#if you value your eyeballs

[theforgowolf]

WELP! Time to purge my eyes and get ready to deal with Vaporeon 2 electric boogaloo!

[todayisafridaynight]

YOU ARE SO RIGHT ABT KIRYU HONESTLY

I’ve ranted to friends before abt how Kiryu is just genuinely so stupid that it comes of as dick-ish and inconsiderate to the people around him ESPECIALLY majima like?? He absolutely knows majima would walk through hell for Kiryu and takes full advantage of that in the worst ways and I don’t even think he fully realizes that that’s what he’s doing. Like please I love kazumaji as much as the next person but really only at a very specific point in time when they were both at their least fucked up gsgdfdf (kiwami 1 obv)

All is to say I agree please put the whole rgg fandom in an intro to literature class I think they’d greatly benefit gsgdf

kiryu is one of my favorite characters BECAUSE he's just so ass backwards. like On Paper he's a good guy: left the yakuza and is trying to live a normal life, has an orphanage and takes care of kids etc etc. but then you like. ACTUALLY look into him and its so funny.. he's such a dick and he doesn't even know and i love him. he just wants to do what he thinks is right and SOMETIMES he's right but his judgement also puts other people in peril (i.e. majima and daigo)

[nnight-dances]

LOVE & OTHER CLICHÉS

PAIRING: jeon wonwoo x fem!reader (ft. kim mingyu)

GENRE: fluff, angst, suggestive content

TROPES: brother's best friend, slow burn question mark, skirting around communication because that's a good plot point, jealousy as requested, banter, teasing, arbitrary social norms about words like "cute" and "sweet" pls don't listen to a word i say ever, etc.

WORD COUNT: 12k (for some reason)

The first time you re-meet Jeon Wonwoo, your brother Joshua's best friend, you think a lot of things. He does, too. It's really interesting how neither of you say exactly what you think.

"Y/N! Is that really you?" 

If you hadn't been on the phone with Karina when you heard Wonwoo's voice, you think you might've genuinely passed away because his voice is something of nostalgic value to you, something distant and definitely not in the same living room as you. You look up and your eyes widen when you find the man gaping at you. "-Oh, hi–" you shoot up from your seat on the couch and then quickly remember your friend still on the line. You tell her, "Sorry, Rina, mind if I call you back later? Okay, thanks, love you. Night." 

Wonwoo raises an eyebrow at you like you'd said something amusing and it's turn to take him in as you drop your phone onto the couch. "Wonwoo, god, you're alive?" you start with a small smile and continue, "Wow, um, you look… the same." What you mean to say is: How did you get even taller, you attractive bastard?

Wonwoo offers you one of his smug smiles at that and replies, "Thanks? I think. You look much more… grown up, you know." He really should've said: Holy shit, you're pretty. And then he opens his arms, "Bring it in, kid. Let's see if I can still get away with tackling you to the ground."

You scoff even as you step closer to him, ignoring the way his arms are a lot bigger than they once used to be when you tell him, "I think you're remembering it wrong, dude. I was the one tackling you."

 It's no use, though, because when he wraps his arms around you, you sigh contentedly because this right here? This is a hug. Wonwoo's so warm around you and you can only pretend that the way you feel his hard muscles tense around you doesn't send chills up your spine. Wonwoo's smiling wide, only barely controlling a comment about how good you smell and how you might've grown taller but somehow still manage to fit just the same in his arms.

All in all, it's a pretty sweet reunion. You haven't seen each other in over five years so the curiosity and surprise is barely uncalled for. You only wished you could've held onto the hug longer before Joshua entered the room with a disgusted grimace on his face.

"Gross. Can you guys not do that?" 

You're the first to pull away with a flustered sigh at Joshua's comment, rolling your eyes. Wonwoo tries to cover up the way he's slightly out of breath by countering, "Why? You can't handle us interacting like two normal humans? Want us to claw at each other's eyeballs like the good old times?"

–

"I don't get it, though," Wonwoo tells you, a slice of donkatsu hovering near his mouth, "Why didn't you just move in with Shua?"

"That's what I've been asking her! Haven't I been a good enough brother to you? What did I do wrong? Huh?" 

You'd already seen Joshua's reaction coming, sipping the beer from your glass to brace yourself. "And as I've politely reminded you many times, big brother, it's not personal. I just thinking that would be the equivalent of moving back in with my parents. Plus, I can afford to live alone now, remember? The promotion that came with the reallocation?"

Joshua flashes you the unconvinced glare he always does when you reason with him. But you train your eyes on Wonwoo instead, determined to get him on your side at least. "It would be waste to just live with him and not do the independent thing. Plus, I literally live across from you, man, so I might as well be moving in with you."

Wonwoo nods quietly as he washes his bite down with some beer, "Hmm. That's fair enough. I don't know why Shua's been whining about it then."

You break into a pleased laugh at that where your brothers gasps in offense. "Hey, Jeon Wonwoo, whose side are you supposed to be on here?"

Wonwoo shrugs, "I'm on the side of logic, my man, I'm sorry."

"God, don't let her fool you. She says all this reasonable stuff but–"

"Oh, so you agree that it's reasonable then?" you question him with a raised brow but he ignores you as he spews his nonsense. 

"-- But the real reason she wants to live alone is so she can get laid."

You hit Joshua real hard in the arm at that, "Ew, dude, don't be a pervert." 

Wonwoo looks postively entertained between the two of you as he provokes you, "What does he mean?"

"Fuck if I know. I don't know what gave this guy the idea that I like to sleep around, if anything, he's the player."

Joshua narrows his eyes at you, "Uh-huh, me, the guy who was in a long-term relationship of nearly five years?"

"Emphasis on was in a relationship. How many people have you slept with since then? I don't want to know. I'm just making a point."

Wonwoo chuckles, "She's right, man. You're not exactly on the higher ground here."

"Okay, okay, but I did overhear you telling your friend that, quote, living with my brother would be the greatest clockbock there is, end quote."

Your jaw falls open when you hear him recount your words to Karina only a few hours ago. "You're eavesdropping on my calls? Wow, see, this is why I don't want to live with you."

"You weren't exactly very quiet! And you were sitting in the living room, too!"

"Whatever," you roll your eyes and then catch the questioning look Wonwoo sends your brother and you take matters in your own hands. "Fine, I said that because I mean, yeah, it's not like the hottest thing to be living with your brother, okay? Like what if I meet a cute guy and lose him to the fact that Shua's the biggest prude to exist?"

"Man, you just made a player, and now I'm a prude? Choose a story, goddamn it!" 

You shrug with a grin, "People can be two things, bro."

– 

"So, you all moved in yet?" Wonwoo asks you and you try to ignore how silly he looks with the edges of his glasses fogged up against the heat of the coffee in his hands. Last week, he'd texted you asking if you'd like to get coffee and catch up. You'd replied with a goofy grin playing on your lips at 1 AM with a: sure :))) if u pay!

You hum as you stir your own latte, "I think so. But everytime I think it's all done, there's always something small I forgot. Like, this morning I realized I don't have wine glasses."

He chortles, "Ah, I know what you mean. Something small but inconvenient. Like a good night lamp."

"Ugh, I need one of those, too. I brought my old one with me but ended up leaving it in the study because I didn't have one there." You sigh as you slump in your seat, "God, I hate moving. I'll have age twenty years by the time I'm fully done."

Wonwoo watches you with a bemused smile. "I can help you with shopping, if you'd like."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I mean, it's not like I moved in recently but I still remember some good places for this stuff. And it might be less tiresome if you have some company." 

Your replying smile is so genuine that it's got Wonwoo smiling and he thinks he's helping you out more for himself than Joshua. It's an unsettling thought for a moment but then your voice pipes back up with an anecdote from your work and he can't care for the thoughts. 

"...So, you have any luck finding cute guys to bring home?"

The question catches you off-guard and your grip on the wine glass you were inspecting loosens dangerously, but you hold onto it before it can break like your pretense of sanity. 

"God," you groan as you look at a chuckling Wonwoo who's standing next to you, arms crossed in that infuriatingly attractive way. "I was slightly drunk when I said that, so it would be nice if you forgot about it."

"Why? I mean, it's understandable you'd want to get into the dating pool here. It's one way to get to know a new city."

You turn all your attention to a different glass. "I guess. But I haven't had too much luck, no. Maybe waiting around to find love organically is my problem."

Wonwoo doesn't immediately respond to that, making you uneasy and sending heat to your ears. Whatever. You'd just have to scream into your pillow and cry yourself to sleep so you could forget this embarrassment. 

"Hmm, I don't know. It'll just take more time that way, I suppose. If you're willing to wait."

It's your turn to go mute except this time the silence is comfortable, only broken by a comment here and there about the glasses. 

"What about you?" you ask Wonwoo at checkout, watching the worker wrap up your chosen set of glasses in bubble wrap. "Are you… with someone?"

Wonwoo's lips twitch with a small smile at your question. "Not at the moment. I like the space of being single." You nod in understanding. 

"And I haven't really met anyone worth spending my time with," he says, eyes floating to you as he pushes his glasses up with a finger. 

You pause at his words, thanking the cashier for their help and making your way to the exit. "You make it sound like dating's a chore, Wonwoo."

He shrugs with a shoulder, "It can be. With the wrong person."

– 

"So… tell me all about your hot brother's hot best friend?" 

"Ew and ew, Karina, do you want me to block you for real this time?" 

"I'm just being honest but all right, do you want to talk about your years-old crush on your brother's best–"

"That's not any better. And I don't have crush on him. Also, it would really nice if we didn't say the word crush anymore. We're both adults with jobs."

"And adults with jobs aren't allowed to have a little fun?" Karina's voice is laced with laughter and you groan in frustration. Who has she been hanging out with to make her so much worse? Not you. 

"Anyway, since you asked so nicely, I'll tell you. My older brother is okay. And so is Wonwoo. There."

A few minutes of further pestering from Karina and you finally let slip that Wonwoo and you have been hanging out here and there, sometimes over coffee that led to shopping dates (Karina's words, not yours) and other times spent over at Joshua's, drinking or playing video games on his couch. It was pretty cozy and you couldn't really complain about this new life.

"Oh, so you don't miss me then, huh? Nice to know. But also it seems like you're hitting it off with Wonwoo and before you cut me off, you did like Wonwoo for like half your childhood, remember? Maybe this could become something. Who knows?"

Oh, you remember. It was you who spent long summer afternoons staring at Wonwoo as he came over to your home after class, spending all his time arguing with Joshua about a card game they'd been playing or about which villain was cooler in the new movie they'd watched. For a while, it had been a distant thing but over time, you'd warmed up to them and started talking more to Wonwoo, now a regular participant in their arguments. 

And as it turns out, it doesn't take a lot of arguments to fall for Jeon Wonwoo.

– 

One thing about you is that you're stubborn. You like to think it's a genetic thing because the only person who could rival your firmness was none other than your brother. And this meant that when Karina tried to convince you that you still had a soft spot for Wonwoo, you tried to tell her that's all it was: a soft spot. Like a platonic affinity for someone you'd spent a lot of time with growing up.

And you reasoned it out with yourself that night, thinking back to the time you'd spent with him recently. It was familiar in the best way possible. Where meeting new people at work was absolutely exhausting, coming back home to your brother and Wonwoo was like a hug to your soul.

Speaking of hugs, your mind rolled over to the one you'd shared with Wonwoo a few weeks ago, an event that you often found yourself thinking. As sane and rational as you thought yourself to be, the way you'd find yourself unable to control a giggle in the dark every time you remembered the way you all but melted into his arms, strong but fond in their embrace around your waist. 

And when you come to your senses, you realize it's ridiculous how stuck up on that hug you are. It's stupid your smile that breaks through anyway and the way your heart beats faster when you remember the plans you'd made with Wonwoo for tomorrow, a trip to a local bookstore because he had found your collection of books lacking the day he'd come over for a visit.

You roll over in bed then, groaning a little because you're starting to think the soft spot might be… growing. 

–

"You know I really didn't think I would spend this much on books today," you mumble as you tap your card at the register. It was almost funny how many conversations you and Wonwoo have had at check-out, almost inevitable because often the shopping experience itself meant a lot of focused silence as the two of you browsed around in tandem. 

It was a weirdly heartwarming way to spend time together. Or maybe that was just you and your weakness for quality time. 

"What do you mean? We literally mutually decided that you needed a better collection." Wonwoo leans against the counter with a cocked brow.

"Well, the mutual part is up for discussion. It's more like you shamed me for keeping a modest book collection. And I mean, I wasn't so sure if I'd find anything good here."

"Really?" he asks, picking up the heavy bag from the counter before you can reach for it, "Because I remember you agreeing pretty quickly and enthusiastically to my proposition to go book-shopping."

"That was only because you made it sound like fun." And it meant that I'd get to spend more time with you. "And it was fun. So that's one thing you're right about."

Wonwoo's smile turns smug as you exit the bookstore, each with a paper bag in hand. You'd settled for carrying Wonwoo's own purchase of two new books that he'd apparently been meaning to come out and buy. 

"Anyway, now what? You wanna go to my place and break into one of these bad boys?" You shake the bag in your hand with a gleeful grin. But Wonwoo's looking at the mall across from you with mouth slightly ajar in concentration. And then he smiles, pure excitement plastered across his face when looks back at you.

"I have a much better idea." That's all he says before his unoccupied hand finds yours and tugs you after him. Admittedly, you're a little dizzy at the sudden touch and let him pull you across the road with quick steps, struggling to keep up with him. At the back of your head, you store away how attractive it is that Wonwoo's holding a good dozen books in a hand and yours in the other, racing ahead like it was the most important thing in the world. And honestly? If it was with Wonwoo, you think you feel the urgency in your veins as if it were travelling across your intertwined palms.

It's a good day to be a romantic for you, as you later find out, standing in line with Wonwoo to purchase tickets to a newly released movie. The genre? Rom-com.

"Well, it's not so much a rom-com as the poster makes it seem. That's actually a deft marketing stunt. It's actually a pretty serious movie about love and I've heard it's not for the weak."

So many questions. You have so many questions. 

For one, "I didn't know you were into romantic movies," you comment, watching Wonwoo from the corner of your eye, too afraid to look him in the eye now that your hand was no longer in his.

"It's possible to avoid romance. Everything is about love these days, even if it isn't."

You also can't believe that you're about to watch a movie with Wonwoo. It's all strangely… different. You'd never been to the movies alone with him. It's a new territory for you. But you're not mad. If anything, the smile on your lips is playful. 

"And it's not just that you're too scared to admit that you like rom-coms?"

"I'm not. Into rom-coms, I mean. The humor is straight-up bad and the romance is tolerable at best. It's like if you're going to do a x to death, you might as well do it well."

"I can't believe this," you mutter more to yourself than him, "Jeon Wonwoo watching a rom-com? This must be a dream."

"You dream about me, hmm?" 

You narrowly avoid whiplash when you turn to look at Wonwoo, his teasing only another addition to the list of things you didn't think you'd hear your brother's best friend every say to you. But the more you know, huh?

The movie itself is insane. The plot is devastating enough on its own but the way Wonwoo's shoulder pressed into yours the whole time, despite there being more than enough space between the two seats, has you more vulnerable than usual. So find yourself tearing up halfway through the movie and sit through the credits with half-contained sobs. And where Wonwoo had laughed at your tears mid-way, when he noticed your sobs, his hand found your back, rubbing it comfortingly. 

"That was horrific," you mumble when you're less overcome with sadness and pout at Wonwoo. "I hate you for making me watch that. I will never find happiness. And worse, I will never find love."

Your words, punctuated with that small pout of yours, has Wonwoo a breath away from falling to his knees with his head in hands because fuck, you're adorable. And truth be told, he was tearing up at the end, too, but he wouldn't let you know that because the way you accuse him for your state is just incredibly precious to him. 

"It was terrific," he corrects you, "And I'm sorry, I didn't think you'd get so emotional."

You glare at Wonwoo at that, as if you hadn't just been dabbing at your eyes with his pocket tissues, "Okay, Mister Emotionless, don't think I didn't catch you wiping tears away in the closing scene."

Wonwoo shoots a guilty grin and pats your head, "You're cute." 

The statement leaves you speechless enough that Wonwoo gets away with it, starting to walk away with a gaping you in his wake. You're deeply confused and slightly jittery when you finally catch up to him with a small "I wasn't trying to be" of affront under your breath. 

– 

"That's bad, right, isn't it? It's so bad. It's horrible."

"Calm down, Y/N, he called you cute, just so we're clear? Not a bunch of bad words right? So why is it bad?" 

"Because!" you cry out, "Because cute is like the most platonic adjective. I thought we were having a moment, what with a movie date and all– but if he thinks I'm cute then I was wrong. So unbelievably wrong." 

"Okay, I know what you mean but that's not always how things work. I mean, you said he held your hand and stuff, right? That's more than platonic. And it's all about the tone. Cute can be a very romantic word if in the right context."

"The context," you tell Karina with a sigh, "is that he's my brother's best friend! He couldn't make it any clearer. Wow, and I was all up in my head over him, too."

"Can we just take a moment to acknowledge how I told you that you still had feelings for Wonwoo?"

"We will do no such thing. Because the feelings are gone now!" 

"Right. I believe you, Y/N," Karina deadpans over the phone, "You can call me when you're done being an idiot. Bye."

– 

It's Karina's sarcastic tone that your thoughts catch onto the next few days, the ones you spend half in agony because Wonwoo hasn't contacted you and after your personal dilemma, you think you'd let someone shoot you before you texted him first. 

So you try your best to distract yourself with work, showing up earlier than you'd built a reputation for, and staying a little later than most. It's a new routine for you, one that leaves you pretty tired in a way that your bones are not used to. 

Maybe that's why your legs don't seem to be working that morning when you bump into someone on your way to the coffee machine. You'd been rubbing your neck, trying to feel out the knot that you'd woken up with, and had effectively lost track of where you were going and collided with a solid figure, sending a few steps back.

You sigh as you regain your balance, ever so thankful that you didn't fall flat on your butt as you look up at the person in front you. He's tall enough that you should've seen him coming so you're first to apologize. "Shit, sorry! I wasn't looking where I was going. Sorry about that!"

"No, no, I should've been more careful. I'm lucky I wasn't carrying a coffee or that could've been really bad. I'm sorry." The man's voice is hoarse and he talks over himself, as if eager to get all his thoughts before he forgets what he's saying. 

You meet his eyes with a small smile, "I guess we're both at fault, huh?" 

He reciprocates your smile with crescent eyes. "Yup. Can I get you a coffee as reparation?" 

"I mean, it's not a big deal at all."

"I insist," the man levels his gaze at you and you wonder how he looks like he could throw you across the room without breaking a sweat, but still manages to be so soft. 

"I'm Mingyu, by the way," he tells you as he hands you a cup of warm coffee. "Thanks Mingyu. I'm Y/N."

"I've seen you around. You were a new hire, right?"

You take your time with a sip of your coffee before responding, "Yes, I was originally at another branch but my leader wanted me closer to headquarters before they opened up new branches in this city. I don't know, something exposure for me and experience for them."

"You must be good if they sent you here," Mingyu points out and you brush it off with a noncomittal shrug. You find yourself pleasantly enamoured by Mingyu for the next ten minutes or so and you wonder how you'd missed him at all in the first place. But when he tells you he better get going, you nod with a smile, "Of course. It was nice meeting you, Mingyu."

Mingyu becomes the perfect distraction, as one might predict he would. He has a unique charm, what with the contrast between his intimidating physique but surprisingly shy demeanour. He's the textbook golden retriever in people and though you're not a dog person, you find yourself grow fonder of him every time you run into him near the coffee machine or while leaving work in the elevator. 

"You have a work crush?"

You groan loudly, throwing a half-eaten cracker at Joshua. "Come on, what is it with all the people I know and having the most childish vocabulary?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, am I not erudite enough for you? You know it may not seem like it but I am four years older than you and I have that much more–"

"Yeah, yeah, something about experience and knowledge, I've heard it before. And by the way, it's technically three years and three months, not that I'm counting."

"You very clearly are," Joshua points out with a frustrated laugh, "Anyway, you gonna make a move on this guy?"

"No, because if you were actually listening to me, you'd have heard that I like him as a friend and that I need help buying a gift for his birthday."

"Right, right," your brother mumbles in thought, "And that's next week?"

You nod as you pick your phone up, scrolling through the chat with Mingyu to reach the text he'd sent you a day ago: by the way, i'm throwing for my birthday on the 6th. love it if you came ;)

Winky emoji and slightly short notice aside, you'd replied as enthusiastically as you could muster: your birthday??? when were you going to tell me!! and: ofc i'll be there but not before i make you suffer for hiding smth so imp from me :(((

Before you can squeeze any more vaguely helpful tips from Joshua, his bell rings and you sit up with a frown as he stands up to get it. "Ah, Wonwoo's here."

"Wonwoo?" is your shocked gasp to that information, body going stiff because you'd seen him only in passing since the day of the movie. You think you might pass out. Why does nobody think it's important to tell you anything these days? 

You hear their voices in the corridor as Joshua lets Wonwoo in and your mind races with your options. Hiding in the bathroom for the night would be feasible if your brother wasn't a monster who would drag you out within thirty minutes. Maybe you climb out a window? But you were on the eight floor and as much as you liked to joke about death, you'd prefer to escape alive. 

Your brother's voice breaks you out of your scheming, alerting you they're in the living room. "Oh yeah, Y/N, here's someone with not childish vocabulary if you want to replace me." 

You look over your shoulder with a scowl but immediately lose your spirit when you lock eyes with Wonwoo, a lopsided smile greeting you. He's wearing a cozy sweater that's a shade of blue so dark that it might as well be black and you want to start crying because his hands are concealed beneath the sleeves, fists turned sweater paws as he stands there, looking between you and your brother. 

"Why are you two fighting this time?" 

"Nothing." "She has a crush at work." 

Wonwoo lets out a sigh when you both answer simultaneously but seems intrigued by Joshua's statement, eyeing him. "What did you say?"

"She has a–" 

"I'm warning you, if you say the word crush one more time, I will do something so unimaginable to your face at night–"

"She likes a guy from work."

Wonwoo looks surprised as he looks back at you inquisitively and you frown. "Untrue. It's just a guy I made friends with recently. And I only mentioned him so I could get advice but clearly, nobody here supports me so I'm going to take this conversation elsewhere."

"I support you." Wonwoo's quick response has you freezing in your dramatic exit and you turn to look at him in doubt but when his expression is clear of any mischief, you sit back down. 

"Nice to know. But I'd love it if we talked about something else for now. Like dinner." 

The night takes on a more comfortable journey from thereon, with the three of you ordering take-out and fighting it out with a card game while it was on its way. You were actually proud of yourself for acting normal around Wonwoo, despite all your past internal conflict. And you would've gone to sleep somewhat peacefully if he hadn't approached you in the kitchen, while Joshua was taking out trash, having lost the game. 

You were placing the leftovers in the fridge when Wonwoo materialized behind you, the only warning of his presence the question he asks you, "You want any help?" 

You barely hold in a surprised squeak as you spin around to him. "Goddamn it, Wonwoo, make some noise next time you sneak up on me?"

"Then I wouldn't be sneaking up on you, would I?"

You roll your eyes, closing the fridge behind you as you declare, "Well, I'm done here. Thanks for washing the dishes, by the way."

"Sure, I know how much you Hongs hate touching water. I was surprised you installed a faucet in your kitchen at all."

You give Wonwoo a push in response, "That's a very funny way to conceal the fact that you lost at rock paper scissors." 

"I just think it was an unfair way to decide tasks. I'm really bad at that game."

"Right, and assuming one can be good or bad at a game of rock paper scissors, what else would you have preferred to play?"

Wonwoo's eyes twinkle with an idea and then, he puts up a hand and wiggles it around in your face. "Arm wrestling."

Your smile falls, "No. That's just–"

"See," he points at you, "That's how I feel about rock paper scissors." 

Despite how much you claim that the two games are not at all on the same par, you let Wonwoo drag you to the kitchen table, standing across from you and arm ready for the wrestling. Slowly, you lean closer to him, hand coming to rest against his.

"Don't be too cocky," you mumble when his hand squeezes yours, already triumphant before the game had begun. The result of the game itself is pretty obvious but when you start to wrestle and feel Wonwoo's forearm tense against you, it has you light-headed. Your eyes leave the match to look at him, only to find him watching you with a glint in his eye. He smiles when you make eye-contact with him, going strangely silent for all his gloating a minute ago. You raise a brow at him and the bastard has the audacity to send a wink your way before pressing your arm against the wood of the table.

"Whatever," you tell him before his already obnoxious grin can swell any more. He opens his mouth and you're already anticipating something insulting to meet your eyes. But instead, Wonwoo says, "Your hand's so small." You look up at him only for him to take your hand in his and carefully line it against his own palm. 

You feel your cheeks burn. It's all so cliché, especially if he's flirting with you. Arm-wrestling turns into a hand-measuring contest. So trite. And yet, you find yourself smiling.

"See?" your hand wriggles, imitiating Wonwoo from earlier, "This game was rigged. Maybe if you had a handicap or something."

"Okay, I think I better leave before you take a knife and cut my hand up or something…"

– 

wonwoo: hello you

you: hi?

wonwoo: heard there's live music at the pub today. wanna come with?

you: ok creep

wonwoo: excuse me??? just informed you of a one in lifetime opportunity. shua's treating

you: WAIT he is???????

you: the one time i can't come?

wonwoo: you can't?

you: yes… have to attend a coworker's birthday party tonight. sorry :(

wonwoo: u should be sorry

wonwoo: imagine how much damage we could've done to joshua's wallet

You throw yourself into your sheets with a disappointed sigh, stomach uneasy at the thought of missing a hang-out with your favorite duo. But then you roll over to your side and think it's better if you go out with people who you didn't grow up with, for once. It might be a new experience. Just to be clear, this was Karina's voice resounding in your head. She had her way of giving you advice without you calling her for it. 

Three hours later, you're tiring yourself out at Mingyu's birthday party. It's intense, the party, bustling with people but then again, you'd be a fool to think Mingyu wouldn't have a roster full of friends to invite to a party. You meet the man of the night an hour into the party and he throws his hands around when he recognizes you. 

"Y/N, I'm so glad you could make it!"

"Of course. Happy birthday, Mingyu!" 

He leans over the bar and yells something at the bartender who eyes Mingyu and upon recognizing him as the birthday boy, places two shots in front of you. 

"Have a shot with me?" Mingyu grins, a slight layer of sweat shining on his forehead. You chuckle in defeat, "Sure, why not?" 

A shot turns into two and you're working on swallowing the third one when your phone buzzes in the back-pocket of your denim shorts. You're about to take a look at the caller ID and decline almost immediately but when you realize it's Wonwoo calling you, you pause. You excuse yourself from Mingyu's side quickly, making your way to a slightly quieter cornern of the party and answer.

"Wonwoo?" 

"Oh," comes Wonwoo's voice, a little distant, and he seems shocked as if he hadn't expected you to pick up. "Hey, Y/N. How are you?"

"Um. I'm fine, Wonwoo, just at that party I told you about. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah. You're not too drunk, are you?" he asks, ironically slurring the question. 

"I should be asking you that question. Wonwoo, where's Joshua? Do you need me to come pick you up?"

"No," his voice is laced with disbelief, "I'm fine. Just a little tipsy. Sorry, you should get back to the party."

"Yeah," you reply, feeling a little uneasy as the liquid in your stomach sloshes around with each movement you make.

"Stay safe, Y/N. Call me if you need anything? I'm gonna go find Shua now."

Before you can ask him what he means by finding Joshua, Wonwoo's hung up on you, almost as quickly as he called you. Okay, so that was weird. And cool, now you're nauseous. 

– 

When Wonwoo drunk-calls you, he thinks he's officially lost you. If you didn't find him weird before, you probably thought him a lot weird now. That's great, he thinks. But the regret of his decision doesn't outweigh the need to see you right now, something about the fact that you're at some guy's birthday party making him all worked up. It should be obvious why he's like this but Wonwoo can avoid a serious thought for days if it keeps him slightly more sane than usual. 

But then the Joshua's bell rings and he opens the door, finding you standing there just like he'd imagined a few minutes ago. You're in a slouchy shirt that unbuttoned all the way to your mid-torso to reveal a black bikini top. He clears his throat to contain the thought that threatens to escape him: fuck, you look hot. 

"Shit," you exclaim when you see Wonwoo, "This isn't my place. Ugh. I'm stupid."

Wonwoo steps closer to you, "Are you okay, Y/N? Did you just get back?"

You nod silently and then take a step back from him. "Sorry, I'm just gonna go to the right place. You can sleep… or whatever."

"Wait, no," he rushes to your side, taking your elbow in his hand, "I'll help you."

You roll your eyes, "It's okay, I'm not drunk, Wonwoo. And by the looks of it, neither are you." But you don't push off the hand on you and simply let him follow you to your door, "Is Shua already asleep?"

"Hmm, he passed out. I don't know why he claims to be heavyweight when he can barely handle alcohol. I had force him to leave the pub before he made himself sick."

You listen intently, unlocking the door with a hum, "He's an idiot." You throw the door open and Wonwoo lets himself in after you. He's clearly not too sober because when you bend down to take of your shoes and your ass juts out dangerously close to his crotch, he almost falls over in an attempt to jump away to give you space. But he remains close just in case you stumble, his own shaky state be damned.

But you're unnervingly stable as you stand back up, taking your hand off the wall when you're done taking your shoes off and brushing them against yourself with a suspicious look thrown at him– unnerving because Wonwoo just wants an excuse to get his hands on you somehow. You're effortlessly magnetic, moving across the hall to your kitchen to pour yourself some water, still unebelievably stable, and Wonwoo follows you in a trance-like manner.

"You want something to drink?"

Your question hangs in complete silence and it's only when you look over at Wonwoo that he comprehends that you're asking him. He clears his throat again, "Um, I don't want to bother you if you want to go to bed." 

You raise a shoulder nonchalantly, "'M not sleepy. And you're here so we might as well hang." You disappear from his sight as you crouch down behind the counter, sliding open a shelf, "I have some shiraz I've been meaning to break open, if you're up for it?" 

"Oh, that sounds great actually," he replies and you reappear with two wine glasses in your hand. You beam at him and he feels a thrill down his spine, recognizing the set you'd bought with him. "Great. Go sit in the living room and I'll be right there." 

"No, I'll help you get the stuff."

You pause your movements toward the liquor shelf, "Come on, I thought it was clear I'm not drunk by now."

"I know," Wonwoo walks closer to you, picking up the glasses you'd set down earlier, "Just want to be here with you." 

You turn back around and Wonwoo doesn't know it's to hide the flush that colors your face at his confession. You spend a minute too long picking out the shiraz to recover and you're glad Wonwoo also doesn't know that you could pick the bottle of red out without actually looking. 

"Geez, I've got sand in my feet now," you complain as you take your first sip of the wine from your glass when you catch sight of the particles lodged in your toes. 

"Sand?" questions Wonwoo as he leans over to get a look. 

"Yeah, it was a beach-themed party," you tell him. He nods, thinking that your outfit makes a lot more sense now. "Mingyu's a silly guy for someone who's turning twenty-five."

"Mingyu, huh?" Wonwoo tries out the name, watching out for how you react. You don't give away much, simply taking another sip but your chest burns for reasons other than alcohol. 

"Hmm, yeah." 

"So do you like him? Joshua seems pretty convinced about it."

You hide your face against the couch, "Fuck Joshua. He's an idiot." 

"So you've said."

"No, but really. Mingyu's a sweet guy and all, but he's… not my type."

Now this is something Wonwoo can work with, relief flooding his veins at your honest reply. "What is your type?"

You meet Wonwoo's gaze for the first time in this conversation and groan again. In your head, you can't help but be burdened by how unbelievably cliché your situation is. Your brother's best friend sitting next to you swirling a glass of red wine, asking you about the guy you liked when it was clearly him you liked. In fact, you think your entire relationship with Wonwoo's always been full of clichés: falling for his charm as a youth and growing into the feelings long after, hanging out with him as grown-ups, going on dates that are left unlabelled, measuring hands with him for fuck's sake– It was a little too on the nose, you think. 

But you don't tell Wonwoo any of this, maybe because you're too scared to or maybe you'd liked to see the plot thicken a little. "I don't have a type." 

Wonwoo is surprisingly quick to leave the topic alone after that and you're thankful, but half-irked because you'd hoped for more. But you can't complain when he has you wrapped up in a completely different conversation, distracting enough that you can barely remember how you finished the wine in your glass. 

"Want a refill?" he asks you when the empty glasses have been sitting on the coffee table for long enough. 

"Mhm, I think I'll have some apple juice instead."

"As you wish." 

He doesn't even bother asking you where you keep your juice and takes off with the glasses to the kitchen. You watch him keenly, letting your heart lead your mind for a little as you take in how cozy the night is when you're in Wonwoo's company.

It's with that uncontrollable giddy smile on your face that Wonwoo catches you. 

"Happy about something?" he asks, placing a cup with golden liquid in front of you and keeping his glass of wine next to it. 

"Yeah. About everything. I'm happy."

Wonwoo smiles, arm reaching to your side and squeezing your hand in a way that leaves you thinking that you might actually like physical touch more than you've been led to think. "I like the sound of that."

Your smile only turns goofier. "What about you? Are you happy?" 

He huffs out a breathy laugh, "I'm not too bad myself. Things have been looking up recently."

Fucking fuck, even everything you say to each other sounds like it's been said before, somewhere else in an idealistic movie about two people slowly falling in love with each other. But you can't get yourself to hate the idea so you simply shift closer to him. 

Wonwoo notices, obviously, and smiles a little because he notices the light dusting of red on your cheeks. Your hair's come undone from what was presumably a low bun at the back of your head and he has an itch to brush the strands away from your face– a thought that if you were privy to would only be an addition the list titled reasons why wonwoo and you are a straight-up cliché.

But you find out soon anyway, because Wonwoo acts on the itch, hand coming to cup your face before a few fingers find the crown of your head, gently tucking the stray hair behind your ear. 

You hum in satisfaction and Wonwoo's heart hammers, thinking that is probably the best reaction he could've hoped for. He takes a sip of the wine in his hand and moves to rest his face on his fist. 

Except you intercept him mid-way, closing the space between you with a noise of surprise that Wonwoo lets out when he feels your warm lips against his. The shock causes the wine in his mouth to bleed into yours, just like you'd hoped, and before Wonwoo can act on your advance, you've already pulled back.

Your smile is warm with shyness when you notice the starstruck expression on Wonwoo's face. "Sorry, I wanted to taste the wine." 

Wonwoo's silent as he processes this, moving slower thanks to the wine in his sytsem and now– the feeling of your kiss on his mind. When he does break from the silence, he moves to take another sip of wine and this time it's him crossing over to you, big palm steadying your jaw so he can spill into you, literally and not. You let out a little noise this time, not expecting him to reciprocate your shameless move but delighted anyway as you move against his mouth. 

There's a third kiss. And you pull away with a dreamy sigh because really, this was straight out of your dreams. Wonwoo rests his head on his hand like he'd intended to about three kisses earlier and watches as you avert your gaze, suddenly bashful. You fix your gaze on the coffee table, proud that you'd finally chosen to place it opposite the couch instead of near the bookshelf. 

"I haven't dated anyone for a while, you know," Wonwoo suddenly blurts out, your hair once again in your face when you turn to face him. "I was in a pretty… fucked-up relationship after high school and that made me give up on love altogether."

You listen attentively, eyes on his as he tells about the person he was with, voice dropping to a soft octave. When he finishes you find his hands with a smile, "Thank you for telling me that. And I'm sorry. You deserve so much better than that. You're a pretty solid guy."

"Really?" Wonwoo's mood turns light again at your comment and you try to maintain your composure, reminding yourself that his smile might be casual but your words still hold weight. 

"Yeah, you're a rare find, Wonwoo. Quiet but not boring, witty yet funny, tall but nice to hug." 

You bite your lip at that last part, clearly giving yourself away. But Wonwoo's eyes light up anyway, "Nice to hug, huh? That's a new compliment. Glad to know." 

You can feel him lean closer to you without looking because his voice is closer to your ears. Flustered, you reach for your abandoned apple juice and take a sip, but overestimate your own sobriety because you manage to spill a third of it on yourself. "Fuck," you curse under your breath and throw your head back against the couch in frustration over yourself. 

"Fuck," Wonwoo echoes you, shifting beside you, "You okay? Wait here, I'll get you a towel." He's already standing up by the time you have it in you to find your footing. You stop him with a slightly damp hand on his arm.

"It's okay, I'll just go throw this in the laundry. Needed to change anyway." 

Wonwoo nods as he makes way so you can pad lightly to your room, ears adorably red. He lets out a heavy breath when you close the door behind you though, placing a hand against chest because the sight of your half-exposed chest slightly wet with juice– well, it was doing more things to him that he'd like. Your low expletive followed by your limp body hadn't helped his wild imagination either, instantly wondering what it might be like to run his hands through– 

"All right, that's it. I need some fresh air." Fresh air so he could feel less like a pervert and more like… normal. And it helps to step out onto your balcony, the scenery of the moonlit night a pleasant surprise to his senses. He hums happily, almost forgetting about his preoccupied thoughts entirely.

And then he hears your voice resound in the living room faintly. He calls out your name, telling you to come out to the balcony, and a minute later, you step out, now clad in a cozy night set, matching blue shirt with shorts. "Hey," you mumble as you join him near the railing, body visibly relaxing in the night air. "Woah, it's nice here."

"It is, isn't it?" 

"Yeah, this is actually my first time coming out here since I moved in. I always figured this place would be full of spider webs and like bird shit." 

Wonwoo chuckles, "I mean we're probably standing on something that's not supposed to be here but it's for us to worry about tomorrow." 

– 

When you wake up the next morning, it takes you a good amount of groaning and screaming to figure out if last night was real. Taking shots with Mingyu at his birthday bash? Understandable. Receiving a call from a self-proclaimed tipsy Wonwoo? Confusing but not impossible. Inviting Wonwoo over for wine and ending up making out with him? Insane. 

What's worse, you couldn't really remember how the night had ended, a consequence of your inebriated self combining with sleep deprivation. But that was a pretty important thing to remember, wasn't it? It could be difference between a regretful farewell and a promising one. You don't know which one would ease the storm in your stomach faster. 

You roll over to unlock your phone and sit up when you see you have two unread texts. And then, you see they're both from Mingyu. 

mingyu: thanks for coming last night :D

mingyu: sorry i couldn't see u out. hope you made it home safe! 

You sigh in barely contained disappointment as you throw your phone back into the sheets, looking up at the ceiling. You suppose you ought to do something about the Mingyu situation soon but right now, you find the idea of suffocating in your bedsheets for the next two hours much more comforting. 

– 

See now, this right here is your problem. As much as you complained about hating being a cliché, you kind of wish your situation with Wonwoo was more of a cliché because right now doesn't exactly feel like something out of a film.

It feels like hard cold reality. And it's not the first time either.

1: things will happen between you and Wonwoo: he holds your hand, he kisses your lips.

2: he doesn't text you about it and you're too much of a coward to force him out of his shell.

3: things end up all in the air. And now, you're miserable.

But later that evening, you find out there's more to this list of not-so-cliché things that happen between you and Wonwoo.

4: you run into Wonwoo at your brother's place.

He's so casual, too, dressed in a plaid shirt and lounging on Joshua's couch, gaming his time away. You almost immediately regretting making an impromptu trip to your brother's place but it's too late to back out because Joshua's already set the dinner table for three. How you despise your extroverted, loving brother. 

"Did you make that deadline you were complaining about yesterday?" Joshua asks you over a spoonful of his soup. You nod, "Yeah, turns out it was easier when I stopped whining about it."

Wonwoo lets out a laugh, earning him a look from you which you quickly retract, going back to your quiet self when the two engage in conversation. You're glad to ignore but they find it less than easy to, given how unusual your disengagement is. Wonwoo does have an idea for your mood but he doesn't feel like discussing it with your brother just yet. 

So when Joshua asks him, "Do you know what's up with her?" when you excuse yourself to the bathroom, Wonwoo stiffens. Why was he asking Wonwoo? … Had he been obvious?

"Dunno. Maybe work's busy or something."

"You think I should go pester her with some ice-cream later tonight?" 

 "Best if you don't do that. She might disown you."

"That's like legally impossible, Wonwoo. Right?" 

When you take an unexpectedly long time in the bathroom, Joshua goes on. "Did something happen between you two?"

Again, Wonwoo tenses up. "...No. Why do you ask?"

"I mean, she seemed fine yesterday when she came over. So I don't think I'm the problem here. Not that I'm accusing you of anything. Just… I know y'all have been bonding recently."

Wonwoo averts his gaze, deeply uncomfortable with this chat. "Um, yeah, I guess."

"Listen, man, I don't mean to take on the older brother tone in this conversation or anything but…" Joshua sighs as he plays with a leftover piece of bread, "You know I'm okay if something does happen with you and her, right? I trust you. And well, she was an adult long before me so I hardly have a say there."

Wonwoo stares at his half-empty glass of water, frowning. "Okay, cool." His answer is curt because he's still caught off-guard by this conversation. He'd wanted to bring up the developments between you himself, in his own way, but this left him a little panicked. Like, he was being rushed to make a move. And his brain ended up shutting down in the process.

…but it really wasn't the best time for his malfunction, given that you'd managed to overhear a good half of that conversation, specifically on the Joshua asking Wonwoo about you and him being indifferent about it. What was he thinking? What were you thinking?

5: you storm out of dinner without an explanation. you pretend you don't hear wonwoo call after you when you do. his texts that night go unanswered. 

How's that for a cliché, huh?

– 

These days, you're trying find the joy in small things. Like waking up to your very first alarm for the morning. Or brewing an especially aromatic coffee at home. 

Like making it to the end of a phone-call with Karina without talking about Wonwoo. 

"Oh, wait, before I forget to ask, how did it go with Wonwoo?"

Almost. 

You take a deep breath to steady yourself, "Not too well. I mean, we kissed. But then, he didn't text me for like three days after. Then I run into him at Joshua's and he acts all… cold. And judging by that one conversation I overheard, he thinks everything that happened between us was a mistake." 

"Okay, okay, hold your horses, friend, I feel like a lot happened there. You kissed? Why is this the first I'm hearing of it?!" Karina sounds genuinely upset and you let out a groan.

"Well, I was trying to stop bringing up Wonwoo every time we catch up. It's annoying and I want to hear more about your life than complain about mine."

"We can both complain about our lives, Y/N. I have all the time in the world. At least till six. Anyway, that's besides the point! You kissed but he ghosted you afterward? And did he actually say he thought it was all a mistake?"

You bite your lip in rumination and then admit, "He didn't actually say that but it was implied. You would agree if you'd heard the same conversation as I!"

As it turns out, Karina doesn't seem to approve of the conclusion you've come to all on your own. But then you point out that it's been over a week and it's been radio silence. So you have every right to feel as hurt as you do. 

"I suppose you do. But still, it wouldn't hurt to approach him first." 

"I would rather die."

"Okay, well, maybe find out how he's doing from Joshua?"

"Will not."

"You're being difficult right now, Y/N. What do you want to do then?"

"I want to move on and not think about Wonwoo. Maybe I should go on a blind date or something."

"We're not in a movie right now, man, plus, I'm pretty sure you were the one who swore your life to finding love organically and whatnot."

"...Gah, I was hoping you'd forgotten about that. Fine, I'll do… something." 

Your words are nothing if not misleading because by something, you don't mean to communicate with Wonwoo like a sane person might. Instead you check up on Mingyu, who you've still been succesfully making small talk at work with, and ask him if he wanted to get dinner. The enthusiasm with which he responds is comforting, a relieving contrast from the tension in your relationship with you-know-who. 

mingyu: omg i woud love to

mingyu: but im unfortuntely busy tonight :((((

mingyu: would you be down for tomorrow? i can make some killer spaghetti if given the opportunity

you: make???? i was thinking of buying the food… but i won't turn that offer down

mingyu: i'm a man of many talents ;) 

You work out the details of the date (neither of you call it that, but it's understood to be one) over the night and you feel a little uneasy as the afternoon of the day comes to a close. Either way, you find a comfortable dress that is flattering against your skin and welcome Mingyu into your place, letting his excitement work its contagious magic. 

If you're following the plot line of this story closely, you'd figure out that the next cliché is this: Wonwoo behind the door across from your home, just now learning about this date of yours with Mingyu. 

He's broken his pledge to himself and asked Joshua about you, after having missed seeing you there for the past week. Joshua had hesitated to respond but is honest anyway, muttering, "I think she has a date over."

"A date?" is Wonwoo instantaneous question, barely-concealed dread underlying in its tone. 

"Yeah, remember that guy from work whose birthday she attended?" Joshua pretends to have forgotten his name but his best friend is quick to chime in, "Mingyu?"

But you'd told him he was just a friend. You'd called him sweet for fuck's sake, and that was the most platonic adjective you could use for a potential love interest. Well, he's been proven wrong by your date tonight.

He looks down at his clasped palms, the same ones that were intertwined with your skin, first the skin of your hands, then your cheek when he'd leaned into kiss you. And if he hadn't spent the last four days regretting every minute he didn't call you up, he sure did want to punch a hole in the fabric of time right about now. 

"You okay there, buddy?" 

Joshua's concern brings Wonwoo back to his body and he looks up, lips pursed and your brother thinks how ridiculous it is that both of you won't just talk it out. But he keeps that judgement to himself, choosing to sit back and watch his best friend pace it out. 

"Yeah, I'm fine. Fine. Really fine. I'm okay." He clears his throat, the first tell. "I'm just… um, a little hot. It's hot in here, huh." 

Joshua tames his bemused smile. "Is it? I just turned up the air-con though?"

"Oh, well, it's just me then. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, um, I love this video game."

"Wonwoo, we were in the middle of choosing a card game to play."

"Fuck. Okay, sorry, just give me a minute, I need to go call… my mother."

"No worries, my guy, give Mrs. Jeon my greetings!" 

Across the hall, you're busy watching over Mingyu as he makes his way around your kitchen. You say watching over because really, the man is so clumsy in his own feet, you wonder how he's lived this long. You have to make sure he doesn't cut a limb off every two seconds.

But then your phone buzzes urgently in your pocket and you pull it out, the light smile playing on your face falling when Wonwoo's name pops up on your screen. Now he texts you?

wonwoo: hey! you think we could talk?

You lock your screen almost as soon as you read the message because honestly, you don't have time to dwell over this man in your phone when there's a whole another person cooking you dinner in front of you. That's what ends up leaving a heartbroken Wonwoo, slumped on Joshua's couch as he barely zones into the movie that was playing on the screen. 

Joshua's had it with sitting around when Wonwoo stays unmoving throughout the ending credits– the man hates the credits for crying out loud!-- and instead decides to play cupid. It wasn't ideal, having to set up his sister with his best friend but well, any commoner could see how clearly you were meant to be with each other and he'd rather not have to listen to both sides' misery. 

It's okay timing, you've finished eating dinner with Mingyu, showering his food with compliments the whole time and flustering with your genuine shock at his abilities the whole night. He's helping you clean up with a cheeky grin on his face whenever he leans in a little too close to place a utensil back in its place and you let a smile overtake your face. But you can barely let yourself enjoy the date because if Wonwoo ill-timed text wasn't enough, you're done for when both him and Joshua show up at your door.

"What the fuck?" you ask your brother because you're positive you told him you had a date tonight and then you spot a spaced out Wonwoo next to him, and suddenly put two and two together. 

Wonwoo's eyes never leave your figure, taking in how beautiful the blue dress you were wearing was and how you'd put your hair up in a half-bun, a few strands framing your face prettily. He feels sick, first in a good way and then Mingyu pops up behind you, and now Wonwoo's sick in a bad way. The tall man looks so comfortable next to you, arm brushing against yours as he raises his eyebrows in confusion at the two intruders.

"Sorry, Gyu, these are…" you start to introduce them as they are and then, find a particularly provoking way to put it, "...my brothers."

Wonwoo might actually throw up right here and right now. Gyu? Brothers???

Joshua butts in quickly, "Well, technically, I'm Y/N's older brother, and this is Wonwoo, my friend."

"Ohhh," Mingyu nods in understanding, bowing when he realizes Joshua's your sibling, "Nice to meet you. I'm Mingyu and I work with Y/N."

Before you know it, Joshua works his charms on Mingyu and suddenly, date night for two turns into family night for four. You watch in dismay as your date spends a full hour talking to your brother about one thing and another, actually considering setting them up for a minute. And then, Mingyu glances at his watch and sighs, telling you he needs to take off. 

Joshua, devil incarnate, offers to walk Mingyu out and before you can protest, Mingyu accepts (????) and you watch helplessly as your brother leaves you alone with Wonwoo, narrowly missing the pointed look Joshua sends his best friend on his way out. 

The room now silent with them gone, you stand up with a wary sigh, patting down your dress. Wonwoo's watching and you know because the first words he says that evening are, "You look beautiful tonight."

You hate how the heat creeps up your neck immediately at his beck and call. But you keep from telling him off because even that would mean you caving in. 

But then he follows you to the kitchen, steps in tandem as you pretend to busy yourself with the dishes. The space between you is small though and you end up bumping into the man trying to reach for the fridge. He takes the chance and holds your wrist in his hand. "Hey," he breathes, "You won't even look at me?" 

"No, I've seen enough."

"I'm assuming that includes the text I sent you tonight. And the ones before that?"

God, you hate how good Wonwoo is at frustrating you. You snap, "Don't act like this is on me, Wonwoo. You're the one who pretends like nothing's happened between us." 

"Really? Because a lot's happened between us, Y/N. A lot of things that haven't happened with you and that Mingyu." 

You scoff, brushing his hand off your wrist. "That is so typical of you. Coming around because you're jealous? But you can't stand to tell my brother something happened between us? What is this, a game to you?"

Wonwoo freezes when he considers what you've said. "Did Shua say something to you?"

You cross your arms, "No. I overheard you telling him. I can't believe it though. I really thought we had something good going for us."

You break away from the arm that Wonwoo raises to keep you close and throw yourself onto your couch with an exasperated sniffle. This couch sure has seen a lot, you think wistfully, silently listening as Wonwoo's footsteps came closer. He's sitting next to you then, hesitant arm around you.

"I'm sorry, Y/N, I'm really sorry. What you heard was… me being an idiot. I wasn't ready to talk about it with Shua so soon. I meant everything happened so fast. I hadn't exactly planned on falling for my best friend's sister, you know? Or kissing her in her apartment either. But it happened and I'm so glad it did. I was just slow at processing it. I'm sorry."

You groan. "It's not completely your fault, I guess. I just wish you would've talked to me about it. I felt so alone the whole time." 

Suddenly Wonwoo's moving up from next to you and dropping onto his knees so that you're now meeting his eyes. He looks concerned, mouth ajar as he takes your hands in his. "Are you with Mingyu?"

You let out a sound of disbelief, "No! I'm– I just called him over because I was mad at you! I thought you thought it was a mistake so I…"

"I don't. And I never did. I'm just scared. But I shouldn't have made that your problem. I love hanging out with you though and I especially love kissing you. It would be great if you'd let me take you out on a date instead, please?" 

And in that moment with Wonwoo on his knees in front of you, looking at you like you'd just told him he would live forever, you don't think you could do anything but say yes. 

– 

"You think we're a cliché?!" 

You flinch at Wonwoo's shocked question after you'd revealed to him the mental list of clichés that you embodied in your relationship with him. He's nearly seething when he finds out you're not joking. 

"Y/N, you know that's the meanest thing you could ever say to me? Am I really that bad a boyfriend?"

"Woo, my love, will you calm down?" you take one of his hands in yours, "I don't think clichés are as bad as you think they are. They're cliché for a reason! It's because they're meant to be done over and over again. They're tried and true."

"Tried and trite, more like."

"Come on, Woo, you can't act like you don't see it! From the very beginning!" 

He takes a lick at his gelato and you smile when you see him softening a little. You stop walking and stand in his way, barely concerned about the strangers littering the small ice-cream shop when you press a kiss to his lips. "I love you," you mumble against his ice-cold mouth. He shoots you a look that informs you that he knows what you're doing but he shoots back, " I love you, too."

"And love itself is cliché, don't you think?"

Wonwoo closes his eyes as if in physical pain while you uncontrollably laugh. "I knew I shouldn't have fallen for that! You're trying to make me cry in public, aren't you?"

"Aww, it's okay to cry, Woo, baby. Emotions are only natural–"

"I'm calling Shua and asking him to pick you up. I'm leaving."

"Okay, I went too far. Don't make me commute with my brother, I beg you."

– 

"Love, you ready to go?" you hear Wonwoo ask from the living room. You'd banished him to the couch after he'd made it his life mission to get in your way while you tried to get ready for your date. Well, double date actually. Karina was visiting you on break with her boyfriend, Taeyong, and she'd asked if you'd be down to get dinner with them. You had never agreed to dinner plans faster. 

"I am," you call back, just as you smear on lipstick, checking your teeth for any missed food particles for good measure. "Can I come in now?" 

You can see Wonwoo's silhouette at the door, gingerly watching you from the back for confirmation. You melt with a soft smile, beckoning him in, "Yes. Your exile's over."

Wonwoo celebrates with an exaggerated fist pump and you laugh at his antics when he skips over excitedly. "I'm a free man," he murmurs as his hands naturally slide down your arms to find your fingers. He twirls you around, admiring the black dress you broke out for the ocassion. "You look gorgeous," he says with a kiss to your cheeks.

"Are you quoting Taylor Swift at me?" you ask him with a giggle.

"Who's that?" he questions with a poorly feigned frown of confusion. You roll your eyes but open your arms invitingly, "Will you hug me?" 

Hugging had gradually become your favorite part of your skinship with Wonwoo, even more so than kissing, because the way he would shoot you a loving smile before wrapping his arms around and swallowing you into a world of cozy and comfort… yeah, you don't think anything could compare easily. Sometimes, he would hum happily, the vibrations would only soothing you into the embrace further and often your boyfriend had to peel you off him so you could actually get on with your day. 

Today, he lets you cling on longer than usual (he likes to say he's rationing his hugs. You tell him he's just a big tease), probably because he's busy relishing in being overwhelmed by your scent and the little kisses you sprinkle across his exposed neck. When he pulls away, you don't complain like normal, instead revealing the stars in your eyes to him. "You're warm. I love this sweater of yours." 

It was the same navy sweater that had you sweating over Wonwoo back when you were still going back and forth with your feelings for each other. He chuckles in amusement and then steps away without warning, earning a whine from you. But then he tugs the sweater off and your expressions turns playful. 

"Woo," you start warningly, "you know we're meeting them at the restaurant by nine–"

You're stopped mid-sentence when Wonwoo straightens out his garment and commands out, "Raise your arms for me, baby?"

But this is not his bedroom voice, no, no. This is his sappy voice and you already know what he's doing when he pulls the sweater over your head and down your torso. "It looks cute," Wonwoo comments by the time you have the sleeves pulled down properly. 

"You know I hate that word, Woo," you complain but he doesn't let you, pecking your forehead. You sigh in defeat and admire the sweater in the mirror, the fabric sitting surprisingly well against the skirt of your dress. You shrug, "I suppose I can work with this new outfit."

"If not, I can always just take it off for you–"

"Okay, we're leaving before you say another word!" 

Wonwoo laughs as he lets you pull him out after you, out the living room and into the hallway. He stands next to you, hands in his pocket while he waits for you to lock the door and glances at Joshua's door, wondering what his best friend was up to. You don't give a chance to do something about it though because your hands back on his arm in no time – and he swears you touch his arm for reasons beyond appropriate but you'd rather die than admit to it– and walk into the night. 

You meet Karina at a place called Love in the Air and Wonwoo's had listen to you go on, super smug, about how beautifully cliché the name and ambience of the restaurant is. Each dish has a romantic origin, like the shall I compare thee to a summer's day cocktail that Karina and Taeyong share, down to the lipstick-shaped bottles of wine served to your table. And as much as Wonwoo pretends to hate the cliché of love, he still orders the matching Valentine's soup as you just so you can watch his order come out in surprise. 

And as much as Wonwoo pretends he doesn't love the cliché of love, when you lean into his arm at the end of the night, already dozing off when he runs his fingers through your scalp, he can't help but let his heart soar with affection for you. And he thinks he would, after all, be in a cliché if it means to end up in your arms night after night. 

--

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

hiii oh my god why is this fic actually long!!! i wrote in like a day too so i'm just confused... it was 3k a minute and then 29 pages the other?? that's just wonwoo magic or smth i guess... this was requested and i hope the anon who asked for this enjoys it!!! writing it made a lil sick because of how sappy it is but ... it is what it is.

and consider this me admitting that i wouldn't mind having joshua be my brother... and that's just the flavor of parasocial relationship i'm dealing with these days lol

as always: lots of love to all friends and foes !!

[janeyseymour]

The Other Woman

I'M BAAAAAAACK. With this short little one shot thanks to @jeridandridge and her big brain ideas that she let me steal

Summary: you have another woman that melissa has the unfortunate pleasure of meeting. Jealousy ensues.

WC: ~2.8k

It’s been about three years since you’ve started at Abbott Elementary, and honestly? It’s been challenging. Challenging, but rewarding. You’ve found a work family that you actually want to be a part of. But you’re also in a tougher area in Philadelphia, and on top of all of that, you’ve been working on your masters in reading since landing the job as the third grade teacher who took the load off of none other than Melissa Schemmenti.

You feel like you’ve been up to your eyeballs in work, both for your students and for yourself. But now, hopefully that you have your masters degree, that work load will lighten significantly.

The other thing that’s been quite challenging? Masking the feelings that you have for a certain redhead. She always gave off that she was hardheaded, stubborn, and difficult in most situations, but you’ve seen that she has a softer side. You’ve seen the way that she loves her students and former students like her own, how she makes sure that both Jacob and Janine are eating something that has actual nutritional value, her softer side for Barbara Howard, even the simple gestures of bringing Mr. Johnson takeout menus to places she thinks he’ll enjoy. And she’s been incredibly nice to you from the start- something that you’ve learned is entirely out of character for her. She claims it’s because you helped lighten her load, but the truth of it is that she quite likes you- enjoys you even.

Melissa Schemmenti, second grade teacher at Abbott Elementary school, would never have the same feelings that you do- at least that’s what you think. So, after about a year of harboring these emotions, you decide that you have to simply get over yourself and the feelings that you hold. You throw yourself into your work and your classes. During the last semester of classes that you took, you ended up finding a sweet girl who works as a teacher at a school in the suburbs. She helps you to repress the love that you have for the redhead while you’re with her, but as soon as you walk into Abbott again… it’s like Emily doesn’t exist.

It’s not like things with Emily are official either. Yes, she’s met Jacob and Janine at a happy hour once or twice, but aside from that, you would say you’re casually dating her. She would say the same, which is nice. There’s low commitment, minimal effort, outstanding sex.

“So, we’re thinking us going down to Oscars after work on Friday,” Jacob mentions casually at lunch on Tuesday. “You in?”

He knows you’re going to say yes. You love Oscars, and you almost never turn down a good time with two of your coworkers. “You know I’m there. Us four?” You gesture to yourself, Jacob, Janine, and Gregory.

Janine glances to her partner in crime before cutting in. “Us four, Mel, Barb, Mr. J, and Ava?”

“Oh,” you chuckle. “So this isn’t happy hour- this is getting hammered.”

“We just thought it might be nice to go out and have a few beers to celebrate you getting your masters,” Jacob shrugs with a blush creeping into his cheeks.

And so, after the school day is done and your door is shut for the weekend, you make your way into the lobby of the school where the rest of your little work family is. You all shove your things into your cars and lock them before you begin the short walk down to your favorite dive bar.

“Oh, I invited Emily by the way,” Jacob says offhandedly as your group travels.

“Who?” Melissa’s rough voice asks.

Your brow raises. “You did?”

“I thought you might like to have your girlfriend there,” he tells you.

The second grade teacher’s face hardens. “You have a girlfriend?”

“No,” you state quickly, shooting your friend a glare. “Emily is just this girl I’ve been seeing casually. It’s not- she’s not my girlfriend.”

“You sure about that?” Janine asks.

“Yeah,” Melissa huffs. “You sure about that?”

You close your eyes and take a deep breath. “Yeah, Lis. I’m pretty sure. It’s drinks maybe once a week, and then it’s just sex. Isn’t that what you were doing with the Captain?”

Green eyes stare at you as she quirks her lips, raises a brow, and folds her arms over her chest. She essentially stays that way for the rest of the walk down to Oscars, making for some uncomfortable tension between the group.

That tension is quickly gone when Ava orders a round of drinks for you all. After that little spat that you had with your favorite redhead (ironically, not the woman that ends up in your bed almost every weekend), you realize that your goal is to get absolutely hammered today. Little do you know, that Melissa also feels that way now. After downing the drink that Ava treated you all to on the company card, the second grade teacher drags her best friend to the bar.

“Girl, what’s got you so angry?” Barbara asks as Melissa takes another shot. “You were fine when we left the school.”

“I-” The redhead pauses to wipe the little amount of alcohol from her lip with her sleeve. “I didn’t know that Y/N had a girl. I was gonna ask her out tonight, but now that plan’s a load of shit, and I’m pissed I didn’t make a move sooner.”

“You heard her,” Barb shrugs. “It’s casual. You still could.”

Green eyes are rolled. “No fuckin’ way.”

“Then you need to try to keep this temper of yours under control, the jealousy too,” the kindergarten teacher chides. “We’re here to celebrate Y/N and her getting her masters.”

Melissa huffs before making her way back over to where you are- already taking your second shot of the day. But then your eyes lock with hers, and you hate how much it turns you on when she’s pissed off. As much as you love seeing her angry, you don’t want to be the one who’s making her feel this way.

“I’m sorry I was a bitch earlier,” you lean in, wrap an arm around her waist, and whisper into her ear. “I didn’t think you’d care if I was talking to someone.”

“I thought-” Whatever Melissa is going to say never gets uttered because Emily walks in, and Jacob and Janine both cheer and giggle. You’ve never moved your hand away from someone so quickly, and you hate that you have to in the first place. Your arm being around that waist felt so right.

“Hey!” Emily makes her way over to you, wraps an arm around your waist, and kisses your cheek.

“Hey,” you smile awkwardly as you return the sentiment. “Uh, let me introduce you to the rest of the group. You obviously know Jake, Greg, and Janine.”

She waves at them.

“This is Barbara, Ava, Mr. J, and…” you sigh softly when you see that the redhead has gone stone faced again. “Melissa.”

Emily smiles at everyone. “It’s great to be with youse, celebrating Y/N gettin’ her masters. I wish I liked my coworkers as much as y’all seem to get along.”

“I’m sure you’ll get there,” you tell her softly. “It took me some time to find my group.”

Emily is handed a drink, and you find that it’s quite nice that she already knows some of your friends- this way, she isn’t attached to your hip. You’re able to play darts with Jacob and Gregory, get in some gossip with Janine, challenge Ava and Mr. Johnson to a chugging competition, and chat with Barbara while your date mingles with your friends. It doesn’t go unnoticed that while you’re conversing with Barbara, Melissa stays silent. 

“I’m heading to the bathroom, and then ordering another drink,” the kindergarten teacher tells you as she begins to shimmy her way out of the booth. “Would either of you like anything?”

“Whiskey, neat,” the redhead grumbles.

“Angry balls,” you request.

Barb’s eyes go wide. “What?”

“Shot of fireball mixed with an orchard,” you explain. “Thank you.”

As soon as Barbara is out of earshot, you scoot in closer to the redhead. “So, you gonna tell me why you’re all pissy?”

Melissa scoffs. “I’m not being pissy.”

“Yeah you are,” you call the redhead out. “No smiles, arms crossed, brows furrowed. Quiet, for once in your life.”

“So maybe I’m a little pissed,” the redhead admits quietly, although she does uncross her arms, and one finds its way around your waist, pulling you in just slightly closer. Liquid courage.

“And why would that be?” you question. “It’s just the gang.”

“And that girl,” Melissa mutters under her breath, but you’re close enough that you can hear it.

“Emily?” you ask. At her nod, you roll your eyes. “At this point, I’m pretty sure Jake and Janine like her more than they like me. And like I told you earlier, it’s honestly just sex. I don’t want anything else with her, and she knows it.”

“Then why’s she here?”

“Because Jacob is convinced we’re goin’ t’fall in love or some shit,” you chuckle. “You know him.”

“An idiot,” the redhead sighs.

“He’s got a good heart though,” you quip. “Just like you. I like you more when you’re nice, you know.”

Your colleague turns to face you slightly, and you swear there’s a blush creeping into her cheeks. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” you smirk, as you reach behind her and tuck the hairs that have threatened to fall in her face behind her ear. “It makes me sad when you’re all pissed.”

Jacob’s eyes follow where Emily is looking- at the two of you, cozied up together in the booth.

“You good, Em?” the social studies teacher asks.

The woman turns to face him with a sad smile. “They like each other, don’t they?” It’s not asked in an angry way, or even in a hurt way. It’s more of a statement phrased as a question. 

Jacob sighs quietly. “I- That’s a question for Y/N.”

Emily just purses her lips in thought before throwing the dart in the direction of the dart board.

When Barbara returns to the booth, it’s apparent to her that the two of you had reconciled. It almost seems to her that her best friend had admitted the feelings she has for you. Of course, she doesn’t voice that. Instead, she just joins the conversation with a smile, happy that things seem to be back to normal.

It’s a long while later that you’re all more than a little drunk, and the Abbott clan decides to call it a night. You thank your friends for coming out to celebrate with you, giving them all hugs as they depart from the bar. The only one that you give a quick kiss on the cheek to is Melissa- an act that does not get past your date.

And then it’s just you and Emily on the sidewalk.

“Did you want to go somewhere else?” you ask. “Or maybe just back to my place?”

“Maybe we could skip the next bar and just head to a diner? I could use some food, and I think we need to talk,” Emily tells you quietly, although her voice feels much louder now that you’re out of the dive bar atmosphere.

“Y-yeah,” you nod along, scratching the back of your neck. 

It’s not long before you’re in a small little diner eating burgers and thanking the waitress for her service. And then Emily sighs.

“Is- is everything okay?” you ask, suddenly nervous.

“Yeah,” she smiles, although it doesn’t reach her sparkling eyes like it usually does. When you look a little harder, you can’t help but note that her eyes aren’t even sparkling the way they usually do when she’s with you. “I just-” Emily bites her lip nervously before letting the words tumble out of her mouth. “I don’t want to be in the way.”

“You don’t want to be in the way of what?” you furrow your brow.

“You,” Emily whispers. “Y/N, I care about you, and I want what’s best for you. Unfortunately, that’s not me.”

“What?” you ask softly. “Em, what are you-”

“I’m not mad at you,” the woman across from you promises. “But you have feelings for Melissa. Stronger feelings than you have for me.”

“I- I-” you stammer out with wide eyes. She’s right, but you don’t know how to say it.

“And that’s okay,” Emily smiles. “She likes you too. Anyone with eyes can see it, and I don’t want to be in your way of finding true love and happiness.”

“W- What?” you continue to flounder. “I- I-”

“It’s okay,” Emily assures you, yet again. “I saw the way that the two of you were flirting. The way she brightens up and comes alive when you’re near her. Your- your eyes sparkle when you look at her. I want you to be happy.”

“Em,” you breathe out. “I- I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” the woman promises. “You can’t help feelings, and we had a good run. I would still like to be friends- and I had a great time out with your coworkers tonight… well aside from Melissa.”

“She-”

“Once I knew why she hated me, I couldn’t help but understand,” Emily shrugs.

You take a bite of your burger. “How are you always so understanding of everything?”

“We’re teachers, aren’t we?” your date teases.

Despite the fact that the two of you essentially broke up at the diner, the rest of your meal is cordial, and you even gossip about how Gregory and Janine absolutely are going to end up married at some point. 

And then you’re seeing Emily off in an uber for the night before walking back to your own apartment for the night.

You take off your makeup and change into a pair of sweat shorts and an Abbott hoodie before settling on the couch with a beer and really taking in what Emily had said to you. She knows that you have feelings for Melissa. She also seems to be convinced that your redheaded coworker has feelings for you. 

Your eyes glance at the clock. It really isn’t all that late.

Before you know what you’re doing, you dial Melissa’s number.

“Hello?” the redhead’s gruff voice crackles through the speaker.

“Lis?”

“You dialed me, you know it’s me, hun,” Melissa quips.

You can’t help the giggle that bubbles up out of you. “I know it’s a long shot, but would you want to come over?”

“Emily isn’t there?”

“No,” you roll your eyes. “She and I- I think you and I need to talk, and I want to do it before I lose my nerve.”

You can hear the redhead pull herself off her couch. “Fine. But you owe me money for the Uber I’m going to take.”

“Deal.”

Your colleague shows to your house about twenty minutes later, and you can’t help the smile that finds its way to your face when you take her in. She’s just in a pair of leggings and a tank top, her hair tied up messily, but God does she look beautiful as ever.

“No just sex tonight?” Melissa smirks.

You shake your head. “Not tonight.”

“Well that-”

“Not ever again, if this goes well,” you tell her as you invite her into your apartment.

Sculpted eyebrows furrow. “What does that mean?” she asks as she settles on the couch.

You take the opportunity to sit next to her and pull her in closely. “Em and I- we… uh, talked.”

“Okay?”

“I- I don’t really know how to say this, so,” you trail off as you cup her cheek with your hand and pull her in for a soft kiss. Her lips are frozen against yours for a second before she fully comprehends what’s happening. She kisses you back before pulling away.

“Y/N, I don’t want to play-”

“Emily and I broke things off,” you tell her. “After we left the bar.”

“And why the hell would you do that?”

“Because,” you smile as you look into her eyes. You can see that she’s hoping you say it’s for her. “Because I have feelings for you, not her.”

“What?” she asks, despite her wish for you to admit that to her. It clearly shocks her.

“After everyone left, we went to get burgers, and… she told me it’s clear that there’s something between the two of us. I’m tired of trying to hide my feelings for you, Lis.”

That’s all Melissa needs to hear before she pulls you in again. 

@schemmentis @thesapphictimelady @marvel210 @itisdoctortoyousir @morgana-larkin @doesthatsuggestanythingtoyou @sweetcheeksschemmenti @megamultifandomtrashposts @lemz378 @http-sam @melissaschemmentisbranzino @imaginesmultifandoms @sexysapphicshopowner @lilfartbox1 @maybe-a-humanbean @imlike-so-gaydude @a-queen-and-her-throne @notinmyvocab @melanielaufeyson @dvrkhcld @cosmichymns @sasheemo @m1lflov3rrr @ricejucie @temilyrights @emilynissangtr @squinnchy @dopenightmaretyphoon @emeraldoceansstuff @shinyfaerielights  @blkmxrvel @marvelwomenrule @sarahjohannson @casualfoxwitch @babytakeittothehead @schemmentits

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Hi Skyen, hope you're well! I'm seeking some advice and since you used to work doing mainly art commissions I figured asking you was worth a shot.

I'm a furry artist and I'm looking into doing commission work as a side gig while I finish animation college, and hopefully acquire enough experience/clients/notoriety to turn it into a full time job once I graduate.

Do you have any advice for someone literally just starting out with fresh accounts and zero following? Especially when it comes to reaching people and getting your first clients, and anything that one should take into account when working with NSFW specifically. Also advice for pricing your work is always useful 😅

No need to answer obvs but I'd appreciate your viewpoint if you want to share!

Got 2 asks on this exact subject so I'll write up what advice I can. One big caveat: I haven't worked as a commission artist for like half a decade at this point, and this job has a tendency to change fast, do not take anything I say as gospel. This is advice from a limited perspective, be critical of what I say and trust your peers and the people you are in community with before you trust me.

building audience

Step one is getting people to notice the artwork you create. Literally nothing else can happen until you have eyeballs on your work, and the most consistent and reliable way to make that happen is fanart. Ideally you'd want to produce fanart in a fandom you are personally engaged with and passionate about and familiar with, and which also has a sizeable community whose attention can help you build recognition and a base of followers.

This isn't always possible, and there's many a working artist who creates work for fandoms not out of deep personal connection, but because the fandom is large and relevant and a good way to capture the goodwill of algorithms and content feeds.

This approach has some downsides. For one, genuine fans can usually tell when someone's engagement with Their Thing is shallow, and for another it can be deeply creatively exhausting to chase the algorithm. I don't recommend this approach, but it is a valid means of building a business.

Another important consideration, especially when you are early in your career, is that volume tends to trump quality. Every artist will eventually learn that their shitty joke-doodle they sh*t out in ten minutes on a whim will get a billion reposts, and their complex personal work that took eight weeks to finish gets 2 likes from their closest mutuals and a comment from a bot saying "wow!"

In the age of the algorithm, what machines and for you pages value is a consistent, high-volume of output that generates user engagement. You will generally get further, faster, by producing a lot of work than you will producing great work. Again, this can be rough on your mental state, and a fast way to burn the fuck out, so please be careful and mind your health before all else.

The best way to build something that will last is to build your audience in communities and around fandoms and themes and ideas you genuinely care about and enjoy exploring and interacting with. Being your authentic self and creating work from your authentic interest is generally both healthier and long-term better for your career than trend-chasing. Treat trend-chasing and volume > quality output as tools in your toolbox, as creative and business decisions you can make to achieve a specific purpose, never ever EVER let them become the center of your praxis or your philosophy. Never ever EVER allow the Numbers™ to be your source of validation and accomplishment.

building business

Ok, so you've got eyes on your work. You've got some followers. How the hell do you get them to commission you?

Well, again, by demonstrating a capacity to create kinds of art for which there is demand. In the furry community, there's brisk trade in things like ref sheets and character design, for example. For most fandoms, ship art is a product which tends to be in demand. Being able to do really good expression sheets is a marketable skill. Being able to create compelling and clear emotes for streamers and creators is a marketable skill.

Showing the capacity to work in a wide range of styles is valuable. Showing the capacity to work in a wide range of genres is valuable. If you can do both comedy and romance your appeal expands. If you can do shonen-like action and angst as well, it expands again.

Equally, being incredibly good at a specific niche is valuable as well. Focusing hard on an under-served niche of work can give you a lot of opportunities to be the Go To person for that specific kind of thing.

Perhaps the hardest part of all of this is marketing yourself. Not only showing that you have the skills, but actively informing your audience that you are available, eager and willing to practise your skill for a fee. You have to sell yourself. It sucks, but you have to do it. You have to advertise what you can do, and you have to suffer the rejection and annoyance that comes along with doing that.

You have to ask people to commission you. You have to raise your hand and demand attention. It's not fun, but it's business.

Walking the line between self-promotion and being a person is hard. I can't help you that much with it, it's a very personal balance to find. Stay in touch with your soul, but kill the part that cringes at yourself.

Ultimately, you best marketing asset is your portfolio. Every time you do work, show it off. Repost it, retweet it, spread it around. If someone is happy with what you've made for them, do your best to make sure that other people see that happiness. Ask your clients (politely) to tag you when they share your work.

Oh, and for the love of god, sign everything you create, slap watermarks on anything that's likely to get reposted, and make it impossible for someone not to find your business email on your profile.

building network

If you're a commission artist, you are in community with other commission artists. You share interests, you share experiences, you share needs.

Practise solidarity. Absolutely seek out professional peers to help your business, but equally seek out opportunities to help them with theirs. If someone comes to you for art and you don't have commission slots open, point them at a colleague who you know can do the work too. Gas up your peers and spread their work.

Be a symbiote, not a parasite. Respect the craft of your peers, and don't chase celebrities and big names in the hope of coasting on their coattails. It will fail.

smut

If you're a working artist, at some point you have to reckon with smut and r34.

These genres are excellent sources of income, and fertile ground to build a business and network of customers. BUT. Do not ever make the mistake of thinking that they are "the easy way" or a shortcut. Do not ever make the mistake of thinking you can simply offer to draw tiddies and rake in the cash.

It's work and graft same as literally any other form of labor, it's challenging on both a technical and creative level, and the audience can sense if you're looking down on them. If you approach this from a position of shame, of "eugh, I'm debasing myself by doing this for rent money," it will not work, and you will lose standing and respect in the eyes of every peer whose support you need to succeed.

Just as in all other forms of creativity, if you treat the audience as morons who will slurp up whatever slop you serve them, then you will attract clientele that agrees with you, and you will deserve the misery they will inflict upon you.

If you are going to work in smut, establish your boundaries and enforce them. Know that good clients will feel safer and more comfortable with an artist who clearly states their red lines and earnest interests than they will with someone who tries to attract more clients by pretending to be open to work that they are actually uncomfortable with.

Never, ever, EVER let a client push you to create work you are not comfortable creating. It scars your soul in both the short and long term.

Also, when working with this kind of content, know the rules of payment processors and know how to hide the nature of your business from them. PayPal should never, EVER know the details of the content you sell with their service. Frankly, neither should your bank, most likely.

Look to your peers for advice and best practises about this. And be meticulous about your bookkeeping.

money

I want to tell you to charge at least minimum wage for your time. I want to tell you to charge substantially more than that, because your labor is specialized and highly skilled.

But the economic reality of commission work is that there is a crushing downwards pressure on the labor price of art, which has only been made more devastating by the rise of generative AI, and especially when you are a young artist just starting out, you're going to find yourself in a position where charging even minimum wage for your time will turn away a huge proportion of your potential customers.

Again, your portfolio will be the greatest argument for the value of your work, but you have to build that portfolio first, and very often that means doing a f*kton of work for not remotely enough pay until the pressure of demand finally works in your favor.

I don't condone or justify this state of affairs. It is horrid and I hate it, but I don't know how to fix it either.

Making a living from content creation of any kind requires you to get lucky, on top of working obscene hours and foregoing rest and vacations. It's not a safe or sensible plan for a career or paying your bills.

My sensible advice is to get a "normal" job you can survive doing, and do your creative work on the side, and resign yourself to the possibility that the creative work may never actually pay your bills.

And that is soul-crushing, but I cannot stomach pretending that hard work and gumption will guarantee anyone a decent living if they just try hard enough.

There are people who are better at every aspect of my work than I am, and they struggle harder and work for longer, and they will never see half the success I have, because I happened to get lucky, and they happened not to. It's wretched.

I'm not telling you not to chase your dreams. I'm telling you to do it with your eyes open, and with compassion for yourself first before all else.

All of this to say: I can't tell you what to charge for your work. It depends on everything from your competition to your niche to your genre to your community to your economic situation. You have to figure it out on your own.

All I can tell you is never forget that your work is worth more than the market will let you charge, and to raise your prices as soon and as much as you can. Try to reach at least minimum wage for your time as fast as possible.

in conclusion

Again, I haven't been a commission artist full time for a long time, please do not take any of this as gospel. Listen to your peers before you listen to me.

But trust me about the solidarity. It will save you when all else fails.

[promptfairy]

❥    𝐕𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐐𝐔𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒 [ 𝚂𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙴𝙽𝙲𝙴 𝚂𝚃𝙰𝚁𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚂 ] ( PART 2 ! ) .

part one is here. change gendered language and add context to your needs. happy roleplaying!! ♡

❛  never underestimate the value of being just who you are. life isn’t about being extreme all the time.  ❜

❛  i used to be so focused. but now, it’s like i just can’t … you know … do stuff …  ❜

❛  you know what i’d like? a chance to talk to someone who isn’t you.  ❜

❛  i waited and waited because i really wanted to see you.  ❜

❛  i’m pretty forgetful, but i’ll record the times we’ve shared in the notebook of my heart.  ❜

❛  there is no rational reason why people act the way they do.  ❜

❛  there aren’t any trendy shops and zero hot men. what a wasteland.  ❜

❛  if i listen carefully to the sound of the rain, it seems like music on the leaves and flowers.  ❜

❛  even if it’s temporary, fleeting happiness is better than none.  ❜

❛  in my opinion, passion is what makes people beautiful.  ❜

❛  no one ever understands me. i’m hungry all the time and no one cares.  ❜

❛  i’m afraid of falling in love and getting hurt.  ❜

❛  you’re just such a little ball of sunshine! you make the world seem like a brighter place.  ❜

❛  one day, i realized that i’m happiest just being myself.  ❜

❛  being filled with doubt and uncertainty is just part of being young.  ❜

❛  doing your best at something you’re really into is kind of what life is all about, right?  ❜

❛  i feel so happy, i might explode! … please promise you’ll clean up if i explode.  ❜

❛  if you ever need someone to hear out your troubles, or even just a shoulder to cry on, just let me know.  ❜

❛  i’m not crying. i’m just using my eyeballs to moisturize my cheeks.  ❜

❛  you’re just so darn cute! i can never say no to you.  ❜

❛  we meet people, get to know them, and then they get up and leave us behind.  ❜

❛  believe it or not, i feel like i’ve known you for a long time.  ❜

❛  the world needs people like me to tell everyone what’s wrong with them.  ❜

❛  it doesn’t matter if you’re powerful or weak. having a strong heart is what counts.  ❜

❛  sometimes i forget who i am and what i’m doing.  ❜

❛  i’m beautiful, but i’m also … deadly.  ❜

❛  there’s something loveable in all of us.  ❜

❛  you’re a little obsessive, aren’t you?  ❜

❛  i always thought you were some freak mental case because you run around town all the time.  ❜

❛  even if perfection is sometimes out of reach, isn’t it still fun to try?  ❜

❛  i’m a lone wolf who doesn’t want to be alone.  ❜

❛  the body is like a battery. every now and then, you need to recharge a little.  ❜

❛  sometimes i put flowers in the toilet so it’s like a huge vase.  ❜

❛  i’ll bet that he’s looking up at the same sky right now.  ❜

❛  even a good memory can make you cry.  ❜

❛  don’t be such a little capitalist! take a deep breath and enjoy a long walk.  ❜

❛  i don’t mean to brag, but, i’m one of those people that’s good at everything.  ❜

❛  you don’t know me. don’t try to judge me.  ❜

❛  i care about you a lot. if you’re having a hard time, i’m here for you  ❜

❛  when someone fakes a smile, don’t get mad. at least they’re trying.  ❜

❛  i guess i just went into fight or flight mode, you know? only my ‘fight’ is more like ‘cry.’  ❜

❛  i’m gonna have to come up with something nice to say about you that sounds believable.  ❜

❛  if you go around trying to change everyone, you’re just going to make them angry.  ❜

❛  i guess you’re having one of your shy episodes.  ❜

❛  i feel like you’re staring at me and it’s making me nervous …  ❜

❛  i do not like to go around spreading rumors. but you won’t believe the rumor i just heard.  ❜

❛  i’ve got this feeling that we have chemistry, and it scares me …  ❜

❛  what’s it like to be so cool and self-assured?  ❜

❛  nobody’s ever nice to me except you.  ❜

❛  when i look up at the stars, i just wonder … what will they all become someday?  ❜

❛  you’ve definitely gained 1-2 [ pounds / kilograms ] since the last time i’ve seen you. i can see it.  ❜

❛  i like to think that it’s my job to show you young people how hard life is.  ❜

❛  ah, it’s such a good story. but i am legally prohibited from sharing all the details at this time.  ❜

❛  you can forget about being friends with me.  ❜

❛  i’m leaving this awful town.  ❜

❛  you’re so short. i can’t help but laugh.  ❜

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Pluralistic: Leaving Twitter had no effect on NPR's traffic

I'm coming to Minneapolis! This Sunday (Oct 15): Presenting The Internet Con at Moon Palace Books. Monday (Oct 16): Keynoting the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

Enshittification is the process by which a platform lures in and then captures end users (stage one), who serve as bait for business customers, who are also captured (stage two), whereupon the platform rug-pulls both groups and allocates all the value they generate and exchange to itself (stage three):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

Enshittification isn't merely a form of rent-seeking – it is a uniquely digital phenomenon, because it relies on the inherent flexibility of digital systems. There are lots of intermediaries that want to extract surpluses from customers and suppliers – everyone from grocers to oil companies – but these can't be reconfigured in an eyeblink the that that purely digital services can.

A sleazy boss can hide their wage-theft with a bunch of confusing deductions to your paycheck. But when your boss is an app, it can engage in algorithmic wage discrimination, where your pay declines minutely every time you accept a job, but if you start to decline jobs, the app can raise the offer:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

I call this process "twiddling": tech platforms are equipped with a million knobs on their back-ends, and platform operators can endlessly twiddle those knobs, altering the business logic from moment to moment, turning the system into an endlessly shifting quagmire where neither users nor business customers can ever be sure whether they're getting a fair deal:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

Social media platforms are compulsive twiddlers. They use endless variation to lure in – and then lock in – publishers, with the goal of converting these standalone businesses into commodity suppliers who are dependent on the platform, who can then be charged rent to reach the users who asked to hear from them.

Facebook designed this playbook. First, it lured in end-users by promising them a good deal: "Unlike Myspace, which spies on you from asshole to appetite, Facebook is a privacy-respecting site that will never, ever spy on you. Simply sign up, tell us everyone who matters to you, and we'll populate a feed with everything they post for public consumption":

https://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1128876

The users came, and locked themselves in: when people gather in social spaces, they inadvertently take one another hostage. You joined Facebook because you liked the people who were there, then others joined because they liked you. Facebook can now make life worse for all of you without losing your business. You might hate Facebook, but you like each other, and the collective action problem of deciding when and whether to go, and where you should go next, is so difficult to overcome, that you all stay in a place that's getting progressively worse.

Once its users were locked in, Facebook turned to advertisers and said, "Remember when we told these rubes we'd never spy on them? It was a lie. We spy on them with every hour that God sends, and we'll sell you access to that data in the form of dirt-cheap targeted ads."

Then Facebook went to the publishers and said, "Remember when we told these suckers that we'd only show them the things they asked to see? Total lie. Post short excerpts from your content and links back to your websites and we'll nonconsensually cram them into the eyeballs of people who never asked to see them. It's a free, high-value traffic funnel for your own site, bringing monetizable users right to your door."

Now, Facebook had to find a way to lock in those publishers. To do this, it had to twiddle. By tiny increments, Facebook deprioritized publishers' content, forcing them to make their excerpts grew progressively longer. As with gig workers, the digital flexibility of Facebook gave it lots of leeway here. Some publishers sensed the excerpts they were being asked to post were a substitute for visiting their sites – and not an enticement – and drew down their posting to Facebook.

When that happened, Facebook could twiddle in the publisher's favor, giving them broader distribution for shorter excerpts, then, once the publisher returned to the platform, Facebook drew down their traffic unless they started posting longer pieces. Twiddling lets platforms play users and business-customers like a fish on a line, giving them slack when they fight, then reeling them in when they tire.

Once Facebook converted a publisher to a commodity supplier to the platform, it reeled the publishers in. First, it deprioritized publishers' posts when they had links back to the publisher's site (under the pretext of policing "clickbait" and "malicious links"). Then, it stopped showing publishers' content to their own subscribers, extorting them to pay to "boost" their posts in order to reach people who had explicitly asked to hear from them.

For users, this meant that their feeds were increasingly populated with payola-boosted content from advertisers and pay-to-play publishers who paid Facebook's Danegeld to reach them. A user will only spend so much time on Facebook, and every post that Facebook feeds that user from someone they want to hear from is a missed opportunity to show them a post from someone who'll pay to reach them.

Here, too, twiddling lets Facebook fine-tune its approach. If a user starts to wean themself off Facebook, the algorithm (TM) can put more content the user has asked to see in the feed. When the user's participation returns to higher levels, Facebook can draw down the share of desirable content again, replacing it with monetizable content. This is done minutely, behind the scenes, automatically, and quickly. In any shell game, the quickness of the hand deceives the eye.

This is the final stage of enshittification: withdrawing surpluses from end-users and business customers, leaving behind the minimum homeopathic quantum of value for each needed to keep them locked to the platform, generating value that can be extracted and diverted to platform shareholders.

But this is a brittle equilibrium to maintain. The difference between "God, I hate this place but I just can't leave it" and "Holy shit, this sucks, I'm outta here" is razor-thin. All it takes is one privacy scandal, one livestreamed mass-shooting, one whistleblower dump, and people bolt for the exits. This kicks off a death-spiral: as users and business customers leave, the platform's shareholders demand that they squeeze the remaining population harder to make up for the loss.

One reason this gambit worked so well is that it was a long con. Platform operators and their investors have been willing to throw away billions convincing end-users and business customers to lock themselves in until it was time for the pig-butchering to begin. They financed expensive forays into additional features and complementary products meant to increase user lock-in, raising the switching costs for users who were tempted to leave.

For example, Facebook's product manager for its "photos" product wrote to Mark Zuckerberg to lay out a strategy of enticing users into uploading valuable family photos to the platform in order to "make switching costs very high for users," who would have to throw away their precious memories as the price for leaving Facebook:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

The platforms' patience paid off. Their slow ratchets operated so subtly that we barely noticed the squeeze, and when we did, they relaxed the pressure until we were lulled back into complacency. Long cons require a lot of prefrontal cortex, the executive function to exercise patience and restraint.

Which brings me to Elon Musk, a man who seems to have been born without a prefrontal cortex, who has repeatedly and publicly demonstrated that he lacks any restraint, patience or planning. Elon Musk's prefrontal cortical deficit resulted in his being forced to buy Twitter, and his every action since has betrayed an even graver inability to stop tripping over his own dick.

Where Zuckerberg played enshittification as a long game, Musk is bent on speedrunning it. He doesn't slice his users up with a subtle scalpel, he hacks away at them with a hatchet.

Musk inaugurated his reign by nonconsensually flipping every user to an algorithmic feed which was crammed with ads and posts from "verified" users whose blue ticks verified solely that they had $8 ($11 for iOS users). Where Facebook deployed substantial effort to enticing users who tired of eyeball-cramming feed decay by temporarily improving their feeds, Musk's Twitter actually overrode users' choice to switch back to a chronological feed by repeatedly flipping them back to more monetizable, algorithmic feeds.

Then came the squeeze on publishers. Musk's Twitter rolled out a bewildering array of "verification" ticks, each priced higher than the last, and publishers who refused to pay found their subscribers taken hostage, with Twitter downranking or shadowbanning their content unless they paid.

(Musk also squeezed advertisers, keeping the same high prices but reducing the quality of the offer by killing programs that kept advertisers' content from being published along Holocaust denial and open calls for genocide.)

Today, Musk continues to squeeze advertisers, publishers and users, and his hamfisted enticements to make up for these depredations are spectacularly bad, and even illegal, like offering advertisers a new kind of ad that isn't associated with any Twitter account, can't be blocked, and is not labeled as an ad:

https://www.wired.com/story/xs-sneaky-new-ads-might-be-illegal/

Of course, Musk has a compulsive bullshitter's contempt for the press, so he has far fewer enticements for them to stay. Quite the reverse: first, Musk removed headlines from link previews, rendering posts by publishers that went to their own sites into stock-art enigmas that generated no traffic:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/oct/05/x-twitter-strips-headlines-new-links-why-elon-musk

Then he jumped straight to the end-stage of enshittification by announcing that he would shadowban any newsmedia posts with links to sites other than Twitter, "because there is less time spent if people click away." Publishers were advised to "post content in long form on this platform":

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/111183068362793821

Where a canny enshittifier would have gestured at a gaslighting explanation ("we're shadowbanning posts with links because they might be malicious"), Musk busts out the motto of the Darth Vader MBA: "I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further."

All this has the effect of highlighting just how little residual value there is on the platform for publishers, and tempts them to bolt for the exits. Six months ago, NPR lost all patience with Musk's shenanigans, and quit the service. Half a year later, they've revealed how low the switching cost for a major news outlet that leaves Twitter really are: NPR's traffic, post-Twitter, has declined by less than a single percentage point:

https://niemanreports.org/articles/npr-twitter-musk/

NPR's Twitter accounts had 8.7 million followers, but even six months ago, Musk's enshittification speedrun had drawn down NPR's ability to reach those users to a negligible level. The 8.7 million number was an illusion, a shell game Musk played on publishers like NPR in a bid to get them to buy a five-figure iridium checkmark or even a six-figure titanium one.

On Twitter, the true number of followers you have is effectively zero – not because Twitter users haven't explicitly instructed the service to show them your posts, but because every post in their feeds that they want to see is a post that no one can be charged to show them.

I've experienced this myself. Three and a half years ago, I left Boing Boing and started pluralistic.net, my cross-platform, open access, surveillance-free, daily newsletter and blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/drei-drei-drei/#now-we-are-three

Boing Boing had the good fortune to have attracted a sizable audience before the advent of siloed platforms, and a large portion of that audience came to the site directly, rather than following us on social media. I knew that, starting a new platform from scratch, I wouldn't have that luxury. My audience would come from social media, and it would be up to me to convert readers into people who followed me on platforms I controlled – where neither they nor I could be held to ransom.

I embraced a strategy called POSSE: Post Own Site, Syndicate Everywhere. With POSSE, the permalink and native habitat for your material is a site you control (in my case, a WordPress blog with all the telemetry, logging and surveillance disabled). Then you repost that content to other platforms – mostly social media – with links back to your own site:

https://indieweb.org/POSSE

There are a lot of automated tools to help you with this, but the platforms have gone to great lengths to break or neuter them. Musk's attack on Twitter's legendarily flexible and powerful API killed every automation tool that might help with this. I was lucky enough to have a reader – Loren Kohnfelder – who coded me some python scripts that automate much of the process, but POSSE remains a very labor-intensive and error-prone methodology:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/13/two-decades/#hfbd

And of all the feeds I produce – email, RSS, Discourse, Medium, Tumblr, Mastodon – none is as labor-intensive as Twitter's. It is an unforgiving medium to begin with, and Musk's drawdown of engineering support has made it wildly unreliable. Many's the time I've set up 20+ posts in a thread, only to have the browser tab reload itself and wipe out all my work.

But I stuck with Twitter, because I have a half-million followers, and to the extent that I reach them there, I can hope that they will follow the permalinks to Pluralistic proper and switch over to RSS, or email, or a daily visit to the blog.

But with each day, the case for using Twitter grows weaker. I get ten times as many replies and reposts on Mastodon, though my Mastodon follower count is a tenth the size of my (increasingly hypothetical) Twitter audience.

All this raises the question of what can or should be done about Twitter. One possible regulatory response would be to impose an "End-To-End" rule on the service, requiring that Twitter deliver posts from willing senders to willing receivers without interfering in them. End-To-end is the bedrock of the internet (one of its incarnations is Net Neutrality) and it's a proven counterenshittificatory force:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-need-end-end-web

Despite what you may have heard, "freedom of reach" is freedom of speech: when a platform interposes itself between willing speakers and their willing audiences, it arrogates to itself the power to control what we're allowed to say and who is allowed to hear us:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

We have a wide variety of tools to make a rule like this stick. For one thing, Musk's Twitter has violated innumerable laws and consent decrees in the US, Canada and the EU, which creates a space for regulators to impose "conduct remedies" on the company.

But there's also existing regulatory authorities, like the FTC's Section Five powers, which enable the agency to act against companies that engage in "unfair and deceptive" acts. When Twitter asks you who you want to hear from, then refuses to deliver their posts to you unless they pay a bribe, that's both "unfair and deceptive":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

But that's only a stopgap. The problem with Twitter isn't that this important service is run by the wrong mercurial, mediocre billionaire: it's that hundreds of millions of people are at the mercy of any foolish corporate leader. While there's a short-term case for improving the platforms, our long-term strategy should be evacuating them:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/18/urban-wildlife-interface/#combustible-walled-gardens

To make that a reality, we could also impose a "Right To Exit" on the platforms. This would be an interoperability rule that would require Twitter to adopt Mastodon's approach to server-hopping: click a link to export the list of everyone who follows you on one server, click another link to upload that file to another server, and all your followers and followees are relocated to your new digs:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/23/semipermeable-membranes/#free-as-in-puppies

A Twitter with the Right To Exit would exert a powerful discipline even on the stunted self-regulatory centers of Elon Musk's brain. If he banned a reporter for publishing truthful coverage that cast him in a bad light, that reporter would have the legal right to move to another platform, and continue to reach the people who follow them on Twitter. Publishers aghast at having the headlines removed from their Twitter posts could go somewhere less slipshod and still reach the people who want to hear from them on Twitter.

And both Right To Exit and End-To-End satisfy the two prime tests for sound internet regulation: first, they are easy to administer. If you want to know whether Musk is permitting harassment on his platform, you have to agree on a definition of harassment, determine whether a given act meets that definition, and then investigate whether Twitter took reasonable steps to prevent it.

By contrast, administering End-To-End merely requires that you post something and see if your followers receive it. Administering Right To Exit is as simple as saying, "OK, Twitter, I know you say you gave Cory his follower and followee file, but he says he never got it. Just send him another copy, and this time, CC the regulator so we can verify that it arrived."

Beyond administration, there's the cost of compliance. Requiring Twitter to police its users' conduct also requires it to hire an army of moderators – something that Elon Musk might be able to afford, but community-supported, small federated servers couldn't. A tech regulation can easily become a barrier to entry, blocking better competitors who might replace the company whose conduct spurred the regulation in the first place.

End-to-End does not present this kind of barrier. The default state for a social media platform is to deliver posts from accounts to their followers. Interfering with End-To-End costs more than delivering the messages users want to have. Likewise, a Right To Exit is a solved problem, built into the open Mastodon protocol, itself built atop the open ActivityPub standard.

It's not just Twitter. Every platform is consuming itself in an orgy of enshittification. This is the Great Enshittening, a moment of universal, end-stage platform decay. As the platforms burn, calls to address the fires grow louder and harder for policymakers to resist. But not all solutions to platform decay are created equal. Some solutions will perversely enshrine the dominance of platforms, help make them both too big to fail and too big to jail.

Musk has flagrantly violated so many rules, laws and consent decrees that he has accidentally turned Twitter into the perfect starting point for a program of platform reform and platform evacuation.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/14/freedom-of-reach/#ex

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

Image: JD Lasica (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elon_Musk_%283018710552%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[kissesbyliz]

miguel o'hara with a gf who crochets

your head is lazily perched upon the wide expanse of miguel's lap, the quiet hum of some nature documentary dull in your ears. your hands are occupied with your usual: a 5 millimeter hook in one and the other steady in tensioning your yarn. your project, currently consisting of a single floppy chain, hangs passively in front of your face.

above you, the love of your life attempts to engage himself in said documentary. it's one that miguel isn't particularly interested in. being the nerd that he is (though he'll never admit it), his tastes lie more in genetics and chemistry. but he knows that it makes you happy, which is why he can't seem to find it within himself to even ask if he can change the channel.

he's able to endure the sporadic squaks of birds and the chittering of monkeys long enough, before his eyes inevitably drag down to your form.

"and what are you making today, cariño?" miguel asks conversationally, hand idly stroking up and down your forearm. he knows you don't like it when he distracts you from crocheting, but he's convinced that if he sees one more insect fly into the mouth of a venus fly trap, he may actually die of boredom.

thankfully, you don't seem to mind. "a tote bag!" you answer with a smile, hands momentarily pausing their actions in favor of showing him the few rows you've created. what's displayed before him is a thin rectangle of yarn, about a foot in length. "look, do you think it's wide enough?"

miguel takes it into his hands for closer inspection. if he's being honest, he's not sure what he's looking at, but he's grateful that you value his opinion anyway.

"i don't know. how big do you want it?" he asks, releasing the piece so you can also take a look.

"um, normal sized maybe? but i don't wanna get up to reference another bag." you whine, stretching the piece out and turning it every which way to see if you're satisfied with it.

he laughs. "want me to get one of yours?" a hand grasps your hip to keep you steady as he begins sliding out from underneath you.

your head jerks up in protest, arm coming out to stop him. "no! stay here, i'll just eyeball it." you pout, eyeing your creation with scrutiny. your head shifts, pressing deeper into his thighs as if to convince him to not move again.

miguel sighs exasperatedly. evidently, you've chosen to wallow in the hell that you've created for yourself. as your hands eventually resume crocheting your piece, he takes a moment to appreciate every delicate motion of your fingers. even after inspecting you work for all the months you've been together, it's still hard for him to wrap his head around how each stitch is made.

once, after an impulsive inquiry from him, miguel's tried his own hand at the craft. under your enthusiastic guidance, he found himself able to understand how to make a chain, and not much else beyond that. his patience soon ran out after you tried to explain the concept of skipping chains to him.

"why make chains if i'm just going to skip over them?" he had asked you frustratedly, beginning to feel his hand cramp up with the unfamiliar motions.

you laughed at that, evidently amused by his struggling, and miguel thinks its one of the most lovely sounds he's ever heard. he glanced up to meet your glee filled face, and felt his heart stutter in his chest.

"you're staring," you sing quietly, returning his gaze with a cheeky grin. he rolls his eyes, hand coming up to pinch your cheek in mock annoyance.

"it's hard not to." he says, his words too sweet for the tight (not tight, you're just being dramatic) squeeze he has on your cheek. he hears you whine at the touch, and he can't help but smile fondly.

how'd he get so lucky?

[rainbowfoxes]

Just so you know, if you tag things "for exposure" on Ao3 I hate you, specifically.

Ao3 has no algorithm - it is an ARCHIVE; that means it stores works in a completely value-neutral way. Nothing you do will put it in front of eyeballs that did not go specifically looking for it.

So when you tag things "for exposure" - meaning you tag things that are not in the work at all in order to put it in front of people who DON'T WANT IT. If you use a /Reader tag "for exposure" and have NO /Reader in your work, all you're going to get is a bunch of people mad at you because they went looking for /Reader and got whatever you wrote instead. And all the people who would've liked what you wrote are going to skip over it because they don't WANT to read a /Reader fic.

Tags are not advertising, they're the nutrition facts on the back of the cereal box. They tell you what is ACTUALLY IN THE THING so you can make an informed decision about it. But if people LIE about what's in it, then everyone gets rightfully upset because there were nuts in their nut-free granola. And if I was promised nuts in my chocolate bar and didn't get any, I'd be mighty peeved.

So don't tag things "for exposure" it's rude and scummy and most of all, annoying.

[hyukabean]

──── &team takayama riki (taki), how you met

in which you meet your (future) bf taki?! ～ warning: unedited

taki x fem!reader

i’ve said this before somewhere (i can’t remember where rip) but taki would be an ideal candidate for the friends to lovers trope!

in my head, he’d meet you through a mutual friend, potentially maki (since he’s so extroverted) or maybe k?

and boy, oh boy would he be awkward. remember that one interview where they asked the members “who talks the most?”, and everyone points at taki, and then they asked “who’s the worst at talking?”, and they… also point at taki? yeah:) the duality is adorable, don’t get me wrong, but very counterproductive. this man would *not* be slick, not by a long shot i’m afraid.

he’d notice you immediately, if you’re speaking to maki and nico in english, he’d be really keen on listening in, itching to contribute but ultimately letting his shyness win. if you pull out additional language skills (eg. chinese, german), he’d be floored. harua would have to nudge him repeatedly to make sure he stops staring at you like you just took your shirt off and started dancing on their dinner table.

bonus points if you speak to him in japanese, (or at all, tbh).

best believe the *second* you’re gone he’s asking about you. subtly of course.

“so… who was that? oh. cool. so where is she from? ah… interesting… what her mbti? just curious because she kind of seems like an esfj but you can never be too sure, right? haha… ha… i see…. and her blood type?”, very slick bby, very slick.

everyone, and i mean EVERYONE with semi functioning eyeballs knows what’s up immediately. he refuses to admit it because he’s scared. but ultimately confesses to your mutual friend. definitely does the typical taki shy smile, rubbing neck combo.

all of a sudden he wants to improve his english (and learn whatever other languages you can speak). he’s too shy to talk to you now, but he wants to be able to understand what you’re laughing about when you’re on the phone. he wants to be included:< he wants to know what makes you laugh, the little quirks and habits you have, he wants to know it all!!!!

the members would take notice even before he confesses to them, but only a few of them would actually address it. maki would play cupid for sure, but someone like jo would sit back and silently support him from afar, occasionally dropping lore about you he’d picked up without making it obvious he was trying to help. k would one thousand percent try and help by inviting you over a bunch.

after weeks of just small smiles and polite nods, he’d muster up the courage to ask you to buy icecream with him. perhaps after a long day, after eating dinner all together, he’d offer to grab dessert from the convenience store and ask if you’d wanna come along.

on the walk there, he’d be a lot more relaxed, conversation would flow more easily and you finally get to see the side he shows to his members.

before making it back home all the way, you’d confess that you thought for sure he disliked you. this man would be flabbergasted, but could he blame you? i mean, he was always avoiding you, staring at you, it felt like he was glaring holes in your head!

taki on the other hand would be so genuinely confused. you know that “eh? eh? ehhhh?” face he makes? (re: that one video where they prank the boys by switching out the producers) yeah, that. he’d just stare at you before quickly explaining.

he’d take the opportunity to shyly admit how much he wanted to get to know you, how jealous he was of your mutual friend for being able to talk so comfortably with you. would probably ask you to drop the honorifics and maybe meet up sometime, just the two of you.

i see him being forthcoming about his feelings for you from the get go, but he’d want to be your friend first. ultimately, he values your company over a potentially short term relationship. he wants to date someone who’s also his best friend!

in the end, you’d grow close, and the platonic yet flirty bond would grow into something more. building a solid foundation helps both of you understand and like each other more!

of course throughout the entire duration, taki would be teased relentlessly:) “y/n, did you know he asked for your blood type the first time you came over? your mbti and chinese zodiac too!” (- probably nico)

all in all, very cute F2L experience!! i smell a long and healthy relationship:))...

nana's notes : two posts in one day? who is she?? yeah what can i say, i have a type and apparently it's guys called riki rip lol. would you guys like to see this concept for other members as well? let me know:)

taglist : open!

© hyukabean all rights reserved. - do not translate my work, claim it as your own, and/or repost on any platform

[peaceandlove26]

hi i really like your art and i have a few questions if its okay!!

what size canvases do you usually use?

do you have any tips for drawing unicorn tails the way you do? theyre always so flowy and pretty ^_^

ur colors r always so gorgeous and go so well together, do you have any advice on that as well ??

thank u if u answer even just one of these!!!

hi there!! thank you so much for enjoying my art:

1. 2000 x 2000 almost always, though i crop it at the end to fit the drawing

2. i draw unicorns CONSTANTLY due to my inexplicable obsession with the idea of being one… their tails are my favorite thing to draw. i try to keep them even in length throughout the tail, so not much tapering from the base to the tip. i add extra fluff pretty randomly based on the pose. i know a lot of people draw the tip of the tail visible through the tuft but i prefer making the fur of the tail blend into the tuft, like this:

not that my way is better or anything it’s just what i like doing lol

3. unfortunately i don’t really have any tips for color, i kind of just eyeball everything. one thing i do try to do is keep a good amount of contrast between different colors in a design, so that if i make the design grayscale you can still see the difference between the values. this is just bc i do a lot of lineless stuff :P

[eldritch-spouse]

The way I would be side-eyeing my boss, just itching for him to go out for his smoke break, so I can teach this bastard what the value of reading is.

As soon as he rounds the corner, I'll fucking get up on the counter like, "Listen here, you little rat, you got two eyeballs in that knocker of yours, but you can't see out of either of them, can you? It says right. Fucking. HERE." I make sure to hold the item inches from his face and point at the print. "LIMITED. FUCKING. DISCOUNT. And see, I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt; maybe you really don't know how to read or you're a fucking idiot. So let me dumb it down for you: LIMITED means NOT forever; the time that it was limited is FUCKING OVEEER!" I throw the item down onto the floor with rage, spilling the contents of its inside on the floor that I just mopped. It only makes me more furious. "And YOU, vile sex pest, don't think I can't fucking see you! Take your hard on and your bottom out of my fucking store before I turn your hides in the doormats I will wipe shit on every day after work. I'm sick and fucking tired of you two running my day, i have no energy left to deal with you— NO! Don't you DARE reach for your dick!" Then the manager comes back in because he heard the commotion, and suddenly I get off the counter and I am peaceful again, put on my best customer services for these waste oxygen (I really need this job, even if the pay's low). I feel like Moz would start making fun of me again, and I would grip the counter so hard it just might start cracking. I would be using every muscle in my body to not jump over the counter and start strangling that bitch in front of my boss.

I am only submissive for boss-kun 🥺🎀✨️

[Don't... Don't make me draw the boss.]

You can be sure that Moz is screaming right back at you. Most of what he says is irrelevant, because he understands he's in the wrong, he's just a bully who wants free things and isn't about to get out-played by a little human who he could hunt for sport. It's a total shitfest, Babesley isn't even listening to you, he's already steadily on his way to an orgasm just from riling himself up at the thought of you two getting furious enough to fuck on the floor.

The manager -If Satan were real, this would be the guy- Shows up and just pats you on the head like a purse chihuahua. "Sorry folks, this one just gets a little enthusiastic sometimes. It won't happen again."

And that's when they both know they have free reign to fuck with you. Or so they think.

[mymessyfandomlibrary]

Salt & Sugar

Featuring; Gojo Satoru x GN!Barista! Reader

Rating; SFW

Other Notes; this was prompted after I thought of some dialogue and went, 'Yeah, that fits for Satoru.' I may build on this in the future.

Word Count; 540 (it's short)

Link to Masterlist

You were supposed to have the day off, but a coworker called in sick, and you were short on funds anyway so you jumped at the chance even though you could be spending today doing fun and very important things (aka doing absolutely nothing). And the day so far had gone well, you even got to catch up with a few regulars — nothing more than idle small talk, still pleasant conversation though.

Your break was coming up, only five more minutes before you could sit down in the back, scarf back some pastries and chug a scorching cup of coffee. Just five more minutes.

The telltale ring of the door opening alerted you that someone had walked in, and you paused your changing of the coffee pots to side eye the newcomer.

Literally a newcomer, at least you had never seen the guy before, because it was really hard to miss him.

You walked back behind the cash, and waited as the stranger looked over the menu. Or, well, you assumed he looked at the menu since his eyes were covered by large sunglasses.

“One coffee and a dozen mochi,” the stranger — customer — stated.

No please. You internally noted, already getting a read on the guy. Annoying.

“Name? Sugar–” you started asking, but you weren’t able to finish before the guy gave you a large grin.

“We’ve only just met, but yes?”

You stood in silence for a brief moment, your customer service smile still on your face but you could sense an eye twitch wanting to ruin your facade. “Sugar, milk, cream,” you calmly listed, “do you want any in your coffee?”

The man didn’t look any different after you clarified your statement, still looking smug. “Sugar and cream,” he responded, thinking a bit. “Make it out to ‘Sugar’ though.”

“ … alright then,” you said in your ‘clearly done but I value my job’ customer service voice and smile.

Looking at the clock, you cursed the slow moving thing, since you still had four minutes of dealing with this guy. Instead of dwelling on it though, you picked and boxed the mochi and made his coffee, adding some extra satchels of sugar and cups of cream since he never stated how many he wanted, before writing in your smallest writing where it was nearly illegible Sugar.

“Coffee with sugar and cream. Dozen mochi,” you dryly stated, not reading out the name since he was the only customer in line.

He ignored you.

You cleared your throat, letting your annoyance be known. “Coffee with sugar and cream. Dozen mochi for Sugar,” you laced the Sugar with distaste.

He took his sweet time walking over, even though he could have gotten there faster with his long legs — why did he have to be tall on top of choosing to be a little shit?

Instead of saying anything to further irritate you though, he took his drink and sweets, paid for his order, and left without another word. If you were paying attention to him and not eyeballing the clock to see that your break was now — thank goodness — you would have seen the small smile he wore and the generous tip he left.

'For Salt.'

That could wait for later though.

[abirddogmoment]

I love seeing Rory run in the field!! Bird dog doing bird dog things!! You said in the tags you had different training and priorities with her vs Mav re: offleash running like that. What kinds of things did you do differently with Rory to be comfortable having her offleash at a distance with reliable recall?

I was writing a whole novel but really it boils down to this chart. Under the cut because it's (vertically) long.

In short, it's just as much about what I didn't do with Maverick as what I did do with Aurora.

(Edited to add: I am extremely fortunate to live in the prairies where the kind of visibility I need is easy to find. Use my experience to inspire your own training if you like, but don't use it as a recipe. I have my own goals and my own priorities and those are likely different than yours.)

Maverick:

🔵 Supremely confident from day 1

🔵 Came home in August (extremely good and exciting time for outdoor adventures)

🔵 Prioritized specific sports behaviours over foundational building blocks like engagement and cooperation

🔵 Learned bad habits from my older dog at the time (prey drive > recall)

🔵 Was indiscriminately prey driven. If it moved, he wanted to kill it.

🔵 I phased out treats too fast and didn't want to use an ecollar or long line

🔵 I focused on "social media dog behaviours" (think like walking extremely close to me on trails) and got frustrated when we couldn't meet these rather than meeting my dog where he was at. This created a lot of frustration in our dog adventures.

🔵 I practiced recalls constantly when I didn't have to, making them a tedious behaviour for him. I would recall him 20-50 times a hike for everything from "you're too far away from me" to "I want to take a photo".

Aurora

🟣 Came to me a little insecure and looked to me for reassurance

🟣 Came home in December (a cold and relatively boring time for outdoor adventures)

🟣 I prioritized engagement, cooperation, and name recognition from day 1

🟣 Practiced good habits by walking offleash in the snow either alone or with Pike (amazing recall)

🟣 Is extremely birdy, but is very very focused. She easily calls off deer or people/dogs in the distance because she mostly cares about birds.

🟣 Literally always gets offered a high value snack for recalling or voluntary check ins (I will never phase this out, I will carry chunks of cheese on offleash walks for the rest of her life)

🟣 I never practice recalls if I don't need them. This one is hard to explain, but once Rory understood that long whistle = come back as fast as you can, I don't whistle unless I really need to. I recall her an average of 0-3 times per hike (*based on visibility or wildlife*) and trust her to make good decisions otherwise. I keep my eyeballs on her 100% of the time and choose areas with good visibility, but I don't recall her just for being far away.

🟣 I limit hikes where I have to nag her often (think, in the woods where I dont have a great line of sight and have to remind her to stay close to me) to a few times a month or less so she doesn't start getting frustrated about it.

🟣 I trust the training I put into her and choose to run her in areas with (relatively) reduced risk if she makes the "wrong" choice. I don't nitpick everything she does and I let her make her own choices, within reason.

🟣 I have an interrupter cue to ask her to stop doing something before I call her back (if she's digging a hole and I want her to move on, I use "Rory, enough! Here!") instead of whistling at her.

🟣 I don't force her attention on check ins. If she runs back to me and doesn't want a snack and wants to run straight back out, I let her run back out.

🟣 I have anticipatory cues for the end of a walk so I don't have to recall her when we get to the end of the field.

I want to say that it's nerve wracking to watch my dog sprint at full speed hundreds of yards away from me. I have to fight the impulse to recall her just because she's far away. It's an exercise in trust because I'm always worried about her going over the horizon, or running into a wildlife, or falling into a hole, but it's an important thing to work on if you have a dog that needs that trust to thrive.

Mav and I were a good team, but I never fully trusted him outdoors. I always had my finger on the ecollar buttons ready for him to do an evil and need to be vibrated. It was exhilarating to watch him in the field, but it wasn't really fun or relaxing.

Rory and I built a much stronger foundation of trust (I personally never would have been able to do this if I had more than one dog). She doesn't know any tricks yet, but I'm super confident in her recall and ability to take direction in the field, even when she's sprinting as fast as possible.

[popart-vvv]

Arcana Analysis--The Amazing Digital Circus: Kinger (The Emperor)

Again, arcana titles can fit at face value.

And here we have the dad of the group, Kinger! Oldest player of the bunch at 48 years, he at first appears to be your typical out-there comic relief. His backstory and depths made everyone in the fandom ugly-cry, though. Myself included. Poor Kinger! :'(

His card is The Emperor, registered as number four in the major arcana deck. As you probably guessed, it's a card of authority on the masculine side, fitting with Kinger's depths as a fatherly figure that were shown in episodes two and three.

When we first meet Kinger, his chess king theming gives off an idea of his core personality traits--the king piece in chess is the weakest, most vulnerable piece in the game, fittingly describing how Kinger is antsy and sort of paranoid. Despite his craziness, he's one of the kinder players in the Circus, never abusing his seniority over the others and always having peaceful interactions with them. Episode two gives us a preview to his personal depths: He notices Ragatha worrying about Pomni's wellbeing over the course of the adventure, and has a rather meaningful interaction with her when it's close to sunset. "It's a lot for anybody to go through", he says in relation to Pomni's first day in the Circus which ended horribly. He even notes that Ragatha had a similar experience when she was new in the Circus.

Notice how Kinger has a bucket on his head when he comforts Ragatha, thus obscuring his vision. At this point in the series, it gives off the idea that Kinger is a lot calmer if he's in a darker setting such as his pillow fort. Then comes episode three, where the adventure takes place in a horror mansion. Kinger goes through a door with Pomni, and the ensuing scenarios take place in rooms with little lighting. It's here where Kinger's fatherly traits come to the forefront.

The reason Kinger and Pomni ended up going through the most terrifying route of the adventure was Kinger double-tasking in fatherly things; he was trying to put Pomni's eyeballs back in place after a wild take from her, but got distracted by Jax tossing Gangle's comedy mask again, offering to get it for her while forgetting that he's still holding onto Pomni's eyeball nerve. During the route's climax, when the duo is trapped in a hellscape surrounded by spirits, Kinger tells a story about the last time he saw his wife, who was one of the Abstracted. It triggers every time he's in a dark space, which is why he's more insightful in that kind of setting. He's able to comfort Pomni when she breaks down over the horrific nature of the Circus fully sinking in for her, paralleling a father figure comforting a broken child. He talks about the importance of memories and connections in the Circus, conveying that despite being on the verge of insanity, he hasn't Abstracted because he holds on to the memories of his dear wife.

Then comes some of the wisdom Kinger gives to Pomni, proving that he is worthy of being The Emperor: "In this world, the worst thing you can do is...make someone think they're not wanted or loved." "You're very strong, [Pomni]. And I know you'll be able to get through this." Followed up by him guiding her through the darkness to the exit; both of them holding their breaths to ward off the spirits, causing Kinger to glow brightly.

Emperor material right there, ladies and gentlemen.

[ezrazone]

your portraits are really amazing and i find your ability to capture likeness + control of value super inspiring…do you think you can talk about your thought process and beginning stages behind your drawings?

yes yippee!!!!!!! these asks helped me remember to actually photograph some process steps which i usually.... Dont do bc im using my phone for reference images lol (my work setup is in a "transitional phase" rn....... im working in the kitchen. its fine) i downloaded one of these lestat gifs made by @fearwakes ! then first thing i've been doing recently with portraits is lifting something that works from my comics process and applying it to these pencil drawings. i love having borders. i almost invariably will draw outside them but it gives me something to build on top of/inside/around rather than floating to the edges of the page. i used to be really envious of people who could spontaneously produce "sketch pages" from blank sheets but my spatial eye just does not generate those pleasing distances automatically. i need boxes lol GOOD THING I DO COMICS!!!!!

i did not actually measure this box or even make sure it's straight bc i'm just turning my brain off and doing a portrait. ok step one of capturing a likeness is just eyeballing distances for facial features. like i mentioned before with spatial reasoning it's a weak point for me as an artist so i do not give myself a hard time if i cannot immediately correctly guess the distance between a subject's chin and hairline. i start with shorter distances -- chin to mouth, mouth to under-nose-shadow, then often fill in either cheek before i take a shot at laying the eyes in relation to the nose. i'm always thinking of my pencil portraits as a kind of heatmap for dark/light values, so i'm laying down the scaffolding that's going to allow me to emphasize where all those shapes ultimately bleed together as a 3D object.

there is always a stage (left drawing) where i'm kind of peripherally going oh my god. oh my god i lost it. i can't draw faces anymore. this looks like fucking garbage. oh my god. i need to kill myself. and i think it's partly just being a human person like the demons never completely shut up for anyone as far as i know LOL. but it's also sometimes coming from thinking i'm supposed to be simplifying the shapes. like if i took those guesstimates on lestat's proportions on the left and just went right to representing his features with solid black ink on top of these guidelines, it's true, he wouldn't really look like lestat even if the proportions are alright. it's important for me to remember that my sketches look very different depending on my medium and priority; if i was ONLY representing lestat in exaggerated shapes, lol, i might actually..... exaggerate those shapes. this is a sketch that is gonna work best as the preliminary stage for a fully rendered pencil drawing, not a line drawing. i just don't think drawing a subject precisely how he actually looks is gonna get you the best results for cartooning and striking that balance is a whole other thought. but for straight portraiture with an eye for value like this, it's perfectly fucking fine, cuz the thing that's gonna make him Look Like Lestat is actually how light connects over this 3D object.

like ok i no longer want to kill myself. i have successfully guessed the distances between his features "well enough" and tricked the eye into seeing something Lestat Shaped because enough of those shadows connect in ways they 1) do in this particular reference image and 2) just Do on his face in general from my broader observations of this face. this particular portrait is building on all my previous understandings of how sam reid's face is put together. so i'm able to correct a lot of the assumptions i made before i drew him enough times to start figuring him out. like Ok, his forehead is always taller than i think it is and his nose is broader (esp his nostrils). the lack of buccal fat is essential but he can also start looking too gaunt if his jaw is not wide enough. his mouth is made up of so many complex and delicate shapes and is imo his most prominent feature lol i never quite feel like i've fully captured it and idk if i ever will bc the thing that makes it so lestat is the way it actually moves. and just from Character Knowledge i'm always inclined to emphasize how heavy lestat's under-eyes are, i feel like that's an essential emotional component of his expression. sooooo i am satisfied enough with this sketch lol. this took around 45 minutes which is longer than some of my portraits of similar detail-level bc i was distracted by on-and-off sexting. many such cases. more thoughts re: pencil on paper. the next bump up from this has gotta be going BACK IN with white oil paints which i just do not care enough about this drawing to do. but when i'm working with pencil i really know the only highlights im gonna be able to bring out are the ones with much darker areas surrounding them, and the bits i miraculously do not smudge by total accident (i'm a serial smudger. fat hand. someone's gotta be endeared to this). anyway i fucking love white oils. they are everything i previously wanted out of, like, white-out and white jelly roll pens lol. it can do so much and when you're working with paint you simply have so much of it. paint rocks. like in this portrait there are a bunch of blond flyaway hairs that i simply cannot capture at this distance by carving out "blank space" either bc i do not have the skill or space to make the strands not look wildly overblown. but if i wanted to go in with paint, i'd darken up the background and just delicately go over strands until they glowed. portraiture like this is a very meditative process to me lol. i'm just falling into an image i feel is representative of something abt a face i like looking at. simple as. i do not have a concrete strategy for where my pencil goes next most of the time when i'm just feeling out shadows and translating them into pencil pressure. i know i don't wanna do the VERY darkest areas first just bc that makes the portrait pretty inflexible if i lay something down wrong (happens often) or the aforementioned smudging problem.

anyway i should probably scan this lestat but like i said i'm working in my kitchen and im disabled and do not want to walk upstairs LOL. imagine this example portrait looks good and not bad. very good