body on a dreary Monday, but they seem to be doing the job because you feel much lighter than before the announcements. Others seem to feel the same way too, because the atmosphere in the once stale, cornered history classroom is now bright and jolly. You honestly wish you had listened to the full script he had prepared, but either because of your previous fascination or his soft, honeylike voice, you find it hard not to be lulled to dreamland.

After, he's followed by Soobin, who talks about the daily updates and the weather, and you wonder how he manages to sound so upbeat and cheery this early in the morning. He then passes the mic to a boy named Taehyun, who voices important announcements and leads the school pledge before the mic crackles off.

You can’t stop thinking about Beomgyu for the rest of the class period, so when he slides into the empty seat next to you halfway through the lesson, you think you must be imagining things. It’s like he’s glowing, as if a dreamy filter spans across his face. You stare at him until he stares back and raises an eyebrow, a quirk to show his feelings of confusion. He throws a rolled-up piece of paper at you, and when you catch it, you realize he’s very much real.

Bit by bit, you unfold the paper, and in scratchy handwriting, he’s written ‘Am I that interesting?’ in all caps. Your face feels like it’s on fire, and you tuck the paper in between the crease of your notebook, filled with doodles of Beomgyu’s name. You quickly shut it, hoping he didn’t see it, and avoid his gaze for the rest of the period.

Unluckily for you, fate doesn’t seem to be on your side because as soon as the bell rings, Beomgyu is reaching out to grab your elbow. You think you’re utterly and absolutely fucked, and you’re even more mortified when he links elbows with you and leads you out of the classroom.

“What’s your next class?” he prods, and you only answer after he asks a second time because you’re too embarrassed to register anything.

“English, with Mr. Yoon. Look, I’m sorry about before, I thought I was dreaming—”

“Dreaming? Are you in love with me or something?” he asks, and even though the question is accusatory, his smooth voice makes it sound like music to your ears.

“No!” you exclaim, a little too loudly that you have to apologize to the teachers standing in the hallway before continuing, “Look, I was falling asleep in Mrs. Jung’s class, okay? Since the seat next to me was empty beforehand, I thought you were a random daydream that I was making up to distract myself. I genuinely didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable with my staring or anything, I just didn’t know you were real until you threw that ball at me.”

“Oh, it’s okay,” he responds, his features softening at your explanation, “her class is pretty boring anyway. You’re new here, right? Yeonjun’s cousin? I’m Beomgyu.”

“I’m Y/N, nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too. You’re a little weird, you know that?” he remarks, laughing as he walks you to class.

You look down at your linked elbows and his goofy skipping. His observance is contradictory, but somehow, his weirdness is a little endearing to refute.

“Yeah, but you’re a little weird too. We cancel each other out, I guess.”

As soon as you step into the production room, you’re cast with the smell of mangoes. Seriously, those damned fruits seem to be following you, and you can never seem to escape them.

“Y/N! Hi! Welcome!” Soobin greets, ushering you into the room and grabbing you a seat, “We’re so happy to have you.”

It’s the next Thursday, a week after the dreaded daydream incident, and you’ve decided to show up to the broadcast meetings. You’ve been toying with the idea of joining ever since you walked into the room on Sunday, but it was Beomgyu’s insistence yesterday that really pushed you over the cliff of uncertainty.

“We have a lot of fun there. You don’t even have to speak on the morning announcements to be a part of it! We do much more than that, like run the newspaper and manage the yearbook. There’s a place for everyone, Y/N, you won’t regret joining.”

Even now, he waves warmly from the seat next to you. You’ve been talking frequently these days, partially because he’s in quite a few of your classes and partially because he’s part of a group chat Yeonjun added you to. He’s interesting to talk to and he always makes you laugh, and being around him makes you feel warm and fuzzy. Like your initial observance, he’s a little weird and goofy too, but it makes him all the more delightful.

You’re not crushing on him, of course. He’s a nice person to pass the time with during and after school. Besides, your friends at home are much better; he’s just a placeholder.

“Have some cake, Y/N!” Soobin insists, pushing a plate toward you, “It’s mango flavored!”

You smile hesitantly as you pick up the spoon and take a bite. It tastes good and you hate admitting it because mango is a good flavor; you just don’t like being reminded of the sentiment that comes along with it. You gaslight yourself into thinking it’s strawberry and finish the plate quickly, downing your water bottle straight after.

“Was it good?” Beomgyu asks, his voice a little hard to hear due to the conversations of next week’s script being tossed around behind him, “I got it from a bakery near my house. We actually have a snack at every club meeting, and this week was my turn to bring it.”

“Yeah, it was good. I’m just not really fond of mango,” you respond, already cringing at the words coming out of your mouth.

“You don’t like mango? Who doesn’t like mango?” Beomgyu voices, responding exactly how you expected him to.

“Me. I just don’t.”

Beomgyu drops the topic at your insistence and talks about the club instead, introducing you to some of the members. Taehyun, the boy from the announcements, is president, and Soobin is vice president. You learn that Beomgyu does a little bit of everything, and you try not to smile as he blushes when his friends list out his talents.

“Is Yeonjun not part of the club?” you ask after he’s introduced you to one of the many Jaehyuns part of the management team, “you guys seem to be good friends.”

“He was initially, but he has modeling lessons on Thursday so he can’t make it. He’s more like an honorary member, to be honest, but he helps us out a lot.”

You hum in agreement, meeting another Jaehyun (why are they all so attractive?) and rounding the corner to talk to Taehyun.

“I’ll leave you with Tae. He’ll help you figure out which team you’re best suited for.”

Taehyun pulls out a chair for you as Beomgyu walks away, and you can immediately see why he’s president. He’s a little reserved but he’s domineering, and he seems perfect for managing things behind and in front of the scenes.

“So, Y/N, did you have anything in mind when you were joining?”

“No, not really. I’m not very talkative though, and I don’t know how to handle a camera.”

“Yeah, Beomgyu also mentioned those things. I think you’ll be a good fit for the newspaper, based on first impression. Editors mostly work on the scripts and I think you’ll find it interesting. Come, I’ll introduce you to the head.”

He introduces you to Yunjin, the girl from your math class, and she helps you get the editing software and drive set up. Yunjin tells you that she’s the type of person who has a lot to say, and writing is a powerful outlet for her because it allows her to explore topics she’s passionate about. You don’t exactly know if you relate to her thought process, but it does make you feel a little excited.

“Is Beomgyu also part of the editing team?” you ask, mainly out of curiosity because you saw him revising the script on Sunday.

“Ah, kind of. He floats around between everything so I guess I could say that he is. Would you like to read some of his work?” she asks, pulling out a newspaper article from a stack in the corner, “Last issue, he wrote the front page spread dissing the school lunch menu. It might seem silly, but it was actually a huge hit, and honestly, the food has even gotten better since.”

You skim through the newspaper, and the interactive, colorful parts draw your gaze in. Elements like the pie chart, bolded words, and quotes make the article worth reading, and you can already tell from skimming the text that Beomgyu is a good writer. You flip through the rest, reading the story headlines and noting that some are serious, some are current, and some are merely just for entertainment. Even throughout the rest of the spreads, you can tell the writers put effort into making sure the newspaper is actually catered to the student population, and you can already imagine yourself publishing an issue of your own in the near future.

“Since you’re new, you can help Beomgyu out with his new piece. Let’s take things slow, okay?”

You nod, turning to face Beomgyu. You don’t know what’s going on in that fascinating mind of his, but you’re excited to find out.

It’s been a busy few weeks since you’ve moved here. Unfortunately, school doesn’t slow down time for you, so you’ve had to handle piles of schoolwork on top of adjusting to your new environment, at school, and at home. Your aunt, for one, is double the amount of hyper your parents were, and it’s taken you a while to get adjusted to her presence. At least you’ve had Yeonjun to help you out.

The one thing that you’ve actually looked forward to at school is the broadcast club. Taehyun was right about you fitting the editor role, and you’ve grown to fit in quite well with the other members. Mainly, however, you spend most of your time with Beomgyu, often looking over his shoulder and bouncing off ideas he has and grammatical errors he needs to fix. The issue is a little satirical, making it fun to read, and you’ve enjoyed helping him out because he actually values your input and your experiences.

It's the reason why he invited you to come to school on Sunday. He thought working in a quieter environment would help you two brainstorm better, and you agreed. You’ve been busy all week working on collecting student opinions for him, and today, he hopes you two can get a significant portion of the article complete.

Unlike the first Sunday you were here, the air conditioning is actually on now, but you still feel a little sweat prickling at the top of your forehead. You’re nervous because this is the first time you’ve actually been alone with Beomgyu, without anyone else nearby to mitigate your nerves. You’re scared about screwing up in front of him, or even worse, floating off into dreamland, but hopefully, you’ll be able to concentrate on your work and keep your thoughts at bay. If anything goes wrong, you can just blame it on his sweet voice.

You’re at least thankful Yeonjun hasn’t caught wind of how you two met, because he would never stop holding it over your head.

You knock three times on the blue door and Beomgyu pulls it open, wearing a bright grin on his face. He’s in a hoodie and sweats, a little bit more casual than his school attire, but somehow it just makes him more attractive. Combined with his dimples, he resembles a teddy bear, and you’re honestly surprised he hasn’t joined the modeling industry like your cousin. He’d make so much money as a loungewear model, you just know it.

“Hey, come in! I just got here, so I’ve been working on some scripts for the next week. You can get your stuff sorted while I finish.”

You nod, pulling the papers out of your bag and opening your laptop. Your mission for the week was to interview students regarding the article. You don’t know if he’ll like them, but hopefully, you’ve got some good anecdotes for Beomgyu to include in his writing.

Or, apparently not.

“Beomgyu.”

“Hmm?” he asks, looking up from his paper.

“I accidentally grabbed Yeonjun’s bag. I left the data at home, I’m so, so sorry. I can’t believe how stupid I am; how could I even forget something this important?”

“Hey, Y/N,”

“I just knew something was going to go wrong today, and I was so scared I was going to fuck things up and I did, and—”

“Y/N!”

You stop in your tracks, eyes wide and close to tears. You’re usually not this sensitive at all, but this means a lot to you, working with Beomgyu means a lot to you, and you don’t want to lose all of this over your stupidity and inattentiveness. However, Beomgyu looks far from angry, and he has his hands on your shoulders, rubbing them to calm you down.

“It’s okay. You’re all good. We have so much more time until the deadline, so don’t beat yourself up, okay? We can just hang out and have fun. Look, I even brought you some mochi from the corner store!”

He shows you the packet, and the bright yellow color is enough to have you burst into tears.

“Did I do something wrong?” he asks, looking at the packet, “it’s mango flavored. Oh! You don’t like mango. I’m so sorry, it slipped my mind. Forgive me?”

You sniffle, bringing him into a hug. The mochi wrapper crinkles between you as you put your head on his shoulder, clutching onto him as a means to calm you down. Beomgyu stills for a moment, probably out of shock before patting your back, albeit awkwardly yet reassuring.

“Sorry,” you mumble, “I didn’t mean to have a breakdown like that. I just didn’t want you to hate me. And I’ll eat the mango mochi, don’t worry.”

“I could never hate you, Y/N.”

“You’ve only known me for a couple of weeks; how could you say that?”

“Because even in the short time I’ve known you, I can tell how much of an amazing person you are. You’re bright and talented, and I love spending time with you, so stop apologizing, okay? It was just an accident.”

“Okay, I will,” you whisper, stepping back, “So, what now?”

“We could finish the mochi, for starters.”

You nod as you open the wrapper and take a bite. It’s tasty, so much so that you hate it, and you’re honestly five seconds away from letting go of your stupid grudge just to enjoy some fresh mango. However, your parents have plagued you enough with the fruit on their phone calls, which seems to hold your desires back well enough.

You stand to your feet as Beomgyu beckons you to follow him, wanting to show you something. He lets you in through the small door leading to the glass panel room, and you’re immediately illuminated by the huge screens around you. So much technology surrounds you, from microphones to switches to headphones, but you’re more intrigued by the feedback noise that emits once Beomgyu twists a knob, similar to the one you heard when you first got here.

“Does it usually make that noise when you turn it on?” you ask, walking around the room.

“Yeah, it’s a little bit annoying. That’s why we have to keep it turned on before school starts.”

“I figured. I heard it when I came here with Yeonjun before my first day.”

Beomgyu turns to you with an expression of mild surprise.

“I think Soobin and I were here that day. You should’ve visited us.”

“We did. We talked to Soobin, but you were working on something so we didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Is that why you thought I was in your daydream the day after?”

You feel like you’re on fire, and you look away from him. You didn’t expect Beomgyu to be this perceptive, but it was probably your fault for walking straight into this.

“Umm. Yeah, kind of. It’s embarrassing,” you say, covering your face with your palms.

“It’s not,” he responds, tapping your shoulder, “it’s actually kind of cute. Now that you’re in this room with me again, will I be in another one of your daydreams? I loved feeling like a celebrity.”

You mentally shrivel in humiliation, cringing when he lets out a laugh. If Yeonjun is a tease, then Beomgyu is most definitely a menace.

You are extremely close to falling asleep.

Currently, you’re sunbathing on one of Yunjin’s many beach chairs. They’re colorful and the sun shines ever so gently on your face, so the setting is perfect for you to take a nap. Too bad you’re at a pool party and not in your backyard, and Yunjin just might murder you if you drift off to dreamland after all the hard work you’d put into setting things up.

It’s spring break, which means one whole week of warm sun rays and well-needed rest. The newest issue of the magazine was published yesterday, and particularly this time around, it seemed to be quite popular amongst the student population. The group decided to throw a party to celebrate all the hard work that’s gone into publishing, and what other location would it be at than Yunjin’s gigantic mansion?

You’re particularly proud of Beomgyu’s hard work because his spread was absolutely stunning, but he merely brushed it off and thanked you for helping him when you thanked him earlier. He can be calm and graceful like that at times, like a soft breeze. Now, however, you turn to your side to see him sipping a mocktail on the chair next to you, donned in sunglasses and shark-decorated swim shorts, the farthest thing from serene.

“What flavor is that?” you ask, your voice tinged with sleep, “Actually, never mind. It’s probably mango.”

He laughs, and it’s so, so pretty. If you had to pick one sound to hear for the rest of your life, you’d take your chances on that.

“It is, but it’s kind of watery. I’m gonna save it for later though,” he starts, turning to face the pool and pointing at Taehyun.

“What about him?” you ask, craning your head to see him lounging in the pool with a duck floatie.

“If I cannonball into the pool, just how drenched do you think he’ll be?”

Your cries are practically unheard as you watch Beomgyu jump into the pool, absolutely obliterating not only Taehyun but also poor, unsuspecting Soobin next to him. Ten minutes later, after receiving a well-deserved scolding from Taehyun and issuing apologies, Beomgyu slogs his way back to the chair on your left with a shit-eating grin on his face.

“That was definitely worth it.”

“It definitely was not,” you counter, sitting up and leaning against the back, “you’re literally such a nuisance. If I had known you were this terrible, I would not have become friends with you.”

“I mean, you technically didn’t choose. You can’t really help who you daydream about, right?”

You’re glaring daggers into him, but he’s cruel enough to still find the situation funny. You can’t believe he’s trying to hold back laughter even in this situation, but you probably shouldn’t have expected any better. Seriously, how did he go from the sweet-talker broadcast boy to the literal devil?

“Watch your words, or I will slice you up as I did to all the mangoes in Fruit Ninja last week.”

“Woah, chill,” he starts, putting his sunglasses back on and taking a sip of his watery mocktail, “why do you even hate mangoes? You talk about them as if they were your exes.”

“My parents left me here to start a mango business in Thailand,” you say, picking at the skin next to your thumbnail and wincing when it hurts.

Beomgyu spits out his drink in alarm, but you kind of saw it coming. You’ve noticed that he tends to exaggerate things a lot, but you guess it’s just part of his personality.

“Wow, that genuinely sucks. I’m really sorry; I shouldn’t have prodded.”

“It’s okay. I don’t tell people because it’s only temporary. I might not even be here next year.”

Two months ago, you would’ve been happy at the thought. Now, however, even mentioning it brings a pang of sadness to your chest. You’ve known your time here was momentary all along, so why do you feel guilty?

“Are you happy?” he says, his voice a lot quieter now, “I mean, would you want to stay here or go back?”

You want to tell him what you think is logical, and logically, your old home was much better than here. You practically grew up there, and the place suits you so well that you’re meant to be there. However, the words that rush out of your heart speak differently.

“I honestly don’t know. I like it here, but I like it there too. I’ll just enjoy my time here before I leave. I still have a while anyway.”

Beomgyu flips to the other side, away from your gaze before he speaks. If you weren’t listening carefully, you might’ve not been able to hear his words.

“I don’t want you to leave. I like it when you’re here.”

He sounds so soft and clingy that it almost makes you cry. Instantly, you know that no one has ever cared enough to share the same sentiment back at your old house.

Home. You should’ve called it home, but it doesn’t feel right anymore. You used to think that home was a physical feeling, a place where you were raised and nurtured. Home before was the walls of the building you spend the most time in, but now, it feels a little different.

No, home isn’t your old house. It isn’t your new house either, even if the beige has grown quite well to your liking. Home is sitting here on this beach chair, surrounded by your closest friends, and the feelings of warmth that surround you all. Home is an emotion, something you’ve never felt in the past years of your life until you moved here. Home is being surrounded by people who want you, just because you’re you and not because it would be convenient.

“I like being here too,” you whisper back, and although he has his back turned to you, you can still feel his smile.

“Then just tell your parents you want to stay here.”

You can’t tell him that your mindset has made you feel that this is all temporary. Ever since you moved here, you’ve felt like a ticking bomb, waiting for a single phone call to determine your fate. Once, you would’ve been able to answer that it’s where you belong. Now, you seem to question if it’s merely just an obligation.

“It’s not that simple, Beomgyu.”

He sighs, and as he turns back around to face you, you drape an arm over your eyes. You don’t want to feel the intensity of his glare, but even without your vision, you feel his eyes shooting daggers into your abdomen. If only life were as easy as being able to sense Beomgyu’s responses, for you would’ve been sipping margaritas on some island with your talents.

“Isn’t it? Or maybe, just maybe, you’re overcomplicating it.”

You sigh, unwilling to answer, and the conversation falls to a standstill. You hate thinking, especially about this, but eventually, Beomgyu’s words are going to catch up to you. Whatever the implications of this conversation are, you’re sure you won’t enjoy them.

Not one bit.

You’re walking home with Beomgyu a couple of days after break has ended, an unfamiliar scene for you. Usually, Yeonjun drives you home in his shiny car, but he had to stay back for some tutoring today and you were left ride-less. Thankfully, Beomgyu swooped in to save the day, saying he��d keep you company since he knew the route. You’d accepted quite freely, definitely because you didn’t want to rely on Google Maps and not because you liked spending time with him.

Spring is in full season, which means the walk home is filled with greenery and a lush breeze. You feel like something out of a Studio Ghibli movie, but as you turn to look at Beomgyu, you realize he’s more aptly fitted for the scenario.

His hair is fluttering slightly through the wind, and his side profile is so perfect that only an animation artist could’ve crafted it. Beautiful is the only word to describe him, and each glance you take becomes increasingly hard to look away from.

You like him. It’s not a realization that’s come from this moment, but rather a million moments beforehand. Whenever you try to pinpoint an exact moment, your mind runs blank, as if you were pre-programmed to have him in your heart since the beginning of your existence. You’d just been so immersed in convincing yourself that you didn’t that you never really accepted you did.

“Y/N,” you hear from his lips, “are you going to the spring dance?”

The spring dance is next week, and it’s all everyone has been talking about lately, especially Yunjin. Honestly, if the Jung Jaehyun asked you out (yes, you can finally differentiate between the multiple Jaehyuns), you wouldn’t shut up about it either, but you don’t have any interest in it otherwise. The only updates you hear are when you don’t tone out Yunjin in math (there’s only so much you can hear about his features), and you’re growing quite sick of the talk.

Mainly though, you’re just annoyed you have to go without a date. A certain someone always pops up in your mind when you think about the event, but you’re too shy to ask and he seems to be preoccupied with other things. Even if it’s going just as friends, you’d take the chance, but it doesn’t seem in your cards for the near future.

“Yeonjun is forcing me to. I’d much rather spend my Friday nights with a show, but it is what it is.”

“Oh, come on!” he protests, shaking his head, “it’s always super fun. You won’t regret coming.”

“I guess, but I don’t really know who to go with. Yeonjun has a date, and I don’t want to be a third wheel.”

Beomgyu fishes something out of his pockets and holds it out to you. Upon closer inspection, you realize it’s a rectangular mango drink, and you raise an eyebrow.

“I know, I know, but it’s still driving me crazy that you hate mango. I want to be the person that changes your opinion on it, okay? Whenever you think of mango, don’t think of your parents, think of me!”

You roll your eyes as you grab the drink and punch the straw in. You don’t want to admit it, but the gesture is sweet, and already your negative thinking is rewriting itself to include positive memories with Beomgyu.

“Whatever,” you say, attempting to take a sip out of the straw only to find it stuck, “is there something wrong with your straw? Mine isn’t working.”

“No, there isn’t,” he replies, confusion settling across his face, “is it blocked? There might be something inside.”

Sure enough, you peek through the hole to see something white stuck in the straw, and you try your hardest to pull it out with your fingers. The texture is a little rough and thin, almost paper-like, but sadly you fail to get it out.

“Can you actually not get it out?” he asks, looking worried.

“Yeah, but it’s not that big of a deal. I’ll just get another straw after I get home.”

“This cannot be happening right now.” he mutters, grabbing it from you and trying his hardest to squeeze out the object, “Of course I fucked this up.”

“Beomgyu, it’s okay. Relax. It’s not that big of a deal,” you respond, trying to calm him down after seeing him get this worked up, “it’s just a drink.”

“But it’s not! Ugh,” he says, frustrated as he pulls out his phone, “you were supposed to be able to pull out the paper.”

“What are you talking about?”

He passes over his phone to you, and there’s a picture of a small piece of paper on it. When you zoom in to get a better look at the writing on it, you gasp.

“It takes two to mango, so will you be my partner?” you read out loud, looking at Beomgyu.

He smiles awkwardly, shrugging his shoulders.

“You’re asking me to be your date for the dance? Oh my god, yes!”

You hug him tightly, pressing your head into the crook of his shoulder. You don’t know if his intentions behind this are friendly or romantic, but the mere thought of being together, even just for a night, has you reeling. You feel so, so giddy as if you’re already on the dance floor and swaying in his arms.

You feel him sigh in relief, hugging you back.

“I’m so sorry I fucked up everything. It was supposed to be super cute—”

“Don’t worry about it. Even if you just asked me the question, I would’ve been happy. It was so creative though; how’d you come up with it?”

“I, um. I searched it up,” he replies, and you hear the bashfulness in his voice, “I just wanted it to be meaningful enough to us. I know that it’s unoriginal, sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Even just you researching to find something this creative is meaningful to me.” you answer honestly, “I’m saving that straw forever, I swear.”

He laughs, and you feel his chest vibrate against you. It’s a comforting feeling, one you’ll hopefully experience at the dance next week.

“I’m so excited. I can’t wait,” he whispers, pulling you in a little tighter.

“Yeah,” you whisper back, holding onto him, “Me too.”

The dance is a little lame, but being here with Beomgyu makes it worthwhile.

Seriously, if you’d come alone, you probably would’ve ended up sitting in the corner and munching on the brownies (they’re actually tasty, you can’t even deny it). However, Beomgyu has made it his personal mission for you to have fun, which is why he pulls you onto the dance floor to vibe with the beat of the song.

“This is so high school,” you mutter, feigning annoyance, “what song even is this?”

“I think it’s ‘Good Boy Gone Bad’ by TXT.”

“I’ve never heard of them.”

“Who cares? Stop being a downer and let loose a little.”

Contrary to your dislike, you do end up dancing. The song has a peppy beat and the two of you lose yourself in it, but even as you forget all of what occupies your brain, Beomgyu still remains in your head.

You’ll never forget the sparkling expression on his face when he saw your outfit as he picked you up from your house or the way he turned up your favorite song as you sped along to the venue. You would pay a million dollars just to relive that moment again, laughing at each other’s singing and enjoying each other’s company, but you realize that you don’t need to experience past moments with Beomgyu when he constantly makes better memories with you. With Beomgyu, you like living in the present, and he makes you forget about special days in the past you had coined as ‘the best day ever’ because nothing could compare to the feeling of being by his side like this.

The song ends, leaving you all woozy and excited, but the feelings quickly shift away when a much slower beat starts playing. You don’t even have to ask for the song name, because Beomgyu is already whispering it into your ear.

“’Fairy of Shampoo’ by the same artist. They’re pretty good, right?”

You move to nod, but the action is long forgotten as Beomgyu wraps his arms around your waist. He’s staring you in the eyes, a silent request for permission, and your response is wrapping your arms around his neck in a similar manner. You sway, and Beomgyu follows your lead, but this time around, the only thing you’re losing yourself in is his eyes.

The soft, angelic singing and chatter around you are muffled as if everyone in the room has disappeared except you and Beomgyu. You’re in a trance, with the perfect feeling of his arms around you as if they were always meant to be there. It’s so easy to will yourself away from everything to focus his gaze that you should be concerned, but one look at his eyes can confirm he’s in the same boat.

Maybe friends can ask each other out to dances. Maybe friends can slow-dance together. However, you find it hard to believe friends can look each other like this in the eyes and pretend they don’t feel anything.

Before you know it, the air grows hazy, and the only thing that makes your vision clearer is leaning in closer to Beomgyu. Or maybe that’s what’s making you crazy in the first place, but you don’t care because you’re trapped in the magnetic pull he emits that drives you closer, and closer, and closer. You’re close enough to notice the small moles on his cheek and the faint cologne he wears that smells like jasmine. You can’t even tell if you’re moving anymore because the only action you’re focused on is the fluttering of his eyelashes and the pursing of his lips.

It takes your brain a while to register what he says next because his voice is husky enough to be covered by the music, but the mere fact that his voice dropped three octaves has your mind spinning.

“Do you want this as badly as I do?”

Your throat is so parched you can’t even speak, but you don’t need words to imply what you want. You nod, the tiniest nod that if he wasn’t so focused, he wouldn’t have seen it, but his eyes are solely on you and that’s enough confirmation for him. The last thing you see is him leaning dangerously close before your eyes flutter shut, but the moment is ruined as your phone rings from your pocket and startles you both.

You fumble with the device as he clears his throat, leaning back, and with wide eyes, you see that it’s your mother calling. You’re cursing her mentally for calling at the worst possible time, but one look at Beomgyu has him motioning you off the dance floor.

“Take it; it’s probably important. I’ll be right here.”

You smile tightly before rushing off the dance floor, finding a place near the entrance that’s much quieter than the center. From this position, you have a straight view of Beomgyu in the middle, but you’re blocked by a sea of people surrounding him. It reminds you just how many obstacles you have between each other, and you mentally berate yourself for being so careless and almost kissing him before answering the phone.

“Hello? Mom?”

“Oh honey, hi! Your Auntie told me you were at some school dance, are you having fun?”

“I am,” you whisper back, just now realizing how much you miss your parents sending you off to these dances, “but I miss you a lot.”

“Actually, I called you about that!”

“What do you mean?”

“Our business here is doing so well that another company wants to buy us and give us a huge amount of shares. This means we can move back home and still make a profit!”

Your mom goes on about the logistics, but all you hear is white noise ringing through your ears. You knew this moment would creep up on you, but you just didn’t expect it so suddenly, especially after sharing such an intimate moment with Beomgyu. God, Beomgyu. How can you even begin to tell him?

“Mom, I have to go.”

“Of course, you must be busy! I’ll call you later, okay?”

Your fingers shake as you cut the call, tears brimming at the corner of your eyes. The room feels hazy once again, but this time, it feels suffocating. Your cheeks feel hot and you have no idea what to do, and all you can feel is Beomgyu’s gaze staring at you from across the room, boring into your eyes. All you can think is that he knows, and he hates you, and he’s going to feel so betrayed—

“Y/N? Are you okay?” you hear, and Yeonjun steps in front of you, blocking the connection between you and your crush.

“I- I need to go home. Please.”

You’re glad Yeonjun knows when to not be a nuisance, because all he does is nod wordlessly and clasp your palm, leading you to the car. You’re thankful that your cousin is actually a nice person deep down because he’s ditching his date and dropping his many it-boy moments just to take you home and let you cry on his shoulder. You try so, so hard not to look back because you know you’ll break down, but you can’t help what your heart wants. As you turn and make eye contact with Beomgyu, you see his confused and betrayed expression as he pushes past the people on the dance floor, but the crowd is too large, and he’s stuck between the masses. It’s bitter how these people once reminded you of obstacles, and now they’re exactly that, but you’re thankful because you’re sure you won’t be able to stop the tears if he talks to you right now.

As Yeonjun whisks you away in the dreary night, all you can hope is that Beomgyu remembers only the good moments between you, and not the worst. Maybe one day, just one, you hope he’ll forgive you, even though you know that you’ll never forgive yourself.

You have no heart to even attempt the history homework sitting on your desk.

It’s only been a week, but you feel like you went through five years of trauma from it alone. If it weren’t for Yeonjun, you would’ve locked yourself in your room the whole week and finished a bucket of ice cream. Instead, you showed up to class every day, draped in an oversized hoodie and making no means of eye contact with anyone. Any time you encountered Beomgyu, you tried your hardest to avoid it, even going as far as bargaining with your teacher to switch seats in history.

The only person you even talked to this week was your cousin. He was the only person you could confide in, probably because he was the only one who truly understood your current predicament. It’s silly, depending so much on the person who could use this as blackmail at any moment, but you have to say you’re a little grateful for him dragging you to school in the morning instead of leaving you to allow in the four walls of your bedroom.

However, even the motivation from Yeonjun can’t stop your bleeding heart. You feel like you’re going through hell and back, and with exams coming up your mind just isn’t in the right place. How long are you going to keep your homework sheets sitting on your table void of pencil markings? Even the mere act of reading the instructions has you tired, and all you can do is rest your head against the table and try not to let your thoughts drift off.

Even this homework reminds you of him. It reminds you of how you would goof off during your lectures, texting each other through the crevices of your desk, or how you would sit for long hours in the library and attempt to study, kicking each other’s feet beneath the table. Even now, you can hear him knocking on the door, asking you to open up and talk.

“Y/N, it’s Beomgyu!”

Okay, maybe that part isn’t your imagination.

Why is he even here? What business would he even want with you after you’ve wronged him so much? Your mind has no idea, but the only thing you’re listening to is your heart as you pull open the door and take in his presence.

He looks beautiful, like always. His existence is something that you want to cuddle into a ball and put in your pocket, yours to keep and cherish forever because he is simply the word soft personified. Today, however, he sports dark circles under his eyes and a paler shade of skin. What has made your teddy bear so sad? Is it your doing?

“Hi,” you whisper, and your hands itch to reach out and wrap him in a tight hug.

“Yeonjun told me what happened. I wanted to give you some space, but it’s torture without you.”

Now you’re confused. Why is he showing up at your door and giving you comfort? Isn’t he the one who has been wronged this whole time?

“You mean, you’re not mad at me?”

“Why would I be? It’s not your fault you need to move back. Sure, I’m sad about it, but this isn’t something you can control, right?”

Now, nothing stops you or your conscience as you wrap your arms around him, furrowing into his familiar scent as tears escape your eyes. You’ve done a lot of hugging recently, but this time, it feels like an eternity has gone by. You never want to let go of him or this moment, and you can even feel your mind memorizing every aspect of this moment.

You guess Beomgyu makes you feel that way. Mind and heart combined, with no conflict.

“You always know what to say,” you point out, sniffling.

“I’d hope so; I have to do it every Monday.”

You laugh, although it’s choked and dry from your crying, but as your head moves, you hear a crinkle from his back pocket.

“What’s that?”

“Oh, um,” he starts, grabbing the object out of his pocket, “they’re mango popsicles. I was going to try and bargain with you if this didn’t work out.”

“Hmm, well, I’m not really convinced yet,” you joke, motioning him to follow you and sit on your bed as he rolls his eyes.

Silence ensues for the next couple of seconds as you both open the wrappers and enjoy the delicacy. The flavor doesn’t even bother you anymore, because now when you think of mango, you think of Beomgyu. You think of his sweetness, his humor, and his bright sunshine personality that matches the color of the delightful fruit.

“Oh, Y/N, you have some juice dripping down your chin,” Beomgyu notices, pointing to the area.

“Where, here?” you ask, patting the left side and feeling its dryness, “or a little higher?”

“No, I- here,” he says, leaning closer with his thumb and brushing off the liquid.

You want to thank him, but as you look up into his eyes, you realize how imperceptibly close you two are. Suddenly, you’re thrust back to a week ago when you were in his arms, leaning into each other until you could feel his breath upon yours, but this time, there’s nothing stopping you. No phone, no crowd, and most importantly, no insecurities come between you two now, and your mind is clear as you lean in and latch your lips upon his.

If you were unsure of what mango meant to you before, you’re definitely sure it will remind you of Beomgyu now, because all you can taste is the mango on his lips. It’s like your mind has gone into overdrive as you move closer, and you can vaguely register him using his free hand to palm the back of your head and tilt it up. The atmosphere doesn’t feel hazy anymore; instead, it feels shy and awkward, as if you were two lovers learning the world together. Like everything with Beomgyu, it feels right, just so right, and you never want to leave because you are his wholeheartedly, and he is yours.

Until you register what’s happening, of course.

You pull away quickly, chest heaving as you try to catch your breath. Beomgyu’s lips are puffy, and you’re sure yours must mimic a similar appearance, but that’s the least of your worries.

“Beomgyu, I—”

“I love you,” he breathes out, and his voice is light and airy as if he can’t hold in the words anymore, “I love you so much that it kills me you’re leaving. I don’t know how to fix this pain, but what I can say is that I’ll try my hardest to be by your side. Every day I’ve spent with you has been the happiest I’ve ever been in my life, and being without you this past week has made me realize how much light will disappear from my life if you leave. I’ll take you in any way you’ll let me, even if it’s through late-night calls or sparse texts. Please be mine, please.”

He's begging you now, holding your hands within his and clutching tightly, but even the words you want to say are trapped in your throat. You can’t do it to him. You can’t force him to love you thousands of miles away and look forward to you when he has a whole future ahead of him. You may be burdened by the ghosts of your past, but he isn’t, and you can’t deprive him of the one thing that makes himself him: his sunshine.

“I’m so sorry Beomgyu. I can’t put you in that position.”

Even the tears that once hesitated to fall now escape freely as he nods, cradling your cheek. After all that’s happened, he’s still so understanding, and even though he has a tight smile on his face, he keeps on a brave front for you.

“I knew you would say that. It’s okay, we can just enjoy the last of our days together.”

“Don’t hold yourself back for me, alright?” you whisper, wiping the stray tears that you don’t want him to see.

He notices the tear stains on your cheeks anyway, wiping the wetness with the pads of his thumbs. You notice he doesn’t respond, but at this point, he doesn’t need to. Even though you’ve warned him against it, you know without a doubt that he’ll always be waiting for you, even with all your uncertainty.

The last bell of the year rings, but as your classmates bustle around you with joy and laughter, you don’t know what to feel.

Moving is a funny concept. You leave behind everything you know just to start anew, but unlike most people, you’ve finally gotten the chance to go back to the past. Your old friends, your old family, your old life. Months ago, you would’ve jumped for this opportunity, as many others would in your situation, but now you’re experiencing a bittersweet emotion. You can’t even deny it: this place has had a tremendous impact on you through the experiences it put you through, the people it made you meet, and the emotions it caused you to feel. Even just thinking about going away leaves a pang in your heart, but you suppose life is about these occurrences, whether they’re sad or happy, and you’ll just have to persevere through it like you always do.

You’re walking out to the parking lot when Beomgyu joins you. You’ve still been talking even after the dreaded incident weeks ago, especially since you studied together for exams, but your relationship since you rejected him hasn’t been the same. It’s like you’re tiptoeing around with each other, waiting for one another to break, but you’ve already broken before so you don’t know why it feels so fragile. Maybe it’s the tension in the air around your departure or the lack of definition within your relationship, but either way, it feels suffocating.

At least you’re grateful he hasn’t shut you out yet.

“So, how was your last day of school?” you hear, but this time you focus your eyes on the ground instead.

It feels too weird to look at him. It’s like you don’t have permission to admire his beauty anymore, so you rarely ever make eye contact with him. Instead, you focus on the gum he’s chewing, the one you know is mango-flavored but always so bitter. Maybe it was a sign you two were never meant to be.

“It was good. You know, tiring as always, but I’m glad it’s over.”

“Yeah, I get it. Are you going back home soon?”

Honestly, your parents haven’t been super transparent with you, but from their calls, you assume that you still have well into the summer before you move out. They sound busy wrapping up things, and they haven’t given you an exact date, but they have promised you they’ll be here soon. Like all things in your life, even your parting is uncertain, and that’s what you tell him.

“So, what I hear is that I can still terrorize you over the summer.”

You laugh, but it’s forced and uneasy. The tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife, but honestly, you’ve gotten a little too used to it by now.

“I guess you could, Gyu.”

He stops you in your tracks by stepping in front of you.

“Look, I know we’re a little awkward right now, but I feel like I have to say this, or I’ll never get the chance. I’m so honored to have been your friend, and I’m going to miss you a lot. Like, a lot a lot. I’m sorry for putting you in so many awkward situations, but I hope you can remember the good parts when you think of me.”

You sigh, patting his head. If you were on good terms with him, you would’ve gifted him a hug, but you hope the small gesture can do your feelings enough justice.

“I’m gonna miss you too. A lot a lot,” you mimic, watching him smile, “so text me often, okay? I’m sorry for making things awkward too.”

He shakes his head, willing to argue in your favor, but before he can even start a car horn sounds from the parking lot. You crane your head to see a familiar vehicle, one that’s accompanied you throughout your lifetime, except this time, it’s adorned with a painted mango on the side.

“Mom? Dad?”

Your parents step out of the car, and your legs are moving you towards them before you can even register it. Video calls don’t do their beautiful faces any justice, and it feels so surreal as you stop in front of them, waiting for them to just be a figment of your imagination.

“Hey, sweetie,” your dad says, and that’s all it takes before you’re leaning into his touch, burrowing yourself into him as you would often do when you were a little kid.

You forgot how much pain you felt when they left you here. All this time, you’ve suppressed it, and only at night when you were in your room, half-asleep and overthinking, did you let your tears come to bay. You wanted to be strong for them because everything they did was for you, but it was hard not to lose sight of their eventual return and get lost in the lifeless emotions associated with their disappearance every waking day that passed. It took every ounce of strength in you to pick yourself up every day and pretend like you were fine, but although there were many factors that helped you mitigate those feelings, none of them could truly ever make the ache ebb away.

“Why are you here? I thought it would be a while,” you ask after you’ve calmed down and properly reunited with them, “are we moving back soon?”

“Actually, about that… we’ve changed our minds a little bit.”

Your mom holds your face in her palms, pinching at the skin on your cheek ever so slightly.

“Your aunt told us how happy you are here, and how you’ve grown so much from moving here. I know that losing your parents so suddenly must’ve had a huge impact on you, but if this place helped you with those struggles even just a little bit, then it must be worth staying here. We thought that you might like it if we stayed here permanently. What do you think?”

You can’t believe it. It’s as if the world has deafened and all you can hear is the ringing echoing through your ears because what they’re saying sounds too good to be true. Moving here? Permanently? Is life playing some sort of cruel joke on you?

“You aren’t joking, right?” you whisper, and all your parents can do is laugh as they shake their heads.

They say that your life flashes before your eyes as you die, but right now, all that flashes through your eyes are the memories you’ve made in your seemingly short time here. You remember sitting shotgun in Yeonjun’s car as he annoyed you on the way to school, texting Yunjin during math while you two try not to fall asleep, and teaming up with Taehyun while wreaking havoc on poor Soobin.

However, most importantly, you remember Beomgyu. From the curve of his lips to the rings on his fingers, from the walks home you’ve shared to your first and last kiss in your very bedroom, he’s always been with you wholeheartedly. You haven’t been able to stop thinking about him since that very first day when the boy with dark curls caught your watercolor eyes, and for the foreseeable future, you don’t think you’ll be able to stop.

When you turn to look back at him, he’s there. He’s always there, waiting for you no matter how far you go. Even if he is just a speckle in the distance, just the size of an atom, you are his nucleus and he revolves around you, chasing you until he breaks down into a black hole of nothing. Even now, as you stare at him from the parking lot, one look at you tells him everything he needs to know. He’s here, here before your eyes in a matter of seconds, and as your parents ask him who he is, you know that only the most perfect boy would respond with such a beautiful answer as he directly addresses you.

“I’m whoever you want me to be.”

You shake your head, unable to hide the smile that flits across your face. After a long, long time of shying away from Beomgyu, you’re finally ready to embrace the feelings he brings you, whether tears or smile lines.

“This is Beomgyu, my lover.”

Your bedroom is still bare with your whole life packed into boxes once again, but at least this time around, your walls are painted yellow again. However, instead of a sunny yellow, they’re more of a mango color, your mom going even as far as to say it’s the exact same hue as the mangoes they grew in Thailand, fresh and ripe. Honestly, you’re just glad you’re not sitting within the depressing beige color again, because why did you even convince yourself it made you happy?

What’s not fresh is the old carpet you and your boyfriend are sitting on, but sometimes you can appreciate the old things too. In fact, it’s somewhat comfortable as you lie in his arms, sprawled across the carpet with no looming future dangling over your head. It’s just you, your other half, and nothing more, enjoying your well-deserved summer break weeks after school has ended.

“I’m not ready for school,” you complain, liking the feeling of being illuminated by the bright sun peeking through your blinds, “I like sitting around doing nothing. Imagine how hectic it would’ve been if I actually moved back.”

Your statement is only half-true though, because there are many things awaiting you once school starts that you’re actually very excited for. For starters, you get to have your own article published in the newspaper, and you have a slight inkling as to what it’s going to be about. Also, you have many wonderful friends who will make your life a lot easier, so even though school is school, at least you’ll have amazing people by your side. Really, you’re just complaining for no reason.

“I’m just glad we won’t have to throw you a farewell party. I don’t think Taehyun or Soobin would’ve let me near Yunjin’s pool again.”

You smack his chest lightly, and he laughs, curling in closer to lay your head against his chest. You really should be unpacking your things, at least, that’s what you told your parents you’d be doing, but you can’t pass up the chance to cuddle with Beomgyu every time you get it. You both have been pining for each other for far too long anyway, so why waste any more time?

“Y/N!” you hear from outside the door, “I brought you food!”

You get up to let your mom in, but Beomgyu is already five steps ahead of you. Your mom gives him a warm smile because seemingly, your parents seem more smitten with him than you are. You can’t really blame them though; who doesn’t like Choi Beomgyu?

“Thank you for the mango, auntie!” he responds, and of course, the endearment has her reeling.

“I thought you two would be hungry after working hard,” she says, leaning over to peek through the gap between him and the door, “but it seems you two have done nothing at all. Oh well, you can eat it anyway. You have all the time in the world.”

You two really do, because as you make yourselves cozy on the carpet once more, bowls of mango in hand, it feels like time has taken a pause after all the misery it has put you through. You eat the slices wholeheartedly as you think, with Beomgyu brushing off the juice that escapes your mouth occasionally when the piece is too big. You’re glad that time is moving slowly because you want to savor every moment you have with him. He deserves it, and so do you.

“We should really start setting things up,” Beomgyu starts, “How long are you going to sleep with just four yellow walls and no decoration? That would be so depressing.”

“Hey, at least it’s less depressing than beige walls,” you grumble, “but even just being here makes me content enough to fall asleep. I have nothing to worry about this time around, especially when you’re just five minutes or a phone call away.”

Mere seconds pass before he’s leaning in to place a kiss on your lips, and of course, everything about him tastes extremely mango. Your malice for the fruit is far gone now, far, far gone because not only are your parents back, but also because Beomgyu is the only thing you think about when reminded of the flavor. However, your rollercoaster feelings for the fruit are the last thing on your mind as you lean in closer, placing the mango bowl beside you.

“You still hate mango, baby?” he whispers between kisses, and it takes everything in you to pull him back, reminding him that you two are supposed to be unpacking and not making out.

“Answer the question,” he whines, a cute little pout on his face that makes you five seconds away from forgetting your very own warning and kissing him breathless again.

“No, I don’t,” you finally answer, grabbing his hand and interlacing it with yours, “I love it now.”

He grins, and you decide to succumb to your desires, forgetting all sense of rationality when it comes to him as you press a kiss to his lips again.

“I love mango just as much as I love you.”

[skunkes]

I've talked about this before I think but I think "art theft culture" is actually what makes scenarios like this worse... and I Know because I've mentioned that it happened to me before, where a few years ago I was heavily inspired by an artist for a couple of style study drawings without acknowledging them as inspiration, they contacted me after their friends notifed the similarities, and it was resolved as I explained that I had no "plans" for long term theft or passing off as my own, I was just passing by and figuring out what I liked about the style. But I should have just mentioned them!

And that's the point I'm trying to get at here, I feel for a lot of people there's still either shame in using references (I took the upper half of a pose for a recent comm from one of the first memorable google image results for it... How embarrassing!), and there's similar in openly admitting that somebody is currently directly inspiring you, or that you liked something someone made so much you're making your own spin on it.

This is probably because you don't know how people (your audience or the original creator, or THEIR audience) are going to react with regards to """theft""" (which I also feel varies. Like everyone I've seen trying to emulate my style has never gotten close. Which is how it works! Its a good thing! Absorb it into your own! Thats what I do!

But I've also had someone lift every aspect of my art identity and basically try to replicate exact pieces, poses, and dialogue of mine with their characters like oh ok nvm this is kinda weird.) so I get it, because it's scary! It happened to Me, I was a perpetrator LOL and that's that it was style inspiration and not direct copying so I get it... I feel it all the time too, but I wish it wasn't like this in General ykwim. Wish it didn't feel so humiliating to admit influence

EDIT: THIS IS ALSO NOT ME SAYING "you need to list off all your inspirations every single time you post a drawing"

Its more like oh this person is using my exact brushes and exact colors and exact half traced poses and my handwriting and exact dialogue and personal symbols to the point where they're pretending my autobiographic doodles happened to them while pretending they've never seen my stuff in their life, or even shit talking me. Some of these individual aspects are okay (I've literally shared all my brushes with everyone, for example, who cares. My colors are awesome...who cares. 4 petal flower shapes don't belong to anyone, I don't care.) But all of them in combination is what's weird. Ykwim. Like that level of "hey man what the fuck"

I'm about to answer an ask going more into depth about this but I also need to explain that it's hard being on the other end of this too because it really isn't that serious ykwim... I see ppl on twitter get clowned on every day because "you can't steal a style" and that's mostly true. Me and some mutuals "steal" aspects from each other all the time without "crediting" because it's obvious, or we know each other, as well as the "stolen" stuff being something we already made our own thing, so I promise this isn't about that. Art is meant to be shared and inspire and influence.

I'd never point fingers unless it got severe over a long period of time (not adapting it into your own style), with someone who wouldn't talk it out with me but sometimes I wish I could show some of these specific examples, like I promise I'm not blowing up because someone """stole""" uhhhh the little squiggles I add to my commissions. I myself "stole" that from deco sticker sheets. Who gives a shit.

[slugtranslation-hypmic]

Hello,

Is there any way you could translate Samatoki's newest solo, Rinka/Blue Flame? I've been looking for a translation everywhere, but cannot seem to find one.

Best regards and thank you very much.

Oh my God I am desperate slug-san, please please pleaaasee tell me you know where to find a translation of Samatoki's Rinka/Blue Flame!! OTL I was so surprised a translator wasn't already linked in the wiki which is where I usually look first & then I couldn't find anything by searching on twitter or google or tumblr and I just really wanna know what his song is about!! T°T I can't believe I found a translation of Honobono's song but not of Samatoki's song?? I must be doing sth wrong.. Help :')

Hey slug-san! A follow-up of the Rinka/Blue Flame message. I've searched some more, and I think there's actually no translation of it so far anywhere.. T~T Would you be willing to translate it? A standard/literal translation with a lil clean-up like you did with Akuma no Hana would be totally alright!! Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to engage with Hypmic in a way the official creators haven't made possible yet! :D <3

Sure. Under a cut for length.

I'm running at a speed faster than grief, going so fast I leave even the smallest bad feelings behind me. I spit on my dead-end future, spit in the dirty puddles. Now I'm clinging to the guardrail, tears tracing scribbled lines down my cheeks. I bet it looks pretty comical. C'mon, laugh at me, why don't you? Let's start somewhere around the unhappy ending. Why not? Works for me. The clear, blue sky waits for sunset; but to hell with that. I don't need that crap! Let's do whatever we damn well please, here in this vacant city. Just the thought of them makes me light up a cigarette. Look, I don't wanna tell people we gotta fight each other to get what we want. I just think we have to, because there's things out there that're worth keeping safe. There's a stray dog baying at the rain streaking down the glass, and that SOB won't shut up. Hey, fuck your umbrella. Who needs that kinda crap? Throw it away and let the rain drench you too. The beat's entrenched in my soul, a stupid requiem for this unfair world we live in, lying on its sickbed. C'mon, get in there and pay your respects to it. You don't have the time to sit around feeling sorry for yourself. You know lashing out's the answer, right? You'll be okay. And I'm not gonna tell you you're running from your responsibilities. So c'mon. Quit your sniveling and come ride with me. The brakes don't work; those emotions never get any slower. And we're burning ourselves out, but don't let that stop you from coming along with me for the ride. Ride with me through thick and thin. Ride with me all the way to the grave.

A few final notes:

Sunset is a metaphor for melancholy. When Samatoki rejects that in the third verse, he's rejecting sitting through his feelings of loss. He uses this image again later in the line I wrote as "sit around feeling sorry for yourself."

The gender and plurality of the "them" Samatoki thinks about isn't specified. While it's most likely referring to his family, the verse immediately afterward sounds like a direct reference to Ichirou and Samatoki battling to save their siblings in the TDD breakup.

"We're burning ourselves out" could also be written like "We're burning ourselves down to ash" which connects with the cigarette image.

Given the prevalence of stray dogs in hardboiled/yakuza fiction and their recurrence as an image in Samatoki's other raps, the stray dog should be understood to be Samatoki himself.

[somethingmissingthiswaycomes]

Would it be weird to ask how you plan out your embroidery designs? If not weird and you have the time/spoons do you have any tips?

Oh no worries, I am the OP! @handmadehazefromtheheart is my craft account. ^w^ You were referring to this post, right?

Asking isn't weird at all btw. I like questions. :3 Though I dunno if my answer will be the most helpful, since I'm still pretty experimental with my embroidery.

For the brain, I literally just doodled onto the fabric with a water soluble pen.

For the latest piece before that, I traced the outline + important features of a picture I had of my girlfriend by holding fabric pinned in a hoop up to my laptop screen. Then I flipped the fabric around in the hoop so it was right ways up. I did the same with her music logo, which I made for her birthday this year.

Mostly, though, I've been actually drawing out patterns on paper.

I trace them onto the fabric using a white screen behind it. (I literally just Google "white" and open an image full screen.)

Getting the colors right is hard, but I'm getting the hang of it I think.

For the brain, I decided as I went which sections would be which shade of teal on the fly.

For the portrait, I gathered various shades of coral (the color of the InfiniTints prompt it was for) and then separated them into groups based on where I thought each shade would work best. I had a hair pile and a skin pile, and in each pile I determined which would be used for lighter areas and darker areas based on the picture I was using.

For the In Decay logo, I did pretty much the same thing but with whites and greys, though I haven't shown off the full thing yet. (I'm going to do that in a special way. :3c Stay tuned.) The mouse had the same process. The mouse was actually the first one I did it like that for, and I love how it turned out—and the fact that a duplicate made as a commission came out so nice after.

You can kind of see on the clover pic above that I actually labeled it for where I wanted which shades of green. I should probably do that more.

I've mostly been working with long and short stitch, but working on this pre-made kit has helped me get a sense of how to use different kinds of stitches together.

So far, the brain is the most deliberate in terms of different stitches.

[ID: A two second video showing off the embroidered result of the brain sketch near the top of the post. It's mostly satin stitch, but the outlines are all stem stitches, and there are French knots in some places next to backstitches and split stitches that swirl. /end ID]

I'd say I've improved a lot from my first attempt last year:

Oh... I got away from myself writing that out, didn't I? I hope you got what you were asking for out of it! 😅

[phancanedoo013]

Every existing argument that speaks for generative AI can be countered with a very logical counter-argument. Let me show you:

"It is an art-tool like any other" - No, it's not, because a tool doesn't do your work for you like gen-AI does, tools enable you to do things more easily and to do more things at once, but gen-AI does the entire thing, and not even that good.

"AI is faster than any artist" - Maybe, but that comes at the cost of creativity and quality. You may be able to fool those who only take a short glance at it, but the moment they comprehend the creation, it gets exposed!

"AI is the future" - It is very clearly not! Gen-AI is very resource-heavy, depends on real artists' works, and doesn't have the quality to be of use once the userbase learns to be more skeptical of online creations. Not to mention the AI feeding of its own creations, resulting into WORSE generations than before.

"AI can generate anything you want" - No, it can't! Everything it generates it can do so only because it has been fed with according existing creations, so once you tell it to generate something it has never been trained to generate, it fails. Try making it generate anything outlandish, like irregular numbers of appendages, or chimeras. More often than not, it will disappoint you.

"AI helps me with inspiration" - Sure, it could be used for inspiration. But do you know what else does? LITERALLY EVERYTHING! You can look to your left, and take whatever you see there as inspiration. You can look at a specific object's texture and use bits of that as inspiration! You could even take a piece of paper, crumble it, make a photo of it, trace the visible folds and edges and use even THAT as inspiration! Inspiration is everywhere, though whether it can be used in the given context is another story, but the point still stands. You do NOT need AI for inspiration. Oh, and remember how gen-AI is trained on other people's creations? That means, that whatever the AI puts out ALREADY EXISTS! You just have to search for it, so just take whatever prompts you just had in mind, and formulate a (google?)-search based on it. Just like that, you may have just found some images to inspire you, if not an entire ARTIST TO SUPPORT!

"AI is still very fun to play around with thanks to its fast generation process!" - Oh, sure, it can be fun to see what the AI spits out, but those super-fast results are their own problem! Not only could you play around with anything else and have even more fun than during the waiting period for the gen-AI to finish generating, but you could have even more fun with stuff that takes longer to do. Oh, you don't? Well, that just means you have fallen for what i call the "modern curse", that is instant gratification. I'd know, i want to commit to digital art for the sheer possibilities of it all, but i can't enjoy the art process since i find more joy in any other game or social media. The need for instantaneous results from anything is incinuating us to not wait for anything. It hurts our patience and sense of time and robs us of any non-instant fun to be had. I, too, have fallen to this modern curse, and am trying to find my way out of it, so i can actually commit to something worthwhile, which gen-AI is NOT! And it's not just our enjoyment it is hurting, but our community as well! With feedback coming more from the instant responses of gen-AI and systems designed to keep us hooked to their stuff, we ultimately communicate with each other less and rob ourselves of social connectivity and personal growth, as we stray away from the necessary criticism to learn from mistakes and grow as people. If you enjoy gen-AI as much as you say you do, i assure you, you NEED to get off the web a bit, talk to people, play longer lasting games, and, for lack of better word, touch some grass.

"AI is a great investment!" - And with that statement, you just exposed yourself as someone willing to scam people out of well earned money with non-human creations. Oh, you're not? Then why are you calling gen-AI worthwhile? The resources and energy requirements to keep the gen-AI running as a service are too much to maintain over longer timespans, and you hardly make any money back running gen-AI. Not only that, but if you generate images and other creations and advertise them as your own creations, you are abusing people's trust that their works are legitimately man-made, with human creativity. By that point, you would already be a fraud, and even worse if you decide to SELL the creations as your own art. You would not only betray people's trust, you'd also scam them out of their money, and the moment they learn that it's AI generated, they wont think that "oh, how far AI has come", they'll think that "that mf just scammed me with their AI-generation bullssss, i am never buying anything from them again!" If you're in it for the money, you may get some money, but at the cost of people's trust in you, and forget about getting famous for it. Even the big tech companies aren't spared from the harsh criticisms of the public, so why would you be any better?

I could go on and on and on, but the point still stands. Generative AI is only hurting our community, especially once scams and AI-gen-spam comes into play (don't even get me started on AI-spam and content-farms). It isn't worth any finances, passion or mental energy. It has only hurt the userbase, betraying people's trust, betraying built-up hype, betraying the artist community, and as time goes on, big tech will learn about their mistake of throwing away artists' trust for some machines.

Hmmmm, how do i end this one? You know what, i have a hot take for you! Here it comes: Generative AI should be forbidden BY LAW! Straight up! It may seem harsh, but we are too ill prepared for gen-AI to make it as big as it did, whether as large projects or as public tools. The sooner, the better, get rid of gen-AI, and i mean ALL OF IT!

[tangibletechnomancy]

What frustrates me about The Discourse about AI art is that everyone feels the need to have An Opinion...and no one is willing to look into the conversations that have been going on for DECADES surrounding the relevant issues, or the cases that set precedent for what we can do here going back CENTURIES.

Let me lay out two very important things here:

The dataset ethics issue is more of an issue of digital privacy than copyright.

The labor issue has been seen MANY times throughout history; we can look to MANY other times new tech has shaken up a job market for precedent before AI even STARTS being used on large commercial projects.

Point #1 is true because, I have said before and I will say again, image synthesis is not collaging. It is not copy-pasting. It does not composite images in the dataset. It doesn't even save the images. It looks for patterns in the pixels and tries to recreate similar patterns from random or semi-random noise. This is why it often sucks at anatomy without human guidance - it recognizes that the word "hair" usually corresponds to a pattern that usually goes near a pattern that corresponds to a "head", it recognizes that "hands" usually have a certain pattern of repeating light and shadows, but it doesn't understand the intricacies of where those things belong or how many times a pattern might repeat. This is why images of architecture often have impossible geometry - it understands the shapes that these things tend to take; it doesn't understand the logic of what connects to what. People can use it to plagiarize - they can, intentionally or otherwise, force a result that is overfitted to a specific piece of data in the set - but to say that's ALL it does is comparable to the asinine claim that ALL referencing is plagiarism, because SOME people will just straight up trace or recreate a full piece that already exists, sometimes even by accident. (And some people - not all, not even most, but some who claim plagiarism, whether from AI or traditional art, are just...really? Do you really think you are the only person who has ever drawn, say, a pink fairy sitting under a purple luminescent mushroom, gazing at a full moon in the upper left, composed with the 1/3s rule? Do you really?)

And the thing is, I agree that the kind of broad data scrapes that have been used to create most AI models should be reserved solely for scientific curiosity if they're used at all, and I respect anyone who doesn't want to touch image synthesis until that issue is resolved. The only reason it doesn't bother me too much to play with it myself is that...unfortunately, we're all interacting with much worse as we speak. Ever heard the word "spyware?" If you're old enough to know it, notice how you stopped hearing it when Facebook normalized making literally the majority of the internet into spyware?

You can't really use the internet while wholly blocking Google, and their evils are pretty well documented. (Remember when we rolled our eyes at their internal "don't be evil" slogan? And how deeply unsettling it was to then watch them REMOVE that while ramping up aggressive datamining?) Amazon made Alexa to harvest your data to sell you shit more effectively. If you have a smartphone, Google or Apple or both are harvesting your data for all kinds of much more malicious purposes than making pretty pictures. Twitter uses your tweets and browsing patterns to force you to interact with people you will hate because negative emotions hold your attention better than positive ones and they want that sweet sweet advertiser money from your constant engagement; this was the case even long before Elongated Muskrat took over. Spotify Wrapped and knockoffs thereof are ~fun tools~ that...normalize just handing data about some pretty personal things over to anyone who dangles a shiny novelty in front of you made with it. It's used for invasive surveillance and policing, and Facebook's for-profit datamining even ended up being a tool of election interference - had it not been for them we might not be in nearly such a bad state with the rise of global fascism.

Image synthesis is one of the most harmless and even potentially BENEFICIAL things to be created as a result of this disturbing norm.

The fact is, small artists: copyright law may protect you a little, sometimes, but it wasn't made for us (and yes, I say "us", because even if you don't count my partially AI work as art, I do traditional art too, guys). It was made for Disney and their ilk. It is designed to protect corporate interests, not artistic ones. That notwithstanding, the copyright angle is a weak one in the first place - it's easy to argue that, because the process is transformative enough, and the dataset is large enough and abstracted enough from anything it was derived from, AI training on online art would fall under fair use, and it is only individual misuses that would constitute infringement. It's especially easy to argue this when you recognize that, at this point, that's more where the corporate interest lies, and remember who the laws are made for!

Digital privacy, on the other hand? The right to your own data? The right to be forgotten? The need to have regulations on where robots can and cannot crawl, and for what purposes? THAT is a critical conversation that we need to be having here, and if everyone with An Opinion on AI art focused their energy there instead of mostly just misinformed screaming about the sky falling and Art Dying And Society Degrading (which is HORRIFYING to hear from leftists in knowing its history as a fascist talking point), we could probably get some MAJOR good done.

Furthermore, even if someone ruled that AI training doesn't constitute fair use under copyright law, that won't stop big companies from using AI - Disney has PLENTY of frames of animation to feed a model to make something entirely their own. So do most animation studios. I have even been in talks with people trying to work on a 100% public domain AI model - the biggest concern about it is that if we complete and finalize it before the labor side of the issue is being worked around properly, it will EMBOLDEN unethical use in industry by getting rid of the potential legal complications.

So let's talk about the labor side and recognize - this isn't the first time new tech has threatened to make major changes to the way something is done in industry, potentially resulting in workforce downsizing. It won't be the last. Honestly, as a person who's been both machining and doing mixed media art since I was a kid (and sometimes both at the same time), I find it deeply disheartening how many people have not cared about this side of the issue until it was certain art jobs that might get automated...and even more frustrating how people refuse to look to past cases for how the harms of new tech shaking up employment have been mitigated.

What we could and should be fighting for is a government program to compensate and optionally retrain employees who were laid off due to automation (ANY automation, not just in art!!), as well as independent workers who see a drop in income due to increased market saturation. We can do this. We've done it before.

We could and should also be fighting for UBI - this will be harder, but it's more popular now than it ever has been and some places are even TESTING it while the internet watches; it is not nearly as much of a pipe dream as it once was.

What's NOT going to help anyone is devaluing the labor of new automation tech operators - that INCENTIVIZES the corporations to adopt it FASTER where possible, and treat both new and existing employees WORSE. "I could replace you with a robot; you're employed out of the goodness of my heart" is one of the most common justifications for abusing and underpaying employees in relevant positions. Big media companies already rely on crunch at poverty wages; they're only going to get worse about it with AI tech because "oh you're just pushing buttons, what do you mean you can't do that for 20 hours at barely minimum wage, how lazy can you get?" if we continue this line of thinking. However, if we recommend and enable new automation operators - in all industries - to UNIONIZE before their work and thus their mistreatment even starts, it will make the transition a hell of a lot easier on both new and existing workers.

Tl;dr: It's great that we have a lot of people concerned about artists' labor rights and tech transparency now PLEASE LEARN YOUR HISTORY AND DIRECT YOUR ENERGY WHERE IT IS NEEDED INSTEAD OF ASSUMING YOU KNOW EVERYTHING FROM A FEW SENSATIONALIZED ARTICLES I BEG OF YOU

[samasmith23]

Ms. Marvel and exposing the systemic colorism displayed by Comicsgate bigots

So I’m about to go off on a bit of a tangent here, but for the longest time, one of the things that’s constantly enraged me about Richard C. Meyer, one of the lead ringleaders of the Neo-Nazi hate movement Comicsgate, is a particular aspect of his bigotry towards the character Ms. Marvel (aka, Kamala Khan). An element of Meyer's Islamophobic attacks against Kamala that repeatedly occurs throughout all his terrible videos bashing her comics is his repeated accusation that Kamala “doesn’t even look Pakistani.”

Yes... seriously... Richard Meyer, an cis straight white male, believes that he has the authority to claim what does and does not qualify as "looking Pakistani."

It's just as cringeworthy and racist as you can possibly imagine.

So the basis of Meyer's fallacious accusation that Kamala doesn't "look Pakistani" is simply because the artists of her comics depict her as has having either dark brown or black hair along with her brown skin. Heck, Meyer has not only stated that Kamala & her family instead look “vaguely Arabic or foreign," (essentially repeating the racist talking point of all Muslim countries being culturally and ethnically monolithic), but in one of his videos he even went as far as to accuse Kamala of looking like "a white girl who spray-tanned herself to look brown."

Essentially, Meyer is accusing a Pakistani character who was created by Muslim and POC creators of engaging in literal brown face. Not only is this accusation incredibly racist, but it doesn't even made any sense whatsoever since Kamala & her family have always been depicted as being of South Asian or Desi descent. Furthermore, Kamala was explicitly modeled after her co-creator and editor Sana Amanat, who is herself a Desi Pakistani-American woman.

For the longest time I was completely dumbfounded and confused as to where Meyer was even getting these offensive ideas from. However, a few years ago I think I discovered one of the potential underlying one of the reasons as to why Meyer believes that Kamala doesn’t look “Pakistani.” And it's a reason which goes deeper than simply being a byproduct of Meyer's own ignorance and racism.

See, a lot of South Asian countries, including Pakistan, actually have a big problem in regards to issues of colorism. It's actually gotten to the point where skin-lightening creams are repeatedly advertised and marketed towards women since lighter skin is considered by some to be more 'beautiful, and this mindset can be heavily traced back to British colonialism in the Indian subcontinent.

The Ms. Marvel comics themselves even briefly commentated on the issue of colorism in Pakistan when Kamala’s older brother Aamir got engaged to Tyesha, who is a black woman, challenging his parents desire about wanting him to marry a fellow Pakistani. Even when Kamala & Aamir's parents came around to accepting and embracing Tyesha as their future daughter in-law, Aamir still expressed anxiety over whether or not his other relatives would hold anti-black attitudes towards Tyesha or any biracial children they might someday have.

Sadly, colorism is such a widespread issue in South Asian countries that if you simply search for pictures of Pakistani women on Google Images, you’re bound to find tons of photographs of Pakistani women who have used said-skin-lightening creams. So overall, considering the historical context of colorism in countries like Pakistan, combined with Richard C. Meyer's own Islamophobic biases and his inability to do basic research on other cultures and ethnicities, I think it’s fair to assume that historical and contemporary colorism could have influenced Meyer's bigoted accusations of "Kamala and her family not even looking Pakistani."

Here are a few articles written by Pakistani women which go into much greater detail about the damaging effects that colorism in particular has had in South Asian countries:

This connection between contemporary South Asian colorism and Meyer's Post-9/11 Islamophobia further reinforced by the other examples in which he openly engages in inaccurate stereotyping of all Muslim countries being culturally monolithic. The most egregious example of this is undoubtedly Meyer's open demonization of Kamala's aforementioned older brother Aamir. Meyer constantly refers to Aamir as "looking like a shepherd" simply due to him wearing traditional Islamic attire in the form of a white thobe and taqiyah cap. He even outright, and inaccurately, calls Aamir an "ISIS bomber" in one of his awful videos, even outright stating, "Yes I'm profiling.”

He has attempted to justify his Islamophobia by stating that there’s no other reason for Aamir to wear such clothing, lying to his audience that said-clothing "shows that Aamir is unwilling to integrate into American society and therefore he should be viewed with suspicion."

Where do I even begin with how racist this is?! First of all, there are plenty of Muslim Americans in the real world who wear the type of clothing Aamir wears for various religious reasons, including adhering to more orthodox beliefs or trying to emulate the Prophet Muhammad, such as the Salafi branch of Islam which Aamir adheres to. Secondly, Aamir is portrayed throughout Ms. Marvel as being a genuinely kind person despite being more traditional and conservative, someone who cares deeply for his little sister and family. Additionally, during the Last Days arc Aamir is kidnapped and forcibly given superpowers by the Inhuman extremist Kamran (aka, Kamala's evil ex-boyfriend) who's playing into Islamophobic assumptions about more traditional Muslims being more likely to engage in terrorist violence. But Aamir completely rejects the tired stereotypes that Kamran is projecting onto him, even outright stating that he doesn't want superpowers and is already happy with who and where he is in life.

Thirdly, and most importantly, Meyer stating that an individual should be profiled simply on the basis of his religious clothing is on the same level of awfulness as when Frank Miller inferred in Holy Terror that all Muslim foreign exchange students should automatically be viewed as terrorists in disguise and, therefore, are to be treated with suspicion and hatred. And Franky-Boy communicates this disgusting marriage through the scene of the foreign exchange student Amina (who just so happens to be named after the Prophet Muhummad's mother... classy...) repaying a lesbian woman's hospitality by suicide-bombing both said-lesbian and a crowded party full of dozens of other civilians:

It's blatant Islamophobia and disgusting propaganda on Miller's part.

So when Meyer not only describes Aamir as "looking like a terrorist" or "dressing and acting like a freaking Taliban" simply due to his clothing, but even outright states "yes I'm profiling" whilst making these comments, Meyer is treating Aamir's character with suspicion and hate simply because of his traditionalist Muslim clothing. Just like Frank Miller does with framing Amina the exchange student as a mass-murdering suicide bomber in Holy Terror. These are all classic racist Post-9/11 Islamophobic talking points derived from American imperialism, which are intrinsically connected to the racist promotion of colorism and skin-lightening creams in South Asian countries derived from British colonialism. Negative stereotypes which both Aamir's character and Ms. Marvel as a whole actively refuted throughout the runs by G. Willow Wilson & Saladin Ahmed:

In other words, screw Richard C. Meyer and his blatant Islamophobia. Comicsgate is a hate group, and any and all criticisms they have made against books like Ms. Marvel are simply trojan horses designed to indoctrinate their audience with far-right talking points and prejudices. Prejudices which have their roots in both modern imperialism and historical colonialism which has negatively impacted the peoples of South Asian and Middle Eastern countries.

[molluskzone]

the thing that i dont get about digital art / AI comparisons (saying theyre both "cheating" in the same way, which ive seen a few times from both pro-AI and anti-AI people) is that in AI the only input is like... the text. it doesnt just make things easier or faster, it completely removes your creative control over a piece and automates the entire process. it's like... typing your essay out on google docs (easier and faster than writing by hand, you have access to spell check and dont need to erase or scribble out words you want to remove, formatting is much easier, etc) vs just inputting a prompt into chatGPT. do you understand the comparison im making here? it's literally the exact same concept, except i've never seen someone say that typing your essay on a laptop is cheating because "it's easier which makes you lazy and not a REAL writer, you're the same as the people trying to pass of chatGPT as their own writing".

also, if we're going there... all of the "cheats" you can do with digital art are entirely possible in traditional art (minus stuff like animation which are absolute HELL to do traditionally, especially 3d animation, but that's besides the point). so i don't even get the art-purist "you-can't-call-yourself-a-true-artist" pretentious argument here. YES, traditional art takes longer and costs more to make (you can buy a tablet once for 200 dollars, and connect it to a laptop which most people already have (or just use your phone/tablet which is even cheaper), and then have that be your only expense for YEARS except for replacement pen nibs and cables. meanwhile, sketchbooks are expensive and you need to constantly buy them, colored pencils are expensive if you're serious about it because you need a lot of different colors, paintings are on another level when it comes to materials cost, etc). i genuinely respect traditional artists since that shit is tedious. HOWEVER... saying that digital art is "cheating" kind of reveals to me that you're just unaware of all the potential "cheats" in traditional art. yes, theres some skills you need to learn, like coloring evenly with colored pencils or alcohol markers, or learning brush techniques and blending, color mixing, color matching, taking good photos of your art if you are someone who wants to post on social media, but there are ALSO unique skills you need to learn in digital art, such as managing layer types, learning to disconnect your eyes / hand (if you don't have a screen tablet), optimizing the image for digital viewing, color choosing (WAY HARDER TO DO DIGITALLY THAN TRADITIONALLY). they're equivalent in this way.

however... layering? use a light box and separate your sketch and coloring / lineart layers. undo? use a light box. quickly change colors? plan ahead better. physically paint over part of the piece. want to make multiple colored versions of a piece? cut out a lino block and use different colored ink to make prints. scan the drawing, print out more and color over them. tracing? fucking put the piece of paper over your laptop screen and trace it (we were expected to do this for practice in my high school art classes). mirroring / "flipping the canvas"? hold drawing up to mirror. if youre drawing on paper, hold it up to the sun or use a light box and flip it. symmetry? you can buy tools for this in which you hold a physical mirror up to half of your drawing and trace the reflection. we also used these in art class. you can also use tracing paper for this- it's my preferred method for making symmetrical traditional art, and for redrawing parts of a sketch / full piece that i want to move around or replace. color picking? any method you use digitally you can also use traditionally. the only trouble is IMPLEMENTING said colors in a full piece... but you also have to do that digitally. the biggest hurdle in color picking for traditional art is just... not having the resources to create a certain color easily, but that's a "can't afford a lot of paints / colored pencils / markers" issue, not necessarily a skill issue. even photobashing reference images or rearranging a piece is possible traditionally if you like... cut the sketch out and rearrange it physically before tracing over it, or physically making a reference with the same method. it is not hard and i have done this traditionally before. you can also use tracing paper for this. line stabilization is the only thing i've seen that's actually unique to digital art, but you can mimic this in traditional art by just... weighing down your art tool or having to redo the lineart a few times with the light box method (time consuming, yes, but not necessarily skillful. it just takes longer if you're bad at it, but the SAME results are possible). different layer types? just do the "math" in your head and figure it out. ive literally mimicked multiply layers before without actually using a multiply layer just to see if i COULD, and the results were the same. the only fully 100% true comparison i've seen is that stuff like AI-generated coloring and shading applied to digital art are "cheating" but that's... not digital art at that point... you're just making an argument again AI specifically because they are separate... it's closer to someone recreating an AI image themselves, or editing an AI image to make it look more realistic, which are, again, separate topics. also you can literally shade and fix traditional art with AI too if you take good enough photos of your art so this isn't even really a good argument against digital art specifically, it's an AI issue.

the only argument i see that makes sense is that traditional art, digital art, CGI animation, and AI art are all their own mediums that all require different skill sets (though i'd argue that traditional art and digital art are much more similar to each other in what skills you need than any of them are to AI art, but whatever). which i honestly kind of agree with? or i would is AI art was more ethical and not used in really dumb ways. but i personally think the AI slop is ugly, and my main gripe with it is that people try to "trick" others into believing AI art is real art by refusing to label it, or even labeling it maliciously incorrectly by naming fake artists as a credit for the image. you can't really do this with digital art since it's... pretty obvious when someone is creating something digitally. you know exactly what you're getting.

i think its fine if you want to say that traditional art is better or that you respect it more, because you're allowed your own opinion (even if i think you should at least experience drawing digitally before making a snap judgment). but its not "cheating" and its certainly not comparable to AI

[multifandom-traveler]

2. I think it's easier for me to draw forward. I'm getting better at facial profiles from most angles (except for top angles, and i havent even tried bottom angles yet). But when it comes to bodies, front-facing is definitely easier.

3. Eh... depends on what you mean by "little". I've been writing/trying to write stories ever since I was like... able to write stories and have ideas, pretty much. One recent idea I rebooted was/is kinda cheesy, but basically it's called Unexpected Royalty, if that gives you any ideas. I started it when I was like 12 and then dropped it for a while. The first draft (though unfinished) was a complete Disaster because I basically didn't follow a main plot point and threw in everything that came to mind. The reboot is going a lot better, still a little cheesy of course but it's focusing more on adventure and character development than drama and sitcom-vibes.

4. Sonic the freaking Hedgehog. I literally drew an oc with Shadow-like quills and it was super easy. tried drawing an oc with Sonic-like quills and gave up after like 30+ mins of JUST TRYING THE QUILLS. you'd think shadow is hard NOOOO ITS THE BLUE BLUR HIM FREAKING SELF.

5. literally like a 1-20 ratio I'm sure. Mostly cuz it's almost entirely oc art (and genderbends of the sonic characters because they've been living in mind rent-free for like a month now) and I know cringe culture is dead but I feel like I'd feel too vulnerable y'know?

8. I can't really say "lost interest" since a lot of my old stories do hold special places in my heart and feel nostalgic. There's a lot of stuff I want to work on but "lost interest" in the fact that I've hit a road block creatively/haven't made time to work on them/keep forgetting. But I can think of one that I was working on with a friend that we both dropped and haven't picked up again. It revolved around me and her as the main characters, and we time traveled to various times. If you ever watched Best Friends Whenever on Disney Channel, it was kinda like that. But instead of like, messing with our present in minor ways I think we just randomly were stuck traveling through and to random points in time-- this included not only times when we were alive but also times before that, iirc. Interesting idea but we never picked it back up.

10. I haven't had a lot of practice drawing clothing but totally either jackets or shirts/dresses with baggy sleeves. And definitely bandages, if that counts.

11. Usually listen to YT videos or music

12. Face. Definitely. Or maybe it depends on what I draw first? But seeing as that would usually be the face/head then I'll have to go with that.

15. My desk, in my bedroom. Or maybe anywhere else that I am if I brought a notebook with me and forgot/didn't bring my phone. Just a couple weeks ago I drew some ocs (well technically an oc and her genderbent counterpart) in a notebook of mine in a Mexican restaurant.

18. I can't remember much but one pencil sharpener I used just crapped out and we couldn't fix it. It had worked for like years before that (though that includes a long period of inactivity) but after I used it for like a month it just died suddenly

23. Yup. Lots of layers, usually. At least 2. 3 if I'm doing a background. more if needed. usually merge them in the end, makes it feel more organized ig.

24. I don't think this counts but usually if I'm drawing humans I need to trace a base. Like those draw the squad prompts and just anything I find on google images that I could use lol. Sometimes I have to do that with Sonic characters but it's becoming less and less the more I practice.

Ok that was really long but im done byeeee

Weirdly Specific Artist Ask Game

Didn't see a lot of artist ask games, wanted to make a silly one.

(I wrote this while sick out of my mind last year and it's been collecting dust in my drafts, I might as well let it run free) 1. Art programs you have but don't use

2. Is it easier to draw someone facing left or right (or forward even)

3. What ideas come from when you were little

4. Fav character/subject that's a bitch to draw

5. Estimate of how much of your art you post online vs. the art you keep for yourself

6. Anything that might inspire you subconsciously (i.e. this horse wasn't supposed to look like the Last Unicorn but I see it)

7. A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate

8. What's an old project idea that you've lost interest in

9. What are your file name conventions

10. Favorite piece of clothing to draw

11. Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what

12. Easiest part of body to draw

13. A creator who you admire but whose work isn't your thing

14. Any favorite motifs

15. *Where* do you draw (don't drop your ip address this just means do you doodle at a park or smth)

16. Something you are good at but don't really have fun doing

17. Do you eat/drink when drawing? if so, what

18. An estimate of how much art supplies you've broken

19. Favorite inanimate objects to draw (food, nature, etc.)

20. Something everyone else finds hard to draw but you enjoy

21. Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways

22. What physical exercises do you do before drawing, if any

23. Do you use different layer modes

24. Do your references include stock images

25. Something your art has been compared to that you were NOT inspired by

26. What's a piece that got a wildly different interpretation from what you intended

27. Do you warm up before getting to the good stuff? If so, what is it you draw to warm up with

28. Any art events you have participated in the past (like zines)

29. Media you love, but doesn't inspire you artistically

30. What piece of yours do you think is underrated

[heliads]

Like A Daydream (Part Two)

Based on this request: “A Peter Parker oneshot where the reader can put people to sleep with her touch, but she’s got something against the Avengers. As per usual, Spider-Man isn’t really that involved himself with the Avengers, but still helps them out, so they’re enemies. Yet she and Peter are friends in their normal lives, not knowing each other’s secrets”

ok someone asked for a second part and i literally could not resist. enjoy babes

part one / masterlist

You swore to yourself that you wouldn’t let your dual identities be a problem. It wouldn’t come in between you and your regular life, not when you first started, and certainly not now. The fact that you just found out that Spider-Man is your best friend Peter Parker doesn’t have to change anything. 

It’s a foolish hope, and you know it. For one thing, Peter’s getting closer to figuring out your own secret identity by the day. You thought you’d been able to convince him you were just a normal teenager that night you’d come home late from a run-in with the Avengers and his own superhero persona, but it looks like your luck won’t last forever. 

In truth, you’d always assumed that something like this was bound to happen. There’s no way that you’d be able to keep your identity as Nightmare a secret forever, even though you’d like nothing more than for that to happen. There are simply too many eyes in S.H.I.E.L.D. bent on tracking you down. 

After all, who are you to stop them? You’re just some kid trying to find her friend. You don’t know what you thought you were getting yourself into when you first tried to track down your missing inhuman friend, Alyna, but it has quickly spiraled out of control. 

The only hope you now have of actually tracking her down lies in the information you were able to recover on the day of your break-in. You haven’t gotten a chance to look at it yet, but you intend to do so today. It could all be totally useless, but at least it’s something you didn’t have before. 

You’re feeling quite paranoid about the whole thing, so you decide to open the files at school. If S.H.I.E.L.D. is somehow able to trace the signal when you open the files, they’ll only track you here, and they might assume that they’re finding Peter and not you. It’s the best you can do for a cover. 

You wait until school is out, then pull out your laptop and find a corner of the building with no security cameras overseeing your every movement. You plug the flash drive into your computer with trembling hands. What are you going to find on this thing?

As it turns out, you find a whole lot of nothing. The files you were able to access are just entry level nonsense, stuff they probably allocate to interns who need to feel important but don’t have the clearance for anything else. You can guess at a few locations that might prove useful in the future, but other than that, you’ve hit yet another dead end. 

You sigh, frustrated, and slam the lid of your laptop closed, revealing a figure standing right in front of you, their arms crossed in disapproval. You freeze— you hadn’t heard Peter come in, but it’s too late to try and hide. 

By the looks of his expression, he knows exactly what you’ve been doing. You still try to weasel your way out of it, though. 

“Say, Peter, I didn’t realize you were still here. Were you studying for the chem quiz? Believe me, I couldn’t be more stressed about—”

Peter cuts you off coolly. “Why are you looking at S.H.I.E.L.D. files? Don’t try to deny it, I saw the logo on your screen.”

Your wary smile drops like a stone. “I was just, uh, googling the logo. Art reference image, you know?”

Peter scoffs. “You know I can tell when you’re lying, right? Why do you have those files?”

You can see Peter straining to say something. He knows that Nightmare was in the Avengers facility and that she managed to steal some S.H.I.E.L.D. files. He can’t reveal that he knows this, however, because only Spider-Man would have heard about that, and Peter doesn’t think that anyone who isn’t an Avengers affiliate is aware of his secret identity. 

You’ve been afraid of this reveal ever since you found out that Peter is Spider-Man. It was inevitably going to happen some point, although you’d hoped to have at least a little more time with your best friend before he started to hate you. It’s a shame that everything you’ve ever built with him, every inside joke and long lasting memory, is about to be torn down to mere shreds of a once perfect life. 

You jerk your head towards the doors. “Can we continue this conversation outside? I’d imagine we both have secrets that we don’t want overheard.”

Peter blanches, realizing what you’re hinting at, and starts to walk mechanically away. He seems as if he’s headed to the gallows; in a way, he is. Peter’s secrecy, his normal life, all of it dies today along with your friendship. There is no way that he would ever forgive you for this, and you’ve known it all along. You wish you could have avoided this fate, but it has been tied to you ever since you accidentally saw his face that day on the rooftop. 

Peter’s steps are brisk, utterly devoid of the usual rhythm that typically sweetens his movements. It’s as if all individuality has been drained from him, leaving behind only this betrayed boy. You did this, you think. Even before he knows for sure, he knows, and it’s killed him.

The two of you stop in an alley not far from the school, just out of view of anyone else. Peter checks one last time to see if anyone is watching. Upon seeing that no one is there, he turns back to you, arms folded across his chest.

“So?” He asks, voice cutting to the bone, “What was that about? What do you know?”

You sigh. “Yes, those were S.H.I.E.L.D. files. And yes, I know you’re worried about them because you were there when I stole them from the Avengers facility. You were Spider-Man, and I was–”

Your voice cuts off, but Peter picks up just where your tone drops. “You were Nightmare. God, I hoped I was wrong about that.”

Your mind flashes with a hurt like nothing you’ve ever known before, even when your friend Alyna vanished without a trace. “How long have you guessed that I was Nightmare?”

Peter grimaces. “Since the first day I met you. We were both suited up, and I had no reason to suspect it was you, but your voice sounded the same. It wasn’t until I was going home after the day you broke into the Avengers complex that I realized something was up. You were laughing over my guess that you were an Avenger because it was absurd to you. You were never an Avenger, you were trying to kill them. You were Nightmare.”

You scoff. “I wasn’t trying to kill them, Peter, I thought I made that obvious even before I found out you were Spider-Man. I could have knocked you out and dropped you off of a building any time, but I didn’t.”

Peter spreads his hands. “Oh, and what a great display of kindness that was. You didn’t kill me when I was asleep.”

Your eyes narrow. “At least try to work with me here. I’m not some kind of supervillain, Peter, I just kept my other identity hidden. In case you missed it, that’s exactly what you do, too.”

Peter holds up a warning finger. “Actually, there’s a pretty big difference between the two of us. I’m a good guy. I stop robberies, I keep this city safe from people like you. I mean, what were you doing, trying to steal S.H.I.E.L.D. files? That seems like supervillain behavior to me!”

You laugh bitterly. “Always drawing the worst conclusions, aren’t you? I wasn’t doing any of that for me, I was doing it for my friend. There was a girl about my age, someone who might only come second to you in terms of people who mattered the most to me. She was an inhuman, and S.H.I.E.L.D. kidnapped her to join their ranks of gifted soldiers. I’ve been doing all this so I could find her, not because I’m a monster.”

Peter’s face twists; with what, you can’t tell. “You were fighting all of us just for one inhuman? How do you know S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t take her in because she was causing problems?”

You shake your head slowly. “I know her, Peter. I know she was a good person. Did all of your empathy leave the second you realized I was Nightmare? Believe what you want about me, but some part of you must know that I wouldn’t do any of this if I didn’t have to. I’m trying to save my friend. Tell me that doesn’t match everything you know about me.”

Peter’s eyes harden, and then he all but rips his backpack from his shoulders. You watch confusedly as he rustles through the pockets for a piece of paper and a pen. He scribbles something on the note, perhaps a name, and thrusts it at you, snatching his hand back the second he can.

“Take it. That’s the man in charge of Avengers recruitment. If you want to know where your friend is, that’s the person who can help you.”

You keep staring at him. “Why do I feel like there’s a cost?”

Peter almost flinches, then spits the rest of the words out in a hurry. “I gave you what you want, now you’re going to do the same for me. Find the man or don’t, I don’t care. Just leave me alone from now on, alright? I can’t be around you, not if you’re attacking the people who protect this city.”

You draw back from him, even as you want nothing more than to rush to his side and beg him to reconsider. “Peter, what are you talking about? We’ve been friends for years. You can’t seriously be doing this. I told you I only ever fought the Avengers to get information on my friend.”

Peter, however, remains firm, even if it seems to be tearing him apart before your eyes. “I know. You’re choosing your friend. You just chose the wrong one.”

Before you can say anything, he turns and leaves, walking briskly back out of the side street and into the clear light of the afternoon. You watch him go until he is a trace of silhouette, then nothing at all. The paper crunches in your curled fist, but you can’t convince yourself to care. You’ve just lost Peter, the one person you can’t bear to live without. It has been awful without Alyna, certainly, but life lacking Peter is an entirely different sort of hell.

Things doesn’t change as the days pass, either. You were hoping that this could be nothing more than a shocked reaction to a surprising truth. Peter has never fared well against earthshaking revelations, and although it’s certainly momentous to find out that your best friend is an inhuman currently fighting on the opposite side as you, you were hoping that he’d still stick by you. At the least, he could try and separate his friendship from his work, just like you have.

However, when you go back to school the next day and find Peter doing his best to never so much as look at you, you realize that this isn’t going to be the case. He’s switched his seat in the classes you share so the two of you are no longer side by side, he no longer walks with you between classes, and he avoids you like you’re a deadly parasite, not someone who up until last night had been his best friend in the entire world.

It cuts like a blade. You don’t know that you’ve ever felt this empty, this lacking in purpose. You can’t help but wonder if Peter feels this same kind of hurt, or if he’s utterly numb to the agony currently threatening to tear your heart from your chest. You miss him with everything you have, and he’s just down the hall, across the room, or three feet away and always studiously avoiding your gaze.

Who do you have to blame except yourself? You have been Spider-Man’s enemy the past couple of months, so of course Peter would react strongly. Still, you don’t know how you’re supposed to fill the gaping hole in your chest, even with the possibility of learning more about Alyna’s disappearance.

You still haven’t even followed Peter’s tip and tracked down the man meant to lead you to your vanished friend. Perhaps some part of you thinks that it still represents the deal, that if you refuse to chase down this man, Peter will have to come back to you. After the second week of Peter’s abandonment, you realize that nothing you do will convince him to return to you, so you push aside your last feelings of grief and decide to start searching again. At least you can have one friend after all of this.

Thus you find yourself alone on a dark afternoon, running across the roofline of the New York city skyline on a quest to find a S.H.I.E.L.D. informant and track him to his workplace. This man, Brett Neal, only travels to a specific facility in the afternoon, and always makes sure he isn’t being followed.

Despite his best attempts at secrecy, though, he can’t shake you. You’re dressed in your Nightmare uniform again, mask pulled snugly over your face. This time, you won’t be distracted. This time, you’ll be getting what you want, because if you walk away from this with nothing yet again, you don’t know that you’ll be able to survive the loneliness of letting down yet another friend.

You promise yourself this, repeating it over and over in your head like a protective mantra, but your thoughts stumble about fifteen minutes into your pursuit. There’s a scuffling sound happening in a street a block or two down, and although it’s none of your business, it’s certainly causing a fair amount of passersby to walk hurriedly in the other direction.

Just before you can convince yourself to ignore the whole matter, the fight shifts down a block and begins again right beneath you. You get a snapshot of the conflict: two figures locked in deadly combat, one with dripping, animal jaws easily large enough to snap a human head in half, and the other wearing a familiar red and blue suit, swinging on ropes of spider web.

You need to keep going. You have no idea how long you have until Brett Neal changes his schedule, and your lead on Alyna’s disappearance is gone yet again. Peter has pushed you aside for the final time. If your roles were reversed and he was the one watching you get into trouble, he would not stop for a second, and neither should you. You tense your legs, and keep running.

Down below, Peter doesn’t manage to dodge a snapping lunge from the beast in time, and its fangs sink into his shoulder. He cries out, a noise that’s mostly lost in the turmoil. Only the barest scrap of the sound makes it up to you, but it’s enough.

Brett Neal carries on unbothered, no shadows lingering on his heels. You dive down from the roofline in one swift movement, smooth as water flowing from high above. You land on the creature’s head, distracting it from Peter long enough for it to charge after you. You fling out a hand, which lands on its hairy back, disappearing in tufts of fur that eerily resemble human hair. 

You’re not sure whether this thing is man or beast at heart, but it responds well enough to your gift. You watch as its hungry black eyes disappear behind strong lids, and just in case, Peter coats the thing’s forelimbs in webs to make sure it stays down.

You can see Peter taking a hesitant step towards you, as if he wants to say something. Just before he can, however, you hear a clatter of heels at the opening of the street, and throw yourself around the corner just before someone else appears on the scene. It’s another Avenger, Tony Stark. You can hear the identifying sarcasm even without having to see the man’s face.

“Good to see you got that one. Rogers and I saw a couple more go down towards Central Park. I swear, if one of these furballs gets seen by the news, we’re going to have our heads on pikes by the end of the day. Gotta love the job, right?”

Peter mutters something noncommittal, and you listen as Tony’s voice shifts into a more questioning tone.

“Say, have you seen anyone here? I swear I saw someone else. You don’t suppose there’s another person watching, do you?” Tony asks.

This is Peter’s chance to rat you out. All it takes is a single word, one finger pointed towards the mouth of this alley, and Tony will have you. If Peter wants to reveal you, he can. Judging by his recent behavior towards you, Peter would enjoy that all too much. He sees you as an enemy, even if you’ve just saved him. This fight with the creature changes nothing.

Yet Peter’s voice remains casual. “Nothing except this guy. I’ll catch up with you in a second, I’m a little winded. Maybe dog allergies extend to weird werewolf hybrids.”

Tony chuckles. “Sure thing, take as much time as you need. You’ll probably be able to track us well enough. Just follow the sounds of screaming.”

You hear Tony fire up his repulsor beams and head out of the street in a blur. Seconds later, Peter appears around the bend.

“He’s gone,” Peter offers, and you nod.

“Why didn’t you tell him I was here?” You ask.

Peter lifts a shoulder, looking away. “You just saved my ass, I figure it would be mean to pay you back by setting Iron Man on you.”

You fold your arms across your chest. “Guess I should know better than to expect any kindness, then. Just another deal, right?”

You start to turn away, but Peter hurries to your side. “Wait, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry, alright? I didn’t know what to think when I realized you were Nightmare. I thought that meant you were going to keep fighting me.”

You remain stock-still, unable to allow yourself even a moment of hope. “What made you change your mind?”

Peter reaches up, pulling off first his mask then yours. “That. You’re still my friend, even if we’ve got different goals. I need you more than I thought. Besides, I’m not going to stop trying to save this city, even if it means I still work with the Avengers. I’m not asking you to stop looking for your friend, either. I just need to know that we can coexist like this, and you proved that when you saved me.”

You look up at him, almost afraid to believe what you’re seeing. “So that’s it, then? Friends again?”

Peter smiles. “Friends always.”

He reaches over, tangling his arm around your shoulders and pulling you close. You let your eyes shut tight, blocking out the rest of the world except for this moment, just the two of you. You can feel Peter press a kiss to the top of your head, and you lean in to his touch. Some part of you is terrified that you won’t ever find your inhuman friend; another, that you’ll never be truly free from S.H.I.E.L.D. finding you. For now, though, you have Peter, and that’s more than enough for you.

peter parker/marvel tag list: @namoreno, @rogueanschel, @thatfangirl42, @mycosmicparadise,@ellobruv, @caswinchester2000, @with-inked-solace, @sher-lokid7, @amortensie, @23victoria, @watchreadfangirlrepeat, @gods-fools-heroes

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

Shidou MV Details

Alright! So I (admin Saturn) did some frame by frame examination on Shidou’s MV. I don’t necessarily have any theory that comes from this but I do have some interesting information/clues!

Now the image above that I’ve written over is taken from 3:35 in the MV. This is that tag that comes from the flower person. (Shidou’s suspected romantic partner that he’s trying to save via organ harvesting) 

Interestingly, everything on this tag is the same as on every other tag that ca be seen in the 2:24 section of the video. This could be from an ease of animation stand point, a way to represent how dialed in on this person Shidou is, or even have some broader theoretical implication on his crime that I couldn’t tell you. 

Taking a look back at the actual contents on the tag though, the first thing to point out is the ‘Who:’ section. It’s very clearly in cursive and to the best as I could trace on edited image, I think it might say Rue Kar... something. This could be the name of the dead person, a surgeon that was operating on then, an organ donor, really any number of potential people. 

(And I’m putting the unedited version in just so y’all can get a clear look) The next thing on here is the ‘Organ:’ section which (to my best guess) says magen. Now! That meant literally nothing to me at first, however with some googling, I learned magen is german for stomach. 

Why would this japanese MV have german names for organs? Couldn’t tell you! I’ll leave that for the theorists to figure out! However, I am almost certain that this is in fact meant to be read in German because of the additional very small writing underneath. Taking just the shapes that I could make out and comparing them to a german anatomical name list, heres what they look like to me in the order that’s in my first picture. 

1. Magen - Stomach

2. (???) Gehirn - Brain

3. Leber - Liver

4. Lunga - Lung

5. Niere - Kidney

6. (??) Herz - Heart

7. Gallenblase - Gallbladder

8. Zwolffingerdarn - Duodenum (small intestine part)

9. (?) Bauchenspiecheldruse - Pancreas

My theories as to why theres this list: (and nothing concrete, I’ll leave this to the theorists and future MV’s to explain) Could be a list of organs this body needed replaced or could be just a list of organs as a sort of checklist for medical peeps?

Adding on to this, 9 items in a category is also seen as the number of unique flowers (I believe? that I counted at least, correct me if I’m wrong here) that are flashed against that black background which could suggest the flowers represent organs instead of patients that some theorize? Now how exactly a person would transplant a brain is above me.. pretty sure it’s impossible so I don’t know what that’s about, however these could instead be organs that are beginning to fail rather than organs Shidou is transplanting? The logic doesn’t quite flow here though, just figured pointing out this correlation (not causation) could help others theorize.

But anyway, last thing on the front of this is a big ol XX XY with the XY having a slash through it. Now... 2 explanations for this cause it’s kinda counter to my logic. Either this is indicating biological female by crossing out the XY or indicating biological male because its the one that marked.... Either way kinda an odd system but I won’t fault them!

And then some additional things I noticed, if you look at the papers that turn into the tags, they all have the same grey lines on them indicating these papers all hold the same information. This could have similar explanations as why all the tags are the same.

And then last thing! All the tags have the same black backside with a number 7 on it and some unintelligible writing. 

Heres two good shots of the back, something to note is that the part has the N, like the number indicator, looks to be the same type of font as the one that indicates prison cell number. Maybe they just reused the font but it does seem sort of odd to me? Especially because Shidou is prisoner number 5. Just something odd.

But anyway!! Sorry that got so long, that’s what I have discovered here, please let me know what y’all think!! I’m not quite one for the strong theories but I like to think I can pick out some interesting details :)

[quartzdawn]

Thank you so much for the breakdown. A lot of these make sense and support my claim that she's most likely a insecure artist with no shame as long as it gets her views and likes. Probably why, regardless of being literally ran off the internet she is still trying to make accounts to reminisce in whatever fame she use to have. As for the graphic design claim I also support this theory as not olu because of what you said but their was actually an artist similar to her that was also ran off the internet for similar reasons . She was also a Graphic Designer, had an entire degree for it. and with that degree she was able to photoshop and trace stills from the show. And despite many people calling her out fit it she still claimed it as her 'Art' because of the factor that she was using her graphic design skills to make it.

Mind you she was drawing and push out work like this, no credited added:

Of coarse looking at this , especially if you had watched the show, you would be able to point out in 2 seconds that this was traced. However as Jackie would continue her photoshop journey her 'art' would turn out like this:

At first glance you wouldn't even think this was traced in any sort of way. Probably photoshopped here but not much to indicate the tracing. However that is because Jackie was able to 'outsource' her photoshop were she started to trace and photoshop work that wasn't even Avatar related. Example is that in this specific piece here many of the faces are traced from the Manga 'BLEACH'. At the time that she was writing and drawing this she also was using photographs of in real life people so she was mixing that into the bunch. Photoshop oddly, if you perfect it well enough, can trick many people at first glance which is what people like Jackie and Ugigugi hope happens. So that they can get credit for ALL the work instead of most of the work. I feel like that is the case with Ugigiugi and why, for a hot minute, not many people could tell she was tracing art until a few people, familiar with the official art and the fan artist work, found familiarity in the pieces.

Because if you were to look at a piece of work of Ugigiugi like this:

you wouldn't bat an eye. Especially if you are not familiar with 'Signs of a tracer'. Hell, when I spoke to one of my friends and showed their art, she noted how if she never saw the original sources she would of never guessed she was a tracer.

However anyone that was familiar with traced work and/or took time to analysis her work would notice that "Huh some of the shading and lighting is not correct in this photo" (Look at the roses and Malleus in general) or "Huh some of the positions of the character don't make sense" (Note: Sebek in his position wouldn't even be looking at Julia but at Malleus and Malleus and Silver are standing perfectly towards the audience. Malleus also being in a pose were he would not be able to really fully see julia and what she is holding either).

Other than that at a 5 second glance you would not be able to tell that she was a tracer and if it wasn't for people like you and many others who actually sat down to look at the art an analysis it she probably would of never got caught. Usually tracers who lacked a graphic design degree could be spotted a mile away. An example is this artist named Nads6969 who, god know why she never got caught in the 10 years of tracing.

Bu Ugiguigi, because of whatever Photoshop skills she has, mixes and matches images so well that you wouldn't even think of seeing the original source. This piece alone (the Ugigugi one I just showed above) probably has a good 8-10 traced sources 3 being literal objects. She also is able to keep her line weight consistent and knows enough about art to give the illusion in Julia's design alone that she has an art style.

Its actually quite horrifying to think that if she wasn't using fanart that pops up as the first 10 results on google images people would of never caught her. Probably would of gone another 3 years of tracing and moved on to what ever other Gacha games with pretty boys in it. Mind you she was doing this for at least 3 years. Her first post on DA was in 2020 and she got caught and exposed in 2023. Anyway sorry for the long ass rant wanted to way in on the photoshop part because I've done deep dives in these weird kind of tracers.

Edit: Also forgot to add in the factor that her most obvious signs she has some sort of graphic design degree and uses those elements is how well she is at making her own logos.

I usually don't talk much about drama as you can see but the Ugigiugi tracing situation fascinates me.

How insecure in your art do you have to be that you not only trace both official art and fan design/art, but also trace bases, which you could just simple credit in the description, and go as far as to composite edit two images together to trace over both of them?

At this point I don't even know if I want to consider that lazy because composite editing two or more photos isn't a five second job. This is a person who just simply so insecure in their own work that they have no will to improve and its actual quite sad how many artist I've ran into like this. They would rather be a tracer and ride for the lie they made up then actually putting effort to at least credit the bases they used.

And at this point I want to know why because its 2024. Artist are not shamed in admitting to using models and bases in their work. It's a common practice especially for professional artist so their is legit no reason or excuse for this person to not even credit using official art of all things in her work. saying "use/reference/trace of [whatever official company your using] images". You also could simply just use 3D models so you don't have to credit anyone. If you can trace bases you can work with models. Your a Hobby fan artist for Christ sake people get it.

[writingwithcolor]

Jewish, green-skinned characters, and antisemitism

Anonymous asked:

1) I was researching green skin and its relationship to anti-semitism (I can provide a link to a good twitter thread on that) but all the resources connected it to Star Trek. In most high fantasy, orcs are green but are otherwise not jewish-coded (though usually racist caricatures anyway).

2) I was wondering if the green-ness itself is anti-semitic or if it requires further coding to hit anti-semitism, especially since the green skin (and often black or green blood) is so ubiquitous in high fantasy. Thanks in advance for reading this, even if you don't answer. This blog has helped me a lot, and even on this query I used your google advice to find the Star Trek threads. I hope you and your loved ones are all staying safe in the pandemic.

I'll have to research the actual green skin thing a little more but honestly if you want a green skin fantasy character and they aren't doing the specifically antisemitic-coded things like being super greedy and sneaky and exploiting the more human-looking characters then who cares? Like if there's a hot green chick let there be a hot green chick. Or a grizzled old warrior who likes to tell loud stories while drinking. It doesn't affect anything either way if the green skin thing turns out to be legit or not. (So yeah, I think it would require further coding, personally.)

--Shira

I've never been particularly compelled by arguments that green skin is inherently antisemitic today, though there is evidence of recurring use of green, and yellow, in antisemitic propaganda. I know that green is enough for many people to feel that a depiction is antisemitic, but for me it requires more coding. If characters are green, and also lizard-like, scaled, have horns etc I would look at it more carefully, but green alone is fine for me. Especially if you avoid other antisemitic tropes. 

-- Dierdra

Honestly, when I hear ‘green skin’ all I can think of is Idina Menzel belting out Defying Gravity while being an awesome Jewish woman. As long as it’s not a Lizard Thing and the characters don’t fulfil any other anti-Semitic stereotypes, I’m fine with it.

--Shoshi

And then Shira actually googled. Whew: an adventure.

TRIGGER WARNING

Warning for old, upsetting propaganda images. Placing these under the cut with further thoughts:

“Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew)”

Source: wikipedia

De Eeuwige Jood

source: artnet

Having seen this, some thoughts:

I don't think this carries over into modern antisemitism the way a lot of things do, personally. I don't think of us when I see the "hot green alien woman" on fandoms that have hot green alien women. But I can't deny what i've just seen.

I don't WANT green-ness to matter. But I think it's important to trace where the "no green" part of Tumblr is getting that from

Ultimately, my opinion here is that without another marker of Jewishness, green skin by itself isn't enough to evoke us. So the hot green alien women or the Jolly Green Giant or Bruce Banner when he's had an angry, don't fall into this category. It's only when it's in combination with other tropes that the need to start being careful emerges. And, personally, I'm not bothered by a greenish Spock because he is an alien, but other Jewish fans are allowed to mind (no marginalized group is a monolith), plus, a big part of why I don't mind in his case is that he's a very positive character, and the Vulcans in general are positively depicted (mind you I haven't seen the new show or the most recent reboot movie, so pardon me if I'm missing something.)

It does help if you reference Jewish humans in your setting, though, so that one doesn't automatically default to some alternate reality where the only "Jewish" rep is literally an alien. (Yes, I know he's half human but if you're trying to say he's Jewish through Amanda you need to actually come out and say that. And then she becomes additional Jewish rep.) Going back to orcs, I would personally never have seen the average orc as trope-ly Jewish. So I think you are okay with green orcs.

Ultimately, this comes down to an issue of adding non-human traits to characters that evoke IRL marginalized people. It's fine to have green characters as long as the greenness doesn't have a one-to-one ratio with Jewishness through some other track. Are there regular human colored Jewish characters or green characters who aren't subtextual references to Jewish tropes in addition to your specifically tropey creature? Then you might be fine, especially if the tropes aren't negative/offensive ones.

Like the goblin discussion, it comes down to: try not to evoke a correlation between a specific real-world marginalized ethnicity and specific distasteful traits of a humanoid but nonhuman fantasy species.

--Shira,

who would love to be the green fairy from Fantasia 2000

[lelelego]

Hi Lego! I'm Steph! your style really makes me smile. I wanted to ask for some art advice if that is alright, specifically when you first started drawing what kind of art sources did you use to gain that type of style or what you used to improve in drawing of the facial expressions and body proportions?

omg i'm so sorry for the late reply! and of course you can ask me for advice 8^) happy to help and sorry for the long reply LOL

(1) art sources: when i first started drawing you know what i was literally doing... i was tracing like cardcaptor sakura and naruto and other anime i liked. i literally just took tracing paper and traced over images i liked lmao!!

that was a huge base for how i started, and then i came across drawing ~real people~ and started looking more at anatomy and how muscles work and while i definitely still need to work on my anatomy, i think that's how i've come to my current main style :^)

(2) facial expressions / body proportions: some advice that really stuck to me is from the creator of lackadaisy cats (tracy j butler)! i would really recommend googling "lackadaisy expressions", where she outlines the basics of what she does. i try to keep it in mind when im drawing expressions!

as for body proportions i feel like that's kind of a personal thing? while i feel like CLAMP anatomy can look outlandish at times i think it works because everyone has long limbs. and it's up to you how you want your characters to look, but to keep in mind that different proportions can say different things. i usually study cartoon characters for storytelling and real humans for "correct" proportions.

tl;dr use a lot of refs, no matter what! have tutorials open while you're drawing, get a mirror and make some faces, copy expressions off movies, etc.!

[youzicha]

I feel that just saying "if people want to draw a convenient line" is treating the matter too lightly! People respond differently to paintings and photos. People on social media respond really differently to paintings and AI works. :) Unlike gouache versus watercolor there are value judgements involved. So what exactly is valuable?

🎨 Back in the day, when Leonardo da Vinci argued that painting is more noble than sculpture, he said one of the reasons is that the painter uses linear perspective.

Now to return to the proposition concerning what was said about low relief, I will say that it involves less physical fatigue than full relief, yet it is a much greater investigation, for the proportions interposed by distance between the parts of bodies, from the first part to the second, and from the second to the third in succession must be considered in [low relief]. If you have not considered these [distances], perspectivist, you will discover no work at all in low relief that is not full of errors in cases when greater and lesser relief is required for the parts of bodies as they are closer or farther from the eye. In full relief there will never be any such error because nature helps the sculptor, and for this reason whoever does full relief is deprived of such difficulty.

If you use 3d reference figures, you are similarly deprived of the difficulty. One specific skill is automated away.

🎨 A traditional painter spends a bunch of time learning to mix paints and will say things like "one of my favorite pigments is alizarin crimson". In digital this is obviously irrelevant, and instead people will e.g. apply color to entire areas by messing around with the "curves" or hue/saturation tools. Actually, digital photographers use the same tools to postprocess their pictures. This makes the process a bit less premeditated and more experimental: instead of mixing a particular hue you can move around the sliders until you happen to come across a good one.

Or, you can use AI tech to go directly from line art to colors. I guess you can try this multiple times until you happen to come across a good one. (Someone on the youtube page comments "OMG~ i was struggling with coloring and here we are WOOOOW~ Thank you~".)

🎨 One case I had in mind. Some acquaintance was looking at a scene from a Makoto Shinkai movie and exclaimed "so beautiful, it looks like a painting!" and I replied that it's literally a painting. But is it? Back in the 1980s it would have been created using physical paints, but now it's drawn digitally. It makes heavy use of photo references. At least in some cases I would guess it's drawn/traced directly on top of photos. In any case you can make similar art that way: by googling I found somebody's "tutorial on painting over a photo to turn it into a Makoto Shinkai style anime background", or a another similar tutorial.

The process described in the tutorials doesn't rely on drawing skills or perspective construction, because you trace. It does require a sense of color, but in a curve-tweaking way that is more like modern photography than traditional painting. The rendering is quite mechanical ("now we draw lines everywhere"). I think we have traveled quite a bit towards the "not painting" side of the spectrum even before we bring out the modern AI tech ("AnimeGAN: The Photo AI That Can Turn Any Photo Into a Shinkai or Ghibli Anime").

So how many tasks are automatable before the nobility of painting is in danger? I guess my point is that nobody really had to think about this until now, because digital and traditional painting were obviously similar enough to count as "the same thing". But going forward I think the way commercial images are produced will become radically different: some mix of rough sketches, posed models, text-based prompts, extrapolation from mood-boards, etc. And I suspect people will want to distinguish "that thing" from "painting". Maybe we have already overshot, so some of the practices that we accept now will be considered "not painting" in the future.

I think a decade or two ago it used to be common for artists working in Photoshop to explain that "no, this is really 'painting' just as much as traditional media, it relies on the same skills". But now the AI art tech kindof vindicates the traditionalist-purist side?

Like, it seems clear that generating images from text prompts isn't painting, but at the same time there's a continuum, and out of the many labor-saving devices like perspective tools, custom foliage brushes, posable 3d models to paint over, etc, it's hard to say where the line is. So the new tools retroactively make the previous ones suspect...