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spencersawkward · 3 years

Note

i’m so happy ur on tumblr now!! i love between the lines so much, could you write a blurb or one shot about mgg and a younger co-star, but like very spicy if possible 🙃, idk i just love that scenario🥵.

i was literally about to write "omg i love this concept too!" and then i was like “well no fucking shit, sophi.” lol. YES i can 10/10 write you a one-shot with a similar scenario! also thank you for your kind words that was the first fic i ever wrote so it’s very near and dear to my heart!

summary: reader goes to a holiday party with her co-stars and best friend, Matthew... but all the fun happens in the dressing room.

content warnings: this one is quite dirty but i’m also proud of it lol. unprotected penetrative sex, oral (female receiving), degradation, use of the term “little girl,” creampie, age gap. dirty talk?

pairing: Fem!Reader/Matthew

word count: 4.7k

masterlist

"no."

"what do you mean, 'no’?” Matthew laughs, looking between me and the mirror.

"I look like the Ghost of Christmas Past." I lift up the soft white tulle of the dress, watching it float back down to settle over my skin. he's got his eyebrows raised and there's a smirk on his lips like he's holding back a laugh. I resist the urge to reach around and hit him.

"would you rather wear that?" he points to the punch-stained gown that's now laying pathetically over the back of the vanity chair. I genuinely ponder the idea for a moment.

"honestly, the crime scene vibes might work well with the theme of our show."

"seriously, it's not bad, Y/N!" he insists, drawing my attention back to the mirror.

"you're just saying that because you're the one who spilled on me and you don't want people making fun of how clumsy you are." I cross my arms over my chest. he gives me a dubious expression in our reflection on the wall.

"do I seem like I care about that?" he challenges.

"I--" the truth is that no, Matthew is not the type. Matthew is the kind of person to flounder in front of anyone and proceed to crack a joke about himself. he's humble. but I kind of like when we talk like this, our back and forth.

after a year of working together on the same show, he and I have grown incredibly close. I'm friends with all my co-stars, but he and I just have the natural friendship chemistry that makes me want to spend all my time with him. when we're not on set, we're hanging out on his couch or ordering dinner or driving out of town to check out wacky sites around California. we just have fun. pure, clean, honest fun.

of course, in my dreams it isn't pure or honest. frankly, there's a lot of sordid scandal to what goes on in my head when he accidentally touches my arm or brushes his fingers over mine. the amount of times I have gone to cast parties trying to work up the nerve to kiss him are embarrassing. he's older and more experienced and, obviously, he has no interest in me.

but that doesn't matter.

the only reason I'm standing in a dressing room alone with him is because he knew someone on the crew who could hook me up with a replacement for the night. he left while I slipped out of the old one and came back in only after knocking and checking, like, twice to make sure I was decent. he's so respectful that it's almost like he's afraid of making me think the wrong thing-- which makes me feel absolutely stupid for my almost schoolgirl crush.

"come on, you look great. let's go enjoy the party."

"was this a dress one of the victims was wearing?" I ask with a laugh.

"probably. not like we carry a lot of gowns on set." he grabs my hand, makes my heart leap into my throat. he only does it to urge me along, but it still feels intimate as I follow him out of the room, tossing one more evaluative glance at myself in the mirror. I seem terrified.

we continue to do our rounds at the party, Matthew filling my glass of eggnog even though I hate it. I wince and take a sip while we talk to some of our co-stars.

"what's wrong with you?" Shemar chuckles at my expression.

"lost a bet."

"with whom?" he glances between Matthew and me, knowing damn well already from the mischievous grin on the former's face.

"I told you not to take it." Matthew says over the rim of his glass.

"if you mention it one more time, I'm gonna throw up eggnog all over your outfit." I threaten him, but we're both smiling. Shemar frowns.

"what was the bet?"

"you know David-- the guy I was telling you about?" I reply quickly, determined to give my side of the story. Shemar nods; I told him last week when David oh-so-chivalrously danced up on me at a club and asked me out. usually in those situations, guys just want a one-night stand, so I was impressed and agreed. "anyway, Matthew said if it turned out that he was a weirdo, he would get to pick my drinks for the next week whenever we go out."

"your drinks? that's specific."

"she's so picky!" Matthew teases me.

"leave me alone, you dick!" I elbow him and he dodges just in time.

"tell him why he was a weirdo." he grins. the glare I give could kill. but Shemar is waiting expectantly for me to share the information, so I sigh and set my jaw before telling the truth.

"he collects antique dental tools."

"what?" Shemar laughs disbelievingly. I throw my hands up.

"I don't fucking know. we went back to his apartment and he showed me his whole collection."

"you're attracted to weird people, Y/N." Matthew says. I raise my eyebrows and almost say something that dooms me. I hold my tongue, however, and turn back to Shemar with a reserved smile.

"anyway, how are you?"

...

the cast holiday party is actually pretty fun. I tend to leave these functions early in favor of my couch and some ice cream, but something about the bright colors and the smell of wintergreen in the air makes me want to linger in the studio.

I stuff myself with sugar cookies and Matthew mercifully lets me switch from eggnog to Sprite. normally, I'd drink at such an occasion, but I'm a messy drunk and this is one of my first real jobs as an actress. I don't want to even come close to jeopardizing that by breaking some expensive equipment or something.

my throat gets a little sore from all the talking I do-- Paget and I spend about half an hour horribly belting out Christmas carols at the baby grand piano they brought in. they originally had someone hired to play it, but the guy disappeared about an hour ago.

by the time it hits around ten pm, my limbs are tired. I thought people would be leaving (a lot of them have families), but the party is still very much raging when I start to wind down. maybe it's because I'm sober.

"hey." Matthew sidles up next to me as I sit at the piano bench with a slice of lime in my mouth. I like to suck the juice out of them; sour things are my favorite.

"hi." I pluck the fruit out and drop it back into my soda. he sits next to me, his cologne filling my senses with the kind of sensual warmth that it shouldn't be making me feel. he always smells so good.

"ladylike." he gestures to the movement.

"is that why you call me 'princess?'" I smirk, half-joking.

"once-- I called you that once!" he defends. it's not a lie. he used the nickname when he was mocking me for my somewhat selective food preferences. it was sarcastic, but I wish it wasn't. something about the way he said it in the moment made me blush.

"is there a reason you've come to grate my nerves?" I raise an eyebrow and he turns away from me as he bites back a smile. I pout. "what?"

"you're talking like a Jane Austen novel."

"what's wrong with Jane Austen?" I defend, skin heating up. his proximity is doing things to me that it shouldn't.

"nothing," he glances at me before moving his gaze to the ivory keys. "do you play?"

"elementary level, sure." I giggle. he runs his fingers over them, never pressing down hard enough to release a sound. I'm entranced by the delicate nature of his actions, the veins and the curve of his fingertips, the sheer width of his hand. I think about it too much for it to be healthy.

"show me." it's a direct order, one that doesn't feel directive but still ends with me placing both hands on the piano and wracking my brain for something to play. I decide on a piece that Paget and I were doing earlier, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."

I've never been quite good at piano, and the nearness of his body is like an anvil on my fingers, but I play anyway. and it feels good. his eyes are on me, drawn to my tracings over the instrument as they press and lift and glide.

"sing." I tell him.

"no!" he protests. I don't stop playing, only now getting into the thick of the tune.

"oh, come on. just the chorus..." I plead, turning my head to beg. "please?"

I bat my lashes playfully, fully intending it as a joke, but Matthew softens a bit. for a fraction of a second, I think he looks at my mouth. he turns his head back to the piano and lets out a quiet "here we are as in olden days... happy golden days of yore..."

"there you go!" I egg him on, and he starts to get more into it. his voice is absolutely off-key; he's no singer, and somehow that makes him even more endearing to me.

Matthew has always been this flawless, intimidating figure in my mind. even when we first met, I was certain that he was hiding something because everything else about him is so... perfect. he's funny, sweet, genuinely kind, handsomer than hell. it didn't make sense. but knowing that he can't carry a tune makes me feel a bit better. it humanizes his beauty.

while he sings, I can't help looking at him. his side profile is even more enchanting; the curve of his features meeting a smooth elegance in his jaw and cheek, especially when his mouth is open. he catches me smiling at him and returns it with his own gleeful face, now totally fine with singing like a fool in front of everyone. nobody is even really looking at us-- they're several drinks in and lost in their own universe of drunken laughter.

there's something kind of magical about that, I think. we're sober. when the song draws to a close, I lift my fingers off the keys and into my lap.

"you're quite the Pavarotti." I joke.

"the who?" he furrows his brow with a smile.

"he's a famous opera singer."

"oh," he laughs, "thanks, Mozart."

I twist my face up as I hide my smile. this is also part of the reason I could never tell Matthew how I feel; we just fit together too well. he almost always gets my references and I understand his, even though there's an age gap between us. he's an old soul with a youthful heart.

"how's your night going?" I ask him softly, changing the subject. he sets his hands on his lap, absent-mindedly toying with his fingers. it's not a nervous tendency at all. he does it whenever we're on set.

"as of right now? pretty damn good." he replies with a smile. I get warm again at the implication. he doesn't mean it like that, but god, do I wish he did.

"very smooth." I compliment appreciatively.

"how about you?"

"it was kind of boring, but then this rando sat next to me and started singing Christmas songs and it got a little better." I say flatly, grabbing my glass off the top of the piano and running my fingertip over the rim. he drops his head in a giggle.

"you're something else."

"insult?" I clarify.

"definitely a compliment."

"I like compliments."

"well, I wasn't lying before. you look really beautiful in that dress."

"the murder dress?" I glance down at it to hide the absolute wideness of my eyes at his words. he's completely flustering me and I'm starting to find it hard to breathe. he said I look beautiful. not "pretty," not "great"-- beautiful.

"yes, the murder dress." he gets a little pink in his cheeks, and that makes me want to explode on the spot.

"well, say goodbye to it because I'm gonna go change back into my plebeian clothes," I stand from the piano bench. "it's past my bedtime."

Matthew looks up at me with an unreadable expression and I feel my heart flutter in my chest. I hate leaving him. "do you wanna come with me? like-- walk with me?"

"sure." he nods, stands, and follows behind. I can feel his presence like a delightful reminder of the emotions surging in my stomach. we wind through the crowd of party-goers until we end up back in the dressing room, away from the party. it's quiet.

Matthew walks in with me, carrying our drinks in his hand, and he's about to stroll back out so I can change when I touch his arm. the door shuts automatically behind him.

"wait," I swallow quickly. "can you unzip me?"

"oh." Matthew looks at me, then at the glasses in his arms, then at the vanity. he sets them down and comes back quickly, his frame behind me while his fingertips locate the little piece at the top of my gown. my breath hitches in my throat when he brushes over my spine by accident, one nail dragging accidentally against my skin as the fabric slowly gives way. I don't know if he hears it-- it's nearly imperceptible-- but he definitely hesitates once he reaches the place where my back starts to curve into my ass. he pauses, doesn't breathe until he reaches the end of the zipper.

"there you go." he mutters. his voice is a little more hoarse than usual, and he clears his throat as he steps away. I know he's going to back out. he's going to back out of the room and wait for me to slip into nothing and I know, somehow, that he's going to be thinking about how I look in here with my clothes off. he's going to wish he stayed.

and I'm going to wish he'd done more than stayed.

before I can lose my nerve and allow the moment to be swallowed up by practicality, I shrug the straps of the dress down my shoulders and let gravity take over. it drops to the floor, leaving me in only my bra and panties. I can sense him behind me; he's silent for a moment.

"Matthew." I say, the name sitting on my tongue like a sugar cube. perfectly formed, slowly dissolving.

"y-yeah?" he stutters for the first time since I've met him.

"are you looking at my ass right now?" I ask, still turned around. the way he's frozen in place tells me that I'm right.

"yeah." he admits.

"you can touch it, if you want." I murmur softly. part of me doesn't think this is real, the way each sentence leaves my throat like it's been pre-planned. truly, I don't understand how my brain is moving so quickly.

"are you... sure?" he's hesitant, but even I can taste the longing.

"yes."

his hand smooths over my butt, softly at first like he's still not believing his own eyes, before moving back to grab it. he squeezes the flesh, and a low exhale from him tells me that he's excited.

"do you want more?" my voice barely carries. my head is almost foggy from how good it is to have his grip on my body, even in such a simple way. I can feel myself getting wet.

"how much more?" his lips brush over my shoulder and I get goosebumps. my mouth opens and closes for a moment, searching for the right words.

"however much you want."

it's flint and steel, the way he sparks. the air literally leaves my lungs when Matthew grabs my hips and spins me around to face him. my lips part as I peer up at him, at the lust that now darkens those hazel eyes and the way he holds mine. his touch is certain. he pulls our bodies together, tilts my chin up to kiss me.

it's passionate, strong, the kind of kiss that causes me to lean back a bit just to receive the full force of his desire. but I return the affection easily, moaning into his mouth. I've never been held the way that Matthew holds me. like I'm made of sugar glass, like he wants desperately to feel the soft give of my skin and make a home of me.

the heat between our bodies is almost overwhelming, and I sigh when he subtly pushes our hips together. his erection is against my stomach.

"fuck." I mutter when I pull away for air. Matthew doesn't stop his perfect movements, though, tugging my earlobe between his teeth and starting to leave love bites up my skin and over my shoulder. he chuckles against my throat. I shiver.

"you alright, little girl?" he asks.

"just--" I let out a moan at the sensation of his fingers exploring my bare waist. he reaches behind me to unclasp my bra. "just surprised."

"about?" he slides the straps down my shoulders and looks me in the eye. the lack of physical contact makes me whine.

"that you want me."

"how is that surprising?" he smiles, using one index finger to guide me to look at him.

"you don't seem like it."

Matthew raises his eyebrows as if I'm a crazy person. truly dumbstruck. "what?"

"you-- well, I don't know." I frown, but Matthew takes my hand and moves it over his torso until my palm is resting over the considerable bulge in his pants.

"is this enough proof?"

I struggle for words, sputtering. "yeah-- yeah, it is."

he bucks into my hand a little and I bite my lip, eyes moving up to meet his. something passes between us that I don't fully understand, but feel in my bones. I have never, in my life, wanted someone to fuck me as much as I want Matthew to fuck me right now. my jaw clenches.

"I need you." I tell him like this is the most relevant piece of information that will ever pass between us. he smirks.

"yeah?"

"mhmm."

"then lean against the wall and let me give you what you deserve." he orders. for a second, I try to think through what he means. then I look behind me at the open space and back up, him following me closely. his hands move up to cup my breasts, kneading and tweaking my nipples as he kisses my lips. the coolness against my back causes me to gasp, and he swallows the sound with his tongue before moving down my body.

he's torturously slow, taking one of my nipples into his mouth while he shrugs off his suit jacket. he switches to my other peak, one hand splayed over my stomach, and then proceeds southward with his lips. his kisses are delicate, open-mouthed, as they find their way to the waistband of my panties.

he hooks his fingers in them and looks up at me.

"can I eat you out, baby?" he asks. I bite my lip.

"please." like a beg.

"oh, you're polite tonight." he smirks, tugging the garment down my legs and discarding it somewhere in the room. I don't respond, and he doesn't seem to need me to, because he pushes one leg up for better access to my pussy. "let's see if it lasts."

my back curves off of the wall involuntarily when he holds the flat of his tongue against my clit suddenly, trying to roll my hips against his face. my fingers tangle in his hair, one leg resting over his shoulder.

he starts to flick at my clit. I lose grasp of my own language.

"Matthew, that feels so good, I--"

he attaches himself to my bundle of nerves, seemingly turned on by the sounds I'm making for him. he groans as he laps at the wetness between my legs, dipping into my folds and sucking the soul out of me. I whine and use his curls as leverage to gain more friction. he peers up at me.

"needy little girl." he mumbles against my pussy. I shove him back into me.

"make me cum, then." I beg. I can practically feel the devilish smirk on his face as he devours me like he'll never get enough. every twist and lick of his tongue is sending me to new places. I'm panting, chest heaving, while I grab my own tits and buck into his mouth.

he moans. my orgasm hits me like a wave, causing me to nearly thrash with pleasure as I cry out.

"Matthew, keep going, fuck yes!" I feel tears prick the back of my eyes, the culmination almost too much to bear as we hold contact. he stares into my fucking soul as he eats me out, and I want to stay like this forever. it's hard to support myself with my legs going weak, but I love it. the sensations are otherworldly. it's only when I'm about to collapse that I push his face away from me.

"I love your pussy." he tells me, licking his lips as he sets my legs down. I grin and let my head fall back against the wall.

"thanks."

"come here, princess." he takes hold of my hips and guides me over to the mirror, turning me so that he's standing behind my frame. the pet name causes me to smile.

"what?" I reference our reflection. he stares at me, reaching around to squeeze my tits.

"I wanna fuck you in the mirror." such a vulgar thing, said so beautifully. he kisses my cheek. "if that's okay with you."

"I don't care what position we do as long as you're fucking me." I breathe honestly. he chuckles and draws me towards him so his clothed boner is against my ass. I reach behind and work the button on his pants. he undoes the ones on his shirt. we're silent, him watching my naked body move like he's trying to memorize every detail.

when he's finally stripped, he lets me stroke his cock for a couple moments before pushing my upper back forward so I'm holding onto the sides of the mirror. I see him biting his lip as he lines himself up at my entrance.

"you ready?" he checks. I nod and he smiles at me once. pushing in, the smile melts into a jaw-dropped haze, eyes rolling into the back of his head. "Y/N..."

"it's so big." I try to breathe. he's so deep, I grip the mirror until my knuckles turn white. he's going to snap my body in two with the angle of his cock, filling me easily.

"tight little thing." he grunts as he holds himself inside. I can only watch in shock as I try to adjust to the sheer feeling of him. Matthew runs his hands over my sides, my ass, touching whatever he can. "how's that?"

I start to wiggle my hips and he groans at the feeling of my walls desperately swallowing him up. "Matthew, I need it."

"need what?" he thrusts into me and I have to fight a scream.

"need you."

"fuck... yes." he hisses out, sliding into me. "you're so wet I don't even need to try."

I bite my lip to withhold my sounds and he stares me in the eyes in the mirror as he starts to fuck me harder, building a pace with his hips. he growls a little if he hits certain angles, getting ruthless.

"so many times when I wanted to be inside you, princess..." he trails off. I start to play with my clit with one hand, using the other to stabilize myself with the mirror. the idea turns me on.

"when?"

"whenever you have attitude," he pants. "tonight, in that innocent fucking dress. making me wanna pound you like a little slut."

I make a high-pitched sound at the shudder of pleasure that jolts through my stomach at his words, wanting more. I've never heard him talk this way before.

"Matthew, shit--" I rub myself in circles, caught between watching his face and watching the way his hips slam into mine.

"you're begging to be fucked, you know that?"

"am I?" I smile sweetly in the mirror. we're in our own world, locked in a fantasy that I never want to leave. I can feel him in every corner of my body, sinking beneath my skin. he digs his nails into my ass.

"mhmm." he hums. I can feel the familiar weight in my stomach that indicates how close I'm getting. a knot that screams to be undone by his perfect length. I would do anything for more of this. I can taste everything good in the world on my tongue.

"I'm so close." I whine.

"I can tell," he studies my face in the mirror. "so pretty when you're breaking."

"oh--" I feel my thighs tense and my body pulses, the euphoria almost overwhelming. we move steadily, rhythmically, and he pushes my climax to new levels. "faster." I cry.

Matthew is quick to respond, gripping me closer while he plows into me like he's never going to have my body again. the sound of it is filthy, perfect, a mess. he groans at the sensation of my cunt pulsating around his cock.

"cum for me, princess." he moans, losing himself in the embrace of my core. the foggy stare in his eyes is like drowning in the ocean. I sink below, not caring at all about the consequences of him inside me. fuck working together; I need him. "where should I cum?"

"in me." I groan.

"beg." he commands easily, watching my face contort in pleasure. I could pretend to fight it, to give a little attitude, but I don't want to. I love begging for him.

"fill me up, Matthew. please." each word punctuated by the breathlessness of my voice. he gets even more ferocious with me, beating up my pussy until I'm sure he's going to leave me sore.

"right there, right there," he gasps, hitting the same spot that makes me go cross-eyed. "such a good little slut."

his cum shoots into me, deep and warm and erotically twisted, and I nearly collapse. it feels weird, but so good at the same time. full. he groans out my name and withdraws, quick to grab my shoulders and hold me up as I almost fall. I hadn't realized that most of my body weight was supported purely by his thrusts.

"whoa." he lets out a tired laugh, gentle in his touch. I'm heaving air into my lungs.

"sorry." I apologize, my body unstable.

"are you okay?" he seems genuinely concerned and I nod.

"yeah, I'm fine. just a little overwhelmed."

"here," he scoops me into his arms and brings me over to the old love seat in the dressing room, laying his jacket down before putting me on top of it. "can I get you something?"

"Sprite." I gesture to the glass on the vanity, and he smiles as he goes to get it. I gulp down whatever remains of it. "thanks."

"of course." he keeps glancing at my face and the red marks on my hips where he was clutching me like a lifeline. "I'm sorry."

"what?" I set the cup down. "don't ever be sorry for fucking me like that."

"no, I meant--" he laughs, but then he sees my playful expression and realizes that I'm genuinely alright. I think my legs were asleep.

"you're a saint." I tell him. he frowns and shakes his head bashfully. I'm already getting up and collecting my clothes. "or maybe what we just did prevents you from reaching sainthood. I don't know."

he places his hand on my lower back, kisses my forehead tenderly.

"seriously. you're okay?"

"I'm perfectly fine," I assure him. "but I would be better with a milkshake."

Matthew breaks into a slow grin, staring at me like I've done something miraculous.

"how are you so perfect?"

#matthew gray gubler #mgg smut #mgg oneshot #mgg x reader

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shinesurge · 3 years

Text

I’ve been holding off on making this post because I wanted to try it out myself and get settled in and make sure everything went okay, but seeing as I’ve gone ahead and updated my site and everything I thought now might be a good time to start talking about this publicly!

If you’ve known me for more than five minutes you know I fucking hate Webtoon, like, a lot. Every aspect of it disgusts me to the core of my being, and while Webtoon is the ugliest version of them the aspects that I hate also extend to basically any comic aggregate site. I hate that they treat artists like content robots, I hate that they treat comic readers like morons who aren’t capable of engaging with complex stories, I hate that they actively try to strip away all the cool parts of indie comics by cultivating sterile and impersonal environments that discourage artistic experimentation and unique expression.

So! I hope you’ll be interested in what I have to say about this new platform that’s (hopefully) going to be out of alpha this summer. If you think you like reading comics on Webtoon, I really encourage you to check out Dillyhub once it launches. That’s the short version, but I have a LOT to say about this! So I’m putting the rest of this under a cut.

Full disclosure, I’m not getting paid or anything for this. The creative outreach at Dillyhub contacted me a few weeks ago asking if I’d be interested in having Kidd Commander be one of their launch titles when they go live this summer. I was hesitant at first, since I actively distrust anything claiming to be For Creators at this point, but they answered my pushy questions patiently and everything seemed on the up and up so I gave it a shot; I’ve been needing a mobile mirror for KC anyway. Eventually they invited me to the alpha creator discord, where they’ve been working directly with all of us artists to improve the platform, and now to be honest I’m REALLY excited for this thing to get off the ground. Nobody asked me to make this post, but since I’ve spent years whining and bitching about how other services do wrong by their creators, I thought I’d talk about this one that’s doing things right.

So, the biggest advantage this site has for creators over others in my opinion is that it. Treats us like individuals, regardless of follower count lmfao. If you’re a new person just starting out with your new webcomic, here’s what webtoon does for you:

Note: you don’t get a custom banner, you don’t even get to choose the solid color it is. That big circle icon is ALSO the image that shows up in searches, but everywhere else on the site it’s a 100x100px square, so you have to choose whether you want it to look good as a giant circle at the top of your comic’s page OR whether you want to look good in search results. Which, by the way, is the ONLY way for people to find you if you’re not partnered. And that’s it! You have no monetization options, you won’t show up on the genre pages, and when someone DOES stumble across your page it looks super unprofessional. Good Luck!

Now here’s my Dillyhub page(s):

You don’t get a static banner and one icon, you get a whole carousel banner with as many images as you want front and center as soon as you get to the project page. You get seven (custom!) genre tags, as opposed to Webtoon’s single tag you have to pick from their list, and plenty of room to talk about your work. The episodes are even laid out better, you get a MUCH bigger preview space to work with and they’re nice and big on the bottom half of the page:

you know, like they’re actually presenting ART lmfao.

That’s already an ENORMOUS improvement, but here’s my favorite thing.

o hm that’s a lot of super cushy settings I have for every individual episode, but what’s that, Episode Type?

LIKE.

listen, i know this is probably a bit specialized if you’re not a comic maker yourself, but this is a HUGE DEAL. You can post vertically OR page by page! You can even post pages two at a time for double page spreads, or so they read like a physical comic book! AND their specs are really open, as long as the file meets the size requirement you can make it whatever shape you want. You don’t have to reformat all your shit to post here!! I posted the entire first volume of KC STRAIGHT FROM THE PRINT FILES in like half an hour!!! The episodes can also be any amount of pages, you can post a single page or an entire chapter all in one go!

So that’s just the project page for the comic, let’s see what happens when I click on my username there.

Each author gets their own unique page (which you can tack a vanity url to!) to present themselves however they want! You always have the banner at the top, but beyond that you have a ton of options. Among other incredibly useful tools that really should just be bare fucking minimum at this point, like the ability to preview your page on different devices, you start customizing your blank page with this set of widgets,

and from THERE you can customize them MORE, you can promote your patreon or your kickstarter or whatever! Having this creator space ALSO means that if you run several comics, or if you want to promote your comic AND your illustrations, you can just separate them into individual projects! Each with their own page! This is also really nice as a reader because you can subscribe to a creator but you can also just subscribe to specific projects, if you don’t want to get ALL of their stuff in your inbox. It’s so good y’all hh.

Once again, all of this functionality is just THERE as soon as you make your account. You don’t need to be “partnered” or whatever the fuck, you don’t need to meet a certain follower threshold to unlock the ability to operate normally. You get your own creator space to present yourself how you prefer, you get pages for all your projects, you can even set up monetization options (and change them for individual pages IN a project) right from the start.

ok ok let’s compare this to my webtoon page

oh that’s right webtoon just puts your greyed out name at the bottom of each comic and that’s it because human beings don’t make this stuff, my bad lol anyway

Other fun shit that Dillyhub does that makes me feel like they’re people who have actually consumed or made comics on the internet at some point in their lives:

-When you log into the “studio” space, you’re in your creator account. When you log OUT of the studio space, it’s like you swap to a “reader” account, where you can access your pull list and comment on things with a different name and profile icon. Again, maybe only cool if you’re a creator, but if you ARE then you know exactly why this is incredibly useful lmao

-You can set up “hidden” projects, so if you only want certain things to be accessible by certain people or to not show up in searches that’s an option! You have SO much control here it’s great.

-The comment section has moderation options GODDD. You also have a real comment space, you know, so it actually encourages building a community (and a rapport with your community, if you like), and you also can just turn comments off entirely if you want! I haven’t used it much yet, obviously, but it’s been made very clear in the discord that artists want better control over their comment sections and the devs have it on their priority list.

-Absolutely every step of customization gives you a preview before it’s live, so you can easily see what these images you’re posting in different places are going to look like before you beam them to your followers’ inboxes. This includes individual episodes!

-This was sort of in one of the screenshots but it’s important so I’m saying it here too: the option to mark individual episodes as mature or with content warnings, rather than having to mark an entire comic as Mature Spooky Scary Content because of one or two pages getting a bit hairy.

This site is only in alpha right now, and it’s invite-only until they get to beta (for creators; anyone can make a reader account! but they haven’t set up a way to browse comics without direct links yet so) but honest to god it’s already blowing every other site I’ve used clean out of the water. And the staff has been really kind and responsive to us proposing fixes or changes! I will always defend individual websites as being the best option for an indie comic, but everybody’s gotta start somewhere and we NEED something that isn’t Tumblr or Webtoon to fill this role; this site feels a lot more like a symbiotic relationship than any of the other staples available for new creators right now. If you’re a comic reader and you want to see your favorite comics on Dillyhub I’d suggest keeping an eye on this site and once it’s live start poking them to look into it, and if you’re a creator follow their social media and hop in when they open up for anybody to join. I would LOVE to see this site take off as a viable option for hosting and reading comics.

Thanks for reading all this! I haven’t quite finished setting up yet, but if you want to poke around a project/creator page for yourself mine is here have at it. As things progress I’m sure I’ll have more to say, but since I’m usually so aggressively negative about places like this I just wanted to give some credit where it was due. fucking finally.

#long post #i want this site to obliterate webtoon so fucking bad lmfao

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stutterfly · 4 years

Text

Swipe Right 02 | Crosstalk | JJK (M)

Rating: M (Explicit 18+)

Pairings: Jungkook x Reader, brot7 x friendship

Genre: E2L, fluff, angst [later on], humor, [eventual] smut, PersonalTrainer!Jungkook, fuckboy!Jungkook, Nerd!Jungkook, Nerd/IT!Reader

Word Count: 10.2K

Last time on SR01: Namjoon introduced you to his friends and you find yourself absorbed into their little group rather quickly. While on your way to a Halloween party hosted at Jimin’s beautiful condo, you admit to your best friend Jennie that you have a crush on the sweet, shy, nerdy Jungkook. This just happens to be the same night he reveals his true nature: fuckboy. Now that’s just embarrassing, isn’t it?

Tags: Fuckboy Jungkook, let’s play some drinking games, dirty jokes, innuendos, friendship feels, jealousy, flashing, sexual tension, dumbBitch reader is drinking her dumbBitchjuice tonight, Tae makes things weird for half a sec, hint of foot fetish?, flirting with Hobi, flirting with Jin, embarrassedJoon who is also a mediator part time, tsundere softYoongi, Jimin is a traitorous snake who lives for the drama, Jungkook is like the kid pulling the pigtails of the girl he likes, tiniest glimpse at softboyeJK underneath

CW: excessive drinking, filthy language

Series: Activate your SIMCard Fic: Swipe Right (2/?- Ongoing)

Do not repost. masterlist // previous chapter // next chapter

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰

It's been months since the fiasco with Jungkook. You do your best to avoid any opportunity to hang with the group in a stationary setting when he’s present, but he’s kind of an unavoidable obstacle at this point. Pissed doesn’t begin to cover your feelings towards him and hurt doesn’t quite do it either. You’re angry about the things he did, the things he said, the way he covered up his true self, but most of all, you’re furious that your feelings didn’t just evaporate with the shift in his persona.

You thought time would heal everything, but so far it’s only turned you bitter about the whole thing. He still smells so fucking good. He’s still got a body like the weightlifting champ he is. He’s still dorky and funny in ways you wouldn’t expect a tool of his calibre to demonstrate. But he’s also a player and a crass asshole. A crasshole. Has he ever stayed with the same girl for more than a few days? You’d wager a confident sum of money that he never has.

Even though you hate his guts, your brain still finds ways to remind you that even if he’s a dick, he’s a dick you’re still attracted to. He’s the kind of dick you suck one night after getting drunk on cheap beer, and in the light of day you are disgusted with everything about it. So don’t get drunk and don’t suck that dick. Easy peasy, especially since fury overtakes you any time you look at him.

Pissed at him? That doesn’t cover it. Pissed at yourself? That’s closer, but it's still not quite all-encompassing. It’s some sort of culmination between the two that has you absolutely livid with the entire situation any time you think about it. He made you feel like a fool. You genuinely liked the person you thought he was, and he embarrassed you. That made not talking to him the way you did when you thought he had the emotional capacity of an actual decent human being hurt even more. At least you know now that he’s got more in common with a lifeless, unfeeling rock.

Not that he hasn’t tried to get you to talk to him. He has, texting you jokes, sending articles on upcoming game titles, spamming invites to a party on xbox live any time you log on, making a point to stand next to you, interrupting all of your conversations with an obnoxious “Hi, Princess!” and pestering you until you acknowledge him. Thankfully Namjoon has kept him from sitting next to you when you carpool, whether it be for dancing, dinner, karaoke, or any other external hangouts. Nevertheless, he still finds a way to annoy you despite the barriers in his path, and you are ready to claw his eyes out at a moment’s notice.

To keep your mind off how your last crush, well, crushed you and continues to let you down, you’ve been downloading and trying out a few different dating apps. You figure it’s time to find someone to connect with, and this is definitely how people do it these days, but your experience has been less than stellar. Jennie helped you set up your profiles and mentioned it in passing to Namjoon, mistakenly believing you told your other bestie about it. He's been teasing you about it every week since, but has been sworn to silence around the others under fear of you telling everyone about the time you caught him making out with a couch pillow.

He doesn't crash on your couch anymore.

Ever since Hoseok and Yoongi moved into the apartment down the hall, he's spent more evenings on their comfy sectional than you can count, but always after binging Kung Fu movies and bringing gratuitous amounts of takeout over your place. You’re grateful for the solitude so you can attempt to converse with strangers via text — maybe even flirt a little. Most of your conversations have become stagnant, but there’s been one guy texting you back and forth for a month now. You’re waiting on him to ask you out since you’re too much of a chickenshit to make the first move.

Now, as you walk down the hall with Namjoon, he elbows your ribs. “So... how’s your Jay-Jay?”

You wrinkle your nose at him. “Jason is fine.”

“He text you this week?” he asks, stopping in front of the apartment door.

Kind of.

“Mm-hmm!” Your reply is overly enthusiastic and it makes him suspicious.

“Did you text him first?” he questions, pausing before his knuckles touch the door.

Yes. But only because I saw a meme I could use as an excuse to talk to him.

“No.” The tone is questionable so you shake your head violently, scoffing. “I told him I wanted to meet in person.”

“Good. Good. Either he responds or he doesn’t,” he surmises, as if what he said isn’t the most obvious thing in the world. He snakes his hand around the back of your neck, massaging his fingers in circles over muscles you didn’t realize you’d tensed up. “And either way, I’m 100% certain you’re way too good for him. So don’t worry about it so much, okay?”

He snickers when you cast your gaze at the floor with a shy smile. “Joonie… That’s really sweet of you to say. I... Thank you.”

He shrugs off the gratitude with a smirk, trying to not let it get to his head. It’s true and you need to hear it. He clears his throat and knocks, nervously glancing over at you with his other hand still working small circles into the back of your neck. You’ll figure out soon enough that he’s also buttering you up since Jungkook is definitely home tonight, contrary to your belief that he certainly would not be.

The door swings open and a very sweaty, very shirtless Jungkook stands with his leg propped against the door, showcasing every glistening muscle of his body in the dim light. He dons an innocent smile, spreading his stance to push the door open wider and making sure you get a good look at the muscles tensing in his thigh. Your eyes helplessly scan the sculpted lines of his stomach, even as he purposefully flexes to draw the tiniest gasp from your lips. Pert brown nipples threaten to steal your attention, but you drag your eyes to the ink splattered across his skin instead. The myriad of tattoos that line the right side of his body tell a story you don’t have time or desire to explore, and you hate the way that your brain notes the curl of black ink disappearing beneath the band of his shorts and reappearing across his thigh.

“Princess, you made it.” He clicks his tongue with a devilish smirk as he watches you look him up and down with your mouth hanging stupidly agape.

Feeling your fight or flight response kick in, Namjoon’s fingers clamp down hard on your neck to keep you from bolting.

“What is he doing here?” you hiss in your friend’s direction, too distracted to fight against his iron grip on your neck.

“I live here,” Jungkook snorts, crossing his arms. “What? Didn’t you come here to see me?”

The anger on your tongue short circuits the connection your mouth has with your brain. Your jaw snaps shut and you roll your eyes, mirroring his action by folding your arms across your chest.

Jungkook seems amused by your irritation, offering a small laugh. “Client canceled so I decided to do a little exercise at home. Problem?”

He lets his hands drop to his sides, knowingly hooking his thumbs beneath the band of his shorts. Your eyebrow twitches and your jaw tightens. He knows the effect he has on women. He knows the effect he has on you. You’re determined to deny him the satisfaction so you simply stare him down. Douche.

Namjoon forces a dimpled smile to cut the tension. “So... I brought jenga! Do I smell pizza?”

You attempt to push past Jungkook, but he makes sure to bump a sweaty shoulder into you. “I’ve gotta shower. Wanna join?”

If you roll your eyes any harder, you might sever your optic nerve. “Don’t touch me.”

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰

Somehow you’ve been stuck with the worst jenga player in the world as your teammate. Namjoon may be a good friend and smart as fuck, but he is terrible at anything requiring coordination. He’s been the only one to knock the tower over. Four times now. That’s four times you’ve had to drink the disgusting gin offered in the form of a shot by Seokjin.

“I think I’ll sit this one out,” you declare, wiping the taste of evergreen trees from your mouth as you set the empty shot glass back down. “Jin, jump in for me?”

You sit back in your chair and pulling out your phone to check your messages.The man grimaces at your request. “Do I have to? The odds seem stacked against me. I can only compensate so much, you know.”

Hoseok and Yoongi snicker into their beers and Jimin laughs out loud as he reaches into the communal bowl of popcorn possessively wedged between his teammate and himself.

“I think these teams are very fair,” Taehyung says, licking the salt from his fingers as he sets the last of the blocks back into position.

“I feel like my luck is changing. Different teammate, different energy, come on,” Namjoon assures him, making the first move.

The block slides out without issue and he drops it on top of the tower with a grin. Hoseok hums a thoughtful sound as he pushes a middle block with the tip of his pointer until it falls onto the other side of the table.

“I’m not sure you’re paying enough attention to be the referee,” Jin pouts.

“Are you really so mad that she’s not looking at you?” Jimin teases with a giggle while making his move. “This is one game where you can’t use your face as a bargaining chip, Jin. It’s all skill.”

The older man scoffs, rolling his eyes as he takes a side block and wagging it in your direction. “How will you know if someone cheats if you’re looking at your phone the whole time, hmm?”

“I’ll know,” you mutter, not bothering to look up. “Besides. How do you cheat at jenga? You knock the tower over or you don’t. Team that knocks the tower over does the shots. Those are pretty simple rules.”

Seokjin grumbles something unintelligible underneath his breath in response. You ignore him as you reach for your bottle of spiked root beer, trying to figure out some clever joke that might impress Jason enough to respond to you. You rack your brain, furrowing your brow in contemplation as you stare at the blinking cursor and take a big swig.

Out of the corner of your eye you catch the flash of white and subconsciously spare a glance up. Your stomach flips like it’s trying to win a gymnastics competition and you wish you could press undo on the double take your eyes have just performed without prompt. Maybe he didn’t notice.

Jungkook pauses in the hall, adjusting the white cotton towel around his waist. He’s grinning at you like the cat that ate the canary as he slowly drags his fingers over the edges of the fabric, peeling it from its resting place on his hips. Of course he fucking noticed.

You force your eyes back to the safety of your phone screen just in time, barely missing the flash of his glossy ink-covered skin. When he realizes you’re not watching the show he’s putting on, he fastens the towel around his waist and walks into the light of the den. You swallow, feeling his eyes rake over your form as he passes the table with a loud sigh.

“All clean,” he announces in a singsong voice as he continues towards the kitchen.

You hate the way your jaw threatens to betray you by attempting to drop at the sight of the rippled muscles carved into his upper back and the thick line creased into the meat of his spine. Even with the broad artistic strokes of color swathed across his back in the shape of a phoenix spreading its red-orange wings wide, you can still see the definition of his form chiseled beneath it. You try not to lose yourself in the flawless details painted into his flesh and grind your teeth to keep your jaw wired shut.

Wet, tangled locks of hair fall into his face as he reaches into the refrigerator. When he stands up straight, he arches his back to stretch his chest towards the ceiling. He’s got a tiny jug of banana milk in his palm and he’s working on chugging it down.

He pauses and licks remnants of the cloudy liquid from his lips. “Thirsty. Relatable, right, Y/N?”

You scowl, tapping furiously on your keyboard. “Put some fucking clothes on.”

Jungkook throws his hands in the air in defeat as he casually wanders out of the room. “Okay, okay. I’m going.”

Your eyes settle on the tower. Minutes pass and still it hasn’t fallen. Turn after turn around the table, the game has gone on far longer than anticipated. Namjoon is determined to not lose this time; it’s actually kind of impressive how careful he’s been. You’ve almost forgotten about Jungkook until he reappears, this time fully covered in black sweats and a long-sleeved shirt. The tension in the room is palpable. You’re afraid to even breathe in the direction of the wooden blocks precariously stacked on one another.

Hoseok is sweating as he prods the stack with his index finger, making a high-pitched whining sound as he tries to determine his next move. Jungkook wedges himself between Jin and Taehyung, forcing you to acknowledge his presence as he sits on the opposite side of the table and steals a fistful of popcorn.

After a few seconds, Hoseok sighs at Yoongi. “I give up. You do it. We’re a team. I’m gonna knock it over if you don’t,” he whines.

Yoongi rolls his eyes and quickly shoots his finger out at a random block. It flies across the table at Seokjin, causing him to dramatically duck out of the way just in time. The table erupts with laughter.

“Damn, that didn’t do it. I was hoping we could play cards now,” Yoongi mutters to himself.

“Hey, what are you doing? You almost hit me with that! You have to put that on top! Go get it!” Jin yells across the table, mind already heavily clouded with booze. At least he’s laughing so you know that heightened tone doesn’t indicate any serious animosity.

“It’s right next to you. Pick it up and give it to me,” Yoongi replies while leaning over the table, which causes the tower to immediately wobble. Hoseok dramatically gasps, bringing his hands to his mouth. Seokjin picks up the block and slides it across the surface as he gives you a pointed look.

"Isn't this cheating? Don't they forfeit since it was on Hobi’s turn?"

"They're technically a team.” You shrug.

"You are a terrible referee," he groans, rubbing his temple as Yoongi carelessly throws the piece on top.

Taehyung and Jimin fervently whisper to each other over their strategy before Taehyung reaches out for an easy-looking target. The slightest touch sends the blocks crashing down, causing the man to blink in disbelief.

“Time to drink up your handsome competitor. Gin served by Jin.” He snickers.

Jimin and Taehyung cringe as Jin slides two shot glasses full of the vile liquid towards them. They link elbows and tilt their heads back, downing the burning liquid in solidarity. Jimin seems unaffected while Taehyung’s face scrunches up and he coughs.

“It burns!” he sputters, clutching his chest. He walks into the kitchen, dragging his tongue across his palm as though it will remove the taste from his mouth.

“Thank god. I don’t think I could have stomached another,” Namjoon murmurs, rising to his feet. “Be right back.”

As soon as he heads off in the direction of the restroom, the others start cleaning up the mess of blocks scattered across the table and Yoongi begins shuffling a deck of cards. Jungkook takes the opportunity to slide into the empty seat beside you. You toss an annoyed glance his way in warning. “Can I help you, Jungkook?”

“You could if you weren’t so busy pretending like you don’t want to look at me.” His tongue pokes the inside of his cheek and he smiles innocently when you look up from your phone to glare daggers at him.

“You’re in Namjoon’s seat.”

He ignores your statement, peering over your shoulder to catch a glimpse of your phone screen. “Who are you texting? Is it your hot friend?”

“She doesn’t want to bang you, dude,” you tell him in a flat tone, flicking the power button to hide the message.

“Oh, just like you?” he asks, unable to hide the amusement striking his features.

After years of practicing this song and dance with other women, he’s grown accustomed to everyone wanting a piece of this cookie. There’s no way you’re immune, especially after his performance on the ocarina a few months ago. He charmed you before you could sink your teeth into his neck and do the same to him, and now you're mad about it. That’s your category, right? Your spite is obviously a cover for your disappointment.

Unless it isn’t. His conviction wavers as your jaw tightens and you take a swig from the dark bottle on the table. People don’t get close unless they want to get fucked. Literally. But you are Joon’s ‘friend’ and you seemed genuinely interested in getting to know him, at least for a little while. Most people are good at faking the first time, but it’s been a while and you’re still here. What if you’re actually hanging around his friends for all the right reasons? What if you had something other than shallow intentions? What if he actually hurt your feelings? He sinks back in his seat, silently stewing in his assumptions.

You set your phone face down on the table, a forced manic smile settling on Yoongi. “What are we playing?”

The man spreads the cards face down over the table in a circle, placing a single shot in the center. “It’s called the circle of death. There are a bunch of ways to play so I’m just gonna pick my favorites.”

He gets up, taking the magnetic whiteboard off the refrigerator and furiously scribbling notes on its surface. You crane your neck to get a good read, but it’s still fairly challenging to make out his chicken scratch.

“There’s a lot you can pick up after hours at bartending school. I had fun playing this with the other people in my class but it’ll probably be even better with you guys.”

ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ RULES:

A - Face

2 - You

3 - Me

4 - Floor

5 - Jive

6 - Forehead master

7 - Heaven

8 - Hate

9 - Rhyme

10 - Social

J - Never

Q - Eat

K - Rulemaker

Joker - Waterfall

Your eyebrows furrow at the words you can make out. “This seems complicated.”

Yoongi scoffs, setting the board on the counter and leaning it against the wall. “Trust me. It’s not as bad as it seems. Besides this will be right here in case you forget.”

“Does that say eat? Yoongi, what the fuck does that mean?” You tilt your head to the side and try to read the list in its entirety but still at a loss for what it means.

Hoseok scratches his head, equally as stumped by the list.

“I’ll go over the rules once everyone is back at the table. I have a feeling I’ll be repeating them enough once we start.”

You slump in your chair with a pout as you proceed to polish off your beverage. Namjoon returns and sees his spot has been taken.

"Kook," he warns, tapping his friend in the shoulder to try to get him to move over.

Namjoon isn't stupid in the slightest. He may lack common sense at times and he definitely is the clumsiest person in the room, but perception is his strength. What do you get when you add up the subtle glances, the nervous stutters, and shy smiles? Multiply that sum by the times you've tucked your hair behind your ear needlessly, gotten starry-eyed while talking, or claimed a seat nearby. Tallying your distracted behaviors yields a simple answer: a crush.

You don't have to say anything. You never have to say anything because you wear that shame so well. Even subtracting the stunt Jungkook pulled on Halloween and the distance you've put down since then, it's not enough to negate the total. You say you hate him, but those glances are still there. Pressing your lips tight to keep yourself from smiling has become your default defensive tactic. Playing with your hair quickly turns into tugging loose strands back into a ponytail. It’s almost painful to watch. He wonders if anyone else sees it for what it is because Jungkook sure doesn’t.

Staying out of it is tough because he knows both sides. But it’s not his place to spill the tea to either one of you. You’re both his friends and it’s hard not to feel like the mediator that he definitely doesn’t want to be. You’re adults. You can figure your shit out without him to take care of every little thing. Yeah, it would be easier just to do it all for you, but you’ll never learn that way and neither will he. However, that doesn’t mean he can’t drop some caution tape out every once in a while.

Jungkook digs his heels into the floor and huffs. “But I like this seat and you got up so it’s mine now.”

“Joonie, it’s fine.” You manage to keep the irritation out of your voice, talking over the man to your left like he’s not even there. “He’ll get bored eventually. Don’t feed the troll.”

Namjoon shakes his head and takes a seat on the opposite side of Jungkook, grumbling how you’re going to come crying to him later when Jungkook snaps your bra straps or some shit and his friend is gonna end up with a black eye but whatever not his problem. At least that’s the gist of what you get out of your friend’s griping. He may have a point, but you’re not going to acknowledge that. You’re busy looking at the plastic cup full of beer set down in front of you.

You crinkle your nose at Yoongi but he answers before you can ask. “Everyone is drinking the same thing. Even playing field. Not really fair if someone's got more alcohol in their drink."

You catch Taehyung's eyes across the table and mirror his disgusted expression, both of you sticking your tongue out at the liquid.

"Alright. There's only one rule you really need to be worried about in the beginning: my rule to keep you all from getting distracted. If you touch your phone, whoever catches you is allowed to send any message to any contact in it.”

Jungkook grins wickedly at you, noticing the way you drop your mobile device on the table and leave it where it lands face down. Yoongi goes over the rules one by one and gives an example of each being used. Everyone blinks at him stupidly once he gets to the Queen and delivers a deadpan explanation that whoever pulls that card has to eat it. None of you are drunk enough to believe him, so he scribbles the rule out on the whiteboard and writes a question mark instead. He sets the board back in place and continues with his explanation, looking at everyone expectantly.

He points at the board behind him, not bothering to look back at it. "This is here in case you forget what any of the cards mean, but we’ll go slow since there are eight of us.”

A full round around the table and you are all feeling pretty comfortable and giggly. Some of the more tame cards have made their way into the discard pile beside Yoongi.

Jin pulled an eight and made Tae drink until he said stop, which was hilarious and equally terrifying when you realized someone could do the same to you. Luckily the enemy beside you didn’t have the pleasure.

Taehyung pulls a King and tries to make a weird rule that any time a four is played and you’re all scrambling to the floor, the last one to touch the ground has to kiss the feet of the cardholder. When you collectively agree you are not doing that he huffs and makes a rule that for the rest of the game if you have to drink, you have to dirty talk your beer before taking a sip. This rule makes you determined not to lose any rounds.

Laughter erupts from the table when Yoongi calls his drink a filthy little slut before having to take a sip. Hobi is so thrilled when Yoongi pulls a five and starts dancing immediately after that he ended up cackling instead of focusing on the game. He’s less than thrilled about needing to drink after missing the opportunity to dance so he ends up glaring at his drink.

“Oh, you think that’s funny, you filthy bitch? You want me to put my hands around your throat, put my tongue on you and drink up? Alright then.” He coos a ridiculous sound at his cup and guffaws before taking a huge swig.

Jimin covers his eyes and laughs, downing the rest of his drink like it’s water without a thought of whether he was supposed to or not. He gets up to refill his cup as an excuse to hide the heat in his cheeks.

“Hobi’s upping the game. Woooooow.” Jin leans back in his chair, mouth agape with wonder before bursting into a squeaky laugh.

You gulp, hoping everyone is too distracted by their own laughter to notice the way your legs clamp together. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the actual. Fuck. Hobi. I gotta text Jennie. She’s not gonna believe this. No, don’t touch your phone. Don’t look at anyone. Just wait for your turn to pick a card.

Hobi pulls a three and has to drink again. “Ah. This slut wants more. Here we go, baby.”

You desperately scan the circle of facedown cards, a smile forcefully smattered on your features. You strain to reach the one you’re trying for. Hoseok slides it towards you with an innocent smile, as though those lips weren’t just spewing absolute filth. “I hope it’s a good one.”

Your eyes drop to the card as you flip it back on the table. Jack. You squint at the board, trying to figure out what “Never” means when Yoongi puts three fingers up.

“Alright, Y/N. This is Never Have I Ever. We all put our fingers up like this. You come up with something you’ve never done and say it out loud. If any of us have done those things,” he pauses and drops a finger so he only has two standing tall, “then we put them down. First one to have no fingers up has to drink.”

Oh no. What haven’t I done? What haven’t I done? The guys all expectantly wait for you to say something. You purse your lips as your mind blanks on every moment you’ve ever experienced.

“Never have I ever…” your mouth is dry. “I don’t know.”

Yoongi laughs. “Don’t think too hard. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy, but it does have to be true. It’s not fun otherwise. People have different goals. You can use it to learn or you can just try get as many people to drink as possible.”

Suddenly a lightbulb goes off in your head. They’re all men. “Never have I ever peed standing up.”

Everyone around the table puts a finger down. The mirth in Yoongi’s face becomes strained and his eyelids flutter as he sighs. “Careful. There are a lot of cards left and you’re about to make yourself a target.”

You press on anyway. “Never have I ever had sex with a woman.”

A few of them tut in annoyance as they’re all left with one finger up.

Jungkook pokes his tongue into the side of his cheek. “You’re not living your best life then.”

You furrow your brow while trying to think of another easy thing that could get them all to lose. Tapping your fingers on the table, you make an effort to focus on each one’s concentrated gaze. It comes to you and you filter your bottom lip through your teeth for a moment. Have they...? You’d bet they all have.

Jungkook rolls his eyes at you. “Come on, Princess. Just say whatever it is.”

“Never have I ever been to a strip club.”

There’s a collective sigh as their hands drop and they stare at their drinks. You grin like a maniac, taking in the garbled sounds of each one dirty-talking their drinks like it’s a goddamn orgy.

Jungkook looks over at you, making sure he has your attention as he offers an amused smile. “You really haven’t been to Wings?”

You’ve seen signs for that club, hating to admit the ads garnered intrigue. It’s split down the middle, supposedly one side angelic and the other hellish. “Nope. Drink up, Jungkook.”

He maintains eye contact with you, bringing his drink to his lips. “Maybe I can get you to come. Will you give me permission to taste you?” He tilts his head back and makes a show of closing his eyes and slowly slurping his beverage. You narrow your eyes at him before he puts the cup back down. “Delicious. My turn.”

He flips the card. “King. Ooh. My rule. Starting now, every time you say something you have to start with the word hashtag and end with dotcom.”

“Jungkook, that’s so stupid,” you say without thinking.

“Hashtag, drink up Princess, dotcom,” he replies with an impish grin.

You bite your lip and stare at your drink. How could you be so careless? They all lean in, waiting for the words to leave your mouth. You hold your hands up in a T-shape. “Hold up. Time out. Pause the game. I need some clarity. Do I have to say hashtag dotcom thing WHILE talking to my drink?”

Namjoon looses it, laughing like a maniac. “Hashtag, I think you fucking do Y/N dotcom.”

Jungkook just smiles, crossing his arms and waiting for you to continue. God, you fucking hate him. This is the dumbest rule you’ve ever heard. It’s going to get old fast. Still, you stare down at your cup. “Hashtag… Uh… I’m gonna... s-slurp your fluids out now, dotcom?”

Jungkook’s obnoxious laugh is piercing your eardrums as you down a few big gulps. The rest of the table roars with laughter and heat burns your cheeks, not daring to make eye contact with any one of them.

“W-What was that?!” Jin yells. “You sound like an alien! Can I give you some pointers, please?”

“Hashtag, Seokjin! You forgot dotcom!” Jungkook says, pointing to his friend’s cup.

Jin curses under his breath and stares at his cup. “Hashtag, this is how you do it, Y/N.” He focuses on his cup without missing a beat, raising it up to the sky longingly like he’s about to start serenading it. “You wish you could hear me say this every day, don’t you? You love how my mouth feels on you. I can tell by the way you’re dripping for me, my lovely. Dot. Com.” He makes a point to run his tongue along the rim of his cup and takes a sip.

Fuck these guys. But also… Fuck? These guys? You’re one dirty comment away from soaking your panties, but they don’t need to know that.

“Hashtag I’m sorry I’m not a slut like the rest of you. Also Seokjin, you’re a bitch, dotcom,” you grumble, gripping your knees to keep your hands off your phone. Jennie will absolutely scream once you tell her about this night. She’ll be sad she missed out.

Jin’s eyes go wide as though you smacked his ass in front of the world, a smile is taking over the corners of his mouth. “Hashtag, stop trying to flirt with me, dotcom.”

You roll your eyes but you can’t help the shy smile that creeps in. Jungkook sits up straight and sighs dramatically. “Hashtag let’s keep going so we can get the rest of this bread dotcom.”

Jimin pulls a king and has made the rule that hashtag dotcom is abolished. It comes as a relief when you’re a few more rounds in, and everyone has already consumed way more booze than expected because of Jungkook’s rule. An uneventful round of drinking passes before Seokjin pulls the last King out.

“A rule, hmm? Alright. When you ask someone to drink you have to hold their chin, stare longingly into their eyes, and ask them to drink.” He demonstrates, holding Taehyung’s jaw in his fingers. “Like this. Will you please drink for me, my dear friend, Taehyung?”

Tae bashfully giggles waving his hand away. “You’re too much sometimes. I think you need a girlfriend.”

Since it only applies for certain cards, you end up forgetting about it as multiple turns come and go without utilizing it. Your turn rises again and you slide the eight face up across the table. After kicking your chair with his feet for the millionth time, you completely forget about the rule Jin made and pick based on your irritation. Eight is hate indeed.

“Jungkook, go until I say stop.”

The words feel satisfying as they leave your mouth, but Namjoon grimaces, anxiously baring both sets of teeth.

“Uh… You gotta…” Namjoon taps his cheeks twice with his fingertips.

Horror replaces that smug satisfaction in the pit of your stomach and it churns a sickness deep inside that pit.

Jungkook cocks his head at you. “You really wanna put your hands on me that badly, huh?”

You exhale loudly and tightly grip his chin with sweaty, hot fingers. Your eyes threaten to burn holes into his. “Jungkook, go until I say stop.”

He’s stunned into silence for a second, adam’s apple bobbing ever so slightly. He blinks at you a couple times before regaining his composure. Who knew princesses can breathe fire? Grabbing his cup, he grins and chuckles an amused sound even as you’re tearing yourself from him.

“Don’t worry I can go all night when you taste so good, baby,” he says, tilting his head back as he drinks.

You keep an eye on his cup, watching the liquid slowly disappear. You have to be careful not to let him finish, but you kind of want him to suffer a little bit. Even though he drinks like a fish, he’s still not on Jimin’s level. This has to be affecting him somehow. He watches you through an annoyed side-eye when you don’t say a word, not allowed to stop until you say so or until he finishes his drink. Your phone chooses this exact moment to vibrate a long sound against the table and your concentrated gaze wanders for a second too long, allowing him to gulp down the remnants of his drink.

Jungkook slams his empty cup down in time for you to look back at him in horror before looking at your own full cup. The room fills with the sound of everyone “ooooh-ing” like this is the sixth grade. With a heavy sigh, you bring your cup to your lips.

“I was distracted. I would have said stop.”

Jungkook leans his elbow on the table and rests his head on a folded palm. His smile tells you he’s ready to dish it back. “Mmm-hmm. Go on. Oh… Wait.”

He sits up, cupping your jaw in his hands so lightly, like it could disintegrate at the slightest touch. He leans his head back slightly, soft eyes imploring you to move closer. He slides his fingers up your jawline, nestling them behind your ears like he’s about to draw you to his lips. “Will you be good and drink that for me until I ask you to stop?”

Jin scoffs. “Wow. Look at this guy.”

The others hold back their snickers. Your eyebrow twitches, smacking his hands away from you. Instead you focus on the cup in your sweaty palms.

“I can’t wait to feel you… dripping from my mouth,” you whisper to your cup, trying to redeem yourself for earlier and doing your best not to think about how fucking good it felt having Jungkook’s hands wrapped around the sides of your face. You don’t spare a look at any of them as you tilt your head back and start gulping the liquid down.

“Much better,” Yoongi says with a smirk, but you don’t hear him over the sound of blood rushing in your ears.

Namjoon smacks his hand to his forehead. “Yeah... I’m gonna need you to dial it back just a bit. I still have to see you at work.”

Jin pretends to wipe a tear from his eye. “Ah, maybe our Zelda isn’t so bad at this after all.”

Jimin, Taehyung and Hobi all have their elbows on the table, cheeks in their palms as they watch your throat make its swallowing motions. They simultaneously grunt differing words of affirmation. About three quarters through, Jungkook puts his hand on the bottom of your cup.

“Stop.”

Mercy? From Jungkook? You don’t believe it, but you’ve been struggling so you’re kind of grateful. Just as you’re about to put the cup down, he taps the bottom of it, forcing liquid to splash upwards onto your chin. You slap his hand away as he cackles and you wipe your lips.

“Fuck you, Jungkook.”

“What time, sweetheart?” He grins when you glare at him.

“Just pick your fucking card before I strangle you.”

“Kinky. You know, I might let you if you asked nicely.”

You get the pitcher of beer from the fridge and start refilling everyone’s cups. He pulls a card that has him whispering dirty words into the rim of his empty cup, holding it out for you to fill. At least most of the cards seem to be gone now. You hate to admit you’re feeling a bit dizzy and out of sorts, but you reason that it’s just a few more rounds, so maybe you just sip on water after this game is over.

Just as you get back to your seat, Namjoon throws a sheepish grin your way. “Joker.”

“There’s only one of these,” Yoonngi begins, looking around the room to make sure he has everyone’s attention. “Waterfall is when everyone starts drinking and you can’t stop until the person to your right stops. Namjoon can stop whenever he wants, but Jin has to wait until he’s done. Then Taehyung waits until Jin is done. Make sense?”

Normally the waterfall card is played in the opposite direction, but there’s so much tension between you and Jungkook tonight and he’s so used to his friend getting his way with women that he can’t help wanting to give you the edge on him. Everyone nods. The realization dawns on everyone that before this can happen, they all have to do two things per the rules.

One after another the guys ask the person to their left to drink while gripping their chins. It would be a fairly intimate scene if people weren’t giggling every three seconds. Still, your heart damn near skips a beat when Hobi’s slender fingers curl under your jaw, drunkenly pulling you closer to his face than you’ve ever dared to get. Heat builds in your stomach and travels up your chest, spreading across your back and prickling your neck. You hope it doesn’t move into your cheeks.

“You gonna take this drink, Y/N?” he aks, unable to hold the giggles in as he wags your head back and forth in his steady hands.

Oh… He’s fucking gone, isn’t he? “For you? Maybe,” you flirt, rubbing your shoulder against his as you turn away.

Jungkook sits up straight, muscles tensing as you twist your body towards him. Suddenly, he looks a lot bigger than you remember. Is he puffing out his chest? You wilt under his irritated stare but are determined not to let it show. You slip your fingers underneath his chin, just barely registering the stubble there. Your slow blink hides the flutter of your eyelashes, alcohol clouding your brain with desire. But damn if the room isn’t still spinning. He flashes you boyish grin when you clap your palm to his shoulder to steady yourself.

“Yes?”

“Drink up, buttercup,” you giggle, pinching your fingers closed beneath his jaw.

A choked laugh escapes him. “You should sit this one out. At this rate, you’ll be passed out with your face on the toilet seat in an hour.”

You spin back to your drink with fury in your eyes; if there’s anything you hate more than Jungkook, it’s being told what to do. Especially by Jungkook. I’ll show you, asshole.

Everyone turns to their cups and mutters a few dirty words before Namjoon begins the circle of drinking. One by one the cups come down, everyone seemingly grateful for the person before them showing at least some kind of mercy. You slow your gulping when you realize Jimin is dragging it out in an attempt to annoy Yoongi. Both of them still seem surprisingly sober for the amount they’ve ingested. Maybe they don’t wear their intoxication as easily as the rest of you. Hobi exchanges a worried glance at you, trying to not let it slip that he’s only pretending to down his beverage, but you can tell by the steady level of the liquid in his cup that he’s pretty much ready to tap out.

As soon as Jimin finally pulls his cup back from his lips, Yoongi stops, immediately followed by Hobi. Yoongi is keenly aware of his roommate’s inability to hold down liquor in large quantities. He doesn’t fare much better with beer. Saving his friend means you can be saved too. He looks at you, raising his eyebrows in warning. You spare a fleeting glance in his direction, but it’s long enough to catch his message loud and clear: Don’t be an idiot, Y/N. Don’t go overboard.

But you turn your attention to Jungkook, who is still effortlessly allowing his beverage to slither down his throat. You gulp in segments, a commendable attempt to keep yourself going. Even for all your efforts, booze spills from the corners of your mouth and leaves cold sloppy trails down your neck as you watch Jungkook. He’s not even struggling. Fuck. You finally give up, allowing the cup to smack down on the table with a messy splash.

He keeps going just to spite you, polishing off his drink with a smack of his lips and a satisfied sigh. He rises from his seat, patting your shoulder as he gets himself more to consume. “It’s cute how hard you tried.”

The final round passes and you are ready to strangle Jungkook for the way he keeps knocking his knees against yours. It’s gotten to the point where you’ve moved your chair so close to Hobi’s that he’s put his arm around you, thinking you are just as sleepy as he is. Truth be told you kind of are. The room is a little too spinny for your liking, but you can’t seem to persuade your brain to make your legs get up and get yourself a glass of water.

“You want to nap too?” he whispers, rubbing the eyes he can hardly keep open. “Come here. Let’s sleep together.”

The innocent words make your stomach spin in place but you don’t have time to ruminate on them. Jungkook hooks his ankle around your chair and jerks it back towards him. Furious eyes flicker on him in warning just as Hobi’s cheek slumps over your shoulder and draws your attention away. Luckily Yoongi springs into action to keep his friend from falling any further into your personal space than he already has.

“Okay, Hobi. We get it. You need to sleep,” he chuckles, cradling his friend’s arm around his shoulder as he helps him to his feet.

Hoseok weakly grumbles a sound of acknowledgement as they shuffle down the hall into what you assume is a guest room. Their apartment is bigger than any you’ve seen so you find yourself wondering just how many guest rooms they could possibly have. Then you remind yourself that it doesn’t matter because you are definitely not staying because getting an uber is always an option.

When Yoongi returns alone, people have started migrating into the living room. Jungkook and Jin are still seated, heatedly talking about some game nearby, but you’ve elected to ignore them in favor of checking your messages. Jason has sent you a few messages that have piqued your interest, including one finally asking you on a date. Does ignoring guys really fucking work? Was Namjoon right about something in his life? You don’t want to believe it.

The words in Jason’s message blur together, despite how hard you’re concentrating on them. You’d told him you were out with friends. He must have known you’d be relatively unavailable so maybe it’s okay that you’re in no shape to formulate a coherent response. Still you stare at the keyboard, jumping when an arm reaches over you to place a glass of water on the table for you.

You blink a few times at Yoongi, who simply whispers a gruff “drink” before grabbing the shot left in the center of the table and downing it as he joins the majority of his friends in the other room. Jungkook looks over at you, eyes dropping to your open conversation when you absentmindedly set your phone down. You take the cold glass in both hands and narrow your eyes in Yoongi’s direction as you swallow down a good portion of the liquid.

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰

It’s been an hour and if you’re honest you’ve just barely teetered back into the moderately drunk category. Yoongi had offered to take you home when he was getting ready to leave since he was already chauffeuring Namjoon. At the time you declined because you were certain that your natural predisposition to motion sickness would be amplified by the liquor in your system. You didn’t want to make Yoongi’s new car smell like puke. Namjoon has this habit of texting when he’s worried. Even after he left you’d been going back and forth about the night. Honestly it’s kind of helping keep you from passing out and you’re reminded how grateful you are for his friendship.

Sitting on the couch next to Jimin may have also influenced your decision since the man literally smells how vacations feel — and god do you need to relax. He’s also acted as a barrier between you and Jungkook, who has his legs stretched out across the cushions to Jimin’s right. Jungkook has been engrossed in his phone since you left the table, opting out of switching off with Taehyung when he dies in-game. You’re kind of thankful for it. Maybe he’s finally settled down for the night. Does he get more polite with drowsiness?

Jimin smiles softly at you, his arms draped over the back of the couch. The pair of you have been quietly conversing and giggling over the platformer Seokjin and Taehyung have been playing. Jimin’s face still looks a little flush with alcohol, but he only just finished his last beverage for the night. How the hell can someone so tiny pack away so much liquor? You hold in a shiver as his fingertips playfully dance along your shoulder, trying not to let on how the action affects you. His harmless flirting only bolsters confidence hiding in the depths of your mind and you stretch your arms up with a yawn and lean against him, knowingly giving him a better view of the cleavage poking out from beneath the v-cut of your shirt.

Jimin allows a devilish smile to curl at his lips as his fingers walk down your arm. He puts both hands back on the couch, like you’d made the move unprompted by his touching. “Hmm. You’re pretty bold, aren’t you?” His whisper is low and breathy, so quiet you almost miss it. What a tease.

“Hey. Jimin. Come here.”

The unusually quiet Jungkook knocks his foot against his friends knee, which pushes Jimin’s thigh up against yours. You softly sigh at the contact and the subsequent loss when Jungkook sits up and Jimin apologetically scoots away. You plant an elbow on the armrest beside you and prop your cheek up on your palm. Seokjin is carrying Taehyung through this level it seems.

“Do you think I should tap that?” The words are loud enough to distract you so you can’t help but turn your head in their direction.

“I think she might be out of your league,” Jimin giggles. “Besides she’s older than you. I thought that bothered you?”

“Oh. No way. I love it. When they have more experience I don’t have to work as hard,” he replies with a lofty sigh.

“Are you sure about that in this case? You’re very presumptuous.”

Your blood heats up the back of your neck. Why are men so disgusting? You grit your teeth, unable to hold in the sound of disgust that makes its way through them.

Jungkook’s head snaps up and he locks eyes with you. There’s something smug about his expression, like he’s stupidly proud of pulling that reaction from you. “Aw, are you feeling left out, princess? Here, see for yourself. Don’t you think she’s pretty?”

When he flips his screen around your own profile is staring back at you. Straightening your spine and reaching across Jimin’s lap for him, you hiss, “Jungkook, I’m gonna kill you.”

“Why?” He tilts his head to one side, feigning confusion and looks at the profile again. “I think she’s pretty hot.”

“If you match with me, I will not swipe right on you. You know that, right? So this whole thing is pointless,” you reason, more for yourself than the two men beside you. “You’re not gonna get to me. It’s not gonna fucking work, Jungkook.”

Jimin’s shoulders tremble with soft, mellifluous laughter that spills from his lips as he takes in the exchange. It’s apparent that Jungkook has already gotten under your skin. Denying it is only making you angrier.

“Fine. Fine. It’s gone now, see,” Jungkook says, briefly flashing you the home screen of his phone before putting it away. The image of that big tiddy anime girl behind all those icons is going to haunt your dreams; you can feel it.

You get up to get yourself more water. “I hate you so much.”

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰

It’s late. Seokjin left a few minutes ago and Jimin rubs his eyes, unsure what to do. The selfish part of his brain tells him he should claim the other guest room. The horny part of his brain tells him he should suggest you share with him. The exhausted part of his brain tells him to just pass out in Taehyung’s bed and let him figure it out.

“You’re welcome to stay, too. We have room for you,” Taehyung says with a kind smile. “There’s another guest room.”

You still don’t feel well enough to drive or sit in a cab. You sit with your hands folded in your lap, pondering your shitty life choices. You’ve become pretty good friends, but a sleepover seems a bit strange without your bestie Namjoon to buffer out all of the awkward moments.

You smile as sweetly as you can manage, your voice small and borderline whiny in its need for sleep. “I’ll sleep on the couch. I don’t want to be a bother. Thank you, Taehyung.”

The man rolls his eyes. “I won’t allow you to sleep on a couch when we have beds.”

“Your couch is comfier than my actual bed,” you joke, patting the plush cushions on either side of you.

Jungkook walks in, shirtless and scrubbing a toothbrush furiously in his mouth. He tries to speak but it’s unintelligible, so he turns back around to finish up.

“It’s really okay. I should stay up and finish my water anyway and I don’t want to keep you guys up. I drank a little too much.”

“No shit,” Jungkook sighs as he rounds the corner and leans against the wall. “Don’t worry. I’ll stay up with you, Princess.”

Taehyung flashes his friend a pointed look and opens his mouth to speak, but closes it when Jungkook continues.

“You guys go on. I’ll make sure she drinks up her water and gets to bed.”

You glare at him as Taehyung moves in to whisper something to him, but you lose focus as Jimin pulls you into a tight hug that you can’t help but return.

“Thanks for coming tonight,” he mumbles into the fabric of your hoodie. “I’m glad you’re a part of our family.”

You squeeze his shoulder before he shuffles down the hall and disappears into the bathroom. “Goodnight, Y/N!”

Taehyung offers a boxy smile and a small wave, demeanor changed after his side conversation with Jungkook. “Don’t take off without having breakfast. Seokjin will come back and make something tasty. Also I put your keys in my studio so good luck finding them if you try.”

You half laugh, half scoff. “Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind. ‘Night.”

“Goodnight,” he says, passing Jungkook a tight lipped smile on his way down the hall.

Jungkook waits until he hears the door close before he speaks and for the first time since you met him, his tone borderlines concerned. “Be honest with me. How sick are you right now?”

Your throat swallows down a thick mass of air. “I’m fine.”

“Tch. Okay, Princess,” he scoffs in disbelief, taking slow steps towards you with his hands buried in the pockets of his black sweatpants. “Do you need a bucket?”

“No.” You drink down your water, trying to focus on anything but the way your body is producing enough sweat to make you want to discard your hoodie as soon as he leaves you alone.

A door opens down the hall and Jimin shuffles out before disappearing into another room. The quiet click of the door closing causes Jungkook to sigh.

Spinning. The room is spinning again. You hold the cold glass in your hands like it’s your lifeline, shut your eyes and throw your head back to rest it against the couch. You don’t notice when he leaves, but you definitely notice the cold cloth pressed to your forehead when he returns.

“Do you want comfier clothes?” he quietly asks, voice bereft of any humor as he sinks into the cushion beside you.

You open your eyes and glare at him like this is some prank he’s playing on you but you’re not sure how. “No.”

He rolls his eyes. “Suit yourself. I get hella hot when I’m drunk off my ass. Figured I’d ask.”

“I’m not...” you begin, trying to bring your head to rise. It feels heavy and plops back down on the seat.

“You’re drunk,” he states plainly. “And miserable. So drink up the rest of the water and I’ll show you to the guest room. It’ll be embarrassing if any of my friends wake up to you looking so pathetic. Come on.”

He helps you bring the cup to your lips and tilts your head forward enough to safely consume the rest of the water in your glass.

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

“If you think this is what nice guys are like, I feel bad for you.” He puts the glass down in the kitchen sink, briefly rinsing it.

“Jungkook,” you whine, an exasperated sigh passing your lips with his name.

“What? Your judgement of character is way outta whack. It’s just sad,” he explains, crossing the room while rubbing fresh lotion up his arms. Washing dishes makes his skin feel itchy.

“Alright. Come on. Up.” He waves his arms lets them weakly smack his thighs when you don’t move.

A whiff of sweet peaches and soft jasmine pervades your nostrils. Why does he have to smell so fucking good? He removes the cool cloth from your forehead, earning a whine from you.

“You’ll get a new one when you get in bed. I can carry you, if that’s easier.”

“Tell me why you’re doing this. I don’t get it. What do you want?”

“I want to go to sleep so I can be lazy tomorrow and do nothing but play video games.” When you don’t budge he sighs and sits down beside you again. “And... because... you’re Namjoon’s friend and he asked us to look out for you... And now you’re all of my friends’ friend… And I guess that makes you my responsibility.”

“Don’t worry. I wasn’t expecting you to just decide you’re gonna be nice out of the blue,” you weakly smirk and let your head roll to the side so you can look at him. “Should have known it was Namjoon.

He hums an amused sound. “Yeah. Now are you going to let me get you in bed?”

You’re able to force your head up at that. “I can get myself in bed just fine thanks.”

He laughs. “Your loss.”

You stand on unsteady legs. “Where am I going?”

Jungkook grins, entertained by your lack of coordination. “That’s a good question. Where are you going, Princess?”

You stumble a bit, reaching out to steady yourself with a wall that is definitely too far to grab. Long, tattooed fingers grip your shoulders in an instant. The heat of his massive chest presses against your shoulder blades. Even through your layers of clothing you can feel how hot his skin burns and it makes you shiver, despite the way you’re soaked with sweat.

“Don’t make me ask you for help,” you plead. “Please don’t.”

“Do you want me to pretend like you didn’t beg for it, too?” he whispers, curling a muscular bicep around your back and guiding you down the hall. As he passes the thermostat, he makes a point to lower the temperature a few degrees. Jimin, Hobi, and Tae will survive. But then again, he’s not worried about them at all, is he?

“Haven’t you embarrassed me enough?” You voice cracks and you’re barely managing to hold back the tears threatening to spill out.

He doesn’t say a word as you cling to the strength of his body, looping your arms around his neck and waist as though he isn’t the last person in the world you want to tangle yourself in. He pushes the door to his room open with his shoulder, making sure you get across the threshold okay before helping you awkwardly waddle over to the unmade bed. You don’t seem to notice, and if you do, you definitely don’t comment.

Your hoodie is falling from your shoulders as you climb onto the mattress. Jungkook grabs the fabric and slings it over his shoulder. You’ve landed at a weird angle across the pillows and show no signs of correcting your position so he moves the pillows beneath your head to comfortably accommodate you. You slowly blink at him, but you’re not seeing him. Silent tears rolling down your cheeks as he grabs the thinnest sheet on his bed and pulls it over your form up to your shoulders. He chooses to ignore the way you quickly swipe them away and instead goes to get the cold towel he promised.

Standing in the sink with ice cold water running over the cloth in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he whispers into the air around him, knowing no one will ever hear it.

When he returns he waits a moment, looking for the steady rise and fall of your chest. He smooths the hair from your face before pressing the cold cloth against your sweaty forehead, turning your head to the side just in case your body decides it isn’t quite ready to rest. He lightly pats your head a couple times and leaves the room, delicately closing the door behind him.

As he makes the journey back to the couch, he feeds his arms through the sleeves of your hoodie. He settles down on the couch, feeling the warmth of the space you’d been occupying all night beneath his head. Pulling down the blanket from atop the back of the couch, he brings his knees to his chest. He bunches the soft, excess material of your hoodie in his palms and turns his head into the fabric, allowing himself a subtle inhale.

Why do you have to smell so fucking good?

#magicshopnet #smutcentralnet #jungkook smut #jungkook fluff #jungkook fic #jungkook fanfic #bts fic #bts fanfic #jungkook x reader #jungkook x you #bts fluff

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blackvelvetwriteson · 4 years

Note

Hi, could I get a one shot fem! black reader x Kakashi, please? (can be nsfw or fluff, it's your choice)

Hey there! Thank you for the request 🥺🥺 I had a bit of a roadblock with this one simply because I couldn’t think of a prompt, BUT I eventually thought ‘why not write about the holidays’ so I got into a groove with it! Once I got into it, it was a really fun write! I hope that this is what you expected and/or lives up to your expectations!

𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐁𝐋𝐔𝐄𝐒

( ~ Kakashi Hatake x Black Female Reader Insert ~ )

GENRE: Fluffy Fluff!

FANDOM: Naruto Shippuden

TRIGGER WARNINGS: There really are none for today, it’s pretty fluffy for today!

SUMMARY: Reader-Chan wants to celebrate the holiday season this year because she never got to, but she doesn’t necessarily know how to approach Kakashi about it since he never celebrates the holidays (or ever even heard of them for that matter.

WORD COUNT: 4303

(Headers are mine, but the art inside of them are not! Please don’t steal or repost without credit!)

For some reason, you were in an incredibly festive mood this time around. Maybe it was something about how the gilded sunlight made yours and Kakashi’s home feel more… Well, home-y. Maybe it was the remnants of your food that you’d made earlier for your lunch still lingering around the house, or the kids of the village running around outside of your windows, whether subliminally training or not undeterminable, reminding you of your youth. Time had gone by so fast, and already you’d been in Japan for about two years and a half. You already knew that, in general, the people of the area didn’t celebrate Halloween, and actually it was a week AFTER Halloween would’ve taken place in America, but something about today… Something about today made your festive bone quiver and you decided to do SOMETHING to celebrate.

Since you’d picked up on the shinobi not celebrating American holidays like you were used to, you avoided asking Kakashi about it. Come to think of it, he never really did anything you were accustomed to besides the staring thing; and when you got together he tried to give you food related nicknames. You had to sit down and explain to him why it wasn’t okay and why it made you uncomfortable and then he thoroughly apologized and left it at that. He didn’t really have any nicknames for you, and from research you found that most women in Japan (and men) only go by their given names with -chan/san at the end which was cute, but if everyone had to call you that then it’d lose meaning and it wouldn’t be as cute.

Even still, though, you decided that today would be the day that you participated in the festivities of the holiday season that, in America, would be fast approaching. The only question for you was who you were going to dress up as and suddenly a thought formed in your head as you popped up from the couch and scurried to your guys’s room. You’d dress up as your hero, your boyfriend Hatake Kakashi! He wouldn’t expect it, you’d be able to see how everything fits, AND it’d be cute- at least you thought- and it’d give you something to do so that the crisp, perfect day didn’t go to waste.

You sifted through the closet with eager eyes as you hummed softly, some of your curls coming loose and falling down by your face, your dark brown beautiful eyes twinkling as you pulled out the parts to the outfit he wore from day to day, your eyebrows knitting a little as one corner of your lip lifted a little. “This man, so help me black Jesus,” you whisper softly noticing how much heftier your wardrobe was than his. He had the same outfit to go over about 5 or 5 times, black sweatpants, black shorts, and 3 different headbands all crushed, neatly, together on one side of the closet while your clothing took up the other half. You shook your head and closed the door with your hip once you were sure you had everything you needed for your little plan. You looked it over excitedly, your slender auburn fingers contrasting almost perfectly against the colors of his uniform. “Damn… I never noticed that till now,” you laugh softly as you remove your shirt and start to pull on articles of the outfit, trying to mimic exactly how you saw Kakashi wear his so you didn’t accidentally disrespect him. Of course he only had 2 masks and a shirt with a mask that you’d sewn onto it, and you decided not to mess with any of it. You didn’t want to hide your face at all whatsoever, especially behind masks that might’ve well have been your boyfriend’s comfort items. You had pretty much everything on, the worn out navy blue bringing everything together, the green brightening your pretty almost black eyes. You giggle softly as you look in the mirror and decide to do something with your hair before it dried completely- you’d taken a shower only 30 minutes prior and your hair was a little damp. You scurry off to the bathroom with the bandage and garter in one hand, your yellow hair pik in the other. You looked extremely excited, for once taking a moment to completely love and indulge in yourself. Being in an area where your existence was offensive to others to suddenly going to a place where absolutely nobody looked even close to you was an extreme shift, but Kakashi made it okay, literally brawling with anybody that so much as looked at you the wrong way. You had a small bit of tummy, but he loved that about you; and it’s not like it slowed you down any, made you unreliable, or made you any less attractive than you were. In fact, to some people it wasn’t even really noticeable unless you were wearing certain things. You also had to drop the American style and adopt the Japanese locale and honestly, while that was a HUGE shift, Kakashi helped with that too. Sometimes you’d get yourself in trouble with how you spoke though; that American lingo that’d been generationally passed down to you finding its way showing up and showing out, especially when someone wanted to make fun of your hair, or your physique and compare you to the other local girls, most noticeably Ten-Ten, Lady Tsunade, Sakura, and Hinata. They argued that the more pale girls were more attractive; because you could play in their hair and you wouldn’t have to worry about one slowing you down- at which remarks you stuck the shit talkers to a tree with your kunai for hours after you thoroughly cussed them out and ribbed them a little, telling Kakashi what’d happened so he could go cut them down. On the flip side, the kids absolutely adored you and loved when you were out so they could play tag or ask you unnecessary questions or get some treats from you.

You quick-washed your hair in the sink and started to blow-dry it deciding that you’d give yourself an at home blowout so that you could complete the look. Being the multitasker you were born into being, you found something to prop the blowdryer up while you piked your hair out quickly, smiling as you watched your hair fluff up, watching your coils straighten and then get bigger until it couldn’t anymore. Then it hit you; Kakashi hadn’t seen your hair blown out except once and that was while you were braiding it back and his eyes were fixated on your fingers as he wondered how a person could do that. At this point, your hair was halfway done, and while you let the tool dry your hair even more, you attempted to wrap the bandage around your thigh and it only BARELY made it, your thigh utterly choked in the process. You looked down at your leg and then pensively looked at the garter and decided that wouldn’t fit around your leg and you let out a frustrated sigh. “That man, is fine as fuck, but why he built like a bean pole,” you huff quietly as you let the bandage loose from trapping your thigh before your mind wandered to him. “…. Aight so maybe he got a LITTLE bit of muscle, but we aint talkin’ about that right now,” you laugh softly before looking at your phone seeing that he sent you a text signifying that he was on his way back from training for the day and that he was fine. You smiled cheerily at your text and tilted your head some at yourself, using your pik to fluff your hair out more before you scurried back to your guys’s room and snatched one of his spare headbands up, securing it quickly and tactfully. You looked at yourself in the mirror, your hands coming up and sliding into the arm holes of his navy green vest. You turned to one side, then to the next, then finally you looked at yourself from a front profile and your eyes glistened a little. “You’re… so heroic,” you mumbled under your breath before you heard some clatter coming from outside of the room.

“Oh right… You can do that,” you say as you open the door and watch him freeze completely in his spot, his eyes slowly raking over you from head to toe then back up again, his stoic expression unchanging from what you could tell. “H-Heyy… Honey,” you smile nervously as you wave with one of your gloved hands. He walked towards you and slipped one side of the headband over one of your eyes and then he stifled a soft grunt under his breath.

“It’s Kakashi. We’ve talked about this,” he said softly before he looked over his shoulders, his hands sliding in his pockets again as his back straightened out some. “….Why are you wearing my clothes,” he asked with a slight edge to his voice, meanwhile you were still frozen in place, your legs starting to quiver some. You didn’t know why he was being so cold to you and it made you just a little insecure. “Particularly… Those,” he said as he stared at the wall below the TV you both had, his legs crossed as he leaned back into the couch.

“Damn so you not gonna say ‘hi.’ Or ‘I missed you,’ or nothin’ like that hm? Well… My bad, I guess I’ll just go take it off,” you say softly, the spirit of the day becoming crushed. He mused softly and his head only tilted a small bit. He didn’t even look at you and you noticed this. The whole time you were here… The whole time you were together the only thing you wanted was his eyes on you and his praises. You were struggling and it was on you for the most part because you hadn’t reached out to him for help. He was a real big one for “say what you mean or need,” or something like that. You LOVED the idea behind the last stretch of the year; the days designated for giving thanks, hanging out with the ones you love, amazing food, and gifts, and movies, and music. All of it… But having come from where you had, you never really had good times or a good chance to make memories. Now that you were old enough to have someone of your own and actually be able to create memories, you wanted to… But instead you’d been trying to force it out of your life to make your man happy, however you weren’t having it anymore. You just didn’t know how to bring it up.

“Mm.. What’s-“

Before he could even finish speaking, you’d vanished back into your guys’s room and shut the door behind you. He sat back in the seat and he let out a low drawn out breath and then stood up. Within one second he vanished from the living room and appeared right in front of you with his arms crossed.

“I asked why you were wearing my clothes, not that you had to take them off,” he said as he looked blandly at your hurt expression. “And I was trying to ask what was up with you,” he said as he reached one hand out and gently tipped your head up, his free hand reaching for where your bangs covered your eye but then he stopped as he usually did and he tilted his head some. “May I?” He spoke from behind his mask. You push his hand out of the way and move your hair out of your face by yourself, your sharp eyes peering into his. This time his eyebrows rose a bit more noticeably and usual and he waited for you to talk so he could listen, his hands now in his pockets.

“Yknow… I’ve tried to work what is normal to me out of my system… And when I was younger, that would’ve been… Easier. But now, it’s not… Kakashi, when you don’t look at me it makes me feel undesirable… Because nobody else looks at me unless they’re making fun of how flat and wide my features are… or how damn burnt I look even though this is my natural skin tone! I just… Want you to call me your baby once in awhile damnit! I want to call you *mine* and not just… Ka-ka-shi. Everybody calls you that… And… I get jealous when I see the other people hanging out with you, the cooler people with the sharingan variants, or the cool eyes and the people with the slim builds, or the people with the advanced shinobi skills that are greater than mi-“ You hadn’t noticed that while you were talking, Kakashi pulled his mask down, then you were interrupted with a kiss. It was a soft, but soulful kiss; the kind where one of his gloved hands had you by the chin and the other by the back of your head. The kind where you could feel his body heat completely wrapping you up. The kind where you felt his trembling breath break his completely calm composure. Your hands were gently pressed against the back of his arms, one of your hands at his elbow as he pulled away and allowed his eyes to slowly open. His shadow was cast down onto you and you saw his eyes squint a little, his smile hidden by the mask he’d pulled back up after the kiss. On the other hand, your eyes were wide and your lips were barely parted, your eyes glistening as you looked over his mostly hidden smile. Your knees buckled under you and he helped make sure you didn’t fall, his chest pressed against yours.

“You done?” He asked as he helped you stand upright again. You were dazed just staring at your man and he smirked a little as he pulled his mask down again still standing close to you. “I see… You want everyone to know that you’re mine and vice versa? That’s it? That’s why you’re wearing my clothes today…? You want me to… Call you mine? Right?” He spoke quietly, he was ONLY talking to you, his deep voice getting a little more hoarse as he continued to drone on, his hands on your hips pulling you closer to him, his intense gaze still cast into your eyes. You swallow hard and nibble the inside of your cheek. “You want you to call you my baby? My beautiful, perfect baby girl? Hm? Is that why you’re acting out? Or… You want me to show you that I care more, right? Maybe… You want me to make dinner once? Or bring you flowers? Or watch you train? Or… Cheer you on? Right? Perhaps tease you a little… Or hold you this close all the time?”

You nod slowly and then look away already knowing what this was sort of leading up to but his slender fingers forced your gaze back on him.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you, baby,” he said softly as he tilted his head a little. “If you wanted that… Why didn’t you just say so? I can’t read minds… And I’m still relatively new to this whole… Romance scene,” he said softly as he gently stroked your cheek with his thumb. “You know this. I’m a little… Dense? I’m not sure if that’s the proper word. But…. You’re just… Ugh… I didn’t know that me hanging around people made you jealous- perhaps it’s in my best interest to just tell you how much you mean to me all of the time. You’d want that too, right? I know you would,” he said softly as his fingers gently trailed up your back. “Or… Maybe you want to have a little bit more sex? Is that apart of it?” The question made your eyes wide, skin burn with an invisible blush, and your jaw drop a little. He let out a hollow laugh in turn, gently pushing your jaw up to close your mouth with the tips of his fingers. “Baby steps. I got it. For now, let me just say this: You’re beautiful… All of your scars, curves, marks and all. Those coffee colored eyes of yours are so much more… Stupefying than any sharingan I have seen and will ever see…. The little spark they get when you’re determined, or that soft glisten when you get embarrassed,” he said as he looked over your whole face. “Your body… Your whole body… Is amazing… You don’t have to be slim to be an amazing shinobi; and so help me, my beautiful queen,” he says softly as he leans down so he’s eye level with you. “If you ever discredit yourself like that again, I’ll work you out so that you’re not able to move for the next week. You’re right on the fast track to be a fine shinobi- possibly even the greatest at that. Well… Not greater than me, but that’s another story and another conversation,” he said quietly as you were pushed back onto your bed while he stood over you. “Are those idiots getting into your head again?” His eyebrows furrowed a little as his hands slipped back into his pockets.

Finally you were able to find your words again and you crossed your legs out of habit. “Y-Yeah… For… Like… The past 3 weeks they’ve been telling me that I’m too slow… Or I’m too… Wide… Or making fun of me and my eyes, or making fun of how dark I am… Or making fun of my hair! My damn hair! It hurts… A lot… And we’re together, but I don’t want to be known as that abnormal girl that calls on her boyfriend every time she needs saving. I got it… Aight? I can handle that… But… That’s why I need YOUR praises…. To validate me I guess… I already know I’m THAT… girl… But I want to hear it from you… I want you,” you mumbled softly. “And the reason I’m dressed up like this is because I’m dressed up for Halloween- In America it’s a day where people dress up and do their makeup and hair and have fun at parties or go trick or treating to get candy and stuff! I’ve always loved it despite not being able to… Participate much,” you say softly as you rub your arm. “I dunno, I guess I just wanted to celebrate the holiday season this year- even if we never do it again, I at least want one memory of a great holiday season with mine… With you,” you say softly. He listens to everything you say with an opaque grin on his face.

“If that’s what you wanted, then why didn’t you just say that?” He said softly as he climbed over you, his hips barely resting in your lap as your heart skipped a beat. He pushed you to lay down on the bed and his hands rested right by your head, your eyes peering up at him with a soft grin rested on your face.

“I-I d-didn’t w-want to get told no… I d-didn’t want to… Bother you with something that seemed so insignificant… I didn’t want you to think of me as weak,” you say softly as he gently kisses your neck. You shuddered a little and bit your lip as you tilt your head up some.

“Well now’s your hot seat,” he huffed quietly against your neck. “Tell me what you want, tell me everything you want, and I’ll do it until you tell me that you don’t want it anymore,” he said as he looked back into your eyes, your hands rested against his chest as you thought for a moment before speaking again. “W-Well… I want you to call me your baby and vice versa… Or come up with a nickname or something… I want you to watch me train and root for me, I want you to let everyone know who I belong to, but allow me to show who you belong to, too… I want you to tease me and hold me close… Everywhere… I want you to go on dates with me and do holiday stuff with me… I want you to make me feel wanted and loved… I just fucking want *you* Kakashi…” you say softly as you look up at him. Upon gazing, you notice that his expression had soften significantly, and the hold he had on you was more protective than ever. “A-And I guess more s-sex would be cool,” you say softly and he chuckles quietly in return. You reach one of your hands up and gently cup his face, your thumb gently caressing his cheek. “You know… You should smile more… You’re quite handsome when you do… Well I mean you’re fine as hell either way, but I like it when you smile… And laugh like that…” you say softly as he leans his head into your hand a little more. He kisses your clothed palm and smiles just for you and suddenly you took on a breathless expression, your eyes halfway open as he blushed a little and you just took this moment to adore him, everything about him. “That’s what you want from me? Okay,” he said softly before moving to pin your hand weakly to the bed above you, his eyes both gazing into yours- well as much as he could anyway seeing as your hair practically swallowed your face leaving your bottom half of your face exposed for him. You could see him just fine, he just couldn’t see you… And for the moment that was fine. His gentle lips pressed against yours from above and your eyes fluttered shut as usual when this happened. You felt a little touch starved because he didn’t like contact very much, but he was warming up to it a little more. You wrapped one of your arms around his waist and pulled him closer, and then the two of you melted into each other on the bed in a fit of grunts, deep, passionate, soft kisses, dulcet giggles coming from the both of you, his hand wandering up your waist up the natural curve of your body as yours tried to find where his clothing allowed you access to his skin. You found it, your warm fingers contrasting against his lukewarm skin. He jolted a little and let out a groan before looking at you again, nibbling your lip gently before he pulled away. “You’re amazing,” he whispered quietly and breathlessly against your lips as you tried to control your breathing again.

“Says one of the most notable and historic ninja warriors of all time,” you say with a soft chuckle, moving your hair out of your face so you could look at him and so he could look at you.

“You know… Paths like that carry plenty of… Skeletons in the closet, right?” He said softly as his gaze intensified only a little bit.

“Yeah, and? You still made it… Everyone looks up to you… You’ve killed people and seen plenty of your own killed… And people that couldn’t handle it… Y’know… But, Kakashi Hatake,” you say softly as you turn his head back towards you and your own expression hardens a little. “No matter what, I’ll still love you like the day that I met you… Just like that day you first came to protect.. Well the other person- after they were bullying me… After you checked to make sure I was okay… Baby I love you, and as long as you love me too, I’m gonna be on your side. I’m your woman- I’m your queen, right? A queen needs her partner in royalty, and this house is our kingdom. You’re my king, and unapologetically mine… And I’m the same for you,” you say quietly as you sit up and smile a little. “I know you haven’t been sleeping, Kashi,” you say softly as you gently kiss his lips. “I’m not a super heavy sleeper… You’re safe now, though,” you say softly as you run your fingers through his hair. “Let me go make dinner tonight and… C-Can I decorate?” You whispered softly, expecting a no as you turned and gently pushed him to make him lay on the bed and he chuckled softly, gently grabbing your hand.

“If decorations are what you want, then I don’t have a problem with it,” he said softly, kissing the back of your hand gently. Your skin burned with an invisible flush and you pulled the covers up on him, trying to make the room just a little more homey so that he could sleep better.

“I… Wow… Um… Okay,” you say softly, lighting a candle and setting it on the nightstand, standing in the doorway. “I d-don’t know if I said this already, but I’m gonna make a hot pot for dinner… And I’ll go see if there are any pumpkins in the area… I’ll make us some pumpkin bread and make some cookies for the kids,” you say with a beaming smile, looking at your sleepy man who was already cuddling a pillow on his way to sleep. He admired your soothing voice, able to relax for the first time in a long time, and how the golden sun gave you a gilded glow that made your skin twinkle and your eyes illuminate the room. He had never felt so lucky to have someone as good as you to him, and that was the last thing he saw- or thought- before he slipped off into dreamland and you disappeared behind the door to excitedly start dinner.

#black velvet x naruto #requested writes #kakashi hatake #kakashi hatake fluff #kakashi x you #kakashi x reader #kakashi x black reader #kakashi x black female reader #kakashi hatake x female reader #black velvet asks #jenesis answers

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lycauris · 4 years

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20/09/20

Hello for this first update! I write this later than expected, since perfectionism and doubts led me to delay it a bit too much, but no more!

Blind Impressions is now planned to be free rather than commercial.

Focused on worldbuilding for the same project, notably through fashion concept arts.

Tinkered with the prologue’s script and outline, with relative success.

Now, for the details...

Blind Impressions’ commercial status

When I first thought of Blind Impressions and began planning for its plot and characters, it soon proved to be a very ambitious project. To achieve the quality I wanted, it would have required a lot of work and time. Naturally I compared it to other visual novels I played and, with the effort needed to create it, it seemed logical to add a price tag to it.

I have been reconsidering this. I am building upon this project little by little, in my spare time, with no intention to turn this into a full job, or a reliable (if minimal!) source of income. Moreover, after trying out a few free games and see people’s reactions to them, I realised sharing my game mattered more to me than any financial compensation.

Thus I decided that the game will be free. Of course, it needs to be finished, aha, and it’s a long shot...! Still I hope that, in the end, players will experience the same joy I have in creating it.

Worldbuilding & Fashion

Earlier in the week, I had some sudden inspiration for a neglected part of Blind Impressions’ setting: religion. Indeed, the story takes place so far from the capital, in a province so influenced by the neighbouring shores, that its people often believe in a foreign goddess. Still, our heroine herself hails from the heart of the queendom, so this could not be forever avoided!

To contrast with this other goddess, I wanted to stray from monotheism, with beliefs closer to a philosophy than, say, the typical Christian trinity. The queen is, after all, the most divine being on earth! So, while they do believe in a supreme being, they do not view it as human, nor as native from their planet; it travelled from deep within the cosmos before settling here, offering its body for all life to arise. To study nature and the skies, then, is a sacred endeavour.

They further divide their philosophy in two branches, however, and it is its second one that interests us here: astrology. Though practiced by men and more spiritually-focused than the scientific research undertaken by women, it is an integral part of everyone’s lives, as they alone can read horoscopes. Matchmaking also pass through them.

Hence... they made the perfect test subjects for a first batch of concepts, aha! Those remain very rough, with temporary colours and surely, anatomical mistakes; easier, this way, to concentrate on getting a lot of different ideas out. Thanks to them I have a clearer idea of which elements I like and which ones prove irrelevant for the future, cleaners designs.

I’d like to go a bit more... otherwordly with their clothing still. Professional artists’ concepts fill me with such admiration, I’d love to replicate some of this sentiment into my designs, even if I never reach their level. Meaningful and cool, isn’t it what we all want?

What do you think? Is there a design you like? I also welcome constructive criticism, if you have any!

(I also worked on similar concepts for the Inquisition - what is a story about magic without it? - but that will be for a next update!)

Writing

As hinted in this post’ opening lines, I am chronically unsatisfied and looking for ways to infuse my work with more meaning. The prologue of Blind Impressions challenges me on that front, with logistics a bit too wonky for my taste and some scenes lacking impact. Slowly I am clearing some solution to these problems.

For example, a crucial element in the story is the mirror, as an object or a narrative tool - how one sees and how one is seen. I’ve figured how to weave it further into the prologue, notably by strengthening the side characters... of course, that requires a lot more creative energy than letting them be their little unimportant selves!

What about Silk Dove?

Sadly, this one got a bit sidelined and may continue to be for a little while. This particular project is much more visually focused than Blind Impressions, a fact which... scares me, let’s not lie, aha. I began as a writer, not an artist! That said, its storyboard and character designs were well on their way, so some character profiles and/or illustrations may appear in the future.

Closing words

I thought I could nicely end this post with a song I stumbled upon. I like how calmly she sings this, it’s very relaxing... and pretty timely, too, given the topic of today’s concepts!

youtube

I hope you all have a nice day!

#upcoming game #english visual novel #vndev #devlog #visual novel #blind impressions #lycauris logs #< I suppose this will be the general tag for them!#I love alliterations so this pleases me greatly

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whatareyousearchingfordean · 5 years

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Kiss From a Rose

The Witch in the Reunion

Summary: Y/n has been hunting alongside the infamous Winchesters for years now, but when an unexpected case pops up in her hometown, she finds herself struggling not only with her feelings for the eldest brother but with the things from her past that she has been fighting to forget.

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Plus size Reader

Word Count: 5K+

Warnings: Language, angst, character death

Author’s Note: THE BIG REVEAL! Whodunnit? Also, the Seal song that the reader refers to is exactly the one you think it is...

Catch up with the series masterlist and check out Alexandra’s Library for more works by yours truly!

The case came to an abrupt halt with no new leads, pushing the hunters into the weekend and much to Y/n’s dismay, the reunion. It was their last chance to keep their cover in town and any hope of talking candidly with those closest to the victim. The huntress had hoped it wouldn’t come to this and that she and the Winchesters would uncover the culprit before she was forced to parade her ‘husband’ around to everyone and everything she had run away from. Alas, she could never have been that lucky.

The huntress spent her morning huddled under the cheap covers of the motel bed, mindlessly flipping through bad soap operas and cooking shows until she could no longer put off getting ready for the evening. Y/n took her time in the shower, allowing the boiling heat of the water to relax away the tension in her muscles. It also allowed for her time to think of some excuse to wrap up the cases without a conclusion, though she failed to find one that would convince the Winchester brothers.

When turning the temperature control on the nozzle ceased to continuously heat the stream of water gurgling from the showerhead, Y/n reluctantly pulled herself from its confines, drying herself off and tossing her hair into a towel situated on top of her head.

The steam from the shower billowed out of the bathroom and into the rest of her motel room as she went for her duffle, humidifying the large space with ease. Pulling out the matching bra and panties she had packed specifically for this occasion, she slipped the pieces on and topped them with a button-up flannel to finish her hair and makeup.

Y/n went back into the bathroom and started up her hairdryer, focusing on her roots as she began. The huntress was about halfway through when a loud banging nearly caused her to drop the tool in her hand. She shut it off and waited, listening closely for the source of the sound. When it came again, she was sure someone was knocking to come in and she rushed out, pulling on a pair of leggings before going to answer the door.

The opening of her door brought with it a welcomed gust of the cool spring air from outside and revealed the brothers Winchester standing side by side.

“Hey, kid. We didn��t hear from you this morning so Sammy and I decided to bring you lunch, figured you might be hungry,” Dean held up the brown paper bag he was holding with a grin that matched that of his baby brother beside him.

“Come on in,” Y/n agreed, stepping back from the entryway to allow the two giants into her room. The brothers went immediately to the small desk in her room, placing the food and drinks on the glossy wood surface.

“Picked up your favorite, sesame chicken and fried rice,” Dean explained as he began to pull containers from the large bag.

“Yum,” the huntress drew out her reply with a hum, her tongue darting out to wet her lips as she realized just how hungry she had unknowingly become. “You know me too well, Winchester.”

Dean flashed her a cocky smile as he handed over the meal, topped off with an iced tea from Sam. She took it and perched herself at the foot of her bed, crossing her legs before digging into the meal. The oldest Winchester followed and seated himself next to her while Sam stayed in the desk chair.

“So have you found anything interesting since last night?” The huntress inquired after a bite, trying to hide the hopefulness in her voice that she would get out of tonight’s event.

“Nada,” Dean admitted around a mouthful of his lunch. “We’ve got nothing that strictly points to anyone, just a mountain of guesses. This bitch knows how to cover their tracks.”

“Yeah well in a small town like this, you learn how to get good at sneaking around,” Y/n pointed out. “When everyone knows everyone, you’ve got to be good at keeping secrets.”

“Is that so?” Dean cocked his head at the woman next to him, a devilish thought occurring to the hunter. “You know from experience, Y/n?”

“Yeah, you bet. All those years spent by myself in my bedroom were great for learning how to sneak around,” she scoffed, unamused that Dean was still riding this train.

“I don’t believe that for a second. I bet you had your share of nights under the bleachers.” The huntress rolled her eyes at Dean’s insistence, the aggravation building inside her.

“How many times do I have to explain this to you? I was not popular growing up and I certainly didn’t have any guys begging me to join them for some lame-ass tonsil hockey under the bleachers.”

“Bull,” Dean countered once again. The huntress groaned, tossing a pleading look at the younger Winchester in the hopes he could get Dean to let up.

“Dean, I don’t think it’s any of our business,” Sam spoke up, clearly getting the hint better than his brother.

“Just ‘cause you didn’t get any in high school doesn’t mean you have to ruin everybody else’s fun.” Dean laughed at his joke, elbowing Y/n in an attempt to get her to join in his teasing and failing miserably. Sam only frowned at his brother.

“You want to know the truth?” The bubbling in her gut had spilled over, turning into word vomit that she couldn’t have stopped no matter how much she wanted to. “I didn’t lose my virginity until I was twenty-three in the quickest and most pathetic night of my life. And it’s not like I was exactly getting much of anything before that either.

“It’s fine though. I wasn’t ready until I was ready and I’ve so moved on from the nightmare that was my early twenties.” Y/n decided to tack on that last tidbit in an ill-conceived attempt to lighten the admission that had slipped from her tongue. Heat flooded her neck and cheeks as she noticed the brothers staring at her in confused awe.

She absolutely could not believe that she had admitted that in front of either of the brothers, but most of all Dean. There was now no way after this weekend he would ever look at her without pity, only seeing her as the bullied little girl who never so much as received a look from a man until after college. If the floor could swallow her whole at this moment, that would be great.

“Right… thanks for lunch, guys, but I need to finish getting ready,” the huntress cleared her throat after an awkward moment of silence, her eyes desperate for them to leave for her to save face in one of the most embarrassing moments of her life.

“Uh, of course. We’ll just…” Sam coughed out the jumbled words as he rose from the chair and went to his brother, gripping his bicep and tugging him alongside as the brothers stumbled from the room.

Y/n fell back against the mattress with a huff, mentally kicking herself for everything she had ever done or said in front of Dean. The hunter somehow had this hold over her, always managing to get her to admit things she didn’t wouldn’t even say aloud to herself. If she keeps it up at this pace, she will be on the path to permanently removing herself from the Winchesters’ life if she ever hoped of retaining some sort of dignity.

Silently, she finished up the meal they had brought her before heading back to finish what she had started. Once her hair was completely dried, she curled the length of it into soft curls and then applied some basic makeup. Nothing too showy for a small town class reunion.

Once she was satisfied with her look, she returned to the main space and took out her dress that she had hung in the closet last night after ironing out the thin material. It was a dress she had stowed away for undercover work, never taking it out of its bag unless desperate.

The ruby-red material fell snug against her curves and never failed to make her feel more exposed than she was used to. There was a reason she stuck to comfy and bagging clothes, using them as a way to hide the parts of her body that she had a specific distaste for. However, the job occasionally necessitated she appeared more feminine, and this was one of those nights.

Standing in front of the full-length mirror, the huntress topped off her look with heels and jewelry as she examined her reflection with a pout. Unsurprisingly, she easily picked out all of her mind's flaws, from her hatred of her flabby arms and the rolls that she subconsciously sucked in when she turned to examine her profile.

A small knock at the door bounced her out of her thoughts.

“Come in,” she called, giving her reflection one final frown before turning to fetch her clutch.

“Hey, are you ready to--” Y/n turned to see Dean’s eye’s traveling up the length of her body, his emerald eyes intense in their gaze. Heat coursed through her veins under his leering and she had to clear her throat before he snapped from his trance. “Sweetheart, you look incredible.”

“Thank you, Dean. You clean up nicely yourself,” she smiled sweetly, a stark contrast to the racing of her heart knowing Dean had been so intent on her.

The oldest Winchester brother donned a maroon button-down that he had tucked into a pair of dark slacks. A few of the top buttons had been left open and he had the sleeves rolled up, revealing his forearms. It was a simple look, but enough to get any living being’s mouth watering at the sight.

“Just need one more thing,” Y/n noted as she went to her duffle and pulled out her pistol. She checked the barrel and magazine quickly before putting the safety on. Raising her heeled foot to the edge of the bed, she hiked up her dress to her high thigh and tucked the weapon into the holster she had hidden on her thigh. The huntress dropped her leg and tugged her dress back into place. “Okay, ready.”

There was an unmistakable clench in the muscles of Dean’s jaw as she walked across the room to where he stood. His brow was furrowed into a knot in the middle of his forehead as his eyes followed her movement. “Dean?”

“Hmm?” He blinked a few times as if he just noticed she had moved closer to him. “Oh, shall we go?”

Y/n nodded slowly, confused by his sudden shift but trailed after him from the motel and into the parking lot. Dean helped her into the passenger side of the Impala and then made his way to his spot behind the wheel.

Soft music played from the radio as they pulled from the parking lot and headed west. Besides the soft melodies of Bob Seger and Neil Young, the inside of the car was quiet. Y/n was lost in thought as once again as the anxiety over the night ahead began to simmer in her belly. The cheap gold band that encompassed her finger felt like a heavy neon sign flashing at everyone and indicating the blatant deceit she and Dean were attempting to portray.

“Hey,” Dean spoke softly beside her, placing his palm against her bare knee to get her attention. “Sam will be close by, just in case.”

“Yeah, I know,” she replied with a soft smile. Dean had picked up on the waves of anxiety rolling off of her, but he had read the situation so wrong.

“Then what’s up, sweetheart?”

“Just thinking about possibly having to face a monster in heels,” she lied, easily squeaking out a fake laugh for him.

“Well, I’ve seen you kick ass in heels plenty of times before so I doubt tonight will be any different.” He squeezed his grip on her, giving her a flash of a grin before turning back to the road.

“I didn’t say I couldn’t do it, just that I’m not particularly fond of it,” Y/n pointed out and Dean nodded with a chuckle.

Neither brought it up again in the final few miles of the drive. When they pulled into the parking lot, it was filled with far more cars than it had been just a few days prior. The party was already in full swing, the music audible as the pair stepped out of the Impala.

“Alright, shows on.”

Dean took the huntress’s hand and guided her into the school. The two checked in and filled out name tags before entering. The decorations had the gym looking like a cheap prom. A tunnel of balloons shepherded people into the gym where they were greeted by more balloons and streamers strategically placed all over. There hung a disco ball in the center of the room where a makeshift dance floor already had people swaying to the beat.

“Oh, you two did make it!” The shrill sneer had the hunters snapping their heads towards the dessert table where Janelle was already rushing towards them with a malicious grin on her face.

“We said we would be,” Y/n replied coldly, unable to hide the roll of her eyes. Janelle ignored her and drew her gaze to Dean then, her eyes hungry as she set them on the green-eyed man without a care about the woman whose hand he still held. Y/n scoffed and stalked off towards the drink table without a word.

“Mm, are you sure you and jelly belly over there are working out?” Janelle husked out as she stepped into Dean’s personal space.

“Slow down,” Dean huffed as he stepped back from the brazen woman. The warning was low but the narrowing of his eyes told her she meant business. Janelle frowned as the hunter turned on his heel and followed where his partner had gone. He slinked silently to her side and put an arm around her waist to pull her close before he left a light peck to her temple.

“Jesus Dean,” the huntress exclaimed as she jumped from his touch, her instincts ready to fight before she caught his grin out of the corner of her eye. “Warn a girl next time.”

“Where is the fun in that?” The Winchester had fallen back into his usual goofy self with ease, opting to steal the glass of whiskey she had poured herself after she dumped the whole of its contents down her throat in one go.

“You’re going to have to take it slow there, Mrs. Walker, we’re on a case still,” Dean chuckled as he refilled the glass for himself. Y/n grumbled her dissatisfaction though she knew he was right. Instead of fighting, she pulled him back into the crowd of people to continue their intel gathering.

Not much came from their hopping between groups of Y/n’s former classmates. The women spent most of their time too busy drooling over Dean to answer any questions beyond small talk and the guys simply acted as if the huntress didn’t exist, instead only talking to her partner for a majority of their conversations. It was irritating as hell for her, to be right back into the toxic environment that had scarred her psyche all those years ago. Not to mention, they were not one step closer to figuring out who their witch was.

When dinner was eventually served, Y/n was more than ready for the reprieve it would bring from having to put on a show for the last people she would ever care about.

“So, let’s go over what we know?” Y/n spoke up as they sat at an empty table in the far corner of the gym.

“Damon still makes my skin crawl, I don’t trust him,” Dean answered as he scanned the crowd for the aforementioned guy.

“I don’t understand why, we ruled him out already.”

“I just don’t like the way he looks at you.” Y/n scoffed at Winchester’s insinuation that anyone from her high school would look at her with anything but disgust. “Him or Roger, whom, I might add, we have not ruled out.”

“Roger was just a horny teenage boy,” the huntress countered. “I think Janelle or Kate are our best guesses. They were the two closest to the victim.”

“They were all in a book club together, and you know what that could mean,” Dean insinuated. “That is until Janelle had a falling out with the book club which resulted in the vic almost failing to hire her as the caterer for this shindig. People have killed for less.”

“Damn it, we need proof,” Y/n cursed with a frown. “I want to get back to the bunker already.”

Dean nodded in full agreement to her sentiment. The pair finished their meals in relative silence, watching the rest of her class as they moved about the venue, hoping something might pop out at them.

“Should we blend into the crowd and see what we can see?” Dean offered as he cleared his plate. Y/n cocked her head at him, unsure of what he was getting at. “You know, head out onto the dance floor.”

“Oh, I am so not drunk enough for that,” the huntress declared as she adamantly shook her head.

“Come one, we’ll have a better vantage point out there.”

“Fine,” she sighed, offering her hand to Dean as he stood and guided her underneath the disco ball, placing them in the center of all the action.

The hunter began to move awkwardly to the music that emanated from the speakers surrounding them. It was far from anything he ever would have listened to and clearly that put him out of his comfort zone. Y/n couldn’t help the giggles that slipped past her lips as she watched, causing Dean to halt his dancing, his hands slapping against his sides.

“Don’t laugh. If you can do better then show me,” Dean huffed, gesturing for her to go ahead.

“Hell no,” she yelled above the music as the song switched, knowing that there was only one way she could move to the beat now filling the gym.

“Do it for me, sweetheart.” Y/n chewed on the corner of her lips fighting with her self-conscious ways before quickly shaking away the fear and stepping up to Dean.

“You asked for this,” she noted, giving him no time to respond before she began to move her hips. His hands flew to her waist as she rolled the length of her body against his in time with the song. The hunter began to grind with her, slipping one of his legs between her own, pressing the two of them closer together. Y/n pushed down the worries bubbling in her chest, focused on the music, and listening to her body. She spun on her toes and pressed her backside into Dean, who paused his movement for half a second before falling back into the dance.

It was far closer than the duo had ever been and as much as that scared her, she took the time to relish in the feeling of his hands gripping tight onto the soft flesh of her waist and the heat of his body pressed against her own. The song faded out and with it, Dean snapped himself from her form, much to her dismay. There was no denying his abrupt action tugged on her heart.

With a deep breath, she turned back to him, ready to face the music of having pushed him too far. Dean stood there rubbing the back of his neck as his tongue darted out to wet his plump lower lip. His brow furrowed before he turned to walk back towards their table.

“Wait, Dean!” He paused and turned back to her. A sheepish smile formed on her face as the notes of the now much slower song began to grow stronger. “I love this song.”

“It’s Seal,” he countered as if that was a valid reason to not like the song.

“Please?”

The hunter relented, offering his partner a soft smile as he moved back towards her. Y/n looped an arm over Dean’s shoulder and took his hand in her free one. Hesitantly he slipped his arm around her waist and began to move the two along with the notes of the nineties song filled the gym.

“What?” Y/n scrunched her nose as she heard Dean chuckle under his breath.

“Nothing, it’s just-” Dean shook his head, the grin widening on his face. “Are we middle schoolers?”

The huntress cocked her head, not sure what Dean was insinuating. Without elaborating, Dean took the hand she held in his and placed it around his neck with her other, tugging her body closer to him as he was now able to grip her waist with both hands.

Her body went rigid as she could feel his breath on her face and the warmth of his body seeping through her dress. The length of his body was pressed against hers, firm and unrelenting. Flashbacks to their moment in the janitor’s closet flooded her brain and she could feel her heart rate picking up in response.

“Sweetheart, you doing okay?” Dean looked down his nose at the woman he held in his arms. Having sensed her sudden discomfort, he asked, though he could guess why she was now riddled with anxiety. “Listen, I know what you are thinking but to hell with all these assholes and their superficial views. None of them know the real you. The smart, beautiful, and badass hunter that can knock me and my giant of a brother on our asses without even trying. They don’t deserve even one second of your thoughts.”

Tears welled in the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill over as she refused to look at Dean. Instead, she chose to hold him close, ignoring his words that her mind couldn’t begin to accept yet as she rested her chin on his shoulder.

“Y/n/n,”

“Dean, just… stop, okay? I can’t take the pity,” she nearly choked on her words, the emotion building up like a pressure cooker inside her. It was about more than just the nasty comments and glares from her classmates, it was about the man she could never have. Dean had spent the better part of the weekend playing his role as a loving husband so convincingly that at moments she would almost forget that it was all a ruse. He was kind and supportive and flirty, all of it a deadly cocktail that would lead to her ultimate demise, a broken heart.

“Jesus, it’s not pity, sweetheart. Did these people real fuck you up that bad that you can’t see the effect you have on me?” Dean used his hands on her hips to tug her away from his body, forcing the huntress to look at him now.

“Yes!” she practically screamed the words, not understanding where the miscommunication was for him. The tears she had been trying to swallow down now traced down her cheeks anyway. “I’ve never exactly been the kinda girl that guys chased after, let alone the kind of girl you chase after. I’ve seen your hookups, Dean. I’m nowhere near the league of women who have gotten to share your bed. So why now?”

“All those women were nothing but an easy shot. There wasn’t one second about any of those nights that was real. But you and the way you make feel, that’s real,” Dean insisted, his verdant eyes intent on making her understand. “Sometimes I feel like you are my other half. You make me laugh and challenge me in the best ways. Sammy loves you and you love him. You are one of the most selfless people I know and you tackle hunting with the most annoyingly positive attitude that just makes me want to be around you more. Y/n, you are the whole package.”

The huntress stood there, mouth hanging open at his confession. A million thoughts raced through her head but she didn’t get a chance to comment before movement in her peripherals caught her eye. Her eyes flickered towards the back door that led from the gym where Kate was slinking out into the darkness.

“Dean,” Y/n hissed, nudging his shoulder before pointing towards the door. “Kate just snuck outside.”

“You think?” It took Dean’s brain a second to switch gears, but he didn’t need her to elaborate for him when it eventually caught up.

“I mean it makes sense, right?” Dean shrugged but it was all the response the huntress needed. She took his hand and slinked through the sea of her classmates to follow their suspect. Once the gym door closed behind them, the pair readied their weaponry.

“Split up. I’ll go towards the football field, you head that way.” Y/n gestured towards the parking lot. Dean nodded and stalked off in the opposite direction she did. Y/n held close to the building until she hit the corner, moving slowly around the brick to find the space empty. Her eyes scanned the expanse of the open area as she headed swiftly towards the football field. Her heels clicking against the pavement broke the silence of the late-night as she moved.

As she drew closer, she noticed a light on inside the concession stand. She made herself light on her toes and put her body flush against the dirty brick as she headed towards the open window. Carefully, so as not to reveal her location, the huntress peered inside the shack.

In the center of the space was a large metal island, the top of it littered with satanic paraphernalia. Kate had her back to the window, but Y/n was able to make out her soft chanting in Latin.

Without a second thought, the huntress flashed around the side of the building and kicked in the door.

“Ah, don’t move,” Y/n tsked as she pointed her gun straight at the witch’s heart. “One wrong move and I put one of these witch-killing bullets in your head.”

Kate didn’t seem at all phased by the weapon in her face. “Really, Kate? Witchcraft?”

“Oh, Y/n, you can’t even imagine the world of possibilities I have opened up for myself.” Kate’s lips twisted in an evil smile as she spoke.

“Oh trust me, I can imagine.” The huntress rolled her eyes, far from amused at the witch’s attempt to make it sound like murder was so glorious.

“Just eliminating the competition.”

“Competition? For what?”

“Alec, of course,” the witch laughed. “You see, we made a deal back in high school and Sarah, well she decided she didn’t want to play anymore and it was my turn. So I took care of her. ”

“Your turn?” Y/n shook her head at the sheer hilarity of it. “God, I have heard some crazy motives but this one, this one tops ‘em all.”

“I should have known you were a hunter, waltzing in here claiming to be married to that tall drink you’ve had by your side. Well, guess what, we all saw right through it. No way you nabbed a guy like that,” Kate taunted as she took half a step in the huntress’s direction.

“I swear to god, do that again and I will pull this trigger,” Y/n seethed, emphasizing her intent with a shake of her gun. Her blood was boiling, Kate’s words having the exact effect on her that she wanted. But she refused to give Kate the satisfaction.

“Do it and see where it gets you, jelly belly.” The nickname rolled off her tongue, and Y/n couldn’t stop the small flinch it inflicted into her bones.

“Oh, it will get you dead,” Y/n smiled menacingly as she recovered and pulled the trigger. Kate’s mouth fell open as her body shook and dropped to the ground, wasted.

“Y/n!” The huntress spun around as Dean’s worried scream reached her.

“I’m okay,” she assured as she stepped out of the concession stand, putting her gun back into the holster on her thigh.

“Oh thank god.” Dean ran up to her, pulling her to his chest. “You kill the witch?”

“Yeah, the crazy bitch had some sort of pact to share Sarah’s husband back in high school. But Sarah reneged on their deal. So she killed her.” Y/n let out a full-bellied laugh as she pulled away from Dean slightly, though he refused to relent his grip on her. “Can you believe that?”

The huntress nearly fell over in a fit of laughter. The sheer hilarity of the whole situation hitting her now that she was out of danger. It was like she was in some bad high school drama on the Lifetime network. She supposed she shouldn’t have suspected much from her hometown.

It took her a second to regain her composure. She stood back straight, wiping the wetness from her eyes when she noticed Dean’s intense stare.

“Dean, what are you--” her words were stolen from her mouth as Dean captured her lips with his. The huntress smiled into the kiss, her hands gripping Dean’s wrist where he cradled her jaw in his hands. Y/n’s head swam as the Winchester deepened their connection, angling his head just so to open her mouth to him. Their tongues danced together as the pair got lost in the feeling of the other. Only when the need for air became too great did the couple relent their hold on each other, the rapid rise and fall of their chests matching the other.

“Are you two done? We have a body to clean up.” Sam’s voice startled them both. There was a hint of a grin in his eyes that betrayed the exasperated expression he was trying to portray.

“Just another minute, Sammy.” Dean turned back to Y/N, a coy smile playing on his lips before he kissed her again.

Part 6 (Final)

215 notes · View notes

sleepingexplorer · 6 years

Note

Hello!! First of all you're one of my big inspirations. Really. Your art is something deep to me and I try to learn staring at your drawings for a lot of time. But I struggle a LOT with proportions. Do you have any tips to share? I'm not into grids, and I know I have to practice a lot but it's hard to get everything in the right place. Help? :( (Sorry for my English)

♡♡♡

your english is outstanding. and thank you for the kind words!

(first of all, i’m going to answer this assuming you’re working in traditional media, although most of these tips should be adaptable to digital as well. also, since you’re anon, i can’t tell how advanced you are so i apologize if any of this is too simple, or, needs to be simpler.)

I still struggle to get proportions right too, when drawing. i always have, but i’m definitely better at it than i used to be. so, practice will help.

1. Lay down an overall sketch, lightly. Make it quick and light and simple, you’ll likely have to erase bits of it and rework it. Having a ‘plan’ like this helps make sure everything you want to fit on the paper actually fits (I’m not always good at following this bit of my own advice here, but when I do my piece is usually better for it).

2. Learn to measure and compare angles and proportions with your pencil (here is a good tutorial for that: http://drawingacademy.com/how-to-measure-with-a-pencil ). Work slowly, and check it often. If your piece is a portrait, make sure to check and recheck how the features relate to eachother in size and distance (ie: 'lips of this person are two eye widths down from the horizon line of the pupils’ or something). There are face proportion guides online, but remember that every face is very different, and those only work as the roughest sort of guide (also, several of the guides i saw online seemed to assume western/caucasian features as the default 'correct’ proportions. *ahem*not ok*ahem*). These guides can help a beginner, though, with near universal things: for example, in a front view, eyes are usually roughly halfway between the chin and the top of the head, and in a profile view, ears are usually about as far away from the eyes as the chin is.

3. Probably the best, most golden tip I can give is, at least every 10 minutes stop drawing and step back several feet from your piece and look at it/compare with your reference. Do this even more frequently when you’re starting the piece. If you find this hard, set a timer to remind you to step back. Stepping back makes the errors in proportion easier to see, so you can fix them early on. If you step back and your drawing looks odd and you still can’t figure out why, try turning it (and your reference) upside down and comparing them, or try holding your piece up to a mirror. It can be really hard to see errors in a piece you’ve been staring at for a long time, and these tricks can help your eye reset itself. Taking a break where you do something else and don’t look at it for several minutes can also help. Go make a cup of tea or get some water or a snack, and come back. Or ask an artist friend, if you’re comfortable with that. I can see mistakes in others' art that I don't catch in my own because I'm too 'close' to mine.

4. Also, there is nothing wrong with using grids or tracing or projecting or other similar tools. It’s not cheating, artists from Leonardo to Vermeer to modern professional artists have used these tools to set correct proportions. You mention working with a grid doesn’t work for you (I don’t do well with them either), but if you’re stuck, one of the other methods (tracing problem bits to get correct placement, for example) could be invaluable.

5. Lastly, work with the best quality paper you can manage, as not only does it make a big difference to the look of a piece, but quality paper can take serious erasing without crumpling or shredding.

I hope something here is helpful, let me know if anything could be clearer. and if you should want to come off anon, I’d be happy to look at any work you want to show me and try to advise you better, especially if there’s a piece you’re stuck on.

#anon #lovely anon #art tutorial #proportions #art advice

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atakportal · 6 years

Text

TIMES - Extraordinary Newspaper Magazine Theme

New Post has been published on https://click.atak.co/times-extraordinary-newspaper-magazine-theme/

TIMES - Extraordinary Newspaper Magazine Theme

Briefly about features

TIMES is an extraordinary newspaper / magazine WordPress theme designed to redefine publishing by making content both easier to create and consume. It combines professional looks and unmistaken typography with impressive user experience (UX) and incredible attention to details.

Enjoy your content on mobile devices, tablets and more thanks to a responsive layout, now even faster and better with optimized images and support for high-quality retina screens. This theme supports menus 3 levels deep as more than this is a burden for users to navigate. If you have more questions, please email support.

Changelog

May 12th, 2018 — version 1.4.8

ADDED - Option to show "Unique posts only" on the homepage. While, previously, only posts of the same type were not repeated, with this setting you can choose to skip the same post from the entire homepage. That includes every post on the homepage and inside sidebars/widget areas. Of course, your handpicked posts on the homepage will be displayed as usual and won't be affected by this setting. ADDED - Option to "Copy link" to the article, in the share area below article. We've added yet another way to share your articles, your readers can now simply click the button to copy the post link and share it ony any site, community or platform. ADDED - Option to "Email" article link, in the share area below article. Your readers can also send the article link to a friend or colleague via email. IMPROVED - Visual tweaks and improvements. IMPROVED - Customizer experience.

March 17th, 2018 – version 1.4.7

ADDED - Font Editor - We've added a brand new section to the customizer that will allow you to change every font on the site effortlessly. There are three font families loaded with the theme by default, you can swap them all out with almost 900 fonts offered by Google Fonts or add your custom fonts with a link or code from your font provider. Using Greek, Cyrillic or Vietnamese script with your Google Fonts? Easily add font subsets straight from the customizer! Want to use only one font on the whole page? Sure! Just check the "Use universal font?" checkbox and you're good to go. All that available in the customizer from today! ADDED - Shortcodes can be inserted directly to the homepage as part of Custom Code module. IMPROVED - UX tweaks and improvements for customizer’s publish menu. IMPROVED - Moved the "Font Subset" option from Settings page to customizer. IMPROVED - Front-end, visual tweaks. IMPROVED - Performance.

November 24th, 2017 – version 1.4.6

ADDED - Custom Code module to the homepage builder. You can now insert any HTML, JavaScript code or text to the homepage. Great for adding advertisements, even if your code is not optimized to be responsive, you can use the module's tabs to enter different code for mobile, tablet and/or desktop devices. This module is very similar to WordPress’ Text Widget, once you toggle the "Include basic styling?" checkbox, it allows you to move some of that content from sidebars to the homepage. ADDED - Smart reload to the homepage builder. We think that this feature will greatly increase the productivity of assembling your homepage. The customizer now refreshes the homepage once it detects that you are done making changes, avoiding unnecessary updates and improving the customizer's performance, especially on older devices. ADDED - Compatibility with WordPress 4.9 and it's new features. IMPROVED - Few visual tweaks and improvements.

October 28th, 2017 – version 1.4.5

ADDED - Option to change ticker content font type: serif and sans-serif. ADDED - Option to disable/enable opening social media links throughout the site in a new tab, in customizer. ADDED - Checkbox to Social Media widget that allows to disable opening links in a new tab. ADDED - Option to hide posts date on the homepage, articles and across the site. IMPROVED - Social Media widget following count. Results are now loaded asynchronously to improve page loading speed in some cases. IMPROVED - Ticker content is now loaded asynchronously to avoid additional database queries on page load and to improve load speed. IMPROVED - Visual tweaks.

September 29th, 2017 – version 1.4.4

ADDED - Breaking News Ticker - This is a big one, we've actually created the whole ticker system from scratch, we started with creating the best experience by designing an intuitive and familiar UI to customize your ticker content, appearance and behavior. You can either show post: latest, oldest, most bookmarked / commented, from category(ies), handpicked or add your own content right from the customizer. Adjust the appearance and layout to fit your sites style, set your own colors, change the label text or choose the scrolling direction – all that with instant, live preview, which makes customizing a quick and productive task. ADDED - Option to disable rich menu dropdowns (Functionality ON/OFF > Other). ADDED - Option to the Social Media widget to open profile links in a new tab. IMPROVED - Few visual tweaks.

August 24th, 2017 – version 1.4.3

ADDED - New layout for Secondary Menu Bar called "Divider". You can check it out in Dashboard > Appearance > Customize > Header Layouts. ADDED - New layout for Secondary Menu Bar called "Shadow". ADDED - New background type for "Boxed" layout in Secondary Menu Bar: "Dark Background" ADDED - New background types for "Boxed" layout in Secondary Menu Bar: "Custom Light & Dark Color" which allows you to set a custom color, light or dark, for the bar’s background. ADDED - Added option to choose amount of padding / space for Secondary Menu Bar: Small, Medium, Large Padding. ADDED - Instant, live feedback in customizer for Showing / Hiding Secondary Menu Bar’s search button, date and social icons.

July 24th, 2017 – version 1.4.2

ADDED - Custom made, light and fast one-click demo importer designed specially for TIMES with clean, simple, intuitive and clutter-free interface. We've written, completely from scratch, brand new demo importer tailored specifically for TIMES, it's fast, light-weight and easy to use, you can add some demo content to your sites in minutes and remove just as fast, all that with a click of one button that conveniently turns into a slick progress bar. In short, it's awesome and to try it out just activate the free bundled Dash+TIMES plugin ADDED - New demo content called "TIMES Starter Pack". Contains everything you need to get started with the theme, a complete and lightweight package, ideal for new sites and easily removable. ADDED - Option to enable or disable "pinch to zoom" on devices with touch screens. IMPROVED - Few visual tweaks.

June 15th, 2017 – version 1.4.1

ADDED - Optional print button in the interaction area. You can enable it or disable it by going to the Dashboard > Appearance > Customize > Show/Hide and (un)checking the "Print Button Below Post" checkbox. ADDED - Option to remove all theme's meta tags in case you want to use a third-party plugin for meta tags. Meta tags include Open Graph tags, Twitter tags and meta description tag. ADDED - Updates for WordPress 4.8. IMPROVED - Visual tweaks.

May 31st, 2017 – version 1.4.0

ADDED - Homepage Builder - This is a big one... We've created completely from scratch a tool that allows you to modify any element on the homepage. You can rearrange every sections, have multiple sliders or any module, each with different settings. You can pick certain posts to appear in the section in most modules or, for example, set the post type to display most commented posts from this week. This tool allows for a total flexibility and customization of your homepage, on top of that it is very intuitive, nicely designed, clean and without unnecessary clutter. The builder is very smart and adaptable, for example, if you add two compatible modules that display the same type of posts, the second module will not show the same posts, they will be offseted. There are plenty of unique touches like that and this paragraph is already too long so I would recommend that you give the builder a try by going to the Dashboard > Appearance > Customize > Homepage Layout. Oh and don't worry! Every change you've made to the slider or other modules through the customizer will be converted to the builder so you don't have to redo your layout! IMPROVED - Slider section from customizer was moved to the Homepage Layout section and all your settings will be mirrored to the homepage builder. IMPROVED - Few visual tweaks.

April 30th, 2017 – version 1.3.9

IMPROVED - Few visual tweaks. IMPROVED - Main menu experience. IMPROVED - Hero image performance.

April 3rd, 2017 – version 1.3.8

ADDED - New widget called "Category Posts" that allows you to display articles from specific category in any post-excerpt format neatly in the sidebar. You can also pick the number of posts to show as well as set the time-range. IMPROVED - Few visual tweaks.

March 23rd, 2017 – version 1.3.7

IMPROVED - Customizer looks and experience. Biggest customizer redesign to date, we made the customizer much, much more organized, easier to navigate, less cluttered and gave it a more modern look. Every section has it’s own custom made icon and a description for easier navigation, similar settings are now grouped together to make the best use of space and each group has a short explanation to it. Words really can't do a justice once you compare the old customizer with the new one. Make sure to try it out and if find something not working properly, just go to Dashboard > Settings > General and uncheck the "Customizer tweaks" checkbox. ADDED - Dark mode. Yes, your website can now join the dark side. To change the color scheme of your site go to the Dashboard > Appearance > Customize > Change Colors and pick a dark color scheme. ADDED - Sepia color scheme. Give your site the old-school look with subtle brown shades. You can change the color scheme in the same section as the dark color scheme. ADDED - Option to change the default sorting for comments.

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rebeccalartfoundation · 3 years

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Sculpture 2- Finishing and cutting the head

In this session, we continued and finished our half heads. There was a bit of pressure as we had to complete the sculpture today so they could be fired over the weekend, so we had to work fast!

Adding features

Referring back to notes and guidance from Ben, I had started to add features to my half head and tried to get a resemblance. I used photo references of myself to help with the profile and a mirror for the front view.

The sockets for the eyes were hollowed out quite deep and placed a round ball into the socket. It took a while to get the sizing right and I had difficulty shaping the eyelids. The eyelids were made by creating two flat, crescent moon shape and moulding it around the eyes. The lips were made with fuller crescent shapes and attached to the head and moulded in.

Adding the eyes, eyelids and building up lips

Shaping jaw and building up profile

I found it particularly challenging to do the ears and getting the right definition. I had first made the ear far too big and needed to be resized. Sculpting the ear with the carving tools was also quite fiddly, without having the wedge of clay collapsing into itself. Considering the time restraints and that it had to be completed by the end of the session, I felt it did the best I could.

Cutting and hollowing

The next step was to cut the head in half and to scoop it out. I was a little apprehensive after all that time sculpting! The head was cut in half with the cheesewire and then scooped out. We had to scoop quite a lot of clay out but be wary of not scraping so the shell becomes too thin.

After it was scooped out, the head was pieced back together. This was done by scoring heavily into the rim and adding water for it to be melded.

We then had to decide how we were going to cut our sculpture and how it can be reassembled in a new way. I decided to change my mind from cutting it vertically, which was inspired by Jean Faucher and collage. Instead, I was inspired by broken statues, particularly the one below, to cut my sculpture diagonally. I decided to cut it into four, enough for it to look fragmented but also in large enough pieces for it to be sturdy.

All chopped up and ready to be fired.

I had also pierced holes at the top of the head so I could insert items in there. I had ideas of using flowers and like the idea of being able to insert and remove them easily. This was inspired by my collage where I had items growing from my head and I was particularly draw to flowers as I was inspired by some fake flowers I had at home. I was also inspired to continue the botanical theme of my printmaking project. Smaller holes were also placed between layers so that wires could be placed in between for extra support.

Reflection

I was happy to have completed the sculpture in time and the way I have deconstructed. I am currently thinking of ways of how to reattach it, whether layered on top of each other or try to create gaps between layers. I am also inspired to include gold paint between the cut segments, influenced by Kintsugi, ‘[...] the centuries-old Japanese art of fixing broken pottery. [..] the Kintsugi technique employs a special tree sap lacquer dusted with powdered gold, silver, or platinum.’. I found this method appealing as it highlights the cuts but adds beauty to it, that value has been added to deconstruction. This can also be symbolic of that broken pieces (or people) can still hold value.

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junker-town · 5 years

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Jonah Williams can be a franchise left tackle in the NFL, short arms be damned

Retired defensive end Stephen White says the tape, not measurements, matters when it comes to offensive linemen — and Williams has what it takes to start immediately in the NFL.

I try my best not to read other people’s assessments of college prospects who I plan to do my own draft profiles on because I would hate for someone else’s opinion to consciously, or unconsciously, influence mine. Sometimes, however, opinions about a certain player are close to impossible to avoid. Like, for instance, when the offensive line prospects were being measured at the NFL Combine, and the numbers for Jonah Williams came in.

What a weird range of reactions did those digits elicit on my Twitter timeline. All because, if I am getting this straight, his arms were longer than some people thought, but still not quite long enough according to others?

It was all very confusing for me.

As it happens, I had just started watching Williams’ Alabama tape the day before it was announced that his arms measured in at just under 34 inches. Prior to that, I don’t think I had ever been aware that 34 inches was some sort of dividing line for some team scouts and evidently for some draft evaluators in the media. More to the point, I hadn’t seen anything on Williams’ film to that point that would have made me think his arms were some how not long enough.

If there even is such a thing.

When I sat down to think about it after seeing the takes fly around, I realized that before I started working on this column, I honestly don’t think I have ever regarded arm length as a big deal when it comes to offensive linemen. Sure, having long arms could, in theory, help someone as a blocker, but only if they had a lot of other skills in their tool box, too. After all, I have seen plenty of shitty offensive linemen who had exceedingly long arms in my time as a player and now as an analyst.

Long arms are not some kind of panacea for offensive linemen, nor are “short” arms, in and of themselves, some kind of fatal flaw. It’s actually hard for me to believe that people are still stuck on this “perfect” measurement bullshit in 2019. Maybe it’s because I’m still bitter about being labeled “undersized” back when I came out, but more likely it’s because my experience has taught me that good players come in all shapes and sizes. It just befuddles me that some still haven’t figured that out.

Now, over the years I have adjusted what I value most when it comes to offensive linemen in general, and offensive tackles specifically. If anything, I care a lot more what they do with their lower body than anything else. Having a good, consistent pass set matters way more to me than if you can scratch your kneecaps while standing upright.

I also put a high value on linemen having above-average lateral quickness, good balance, and enough functional strength to hold their own, if not dominate. A mean streak is a plus, but not necessarily required.

Long arms just for the sake of having long arms though?

Man, I guess.

Williams checks two big boxes to be an NFL left tackle.

I have no idea if Williams’ arms being 33 5/8 inches long is going to shoot him up some draft boards or drag him down others. What I do know is based on the things I saw on his tape, in conjunction with what I value in an offensive lineman, there is no question in my mind that he is an outstanding left tackle prospect.

You want to talk about a good pass set? Williams routinely exhibited training tape technique on film. No matter where the guys he was assigned to block were lined up, Williams was going to give them that same kick step and backpedal, time after time after time.

It is obviously natural to him now, and that means he won’t have to be coached up much on that aspect of the game once he gets to the next level. I’m sure his NFL position coach will try to polish his technique up a bit at practice and stay on him about continuing to be consistent with it, but, footwork-wise at least, Williams already looks like a veteran when he pass sets.

When I try to determine if I believe someone can hold up well as a left tackle in the NFL — where they generally won’t get a ton of help and will usually have to be on an island against top-notch pass rushers quite a bit — I look for two things that usually go hand in hand. The first is a good pass set and the second is a high level of athleticism.

Athleticism is for what happens after the blocker starts to set back and the pass rusher he’s assigned to quickly approaches. Can they maintain their technique while adjusting on the fly to a speed rush or a spin move? The best guys not only can, but they also look smooth doing so.

Such was the case with Williams, who was really good at mirroring edge rushers when he had to block them one-on-one.

Williams’ feet were superb out in space, and he hardly ever looked to be off balance. He never panicked in his pass set, and he always kept his weight back as he patiently waited for each pass rusher to commit to a move. That allowed him to do a good job of staying in front of them initially. It also put him in good position to recover when the pass rusher attempted a counter move.

He was always putting himself in prime position to adjust to whatever kind of move the pass rusher was going to throw at him. That allowed him to pass off defenders during games, which was also extraordinary in that you rarely see college offensive linemen with that kind of savvy and awareness as blockers.

He knows how to keep pass rushers on their toes.

Of course Williams wasn’t perfect, and he did get beat a few times while he was pass blocking. What I noticed, though, was that of the handful of times when Williams let someone get past him, it was usually a situation where he started off in good shape at the beginning of the play, then eventually the defender found a way to get past him right at the end after the quarterback had held on to the ball for awhile.

In fact, there was only really one play where Williams got beat cleanly right off the bat in the four games that I saw. And you know what, in four games Williams didn’t give up a single sack and only three pressures by my count. Otherwise he was rock solid. That’s damn good, especially against the level of competition he faced in some of those games. “Long” arms or not, he got the job done, that’s for sure.

Another thing that I liked about Williams in pass protection is that he switched up his pass set from time to time. Instead of just sitting back on every passing play, sometimes he would jump set his opponent to stop their momentum before they got started, right on the line of scrimmage.

That kept pass rushers from being able to get comfortable in their stances. When you don’t know if a guy is jumping you or setting back deep, it can be hell trying decide what kind of get-off you want to use against them. For Williams to switch it up like he did, he forced those edge rushers to stay on guard at all times instead of firing off with reckless abandon when the ball was snapped.

Williams likes to serve up pancakes.

Just based on his pass blocking alone, I would rate Williams as a first-round left tackle prospect, but it turns out the guy is actually a helluva run blocker as well. I particularly enjoyed watching his work on combo blocks where he participated in a double-team at the line of scrimmage, then continued on up to the second level to block a linebacker or safety. Or should I say to obliterate a linebacker or safety.

I mean, he was taking some of these cats and driving them right off the camera!

I don’t know if I would call that a mean streak, but it was definitely obvious on his tape that Williams liked to finish his blocks. He didn’t just want to knock his opponents off the ball — he wanted to pancake their asses. As an old defensive linemen myself, I respect that kind of intensity.

Oh, and that athleticism that showed up in Williams’ pass blocking? It was conspicuous in some of his run blocking, as well. Alabama didn’t ask him to do a a whole lot of pulling in the four games I watched, but when it did, it was something glorious to behold.

Williams repeatedly showed me that he was not only fast enough and quick enough to get to his responsibilities in a hurry when he pulled, but that he was also athletic enough to make good contact and actually drive guys down the field on those kinds of blocks, too.

That is not something you see every day.

To recap, in Williams you get the kind of run blocker who can drive a defensive tackle off the ball on one play, then pancake a linebacker on the second level on the next, then pull out wide and splatter on the play after that.

There really isn’t anything he can’t do as a run blocker. But do tell me more about long his arms are or aren’t ...

Williams is versatile enough to play elsewhere but he should be a LT.

At 6’4 and some change and a little over 300 pounds, Williams isn’t the biggest offensive lineman I’ve ever seen, but his functional strength was self-evident on tape. I also imagine he’s going to get heavier after he makes it to the pros, anyway. Regardless, I don’t have any problems with any of Williams measurements. His tape shows me a guy who can play at a very high level, period.

Having said that, I do believe that Williams could play well inside if a team decided to move him there. I already talked about how good he is at pulling and at making blocks on the second level, so it shouldn’t be too shocking that I believe he could excel as a guard. I believe that the potential to move him inside is more of a reason to draft Williams.

But first and foremost, I think he can be franchise-type left tackle, and I expect any team that drafts him to start him off there at first.

It’s a great thing to me when a player shows he has the kind of skillset where if it doesn’t work out at one position, he has the potential to succeed at a different spot. It gives teams leeway in case there are some struggles at the beginning of a guy’s career.

That kind of versatility is especially welcome for offensive linemen because of how few are usually carried on the gameday roster for most teams. When you have a bunch of guys who can play wherever, then an injury or two on a Sunday afternoon doesn’t have to result in disaster.

But, barring a disaster, I would expect Williams to end up as a right tackle at worst. He just shows too much potential at tackle for me to believe that he would automatically “need” to be moved inside. There also aren’t a lot of top-notch left tackles just lying around, which is even more of a reason to give the kid a shot there at first to see what he can do.

This is my first breakdown of an offensive lineman, so I have no idea how high I would rank Williams in relationship to the rest of the tackles coming out in this class just yet. However, I will say that he I believe in most years he would be taken somewhere around the middle of the first round if not higher.

Wherever he goes, his new team is getting a guy who is ready to start from day one protecting the quarterback’s blindside. Jonah Williams should be an upgrade as both a pass blocker and a road grader wherever he is inserted in the lineup.

And after he is drafted this April, I doubt anybody will talk about his arm length much, if at all, again.

For the purposes of this breakdown I watched Jonah Williams play against Arkansas State, Missouri, Auburn, and Georgia. Those represented the second, seventh, 12th, and 13th game on Alabama’s schedule last season, respectively.

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simplemlmsponsoring · 5 years

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New Post has been published on https://simplemlmsponsoring.com/attraction-marketing-formula/pinterest-marketing/41-new-pinterest-marketing-practices-you-need-to-know-now/

41 New Pinterest Marketing Practices You Need To Know Now

Know what’s new in Pinterest marketing?

There’s a LOT! So much has changed in the past 8 months.

And it’s still evolving!

But the good news is: Pinterest is revealing ALL about 2018’s best marketing practices.

Alisa Meredith of Tailwind interviewed Sarah Hoople Shere, Product Marketing Manager at Pinterest. Neither one missed a beat. They gave us an incredible roundup of:

What’s changed. What’s working now. And what to expect going forward.

This 1 1/2 hour video is a must-watch for those with an intermediate or better understanding of Pinterest.

UPDATED! June 28, 2018. Originally posted May 2, 2018.

If you’re barely a beginner, I think you’ll find most of it over your head. Start with my Pinterest basics FREE e-course. Or read What is Pinterest for Business? – a super duper roundup post.

• • • CLICK to get your FREE Pinterest Basics e-course! • • •

I’ve also summarized the interview’s main points for easy reading.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links to my favorite, indispensable Pinterest tool. If you purchase via my links, I may make a referral fee – at no cost to you. Thanks for supporting my free content!

youtube

How do I get my content found on Pinterest?

1. Does it matter when I Pin?

Time of day doesn’t matter, but do think about the first several Pins that you’re saving each day.

Because of the new following feed, we may start to see a trend towards specific time of day that people interact with your Pins.

In the following tab, your content is distributed in real time to those following you. Pinterest does not give preference to those who Pin at a certain time of day. Instead, it depends on when your target audience is online and interacting with your Pins that matters.

2. How many times a day should I pin? Is there such a thing as too many Pins per day?

There’s definitely no such thing as Pinning too much. But we prefer consistency to volume.

It’s better to Pin a similar number of times per day than to Pin a ton at once, and then nothing. Try to spread out your Pinning on daily basis.

The easiest way to accomplish this is with Tailwind. With Tailwind, you can schedule your Pins for the week (or longer), and they’ll be posted for you automatically.

• • • Click here to try Tailwind for Pinterest FREE• • •

Don’t inundate your followers with your own Pins. If they use the new following tab, your Pins will be seen in the order that you save them. If you add lots of duplicate content in succession, your followers may well take this as a cue to unfollow you.

3. The first 5 Pins – what’s that about?

NOTE: Pinterest took out this ridiculously confusing practice! Skip to point 4

At Pinterest’s In the Making conference, Enid said “yeah, we took that out” as it wasn’t helping and was just distracting.

In the following feed, Pinterest shows the first five Pins added by accounts that you follow. These “first five” are those Pinned after midnight UTC.

Click here to discover what time this is in your time zone.

EDT = 8pm CDT = 7pm MDT = 6pm PDT = 5pm

The first five Pins are not the only Pins of yours that will be seen by your followers throughout the day. More will be shown after your followers have seen other people’s Pins.

Best practice is to make sure those “first five” are your own content, saved to your own boards.

4. In the Smartfeed, are photos and comments left a factor in search?

We’ve made the comments universal across all instances of a given Pin image. Pinterest is working to unify Pins to ensure that all comments show up on all instances of that Pin.

Pinterest believes that comments and “Tried it”s do increase engagement. The “tries” now require a photo, which gives the response credibility. I’m hoping this ends the plethora of automated comments!

5. How do I get Pins to show up in Smartfeed?

When you save a Pin on Pinterest, we distribute it to your followers first. Distributing to followers first allows Pinterest to gauge your followers’ interaction and decide which Pins will be popular.

The following tab allows us to get our content in front of our audience much sooner than before. This helps Pinterest rank our Pins for future distribution.

So, ironically, the first step to SEO (search engine optimization) on Pinterest is to make sure your content will resonate with your followers, because they’ll see it first. Make sure it’s engaging.

The next factor is using appropriate keywords so the Pin can be identified as relevant to others who would be interested in it.

6. What happens to those who change their Pinning habits? For example, they originally started with one type of content but now they are Pinning something else?

Lean into the content that’s really resonating with your audience. As long as it’s still in line with your business, it’ll ultimately lead to the right kind of followers.

Check your Pinterest analytics to discover your best content and best performing boards. This is the type of content that your audience wants to see more of.

It is not necessary or desirable to start a new Pinterest profile from scratch just because you started by Pinning one type of content and now will Pin a new type of content. Pinterest helps with content distribution to the right Pinners. In time, your content will get in front of the right audience.

7. Should we delete underperforming Pins to increase our profile’s overall engagement rate?

No, we don’t recommend deleting Pins.

Pins that aren’t performing well, or not receiving as much engagement, will not hurt the performance of your other Pins. One dud Pin might have a hard time itself, but it’s not going to bring the rest of your Pins down.

Keep in mind that underperforming Pins could potentially become popular in the future, so deleting them also deletes the chance of this happening. It’s more important to spend your time reviewing your account’s analytics to discover what type of Pins are working well for your audience.

I personally do not recommend ever deleting your own Pins – but I find taking the time to go back and assess Pin performance is time well spent. I also delete my saves of others’ Pins at this time. I won’t do this going forward though.

8. Do backlinks to boards or Pins matter?

They do not. Pinterest looks at the content of the Pin itself, where the Pin links to, what it looks like, and how rich the description is. We use that to gauge the value of your Pin. Outside backlinks to your Pins do not matter.

9. Where should we use our keywords?

The most important place to add keywords first and foremost is in your Pin descriptions.

Think about keywords from the Pinner’s mindset when they’re looking for your type of content. Use keywords about the items in the Pin itself plus themes it goes with. For example, “grilled asparagus” and “weeknight dinner recipe”.

10. Do the keywords in our profile and board descriptions help the individual Pins perform better?

They do. They give more information about all the Pins on the board. Always save a new Pin first to the most relevant board. That data travels with your Pins across Pinterest. Give your Pin all the advantages you can!

The description of the first board your Pin a new Pin to helps categorize your Pin on all of Pinterest.

Also, Pinterest has warned that saving your Pin to irrelevant boards may hurt its distribution.

11. Does it matter what you name your image that’s on the site that you’re going to Pin?

It does not. But your Pin description should include the same keywords as your landing page.

Pinterest is working to ensure that the content of the Pin matches the content of its landing page. Keyword matching is crucial for Pin performance.

I personally still recommend saving images with keywords as it helps with Google search. There’s more out there than Pinterest traffic!

12. Why should we be adding our content when it’s fresh?

We know that Pinners love fresh content. This is the concept behind our adding hashtags.

Hashtags filter content by most recent. Pinterest is testing and finding that Pinners love to see new, fresh content in this area. The following tab also allows us to quickly get our content in front of our readers.

13. What is “fresh”? Is it fresh because I just saved the Pin, created the blog post, or it’s a new image I’ve made for an old blog post?

Our favorite type of fresh content is brand new content in the world… so it’s a blog post that you just wrote. But those other categories count as well.

14. Make sure your Pin image is on the landing page it links to – why?

It doesn’t have to be the exact image. The Pin doesn’t need to be a mirror image of anything on your landing page.

It’s less about the image itself – it’s about the relevance and content of the image. The most important thing to remember is that the Pin description matches the title or content of the page it links to. The keywords should match.

15. Is there a Smartfeed advantage to pinning “live” exclusively, or even just a little, during the week versus using an approved scheduler?

No. We don’t penalize Pinners who Pin via scheduler or any approved third party tool.

But we recommend logging into your account periodically to keep up-to-date with your audience and with new Pinterest features. There is NO distribution priority given to Pins that are saved natively in Pinterest versus through a third party tool.

To be eligible to be recommended by Pinterest as someone to follow, you need to be a consistent Pinner, have a business account, and claim your website. You’re considered active if you’re saving content regularly.

Finally, the debate of manual vs. scheduled Pinning has been settled! Make your life easier – schedule content with Tailwind so you can keep active when you’re busy doing other stuff.

• • • Click here to try Tailwind for Pinterest FREE• • •

16. Is there any advantage, as the original Pinner, to repinning rather than Pinning a new Pin?

As the content creator, it’s best for you to save a fresh version of your Pin instead of repining it. Be the first Pinner. Pinterest prioritizes Pins that have been created by the owner of the website that the Pin links to.

When you Pin fresh content from your own website, Pinterest gives distribution priority to that Pin. Pinterest understands that you are the creator and will give it the most relevant Pin description and hashtags. Don’t forget to save it to your most relevant board, too!

Does this mean we should never repin our own saves of our content? Correct. You should either go back to the web page to save, or upload the Pin image. Both count as “fresh” content. A repin does not.

And guess what? Every Pin scheduled in Tailwind is posted as a new, fresh Pin – not a repin.

As far as saves from your audience, both original Pins and repins are valuable. Both tell Pinterest that the content is valuable.

17. Is it OK to Pin the same image to the same board, say after a month?

Sure. Make sure each Pin has a unique description. Why is this relevant once again?

Keep in mind the Pinner’s experience. If they see both Pins at once, will it make sense?

“Looping” for its own sake isn’t recommended, but as it’s seasonally appropriate.

There’s no SEO value to repeating the same content (this won’t help it surface in search). Seasonal content makes sense to resurface.

18. Do followers matter? How can we get more engaged followers?

Followers still represent a small portion of the people you reach on Pinterest. We now feature the total number you’re reaching every month on the new profile. The vast majority of distribution is still going to happen beyond your followers. This is why SEO is important.

Now there’s a dedicated space to find content from accounts you follow. Quality is more important than quantity. Better to have a small, engaged audience than a large unengaged one.

Pinterest recommends you if you’re a consistent Pinner, have a business account, and claim your website.

Next step is to add the Follow button to your website.

Make sure your followers on other channels know you’re on Pinterest.

Encourage your readers to use the “tried it” feature on your Pins. Embed the Pin on the blog and suggest they try it out and leave a comment. The natural step for them would be to follow you if they’re not already.

19. How much engagement takes place on our profile?

The majority of engagement takes place in the discovery areas of Pinterest.

Board covers are nice, but spend more attention on optimizing your Pins.

20. Is there any data on how much the use of hashtags improves the reach of a Pin?

Hashtagged Pins do get significantly more distribution the first day they’re saved. You can add up to 20, but quality over quantity. Focus on somatic tags.

Pinners are both clicking and searching hashtags.

21. Can a local business succeed on Pinterest?

No matter where you are, you can find your local audience on Pinterest. Optimze your content to how Pinners in your area will find it. Use hashtags and keywords that include your geographical area in Pin descriptions. Also in your profile description and even name.

For more clarification on many of these points, watch this ? 1-hour FB Live with Alisa from Tailwind, Kate Ahl of Simple Pin Media, and Kristie Hill of Blog Ambitions. Notes from original interview continue below.

Effective Pin Images and Descriptions

22. What’s the best Pinterest Pin size?

Optimal aspect ratio is 2:3. Taller may give less distribution and be cut off in certain parts of the app. Stick with 2:3 or lower. The restrictions differ across the app and mobile platforms. Squares work but 2:3 is best.

23. Do Pins without faces perform better?

Depends on the content category. See what works best for your brand or business.

24. What about “lifestyle” Pins?

Lifestyle images, tasteful branding, and (limited) helpful text on image are still suggested.

People need help envisioning the item in context. Tell them how they’d use it or style it. If you only have a product shot, add context in a creative description.

Tasteful branding doesn’t hurt performance and helps develop trust with an audience and carry your brand association down the line of repins.

25. Why avoid logo placement in the corners of the Pin?

Lens visual search icon will appear in a corner. We recommend top center or bottom center.

26. What kind of text is good on an image?

Text is helpful when it explains or contextualizes the image. The image may not tell the whole story of the content. The text can help set the expectation. Product images may benefit from added resonance and lifestyle relevance.

27. What’s happening with Pin descriptions?

Now descriptions should show in the feed for all users. Amount may vary as it’s being tested but full description will show when Pin is clicked. Longer, more helpful descriptions improve performance. Include a strong call to action to drive traffic. Tell them what more lies beyond.

28. Is it helpful to add a blast of keywords in the Pin description?

No. The description does double duty. The keywords help Pins surface in search. They also encourage Pinners to click through when they discover the Pin.

Don’t make them expect to be greeted by mumbo jumbo on the blog. Make it sound natural, human, editorialized while containing the relevant keywords.