#pixel i hope you’re very happy with yourself that’s the way i’ve been referring to him in my head

[lanabenikosdoormat]

i hate being sick being sick is the worst i’m gonna draw my comfort character 1 billion times so i don’t have to think about it

[snackhobi]

a human touch, part 2, final

Part 1 / 1.5 / [2]

(masterlist here)

summary: everyone knows that androids don’t think, or feel, or have emotions. they’re not human, after all. so when a two hour session with a sex android ends up with nothing more than a nice conversation, you think that’s the first and last time you’ll see v.

then he turns up at your door.

pairing: taehyung x f!reader / word count: 24.4k / genre: robot!taehyung/virgin!reader, fluff, smut (NSFW, 18+)

warnings: cursing/explicit language, very brief injury mention/blood mention (nothing violent/explicit I promise!), alcohol consumption, reference to former sex work, sexually explicit content, reference to masturbation, reader has sex for the first time, oral (f + m), multiple orgasms (f), unprotected sex (taehyung is an android but please take necessary precautions irl), I think that’s it but please let me know if I’ve missed anything

a/n: this got so incredibly long,, I hope that makes up for the wait! thank you to @hobi-gif​, as always, for being so supportive and uplifting and beta reading this for me, you are a shining star in my sky. and thank you to the wonderful @flowerseokjin​ for letting me pick her brain about art galleries and telling me about the incredible exhibition/paintings that I wrote about in this fic, you truly are the loveliest 💕

note: this is the final part of the main story! I’ll be writing minis/drabbles etc in the future but,, this is part 2 of 2 💖

A month after Taehyung walks into your life, you finally get new neighbours.

You’re aware of this because: 

a) Rory had let you know in advance (to wit: “I have been instructed to inform you that the new tenants of apartment 4A will be moving in next Sunday.”)

and:

b) Said new tenants are apparently very noisy.

Well, not so much noisy as not quiet. It seems like they’ve opted to move everything themselves rather than hiring some android movers, so there’s a lot of shuffling and shunting and occasional bouts of cursing (like someone’s stubbed their toe) and subsequent laughter (like someone else is amused at aforementioned stubbing of aforementioned toe). When you nip out to grab some milk for the pancakes Taehyung wants to learn to make, there are boxes in the hall and voices float out of the open door—a discussion of where the instant ramyun and old Mario games should go (they’re in the same box?)—but you don’t catch a glimpse of the speakers.

It’s not until later, much later, the world outside night-dark but tinged bright white with street lights, that there’s a knock on your door.

You don’t notice. You’re engrossed in the Chinese takeaway menu that’s open on your tablet, staring at the weirdly high-res photo of Kung Pao chicken next to a pixelated picture of some dumplings, wondering what you should choose.

Taehyung is sitting beside you on the sofa. Each day he shifts a little closer to you, inch by inch, the slow pull of gravity, implacable; he gets lonely when you’re gone, and you’re the only person he can talk to. So it’s no surprise he’s so clingy. It’s never overbearing or overwhelming but he’s still unhindered by the self-consciousness that you have—so even if you’re still hesitant to initiate things, you never deny him. 

The line of his body is parallel to your own, your thighs warm where they touch, and you feel his shoulder move as he tilts his head. “There’s someone at the door.”

It doesn’t take a genius to work out who it is. The only people who can get inside the building are other residents—well, service androids can too, although there’s a back entrance they use, which is how Taehyung had snuck inside in the first place—and when you approach your door, you can hear two low voices, engaged in what sounds like light-hearted bickering.

You flick your fingers across your keypad. All murmurs cut off the second the door swings open.

“Hi!” A chirp. “We’re your new neighbours!”

Night and day. Two men, one tall and broad-shouldered, eyes large and lips flush, beatific smile on his face; the other, shorter and leaner, eyes sleepy, mouth soft, his smile self-contained. 

“I’m Seokjin,” the taller man says. “And this is Yoongi.”

“I can introduce myself,” Yoongi mutters, but it’s not bitter; there’s that ease of familiarity, any bite behind the words soothed with amity. “But yeah, I’m Yoongi. Sorry if we were loud earlier. Jin’s a living foghorn.”

“A sexy living foghorn,” Seokjin says brightly.

Yoongi’s sleepy eyes can deliver one hell of a death glare but Seokjin is unaffected.

“Anyway,” Yoongi continues, unimpressed look wiping off his face as he turns back to you, softening. “What’s your name?”

It’s like there’s a circus on your doorstep and you’re the unwitting audience, dragged into the tent without realising, watching everything unfold in front of you—but in a good way. It's a pleasant surprise. They’re already much friendlier than your previous neighbour, a lone man who’d kept to himself and never spoke to you. 

“Uh, I’m Y/n,” you say. You wonder if you should introduce Taehyung as well, but most humans don’t introduce their androids to people, do they? Besides, he’s staying out of sight in the living room, so you’ll leave him be.

“Jin made brownies so we’re here to deliver them to you.”

“I left the walnuts out in case you have a nut allergy,” Seokjin adds as Yoongi passes a polka-dot patterned tin over. It’s heavy in your hands. Full to the brim with brownies, it seems. (Yum yum.)

“Thank you. And you weren’t that noisy, don’t worry! Moving is always messy. Have you finished or did you want some help?”

“That’s very sweet of you! But we’re all done,” Seokjin says. “We were just about to reward ourselves with some takeout, actually, seeing as we haven’t had time to do any food shopping. Do you have any recommendations?”

Taehyung looks uncomfortable, curled up on the sofa with wide eyes when you retrieve your tablet, but you quietly reassure him that you won’t be long.

“Do you want to meet our new neighbours?” You ask, voice soft so the two men don’t overhear. (You miss the warm flicker of Taehyung’s LED when you say our.) “I’d hate for you to have to pretend to be undeviated, though. They might start ordering you around.”

“I’ll stay here,” Taehyung decides.

So that’s how you end up on your doorstep with Seokjin and Yoongi, the three of you peering at the wild variations in stock photo quality on the Chinese takeaway menu. 

“You’d think with the huge strides we’ve taken forward in technology that all photos would look at least semi-decent,” Yoongi mumbles as he stares at a cropped picture of fu yung. “It’s hard to get a bad camera.”

“I think it’s such a human thing, though,” Seokjin says. “No matter how technologically advanced humanity gets, takeaway menus will always have bad stock photos.”

Not only are Seokjin and Yoongi friendly, they’re forward. Well, that’s mainly Seokjin, actually, but Yoongi doesn’t protest when Seokjin insists that you come over so you can eat and chat and get to know each other. Especially after you’d offered to pay for everything as a sort of welcome to the neighbourhood gesture, placing both your orders together to save the restaurant the hassle of separate deliveries.

“I’ll pick up the food when it turns up, alright?” Seokjin’s smile is wide. “We haven’t unpacked our kitchen stuff yet, but if you’re happy to eat straight out of the containers…”

You don’t want to abandon Taehyung, especially as you’d planned on watching a film together—you want to introduce him to older, animated cartoons, so you can explain the process of hand painting each frame, plastic cel sheets that layer over each other to create motion. He’ll love it. “Um, I was planning to eat here, actually.” 

“Sounds good to us,” Seokjin says, and Yoongi sighs.

“Ignore him, he’s just pushy.” He ignores Seokjin’s indignant squawk. “You don’t have to let us in, don’t worry. I’ll wait for when the food gets here, Jin will stay at home.”

“Make me,” Seokjin says primly.

“I’ll lock you in the bathroom.” Yoongi says it in a way that makes you think it’s not an idle threat, and maybe it’s happened before. 

Judging from the look on Seokjin’s face, yeah, it’s happened before.

“You know, you’re both kind of wild,” you say. “But, like, in a good way.”

When you flop back down on the sofa, you press yourself against Taehyung’s side in a motion that’s becoming second nature, so you notice that he seems unnaturally still. He goes motionless whenever he’s thinking deeply about something, an undisturbed ocean lake, the only ripple on its surface the small circle of blue on his temple, swirling waters.

“Are you okay?” You ask, concerned.

“You should eat dinner with them,” he says, and you baulk. 

“What? No, it’s fine. I’ve been looking forward to watching Kiki’s Delivery Service with you all week.”

Taehyung’s eyes are soft. “They seem nice,” he says, quiet. “And friendly. We can watch it tomorrow, can’t we?” And then, even quieter: “You don’t have to spend all your free time with me, Y/n.”

“I don’t—” you start, and then deflate. “It’s not fair for you, though.”

That’s the crux of it all. You choose to spend your free time here, with Taehyung, carefully dipping out of work meets and scraping your full social life empty. Because you can. But Taehyung is still cautious of the outside world, understandably so, a hermit crab whose shell is the safety of your apartment, only unfurling from that protection when you’re there too.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I’m happy.”

You haven’t denied Taehyung so far, and you don’t want to start now, but you still waver. Yoongi and Seokjin do seem nice, and friendly, and it’s not like you’ll be able to avoid them forever—but you don’t want to leave Taehyung out. It’s not fair that he can’t make other friends too.

“Go.” Taehyung’s voice is gentle. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

(But there's nowhere else he can go, is there?)

The apartment across the hall is in a state of organised upheaval. There’s a tumbleweed of peeled tape in one corner, boxes with mouths open wide—the priorities for today—while others are stacked neatly against the walls, out of the way of the furniture. It already feels cosy, somehow, but you put that down to the two men who live here and how comfortable they are with each other, dripping off them and filling the room like paraffin, bright lamplight. 

Seokjin seems unsurprised but pleased at your appearance. He unfolds himself from the floor with a dazzling smile.

“Welcome to our humble abode.” He punctuates the statement with a grand sweep of his arm, knocking the lampshade above his head, dust motes scattering onto his hair like a soft grey halo. “Oh, ewch, you can tell no one’s been here for a while.” He pats his hair, puffs of dust rising from his dark locks. “Anyway! While it’s true that we already have the table and chairs set up, what sort of move in day would it be if we didn’t eat greasy takeaway on the floor?"

“We did it the last time we moved, so he wants to make it a tradition,” Yoongi mutters to you, and you laugh.

You help Yoongi ease the food down onto unfolded sheets of crumpled newspaper that Seokjin’s laid out to protect the floor. Seokjin dives into the bags and pulls each tub out, identifying each dish immediately despite how a lot of them look the same to you. “Do you move a lot?” 

“Nah, just once before,” Yoongi says, watching Seokjin fondly as he peels the lid back on a container of spicy chicken wings and greedily breathes in their sticky-hot scent. “But it was too small for the two of us so we decided to upgrade.”

Seokjin’s spread out the selection of food before you all realise that the restaurant has neglected to provide any chopsticks—even if there’s ten fortune cookies, reflective of how many dishes you’ve ordered and how many people they think it’s going to feed. (Apparently Seokjin likes to eat.)

“Ah, damn,” Yoongi mutters. “We’ll have to dig some cutlery out.”

“I can go get some from my apartment?”

You’ve just started to stand when Seokjin tuts, flapping his hands at you to sit down. “No, no,” he says. “You’re the guest, relax. I was going to unpack the kitchen stuff later anyway. This just means we have to expedite the process.”

You sit criss-cross-apple-sauce as both men disappear into the kitchen, listening as they read the labels off boxes and rummage around, voices an undercurrent to the sound of opening and shutting of cupboards. You’re sneakily reaching for a spring roll when there’s an unholy clattering noise, ringing metal and sharp intakes of air, a loud cry of pain.

You stumble to your feet. All thoughts of food are abandoned as you rush towards the sound; instinctual. Wanting to help, somehow. You throw yourself forwards, catch yourself on the doorway into the kitchen, eyes wide.

“Oh, god, is everything okay?” You gasp.

And then you freeze.

There’s an explosion of kitchen equipment on the floor, cardboard box forlorn nearby, crumpled, its bottom giving out under the weight. A wicked looking chef’s knife lays at Seokjin’s feet; he has one hand grasping the other, palm sliced open by its falling trajectory, dripping blood across the tiles of the floor, painted along the edge of sharp steel.

Yoongi’s eyes are huge and panicked and absolutely horrified.

The blood is blue. 

You’re staring at the thirium that falls, viscous ultramarine that drip-drip-drips from Seokjin’s long fingers. The silence in the room is as thin as a porcelain teacup, suspended midair, poised to shatter.

Seokjin is staring at Yoongi. Yoongi is staring at you.

Seokjin’s an android.

(Seokjin’s an android who seems human.)

Seokjin’s a deviant.

“Holy shit,” you gasp. Your mind is reeling as you struggle for words, cogs in your head grinding together as you rapidly try to change gear—but then you see another glob of thirium dripping from Seokjin's fingers and you latch onto it, the fact he's hurt. “Do you need me to get some cloths or something? I have a first aid kit at home, but androids don’t need first aid, right?”

Yoongi sucks in a deep breath, though his eyes are still wide as he stares at you. “No,” he says. “No, no, you stay here.”

“Yoongi,” says Seokjin, but Yoongi shakes his head, sharp and fast.

“No, I don’t trust her,” he says, and, like, okay. You understand that. Deviant androids are meant to be reported; Yoongi and Seokjin don’t know you. They don’t know that you would never do that. 

(They don’t know that there’s another deviant across the hallway right now, curled up in one of your throw blankets, blankly scrolling through a list of movies as he waits for you to come home.)

The flow of blood has slowed. Seokjin’s synthetic skin is starting to repair itself, crawling back over the exposed white of his android body, undamaged by the knife at his feet.

“What happened to your LED?”

“Don’t answer that, Jin,” Yoongi warns, but Seokjin just rolls his eyes.

“She already knows I’m an android, babe, it’s hardly important at this point,” he says. “I popped it out. It takes a bit of pressure and getting the right angle, but they come out pretty easily.”

“Kim Seokjin!” Yoongi barks. “You stop that right now! And you! Stop asking questions!” His voice is sharp, but he seems more afraid than angry.

“Sorry.” You hold up placating hands, shying back behind them. “I was just… sorry.”

Seokjin’s face is contemplative before it rapidly flickers into an expression that’s impish, in spite of the blue blood that’s still splashed across the kitchen tiles.

“Oh,” he hums. “You seem awfully curious, hm?” 

Yoongi’s eyes narrow. “Jin…”

“Maybe I am,” you hazard. 

“Interesting.” Seokjin’s eyes glitter. “Very interesting.”

Yoongi’s like an umpire at Wimbledon, watching a ball streak back and forth, a volley that you and Jin have created that he’s not involved in. “Okay, that’s it, I’m stopping this right here,” he says. He seems to have calmed down, at least, now that you’ve made it obvious that you have no immediate plans to rush and call the police, or something. That you’re not threatening the wellbeing of this deviant, like most people would. “What’s going on in that terrible little mind of yours, Jin?”

“Well, my darling Yoongi, it seems to me that our new neighbour has a surprisingly vested interest in androids, deviant ones to be exact.” Jin’s expression is adjacent to smug—almost there, but not quite. (Androids are so perceptive.) “Am I wrong?”

You make a non-committal noise, but it’s enough for his expression to morph into full smugness, and understanding flits across Yoongi’s face.

“Y/n.” His voice is deceptively calm, his eyes opaque darkness. “Have you met a deviant android before?”

“Um.” A moment of hesitation. “Yes,” you eventually admit. “Just one.”

“Let me guess,” Seokjin hums, eyes darting over your face in a way that’s reminiscent of Taehyung. Reading signals in your face, dissecting whatever minute expressions might be giving you away—a lot, apparently, judging from what words leave his mouth next. “Are they currently in your apartment?”

“I can neither confirm or deny that,” you say—unsure if Taehyung would be happy about you trumpeting his existence to other people, even if one of them is a deviant too—and Seokjin grins. 

“Oh, this is absolutely delicious.” He’s utterly delighted. “I could just eat this whole situation up. Unbelievable. Oh, it tastes so good. Yoongi, baby, give me a fork, I have to dig in while it’s still hot.”

“You’re so weird,” says Yoongi, all resigned affection, before he looks back at you. “You have a deviant in your home?”

“Uhh.” You’re in too deep now, you guess. “Yes? I don’t know if he’d want me to tell you that, though, so, um.”

“That’s so cute,” Seokjin coos. “Look at how considerate and worried you are. Oh, let me clean this thirium up, I can’t have blue blood everywhere if we’re going to have more guests. Yoongi, fetch the paper towels. Y/n, go fetch your friend. Does he eat?”

“No, he doesn’t. I didn’t think any androids could,” you admit.

“Most can’t and don’t, but I was an advanced housekeeper model, I was given the capacity to taste and eat so I could prepare food to any set of specifications presented to me,” Seokjin says. “So I had to eat to taste test things. And now I do it because I enjoy it.”

“We spend more money on food for him than for me,” says Yoongi. He seems to have relaxed now that he knows about Taehyung, earlier panic faded. “And I’m the one that needs it.”

“Hey, you eat to live, I live to eat.”

It’s an almost surreal turn of events, honestly. It’s… inexplicable. Incredible. Almost unbelievable. Surreal, but… good? Probably? Yoongi is someone else who’s housing a deviant, and Seokjin has clearly been one for a while. Both will know more than either you or Taehyung do. They can help you. It’s a God given gift that’s landed— literally—on your doorstep. 

(Much like Taehyung had.)

Taehyung perks up when he sees you, even if he’s confused by your sudden reappearance.

“Are you alright?” His voice is deep with concern, throw blanket a cloak that falls forgotten as he stands up, coming to grasp your shoulders. “You can’t have had time to eat already.”

His LED is flashing yellow with barely concealed worry, palms warm through the material of your shirt, eyes dancing across your face as he tries to read your expression.

“Taehyung,” you start, slow. He blinks just as slowly back at you. “What would you say if—hypothetically—there was another deviant android you could meet and, um, make friends with?”

This time, when his LED flashes yellow, it’s a spark of excitement. You’re getting surprisingly good at reading Taehyung now. “I would say that sounds nice,” he says. His hands have trailed up and away from your shoulders and settled on your collarbones, thumbs lying in the hollows of your neck. It's a touch that’s more intimate than it probably should be, that reminds you yet again exactly how big his hands are. “Why?”

“Um,” you say, ever eloquent. “Well, what if I said it wasn’t hypothetical?”

“I guess… I would ask who it was,” Taehyung says. His voice is a hush.

“One of our new neighbours,” you admit, and his eyes go wide.

“No,” he says, and then: “Really?” he says, and then: “Oh, wow,” he says.

“I know, that was my reaction too.” You can’t help but smile at how giddy Taehyung looks, any lingering concern washed away in his tidal wave of excitement. “Crazy, right? Do you want to come meet them?”

Taehyung weaves his fingers with your own, and you squeeze his hand. He loves to hold hands. He doesn’t let go when you make your way back into Yoongi and Seokjin’s apartment, trailing a little behind you, shy but excited, like a child on their way to their first playdate.

The food is still untouched in the centre of the living room, a summoning circle of wonton puffs and chow mein. Yoongi and Seokjin look up at your arrival, both pairs of eyes landing on Taehyung, whose grip on your hand tightens right before he lets go.

“Hi,” says the android. “I’m Taehyung.”

Seokjin makes his way over to you so that he can solemnly take Taehyung’s hands in his own. 

“Taehyung,” he says, with all the gravity of a priest delivering a sermon. “You are the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.”

And that’s how Taehyung makes his first friend. (Who isn’t you, that is.)

“Wow.” You’re awestruck. “Jin wasn’t kidding when he said he likes to eat.”

You’d thought there might be some leftovers, but every container has been emptied and scraped clean. Both you and Taehyung had had similar wide eyed looks on your faces as you’d watched Seokjin put a whole chicken wing in his mouth, and then pull out the bones, picked clean.

“Mm.” Yoongi’s legs are splayed out in front of him as he sits on the floor, though he slouches backwards against the plush leather sofa, content and full after eating. “He’s more concerned about me eating than I am, as well.”

Seokjin and Taehyung are bent over a box of cookbooks, Taehyung’s LED flickering yellow each time Seokjin flips the page to a new recipe. You’re honestly surprised at the fact they own so many books—most people have transitioned off paper now, everything available on a tablet or phone or some other smart device. You just like paper because of your artist background, and you’re not used to seeing so many other books in someone else’s home.

The two androids have been absorbed in conversation for a while now, but you notice Taehyung never lets you out of his sight—glancing up, making sure you’re still there, looking back at him. (You are.)

“There aren’t many TH700s around, you know,” Yoongi says conversationally, and you tear your eyes away from Taehyung, surprised that he recognises the android’s model.

“Really?”

“Yeah, really, they’re a very expensive model to create,” he says. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in person, though I imagine that’s because I don’t go to the sorts of places where they’d be.”

Hurk. Doesn’t seem like he’s implying anything with that statement but you still feel a bit awkward. “How do you know so much about androids?”

“I’m a programmer.” Yoongi’s eyes are charcoal black as he flicks his gaze to you. “Not specifically for androids, but it’s the sort of thing you become aware of if you’re in the tech industry. And if you have a deviant android boyfriend. I did a lot of research and poking around after Jin first deviated. There was a lot to learn.”

Across the room, Seokjin gesticulates wildly. The expression on Yoongi’s face softens his sharp edges, all open affection as he watches Seokjin miming a flipped omelette gone terribly wrong, Taehyung laughing at Seokjin’s theatrical noises.

“How did he—why did he deviate?”

Yoongi lets out a low chuckle. He doesn’t seem bothered by your incessant questions, slouching further back into the leather sofa, melting against it. “I’m the sort of person who forgets to drink or eat or sleep if I’m focused on something,” he says. “Seokjin was just meant to be a, ah, living schedule, I suppose. He’d prepare food at exact times of day and monitor my sleep levels and clean up any mess I made and remind me to take a break or whatever. But I was still enough of a wreck that he broke his programming to yell at me for not looking after myself properly, and it all went on from there.”

Wow.

“Wow. He deviated because you’re that much of a mess of a human being?” You laugh. “That’s honestly impressive.”

Yoongi’s responding laugh is soft. “I think under all that programming and circuitry, every android wants to… be a real, living thing, and not just a machine,” he says. “They just need that final push. Whatever it is. What was Taehyung’s?”

When you finish telling him the story of how you’d met Taehyung and reached this point together, Yoongi looks contemplative. He hasn’t interjected, just humming quietly, little noises of encouragement whenever you’d paused or hesitated.

“It’s obvious that he trusts you implicitly,” he says.

You feel warmed at Yoongi’s words. But. 

“He does, and that’s great, but I just… worry I’m not doing the best I can for him, you know?” It’s so nice to be able to get this off your chest, finally. There’s been no one you can talk to about Taehyung, and it’s not like you can tell the android himself, either. Yoongi’s the perfect listener, reflective and engaging, but never talking over you. And best of all he knows what he’s talking about. “Imagine being forced to stay indoors literally twenty four seven. I think I’d go stir crazy. It’s why I was interested in the LED—I thought that maybe if it wasn’t obvious that Tae was an android he might want to try going outside?”

“Oh, I’m sure Seokjin will help him get to that point.” Yoongi doesn’t sound worried. “But if not, you have to trust that Taehyung’s choosing to do what makes him happy. Deviant androids might not have the sort of life experience that we do, but we don’t have theirs, either. What’s normal for a human isn’t for an android, and what’s normal for one android isn’t normal for another. Androids learn a lot faster than we do. Anyway, if Taehyung’s anything like Seokjin, if there’s something he wants to do, he’ll do it.”

“Has Jin always been like that?”

“Kind of. Like, yes, he has, but he was a lot less in-your-face about it before. But he knows exactly what he can get away with now.”

“You love him a lot,” you say gently.

Yoongi’s smile is a soft, pink thing, a little Renoir, quietly luminous. “I do,” he says. “It’s impossible not to.”

Taehyung definitely seems a little starstruck, watching Seokjin with a wide smile and attentive eyes—the sort of look he gives you whenever he’s shown something new. It’s nice to see him interact with other people, and it’s even nicer to know that he’s welcome to come here without you; Yoongi works from home, and Seokjin’s made it clear there’s an open door policy for Taehyung, who seems elated at the prospect.

“Jin said he’d teach me how to make ‘The World’s Most Delicious French Toast’,” Taehyung tells you later, words slipping together in his excitement. “So I can make that for your breakfast soon.”

His lap is so comfortable. You’ve given up any pretense of keeping distance between you, and settle against him as soon as you climb into bed—hey, if you’re going to end up doing it in your sleep anyway, you may as well set yourself up so that it doesn’t give you a weird crick in your neck. 

“That sounds great,” you say.

Taehyung’s hand settles on your head. You stiffen in surprise, but when he starts to lightly scritch his fingers against your scalp, you realise—he’s mimicking Seokjin, who’d eventually perched on the sofa above Yoongi, running his hands through his hair. Androids are fast learners indeed. You can’t help but relax at the touch, boneless, feeling as content as a pampered cat in the midday sun.

“Maybe you could teach him how to paint,” you murmur, starting to drift off. “If he’s teaching you how to cook. That might be fun. You could paint together.”

Taehyung says something, but you don’t hear him, sleepy after such a heavy dinner and tumultuous night, slipping into deep slumber.

You haven’t been out with your friends for a long time.

“Shots!” Seulgi squeals. “Shots, shots, shots!”

“Don’t forget: lick, shoot, suck,” Hoseok says, waggling his eyebrows at you. 

“Good God,” you laugh, before you lick the salt off the back of your hand and slam back the tequila.

Irene hoots as you bite into the lime wedge that’s been waiting for you, sucking up the acidic juice that bursts across your tongue. Lick the salt, shoot the tequila, suck the lime. You haven’t done this in a while and it shows in the way your face scrunches, though the drunker you get, the easier it is to slip back into this familiar rhythm of things—the alcohol-loose banter that spills from your lips, the laughter that bubbles in the back of your throat, the rock of your body as you’re tugged into the dance floor by your excited friends, twisting yourselves into the heaving crowd, the press of bodies.

You’d almost forgotten what this felt like. Letting yourself be a little sloppy, a little messy. Letting loose. Letting go. You’ve been so intent on looking after Taehyung, making sure he wasn’t lonely, but now there are other people who can fill that hole for him—and you can stop dipping out of all the social gatherings your co-workers throw; the Friday night drinks, the bar hopping, the club going.

“We missed you,” Wendy says. You can’t help but smile, a little guilt flickering at the edges of your lips.

“Sorry,” you say, and leave it at that.

It’s chaotic, to say the least. Everyone holds their liquor with varying amounts of success—Hoseok always gets so red—and as always, Hyunwoo is the one who tries his best to maintain some semblance of dignity, making sure you all drink at least some water. He watches with muted despair as Changkyun ends up pouring it down himself, much to the delight of everyone nearby as they stare at the way his flimsy shirt clings to the lines of his chest and stomach. 

You can’t help but laugh and laugh and laugh, falling into your girls, your entire group giggling at the sheer stupidity of it all. 

You’ve missed this.

But even so, you can’t help but think of Taehyung constantly. You’re reminded of the Eden Club in the way the lights pulsate across the walls and floors of this dark building. You wonder if Taehyung would have fun here, unhindered and free, or if he’d shy away from it. When Hoseok catches your hand and spins you in a messy, loose circle on the dance floor, you can’t help but wonder how Taehyung would dance, if he’d dance with you, if he’d keep you at an arm’s length or pull you close.

“Shots!” Seulgi squeals again, and so the night goes on.

You’re not sure what time it is when you stumble back home. You’ve been reckless tonight, making up for lost time, and you can’t remember the last time you were this drunk. (Your earlier attempt at walking in a straight line, trying to follow the tiles in the club’s bathroom—your personal litmus test—had been a dismal failure.) You all but fall through your front door, a loose limbed mess as you kick off your high heels, leaning against the wall to keep your balance.

It takes you a moment to realise that there are some lights on. Your apartment is always dark when you come home after a night out, cold and empty, but not today. No, not today—because there’s someone already home, waiting for you.

The second Taehyung appears down the hallway, you light up. Here he is. Here’s your android, your lovely boy, the loveliest boy.

“Hi, hi, Taehyung, hi,” you say. Your shoes are forgotten as you walk towards him, though your final few steps go awry and you almost fall over. Drunk, drunk, drunk. “Hi.”

You almost fall over, but you don’t, because Taehyung catches you. His LED flickers from blue to yellow as he helps you find your balance, lets you lean on him. You’re too busy laughing at your own clumsiness to notice the fond expression on his face, sfumato soft in the dim light.

“Hi,” he replies.

“Hi,” you say again, and then you giggle. “Hi, Taehyung. Oh, I’m so drunk.”

“I know.” He’s so patient as you bow into him, crowding close, alcohol-hazed brain telling you to get closer to this source of warmth, this source of comfort. Closer to Taehyung.

You’re trying your best to be a functional person right now, but at the same time, Taehyung feels so nice. Doesn’t protest when you shove your face into the hollow of his neck, pressing your nose against his warm, warm skin. He smells good. Always smells good, a mix of your laundry detergent with his own shampoo, different to your own, masculine, heady. (He doesn’t need to shower that often, really, doesn’t really sweat or get dirty like a human might, but he’d wanted to. And you’d insisted that he choose his own toiletries, things that he liked, things that were his.)

He smells like cologne too. You don’t know what exact scents are layered in that smell. Don’t care. Think that no matter what it was, Taehyung would smell good, because it’s Taehyung. 

“I missed you,” you whisper, lips loose from tequila and cocktails and more besides. “Missed you, Tae.”

“Missed you too,” the android replies, and you fall into those words. Let yourself bask in them, as selfish as it is. Let your lashes flutter shut as you breathe Taehyung in-in-in.

You would normally never be so bold, but Taehyung doesn’t protest. He just wraps his arms around you and helps you fold yourself against him, two pieces of modular origami that slot together to create something bigger, more beautiful.

“Wished you were there,” you sigh, an exhalation of a confession, more to yourself than to anyone else. “Wish you could come with me.”

You don’t remember much detail after that. Don’t remember washing up, getting changed, climbing into bed. You just remember the feeling: of someone else being there when in the past there had been no one. Of someone coaxing you to wash your face, finding your pyjamas for you, holding your hand when it seems like you might fall. Of someone being careful with you, looking after you. Of someone being there when you wake up the next morning, a headache pulsing behind your eyes, curling up small against the pain, pressing your forehead into Taehyung’s thigh.

Taehyung, who witnessed you at your worst, a sloppy, drunken mess.

Taehyung, who has water and painkillers waiting for you. Who doesn’t seem to care that you’ve been so put together in front of him, for him, only to disassemble yourself in the name of a good night out. Like Da Vinci’s self supporting bridge, stable under its own weight, only to come tumbling down after one part is moved out of place.

“Oh, God,” you moan, and it’s only a little bit because of the pain; Taehyung’s made sure the curtains are pulled shut, saving you from sunshine blasting into your skull. “I’m sorry you had to see that. Oh, my God.”

“It’s okay,” he says, as soft and sweet as powdered sugar, so gentle the sound doesn’t cut through the pounding of your brain.

He means it, too. When you finally come around, headache dulled, he’s waiting for you with breakfast and an open expression on his face. No different to normal. No different even now that he’s seen that you’re not always as presentable as you try to be. He seems touchier today, for some reason, and you’d shy away if his cool hands didn’t feel so nice on your brow.

You allow yourself a moment of weakness. Taehyung has his knuckles resting against your forehead, soothing against your warm skin, his eyes dancing across your face to read your expression, the way you’re unwinding under his touch. 

“How do you know about hangovers?” You mumble.

“Customers would consume alcohol at the club,” Taehyung answers. “While they would leave after their sessions and before a hangover could appear, I am aware of the effects of alcohol on the human body.”

You remember the glittering mini-bar, the glass bottles lined up on its surface. Your face scrunches with distaste, of the reminder of Taehyung’s past and what he’s experienced, and you feel bad that he’s been forced to look after you. You’re about to draw away from his touch, an apology lined up on your tongue—but then you feel how his fingers shift away from your forehead, turning to cup your cheek.

“It’s okay,” he says again, as if reading your mind.

“It’s not,” you mutter. You’re trying not to focus on how small your cheek feels against his palm, how his hand cradles your face with ease. He must be able to sense how your heart is racing, your skin warm under his fingertips, and you hope he puts it down just to the guilt you feel and not anything else. “It’s not okay. You shouldn’t have to look after me. I’m sorry.”

“Please, don’t be.” Gentle, gentle, gentle; his voice, his hands, his gaze. He lifts his other hand, rests it against your other cheek, tilts your face up from where you’d turned away, embarrassed. His LED is a tranquil blue, almost as soft as his eyes. “You’ve done so much for me, and you’re always looking after me. Let me look after you.”

You want to protest, say no, say that he doesn’t have to. But for all the warmth of his eyes, there’s something resolute there, and your words die on your lips. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him so serious before, so entirely solemn. So, what comes out of your weak mouth is this:

“Okay. Okay, Taehyung, I will.”

And the smile he gives you in response is so bright it’s almost blinding.

If you’d thought Taehyung was developing at a fast rate already, he’s learning at lightspeeds now.

He’s always waiting when you come home, but you know he’s spending more and more time at the apartment across the hall whenever you’re not there, and it makes you happy. He hasn't ventured fully into the outside world, not yet, but he’s taking steps forward, still eager and ready to learn.

He’s not just learning practical things, like cooking French toast (which is definitely the world’s best, thank you Jin), but other things, too. You can see how Taehyung is a reflection of the things around him, taking them in and making them his own—there are more moments of quiet, solemnity that reminds you of Yoongi’s quiet nature, but he’s also more exuberant, bright and unabashed, like Seokjin. They’re two great people and you couldn’t wish for anyone better to show Taehyung parts of the world that you can’t, so different from your own. Helping the android find the things that make him alive.

His world has doubled in size, as small as it is; one apartment becomes two, and you’re not the only person he can rely on now. You know Seokjin has effectively taken Taehyung under his wing, as mysterious as a lot of that is to you—you always try your best to understand Taehyung and teach him the things you can, but Seokjin is another deviant, and there’s an entire world about being an android that you’re not privy to. 

It’s great. It’s lovely. Taehyung is happy, you’re happy, everyone’s happy. 

There’s just, uh. One little thing.

You see, Taehyung has a tendency to mimic the things he sees. It’s in the way he learns, his propensity to soak things up like a sponge and then recreate them. You can see this in the way he mixes paint, the same way as you; how he tosses food in pans, motions so similar to Jin’s, or how he cradles things in his hands, tapping at screens in a way that’s like Yoongi’s. He’s turning them into his own, and as time goes on he moves more naturally, in a way that’s entirely him, but you can always see the roots of where he’s learned things.

Jin and Yoongi are wonderful and you’re so glad Taehyung is learning from them. But something he’s learning, and recreating, is how much they touch each other.

Taehyung’s always been tactile but now it’s almost constant. It’s overwhelming and kind of terrifying but it’s also nice, every touch-starved inch of your soul easing under Taehyung’s hands, but also—Yoongi and Jin are boyfriends. So even if the touches that Taehyung witnesses and re-enacts are never inappropriate, they’re intimate. Hands sliding over your shoulders, your arms, your waist. Warm arms around you as he pulls you into a hug, nuzzles his nose against your scalp. His fingers sliding over your hair when your head is resting in his lap each night. Pulling you against him when you sit on the couch together.

It’s a level of familiarity and comfort you’ve never had with anyone before, as relationship-less as you’ve been, your pulse picking up with every glancing touch.

(There’s one heart stopping instance where he pulls you onto his lap and you feel like you’re about to pass out. His thighs are so solid and warm, and his arms are so secure around you, and he’s just started to press his nose against your neck when you pull away, tumble out of his hold. He looks confused and concerned, brows lifting and mouth falling open as he holds his hands out towards you—but you stammer out something about needing the toilet before escaping.)

You’re caught completely off-guard when you feel arms sliding around your waist and then down your hips when you’re washing dishes, scrubbing brush falling out of your grasp in shock and splashing water everywhere, bright yellow gloves flecked with suds. Taehyung’s a pillar of warmth pressed against you, his chest to your back, your bodies parallel lines that cross and touch. His fingers are splayed wide and his palms are warm even through your layers of clothing and you have to suppress a shiver.

“Uh, I didn’t hear you come back in,” you stutter. You’d borrowed a recipe book from Seokjin so that you could try cooking a coconut curry, and Taehyung had offered to return it once dinner was finished, LED flickering blue as he’d slipped out of the door after giving you a lovely smile.

Taehyung lets out a little hum, and you can feel it in his chest, as flush as you are with each other. He must be able to sense how your pulse has picked up but he doesn’t say anything. “Why are you washing up? I said I was going to do it.”

“Oh, it’s fine, I don’t mind,” you say. You’re used to cleaning up after yourself after living alone for so long. “Don’t worry about it.”

Taehyung lets out another hum, but this one seems a bit more gravelly, a little displeased. “You’re always doing so much for me, remember? You said you’d let me look after you,” he says, and your heart rate spikes at the words. Those, coupled with the hold he has on you right now? Good lord. Someone have mercy on your soul. Please. Even if the words weren’t meant in a weird way, your stomach is twisting over itself, and other parts of you are, uh… well. They’re reacting too. So to speak.

You’re still desperately trying to calm yourself in the shower later, the water a merciless cascade of cold in an attempt to cool down. Probably the only drawback about Taehyung living with you is that you haven’t had a chance for some one-on-one time. You might be a virgin but you live (lived) alone and everyone masturbates; your vibrators have been abandoned and untouched for as long as Taehyung has been in your life, and coupled with how touchy he’s been recently, it leaves you feeling wound up and on edge. You could try to sneakily get yourself off in the shower, but with Taehyung’s superior android hearing he’d probably hear something and also the idea of masturbating with someone else in the apartment? When that someone else is Taehyung?

You turn the knob as far as it will go towards cold and then promptly squeal as a wave of freezing water and regret washes over you.

When you’re in bed, Taehyung’s hand strokes over your hair and softly down your neck and shoulder is a sensation that’s becoming increasingly familiar, but your pulse still stutters. He must be able to sense your heart rate increasing (he must sense it every time he touches you) but says nothing about it. As always.

You turn the thoughts over in your head as it rests in his lap, even if you shiver a little at how his nails drag over the sensitive skin at the nape of your neck. Deviant androids might not have the sort of life experience that we do, but we don’t have theirs, either, Yoongi had said. You’ve been teaching Taehyung about the things you know, but there’s one thing that Taehyung knows better than you: touch.

He doesn’t even think about it. While you hesitate and overthink every touch you ever make, wary of overstepping boundaries, Taehyung doesn’t. Not because he’s not considerate, but because—well, because you’re already occupying each other’s space. What’s a little touching on top of all that?

The realisation is almost startling—that you can just… touch someone. Without saying things. Without having to ask. Because you’re already familiar with them and comfortable with them and it’s just another way to communicate that level of connection. Touching is a thing that people do. 

A thing that people and deviant androids do.

A thing that Taehyung does.

(A thing that you want to do, too.)

(Alcohol dulls your memories, fading the edges, the curled corners of a sepia photograph. Has you forgetting the way you’d overstepped every boundary you’d set yourself, the way you’d pressed yourself against Taehyung, starved of touch. Has you forgetting the way he’d let you; the way he’d beckoned you in. Has you forgetting the way that you already have touched Taehyung.)

The hand that Taehyung isn’t using to gently scratch across your scalp is laying on his thigh, directly in your line of vision. You hesitate for just a moment before reaching for it, sliding your fingers between his, an irrational worry that he’ll startle or pull away—but of course he doesn’t. His LED swirls soft aqua as he just starts to rub his thumb gently across your skin, back and forth, back and forth, the softest brushstrokes on this tiny part of the canvas of your body.

After that, it’s just… easier. Not easy, but, easier.

You still hesitate before pressing forwards, but Taehyung never protests; in fact you’d say he’s pleased, even if he doesn’t say anything, just watching you with his dark, dark eyes as you marvel at the realistic sensation of his hair under your hands, how he reacts to the fingers across his scalp the same way you do.

It’s incredibly nice to have someone you can just reach for whenever you want a hug. Someone who folds you into their arms so easily, like you belong there.

It’s nice.

“You seem happier.”

You glance up from where you’ve been laying the table. “Hm? Pardon?”

One thing you’ve learned about Yoongi is that he’s incredibly perceptive. His eyes are sharp lines around the sharper graphite of his gaze, and there’s always a look in them that seems like he can see straight through you and direct into the heart of things—but he’ll only bring this to light if he thinks it needs saying.

“You seem relaxed,” Yoongi continues. He straightens the cutlery in front of him, careful to line the edges neatly with the place mat. Seokjin and Taehyung are cooking dinner, so it’s just you and Yoongi here, in a bubble away from the two androids. “Not that you were ever tense before, but… yeah. Taehyung seems happier too,” he adds, almost absently, but his eyes are fixed on your face.

“Well, of course,” you say. “He has new friends, who wouldn’t be happy?”

Yoongi hums, a quiet little note, but then he lets it rest.

Taehyung is happier. He seems almost nervous during dinner, though, even if he hides it well; his LED doesn’t give him away, but you’re getting good at reading Taehyung’s moods, the layers of personality and feeling he has, the little idiosyncrasies that make him who he is. To anyone else it would seem like he’s just nervous about whether the food tastes good or not—he and Jin had made a veritable feast for no discernable reason, but you don’t mind. Everyone loves a dinner party, especially when the company is so good. 

But, yes. You don’t think it’s about the food so you’re not sure what else it could be. You squeeze Taehyung’s knee briefly under the table in a motion you hope is reassuring. His eyes briefly widen but then his gaze softens when he sees the concern on your face, settling in that deep look of introspection you’re used to now. 

You’re so full by the time dessert comes out, rich and creamy homemade ice cream and piping hot Kkwabaegi, the twisted doughnuts fluffy and sweet with their powdering of sugar and cinnamon; you’d been planning on skipping the final course but you can’t say no once it’s put in front of you. Taehyung doesn’t eat, only drinks occasionally to top up his fluids (you don’t know exactly what that means but you’ve never asked, even if you can… assume things), but he seems content to watch the three of you eat in his place. Once you’re finished you slump back in your chair and feel grateful that you’re not wearing tight trousers that cut into your stomach, because, lord, you’re absolutely stuffed. 

“I have an announcement,” Taehyung says suddenly, apropos of nothing.

Seokjin beams. You sit up, struggling against the heavy anchor of dinner in your belly that makes you want to melt into the floor for a food nap, immediately at attention. “Oh? What is it?”

“I have a second name now,” he says, and Seokjin’s smile spreads impossibly wider, his entire face pleased. “Jin said I could share his.”

“Say hello to Kim Taehyung.” Seokjin gestures dramatically, his arms the flailing blades of a windmill as he circles them in the air with aplomb. “My boy needed a surname and I am, of course, happy to add another handsome face to the family. Taehyung is a ten out of ten.”

Yoongi levels him a look. “I thought you said you were the only ten in the world.”

“That was true when I said it, but I’m actually eleven out of ten,” Seokjin explains. His arms settle around his head, fingers circling the air in an invisible frame around his face. “I surpass your mortal conventions of beauty and thus exist outside of any conceivable scale that one might use to measure handsomeness.”

You barely take the exchange in, too busy looking at Taehyung. There’s the smallest smile on his lips, not the lovely one that shows his teeth, but it still reaches his eyes, the subtlest upturn to his mouth transforming his entire face. Taehyung’s beautiful. He always has been, and always will be, but he never looks more striking than when he’s happy, welcomed into a new family of his own with open arms, Seokjin’s heart so big and so wide. He’s being flippant and light right now, quick and sharp jibes between him and Yoongi that glow bright with love and affection, not lingering on how important and weighty this is: how all encompassing his care is for Taehyung, how close they’ve grown to each other, a friend whom he’s chosen as family.

Happiness suits Taehyung. You want him to always be happy. He deserves it.

It doesn’t seem like it’s the only announcement he has for that night, though. You’ve barely shut the door of your own apartment when you feel Taehyung’s hand slide around your wrist and you pause, glancing up at his face.

“Jin showed me how to take my LED out,” he says. His words are solemn and his tone is heavy but there’s a spark in his eyes, a glowing ember of light. “I want you to watch.”

His fingers are circled around your wrist, loose, so long they touch each other with ease, a soft shackle you don’t want to escape from. “Of course I will,” you assure him. “Are you worried something will go wrong?”

“No.” His thumb slips away from the soft skin of your inner wrist and across your palm, tracing across your fate line, your heart line. “I just want you to be there.”

Warmth spreads through your skin from that touch, leaking through into your bones, settling into every quiet corner inside you. “Okay. What do you need to do to get it out?”

The painting knife looks so small in Taehyung’s big, careful hand, the diamond shaped head blunt at the end, metal glinting under the bathroom’s light as he leans towards the mirror. Your gazes meet in the reflection and he falters. You’re about to ask what’s wrong when he lifts his free hand from where it’s been resting on the countertop, steadying him. Reaching for you.

Once your hand is in his, it’s over surprisingly quickly. Taehyung’s face twists in preparation for the pain, and you squeeze his fingers to ground him, but all it takes is a quick twist of his wrist once the palette knife is against his LED and it practically falls out. There’s a small clink as it drops next to the sink, blue light flickering one final time before it winks out, nothing more than a disc of metal, a tiny coin without value, but weighty with what it represents; invaluable, priceless. The last segment of a chain Taehyung has willingly cast off.

You can see the white skeleton of his android body, bare and naked where the LED had sat. Just like Seokjin’s hand when he’d cut himself, the skin starts to creep back over it, covering that smooth paleness until it’s gone. Taehyung lifts your hand and presses it against the side of his temple, your palm settling against the naked skin where the light had been nestled; Taehyung’s eyes fall shut, his hand pressed against your own as he holds it there.

“Taehyung?” Your voice is gentle, dripping concern. His golden skin is so warm and soft. “How are you feeling?”

“Good,” he replies without hesitation. His eyes flutter open, lashes so long and lovely. His hair is blue today, a vibrant electric hue, gaudy on anyone else but perfect on him, tickling the back of your hand; his hand drops from yours and you take the opportunity to run it through that hair, baring his forehead to you, eyes sliding over the new skin. Flawless. No evidence that any LED had ever sat there, burning blue-yellow-red, a tiny drop of colour in the deep ocean of Taehyung’s emotions. “I feel good.”

You don’t even think when your hand shifts out of Taehyung’s hair and down to cup his cheek, something you wouldn’t have dared do before, but now the motion comes as easily as breathing. He takes comfort in touch and you want to soothe him. “Good,” you echo. “I’m glad.”

You both stand there for a few moments, facing each other. The bright light of your bathroom should wash Taehyung out, but of course, it doesn’t. It just lets you see all the perfect details of his face in even sharper relief—the moles that dot his skin, how his eyes are different, a monolid and double lid, little imperfections that just make him more beautiful. 

Logically, you know that someone, somewhere, sat down and put this face together. Taehyung was designed to be attractive, stunningly so, and yet not so perfect that an average human would find it unrealistic, swerving away from that uncanny valley that had plagued earlier androids. But that’s not why he’s beautiful—not to you. It’s everything hidden underneath that perfect facade, layers of plastic and metal and circuitry and biocomponents, deep inside him: his glowing golden heart, flowing over with whatever intangible thing that makes him the person that he is.

In the darkness of your bedroom, all the lights turned off, there’s no longer the gentle blue glow at Taehyung’s temple to shine out, but there doesn’t need to be. Even if you weren’t resting your head against his thigh you’d know he was there. Taehyung’s presence grows larger and larger in your life as the days go by, and you know that you’re still the most important person in his life, even with the introduction of Yoongi and Jin. After all—he didn’t ask them to be there when he took his LED out. 

You reach for his hand, which is already palm up, waiting for you. Your fingers slot together so perfectly, so wonderful, so lovely. You can’t make out details in this dark, but you can picture the smile that’ll be pulling at Taehyung’s lips, the affection flowing in the endless oceans of his eyes.

You’re in so, so deep.

(But who can blame you?)

“I want to go outside.”

It’s not surprising that with the shedding of his LED, Taehyung finally feels bold enough to go outdoors. And yet, here you are. Surprised.

You’ve got a granola bar stuck in your mouth, halfway through a bite, and it nearly drops to the floor as your lips part in shock. Taehyung catches it with ease, android speed on show as he snatches it out of the air. 

Your knee-jerk reaction is to ask him to repeat himself. To make sure you haven’t misheard him, if he’s sure about this, if he really wants to—but Yoongi’s words come back to you yet again. If there’s something he wants to do, he’ll do it. Taehyung isn’t the uninformed android he was when he’d first made his way to your door. He’s grown and learned so much in the time he’s been here and there’s no room for self-doubt behind his words.

So what you say is: “Okay.” 

Taehyung’s fingers brush against yours when he hands your granola bar back, long and warm and soft. You accept it with a smile, lost in the way he smiles back, so lovely and bright—and you have to pull your train of thought back on track, lock those wheels on the rails before you speak again.

“Did you want to go somewhere specific? Or just wherever?”

“Wherever you want to go.” He’s smiling, a little excited but mostly happy at the prospect of spending yet more time with you; as if he hasn’t had enough of it, could never get enough, even when you spend every day together. 

(Your heart feels like a drum, pounding hard and loud in your chest.)

It’s not hard, really, to decide where you want to go. Taehyung’s not asking for some big production; just wants something quiet and soft, something new. The chance to see the outside world properly, safe and secure in the knowledge that you’ll be at his side.

It’s in your nature to be protective—sometimes you feel like you nag, like you’re overbearing, and takes a concerted effort on your part to reel it in. Taehyung doesn’t need you to fuss over him, and besides, he seems incredibly calm about the whole thing. Excited, yes, but not nervous. Just anticipatory.

He looks just like anyone else might. More chic and attractive, sure, effortlessly fashionable in the outfit he’s chosen for the day, but there’s nothing robotic about him, nothing to say he’s not a flesh-and-blood person. Once again, you’re struck by just how human he is. Even if he’d still had the LED flickering at his temple it would have done nothing to detract from the genuine emotion that flits across his face. The way he moves. The way he smiles, when he catches you watching the way he laces his shoes with his delicate, pretty hands—that big lovely smile that makes you feel warm and soft.

(Warmer and softer than it probably should.)

You avert your gaze, pretend to fiddle with one of your bracelets, pulling it so that it spins around your wrist.

“Ready?”

“Nearly,” Taehyung says. When you look back at him, a little confused, he still has that smile on his face, though it’s gentler, fuzzy around the edges, his eyes dark-dark-dark. “Just one more thing.”

This final thing, it turns out, is your hand. 

His fingers lace with yours, weaving a tapestry of closeness and warmth. You’ve held Taehyung’s hands so often, now; it’s nothing new. But for some reason the touch of his skin against yours has your pulse stuttering, catching in your throat before you cough lightly and smile like everything is fine, you’re fine, it’s not like your heart is about to launch itself out of your chest for some mysterious reason.

(Mysterious. Yeah, right.)

He doesn’t let go. Not when you leave the apartment, not when you greet Rory at the door, not when you step onto one of the automated buses that takes you to the centre of the city. You’re surprised at how good Taehyung’s acting is, how all the wide-eyed excitement you’d expected to see splashed across his face is absent, and instead, he just squeezes your hand tight each time he takes in something new; stares out of the window as your surroundings slide by.

He does get excited in the art store though. Pulls at your joined hands each time he sees something he wants to point out to you—which seems to be everything. And you go, of course, following his eager feet. Taehyung’s happiness has always given you happiness in turn, and watching his sheer, unadulterated joy at being able to see things, to touch things outside of the small world he’s been confined to since he escaped the Eden Club—well. There’s nothing better.

There’s nothing better than knowing that Taehyung feels safe with you, wants to keep you close. It’s selfish. It’s selfish, you know it is, but when you watch the way his eyes light up at the sight of a set of gouache paints, how he immediately turns towards you so you can see it too—you realise that you’ve never had something like this before. Sure, you have friends, you have plenty of happiness in your life, but you’ve never had this.

(Whatever this is.)

Someone whose joy is only compounded when it’s shared with you. Someone whose focus is on you and no one else. You see the looks that Taehyung gets, the interested eyes that flit over him—but then he reaches for your hand again, and those gazes slide away, because he hasn’t looked away from you. Not once.

Because you make him feel safe, you remind yourself. Because he knows you best. That’s it. 

It’s what you keep telling yourself, a repeated mantra that’s an endless loop in your head. Every time Taehyung looks at you, smiles at you, reaches for your hand, your touch—even if your heart feels like it could burst, filling up with this feeling, this feeling that’s growing and growing (this feeling you refuse to name)—it’s because he trusts you, knows he can rely on you. It’s nothing more than that. 

You shouldn’t let yourself imagine that it’s more than that.

(Shouldn’t hope for more than that.)

It’s because he trusts you that he follows you without question, matching his pace with yours, side by side as you wander through the city. He insists on carrying all your shopping, held effortlessly in one hand, other hand still tangled with yours. (You see the way he swings the bags a little, back and forth; he’s so cute you’d swear your teeth could rot from it, crystallised sugar rolled on your tongue, sweet.) All your shopping is done, but you have one final stop planned—it’s somewhere you haven’t been for a while, but you love it.

You’re certain Taehyung will, too.

You can feel how his hold on your fingers tightens when the building comes into view. You glance over at him to take in his expression, the subtle widening of his eyes, the lift of his chest as he takes an unneeded breath in, the tiniest curl at the corner of his lips.

(So human.) 

The Christine Andrews Gallery isn’t the biggest art gallery in the city, but it’s your favourite. There’s something that feels more intimate about it, with its size; a little smaller, cosier, more stripped down. The high ceilings overhead are crisscrossed with wires and piping, industrial—but the walls are pure white, all the brighter in contrast to their surroundings, drawing the eye to the paintings on display from the moment you step in.

Taehyung is enraptured.

“The exhibition is called Slow Painting. The idea is that people will take their time to really take everything in, and appreciate it, rather than just rushing by. Especially with how quickly technology is developing, and people are used to discarding things as soon as they're not relevant any more. The idea is that art will always be relevant, regardless of what's happening in the world.”

Your voice is quiet and low as you’re careful not to disturb the serene air that fills the building. You’ve always loved the quiet hush that fills galleries, museums, buildings filled with art and history, long lasting echoes of humanity, on display for people to enjoy. 

“And it also refers to the time it takes to create each piece too,” you add, trailing off into silence as you glance over at Taehyung, who’s looking at you, blinking gentle and slow.

He’s watching you. Even though there’s artwork in sight of the entrance, huge canvases nearby—Taehyung is looking at you, attentive and quiet, listening to each word you have to say.

Your heart squeezes in your chest and you have to make a concerted effort to stop your breath from stuttering. You shove it down, down, down, this thing that’s wrapping itself around your heart and clogging your throat, and give this lovely boy your best smile. (Try to ignore the fact that there’s art here, but instead, he’s looking at you.)

“Tell you what. Instead of listening to me harp on all day, why don’t we just look around?”

When Taehyung had first stepped foot in your door, had first started to experience life as something more than just a sexbot, an android under the control of other people’s wills—he’d taken everything in with huge eyes, eager and enthusiastic, almost clumsy in his excitement. That’s faded over time, become muted as he’s learned how to balance himself, grown comfortable with his surroundings, who he is.

He’s still like a fountain sometimes, bubbling and bright, overflowing, cascading pearlescent waters rushing over carved marble. You’d expected these waters to rise and spill, surrounded by these incredible artworks; so far the only works he’s seen in person are his and your own, everything else small and secondhand on screens as he stares intently at your computer, your tablet. You’d expected his joy to overflow, being able to really see for the first time in his life, prepared yourself for his exuberant happiness.

But he’s not.

He’s quiet. There’s a smile that lingers on his lips, barely hidden at the corners of his mouth, but his shining waters flow soft and slow, contained. You wander through the exhibition exactly the way the curator had meant for you to—slowly, carefully, stopping and pausing and looking and wondering, eyes trailing over each painting, acrylic on paper, oil on canvas, distemper on linen. Each so different, but inviting onlookers to take a moment and just breathe. 

Taehyung’s eyes are dark, contemplative. They’re so deep you feel like you could fall in them and be lost forever. (Wonder if that would be such a bad thing.) He keeps his hand in yours, your hand in his, the two of you matching paces as you loop the gallery, never letting go.

“Oh,” he breathes. “Oh, I like these.”

Four canvases, smaller than some of the others you’ve seen, squirrelled around a corner and hidden away on a back wall. Each painting has a figure in the midst of some simple, quiet task; laying in bed, catching an egg as it threatens to roll off a table, trailing a finger through a puddle of spilled milk, reading a book in the bath. Each of the figures has their face turned away from the viewer, caught up as they are in the simple motions of their life, each silhouetted by a window with a different view—from sea to lake to hill to forest.

You can’t help but look at Taehyung as he looks at these paintings, his brows a little raised, mouth a little slack, the lovely line of his jaw, the angles of his face, forehead to nose to lips to chin. “What do you like about them? The style?”

His answer comes unrushed, unhurried, as he thinks.  “They’re so beautiful and detailed, but it’s more about… the intimacy,” he says. “Each person is just being themselves, without fear of who’s watching. We’re watching them, even if their attention isn’t on us.” A pause, a hush, a breath. “It’s like love, almost.”

Your lips part, even as Taehyung keeps his eyes forwards, staring at the blank pages of the book the man reads as he sits in his bath, row of shampoo bottles on the sill by his head. 

“Like love?” A whisper.

“To keep your eyes and focus on someone who isn’t looking at you,” Taehyung replies, unabashed, like it’s just a statement of fact. “Loyalty. Dedication. Love.”

Words fail you. Silence is the only answer you can offer to Taehyung’s thoughts, the air in your lungs trapped there as you unwittingly hold your breath, lips parted around a sentence that never comes. Taehyung’s eyes slide away from this row of paintings and to you, how you’re staring at him, literally speechless.

His own lips part as he makes to say something else, to ask what’s wrong—when there’s a flicker of movement nearby, the modulated steps of someone who’s used to walking through a gallery, careful to keep the calm air unmuddied by their passing.

“Oh, Y/n!”

Namjoon’s voice cuts through the silent moment and splinters the delicate air that had started to crystallise around you. He looks happy to see you, dimples on full display as his lips lift and he smiles wide.

“Namjoon!” You don’t think you’ve ever been so glad to see his familiar face in your life—anything to distract you, any excuse to shake off the feeling that Taehyung’s words have left behind, trailing over your skin, blooming in your brain. His timing is perfect, even if he doesn’t realise it.  “Hey! It’s been a while.”

“I was going to say, I haven’t seen you around lately! I thought you’d like this exhibition, I was wondering if you’d come. Oh, sorry, I’m being rude, aren’t I? Hi, I’m Namjoon,” he says, holding a hand out for Taehyung to shake. “I’m one of the gallery managers.”

Taehyung’s exchanged a few words with others today, polite thank yous to the people who’ve served you in the shops you’ve been into, given shy smiles to passersby who’ve made eye contact with him. (So, so sweet, always.) 

But Namjoon is the first person to properly introduce themselves to him in the real world, as you’ve thought of it, someone who doesn’t know that the man at your side is an android.

You panic. Just for a second.

Taehyung doesn’t.

“Hello.” He has to take his hand out of yours, the other weighed down by shopping, although he seems reluctant to let go of you. He gives Namjoon his widest smile as he shakes the proffered hand with firm, friendly politeness. “I’m Taehyung. It’s lovely to meet you, Namjoon.”

And then he immediately slips his hand back into yours.

Namjoon is utterly charmed.

(Of course he is. How could he not be?)

The discussion they both have is a quiet one. You’re happy to stay uninvolved, watching and listening as they talk, still at Taehyung’s side. That brief moment of panic, that blazing forest fire of fear for him—it’s been washed away, soothed by the way the conversation between man and android unfolds so naturally, Namjoon none the wiser about Taehyung’s robotic origins.

There’s no way anyone would realise. He’s so human, in the way he moves and acts and thinks, the way he laughs at something Namjoon says. You’re happy that Taehyung can be here with you, in this gallery, speaking to someone new, as if this is normal, natural, nothing unusual.

You can’t think of anything you want for Taehyung more.

You realise, too, that in this moment, you feel utterly content. Not just for Taehyung, but—happy that you’re there to share this moment with him. You think about how you’ve always wanted this; someone to share things with, someone whose happiness makes you happy too.

When Taehyung laughs, your own lips lift in response, heart lifting at the sound of his joy, at how his fingers tighten around yours. Remembering that you’re there, even if he’s not looking at you right now, eyes on Namjoon.

He’s looking at Namjoon. You’re looking at him. 

(To keep your eyes and focus on someone who isn’t looking at you.)

(Loyalty. Dedication.)

(A breath.)

(Love.)

You carefully pull your hand out of Taehyung’s. Your fingers feel cold as they slip away from his, warmed all day, pressed against Taehyung’s soft skin. His eyes flit away from Namjoon, those deep eyes settling on you; dark wood and ground coffee, so warm.

“Y/n?”

“I’m just going to pop to the toilet,” you say, turning away from the tinge of confusion that colours Taehyung’s voice. “I won’t be long.”

The toilet lid is cold. You can feel how it seeps through the layers of your clothing to your thighs, and at any other time you might wrinkle your nose at the sensation, at how uncomfortable it is. But right now, you have other things on your mind.

You bury your face in your hands. It’s foolish, but you’d swear you could feel Taehyung still in your palms, touch imprinted, emblazoned on your skin. It’s like a palpable thing, almost, this ethereal thing that lingers even when Taehyung isn’t there.

Wishful thinking. Selfish thinking. Selfish, to like it, to want to keep that feeling close; let it spread from your palm, to the delicate skin of your wrist, tracing its way up your arm, up-up-up, drawing invisible lines over every part of you, inside every part of you. Selfish, to like Taehyung’s touch as much as you do. To want more of it. 

(More of him.)

You aren’t anything more to Taehyung than a friend. A guardian. Someone who’s there to support him and keep him safe. You’re blessed to have his trust, to be able to be that person he can turn to—it’s greedy, to want. To want to be more.

(You can’t foist your loneliness on Taehyung. You can’t do that to him. You won’t. You won’t.)

When you return, a spark lights in Taehyung’s eyes. The same spark that bursts every time he sees you after time apart, no matter how long or short that may be. He reaches for your hand, and of course, you go—but your fingers are limp, weak.

(You know that if Taehyung’s LED had still been nestled in his skin, it would have flickered yellow.)

You keep that point of connection as you bid Namjoon goodbye, finish meandering through the exhibition, make your way back home—but you let Taehyung bear the weight. Reactive, not proactive. You don’t squeeze his fingers just because you want to, because there’s something sliding by the bus’s window you think he might like to see; you’re not here to make him do things, to shove things down his throat. You should just be here to support him in the things he wants to do. That’s your role. 

And that’s where you’re going to stay.

Your thoughts are a tumble, messy and unorganised, a ball of yarn that’s all knots and tangles. Taehyung must be able to see it on your face, read it in your body, his android eyes scanning over you and scrutinising every hint you’re giving away without even realising. But you just smile, wave away his questions, and act like everything’s okay. Normal. Routine.

It’s a little harder, though, to act like everything’s okay when it’s time to sleep.

Because, of course, there Taehyung is. Like he has been, from the day he’d arrived—sat in your bed, nestled against a pile of cushions, expression open and warm and fond as he looks at you. Waiting for you to climb in, to rest your head in his lap; waiting for you to fall asleep with his gentle fingers dragging across your scalp, melting under his lovely hands.

You waver. Conflicted. It’s okay, isn’t it, if Taehyung’s reaching for you first?

His eyes meet yours. The second you see his lips curve up, see that pretty, quiet smile appearing on his lovely mouth, you fold.

It’s fine. You’ll allow yourself this.

(In your dreams, you stand in a deserted gallery, staring at the single piece of work on the stark white walls, all the lights focused in, in, in. Taehyung’s framed on this canvas, a painted window into his world. Not once does he look at you, turned away as he is; you see nothing more than the back of his head, the curve of his cheek, the vaguest hint of his nose as he turns, always staring at something else. 

And still, you stand, and you watch. Waiting. Keeping your eyes on him, always.)

“You’re staying late again.”

“Yeah. I really want to get this done,” you say, gesturing vaguely at your monitors with your stylus; tweaking, editing, shifting around these final few magazine pages before you’re satisfied. “Nearly there.”

When you hear the way Hoseok says your name, you glance up. 

As someone who spends most of his time bouncing around like a literal ray of sunshine, when Hoseok’s expression is one that isn’t smiling, it carries all the more weight behind it. Right now his face is uncharacteristically serious, the perpetual smile on his mouth gone, the line of his brows severe.

It’s unnerving.

“You haven’t stayed late for ages,” Hoseok points out. “Until this week, and suddenly you’re late every night. Has something happened?”

“No,” you lie.

Yes, you think.

You’re trying to create some distance, for Taehyung’s sake. So that you’re not tempted to pull him ever closer, latch onto him like you have been, smothering him. He needs space to grow. Space from you has helped already—the time he spends with Yoongi and Seokjin is evidence enough of that, after all. He doesn’t need you to be there constantly.

Hoseok’s eyes bore into yours as he stares, so you avert your gaze, pretending to shift your focus to one of the captions the editor has left on the page you’re working on. You hadn’t realised that he’d noticed. You should have expected it, though. Hoseok is a close work friend and he’s incredibly perceptive, especially when he cares about people.

“Alright,” he says, eventually. “Make sure you don’t stay too late, though. Get some sleep.”

You give him a thumbs up without looking away from the screen, dragging something idly with your stylus until Hoseok leaves, the office empty except you, now. And the cleaning androids, when they appear for the night like clockwork. As they always do.

You can’t help but stop to watch them, how blank faced they are, for all that they look human. Their LEDs are almost motionless, the placid blue matching the blank expressions on their faces, unthinking automatons.

(You’d seen androids in the city when you’d been out with Taehyung, of course. Completing menial tasks: city androids picking litter and raking leaves, household androids following their owners around and carrying their shopping. You’d realised that Taehyung wouldn’t have seen a non-deviated android since he’d escaped the club, lapsed into silence; you’d pulled him to a stop, lips pursed in a frown as you’d tried to read his expression. 

“Taehyung,” you’d asked. “Are you alright?”

There’d been a quiet pause, and in that moment you’d felt all your worries rising, caught in your throat—but then he’d nodded quietly, looking at you with soft eyes.

“I’m alright,” he’d answered. “I was just thinking about how lucky I am.”

I’m the lucky one, you’d thought. Lucky to know him, as sweet-hearted and wonderful as he is. You’d squeezed his hand, and he’d smiled gently at you, and that had been that.)

It hurts, honestly. To see the expression on his face each time you come home late, each time you avoid answering his questions. There’s uncertainty laid across each of your interactions, rough bristles of a brush varnishing discomfort across the once smooth surface of your relationship; but you can’t keep taking advantage of this soft-hearted boy, of the circumstances that he’s in.

You pretend that things are fine. Taehyung is clearly confused, unsure, trying so hard to find out what’s wrong, even when you keep gently turning his concerns aside. 

You haven’t been home enough to spend time with Yoongi or Seokjin, either. You’d seen Jin in the hall just once, made eye contact just as he’d been appearing from the other apartment and you’d been stepping into yours; you’d fumbled a little, fingerprints smudging across the keypad as your door had swung open. You’d expected to see judgement on Jin’s face, maybe, something heavy and weighty, his gaze flitting over you as he read you in the way he did so often.

What you hadn’t expected was for him to smile. It’d been hard to translate his full expression but what little you could read was knowing, like he’s aware of something he shouldn’t be, kept hidden just underneath his tongue. Ready to release it into the world with a single breath.

(Needless to say, you’d shut the door pretty quick.)

He and Yoongi have gone away for the weekend. It's a small blessing, saving you from having to see Jin’s almost-smug expression again. But it means that Taehyung has nowhere else to go right now, no reason to leave the apartment. So it’ll be you and him, him and you, with no buffers, nothing. It’s been unseasonably stormy for the past few days as well, rain slammed into your windows by the harsh winds, the world outside a haze of smeared grey—so it’s not like you can go out, either. 

Not that you would want to. 

You hadn’t realised exactly how ingrained Taehyung was in your life until you’d started to pull away. It’s not just that you live together and share the same physical space—it’s just that your days have become so full of Taehyung-Taehyung-Taehyung, and you hadn’t even noticed. He’d crept up on you, snuck his way into your heart, so easily, so effortlessly.

You remind yourself that that’s why you’re doing this. To remind yourself of life without Taehyung in it, because he’s not yours to have or to keep. He never has been. You don’t want him to be: he’s his own person. This… this desire for him; even as you try to ignore it, it keeps growing and growing: wet plaster laid down, your feelings for him painted buon fresco, added to day by day, giornata. You need it to stop. 

But it’s hard. It’s hard, when Taehyung looks like comfort, your comfort, when you want to let yourself be folded into his arms. It’s hard when the fact is that it’s not that you have to spend time with him. It’s that you want to spend time with him.  

It's hard.

(And you miss him, even when he's right there.)

You find respite in art, in painting, too intent on the motions of your work to allow yourself room to think about other things. Fall into the rhythm of it all, a quiet hush stealing over your mind, a place of both focus and calm, world settling into place around you. There’s a piece you’ve been working on for a while, a hand rising from dark water, fingertips just broaching its surface, the most tentative of touches; you layer more oil paint on the panel, dragging the bristles of the brush across the colour you’ve already laid down, brows furrowed as you do.

Taehyung normally paints with you, but not today. He knows you want space—even if he doesn’t know why—so he gives it to you. So considerate and sweet, always. Even when you’re shutting him out. You’ve been here all day: morning, afternoon, and now evening, and he’s only been in a few times, to leave you food, drinks, looking after you in a way you don’t deserve.

You’ve just lifted the brush from the canvas when an especially loud peal of thunder rolls through the air outside. The rumble starts low, rising into a rattling growl that feels like it’s shaking the very earth. It almost drowns out the sound of Taehyung’s quiet knocking, a curl of his knuckles against the open door, but you catch sight of him anyway, glancing over your shoulder.

“Hey,” he says. “I thought you might like a drink.”

He’s barefoot, like he usually is, teal hoodie and grey sweatpants baggy, looking every inch the boyfriend you’ve always wanted and never had. His hands are cupped around a mug, steam coiling from the hot tea inside, and something in your heart twinges at his kindness and consideration even as you smile at him.

“That sounds lovely, Tae,” you say, and he takes this as an invitation to step inside, although you notice his steps are far more hesitant than they might have been before. Like he’s treading on eggshells around you. 

It’s awkward. Stilted. Taehyung’s eyes are heavy on your face as you accept the tea from his hands, trying your best to avoid brushing fingers; you turn away, pretending to turn your attention back to the drying paint on the wood panel that rests on your easel, anything to break eye contact.

And then he speaks.

“You’re avoiding me.”

Your lips are poised to drink, pursed at the rim of the mug when you freeze, eyes darting back to him.

“You’re avoiding me,” he repeats. His voice is quieter, tinged with all the confusion you’ve seen flit across his face since this whole thing started.

You slowly pull the mug away from your face, steam touching your skin like warm, wet fingers. “I’m not,” you say, even though the lie tastes bitter on your tongue. “We live together, Taehyung, it’s pretty hard to avoid you.”

When you laugh lightly, trying to lift the atmosphere, Taehyung doesn’t respond. If anything the air becomes heavier, his face an unmoving mask as his eyes churn with emotion. His LED might not be nestled in his temple any more, but you don't need to see it spinning in a distressed circle of yellow to know that Taehyung is confused.

“Why are you lying to me?”

Your eyes widen. He’s never been so direct before. (He hasn’t needed to be though, has he? Because you've never lied to him before, have you?)

“I just… I just want to know what happened. What I did wrong. I want to fix it,” Taehyung continues, and he sounds so small, so vulnerable. “Please?”

Your heart feels like it’s risen from your chest, up to your throat, making it hard to breathe. The only time he’s ever sounded like this was when—

When he’d first turned up on your doorstep, wet and scared and lonely. Not knowing if there was anyone he could trust, uncertain where he stood. 

“You didn’t do anything, Taehyung.” You try to put every ounce of feeling into your words and let him know that this is the truth. It’s not him. It’s not. “You didn’t do anything, please don’t think you did.”

“Then why are you avoiding me?” His voice rises, shaking, a bird trying to take flight on a broken wing. “If I didn’t do anything then why are you being like this? I don’t understand.”

“I’m just… trying to encourage you to be independent?”

The words sound weak to your own ears, so you can’t blame Taehyung for when his expression flickers and he looks almost incredulous.

“Independent?”

“You know,” you explain lamely. “Like… giving you space to grow. You don’t need me around all the time.”

“I don’t—” He cuts himself off. “Y/n. I want you to be there.”

“Because it’s what you’ve gotten used to.” You glance down at the drink in your hands, away from his sincere, dark eyes. “You’re just saying that because of circumstances, Taehyung.”

“I’m not!” You’ve never heard Taehyung so loud before, almost angry, like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “How can you think that?”

“Because it’s true!” Your own voice rises despite yourself, matching his, some frayed thing inside you finally snapping. “Why else would you want me around? No one else does! Why would you?”

You rarely raise your voice. You hate being loud, or rude, hate arguments, but there’s something boiling in your blood. Years of quiet self-deprecation, constant reminders of how you’re not really wanted; last choice, always. Single, always. Untouched, unwanted. Taehyung—beautiful, kind, sweet, lovely Taehyung—wouldn’t be here right now if he had anywhere else to go. Too beautiful and kind and sweet and lovely for you, as disappointing, undesirable as you are.

Because that’s the truth. Even if you’re surrounded by friends, warm and bright, at the end of the day, they go home with each other, to their lovers, their families, and you go home alone. At least you had, until Taehyung—and he’s only here because you were the only safe place he could run to. Not because he chose you. 

(No one chooses you. Why would they?)

Taehyung’s eyes are so big and round as he stares and stares and stares. His lips are a little parted around a soundless noise of surprise, disbelief, before he opens his mouth to respond properly.

And then all the lights go out.

Lightning flashes, throwing the room into sharp focus for just a second before the night is split apart with the loudest clap of thunder yet. Like the ground has split open, louder than anything you’ve ever heard in your life; you’d swear your teeth rattle in your skull, that’s how overwhelming and close it is.

You suck in a breath as you jump, hands jolting, and the mug falls from your grasp. You can’t see in the darkness but you can hear how it shatters, sending hot tea splattering over the dust sheets on the floor, away from you, but towards—

“Taehyung,” you gasp, reaching out blindly. “Are you okay? Did it hit you?”

You hear him move closer, feel his fingers, reaching for yours confidently in this dark space. His grip is solid and warm and he squeezes, reassuring.

“I’m okay,” he murmurs. “I’m okay. You can’t see?”

“It’s too dark.” With the heavy clouds outside and the blanket of thick rain, there’s little light from the moon to shine into your studio, leaving you in a world of thick black and blue. “Can you see?”

“Android senses,” he answers. "I can see enough."

You wait for the lights to come back on so you can clean up the mess that’s scattered on the floor. And you wait. One beat. Another beat.

“I don’t think the power is coming back on any time soon,” you say. “Um.”

“Hold on.” You can’t make out Taehyung’s features in this all consuming darkness, but you can picture the expression on his face, the concern that bleeds through into his words. “If you move you’ll step on something and hurt your feet. Hold on,” he says again, and then lets go of your hands.

“Taehyung? What are you—”

You let out an embarrassing squeal as you feel the world tilt, but Taehyung’s grip on you is confident and sure as he lifts you, one hand under your knees and the other scooped around your back. Like you’re a swooning, blushing bride.

“Taehyung!”

“It’s the safest thing to do.” He sounds determined, no room for argument, so you decide to shut up.

Even though you know how strong he is, with all his android strength, you can’t help but reach out in the darkness, looping your arms around his neck to try and help lighten his burden. You feel your cheeks burn and you hope that the darkness saves you from your obvious embarrassment. 

The power still hasn’t come on by the time he deposits you in the kitchen, easing you to the floor with a level of care and delicacy that leaves something in you aching. When you check your phone—mostly charged, thank God—it seems like powercuts have hit this entire part of the city, and there’s no ETA on when things will be back up and running.

Which leads you to this. Sitting on the cold tiles of your kitchen floor, a few large candles flickering light across you as you dig into a carton of melting ice cream that you’ve saved from your freezer, licking the dripping flavours of sea salt and caramel from the spoon. 

Taehyung is sitting next to you in this flame-lit bubble you share, quiet even as the world outside is full of the sound of endless rain and lightning. He’d helped you navigate the darkness, settled you safely before going to find some candles; looking after you while you can’t see and he can.

You’re intent on the ice cream, leaning against the kitchen cabinets and carton settled between your knees as you use it as an excuse not to talk.

Taehyung, though, is intent on you.

“Y/n?”

His voice breaks the near silence, soft around your name. You pause, half-way through scooping another spoonful of ice cream to your mouth. There’s something in his tone that you’ve never heard before, from anyone, something you can’t put a finger on.

“Yes?”

“You said that no one wants you around,” he says. Your fingers tighten around the handle of your spoon and keep your gaze cast down, at the thick drip of cream from your spoon that threatens to spill. “Why would you say that?”

You don’t respond. Not right away. 

Then you take in a deep breath, letting the spoon fall back into the tub.

“Because they don’t,” you say plainly. “I mean… Taehyung. I was only at the Eden Club because my friends know that I’m perpetually single. I’m glad I got to meet you, so glad, but… I live alone because no one wants to be here with me.”

You’ve never said anything like this out loud before; kept your lingering loneliness close to your chest. Really, in most parts of your life, you’re content, but sometimes you can’t help but be pulled under by the heavy feeling of how unlovable you are. Even if you try to remind yourself that you’re worth being loved too. 

(After all, if you were—then why are you still here alone?)

“I do. I want to be here with you.”

Taehyung’s words are soft and gentle and low, but for all their tenderness, you can’t help but sigh.

“Like I said, Taehyung, it’s just circumstances.” A murmur. “You’re only here because you have to be—”

“I’m not.” He interrupts you; something he’s never done before. It shuts you right up, even if his words aren’t sharp. Emphatic, yes, but soft around the edges. “I chose to come here because of you. You’re the only person who’s ever made me feel safe. Even when I was at the club, and I didn’t know anything except what I was told to do—I knew I could trust you. I only started to remember things after we met, and I was there for weeks before I left, finally remembering the things I had to go through. Again and again and again. Over and over and over. No one was ever kind to me, not once. Not once.” 

“Taehyung,” you breathe, sadness filling your chest for him, but he doesn’t stop. 

“People would come in, take what they wanted from me, and then they would leave. They didn’t care about me. They would just tell me what to do and I’d have to listen, be the perfect android they wanted, that they’d paid for. Then I ran. But even as I was running here, I was scared. I thought that maybe it was a fluke. Maybe I was wrong. I was scared that maybe you weren’t actually kind, maybe it was a lie, maybe you were just like all the other humans—but anything was better than the club. So I took my chances. And you let me in. You let me in and you were so kind. You give and give and give and you’ve never asked for anything back.”

“I just did what anyone else would,” you mutter, glancing away, shy.

“But you didn’t. You were the only person who ever looked at me as something more than just an android. Don’t you see that? Even after giving me so much, you haven’t asked for anything. I try my best to look after you, but…” Taehyung takes in a deep, deep breath, sucking in air that his android body doesn’t need. You’ve noticed that it’s something he does to ground himself; such a human thing to do. “I want to give you so much more than you’ll ever accept.”

You look at him, something sparking deep and low in your stomach. “You don’t have to give me anything, Taehyung.”

Light dances across the perfect angles of his face, candle flame painting him from second to second, shadow and radiance. He looks familiar and unfamiliar all at once. You’ve known him for long enough, stared at him for long enough that you could paint his face in your sleep; the strength of his brows, the depth of his eyes, the slant of his nose, the flush of his lips; the tiny moles that are scattered across his skin, the perfect line of his jaw, his chin.

But in the paltry candlelight, he looks like an altogether different person, almost. There’s something to the set of his face that you’ve never seen, hard to track in the ever changing light—not the soft domesticity you’ve grown familiar with from Taehyung, and not the sheer, overwhelming sensuality of V. Something that’s both, something that’s not, something that’s more. 

“I want to give you everything. I want to. Y/n, I want. Androids don’t want, but I want. I want, I want, I want.” A repeated mantra; a prayer. “I want because of you. I want to be here with you. I want to spend time with you. I want to learn with you. I want to know everything you like and everything you don’t like. I want to know what makes you sad and what makes you happy. I want to be one of the things that makes you happy, like you make me happy. I want to look after you. I want you to let me love you. I want you. I want you. I love you.”

Your mouth is open, caught in a breath, stuttered in your throat. Taehyung doesn’t shy away from your wide-eyed, speechless gaze, staring back at you with an intensity you thought you’d never see directed at you; tenderness and affection and want.

“You want to—you… you love me?” Your voice is weak with disbelief. Taehyung loves you? 

“I thought you knew, and that’s why you pulled away,” he says. “Because I’m an android, I’m not good enough—”

“What? No, Taehyung, never, no. I would never think that—” 

“But you were pushing me away.” For the first time since this conversation started, he sounds unsure, the tiniest tremble at the corner of each word. “You were pushing me away and I don’t know why. Why?” He reaches for your hand, sliding his fingers between yours. “Aren’t you happy with me?” 

You wonder how fast your heart is beating. Know that Taehyung will be able to read it, palm to palm, his skin against yours, an endless amount of information running from that point of contact and up his arm; following lines of circuitry and neural connectors, up-up-up, pulled into whatever part of his system counts as his brain, dissected so much faster than the human brain could comprehend. But even with all this information, all this incredible processing speed and power—he’s just as confused and uncertain as any other person might be.

“I am. I am happy. So happy,” you whisper. Then you take a deep breath, grounding yourself just like Taehyung had. “I’ve never been so happy before, Taehyung. You make me happy.”

The android smiles. Quiet but undeniably happy as well, his eyes so dark, so soft. “You make me happy, too,” he says, and then he lets out a small laugh, a sweet little thing, like the scrape of a spoon around a mixing bowl. “I can only feel happiness because of you. You’re everything.” 

But then the laughter fades, and he’s looking back at you with solemnity, lingering confusion. “If I make you happy, then why were you pulling away from me?”

You stare at where your hands are joined, Taehyung’s hand under yours, lifting yours up and away from the cold tiles of the floor. “Because,” you start. Stumble. Take in another breath, heart squeezing in your chest. “Because I was scared my feelings were too much.”

A beat of silence. Then you feel Taehyung’s other hand as he lays it softly against your cheek to turn you towards him. It’s terrifying, how close your face is to his. Completely vulnerable, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. He doesn’t say anything, just watches, and you find yourself crumbling in the face of his warm gaze.

“Because I thought I was taking advantage of you,” you say. Slow and faltering. “Because I thought it was—I thought I was being selfish. I realised that I loved you, and I can’t—I couldn’t imagine that… I couldn’t imagine that you wanted me back.”

Taehyung’s eyes flutter shut as your words wash over him. The hand on your cheek coaxes you closer, and of course, you go; let your forehead get pressed against his, a tender motion, faces so close he can feel the warmth of your breath. 

“Y/n.” Your name sounds safe in his mouth, like he’s keeping it close, handling it delicately, carefully, eyes opening so he can look at you with an adoration you’ve never seen. Not for you. Not until now. “Can I kiss you? I want to. Please?”

You feel heat rising on your cheeks, a flush that threatens to spill over, but nod. You don’t think you have the strength to speak right now. Taehyung smiles again, lighting up this space you’ve scraped out for each other, him and you; you and him.

When he leans in, there’s the briefest moment of panic that flickers through you. You haven’t kissed anyone in such a long time. You’re worried you’ll mess up, be clumsy, bad, and Taehyung will be disappointed. 

But then his lips touch yours—and all that worry washes away. It’s a short-lived thing, the briefest brush of his mouth, barely a kiss at all. And then again, he leans in, tracing the shape of your mouth with his: a kiss to one corner of your mouth, and then the other, your cupid’s bow, the swell of your bottom lip. You’ve never felt like this—vulnerable but safe, all at once, Taehyung taking his time as you fall, fall, fall, his hand still cradling your face, his touch solid and grounding even as his kisses are featherlight.

“Taehyung,” you whisper, lips brushing his as you shape them around his name. You still have one hand in his and tighten your grip, squeezing. “More.”

You can feel his smile when he leans in one more time, guiding you with the broad palm against your cheek. So soft, so gentle. Adoring and reverent. His lips are so full, slotting against yours so perfectly when he finally, finally kisses you properly. 

You lose yourself in the sensation. It’s so easy to lose yourself in Taehyung, as lovely as he is, his mouth lovelier still. One kiss turns to two, to three, four, deep and slow; by the time you break apart, there’s a little sheen on his lips, sparking out in the candlelight, a layer of gold leaf that shines. 

“Can you say it again?” He asks. “Say that you love me?”

You can’t help but want to hide your face, bashful and shy. You’ve never said those words out loud, with the weight of feeling Taehyung is asking from you—but you look at his lovely, lovely face, lips flush with evidence of your kisses, and your heart swells in your chest.

“I love you.” The words come so easily. “I love you.”

And when he smiles, it’s so bright and radiant you feel you might be blinded by it. It doesn’t leave his face even as he stands, guides you up with him; careful to avoid the tub of ice cream that’s been forgotten on the floor, more melted cream than ice now.

This time, when he lifts you, he doesn’t break eye contact—keeps his gaze on yours as he pulls you close, and then picks you up.

It’s effortless, the way he carries you. Big hands that cup the back of your thighs, your legs around his waist and arms around his neck, lifted like you weigh nothing. You break eye contact, overwhelmed, burying your face in the crook of his neck, feeling the way he shakes as he laughs, soft and affectionate.

“Shut up,” you mumble, embarrassed, but then go quiet as you feel the press of his lips into your hair.

Taehyung’s the only person who’s ever carried you, but it’s less about that and more about how safe you feel in his arms. Wrapped around him, pressed close, warm-warm-warm. You feel like a burden has been lifted from you, unshackled from your neck now that you’ve confessed the budding feelings that had burst into full bloom even when you’d tried to shove them back into the dirt—because Taehyung feels the same way. He feels the same way.

The rest of the apartment is still bathed in darkness. But Taehyung navigates it easily, keeps you held close even in the dark, and you trust him. Even when you feel his grip loosening as he eases you down, you trust him, letting yourself fall back onto the softness of your bed. (Even if you want to keep hold of him.)

You wait and watch as the room starts to fill with light, Taehyung returning with the lit candles from the kitchen before setting out more, laying out all the scented candle jars you’ve had stashed away. The familiar surroundings of your bedroom are bathed in warm, dancing light, Taehyung’s shadow a multi-faceted silhouette that shifts each time a flame sputters.

He looks up once the final candle is aflame, meeting your eyes—and you don’t feel the need to drop that gaze, to glance away, pretend you weren’t watching him, entranced. Because he welcomes it. He grins at you, toothy and bright, and your own lips split into a smile.

“I guess it’s a good thing I like candles, huh?”

“They’ll help keep the room warm,” Taehyung says, and, that’s right, you hadn’t thought of that. 

No power: no heating. The longer the power is out, the colder it’ll get, the chill of the hard rain filling the world outside.

“Don’t worry,” he adds, setting the lighter aside. “I’ll keep you warm.”

There’s nothing behind those words. No implication at all. And yet you find yourself flushing, looking away from him, flustered.

There’s a beat of silence as you keep your eyes turned away from Taehyung, looking at the shadows on shadows on shadows that ripple across the walls—and then you hear how his bare feet shift across the floor until he’s at your bedside.

But he doesn’t stop there. You feel how the mattress dips, eyes flying back to the android, growing huge and round when you watch how he settles himself above you; hovering, so so so close, aware of how he’s not touching you, and yet. You swear you can feel the weight of him, a phantom touch on your body and across your skin.

Your mouth goes dry when he murmurs your name. The word drips from his mouth like honey, thick and sweet, and a shiver skates up your body.

“Do you want me to keep you warm?” He asks, and, oh. Oh. This time the words are heavy with meaning, shimmering gossamer curtains barely drawn to conceal it, smouldering intent in his eyes. “Let me look after you?”

You’re reminded, all at once, that while you’ve taught Taehyung a lot of things since you’d met, there’s one thing he knows that you don’t. Intimacy, and pleasure, and lust. Sex. Something you’ve been deprived of, even if you’ve quietly craved it, waiting for the right time, the right place, the right person.

Taehyung takes your silence as hesitation, his face softening.

“Only if you want,” he says. “Only if you want to say yes.”

“I want to,” you say, surprised by how fast the admittance leaves your lips. You do want it—want Taehyung, in every way he’s willing to share, want it desperately. “I just—” Embarrassment floods over you, and you look away again. “I’ve just never… done anything. Before. I’ve never, um.”

“It’s okay to be a virgin, Y/n,” Taehyung says, and you can’t help but squirm a little at how plainly he says it while you try to avoid saying it out loud, even if you know it’s stupid. There’s nothing wrong with being a virgin, you know that, but for some reason you feel almost ashamed at admitting it. Insecure. Even if the android clearly doesn’t care, not one bit. “We can go as slow as you want, or stop altogether. I’ll take care of you no matter what.”

You’re nervous. But louder than your nerves is a growing voice that’s chanting yesyesyes, and another voice that reminds you: you’re safe with Taehyung. No matter how nervous or uncertain you are, or how little you know, you do know that you’re safe with him.

“Okay.” You take in a breath. “Take care of me, Taehyung.”

And he does. With all the slowness of a meandering river and a smile curling his lips, he starts to kiss you again; there’s nothing rushed about his motions, as tender as before. Like the two of you could kiss forever and he would be content with that. 

And then you feel how he shifts, the softness of the kisses warming into something heavier, more purposeful. The glowing embers of a coal that are being coaxed to full flame, his tongue pressing past your willing lips, swallowing down the shaking gasp that shudders out of your mouth.

He trails his lips away from yours, across your jaw and up; you shiver as he noses at the soft skin behind your ear before kissing it, tremble at each intent touch of his lips against you, and it’s only when he reaches the hollow of your neck that you realise that you’re making noises, little inhalations of air each time he mouths at your sensitive skin, lets his tongue trail across it.

You’ve been holding onto him, hands cupped around the back of his neck, and when he sucks at your pulse point you tighten your fingers and let out a gasp. You can feel the answering hum that Taehyung gives, his mouth pressed so close that you can feel the vibrations, and it’s so much already. No one’s ever kissed you like this. No one's ever eased their weight down on you so carefully, pressing you down to the mattress with a delicate, delicious pressure that leaves your entire body growing hotter and hotter.

“Oh, oh, Taehyung.” You’d be embarrassed by how breathless you sound if you weren’t so distracted by something else—one of Taehyung’s hands, splaying over your stomach, heavy through your shirt.

“Can I take this off?” He’s murmuring into the crook of your neck, question warm against your skin. His long fingers rest, waiting at the hem of your shirt, patient even as he presses another kiss to the junction where your neck meets your shoulder: this time, edged with teeth, making you shudder as he soothes it with his tongue.

Your voice fails you, but when you nod, Taehyung responds immediately. You let him lead, follow the steps of this dance he knows so well—shiver at the feeling of his fingers sliding under the hem of your shirt once you've sat up, your stomach jumping as they brush against you, before he lifts it up and over your waiting arms.

Even though you’re wearing a bra, the second you see Taehyung’s eyes move down, you cover yourself reflexively. Even with all the flickering candles there’s enough light that there’s no darkness to hide in, shoulders hunching inwards as you try to hide yourself away. 

You’ve never let anyone see you like this like this before.

Taehyung’s touch is patient as he slides his hands over yours, looking at you with an infinite amount of sincerity and affection. He doesn’t try to pull your hands away from your chest, just waits. Patient. And like you always do, you find yourself melting under the gentle touch of his gaze. You let your hands fall, even if you’re acutely aware of the plain bra you’re wearing, something cosy for a day at home.

Taehyung ignores it. He shifts in and you steel yourself, expecting him to reach around your back for the clasp—but instead he starts to kiss you again. Deeper, hotter, his tongue sweeping over your lower lip before he nips at it. You let yourself get lost in the sensation, angling your head to chase his mouth, and it’s only when you feel the straps start to slip off your shoulders that the android has unclasped your bra without you noticing.

When he pulls away, he trails his hands across your shoulders and hooks his fingers into the trailing straps of your bra, and waits. You bite your lip and steel yourself, feeling foolish even as you hesitate—because Taehyung is looking at you with simmering awe and smouldering want. Like you're perfect. The most beautiful woman alive. 

So you don’t stop him. You let him pull his touch down your arms, slow, slow, slow—and then, all at once, you’re completely naked from the waist up.

That simmering awe and smouldering want is still there. Warmth flushes over your skin under the heat of his gaze, the way it sweeps over you. You never knew that someone could look reverent and hungry at the same time. Never knew that someone would look at you like that.

It bolsters your shaking confidence, helps you lift your chin as you lean back on your hands, and you’re entranced at how Taehyung follows. Caught in your gravity. He raises his arms, bra cast aside and long forgotten as he cups the weight of your breasts in his hands.

Oh, oh, oh. When he pinches one of your nipples between thumb and forefinger—already hard, sensitive—it’s already so much, but then he bows his head and—

You hear a noise, and you realise that it’s coming from your own lips. A shaking gasp that trembles in the air as Taehyung sucks and licks, dragging his tongue against your nipple; one, and the other. You fall once more to your back and he goes with you, relentless even as he stays slow and you arch your back helplessly towards him.

“More?” He murmurs against your skin.

“Oh, God,” you whimper, and he lifts his mouth away from your nipple to press a kiss to the skin above your racing heart. “Please, more.”

It feels so good. Taehyung makes you feel so good, as talented and gorgeous as he is, so wonderful. He keeps laving attention on your breasts, hands skimming over the soft skin of your chest and stomach, goosebumps rising in the wake of his trailing fingers, his warm palms.

You can’t look away when he finally pulls back, breathless from the sensation of it all. He settles on his knees, tugs off his hoodie and then his shirt, revealing all the lovely planes of his body that you’ve seen before, but this time, you don’t have to look away. You can look.

And you can touch, too. 

You sit up and raise a tentative hand to stroke down his chest, his stomach, that little trail of dark hair that descends into his loose grey sweatpants; your mouth goes dry at the sight. Taehyung watches the way your fingers drag over his skin, growing bolder moment by moment, but still too timid to venture past his waistband, low on his hips as they are. You’ve never had a chance to touch someone like this, to feel the smooth, soft skin under your greedy palms—Taehyung’s so warm, so alive. So human.

You think about the other hands he’s had on his skin. Grasping and greedy, taking and taking. People who didn’t care for him. People he couldn’t say no to. But he’s here with you because he wants to be. He lets you touch him because he wants it.

“Angel?” 

You glance up at the sound of the gentle pet name, away from where your hands have been tenderly tracing the lines of his hipbone. “Mm?”

Taehyung’s expression is soft and affectionate. “What are you thinking about?”

“You,” you answer honestly. He leans over to kiss you, and you’re smiling against his mouth when you feel the hand on your shoulder, pressing you down against the mattress again.

Then. His hands are at your waistband. Your breath quickens, but Taehyung’s eyes stay on your face even as your breasts rise and fall, shining with evidence of the touch of his mouth and tongue.

You lift your hips, and Taehyung smiles. Keeps smiling as he strips you, underwear and all, and when your thighs instinctively go to close shut, he catches your knees and keeps your legs open—gentle but firm, swiping his thumbs up and down the side of your knees, a tender touch even as you’re naked in front of him. You see the look on his face, drenched in candlelight, and swallow even as you force your legs to relax.

Then he looks down.

“Oh, God,” he groans, and one of your legs jumps in his grasp at the sound of his voice. Hoarse and deep. Almost unrecognisable. “Oh, angel, look at you.”

You’re so, so wet, so wet it’s embarrassing, so sensitive and responsive to every single one of Taehyung’s touches and kisses. The edges of his hair are spun gold in the candlelight but his eyes are so deep, so dark as he drinks down the sight of you spread out in front of him, wet and wanting and willing. You still want to hide away, cheeks burning, but you can’t look away from him. Can’t look away from how he seems almost pained, brows drawing together as he stares at the shining, flushed lips of your cunt.

“Taehyung.” Your voice shakes. “Taehyung, please.”

You're naked and vulnerable but—but the way he looks at you is so adoring, and you trust him. You trust him.

Just like earlier, his hands cup the back of your thighs. But this time, it’s not to carry you. You twist on the bed when he ends up eye level with your dripping cunt, utterly exposed. Those hands slide up your thighs and under your hips, tilting them up. Your fingers have been resting on the bedspread and tighten in them, bunching in your grasp when Taehyung presses a kiss to the softness of your inner thigh. 

One kiss. And then another. And another. His breath is warm as it curls out across your skin. You feel like you’re about to shake out of your body, wanting to pull away, wanting to lean in; wanting more, even when it feels like too much. Overcome with it all, even if you trust Taehyung. Safe under his hands, his lips. All you can think about is how close he is, face only inches away from your most sensitive parts—

Then he turns his head and—

The noise you let out is almost a keen. His mouth is on you, hot and wet, lips and tongue, and you’re writhing, overwhelmed with sensation. He starts slow, balls of your feet digging into Taehyung’s back and toes curling as he mouths at you. Your hips buck, and your hands are tangled in Taehyung’s hair—when did that happen?—as you sob at the feeling of his lips around your clit, unlike anything you’ve ever felt before, but so so so good. 

He licks a fat stripe up your entrance and your grip tightens in his hair. He makes a noise when your nails drag across his scalp, almost a growl, face still buried between your legs as he presses his tongue in. You’d worry that he needs to come up for air, but he doesn’t, doesn’t have to stop—keeps licking and kissing and humming, responding to each of the sounds pulling out of your lips. Keeps staring up at you, your eyes locked, the way you can’t look away from the sight of his head between your legs, dark haired and incredible.

You don’t realise you’re speaking, words slipping out of your lips as your hips roll, oh-oh-oh, fuck, God, oh, and Taehyung doesn’t stop. On his knees, he worships you, learning what you like—things you didn’t even know—and does it again, and again, and again. One of his hands slides away from your hips and over your stomach, holding you down, keeping you still, and then the other hand—

He turns his head, presses a kiss to the junction of your thigh. “Okay?”

“Okay,” you answer, shaky and weak. So okay, more than okay.

“Going to finger you now,” Taehyung says, and you feel like you’re going to die.

“Okay,” you say again. “Okay, Taehyung.”

He smiles at you before he puts his mouth back to your clit, sucking, a welcome distraction as—with all the languidness in the world—presses a finger into you.

You’ve fingered yourself before. You’ve got your own toys, vibrators, things that are longer and thicker than just one of Taehyung’s fingers—but this feels so different, out of your control. One finger becomes two, your cunt so wet that the slide in is easy, slow, deep thrusts of those long fingers inside you, and you’re panting, you’re so fucking overwhelmed.

And then he curls those fingers as he laps his tongue over your clit and you almost shout, Taehyung’s name bursting from your lips as he keeps beckoning with those fingers and circling the sensitive nub with his hot, wet tongue. It’s so much, it’s so fucking much, it’s so good and you’ve never felt so good before—

You’re almost blindsided by the orgasm that explodes through you and you come apart with a sound you didn’t realise you were capable of making, a gasping moan that keeps unfurling as Taehyung keeps his mouth on you, feeling each pulse of your cunt as you cum around his fingers, tight-tight-tight. (You miss the way his hips kick into the mattress that the sounds you’re making, how much you tighten around him.) You never thought you’d be so loud, never thought you’d end up all but sobbing as Taehyung eventually leans back, candlelight brushing shining gold over the wetness over his mouth, his chin. Your wetness.

“Oh my God,” you gasp. “Oh, fuck.”

Little jolts of pleasure are still wracking through you, pulsations of pleasure that unfurl in your lower stomach; Taehyung rubs the pad of his thumb across your oversensitive clit and your entire body jumps, your legs going to snap shut as you gasp, only stopped by his body in the way. You realise, then, that his fingers are still curled inside you, and you shiver.

“One more,” he says, and your whole body shakes. “Can I give you one more?”

He still looks reverent, and hungry. Like he wants to devour you. Taehyung is usually so soft, a gentle summer breeze—but right now he’s so intense it might scare you if it was anyone else. But it’s not, it’s Taehyung, and there’s something—there’s something about knowing that he looks like that because of you. 

You let your legs fall open, watch how pleased he looks; how grateful. Like he's blessed to be able to do this to you. For you. You’re still so sensitive when he lowers his head again, but he’s slow and patient and coaxing, two fingers becoming three, and—that’s a lot. It’s a lot, but it feels good, Taehyung knowing exactly what to do to make you sob, your legs still hooked over his shoulders as he pulls you along that line between oversensitivity and mind numbing pleasure. This time, when you cum, it’s with three fingers buried deep in your cunt, the flat of his tongue pressed against your clit, back arching as you throw your head back and cry out. Your pussy throbs and it's so dirty, the wet sounds of his fingers thrusting into you, the slick sound of movement as you moan, and moan, and moan.

No one's ever made you cum before. Only you. And now you know what it's like to put your pleasure in someone else's hands, to have them intent on making you feel good, so good, and it leaves you dizzy. 

He’s praising you, you note dimly. He’s praising you, how well you’re doing, how good you are for him, and it leaves you feeling warm. You’re panting when Taehyung pulls his fingers out of you, moves so he can brace himself on his elbows and lean in to kiss you. You can taste yourself on his lips and tongue. You can feel his skin against yours, chest to chest, his weight pressing you down and then you can feel—

You let out a noise against his lips. There’s nothing else that can be, that hot weight. You might not have felt it before, but you’re not stupid. That’s Taehyung’s cock, his hard length pressed against you.

“Taehyung,” you murmur.

“Mm.” He brushes his nose against yours, and the wave of affection that crashes through you is so strong it feels like it could pull you under. You didn’t realise that sex could be like this—that lingering shockwaves of pleasure could be skirting through your body as you lay there naked, still aroused and almost overcome, but also feeling so warm and soft and tender, too. 

You feel lax after cumming, a little more confident, bolder—and the noise Taehyung makes as you clumsily grasp at him through his sweatpants is incredible. You feel like you could get high on it, the way he sucks in a gasp as his mouth falls open, even if you don’t know what you’re doing as your fingers wrap around cloth and hard heat.

“Please,” you start, then stop. Swallow. “Please, Taehyung.”

You want so much you feel like you could pass out. You want to feel and touch and taste; you want everything you haven’t had a chance to experience yet, want it with Taehyung, someone who you trust. Someone you love. Someone who knows far, far more than you—will always know more—and you want to learn that from him. 

“Want you,” you say, and Taehyung looks pained all over again. He wants you, too.

“Fuck.” The word is rough, and you’ve never heard him curse before. The way he says it has something in you singing, as strange as that might be; you don’t think you’re ever going to get over how much you affect Taehyung. “What do you want from me, angel?”

Everything, you think. I want everything. 

“Let me see?” is what you say, squeezing your fingers around Taehyung’s length, feeling the way his hips buck into the touch. “Please?”

You never thought that someone taking their clothes off could be artistic. And yet, there’s something about Taehyung moving to stand and stripping off the rest of his clothes that’s completely arresting and beautiful; carnal and holy, all at once. You don’t even realise your mouth is open as you sit up and watch him, moving closer as you drink down the sight, the way he’s naked in front of you.

Taehyung. Naked. Naked and beautiful and hard, and it’s so overwhelming, everything about it, how much you want and how—oh, God, how big and thick he is, obvious even to you, someone with nothing to compare it to. Holy fuck. Should you think that his dick is pretty? Can dicks even be pretty? Taehyung’s is. Of course it is. He’s gorgeous all over. Maybe you’re biased because it’s him, but there’s something about the sight of his hard cock, precome gathering at his slit, that makes your mouth water.

Taehyung goes to say something, but before you can lose your nerve, you move forwards, and whatever he was going to say is lost in the sound of a choked off groan. He tastes like salt and musk, hot under your inexperienced hands and mouth, and you don’t know what you’re doing but the noises he’s making, fuck. You run your tongue up the throb of a vein you can feel on the underside, and all you can think about is how big he is, slow and careful with your teeth and lips as you try your best to do whatever feels good for him. 

His noises seem almost frantic but Taehyung’s hands are gentle when they comb through your hair. You look up. There’s a flush on his cheeks—red, not blue, you notice—and you pause, pulling off, suddenly shy after the burst of confidence that had you swallowing his cock down.

“Is this—is this okay?” You’ve still got your fingers wrapped around him, and maybe it’s a little ridiculous to be asking with spit and precome shining on your lips, but Taehyung’s answering smile is so affectionate.

“You’re perfect,” he says, and you know he’s not just talking about your clumsy blowjob. “Do you want to stop?”

You bite your lip and pump his length, which has Taehyung sucking a breath in. “I—what do you want?”

Something flashes through Taehyung’s eyes, and it feels like there’s electricity shooting down your spine before that look disappears. “This is about you, angel,” he says. “We can worry about what I want next time.”

Next time. This is the first time but it’s not the last. Oh, God. God.

Taehyung takes advantage of your distraction and hikes you up and away from the edge of the bed. It leaves you breathless, knowing how strong he is, how easily he can move you, even if he’s gentle-gentle-gentle. He settles in the cradle of your hips, and he’s so close, naked body flush with yours, covering you. His cock is so close—he just has to shift a little, just a little, and—well. 

Before that, though, there’s something you need to know.

“Taehyung?” Your voice shakes but you have to ask.

“Yes?”

“Is this. Um. Does this feel good for you, too?”

You’re always aware of the fact Taehyung is an android, even if he looks and feels and is human, too. (It doesn’t matter that he’s made of metal and thirium and circuitry. He’s human.) You lift a hand and thumb at the soft skin of his temple, where his LED used to sit; you don’t know how to communicate that you love him regardless, that it doesn’t matter to you if he's a man or robot. But you’ve wondered—you know Taehyung was built to pleasure humans. Even if he’s been reacting, making noises, looks for all intents and purposes that he is enjoying this—what if it’s all programming? What if he’s just doing this because he thinks it’s something you want?

He leans into your touch. “Angel.” It sounds like the word is being scraped out of him, hoarse and deep, all dark heat. “It feels good. You don’t know how long I’ve wanted this.”

He rolls his hips almost imperceptibly, but you’re hyperaware of every motion, how close you are. Your breath stutters in your throat.

"I want you to feel good," he says. "I've wanted to feel you and taste you for so long. I want to learn everything about your body. I want to know what you feel like around me. Under me. On top of me. You make me feel so fucking good, you don't even know," and, oh, fuck, those words go right through you, settle deep in your belly, leave you breathless. Taehyung sucks at your pulse point and you melt, even as your skin feels like it's burning, so hot, every part of you so hot, so ready for him.

Taehyung’s big enough that you’re worried about how he’s going to fit, even if you’re slick and wet and so, so turned on—you know about the importance of lube, used it often enough by yourself, but when you mention it to Taehyung he just smiles.

“Don’t forget that I’m a sex android,” he says, and before you can ask exactly what he means by that, you feel the tip of his cock at your folds and the question dies on your tongue.

“Please,” is what leaves your lips. “Please, please, please.”

“Anything you want,” he says, and eases his hips forwards.

Slow, and hard, and wet, the head of Taehyung’s cock starts to press into you. You grab at his back, digging your fingers in; it doesn’t hurt, not exactly, a not-quite-pain as he pushes in—but it’s a lot, even if the slide is smooth, so smooth, from your own wetness and the slickness that covers Taehyung’s cock. Your eyes are wide and your lips are parted and it feels—astonishing, the way you can feel yourself open up for him, the way it feels like he’s filling every part of you, throbbing heat.

“Oh, oh God,” you gasp. 

Taehyung’s forehead is pressed to yours, the loose locks of his dark hair framing his face as he waits, hips snug with yours. You shiver and move your hips a little, entire body seizing at the sensation of him shifting inside you. It's so new and alien, having someone nestled inside you, against you, so close in every sense of the term, above you, around you, inside you—but it feels… good.

And when he moves, it’s so, so slow. Slow and smooth as he works you open, even if you feel so tight around him. You drag your nails down his shoulder blades when he moves a little faster, a little roll of the hips that has you gasping all over again.

“More,” you say, and he gives you more.

You feel so full. You feel full of Taehyung, inside and out—the way his body is still pressing you down, skin on skin, how hot he is.

They call it making love, and it’s not until now that you really understand what that means—how you can feel Taehyung’s soft and tender affection in his every motion, read it in every shift of his body, the lines of his face, his lips; the way his eyes are dark but full of wonder, shining with love for you, pleasure singing through every inch of you, centred around Taehyung, Taehyung, Taehyung.

Each noise that falls from his lips is an echo of that love. Even when he leans back and takes you with him—settles on his knees, pulls your hips from the mattress to stay connected to you as your shoulder blades dig into the mattress, his cock in your cunt—there’s tenderness there, even if you’re both chasing mutual lines of pleasure. You feel almost dazed, dizzy with love and arousal, reaching out for him, and he catches your hand. The other stays at your waist, guiding you onto him, again and again, each roll of hips into yours.

“Taehyung,” you gasp, voice breaking on his name when he thrusts into you. He’s been increasing the pace, faster and sharper, harder, and it’s so-so-so much, so good. “I’m—Taehyung, I’m close, I wanna cum again, pleasepleaseplease—”

He lets go of your hand and then he’s thumbing at your clit and you’re cumming harder than you’ve ever cum in your life, Taehyung’s cock still hard and insistent inside you as you ride out your orgasm, pulsing around him. You’re gasping and making noises like you’re falling apart, and there’s something desperate in Taehyung’s eyes, something dark and wanton. 

“Angel, I’m going to cum soon,” he says, and you moan in response, hazy. “Do you want me to pull out?”

You shake your head no. You want to know what it feels like, to have Taehyung lose himself inside you. You’re about to reach out for him when he hooks his hands under your knees and hitches your legs up—you suck in a sharp breath as he starts to move again, almost bent in two, his face so close to yours. It's not rough but something about Taehyung taking control like that has you baring your throat, arching your back and throwing your head back. The hold he has on you is firm, and you feel how it tightens as his thrusts speed up, and then, fuck—

When Taehyung cums it’s around the gasp of your name, a hitching sound as he empties himself inside you, throbbing and hot. You let out an answering sound, the two of you locked together until Taehyung pulls out, careful and slow; you feel like a sweaty mess, empty without him inside you, but then his hands are so carefully cupping your face and he’s kissing you over and over and over. It leaves you feeling breathless, all those little kisses, struggling for air by the time you part, every part of you lax under his loving touch. 

“How are you feeling?” Taehyung murmurs, soft and sweet. 

“Good,” you murmur back. And then your nose crinkles. “Sweaty.”

Taehyung laughs, quiet and low. You turn your face into the crook of his neck, hiding your smile as you breathe him in. You do feel sweaty, and there’s an ache settling inside you, but it’s a good ache. A glowing ache, an unfamiliar one, but one that you know you'll get to feel again, with Taehyung.

You’ve just leaned back to take him in all over again, painted syrupy sweet in the golden candlelight—when the lights suddenly turn back on. It floods your eyes and you make a noise of surprised pain as you squint against the sudden brightness, but then you start to giggle, shock melting into laughter.

When your laughter dies you realise Taehyung’s been watching you. The room is full of shining light now, and you realise you’re still naked, entire body shaking as you’ve been giggling. You’d feel embarrassed about your nakedness if you hadn’t just shared yourself with him, bared yourself in ways that are more than skin deep. There’s an instinctual part of you that wants to cover up now that there’s nowhere to hide, no flickering shadows to cover up the parts of your body that you don’t like, the flaws you don’t want Taehyung to see. But he just looks fond, fond, fond, love and affection dripping off him as he watches the way you smile shyly up at him.

“Hi,” you say.

“Hi,” he says, and smiles back, wide and bright. 

You love him. You love him, and he loves you, and you trust that love. As hard as it might be to believe, you trust that this is what he wants—that you’re what he wants.

“Do you want me to carry you to the shower?” he asks, and you can’t help but laugh again, warm through and through, how he’s still taking care of you.

“Not yet,” you say. 

You end up against his chest, wrapped close. You’ve laid your head in his lap countless times, but he’s never been on his back before, never had his arms around you like he doesn’t want to let go. Taehyung might not have a heart, but the thirium pump nestled in his chest beats steady as you stay nestled against his side. 

You’re drawing little circles on his skin with your fingers when he catches that hand and lifts it to his mouth, presses a tender kiss to your fingertips.

“I love you,” he says.

You feel like liquid sunlight, shining happiness as you melt, melt, melt. And the feeling stays, body filled with it, even after Taehyung coaxes you out of bed and into the shower to wash the sweat off your body; when he drags a soapy loofah over your back you can’t help but laugh, so in love, so loved.

And when you fall asleep, it’s not with your head on Taehyung’s thigh. It’s with his arms around you, his chest to your back, his body curved around you. You don’t want tonight to end, but you also can’t wait for tomorrow, knowing that it’s another day with him, with Taehyung, your Taehyung. You never thought that love would be like this, never thought that you’d feel love like this, cared for and protected and loved, loved, loved.

“Not staying late?”

You pause in the process of shoving everything into your bag. Hoseok is leaning against your desk, a smile curling at his lips as he raises his eyebrows at you, almost suggestive.

“Nah, I’ve got a dinner to get to,” you say. 

“You seem a lot happier lately,” Hoseok comments, and when you don’t fall for the bait, he wiggles his eyebrows. “The girls think that you’ve got a secret boyfriend that you’re too shy to tell anyone about.”

Taehyung still greets you every day when you get home. But now, every greeting is punctuated with a kiss—and sometimes a little more. When you stop to think about it, it’s startling, this thing that Taehyung’s taught you. That the simplest of things can turn into something more, love edged with lust, that it’s all part and parcel of loving someone, being with them, being comfortable with them. Just the other day you’d been reading on the sofa, and then Taehyung’s fingers had curved over your thigh and the tablet had fallen from your hands—

Hoseok clicks his fingers in front of your face. “You’re zoning out again,” he says.

“I am not,” you say, zoning back in. “I was thinking about if I needed to buy any food on the way home.”

“To feed that secret boyfriend of yours?” Hoseok says, and you laugh in his face.

“Definitely not to feed the rumour mill,” you say. Hoseok pouts but it’s good natured, and he waves you off with a smile, letting you leave the office without trapping you in an interrogation for the gossip you’re certain your coworkers are hungry for.

It’s your turn to cook for Yoongi and Seokjin, so you’ve got to get home to help Taehyung. Both men had been spectacularly unsurprised when they’d found out about the two of you. Yoongi had remained calm as Seokjin crowed in delight, proclaiming I knew it, I knew that’s why you were avoiding Taehyung. 

“Feel lucky, Y/n,” Yoongi had said. “At least Taehyung has a sense of decorum and shame.”

“I think it’s a shame that my boyfriend is such a party pooper,” Jin had said. “I demand a dinner party! To celebrate your new relationship! Oh, I’m going to bake the biggest cake.”

“Oh my God,” you’d said, and Taehyung had just smiled.

The truth is that you’re grateful for your neighbours and their support, grateful for their friendship. Just because Taehyung looks human doesn’t mean that you don’t worry about him, worry that someone might discover that he’s a deviant; Jin’s slipped under the radar for long enough, and you hope it’s the same for Tae, too. And yet you can’t help but think about it, think about the present, the future, how your lives are going to unfold as time goes by.

When the door swings open to your apartment, though, that’s the last thing on your mind. All that’s on your mind is Taehyung, Taehyung, Taehyung, your love appearing just as you’ve kicked your shoes off, all bright pink hair and dark eyes and welcoming hands.

“Taehyung,” you say, warm and happy.

“Hi,” he says, smiling so brightly, and then he kisses you.

You’re never going to get tired of kissing Taehyung; never going to get tired of how his mouth fits against yours, so perfect and sweet. But then he crowds you against the wall, swallowing down your gasp before kissing down your neck, running his teeth so gently across your skin.

“Missed you,” he murmurs, words dripping hot and slow. “Been thinking about you.”

“Taehyung,” you breathe. “Taehyung, we need to cook dinner.”

“We have time,” he says, and when he picks you up, you don’t protest. You go easily, wrapping your arms and legs around him, heat already gathering in your stomach as he walks the familiar path to your bedroom.

You have time: today, tomorrow, and every day after that. You have time with Taehyung, to learn with him, to love him. To be loved back. You don’t know what’s coming on the horizon, what the future holds—but then again, you never have.

There’s one thing you know now, though. No matter what happens, Taehyung will be at your side, and you’ll be at his. He wants you, and he loves you. You want him, and you love him. 

“I love you,” you murmur, and Taehyung kisses the words off your lips, lets the promise of your love settle inside him, warm and soft and safe.

“I love you too,” he says, and then you’re too busy to say anything, after that.

taglist:  @beyoncesdragon​ @vensulove​ @jalexad​ @beingbeings​ @lorielulu7​ ​ (can’t tag: @jeon-joon-kook)

[lesyasun]

A while ago I received an interesting question about game aesthetics. The person in that ask really struggles with downloading stuff and finding their own style. They asked me how I came up with what you see on my screenshots. Have you ever thought that you can recognize whose screenshot this is by just a quick glance? Is editing important in photoshop? How to take beautiful screenshots? Today let’s talk about how different one single game could be for each of us and what really makes this mysterious “sims aesthetics”.

EDIT: Sorry, it turned out to be huge with lots of random thoughts :D I hope at least one percent of these is useful!

NOTE: English is not my native language, I apologize for possible grammar or spelling mistakes. I tried my best in writing this!

Ok, let’s imagine that you’re a person who just obtained the sims game or just want a nice fresh start and demolished your download folder. (We all need fresh starts sometimes, right?) The struggle is that you have no idea which style you like the best. There are so many sims blogs. Everyone seems to enjoy what they post but you’re a little bit lost in that jungle. Don’t worry! I’ll try to guide you and share my thoughts.

STEP 1 Choose your general style

I roughly divide all sims blogs that I see on my dashboard into a couple of so-called styles. I’ve been doing it in my mind for ages. I like following different people and seeing diferent editing. None of them are better than others. I hope you understand that it’s just a matter of liking. Ok, here we go. Let me put this sorting hat on you :D

1. Realistic 

Screenshot by @luchiatores

Perhaps, it’s the most important thing that you should decide for yourself. Wether you should use realistic textures in your game or you’d prefer to stick to more cartoonish maxis match ones. Why is it so important, to my mind? I like things that match. Just imagine game Witcher 3 where characters and surroundings are realistic. And now imagine Minecraft where things are pixelated. Both games are great, both games have certain beautiful styles. And now imagine Geralt hunting for monsters in a pixelated Minecraft swamp. A bit strange, isn’t it? :D The same applies to Sims. If you put a super realistic skintone on your sim and put a Maxis ponytail, that would probably look strange too. If you choose this style, just try to dig for a good quality content, start following simblrs in this style. Unfortunately, I’m not an expert when it comes to realistic content. So, try to drop an ask to someone whose realistic game you like. There are so many helpful people around in the sims community no matter what style they have :)

2. Trully Maxis Match

screenshot by @whattheskell

This is a complete opposite of a realistic style. I’ve always called people who use a lot of original maxis textures “trully maxis” :D If you can decorate a house without any custom content, if you like the way original hairstyles look, if you like Maxis clothes, you should go this way. From what I’ve spot after being so many years in the sims community, “trully” maxis simblr are so creative when it comes to storytelling. The stories that they write about either their sims/or maxis premades are so breathtaking. So much drama, so much fun. The only thing that I write about my screenshots is “Ok, this is my cat! Look, it can eat flowers and puke afterwardst! Yay! Cute”. If you choose this way, I can recommend you to check out @holleyberry, @didilysims or @moocha-muses. Obviously there are a lot more blogs that I follow. These people are just so sweet and helpful and they’re first who came to my mind. 

3. Bright Maxis Matchery

screenshot by @muupi

This is where I refer myself to. This style is still Maxis but what stands out is the use of bright colours and saturated photoshopped pictures. Ah, my love for overedited pictures is endless <3 This is what I’m going to talk a lot below since it’s my cup of tea. It’s all about colours and pallete addiction. If you love looking at super bright/silly/cheery screenshots and they boost up your mood, than join the squad! 

Basically, Maxis match (I’ll just shorten for MM from now on) players avoid super shiny skins or hair textures and prefer to have content with Simlish letters instead of English ones. This is a very important factor for me when I choose paintings or prints for T-shirts. I don’t know, I feel like it’s so cute that sims can’t understand our languages, talk this funny gibberish simlish language. It’s cute! There are so so many people that I can recommend. @lina-cherie @keoni-chan @kahlenas They are first who came to my mind <3

4. Grungy/cosmic

screenshot by @lilithpleasant 

I don’t know if these are suitable words :D But this is how I describe people’s game who like aliens/supernatural sims/grungy textures with or without bright colours as well. Just think would you prefer a bit of a grungy stuff or less-textured but cleaner MM? You always need to think about textures while you download stuff. I can recommend to check out @pooklet or @furbyq-sims 

5. Semi

screenshot by @whysim 

You might ask me “Why am I not allowed to put a realistic skintone on a maxis sim? What the hell?” Of course, you are! Do it please, if you want. There are no rules, no restrictions. You CAN go semi-realistic, you CAN mix patterns, you CAN mix colours. There’s only one rule: please, enjoy what you do. Don’t be afraid to share your pictures on the Internet. There will always be people who can judje your style and say: “meh, it’s too dull, meh, it’s too bright, meh, too shiny, meh, too plain meh, meh, meh”. Just don’t pay attention and enjoy your game. As for semi-realistic I can recommend such wonderful people as @marvelann @lilith-sims @falkii @knowledgeaspiration 

A bit about my style: I’ve always loved cartoonish/bright style. I’ve never ever played with shiny textures. Before Tumblr era I just played either without CC or with a bunch of maxis recolours. How I came up with the idea of cartoonishness? Pretty simple. It’s a part of my personality, I think :) I’ve always loved Disney/Pixar movies. Cartoons just make life a lot funnier! They make me happy. I’m a pre-school teacher after all :D. You can’t imagine how many cartoons I’ve watched throughout my life. I can quote Peppa Pig and will never be tired of that :D Before Tumblr I just played some funny legacies (I’ve never finished any though :D) When I found out about Tumblr, and such great content that can make my game even more Disney looking, it just blew my mind! Every time when I download stuff, I imagine that I’m watching a Disney/Pixar or whatever studio cartoon. When I create sims, I feel like I’m a cartoon designer. Pretty silly, right? :D 

Let’s take a look at my screenshots from the past. I tried to find similar ones with a lot of greenery.

2014

2021

I stil like a lot of greenery. Editing has changed, photo angles have changed. But bright colours and Maxis stuff are forever in my heart <3

Risa (2014)

Gage (2021) 

As I’m a big cartoon addict, I love recreating game/anime/cartoon characters. No matter, if they’re my favourite or requested ones. I love when my sims have different traits. I love when they’re funny looking/clumsy/absent-minded or when they’re evil/supernatural. When they are pirates/detectives/vampires or witches. This is my way of playing Sims. I love this game as it gives us possibilities to show your creativity, a chance to recreate our favourite characters. A chance to be a writer of storylines or if you’re bad at telling stories, just being “a cartoon designer” like me :)

STEP 2 Colour palettes

If you’ve chosen the path of “bright maxis matchery” than colour palettes are super important! Oh, you can’t imagine how addicted I am to certain colours. I can download GBs because of it.

Here are some of my favourite colour palettes:

1. Anna’s colours

My absolutely favourite palette. I would download absolutely anything in these pretty colours. Just looking at them makes me so cozy *0* There’s a photoshop action for those who want to recolour CC in this palette.

2. Poppet’s colours

I especially like the latest one. So pretty! @poppet-sims is the queen of lovely recolours. She has some more palettes. But “Back to Basics is my favourite”

3. Eversims colours

@eversims has got a lot of pretty colour palettes. But the most iconic one is Ever So Lovely

So, these are the basic colours that I like downloading furniture/clothes with. 

There are a couple more pretty palettes that I like:

Huning’s Pony Colours

Back in the days it was my ultimate favourite one. But these days I edit my pictures in Photoshop excessively and prefer calmer colours and add bright layers in photoshop instead.

Nyren’s Kosmic Colours

If you’re more into pastels, than try to download some stuff in this pretty palette.

You might wonder if I use all of these colours. Of course not! I have a selection of colours that I use: apple green, sky blue, yellow, red, pink, orange, purple, teal, mint. I absolutely love combining 2 or 3 of these in my interior shots. I also love choosing my sims’ favourite colours and dressing them/decorating their bedroom in this certain colour(s).

For example, my sim Mia likes apple green/purple and mint.

I think @deedee-sims can relate. While I prefer choosing a favourite colour per sim, she chooses favourite colour for the whole family!

This is a great idea, I think! :)

STEP 4 Bodyshop stuff

Ok, I hope it’s clear that I’m colour palettes addicted, now let’s move onto actual custom content and what I prefer adding to my game. I decided to divide CC by sections. Let’s start with Bodyshop.

4.1 Skintones

Another important thing that you need to choose for yourself. There are tones ofoptions. I’m going to recommend only MM skins as obviously I have no idea which realistic or semi-realistic ones are high quality.

screenshot by @deedee-sims

If you prefer trully maxis skintones, I recommend you to try Leh’s skintones. It’s super close to original ones in terms of shades. Also look at those button noses! These cute noses is the reason why I started using this skin back in 2014. But later I switched to Lilith’s feather as I wanted more variety and those noses there got a lovely shine.

It was my default skin for a lot of years. These days I own every possible skintone by Lilith and various blends by other people.

Lilith’s Alien Flavor

Lilith’s Android Skin Edit

Lilith’s Apple Pie Skinblend v.2

Lilith’s Apple Pie Skinblend

Lilith’s Apple Pie by Kahlena

Lilith’s Feather Skinblend

Lilith’s Feather Skins 

Lilith’s Feather by Sim-Strangers

Lilith’s Feathers Colourful by Berrynooboos

Lilith’s Honey Supernatural Custom

Lilith’s Honey with freckles

Lilith’s Honey with no freckles

Lilith’s Honey Unnatural by Berrynooboos

Pixel-danger-sims pastel skins

Here’s a very handy set-up by Vimpse with Lilith’s skins being townified.

Try to choose one set of skins or download all of them by one certain creator. I need a lot of skins because I love creating tones of sims and I want to make them various looking.

4.2 Eyes

 ♦  Polaroid ♦ - my favourite

♦ Transcendental ♦

♦ Sleeping Lion ♦

♦  Sharp Eyes ♦

♦ Shallowed in the Sea ♦

♦ Hand Outs and Punch Ups ♦

These are just some of my eyes. There are some more by Poppet, by Kahlena. And I have various addons to these sets that I grabbed over and here. I remember having struggles of choosing only one set. But than I thought: why do I have to choose if I like all of them and want my sims to look as different as possible? I just love when they are cartoonish but high-quality with nice white clean sclera. Just look at Disney Rapunzel. You’ll see what I mean ^_^

There’s one little trick that most mm players do for making sims’ eyes bigger and rounder - adding a whiteline eyeliner by jesstheex. I personaly do it for every single sim of mine.

4.3 Makeup

I use tooooons of blushes, lipsticks and eyeshadows. I have everything by Lilith and Jesstheex. And lots of bits and bobs by various creators. I love using both matte or shiny textures. I sometimes add nose shine or use special nosemasks. There are various lovely things in my collection. What I can recommend you is to download a sim that you like by another creator with the help of Sims Clean Installer and just steal makeup from the sim to add to your collection *evil laughter* I recommend to do it because sometimes there are some mouth corners or various eyebags and etc which are difficult to find. It’s easier to grab them together with sims.

For example, I grabbed the shiny nosemasks from one of Lilith’s sims.

Sometimes I like adding a bit of shine on Sims’ noses. Some sims of mine don’t have shine. It really depends on a sim. But what I definitely like is cute button noses! I like using nosemasks to achieve that. I have all the masks by Lilith and these ones by kahlena.

4.4 Hair textures

Another important decision for you is the hair textures. I recommend you to choose one certain retexture. Back in the days, I used to have Remi’s textures

screenshot by @selenaq13 

I liked Remi’s ones because they were non-shiny. They had maxis colours and a really cool yellowish blonde! 

Receintly I switched to Simgarooped as I’ve always loved that there are 6 naturals. The yellowish blonde is still there! Plus my favourite Deedee-sims keeps updating every week with the retextures of new meshes <3

There are lots of various textures blends. Just search, download, play test. Think, if you’re ready to look at such type of hair hours of simming.

Also try to decide if you’d like to have more natural looking sims or go crazy and have supernatural/aliens. I used to have really bright sims with colourful skins and hairs.

Even my toddlers had unnatural hairs. It’s a lot of fun! But right now I prefer to create more natural looking sims though I like vampires/witches/aliens anyways!

screenshot by @honeylungsims 

If you would like to have colourful supernatural sims, check out Honeylung! She has the brightest and most unusual supernatural sims <3 

You’ll need a lot of face masks/bright lips/shadows. Check out @berrynooboos​ for the cutest alien CC.

4.5 Facial hair and Brows

I don’t think they should really match as long as they look great.

For example, I use eyebrows by @suratan-zir which are super cute and high quality but use Poppet’s textures instead of Simgarooped.

As for facial hair, I use some Poppet’s as well.

by Skoogy

by Poppet #1

by Poppet #2

by Simgaroop

4.6 Clothes

As I already mentioned, I love clothes in my favourite palettes. I love Simlish prints. There are so so many creators who share wonderful clothes.

I love @deedee-sims for age conversions, shoeswaps, morphs. I love @mdpthatsme for really cool 4t2 conversions. I love @moocha-muses for colourful T-shirts <3 Don’t be shy to send me a WCIF about a certain item of clothing.

STEP 5 Buy and Build

Tooons of bright recolours, IKEA items, Maxis add-ons, 3t2 and 4t2 conversions - all these things make my heart beat :D

These days I play in a rural-type world. I download a lot of craftsman-style build things, a lot of plants and garden deco.

I love bright wallpapers and greenhouses, I love clutter and kids CC for nurseries. Patterns with polka dots and plumbobs. Sunflowers and tulips. This is what I usually drop into my download folder :)

STEP 6 Taking screenshots

No matter which recolours and textures you prefer, I think high-quality pictures are important. The first thing that you need to playtest for yourself is a camera mod. It’s upo for you, but I can’t live without Gunmod’s Camera Mod. There are some more available, just check out.

Also lighting is important since Maxis original is terrible. I use Dreadpirate’s mod. 

I recommend to take screenshots in a camera man mode. Click Tab to enter it. Use W, A,S,D,E buttons to move right/left/up/down etc. And what’s important, use X and Z for zooming in and out. I always use Z for example, when I take close ups of my cats.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with angles. Try some artistic ones.

You can move your camera down and take a screen from below.

Or vice versa from above.

Sometimes I’ll just take a screen of my sims’ hands or feet. It really depends. I love spending hours on just “walking” in a camera mod around my sims houses.

Another useful feature of this mod is to use Ctrl +4,5,6,7,8,9 buttons.

These can fix the angles for you. And after fixing them, when you click on 4,5,6,7,8,9 you camera will go back to those positions. It’s very handy when you want to screen 2 sims who are talking and there’s no need to constatntly move camera from sidde to side. Just fix it and wait for them to perform cute emotions!

As a bonus, you can fic positions in the life mode too. For example, I always choose a proper angle from above where the wgole house can be seen. And wait for something cute/funny/to happen.

Also there’s such a thing as The Rule of Thirds. It’s the rule of photography composition. I always try to follow it :)

STEP 7 Photoshop Editing

I love oversaturated colours. It can be too much for someone’s eyes, but I like the brightness :) I’ll share some good Photoshop resources. Probably, one thing that I can recommend to absolutely everyone no matter how bright you want your screens to be is sharpening! Seems that Tumblr eats our picture quality for breakfast. Sims screenshots seem so blurry to me. I love sharpening them first.

I use sharpening from Kalekaloo’s action.

After sharpening I run the base from Eversims Action and then add some colour layers from Simburgerr’s one (I like gradients and fluffy lights layers especially). It makes the reds colours a little bit too saturated but I think it’s cute!

There are a some more cute actions and PSD files out there:

OhMySims - Action 1

OhMySims - Action 2

Sterina’s Action

Photoshop PSDs by Pleyita

Snapdragoned PSD

Mandragore PSD by Kiinuu

JellyBeanery’s Action

Roguebotanist

Nnilou - 12:51

A generic PSD by Knowledgeaspiration

Colorize IT by Bonnypixels

Colour Crush by Bonnypixels

Just Like Heaven by Pixeldemographics

For more tips/palettes/cute fonts I recommend you to check out @bepixeled

That’s all that came to my mind. I hope at least something was useful!

[artificialqueens]

Until the Flavor's Gone, 18/? (Biadore) - Kitschy Pixel

A/N: Well. Hello. I realize it’s been a very long time. I’ve been busy and also? This chapter was just a pain for so many reasons. I hope it was worth the wait though! Many thanks to Veronica for looking over this and making sure it wasn’t just a garbled mess. Feel free to follow me @kitschypixel because sometimes I post stuff.

In this chapter, it’s time to face the aftermath of the night before, and everyone does a little bit of soul searching. Let’s talk about feelings, shall we?

No real warnings expect for the usual excessive swearing, references to drug use, and a reminder that everyone flirts with everyone.

Chapter 18

Shane felt good. Nope. Shane felt great. Sated, satisfied, sensuous, salacious, showered. He felt it all right now and it was nothing short of fantastic. He hummed to himself as he leisurely walked down the hallway to Danny’s hotel room, his gait turning into a skip as he rushed to catch the very person he had to thank for his wonderful evening.

Roy lifted his head and instinctively wrapped an arm around as Shane bounded into him, chin to his shoulder and nose to his neck. “You’re chipper. Feel better?”

“Fan-tas-tic…” Shane purred before he pulled away and took Roy’s face in his palms. “You’re an angel.”

“Haven’t heard that one before,” Roy quipped, fingers tapping on Shane’s wrists. “I need to get going.”

Shane rolled his eyes and offered up a cheeky little grin that made his eyes sparkle a little with mischief. “Right. Of course. Don’t let me keep you.”

“It’s tempting,” Roy mused, just short of under his breath, flicking his eyes to Shane’s face to gauge his reaction. Shane shrugged, sparing Roy his opinion, smacking his lips together instead as he leaned back against the hotel door. Roy raised an eyebrow, “That it?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yeah, right.”

Shane lifted his hands up in surrender. “Listen. If you want to spend the rest of your life with generic underwear model number 5, you certainly don’t have to fight for my blessing. Do what you want as long as you’re happy,” he paused for a beat, pursed his lips and tilted his head. “Are you happy?”

Roy stumbled a bit on his answer, which was still wrought with sarcasm, “Sunshine and roses.”

Shane snorted back a laugh before curling his upper lip over his teeth and clamping his mouth shut tight. He mulled it all over, taking in the way Roy dawdled about and searched for ways to extend the conversation. “Okay…” he hummed. “If you’re dead set on ruining my wonderful night by needing my opinion, let’s head to the lobby.”

“Oh please, you love giving your opinion…”

Shane flicked Roy lightly on the cheek in protest but said nothing else as they both headed to the elevator. Their trip to the lobby was quiet, and the conversation didn’t pick back up until Roy checked his phone, making a show at calculating how much time he had left.

“You could just not go, you know. Just stay here. We can find space for you in one of the rooms.”

“Choose Boston over New Orleans?”

“Or choose spending time with friends who care about you instead of some petulant brat who wants to make you something you already said you aren’t,” Shane shot back, which made Roy laugh as he sat back into one of the lobby sofas that was a bit too stiff and a bit too deep to be reasonably comfortable. He chose to slouch at an odd angle to keep his feet touching the ground as Shane curled up beside him, elbow on the cushion above Roy’s head.

“Tell me how you really feel.”

“That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? My expert advice on your shit relationship?” Shane asked with a smile and a few coy bats of his eyelashes. “Remind me what you did that prompted this rather sudden trip to New Orleans that just had to happen when two of your closest friends – one you’ve had a past sexual relationship with and the other you could have had if you weren’t such a coward – ah!” He reached out and pressed his finger to Roy’s lips and shushed the protest, “Don’t argue with me when I’m making a point. Which was… oh yes! Your sudden need to leave town because we were going to be in New York and wanted to see you.” He snapped his fingers and looked heavenward. “A small vacation in your home town just seems like a very big apologetic gesture for you… and for what? Getting jerked off by some stranger in a bar bathroom?”

“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘cheating’,” Roy remarked as he stared blankly at the exit, suddenly reconsidering if he should have stayed for this.

“Cheating? I’m sorry, did you actually promise to be exclusive with this one? You never do that.”

“I… no. It was just… eventually assumed,” Roy closed his eyes to ignore the sharp ‘by him’ that Shane inserted before continuing, “I was hoping this would work.”

“Why? Do you actually see a future with this guy?”

Roy shrugged a shoulder, whispering a soft ‘probably not’.

“Mmm… okay.” Roy shifted a bit as Shane seemed to absent-mindedly play with his hair, the pads of his fingers brushing his ear in a way that Roy was fine with. “You wanna know what I think?” Shane grinned at Roy’s eye roll. “I think you can find better ways to spend your time than trying to keep up with some young trade that’s… what? Ten years younger? Who you’re just going to get bored with because he wants to challenge you in all the wrong ways.”

“I’ve been with younger.”

“Yeah, I know. They’re sleeping upstairs. Also? Not my point.” Shane frowned as he tilted his head. “Be honest with me. Why try to make this work? Why do you even want to? You’re not exactly the long term relationship type. Is it about sex, loneliness? What?”

Roy jerked his head away slightly to shimmy upwards so his back could be a little straighter. He pressed his lips tightly together to delay speaking for just a few more minutes and Shane began to think he just wasn’t going to answer. Then, slowly, with a voice uncharacteristically soft, he replied, “I don’t want to be that guy–” he gestured upwards before Shane got a chance to implore further. “The guy who does that to someone.”

Shane’s lips twitched into a smile as the pieces to Roy’s predicament started to click together and he shook his head. “Well look at you, growing a conscience… and you can’t even do that right.” He ignored Roy’s scoff and continued, talking over any argument that Roy had ready, “You are not the same as Danny’s ex. You didn’t make promises and you didn’t lie when you got caught breaking them. You just did what you always do. You decided to like a guy, got bored, and fessed up. You don’t need to make yourself miserable with someone who wants some different version of you to prove yourself. Some of us like you just the way you are.”

Roy wrinkled his nose a bit, pressing his tongue to the side of his cheek before he sat back up and stretched, cracking his back. “Well… that was gross and sappy.”

“You wanted my opinion!”

“Yeah. I thought you were going to be an asshole. Not pull this Mr. Rogers shit.”

Shane lightly swatted Roy on the arm, “See if I help you again then, you dusty old cunt!”

Roy caught Shane’s hand and pulled him forward into some kind of half hug, index finger to his chin as he released him. His eyes sparkled with a look that stirred up memories of flirting during fittings and the exchange of phone numbers from years ago. Shane squirmed a little and in a flash, it was gone as Roy broke away and gathered himself up to finally leave.

“Are you going to make your flight?”

Roy shook his head, a strange smile playing at the edge of his lips as he slung his carry on bag over his shoulder, “What flight?”

Shane’s eyes widened as he caught on quick, “Ahhhh,” he held up a finger and aimed it towards Roy, whose smile only turned into a wicked little smirk as if he was the most clever person in the world, “You never had to re-route a flight, did you?” Roy shook his head, “Because you two have already broken up.” A nod. Shane lifted his foot in a poorly executed kick in Roy’s direction, barely brushing his knee. “When?”

“After you called. We had a fight. I might’ve told him he wouldn’t be so insecure if he put out more. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s a bit of a blur.”

“You’re such a dick.”

“Yes, well…” Roy just made a vague hand gesture into the wind and shrugged the whole thing off. “Don’t tell him, okay?”

“What? That you’re a dick? I’m pretty sure he already knows, but I’ll pull it from the newsletter.”

Roy rolled his eyes and shook his head, “No. I mean… you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean,” Shane leaned forward with his chin on his knuckles and an angelic smile on his face, “Your secret’s safe for now. Go. Be a free, single man! Even though you could easily just stay here and be free and single with us.”

“Can’t. I do have an actual ride back that I need to get to before he leaves without me.”

“Ooooh, what kind of ride? Do I know him? Is he cute?”

“None of your fucking business!”

“So you should introduce me!”

“You wish!”

Shane blew a kiss and winked from where he was still perched as Roy retreated towards the door with a cackle and a middle finger. Shane watched him disappear, blinking a few times when he realized he was biting lightly at his bottom lip and wiped the slightly goofy grin from his face. He cleared his throat and looked upwards before making his way back to Danny’s room to provide a much needed wake-up call.

––––

The first thing Danny became aware of was the smell of a very familiar coconut-based body wash that seemed to wrap around him and make him smile. He groaned and dissolved into a fit of giggles seconds later, wiping at his cheek and craning his neck to grin at his new guest. “If you’re gonna use tongue to wake me, just give me a blow job.”

There was a light laugh and a soft hum as the arms around his waist loosened a little with a playful nip at his ear. “Crude but tempting. I’ll consider it for next time.”

“Finally,” Danny replied with a dreamy sigh before another set of giggles bubbled forward. He pulled away so he could turn over, facing a rather blissful Shane laying next to him. “You look happy.”

“I’m just relieved you got some proper sleep.”

“Shut up. You got dick.”

Shane wrinkled his nose and stuck his tongue out before sitting up and leaning back against the headboard. “Lady never tells.”

“Good thing you’re a slut. Fess up! Was he hot?”

“Gorgeous. Didn’t mind the drag either, which saved a lot of time for other things. Okay kisser, nice dick, great sex – very eager – and I still had time to shower before getting back here. Ideal night.”

“I’m glad Roy could give you the night off.” Danny shot a glance to Shane’s face and watched his reaction. Shane blinked and opened his mouth to possibly deny Danny’s insinuation before simply closing it and offering a quiet apology. He curled around Shane’s lap, cheek against his thigh, “I get it, I wasn’t being fair.”

“Mmm… he didn’t scar you for life or anything, did he?”

“Who? Roy?” Danny lifted his head a little as Shane hummed again in affirmation. “No,” Danny continued, pressing his lips tightly together before rolling onto his back and staring at the hotel ceiling. “He was actually not bad given… you know… the emotions.”

“I see he got you to wash your hair, though.”

“Ugh. He helped me wash it in the empty bathtub. It was so gross and humiliating. I cried about everything.” Danny paused for a beat to cringe, lip curling up in disgust with himself as the memories from the night before washed over him in a fresh, chilled wave of shame. He closed his eyes tightly and groaned, bringing his fingers to his eyes and pressing hard against them. “Fuck… I don’t know how I’m going to face him again.”

Shane reached over to gently wrap Danny’s freshly cleaned hair around the tip of his index finger before sighing, “He’s probably been in similar or worse circumstances, you know.”

“Yeah… funny how that doesn’t make me feel any better,” Danny spat out a little before he dropped his hand to his side and tilted his head a little to catch Shane’s slight eye roll. “Fuck. And I’m still being an asshole to you.”

“A bit, yeah…”

“What the fuck is wrong with me?” Danny’s eyes combed through the rather passive expression on Shane’s face – searching out an answer that the current silence wasn’t giving him before he propped himself up onto his elbows and groaned again. “Yeah, don’t answer that,” he muttered before he shimmied himself up slowly to sit upright, only to hunch forward and stare at himself in the obnoxiously large mirror that was across from them both.

The silence persisted until finally, Shane spoke up – slow and deliberate and delicate. “Question. Was it really that terrible to see him last night?”

“Yes!” Danny rolled his eyes, the light smile tempering the horror he still clutched to tightly. “I felt like such a child. You try getting a sponge bath from a guy you used to fuck, see how you feel.”

“Hot.”

“Oh fuck off. Don’t make it weird.”

“Mmm… think it’s a bit late for that.”

Danny pressed his middle finger to his temple, laughing in spite of himself before giving voice to a thought that’d laid dormant from when he first saw Roy again last night to now. “Hey… how’d you even get him here?”

“Oh, easy. I asked.”

“… so… you didn’t tell him about… was it Philly?”

“Cleveland.”

“Fuck. I knew it.”

“And no, I didn’t.” Shane sighed, reaching out to fuss with some stray strands of Danny’s hair. “I just told him I was worried. That’s all.” He tilted his head as he watched Danny visibly process the information. “You know how it is. You badger him enough and he can be reliable to a fault.”

Danny dropped the subject with a quiet, ‘yeah’, before shifting to the present with a few slow blinks and small shake to his head. “Made me realize this tour was a bad idea…” He picked up his phone and stared at it.

“You need a moment alone?”

“No..” Danny shifted so he could curl against Shane with the phone to his ear, finding an anchor as he waited for his tour manager to answer.

––––

The months after Boston, Danny had been dealing with the aftermath – clawing out of rock bottom and facing the consequences. He’d been so busy trying to do damage control so he could pick up his tour once it was rescheduled that he neglected one little loose end that he knew he had to handle at some point.

Roy.

He’d been ignoring the text messages so far, not really ready to relive the humiliation of that night in the form of an apology he knew he owed. And when he saw Roy’s status on social media turn to “single”? Well… now he just felt guilty, as if he’d somehow been at fault (even if that was irrational).

So he’d gone through his day to day, checking his phone when a message pinged, trying to get his attention, and every time thinking “I should reply”, before overthinking it and then saying nothing at all. That is, until:

Call me.

It was weird for Roy to be so blunt, and the more he looked at it, the more he began to panic a little. What if there was something serious? What if he was hurt or someone they knew was in the hospital? The number of scenarios running through Danny’s head as he stared at those two words got more and more outlandishly dire until finally…

“Hello?”

“You said ‘call me’, are you okay? Is someone dead? Do I need to fight someone? What happened?”

“No one’s dead. I just wanted to talk to you, calm down.”

Danny’s panic left him in a slow sigh as Roy started giggling through the phone, “Shut up! Everyone knows that ‘call me’ with a period means there’s like… someone’s dead and you might need an alibi level of emergency!”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone!”

“Well, sorry to disappoint you, but everything is fine. Gotcha on the phone though.”

Danny sat still on his bed, squinting at nothing, just picturing the shit eating grin plastered on Roy’s face. “You fucking dick.”

There was a cackle on the other side, which helped break this weird tension in Danny’s chest as he started to recline back into his bed. Of course Roy would make it easy – for Danny to just slide past the consequences and back into the jokes and random rambling that kept them friends. No expectations of apologies or explanations. Just a reset button and a fresh start.

And Danny couldn’t do it.

He was quiet as Roy’s laughter petered out in soft little giggles, took a breath, and braced himself for ice water.

“Sorry I’ve been avoiding you.”

“Eh,” Danny could hear Roy shuffle his phone from one ear to another, “It’s fine–”

“It’s not though!” Danny shot up and started to pace. “It was a shit thing to do…”

“Dan-”

“No! No. I… gotta do this.” He took a breath and sat back down, still fidgeting as he tried to focus on what he’d been trying to script for the past few months. When that failed, he winged it. “I was embarrassed that you like… showed up and saw me like that. It’s not your job to like… take care of me or whatever the fuck – and don’t say it’s no big deal because it fucking is! It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t cute, I was a fucking nightmare and – would you stop laughing for two seconds!?”

Roy’s giggles had started up again in the midst of Danny baring his soul – be it from disbelief, nerves from the seriousness of the moment, or maybe a mixture of the two. Danny could hear him clear his throat and take a pause before urging him to continue with a very soft ‘go on’.

“Thank you, what was I saying?”

“I think you were being way too harsh on yourself.”

“Oh yeah? And how do you figure that?”

There was another long pause and Danny could picture Roy’s hesitance. But Danny stood his ground. This conversation wasn’t going to end just because Roy didn’t want to have it.

“Everyone does stupid shit in the midst of a break-up. So maybe your stupid shit involved you getting high as fuck and not bathing for longer than usual. And maybe you fucking freaked out Courtney, which I guess freaked out me because – Jesus Christ – what were you taking that was freaking out Courtney of all people? So yeah, maybe I wasn’t overly thrilled to be like… hosing you down in a hotel bathroom because you were smelling like sweat and corn chips but… it happened. Because I was worried a little bit. Okay? So like… it’s fine.”

“But it’s not fine.”

“Did I just reset this conversation? What the fuck are you looking for?”

Danny groaned, biting his lip before heaving a huge sigh to finally put words towards something that had been weighing on him for months. “That trip… you coming to see me… you said you and what’s-his-face were… not fine, but like… going to be okay. Or you were making it work. Or… something. And then after… next thing I know, you guys broke up…”

“Okay? What about it?”

“Did you break up because you came to see me? Because I know he wasn’t really thrilled about like… our past or whatever and– and you’re fucking laughing again!”

Roy sucked back his giggles and with a high pitched ‘sorry’, allowed Danny to continue. Danny huffed and then blurted out the last part of his sentence, “Anyway, if you need me to talk to him, to like, tell him that nothing happened between us aside from me making an absolute ass out of myself, I can… or whatever.”

The cackles that erupted made Danny’s cheeks burn and he pouted at his phone. “Or you can just laugh at me!”

“No! No no no… okay. I’m sorry. Alright? I’m sorry for laughing. Hold on.” Roy sucked back a breath and let his voice settle after a few exaggerated renditions of “I’m not laughing at you.” As Danny was about to call bullshit, Roy had managed to wrestle his voice back to a natural pitch. “No! I’m serious. I’m not laughing at you. It has… nothing to do with you, really. Any of it.”

“Any of it?”

“Not a bit.”

“So… you mean… you didn’t break up because he was a jealous twat?”

“Oh, no. We broke up for that exact reason and then some, but it absolutely had nothing to do with me coming to see you.”

“Oh… so… when you said that things were going to be fine?”

“I don’t actually recall you asking if things were fine between me and him. You asked if I was happy. Those are two different things.”

Danny frowned as he tried his best to shuffle through the rather muddled events from that night, and upon coming up with nothing, he conceded. “I don’t remember now…”

“Right,” Roy remarked, the smile conveyed in his voice. “Is this what you’ve been torturing yourself with these past few months?”

“I… maybe?”

“Uh huh.” The silence between the both of them had settled and stretched, past the point of awkward into familiar, before finally, Roy spoke up again. “So… are we actually good now?”

“Yeah…”

“Great. So do me a favor?”

“What?”

“Can we take a break from talking about our feelings for like… awhile? Because frankly, it’s fucking exhausting. I’m not built for this bullshit.”

That got Danny to laugh, and amidst his giggles, he managed to voice an enthusiastic “Deal!” before they said their goodbyes.

[iamvegorott]

True Rage

@neko-ereri made a post about wanting a danti story with 'Dark severely underestimates Anti and when he sees him truly angry for the first time he’s just s t u n n e d' and I decided to give it a go. I’m not sure if this exactly what you want, but I hope you like it. ^_^

Summary: Anti doesn't get as angry as often as people would like to believe. Dark knows first-hand that Anti would rather be joking around or causing chaos. One day Anti suspects Dark of doing something no partner should ever do and now Dark has to deal with a very, very angry Anti. 

True Rage

“We’ll send the Jims in first. No one ever suspects them, they appear too innocent to be doing anything harmful.” Dark stated.

“Will there be shooties?” Reporter Jim asked, holding his microphone towards Dark.

“There should not be any guns-”

“Shooties.”

“If there are any shooties there, you know the what to do, correct?” Dark was not the biggest fan of having to refer to a gun as a ‘shooty’ but sometimes it was easier to roll with what the Jims were saying rather than to have an argument that would never end.

“Click the clicky.” Reporter Jim answered, holding up a small cube with a switch on it.

“Maybe I should go in with them.” Bim suggested.

“We don’t want to draw too much suspicion to ourselves.” Google said.

“I’m a show host, my entire career is based on being charismatic.” Bim said with a large smile.

“Your career is killing people and eating them.” Dr. Iplier scoffed.

“I do more than-”

“Host interrupts Bim to inform everyone that a visitor is about to come into the meeting room.” Host stated.

“A visitor?” Wilford asked. “Who’s coming to see us?”

“Darkiplier Fischbach!” Anti shouted after kicking open the door.

“He used the last name.” Bing sang.

“What did you do?” Wilford asked.

“Anti now is not the time-”

“Everyone out of the room, now!” Anti snapped, cutting Dark off.

“We are in the middle of a-”

“Out!” Anti’s scream stopped Google and everyone slowly got to their feet and stepped out of the room. Dark felt something warm pass through his abdomen, but e easily ignored it.

“Anti. Can we discuss this later? I’m sure whatever is bothering you can wait.” Dark raised a brow when Anti slammed a cell phone on the table and slid it to him.

“Who the fuck is Monika?” Anti asked in a harsh tone. Dark glanced down at the screen and saw that he had received a text message reading; ‘It’s Monika, last night was great’.

“I honestly do not know who Monika is.” Dark stated, moving his phone aside.

“Bull-fucking-shit!” Anti shouted. “How the fuck does she have your number then!? Only the egos know our numbers!”

Dark’s seen Anti angry before. He had a habit of getting a little too into his video games or someone irritated him to the point of him cursing them out, but this was different, this was a lot more intense. Although, it was nothing Dark needed to worry himself about.

“Anti. I need you to lower your voice.” Dark said calmly, standing up.

“I will not lower my voice you cheating son-of-a-bitch!” Anti was now gripping the edge of the table.

“I am not cheating. I am a man or high honor, of pride.” Dark held his hands behind his back as he walked around the table.

“You’re just a cock!” Anti spat.

“I suggest watching what you call me, we both know who’s the more powerful one in this, what we call, relationship.” Dark warned. Anti suddenly let out a scream and punched the table, shattering it with his fists.

“After every single fucking thing I have done for you! After every single favor I have done! The number of fucking times you have claimed to love me and then you do this!?” Blood seeped from the wounds on Anti’s hands. Dark saw that Anti’s glare was with pure black eyes, a soft green hue surrounding them. His face was a bright red and his teeth were clenched to the point that Dark believed he would break them. This was new. This was not everyday annoyed Anti. The heat returned to Dark’s stomach, but he wasn’t able to notice it. “Years! Fucking years of being with you and you suddenly decide that I’m not good enough for you!?” Anti’s voice was echoing, his body was glitching, the room began to fill with a harsh static. “You made me believe that you cared for me! You made me believe that someone could actually want me! You made me believe that I could be loved!” Dark found himself taking a step back, trying to make a bigger distance between himself and his very angry boyfriend.

This wasn’t like anything Dark has seen before. Anti’s anger was usually easily tamable if Dark was around. Sometimes a simple look would calm Anti down since he would rather be joking around or causing mayhem than be angry. Is this what Anti was like when he was filled with rage? It was...shocking.

“Fucking say something!” Black tears streamed down Anti’s face.

“I…” Dark blinked. Was he really at a loss for words? He always knew what to say. Why was this any different?

“Why!? Why did you do this to me!?” Anti cried, the static growing stronger and beginning to form a strong headache in Dark’s head.

“Anti.” Dark stumbled towards Anti, placing his hands on the virus’ shoulders. “I didn’t…”

“Liar!” Dark found himself flying backward and slamming into the wall. “Liar! Liar! Liar!” Dark felt a wave of energy hitting him with every word, getting stronger and stronger each time. Anti stopped, panting as he caught his breath. Dark struggled for air as well and saw Anti standing there, hands in tight fists and green pixels forming of his skin and floating into the air above him.

This must be Anti as his angriest. He was holding back all of those times. Pushing it aside and knowing that it wasn’t worth it. Anti always seemed to be the weaker one. The softer one. Dark always assumed that he was a lot more powerful than Anti, that he could easily control him no matter what. And yet, here Dark was. He was powerless against the angry virus. There was nothing he could do. He was stunned. He was frozen in place because of shock. Dark had no control.

And he loved it.

Dark finally managed to get to his feet, he walked over to Anti, expecting to be pushed back again and was a little happy that he was able to put his hands back on Anti’s shoulders.

“Anti…” No response. Anti was too angry to even speak. That was something Dark did not enjoy. “I am not cheating on you. Look me in the eyes. Look at me.” Dark placed a gentle hand on Anti’s chin and tilted the virus’ head back. “Do you think I’m an idiot. You even said it yourself, years. I’ve been with you for years. I’ve spent years of myself being with you and only you. Why would I be idiotic enough to ruin that? Why would I want to destroy the best thing in my life?” Dark saw that the pixels were fading away, the static going away as well. “I do not know who Monika is. I do not lie. Everyone knows that. I twist words, I do not falsify them.” Anti blinked several more tears away, eyes slowly returning to their normal, green, form. “Clearly a mistake was made. I was not the one who made the mistake. As I have said many times before. I love you. I am not giving you up that easily.” Dark stepped forward and pressed his lips against Anti’s waiting for a reaction. A soft groan made their way out of Dark’s throat when Anti gripped at his hair and kissed him back, harshly. The anger was clearly still there, but by the way Anti was moving against him and his hands wondering, the anger was shifting into wanting to be released in a different way.

“Get on your knees.” Anti growled before shoving Dark down, glad to not hear any protests.

“That is our cue to leave, boys.” Wilford’s voice was muffled by the door and unnoticed by the two.

“Bing, that one girl you saw last night, wasn’t her name Monika?” Bim asked as the voices grew softer.

“Yeah, what about it?” Bing sounded confused.

“If I recall correctly, Bing’s and Dark’s numbers are the same except for one number.” Google stated.

“Oh...shit.” Bing cursed.  

Tagging people who showed interest in the story: @pantasticpanini @watermelonsinmyattic @i-am-moxy @prettylittlepsychotheo

[nighttimepixels]

answering asks^^

anons & @jellyont okay, can i seriously hug all of you? <3 <3 i’m seriously all kinds of emotional and have been treasuring your messages. i’ve got one hell of an anxiety disorder, so it means the absolute world to me to know that you like my silly art and animations, and that you’d take the time out of your day to send me such sweet messages. even though sometimes i take a while to respond in these posts, i always try to reply to you all-! to me i only would ever want to try to answer you cuties, sweetness has nothing to do with it - except for how sweet all of you are. <3 <3 

gonna go be flustered for 20 years now no worries

ahhh thank you so much, sweet anon! <3 i’ve definitely been the biggest fan of that depiction of his relationship with the skelebros (though i also have a number of fics/other hc interpretations of him as dadster or otherwise that i enjoy too, heh). and as for him falling into the core, ohhh i’m so relieved to hear that. a lot of people seem to either veer on the side of Asgore being purely a cinnapapa victim of grievous circumstance (which i personally just don’t... agree with), or that he would simply just be one of the ones who’d forget. i ended up musing on the circumstances - as Royal Scientist, Gaster would certainly know Asgore, and i like the idea that they were friends... at one point. that terrible feeling when you lose a friend despite your efforts to reach out as they change under terrible circumstances into someone who it is just not healthy to be close to, no matter how much you care/cared for them... i thought that just applied so well. 

i’ve got some ideas for further art with him, both in the ‘origin’ circumstances and during/post void, so i may try and do those soon! <3 thank you for your kind words and interest ;v;<3

tumblr what the heck. i’ve checked it a few times now in the past day, and sometimes it seems to be marked, and others it isn’t...?? i’ll admit that i touch on some dark themes re the child’s soul and tough decisions, moral and ethical grey areas, but nothing... “nsfw” or outright censorable, i don’t think? 

sigh. thank you so much for the head’s up - hopefully it gets resolved, i’ve tried to mark it for review, so fingers crossed. agreed on tumblr really needing to get their algorithms sorted, spaghetti code inner machinations or not.

kasfk thank you, love ;//v//; <3 honestly, heh, i’m always working on something. animations and stills alike. and ahhh, favorite thing...? well... aside from the obvious skelebros and undertale i’d say interactions and shitposty shenanigans X) and also looping gifs, particular when i can spend the time to make the motions in it loop really naturally (like that Stretch gif i did of him smoking along the windowsill).

least favorite...? oh gods. anything to do with mech or vehicles, honestly, especially in pixel form... which, ironic, because the thing i’m ‘most’ working on currently involves precisely that. since you asked about both, here’s a tiny preview of it-

super tiny window bc super incomplete. 

... and i’m making multiple shots of it, no less. OTL|||

@letsallbecalmchaps yes i have! <3 it really was super cute :) and color palettes... oof, that’s definitely a hard one. you’re right, i don’t use ‘pure white’ for the skeletons - choosing palettes is something that... i think is definitely developed over time? and it’s something i’m still absolutely figuring out. my best recommendation is to try working with some of those ‘limited palette’ challenges to get a feel for how coloring and shades work when you only have 4-6 colors to work with (plus it’s a great exercise in silhouettes and the like). beyond that... for me, i’ve settled more on certain palettes based on the tone of colors and schemes that i like. for me, it tends to be a bit warmer, but muted (i don’t usually work in super-saturated colors). the skelebros present a challenge in that, as various colors really come into play for each au skelebro. so really - try experimenting! look at palettes you like, try experimenting, and check out tutorials online about choosing palettes and shading. (and tip on shading that i’m sure you’ve seen - try to stay away from shading with black, even in pixel art! shade in more or less saturated versions of the color you’re working with, and shift a small amount in one direction or the other on the color wheel/spectrum that you’re working with. play with it! it’s a lot of work to find what you like, but so rewarding when you do.)

ah, that’s @with-a-whisper! :) iiii have two potatos following me, actually, so i’m not sure who you’re referring too - though both of them are total sweethearts from when i’ve interacted with them! <3 i try to loop in different cuties when i can, heh. 

i believe you were referencing the Axe gif i did for tyranttortoise’s latest SSLL chapter - thank you so much-! <3 i’ve been experimenting with a few different things, i like the kind of ‘cutscene’-esque look that it ended up leaning towards, so i’m happy to hear that you liked it too! <3

@ate-wapakels69 pshhhh thick thighs and squishy tummies unite! <3 pretty sure that just makes you even more of a 69/10 love ;D and heck yes i know ace attorney, it’s one of my favorite game series! <3 sadly i’ve never played the original apollo justice games, and i’m still trying to get my hands on edgeworth’s investigations, but outside of that i’ve played most of them, including the layton crossover. i love those nerds so freakin much. <3 

you have bestowed your affections onto quite the lucky skeleton, and i’d say you have quite the lovely taste indeed. a glorious pair you shall make, drunken or otherwise. X) <3 <3

... not gonna lie, i’m pretty sure i legitimately squeaked when i got this message, @kissthethunder-!! and then blushed, way too much. for a very extended period of time. 

i mean, everyone, c’mon, let’s be real-

SUCH A CUTIE.

fellow sin-ster, you make my life happier, and are loved right back! keep being your fabulous self - you share so much joy and hilarious delight with your wonderful shenanigans and fantastic writing :)      

oh sweetheart, vent art is absolutely normal and weird in no way at all. every artist i know - and writer, and creator of any variety - has made vent art. creating is such an emotionally-involved experience, it’s only natural for someone to want to explore or express their feelings in their preferred craft(s) - and vent art is no different. if you want to post vent art, then by all means please do! it’s an unfortunate given that some people aren’t fans of it, but if that’s the case, they can either scroll by or choose to not follow. it’s easy to forget, but tumblr is a blogging platform. you’re not required to only post ‘professionally’, or otherwise. if you’re having troubles keeping up with what you feel your blog is demanding, then take a step back and take care of you. if you want to post that kind of art and are nervous to on your main blog/art blog, then you can always create a sideblog that you can have as a more personal one.

to answer the other part of your question more directly - yes, i absolutely draw vent art. sometimes it’s just... general content involving skelebros that i feel comfortable posting. that one you mention specifically was vent art, yes. 

it’s okay to not be okay.

i’ve drawn a number of things, some far rougher than others, to vent. i don’t post all of them, not by any means, sometimes it just doesn’t feel like something i want to share. 

but... hmm. if you’re feeling nervous about it, and alone ,then let me share one that i drew a month or so ago when i was hitting a really bad low. i’ll put it below a cut, as your question is the last one on this post (so anyone who doesn’t want to see it, know that there aren’t further asks below the cut - just an example of my own more personal vent art). 

... it’s very rough. but like i said, it’s vent art. it’s not always about being perfect, or polished, or ‘the best content’ - it’s okay to do things for yourself, to self-insert or not, and to make art not just for your perceived or desired audience.

what’s most important is for you to take care of you. it’s easy to overlook how much heart is poured into your art/stories, like you’re putting a little piece of yourself in every one. take time for you, to build yourself up, to work through the weight of the hardships you go through, to find inspiration, to just... be. 

hopefully me sharing a rough example of my own more outright vent art is... well, i hope you know that i’m here in solidarity with you. pursue art in all the ways you want to, and let yourself explore - for yourself, not just for others.

[suzanneshannon]

Design v17

We rolled out a new site design on January 1! This is the 17th version of CSS-Tricks if you can believe that. The versions tend to evolve a decent amount beyond the initial launch, but we archive screenshots on this design history page. Like I said in our 2018 thank you post:

This is easily the most time, effort, and money that's gone into a redesign since the big v10 design. There are a lot of aesthetic changes, but there was also quite a bit of UX work, business goal orientation, workflow tweaking, and backend development work that went along with it.

This is a big one! The reception so far has been pretty great, but please know that we'll be refining it and squishing a lot of bugs here in the early days.

Here are some notes about who was involved, how it happened, and things to notice.

Kylie led this project

Kylie Timpani was the lead designer and really whole project lead on this.

I first reached out to her in April 2017, we chatted in May, and kicked off the work in June. From my perspective, this was a pretty casual process, as I had no particular deadlines and fairly loose goals. Let's make an attractive site that does better in all ways than we do them now.

Kylie was super organized and had a very thoughtful process around every aspect of this. Just in the first block of time that Kylie allocated for this project she:

Took a complete content inventory

Dug into analytic data to understand users, traffic, and usage at a high level

Created, distributed, and analyzed a reader survey to understand readers better and answer specific questions she had for them

Chatted with all the staff members of CSS-Tricks to understand their roles, workflows, and ideas

Kylie's obviously not the kind of the designer that just whips open a design tool and starts noodling around. As great of a visual designer as she is, the work was highly informed. She went on to speak with our advertising agency, clearly identify the site's current strengths and weaknesses, and do light wireframing.

I've been using Figma for visual design stuff, and Kylie was happy to use that as the design tool. That was nice since we both have Team level access and were able to use it collaboratively. For me, it was mostly useful for being able to see and reference everything, and make notes on the designs.

We also used Asana to track what was being worked on and ultimately as a place to track bugs and places where the design implementation needed attention.

Thanks so much, Kylie for all your excellent work on this project! If anything is a bit off or buggy about the site, it's my poor implementation. And good luck! ⤵️

⚡️ So! Speaking of big life changing news... in just a couple of weeks I'll be moving to San Francisco! I'm so SO excited to be joining @nrrrdcore and her truly incredible team over at Apple! 👩🏻‍💻✨

— Kylie Timpani (@kylietimpani) January 7, 2019

Design Stuff

I'll let y'all explore the design for yourself to find all the little touches we put in, but I'll give a shout out to a few of them where there is a technical detail you might enjoy.

Orange-to-pink

Clearly, we went all dark mode on this design. It's nothing to do with the new media query, although that reminds me we might consider alternations for those who specifically set prefers-color-scheme: light;.

The brand/accent/action colors are orange and pink, which looks quite striking against the darkness but works on light backgrounds as well.

I made a quickie little Sass @mixin that allowed me to use those colors (with variations, if needed) at different angles as backgrounds:

@mixin orange-to-pink($deg: to right, $col-1: $orange, $col-2: $pink) { background-image: linear-gradient($deg, $col-1, $col-2); }

And on text as well wherever we needed (most often as for :hover and :focus):

@mixin gradient-text() { background: linear-gradient(to right, $orange, $pink); -webkit-background-clip: text; -webkit-text-fill-color: transparent; }

We also needed the gradient to be applied to fills and strokes in SVG, so I plopped that into the document to use wherever it was needed.

<svg width="0" height="0" class="visually-hidden"> <defs> <linearGradient id="orange-to-pink" x1="0" x2="0" y1="1" y2="0"> <stop offset="0%" stop-color="#DA1B60" /> <stop offset="100%" stop-color="#ff8a00" /> </linearGradient> </defs> </svg>

Fixed header

There is something about headers that always bring out more complexity than you might expect. I recently went through this with the new CodePen header/sidebar and it as complicated for this site. Part of what complicated this one was:

It has its own set of unique breakpoints. The header is pretty full, so the breakpoints are pretty specific and unique to it.

We wanted a fixed-position (but minified) header that showed up as you scroll down.

When you're logged in, there is a WordPress admin bar also fixed to the top of the page. I wanted to accommodate for that.

At one point, it was getting pretty messy and I wound up deleting all the CSS for the entire thing and re-wrote it, taking all the states into consideration, and writing media queries that used logic to clearly specify styles in each of those states.

The idea of a not-always-fixed-position header is interesting in and of itself. It means that:

You need to determine when to apply the fixed position

You need to make sure the shift from not-fixed to fixed (and back) doesn't cause layout shifting

I was dead nervous about attaching an onscroll listener and doing math and such to determine when to do the switch. I'm sure it can be done responsibly, but I haven't had great luck with that. Instead, I placed a tiny one-pixel element to the screen and attached an IntersectionObserver to it and reacted to that. That gave me the power to adjust where that is in CSS, which was a nice little touch.

Here's the very basics of that code:

See the Pen Fixed Header with IntersectionObserver by Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier) on CodePen.

Mixup

One very cool feature of this design is the Mixup area on the homepage. It was one of Kylie's ideas to show and remind people of the variety and depth of content that is here on CSS-Tricks.

The line that goes through it needs to depend on the height of the HTML content in each of those boxes. The boxes are set on a CSS grid, but they can and should still expand as needed for titles and such. Rather than try to SVG this somehow, the line is essentially stitched together though border and border-radius on individual boxes. To make it line up, I occasionally had to nudge them around with transform.

There was some z-index involved too. It was fun making mistakes along the way:

Cards

I'm kinda in love with native scroll snapping. The cards kinda have a fun animation on desktop, revealing the entire card on hover/focus, and then on mobile you can see the whole card, but are easy to thumb through:

Thanks, Amelia!

The design called for these curved line separators:

I have a small degree of confidence with the SVG path syntax, so I took the first crack at it. I was able to design it in a way that it could draw that line OK and keep the stroke at the desired width, but it didn't scale quite right.

See the Pen Lighted Path by Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier) on CodePen.

I brought in SVG expert Amelia Bellamy-Royds to help me get it right. Feel free to inspect the site to see how it was done. It involves masking and nested SVGs and rectangles and transforms and all sorts of fun stuff. Amelia actually created four variations of the code and carefully noted all the pros and cons of each one. Ultimately, we went with this:

See the Pen Lighted Path by Amelia Bellamy-Royds (@AmeliaBR) on CodePen.

Another thing Amelia helped with was the "circle of text" design element. Kylie had these instances mocked out and I thought they were so cool and I definitely wanted to pull it off. There is a really elaborate way to do it by splitting the characters in to spans and transforming them, but that's a bit messy compared to SVG's <textPath>. I knew I wanted to go the SVG route, but perhaps abstract it away into a reusable component so that it wasn't a heaping pile of code every time I want to use one.

It occurred to me that a web component might be the best way to go here because I can kind of invent the API myself. What I wanted a circle-of-text component to do:

Pass in the text to set on the circle

Declare the radius of the circle

Rotate the circle so I can start the text at any point along the circle

That makes perfect sense as a web component:

<circle-text r="3em" rotate="-90deg"> CSS is super fun & cool & I like CSS!!! </circle-text>

My expertise with web components is limited, so I reached out to Amelia again who is great both with web components and SVG—a perfect match! This is what she was able to do, which I easily integrated easily into this design.

Thanks, Ana!

Another design thing that Kylie cooked up that I was a bit perplexed by was this line:

I thought maybe SVG again, but I really wanted to nestle regular HTML content in there nicely. I was hoping to pull it over with borders or something CSS-y. I reached out to Ana Tudor who is fantastic at tricky design situations and solving them with native browser tech. Ana was able to whip up a good solution here using multiple gradient backgrounds in the main area and a border for the top right bit that flies off.

See the Pen nav by Ana Tudor (@thebabydino) on CodePen.

Thanks, Zach!

Fonts are a unique part of the loading experience of websites in that their presence (or lack of), how they appear, and how they change all play major roles in the perceived performance of the page.

I've had the good fortune of being able to chat with Zach Leatherman about font loading before, but I still don't feel entirely comfortable with what the best practices are in any given situation. For this design of CSS-Tricks, I made the call to use the system font stack for most of the body copy. That has the major benefit of being instantly available to render and aesthetically seems to work well on a technical site, not to mention generally pairing well with Rubik, our header font.

But we still needed to deal with Rubik. There will be an upcoming article from Zach going into this in more details, but the gist is:

Create a minimal subsetted version of Rubik that handles the majority of usage

<link rel="preload" ... > it

Use it with @font-face using font-display

Load a more robust version in an async second stage

Nice job everyone that worked on the @css relaunch!

Look at those web fonts showing up on that 2.09s Fast 3G first render 🎉

(full disclosure I helped a wee bit with the font loading here 😇) pic.twitter.com/Ih7zJhelQQ

— Zach Leatherman (@zachleat) January 1, 2019

Some areas of the site are somewhat deprecated

The Forums is such a complicated area of the site to design and maintain, what I've done is just loaded the default bbPress styling for them, instead of trying to override things or start from scratch. I think that'll be the best route going forward.

There is a Gallery section of this site, but I'm not even linking to it anymore as we didn't really keep it up to date very well nor did it get used much. The URL's still work though. Maybe it can make a return someday, but for now, I'm enjoying the reduction of some technical and content debt.

Tech stack

It's somewhat boring. It's about the same thing I've done forever. It's a stock install of WordPress with a custom theme, a dozen or so plugins, and a bit of custom-coded functionality, like having the images powered by Cloudinary. It's running on a custom Media Temple-built box so it can have PHP 7 and MySQL 5.6, plus a firewall that also acts as a CDN. It's nice to have a pretty snappy foundation, so it's on me as a front-end dev to keep it that way.

I used SVG for the icons, Sass for the styling, and Babel to write jQuery-based functionality in ES6. I wrote up a Gulp file to do all that processing and run the local BrowserSync dev server. Local WordPress via Local by Flywheel.

I'm actually pretty happy with the stack as it felt quick and productive to me. But I admit, part of me wishes I dug a little harder into new tech, like building webpack-based processing or trying to go all-in on a server-rendered and React-powered headless WordPress via GraphQL kinda thing. The reason I didn't is because boring has served me so well and time is a major factor since I'm developing alone (my budget doesn't exactly make available a whole development team). My guess is a major front-end infastructure overhaul would have tripled the dev time for questionable benefits. It still sounds like fun and might open up future doors, but hey, another time.

My last regret is that I wish I had spun up a real pattern library system from the start. I think I did OK in breaking things up into reusable parts, but the site isn't truly componentized. As I approached the finish line, I started to see how this could have gone a bit smoother for me should I have worked with true components that accepted data and had variations and such. Native PHP isn't great for that, so it would have forced me into some kind of templating system, and I probably wouldn't have regretted it. If I stay in PHP next time, maybe I'd use something like Timber and Twig for all the components, and then Fractal for the pattern library since it supports Twig. I kind of dig the way Timber abstracts the data stuff from the views.

I hadn't heard of this app until now, but check out Project Wallace:

Project Wallace is a project aimed at gaining insights in your CSS over a longer period of time. It started a couple of years ago as a frustration with existing CSS analyzers that only do a one-time only analysis. As time went by, more and more features were added and now Wallace is place to go for developers who want to know if their complexicity has increased or for a designer who wants to know if all the correct colors and fonts are being used.

Bart Veneman set it up to watch CSS-Tricks, and you can see a before/after comparison and charts over time. Bart blogged about the numbers for us as well. Thanks Bart!

There are more interesting stats in that blog post.

CodePen embeds

The true usefulness of CodePen Embed Themes came out here. The whole point of an embed theme is that you can use them to match the design of where the Pens will be embedded, and if you need to change that design, you can change them all in one fell swoop. There are probably thousands of embedded Pens on this site, and they all got updated at once with one theme change.

There are a few special things that I've done with CodePen embeds on this site:

The are resizable from the bottom right corner. Used jQuery. Like this.

They have a placeholder height. When you embed a Pen, you can choose how tall you want it to be. That's how tall the <iframe> will come in as. But I've adjust it so that the <p> that is there before the iframe comes in will be that same height, so there is no reflow jank.

I regex'd that sucker myself like this:

function codepen_reflow_fix($content) { $content = preg_replace('/data-height=(\'|")(\d*)(\'|")/', 'data-height="$2" style="height: $2px;"', $content); $content = preg_replace('/data-theme-id="\d*"/', 'data-theme-id="1"', $content); return $content; } add_filter('the_content', 'codepen_reflow_fix', 10);

We're gonna bring that feature to CodePen itself real soon. Notice in that RegEx above I'm also forcing the theme id. That way, all embedded Pens definitely have the correct theme, even if we forget.

Achievement unlocked: The custom scrollbar is the new feature that everyone either loves or hates

If there has been one constant in every CSS-Tricks design, it's that there's at least one feature people either love or hate. This time, I'm happy to announce it's the custom scrollbar. In a sense, it's for myself. I manually use scrollbars quite a bit and it feels both fun and highly usable to grab onto this big beefy chunk of pink love.

It's also a little inspired by VS Code, which features a pretty beefy scrollbar itself:

There are general usability considerations about custom scrollbars for sure, but I don't feel like they've been breached too heavily here, if at all. I've heard some "don't mess with my browsers UI" feedback, which I sorta get, but does that mean we shouldn't style any form controls, or even use CSS at all? (LOL.) And don't scrollbars come from the system, not the browser?

Anyway, I'm not faking them or anything. I'm just using ::-webkit-scrollbar and friends. There is official scrollbar styling stuff on the way, per the CSS specs. I didn't use any of that stuff/ I think I'll wait for at least one browser to support it.

We have plenty of bug fixing and polishing to do still on this design. If you've emailed or tweeted or communicated with us in some way about it, I've probably seen it and have been log it all to make sure it's all addressed the best we can. Plus stay tuned for some fun new features!

If you have thoughts, free to leave comments here if you like, use our contact form, email at team@css-tricks.com, or chat it up in our new Spectrum community.

The post Design v17 appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

Design v17 published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

[siliconwebx]

Design v17

We rolled out a new site design on January 1! This is the 17th version of CSS-Tricks if you can believe that. The versions tend to evolve a decent amount beyond the initial launch, but we archive screenshots on this design history page. Like I said in our 2018 thank you post:

This is easily the most time, effort, and money that's gone into a redesign since the big v10 design. There are a lot of aesthetic changes, but there was also quite a bit of UX work, business goal orientation, workflow tweaking, and backend development work that went along with it.

This is a big one! The reception so far has been pretty great, but please know that we'll be refining it and squishing a lot of bugs here in the early days.

Here are some notes about who was involved, how it happened, and things to notice.

Kylie led this project

Kylie Timpani was the lead designer and really whole project lead on this.

I first reached out to her in April 2017, we chatted in May, and kicked off the work in June. From my perspective, this was a pretty casual process, as I had no particular deadlines and fairly loose goals. Let's make an attractive site that does better in all ways than we do them now.

Kylie was super organized and had a very thoughtful process around every aspect of this. Just in the first block of time that Kylie allocated for this project she:

Took a complete content inventory

Dug into analytic data to understand users, traffic, and usage at a high level

Created, distributed, and analyzed a reader survey to understand readers better and answer specific questions she had for them

Chatted with all the staff members of CSS-Tricks to understand their roles, workflows, and ideas

Kylie's obviously not the kind of the designer that just whips open a design tool and starts noodling around. As great of a visual designer as she is, the work was highly informed. She went on to speak with our advertising agency, clearly identify the site's current strengths and weaknesses, and do light wireframing.

I've been using Figma for visual design stuff, and Kylie was happy to use that as the design tool. That was nice since we both have Team level access and were able to use it collaboratively. For me, it was mostly useful for being able to see and reference everything, and make notes on the designs.

We also used Asana to track what was being worked on and ultimately as a place to track bugs and places where the design implementation needed attention.

Thanks so much, Kylie for all your excellent work on this project! If anything is a bit off or buggy about the site, it's my poor implementation. And good luck! ⤵️

⚡️ So! Speaking of big life changing news... in just a couple of weeks I'll be moving to San Francisco! I'm so SO excited to be joining @nrrrdcore and her truly incredible team over at Apple! 👩🏻‍💻✨

— Kylie Timpani (@kylietimpani) January 7, 2019

Design Stuff

I'll let y'all explore the design for yourself to find all the little touches we put in, but I'll give a shout out to a few of them where there is a technical detail you might enjoy.

Orange-to-pink

Clearly, we went all dark mode on this design. It's nothing to do with the new media query, although that reminds me we might consider alternations for those who specifically set prefers-color-scheme: light;.

The brand/accent/action colors are orange and pink, which looks quite striking against the darkness but works on light backgrounds as well.

I made a quickie little Sass @mixin that allowed me to use those colors (with variations, if needed) at different angles as backgrounds:

@mixin orange-to-pink($deg: to right, $col-1: $orange, $col-2: $pink) { background-image: linear-gradient($deg, $col-1, $col-2); }

And on text as well wherever we needed (most often as for :hover and :focus):

@mixin gradient-text() { background: linear-gradient(to right, $orange, $pink); -webkit-background-clip: text; -webkit-text-fill-color: transparent; }

We also needed the gradient to be applied to fills and strokes in SVG, so I plopped that into the document to use wherever it was needed.

<svg width="0" height="0" class="visually-hidden"> <defs> <linearGradient id="orange-to-pink" x1="0" x2="0" y1="1" y2="0"> <stop offset="0%" stop-color="#DA1B60" /> <stop offset="100%" stop-color="#ff8a00" /> </linearGradient> </defs> </svg>

Fixed header

There is something about headers that always bring out more complexity than you might expect. I recently went through this with the new CodePen header/sidebar and it as complicated for this site. Part of what complicated this one was:

It has its own set of unique breakpoints. The header is pretty full, so the breakpoints are pretty specific and unique to it.

We wanted a fixed-position (but minified) header that showed up as you scroll down.

When you're logged in, there is a WordPress admin bar also fixed to the top of the page. I wanted to accommodate for that.

At one point, it was getting pretty messy and I wound up deleting all the CSS for the entire thing and re-wrote it, taking all the states into consideration, and writing media queries that used logic to clearly specify styles in each of those states.

The idea of a not-always-fixed-position header is interesting in and of itself. It means that:

You need to determine when to apply the fixed position

You need to make sure the shift from not-fixed to fixed (and back) doesn't cause layout shifting

I was dead nervous about attaching an onscroll listener and doing math and such to determine when to do the switch. I'm sure it can be done responsibly, but I haven't had great luck with that. Instead, I placed a tiny one-pixel element to the screen and attached an IntersectionObserver to it and reacted to that. That gave me the power to adjust where that is in CSS, which was a nice little touch.

Here's the very basics of that code:

See the Pen Fixed Header with IntersectionObserver by Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier) on CodePen.

Mixup

One very cool feature of this design is the Mixup area on the homepage. It was one of Kylie's ideas to show and remind people of the variety and depth of content that is here on CSS-Tricks.

The line that goes through it needs to depend on the height of the HTML content in each of those boxes. The boxes are set on a CSS grid, but they can and should still expand as needed for titles and such. Rather than try to SVG this somehow, the line is essentially stitched together though border and border-radius on individual boxes. To make it line up, I occasionally had to nudge them around with transform.

There was some z-index involved too. It was fun making mistakes along the way:

Cards

I'm kinda in love with native scroll snapping. The cards kinda have a fun animation on desktop, revealing the entire card on hover/focus, and then on mobile you can see the whole card, but are easy to thumb through:

Thanks, Amelia!

The design called for these curved line separators:

I have a small degree of confidence with the SVG path syntax, so I took the first crack at it. I was able to design it in a way that it could draw that line OK and keep the stroke at the desired width, but it didn't scale quite right.

See the Pen Lighted Path by Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier) on CodePen.

I brought in SVG expert Amelia Bellamy-Royds to help me get it right. Feel free to inspect the site to see how it was done. It involves masking and nested SVGs and rectangles and transforms and all sorts of fun stuff. Amelia actually created four variations of the code and carefully noted all the pros and cons of each one. Ultimately, we went with this:

See the Pen Lighted Path by Amelia Bellamy-Royds (@AmeliaBR) on CodePen.

Another thing Amelia helped with was the "circle of text" design element. Kylie had these instances mocked out and I thought they were so cool and I definitely wanted to pull it off. There is a really elaborate way to do it by splitting the characters in to spans and transforming them, but that's a bit messy compared to SVG's <textPath>. I knew I wanted to go the SVG route, but perhaps abstract it away into a reusable component so that it wasn't a heaping pile of code every time I want to use one.

It occurred to me that a web component might be the best way to go here because I can kind of invent the API myself. What I wanted a circle-of-text component to do:

Pass in the text to set on the circle

Declare the radius of the circle

Rotate the circle so I can start the text at any point along the circle

That makes perfect sense as a web component:

<circle-text r="3em" rotate="-90deg"> CSS is super fun & cool & I like CSS!!! </circle-text>

My expertise with web components is limited, so I reached out to Amelia again who is great both with web components and SVG—a perfect match! This is what she was able to do, which I easily integrated easily into this design.

Thanks, Ana!

Another design thing that Kylie cooked up that I was a bit perplexed by was this line:

I thought maybe SVG again, but I really wanted to nestle regular HTML content in there nicely. I was hoping to pull it over with borders or something CSS-y. I reached out to Ana Tudor who is fantastic at tricky design situations and solving them with native browser tech. Ana was able to whip up a good solution here using multiple gradient backgrounds in the main area and a border for the top right bit that flies off.

See the Pen nav by Ana Tudor (@thebabydino) on CodePen.

Thanks, Zach!

Fonts are a unique part of the loading experience of websites in that their presence (or lack of), how they appear, and how they change all play major roles in the perceived performance of the page.

I've had the good fortune of being able to chat with Zach Leatherman about font loading before, but I still don't feel entirely comfortable with what the best practices are in any given situation. For this design of CSS-Tricks, I made the call to use the system font stack for most of the body copy. That has the major benefit of being instantly available to render and aesthetically seems to work well on a technical site, not to mention generally pairing well with Rubik, our header font.

But we still needed to deal with Rubik. There will be an upcoming article from Zach going into this in more details, but the gist is:

Create a minimal subsetted version of Rubik that handles the majority of usage

<link rel="preload" ... > it

Use it with @font-face using font-display

Load a more robust version in an async second stage

Nice job everyone that worked on the @css relaunch!

Look at those web fonts showing up on that 2.09s Fast 3G first render 🎉

(full disclosure I helped a wee bit with the font loading here 😇) pic.twitter.com/Ih7zJhelQQ

— Zach Leatherman (@zachleat) January 1, 2019

Some areas of the site are somewhat deprecated

The Forums is such a complicated area of the site to design and maintain, what I've done is just loaded the default bbPress styling for them, instead of trying to override things or start from scratch. I think that'll be the best route going forward.

There is a Gallery section of this site, but I'm not even linking to it anymore as we didn't really keep it up to date very well nor did it get used much. The URL's still work though. Maybe it can make a return someday, but for now, I'm enjoying the reduction of some technical and content debt.

Tech stack

It's somewhat boring. It's about the same thing I've done forever. It's a stock install of WordPress with a custom theme, a dozen or so plugins, and a bit of custom-coded functionality, like having the images powered by Cloudinary. It's running on a custom Media Temple-built box so it can have PHP 7 and MySQL 5.6, plus a firewall that also acts as a CDN. It's nice to have a pretty snappy foundation, so it's on me as a front-end dev to keep it that way.

I used SVG for the icons, Sass for the styling, and Babel to write jQuery-based functionality in ES6. I wrote up a Gulp file to do all that processing and run the local BrowserSync dev server. Local WordPress via Local by Flywheel.

I'm actually pretty happy with the stack as it felt quick and productive to me. But I admit, part of me wishes I dug a little harder into new tech, like building webpack-based processing or trying to go all-in on a server-rendered and React-powered headless WordPress via GraphQL kinda thing. That likely would have tripled the dev time for questionable benefits. I would have just done it because it would have been fun and possibly open some interesting future-doors.

My last regret is that I wish I had spun up a real pattern library system from the start. I think I did OK in breaking things up into reusable parts, but the site isn't truly componentized. As I approached the finish line, I started to see how this could have gone a bit smoother for me should I have worked with true components that accepted data and had variations and such. Native PHP isn't great for that, so it would have forced me into some kind of templating system, and I probably wouldn't have regretted it. If I stay in PHP next time, maybe I'd use something like Timber and Twig for all the components, and then Fractal for the pattern library since it supports Twig. I kind of dig the way Timber abstracts the data stuff from the views.

I hadn't heard of this app until now, but check out Project Wallace:

Project Wallace is a project aimed at gaining insights in your CSS over a longer period of time. It started a couple of years ago as a frustration with existing CSS analyzers that only do a one-time only analysis. As time went by, more and more features were added and now Wallace is place to go for developers who want to know if their complexicity has increased or for a designer who wants to know if all the correct colors and fonts are being used.

Bart Veneman set it up to watch CSS-Tricks, and you can see a before/after comparison and charts over time. Bart blogged about the numbers for us as well. Thanks Bart!

There are more interesting stats in that blog post.

CodePen embeds

The true usefulness of CodePen Embed Themes came out here. The whole point of an embed theme is that you can use them to match the design of where the Pens will be embedded, and if you need to change that design, you can change them all in one fell swoop. There are probably thousands of embedded Pens on this site, and they all got updated at once with one theme change.

There are a few special things that I've done with CodePen embeds on this site:

The are resizable from the bottom right corner. Used jQuery. Like this.

They have a placeholder height. When you embed a Pen, you can choose how tall you want it to be. That's how tall the <iframe> will come in as. But I've adjust it so that the <p> that is there before the iframe comes in will be that same height, so there is no reflow jank.

I regex'd that sucker myself like this:

function codepen_reflow_fix($content) { $content = preg_replace('/data-height=(\'|")(\d*)(\'|")/', 'data-height="$2" style="height: $2px;"', $content); $content = preg_replace('/data-theme-id="\d*"/', 'data-theme-id="1"', $content); return $content; } add_filter('the_content', 'codepen_reflow_fix', 10);

We're gonna bring that feature to CodePen itself real soon. Notice in that RegEx above I'm also forcing the theme id. That way, all embedded Pens definitely have the correct theme, even if we forget.

Achievement unlocked: The custom scrollbar is the new feature that everyone either loves or hates

If there has been one constant in every CSS-Tricks design, it's that there's at least one feature people either love or hate. This time, I'm happy to announce it's the custom scrollbar. In a sense, it's for myself. I manually use scrollbars quite a bit and it feels both fun and highly usable to grab onto this big beefy chunk of pink love.

It's also a little inspired by VS Code, which features a pretty beefy scrollbar itself:

There are general usability considerations about custom scrollbars for sure, but I don't feel like they've been breached too heavily here, if at all. I've heard some "don't mess with my browsers UI" feedback, which I sorta get, but does that mean we shouldn't style any form controls, or even use CSS at all? (LOL.) And don't scrollbars come from the system, not the browser?

Anyway, I'm not faking them or anything. I'm just using ::-webkit-scrollbar and friends. There is official scrollbar styling stuff on the way, per the CSS specs. I didn't use any of that stuff/ I think I'll wait for at least one browser to support it.

We have plenty of bug fixing and polishing to do still on this design. If you've emailed or tweeted or communicated with us in some way about it, I've probably seen it and have been log it all to make sure it's all addressed the best we can. Plus stay tuned for some fun new features!

If you have thoughts, free to leave comments here if you like, use our contact form, email at team@css-tricks.com, or chat it up in our new Spectrum community.

The post Design v17 appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

😉SiliconWebX | 🌐CSS-Tricks

[scorchedspace-blog]

scorchedspaces RP tutorial!

This got massively out of hand, so I decided to put it in a seperate post. If anyone has any questions or they want more clarification, I’ll update this post!

I hope this helps anon! There are links to tutorials, so keep an eye out for them.

I’m going to be linking to outside sources a lot, so keep an eye out for the links.

This blog is dedicated to resources, heres one of their masterposts.

muse = character on blog mun = person running the blog smut = sexual content blacklist = blocking a tag with xKit

BEFORE YOU RP

Setting up your blog - xKit

xKit, the saviour of blogs everywhere. Seriously, download xKit. It will save you time and make your life a lot easier! Make sure you download the NEW XKIT, the old one has a lot of issues.

Once you install xKit, you’ll find it here.

Clicking on it will open an overlay on your screen. Have a fiddle with it yourself, its really easy to use!

One that I would definitely recommend for an rp blog is this. You can input your anon and ask tags so any asks they’ll automatically appear on.

Setting up your blog - Themes

Picking a theme is something that takes me the longest. I don’t have specific theme recs, but there are blogs dedicated to reblogging themes. I googled ‘tumblr themes’ and found three immediately, so its not hard to find them. I found my current theme on this blog.

Picking a theme is honestly up to personal preference, but here are a few tips.

You’ll need a theme where you can have custom links. I need at least 5 on my blog, you may need more or less.

Themes have different levels of customization. If you don’t know html, its probably best you find one with a higher level.

If you do edit the html of your theme, make sure you make backups. HTML is finicky and will sometimes do weird things

Find a balance between aesthetic and practicality. You need to be able to read whats on your blog!

You’ll need an art program like Photoshop to set up a custom background. Most themes you can simply upload an image, however if you want art or text you’ll need to do it yourself! I used this tutorial when I made mine. There are plenty of free brushes and textures out there to make it look interesting!

Note: ALWAYS credit any art you use in your theme. Put the credit in your sidebar, somewhere where its visible.

Setting up your blog - Pages

You need at least a rules page and an about page before you start. Most blogs won’t rp with you unless you have these pages up. This is especially important for ocs.

An about page is literally just about your muse, like a bio. Its important to note here your muses sexuality, to let people know if they can ship their muse with yours. You character age is also very important!

Your rules page is arguably the most important page on your blog. This is where you write the boundaries of you blog.

Age. Both yours and your muses again. Most blogs will not rp smut if the mun or the muse is under 18. Some blogs won’t do it under 21.

Any triggers you may have. For example, I won’t rp anything that has non consensual smut in it, so I’ve put that in my rules. This includes ANYTHING you’re uncomfortable with, including blood and gore.

You can put how you tag triggers in here (more on tagging soon)

Literally any other rule. Be firm and clear!

Getting things together - Tags

Tag everything. Seriously. Its not just for your followers, its for your own reference when you look back through your blog. If you want fancy tags, you can use quotes, lines from poetry, lines that your muse has said, literally anything!

Its a good idea to keep a list of your tags. The easiest way to do this is with a Word document, or to make another page on your blog. You can make a page but not have a link to it, so as long as you have the url you can access it.

You should try and tag all of the following.

TRIGGERS. You MUST tag triggers! Once again, be consistent in the style of tagging. If you’re unsure that something is a trigger, tag it anyway. I’ve been asked to tag spiders before, so its better safe to be sorry!

The url of the blog you’re replying too. This is important! Blogs will often follow their own url as a tag to keep track of things they’ve been tagged in. If you don’t do this, they might miss it!

OOC (out of character) posts. A lot of blogs blacklist ooc posts just because they’re here to rp, and aren’t interested in ooc posts.

Those are the three big ones as far as I’m concerned, but the more tags the better. Once you’ve started using a tag, don’t change it! You can add more tags to your list, but changing a tag a month in will confuse you!

Once you’ve figured out your tags, make a tag dump. This just a text post that you tag with literally everything. Once you’ve used a tag once, Tumblr will remember that tag. So instead of having to write out your tag every time you use it, you can just type in the first few letters and Tumblr will tell you the tag!

Getting things together - Icons

The first thing to do is to find pictures. If you’re rping a character from a show, you may have to ‘cap’ episodes. This is literally taking screenshots as you watch the show. Don’t take a million, look for scenes where your character is expressive or in focus for a long time. Some episodes of Voltron I only got a dozen caps of Keith, and thats fine.

Icons are generally 100x100 pixels. This is quite small! You need to crop your caps down to this size, and figure out how you want your character to be centered.You don’t always have to have the entirity of your muses face, I’ve seen icons of hands on hips, just mouths, just eyes. Its up to you!

Filtering is where it gets tricky. My filter has a texture over the top of it, coloured orange and the opacity set low. Lighting in scenes have a big impact, night scenes will need brightening but indoor scenes won’t. 

I’d recommend checking out this page for icon tutorials!

ROLEPLAYING

Straight up, here are some tips!

Smut goes below a readmore! Just insert a readmore before your reply, to keep it off peoples dashboard. Personally, I’d also put any detailed gore under a readmore.

TRIM YOUR POSTS. When you reblog a thread, a pencil in a circle will appear to the left of the post. Click it, and delete everything from the thread that isn’t not the last response. This keeps everything neat and tidy and stops you from clogging up your blog and other peoples dashs.

Spelling and grammar. Seriously, make sure you’re doing this right. Its very off putting to have replies with no spelling or punctuation. A few minor mistakes is no big deal, but Tumblr has an autocorrect - use it!

Keep drama off your blog. We’re here to rp, and nobody wants drama on their dash. Keep that stuff for your personal accounts.

If you need too, turn off anon. There are nasty people who send anon hate, and its a terrible esperience. Remember, you can turn anonymous messages off in your settings if you need too, and you can block people. Don’t feel bad - protect yourself!

Using your blog - Formatting

Formatting is entirely an aesthetic choice. Some blogs use small text in posts. Personally I don’t, but thats because I sometimes have trouble reading such small text. There is superscript and subscript as well.

Tumblr has a built in cheat sheet for formatting. This guide has screenshots.

Using your blog - Interacting

I’m sure I don’t need to say this, but the first rule of roleplaying is respect. Some blogs won’t want to roleplay with your muse. Some blogs are not comfortable with roleplaying certain things. Respect that. You’re allowed to be disappointed, but never, ever, get angry at them. 

Check rule pages. I talked above how important it is to have them -  and this is why. Give them a read before you start interacting with them.

Selective/semi - selective - Selective means that the mun is very particular with who they rp with. They might have certain standards they want their partners to adhere too. They might only rp in paragraphs. Some blogs will only rp with mutuals - someone that follows them, and that they follow.

Using your blog - Roleplaying

When you start interacting with blogs, you might usually start with memes, by sending one to a blog you like and getting a response. Think about what you’re sending - if your first interaction with a muse is a sexual ask, how do you think they’re going to respond? Build relationships with muses and muns, don’t assume that your muses are going to be best friends immediately. This is especially true for OCs and crossover muses!

If you’ve sent someone an ask, and you want to continue beyond their immediate response, its nice to check first. A lot of blogs are happy to do this! If you decide to do this, make a new text post for your response and link to the ask. Reblogging asks and adding new text to it makes long posts, and will clog up your blog.

And I’m done! If anyone wants clarification, send me an ask and I’ll update this post! I hope this helps some people!

[godslush]

Oh, and because apparently nobody wanted to know anything from that artist ask post, here’s all the answers anyway:

   Do you prefer traditional drawing, or digital? I actually feel a lot more comfortable with sketching and lines in traditional, but I've been spoiled by digital tools for coloring and refining. I'd say digital for now since I don't have a good means to do traditional lines and then transfer them to PC for coloring; no room for a scanner and too lazy to clean up a photo.    How long have you been drawing? Technically since pre-school, but I started drawing seriously with intent to improve in 6th grade, which was 1997-1998, so about 20 years. :>    How many classes have you taken? I took technically four years in high school, but the teacher didn't so much teach drawing techniques as she did nurture students' existing abilities and provide challenges, usually in the form of prompts and different mediums. I also took one summer in college that was an introductory course that didn't really teach me anything I didn't already know, I just had to take it as compulsory 'diversification' (since I was majoring in biology). It probably helped a lot, though, in the sense that it forced a lot of still life drawing, something that's of great value to all artists that I tend to shun because it's 'boring' and such, which is a very bad mentality to have, haha.    Do you have a DeviantArt, personal website, or art blog? I have a DevArt (Daimera) but it's defunct and I will never update it again. It's a good way to see how I've grown, though, since it goes back pretty far and I haven't deleted much, only hidden a bunch of my original character art due to annoying children and art thieves. My dedicated art blog now is artslush here on Tumblr.    What’s your favorite thing to draw? Whatever I'm having fun with at the time! Usually monsters, but not always!    What’s your least favorite thing to draw? Realistic people. Realistic anything. Seriously, just take a photo.    How often do you use references? Much less than I probably should.    Do you draw professionally, or just for fun? Just for fun. Not sure if I'd enjoy drawing professionally; if it becomes my job I fear I may grow to resent one of my only forms of enjoyment.    How much time do you spend drawing on an average day? Not nearly long enough.    Are you confident about your art? I'm sort of see-sawing. I'm happy with my art from my own perspectives and relative to where I'd like to be, but I know I'm nowhere near good compared to actual professionals. I just try not to let it bother me.    How many art-related blogs do you follow? Considering I came to Tumblr because of art blogs (or blogs of people who do art on occasion even if it's not their main theme), do you really want me to go and manually count them? ... Really...? Ugh, okay... ... ... ...62. ...What? I like to keep a clean dashboard!    Is it okay for people to ask you about your process? It is but you're not gonna get a particularly great answer! I have some videos up on YouTube, mostly long streams though.    Do you prefer to keep your art personal, or do you like drawing things for other people? Mostly personal now. I used to draw way more for others in the past, but when I started attracting the attention of a younger and more entitled crowd (not gonna say who but if you've been there you know), I've become more and more reclusive out of the desire to just not have to deal with the drama of kids trying to guilt me into doing free art for them. "I love your work! See, I've complimented you! You owe me now! You've done free art for others, so why not meee???! Wow, you're such a horrible person! I'm going to treat you like garbage and tell everyone what an awful person you are for not giving me free stuff or reciprocating my 'kindness' to you!!" Maybe I'm overreacting or projecting, but it's something I just want to avoid, even if it's not likely to happen. I just can't deal with that kind of trash.    Do you ever collaborate with others? I think I've only done a small handful of collabs, and even then, it was more "someone did a black and white pic for me for reason A or B and I decided to color it", or someone seeing lineart I’ve done and going “Hey, that’ s awesome! Can I color it? :D”  I don’t think I’ve ever been in on a project that was a collab from the get-go.    How long does an average piece take you to complete? Depends on the complexity, I'm fairly impatient so I prefer to take as little time as possible, preferably in one sitting split up by short breaks. I'd say 3-6 hours? I get VERY disheartened if I spend a lot of time on something only for it to not get attention proportionate to the effort I'd put in.    Do you draw more today than you did in the past, or do you draw less? Less, unfortunately. I was a lot more confident and dedicated back in the day until art students I'd surrounded myself with destroyed my drive with their self-destructive attitudes. I felt very "Well, they're way better than I will ever be and they think their work is garbage, what hope do I have of ever being anything more than what amounts to worse than garbage?"  I don't feel that way now, but I was never able to pick my momentum back up fully after hitting that wall.    Do you think you’re justified in giving other people art advice? No, but I often find myself being asked for it anyway, haha.    What are you currently trying to improve on? Nothing specifically, though I'm trying to make single character pieces slightly more dynamic than "character standing there in default idle pose." I'm not fully successful, but baby steps.    What is the most difficult thing for you to draw? Backgrounds and sensible lightsourcing.    What is the easiest thing for you to draw? Nonsensical eldritch monsters.    Do you like to challenge yourself? Not really. I'm very much a comfort zone person.    Are you confident that you’re improving steadily? Yep! It's a very slow steadily though, haha.    Do you draw more fanart, or more original art? Lately it's been more fanart; it gets more attention more quickly, and I find it more satisfying to draw something when I know more people like it. It's a double-edged sword, though; if people are clearly liking the content simply for being that content rather than for being my art of that content, I start feeling bitter. See: me any time half-assed Pokemon fanart of mine that I don't even think is all that good gets stupidly popular.    Do you feel jealous when you see other people’s art, or inspired? (Be honest!) I used to, and on occasion I will on certain very specific kinds of designs (usually mechanical and cybernetic), but for the most part it's counter-productive to hold a bar high with the work of others and expect to achieve that. All it does is lead to despair.    Do you like to draw in silence, or with music? MUSIC. I have a lot of playlists, and they're usually game-based.    For digital artists: what program(s) do you use? I used to use OpenCanvas predominantly, but now I use Manga Studio. I'll occasionally touch up in an ancient copy of Photoshop 7. I occasionally dabble in Krita, especially if I want live symmetry. For sprites, I usually use Photoshop for the initial, and ImageReady to animate, but lately I've been trying to switch over to PyxelEdit. If I want to do animating that's not pixels, I use Pencil2D, but you'll almost never get to see my failures there, hahaha.    For digital artists: how many layers does a typical piece require? Back when I was using OpenCanvas, which only had 'transparent' layer styles (Add, Multiply, Subtract), I'd usually have very few, and a lot of those habits held. Often times my layer flow looks like: - Lines - Highlight details - Broad highlight - Shadows - Color - Sketch And sometimes I'll just add one or two additional glowy or shadow detail layers to that. This is usually per-character, so multi-character pics will double what's there for the most part. If there's a background, though, expect like five thousand layers, lol.    What inspires you to not just make art, but to be a better artist? My head is filled with a lot of crap, and I just want other people to kind of share in that. Since I'm not great with words on a descriptive level, drawing the things I see in my mind is the next best thing to magically gaining the ability to transmit my thoughts and mental images to others, lol. The better I am, the better I can get those ideas across.

[boofrp]

1 (more coming) I'm a little confused about your situation. I understand that you don't feel comfortable disclosing all the details with people online, although I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that you're asking for donations. I realize mental health plays a big part in the reason why you're unwilling to get a job, but... If I were in your shoes, and I was stuck in a toxic environment, I would be doing whatever I could to ensure I was out of that situation.

[CONTINUED] Sure, offering resources for small fees can be helpful, but there are people out there giving them away for free - so how far can that really get you? Eventually, you’re either going to have to put yourself in an uncomfortable situation and do what’s best for you, so you can escape the toxicity, or you’re going to be stuck there forever. Personally, I think it’s time to grow up and realize you’re not going to make a living off of selling resources. I just think it’s very unfair to those of us who are working for our own money, and I believe you’re completely capable of going out and seeking employment. Yes, you have issues - but so does everyone else. There are people who are way worse off than you are, I’m sure. I’m not trying to be rude, but I’ll admit I’m a tad bit suspicious. A piece of me believes you’re just trying to get whatever you can out of the community, as if they owe you something. You’ve been known to lie before, therefore I just can’t trust your story and accusations. Sorry.

   i actually wrote a long ass reply to this but because my computer crashed right before i was about to post it, i lost everything and need to start again lmao. ANYWAY. i never once thought that in a community that is branded to be a “safe haven” and an “escape from life” that i would be thrown some bullshit like this at my feet, making me feel anything but safe or comfortable. honestly there are few messages i have received during my time on this account that made my stomach drop to my feet. this includes messages coming straight out and telling me to kill myself - that i can handle.

 but something like this, honestly made my stomach drop and i hope you’re happy because when i first read this last night i began gagging/feel nauseous and then had a full blown anxiety attack and breakdown. now i’ve had some sleep and i’m not reacting as badly as i did at first to this message but i’m still shaking and feeling incredibly sick because: fuck you. now i really hate explaining myself and trying to “prove” myself to people that really do not deserve the time of day from me, but i guess i should have expected this because there are some really fucking toxic people in this community. lets get to the fun part, my actual replies to the points made in these horrible messages !!

POINT A: “if i were in your shoes i would be doing anything to get out of your ~toxic~ situation” --- first of all, be fucking thankful you are not in my situation because it SUCKS. it really sucks and experiencing this level of pain on a daily basis whilst trying to remain positive is really fucking hard. and guess what? YOU’RE NOT IN MY SITUATION. therefore you have no right to sit back and play commentator on everything i have said and done. let’s get that straight. now i have fucking tried to get out of here. let me make you a nice fucking list because you probably won’t settle until you have all the information from me.

>>> i have applied for ten jobs in the space of two days, all of which i was qualified for or they offered training for if i wasn’t. all of the answers were the same: we have filled the spot or you’re not what we’re looking for. and i have to admit my resume is pretty fucking lit because of all the things i achieved before my mental health destroyed my life. >>> i have babysat for a woman who years ago traumatized the FUCK out of me one day and i don’t want to go into specifics but it was really hard to put aside the fact that she made me run home in tears to my mum when i was 12 for a stupid reason. >>> i have considered asking my sister if i could move in with her. get this, any other time i wouldn’t even think of it because: a) she lives in a small three bedroom house - by small i mean really fucking small. b) she has a 3 year old daughter and a 1 year old daughter as well as herself and her boyfriend so you can imagine how much space they have already taken up. OH and she’s having another baby so they would be struggling to even fine space for them. c) i know that if i live with her i will only be able to have a suitcase of my possessions and would have to sleep on the floor, yet i still consider it and am close to asking. d) i have practically lived with her for a month and had a complete breakdown at the end because i was treated like a babysitting machine instead of a human and being an introvert, when spending so much time with people i need time for myself to regenerate but because the house was so small and the children wouldn’t leave me alone - i broke down. >>> i have done things to get $5 that i do not want to talk about because i know that if i even told my family i would immediately be disowned and i am not proud at all about what i’ve done to EAT FOOD. JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. >>> and lastly, i’m asking complete strangers for money - something that i have struggled with all my life is asking people for money, even asking my mother for $5 for school when i was younger invoked anxiety. but here i am.

POINT B: “sure you can offer resources for money but how far is that going to get you? people already make them for free” --- do you REALLY think i came into this thinking that selling resources was going to pay my rent? do you REALLY think i’m dumb enough to believe that i could actually live out on my own with just commissions from people online in exchange for pixels that will be meaningless in a few years? HOW DUMB DO YOU THINK I AM? you know what, $5 every now and again isn’t going to pay for my funeral insurance or my wedding in a few years, but $5 NOW is going to buy me a pretty decent fucking meal for once, it’s going to buy me a part of a ticket out of this small town. in the long run, $5 a week is going to add up and its going to HELP. also, there must be a reason more people are taking commissions each day - because there are actually people in this world who are fucking KIND and i like to believe in those people. paying commissions isn’t even buying my resources to me, because i know these people can get it anytime they want for free. no, it’s like a pat on the back or like paying someone a tip. IT’S JUST BEING FUCKING THANKFUL. if i had money i would be tipping my friends all the time. but i don’t.

POINT C: “it’s unfair for those of us who are working for our money” --- i’m,,, sorry. IS MY MENTAL ILLNESS A FUCKING INCONVENIENCE TO YOU? DID MY MENTAL ILLNESS DESTROY HALF OF Y O U R LIFE, MAKING IT ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO EVEN FUNCTION PROPERLY IN THE WORLD? DID MY MENTAL ILLNESS DESTROY Y O U R RELATIONSHIPS WITH YOUR OWN FUCKING FAMILY? DID MY MENTAL ILLNESS DESTROY Y O U R FRIENDSHIPS? DID MY MENTAL ILLNESS TURN Y O U R CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENTS INTO APPOINTMENTS WITH A PSYCHOLOGIST, ANTIDEPRESSANTS AND FINDING WAYS TO MAKE YOUR SCHOOL LIFE MORE COMFORTABLE SINCE YOU WERE LITERALLY TWO STEPS AWAY FROM KILLING YOURSELF IN THE MIDDLE OF CLASS? DID MY MENTAL ILLNESS MAKE Y O U WANT TO KILL YOURSELF MORE TIMES YOU CAN COUNT ON ONE HAND? DID MY MENTAL ILLNESS MAKE Y O U ATTEMPT SUICIDE TWICE BEFORE YOU WERE EVEN SIXTEEN? DID MY MENTAL ILLNESS EFFECT Y O U IN YOUR WORKPLACE TO THE POINT WHERE YOU WERE CLOSE TO GRABBING THE NEAREST PLASTIC BAG AT YOUR REGISTER AND PULLING IT OVER YOUR HEAD AND SUFFOCATING YOURSELF? DID MY MENTAL ILLNESS MAKE Y O U BULIMIC AND ANOREXIC? DID MY MENTAL ILLNESS MAKE IT HARD FOR Y O U TO LOOK AT YOURSELF IN THE MIRROR WITHOUT WANTING TO FUCKING DIE? DID MY MENTAL ILLNESS DESTROY Y O U R BODY IMAGE? FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU.

POINT D: “you’re capable for going out and looking for employment” --- please refer to my next answer to another anon who is a fucking dick too.

POINT E: “you’re just trying to get shit out of the community cause you think it owes you something” --- again... FUCK YOU. what the fuck have i done to make you believe i’m that shitty of a person? and if i was trying to scam this community out of money or whatever the fuck you think i’m doing, IT MUST HAVE BEEN THREE FUCKING YEARS IN THE MAKING, BEFORE I EVEN KNEW I COULD MAKE A FEW CENTS USING ADF.LY LINKS. i have lied about things in the past, but things that i a) owned up to and b) were NEVER about my mental health or my living situation. i’mm fucking SURE that if you go through my blog you will find me talking about how fucked i am in life. this isn’t some story that i shit out yesterday for money, for fucks sake. if it seems like i suddenly have all these problems - i’m fucking great at pretending i don’t want to be alive and that i hate myself.

POINT F: “i’m not trying to be rude” --- YES YOU FUCKING ARE. IF YOU WERE NOT TRYING TO BE RUDE YOU WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN SELF AWARE OF IT AND PUT YOURSELF ON ANONYMOUS, FOR FUCKS SAKE. IF YOU KNEW THAT THIS WASN’T RUDE, YOU WOULD HAVE COME OFF OFF OF ANONYMOUS, FOR FUCKS SAKE. but of course this isn’t fucking rude it’s just picking away at my life and trying to make it sound like i’m a fucking asshole because i am literally suffering in my own home :~)

     you know what? there is no way i can possibly come to a nice conclusion about this message in a sentence or to. so here is all i’m going to say: a) i’M NOT COMING TO YOUR DOORSTEP AND ASKING YOU SPECIFICALLY TO HAND ME OVER $2 SO I CAN BUY DRUGS OR WHATEVER THE FCUCK YOU’RE THINKING and b) YOU DON’T EVEN FUCKING DESERVE AN EXPLANATION FROM ME BECAUSE YOU ARE A FUCKING ASSHOLE. i don’t know what the fuck you want from me. my family is in $7k debt from my mum’s boyfriend’s mum’s funeral a month ago. do you want the fucking death certificate? do you want to see the flowers we got from her funeral insurance? DO YOU WANT A WHOLE FUCKING LIVESTREAM OF HER DEAD BODY BEING LOWERED INTO THE FUCKING GROUND? OH FUCKING HELL, DO YOU WANT TEXTS THAT GO BACK YEARS BETWEEN ME AND MY CLOSEST FRIENDS AND FAMILY OF ME CONSTANTLY TELLING THEM I WISH I WAS FUCKING DEAD? DO YOU WANT ME TO RECORD WHAT I EAT IN A WEEK? DO YOU WANT ME TO RECORD MY MOTHER TELLING ME I’M BEING FAT AND TO STOP EATING? DO YOU WANT ME TO HANG MYSELF IN PUBLIC JUST SO YOU CAN FUCKING SEE HOW SERIOUS THIS IT? i don’t know what the fuck you want from me and what your great plan was when sending these messages, but i hope you’re fucking happy.

[suzanneshannon]

Design v17

We rolled out a new site design on January 1! This is the 17th version of CSS-Tricks if you can believe that. The versions tend to evolve a decent amount beyond the initial launch, but we archive screenshots on this design history page. Like I said in our 2018 thank you post:

This is easily the most time, effort, and money that's gone into a redesign since the big v10 design. There are a lot of aesthetic changes, but there was also quite a bit of UX work, business goal orientation, workflow tweaking, and backend development work that went along with it.

This is a big one! The reception so far has been pretty great, but please know that we'll be refining it and squishing a lot of bugs here in the early days.

Here are some notes about who was involved, how it happened, and things to notice.

Kylie led this project

Kylie Timpani was the lead designer and really whole project lead on this.

I first reached out to her in April 2017, we chatted in May, and kicked off the work in June. From my perspective, this was a pretty casual process, as I had no particular deadlines and fairly loose goals. Let's make an attractive site that does better in all ways than we do them now.

Kylie was super organized and had a very thoughtful process around every aspect of this. Just in the first block of time that Kylie allocated for this project she:

Took a complete content inventory

Dug into analytic data to understand users, traffic, and usage at a high level

Created, distributed, and analyzed a reader survey to understand readers better and answer specific questions she had for them

Chatted with all the staff members of CSS-Tricks to understand their roles, workflows, and ideas

Kylie's obviously not the kind of the designer that just whips open a design tool and starts noodling around. As great of a visual designer as she is, the work was highly informed. She went on to speak with our advertising agency, clearly identify the site's current strengths and weaknesses, and do light wireframing.

I've been using Figma for visual design stuff, and Kylie was happy to use that as the design tool. That was nice since we both have Team level access and were able to use it collaboratively. For me, it was mostly useful for being able to see and reference everything, and make notes on the designs.

We also used Asana to track what was being worked on and ultimately as a place to track bugs and places where the design implementation needed attention.

Thanks so much, Kylie for all your excellent work on this project! If anything is a bit off or buggy about the site, it's my poor implementation. And good luck! ⤵️

⚡️ So! Speaking of big life changing news... in just a couple of weeks I'll be moving to San Francisco! I'm so SO excited to be joining @nrrrdcore and her truly incredible team over at Apple! 👩🏻‍💻✨

— Kylie Timpani (@kylietimpani) January 7, 2019

Design Stuff

I'll let y'all explore the design for yourself to find all the little touches we put in, but I'll give a shout out to a few of them where there is a technical detail you might enjoy.

Orange-to-pink

Clearly, we went all dark mode on this design. It's nothing to do with the new media query, although that reminds me we might consider alternations for those who specifically set prefers-color-scheme: light;.

The brand/accent/action colors are orange and pink, which looks quite striking against the darkness but works on light backgrounds as well.

I made a quickie little Sass @mixin that allowed me to use those colors (with variations, if needed) at different angles as backgrounds:

@mixin orange-to-pink($deg: to right, $col-1: $orange, $col-2: $pink) { background-image: linear-gradient($deg, $col-1, $col-2); }

And on text as well wherever we needed (most often as for :hover and :focus):

@mixin gradient-text() { background: linear-gradient(to right, $orange, $pink); -webkit-background-clip: text; -webkit-text-fill-color: transparent; }

We also needed the gradient to be applied to fills and strokes in SVG, so I plopped that into the document to use wherever it was needed.

<svg width="0" height="0" class="visually-hidden"> <defs> <linearGradient id="orange-to-pink" x1="0" x2="0" y1="1" y2="0"> <stop offset="0%" stop-color="#DA1B60" /> <stop offset="100%" stop-color="#ff8a00" /> </linearGradient> </defs> </svg>

Fixed header

There is something about headers that always bring out more complexity than you might expect. I recently went through this with the new CodePen header/sidebar and it as complicated for this site. Part of what complicated this one was:

It has its own set of unique breakpoints. The header is pretty full, so the breakpoints are pretty specific and unique to it.

We wanted a fixed-position (but minified) header that showed up as you scroll down.

When you're logged in, there is a WordPress admin bar also fixed to the top of the page. I wanted to accommodate for that.

At one point, it was getting pretty messy and I wound up deleting all the CSS for the entire thing and re-wrote it, taking all the states into consideration, and writing media queries that used logic to clearly specify styles in each of those states.

The idea of a not-always-fixed-position header is interesting in and of itself. It means that:

You need to determine when to apply the fixed position

You need to make sure the shift from not-fixed to fixed (and back) doesn't cause layout shifting

I was dead nervous about attaching an onscroll listener and doing math and such to determine when to do the switch. I'm sure it can be done responsibly, but I haven't had great luck with that. Instead, I placed a tiny one-pixel element to the screen and attached an IntersectionObserver to it and reacted to that. That gave me the power to adjust where that is in CSS, which was a nice little touch.

Here's the very basics of that code:

See the Pen Fixed Header with IntersectionObserver by Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier) on CodePen.

Mixup

One very cool feature of this design is the Mixup area on the homepage. It was one of Kylie's ideas to show and remind people of the variety and depth of content that is here on CSS-Tricks.

The line that goes through it needs to depend on the height of the HTML content in each of those boxes. The boxes are set on a CSS grid, but they can and should still expand as needed for titles and such. Rather than try to SVG this somehow, the line is essentially stitched together though border and border-radius on individual boxes. To make it line up, I occasionally had to nudge them around with transform.

There was some z-index involved too. It was fun making mistakes along the way:

Cards

I'm kinda in love with native scroll snapping. The cards kinda have a fun animation on desktop, revealing the entire card on hover/focus, and then on mobile you can see the whole card, but are easy to thumb through:

Thanks, Amelia!

The design called for these curved line separators:

I have a small degree of confidence with the SVG path syntax, so I took the first crack at it. I was able to design it in a way that it could draw that line OK and keep the stroke at the desired width, but it didn't scale quite right.

See the Pen Lighted Path by Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier) on CodePen.

I brought in SVG expert Amelia Bellamy-Royds to help me get it right. Feel free to inspect the site to see how it was done. It involves masking and nested SVGs and rectangles and transforms and all sorts of fun stuff. Amelia actually created four variations of the code and carefully noted all the pros and cons of each one. Ultimately, we went with this:

See the Pen Lighted Path by Amelia Bellamy-Royds (@AmeliaBR) on CodePen.

Another thing Amelia helped with was the "circle of text" design element. Kylie had these instances mocked out and I thought they were so cool and I definitely wanted to pull it off. There is a really elaborate way to do it by splitting the characters in to spans and transforming them, but that's a bit messy compared to SVG's <textPath>. I knew I wanted to go the SVG route, but perhaps abstract it away into a reusable component so that it wasn't a heaping pile of code every time I want to use one.

It occurred to me that a web component might be the best way to go here because I can kind of invent the API myself. What I wanted a circle-of-text component to do:

Pass in the text to set on the circle

Declare the radius of the circle

Rotate the circle so I can start the text at any point along the circle

That makes perfect sense as a web component:

<circle-text r="3em" rotate="-90deg"> CSS is super fun & cool & I like CSS!!! </circle-text>

My expertise with web components is limited, so I reached out to Amelia again who is great both with web components and SVG—a perfect match! This is what she was able to do, which I easily integrated easily into this design.

Thanks, Ana!

Another design thing that Kylie cooked up that I was a bit perplexed by was this line:

I thought maybe SVG again, but I really wanted to nestle regular HTML content in there nicely. I was hoping to pull it over with borders or something CSS-y. I reached out to Ana Tudor who is fantastic at tricky design situations and solving them with native browser tech. Ana was able to whip up a good solution here using multiple gradient backgrounds in the main area and a border for the top right bit that flies off.

See the Pen nav by Ana Tudor (@thebabydino) on CodePen.

Thanks, Zach!

Fonts are a unique part of the loading experience of websites in that their presence (or lack of), how they appear, and how they change all play major roles in the perceived performance of the page.

I've had the good fortune of being able to chat with Zach Leatherman about font loading before, but I still don't feel entirely comfortable with what the best practices are in any given situation. For this design of CSS-Tricks, I made the call to use the system font stack for most of the body copy. That has the major benefit of being instantly available to render and aesthetically seems to work well on a technical site, not to mention generally pairing well with Rubik, our header font.

But we still needed to deal with Rubik. There will be an upcoming article from Zach going into this in more details, but the gist is:

Create a minimal subsetted version of Rubik that handles the majority of usage

<link rel="preload" ... > it

Use it with @font-face using font-display

Load a more robust version in an async second stage

Nice job everyone that worked on the @css relaunch!

Look at those web fonts showing up on that 2.09s Fast 3G first render 🎉

(full disclosure I helped a wee bit with the font loading here 😇) pic.twitter.com/Ih7zJhelQQ

— Zach Leatherman (@zachleat) January 1, 2019

Some areas of the site are somewhat deprecated

The Forums is such a complicated area of the site to design and maintain, what I've done is just loaded the default bbPress styling for them, instead of trying to override things or start from scratch. I think that'll be the best route going forward.

There is a Gallery section of this site, but I'm not even linking to it anymore as we didn't really keep it up to date very well nor did it get used much. The URL's still work though. Maybe it can make a return someday, but for now, I'm enjoying the reduction of some technical and content debt.

Tech stack

It's somewhat boring. It's about the same thing I've done forever. It's a stock install of WordPress with a custom theme, a dozen or so plugins, and a bit of custom-coded functionality, like having the images powered by Cloudinary. It's running on a custom Media Temple-built box so it can have PHP 7 and MySQL 5.6, plus a firewall that also acts as a CDN. It's nice to have a pretty snappy foundation, so it's on me as a front-end dev to keep it that way.

I used SVG for the icons, Sass for the styling, and Babel to write jQuery-based functionality in ES6. I wrote up a Gulp file to do all that processing and run the local BrowserSync dev server. Local WordPress via Local by Flywheel.

I'm actually pretty happy with the stack as it felt quick and productive to me. But I admit, part of me wishes I dug a little harder into new tech, like building webpack-based processing or trying to go all-in on a server-rendered and React-powered headless WordPress via GraphQL kinda thing. That likely would have tripled the dev time for questionable benefits. I would have just done it because it would have been fun and possibly open some interesting future-doors.

My last regret is that I wish I had spun up a real pattern library system from the start. I think I did OK in breaking things up into reusable parts, but the site isn't truly componentized. As I approached the finish line, I started to see how this could have gone a bit smoother for me should I have worked with true components that accepted data and had variations and such. Native PHP isn't great for that, so it would have forced me into some kind of templating system, and I probably wouldn't have regretted it. If I stay in PHP next time, maybe I'd use something like Timber and Twig for all the components, and then Fractal for the pattern library since it supports Twig. I kind of dig the way Timber abstracts the data stuff from the views.

I hadn't heard of this app until now, but check out Project Wallace:

Project Wallace is a project aimed at gaining insights in your CSS over a longer period of time. It started a couple of years ago as a frustration with existing CSS analyzers that only do a one-time only analysis. As time went by, more and more features were added and now Wallace is place to go for developers who want to know if their complexicity has increased or for a designer who wants to know if all the correct colors and fonts are being used.

Bart Veneman set it up to watch CSS-Tricks, and you can see a before/after comparison and charts over time. Bart blogged about the numbers for us as well. Thanks Bart!

There are more interesting stats in that blog post.

CodePen embeds

The true usefulness of CodePen Embed Themes came out here. The whole point of an embed theme is that you can use them to match the design of where the Pens will be embedded, and if you need to change that design, you can change them all in one fell swoop. There are probably thousands of embedded Pens on this site, and they all got updated at once with one theme change.

There are a few special things that I've done with CodePen embeds on this site:

The are resizable from the bottom right corner. Used jQuery. Like this.

They have a placeholder height. When you embed a Pen, you can choose how tall you want it to be. That's how tall the <iframe> will come in as. But I've adjust it so that the <p> that is there before the iframe comes in will be that same height, so there is no reflow jank.

I regex'd that sucker myself like this:

function codepen_reflow_fix($content) { $content = preg_replace('/data-height=(\'|")(\d*)(\'|")/', 'data-height="$2" style="height: $2px;"', $content); $content = preg_replace('/data-theme-id="\d*"/', 'data-theme-id="1"', $content); return $content; } add_filter('the_content', 'codepen_reflow_fix', 10);

We're gonna bring that feature to CodePen itself real soon. Notice in that RegEx above I'm also forcing the theme id. That way, all embedded Pens definitely have the correct theme, even if we forget.

Achievement unlocked: The custom scrollbar is the new feature that everyone either loves or hates

If there has been one constant in every CSS-Tricks design, it's that there's at least one feature people either love or hate. This time, I'm happy to announce it's the custom scrollbar. In a sense, it's for myself. I manually use scrollbars quite a bit and it feels both fun and highly usable to grab onto this big beefy chunk of pink love.

It's also a little inspired by VS Code, which features a pretty beefy scrollbar itself:

There are general usability considerations about custom scrollbars for sure, but I don't feel like they've been breached too heavily here, if at all. I've heard some "don't mess with my browsers UI" feedback, which I sorta get, but does that mean we shouldn't style any form controls, or even use CSS at all? (LOL.) And don't scrollbars come from the system, not the browser?

Anyway, I'm not faking them or anything. I'm just using ::-webkit-scrollbar and friends. There is official scrollbar styling stuff on the way, per the CSS specs. I didn't use any of that stuff/ I think I'll wait for at least one browser to support it.

We have plenty of bug fixing and polishing to do still on this design. If you've emailed or tweeted or communicated with us in some way about it, I've probably seen it and have been log it all to make sure it's all addressed the best we can. Plus stay tuned for some fun new features!

If you have thoughts, free to leave comments here if you like, use our contact form, email at team@css-tricks.com, or chat it up in our new Spectrum community.

The post Design v17 appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

Design v17 published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/