#I'll keep uploading art from them

[ckret2]

Chapter 36 of human Bill Cipher is on death row in the Mystery Shack and would rather not be, featuring: the author being pissed as hell after spending all day drawing eight pictures for a comic oh my god it really took all day, and then discovering that the Internet connection is so shitty the images won't upload, so y'all have to pretend that I included eight pictures here and cheer and clap and applaud for them.

Insert colorful pictures here. 💦 Use your imagination. 🚗 I'm so tired.

But more importantly: Mabel makes Bill do community service.

EDIT FEB 8: i finally got around to uploading the art lmao

I don't know why I thought all that effort was a good idea. Please appreciate the hell out of it.

####

Two blue- and orange-haired girls trailed after a pink-haired girl as she furiously stormed into the stark white control room. Each wore the same uniform—a skintight space suit with a pleated skirt and heart-shaped patches that matched their hair colors on their sleeves—but the pink-haired girl had taken off her helmet and ripped the patches off her sleeves. "Please, Momoko-chan," the blue-haired girl said, "don't do it. What if you make the director angry—?"

"That devil can't feel a human emotion like that," Momoko snapped, making the blue-haired girl gasp in horror. "I've made up my mind, Aoko-chan! Are you joining me or not?"

Aoko bit her lip, pressing one hand worriedly over her chest. "I can't."

"What about you, Orenjiko-chan?"

The orange-haired girl shook her head, her curly corkscrew locks bouncing inside her helmet.

"Fine! Then I'll just do it myself." Momoko stomped into the aisle between the computer consoles and looked up at a shadowy figure at a desk, overseeing the control center from a mezzanine level high above. "Hey, Director!" She threw her heart-shaped patches to the ground. "I quit!"

The shadowy figure didn't flinch. A cold, emotionless voice said, "Is that so."

"I've had enough of your lies! You told me my anger was just me tapping into the righteous fury I needed to protect humanity—but it isn't! These battles are... doing something to me!" She held her hands in front of her face, watching as they trembled. "Every time I'm on the battlefield, my berserker rage keeps getting stronger and stronger. The last time I lost control, I turned on my own friends and nearly killed..." She looked guiltily at the cast on Aoko's broken arm. "I won't do it again. I want out."

"It's too late for that." The director leaned forward into the light. A small floppy-eared albino bunny in a navy blue suit sat on the desk, the reflection on its sunglasses hiding its cruel pink eyes, its fuzzy white paws pressed together in front of its face. "We made a deal, Momoko-chan. I gave you your wish, and you gave us your heart." A wall lit up behind the bunny, displaying a dozen glass terrariums. Each one contained a live, beating human heart. "The battery we replaced your heart with must be running low. You'll need to recharge it, whether you want to or not."

Momoko flinched. She reached into a breast pocket and pulled out a heart-shaped crystal on a chain like she was retrieving a pocket watch. It faintly glowed a hot pink, but even as she looked at it, it faded closer and closer to black.

She frowned and stuffed the crystal back in her pocket. "Then I want to trade back."

"What?!"

"My heart for my wish."

"You can't," the bunny said. "That wish is the only thing protecting your friends! If I reverse it—"

"That's just it," Momoko said. "When I made that wish, I thought my friends needed me to protect them! But now, having fought alongside them..." She looked to Aoko, and then Orenjiko. "I know the truth. And it's that they never needed me to save them! They were always strong enough to save themselves. I just needed to have faith in them."

Aoko's eyes watered up. Orenjiko said, "Oh, Momoko-chan—"

The bunny pounded a soft paw on its desk, calling the girls' attention back. "When will you learn, child! Once you've made a choice, there's no way to undo it! None of your mistakes will ever be erased—and no matter how you grovel, God will not forgive you! So will you die in shame like a worm? Or will you shoulder the burden of your sins and carry on into the future?"

The bunny sat back and looked at a photo in a cracked picture frame on its desk. It showed another bunny in an apron with big golden hoop earrings, holding a tinier bunny that was sucking on a pacifier. A tear rolled down the bunny's fuzzy cheek, hidden from the girls behind its paws.

"We must all live with the consequences of our choices," the bunny said. "Now you must live with yours."

Aoko and Orenjiko frowned and looked away from the bunny, afraid to meet their director's steely gaze. Even Momoko's scowl wavered with doubt.

The bunny adjusted its sunglasses, reasserting its cool, detached demeanor. "The next angel attack will reach Retro Tokyo at midnight. And if I'm not mistaken, you have less than 24 hours until your batteries run dry. You'll need to be in your cockpits to recharge them. You might as well fight."

Aoko's shoulders sagged in defeat. Orenjiko murmured, "Yes, sir." They meekly crept out of the control center.

Only Momoko remained, glaring up at the director. It glared down, unmoved. Momoko grit her teeth and growled at it.

"Enough foolishness. You know what you have to do," the bunny said. "Get in the Fukuin robot, Momoko."

"Dang it!" She stamped her foot with an angry grunt and trudged out of the room.

The shot closed in on the bunny's face as it murmured, "Someday, you'll understand," and then the screen went black. The words Neon Crisis Revelations Angry Cute Girl: Annihilation! Episode 23: The Dark Heart of the White Rabbit! flashed on screen as the ending theme played.

Soos said, "If you ask me, that's one of this season's best episodes. It's often forgotten for the lack of spectacular mecha combat Annihilation is known for, but I find the emotionally-driven episodes give me more to think about later, and we couldn't have gotten this kind of character development out of Momoko in a more action-packed episode. Plus, it gave Director Bunbun some much-needed depth. It doesn't excuse its actions, but it explains them."

"This is exactly why Bunbun's my favorite character," Melody said. "It feels so bad for its mistakes, but all it knows how to do is double down on them. I just wanna give it a hug."

"As much as you want Bunbun to stand down, it's clear why it thinks it can't. It's a textbook example of the sunk cost fallacy," Ford said thoughtfully.

As the episode credits played, Fiddleford leaned over to whisper to Ford, "I think I might've figured out a way to synthesize that paradox element we're needing."

"Did you? Fiddleford, that's amazing—"

"Don't get too excited just yet, I only might've figured it. Usually, I'd want to run a lot more calculations to confirm it—but considering the dire circumstances, we might just need to run the experiment and see what happens."

Ford stared at him. "Skipping calculations? Are you sure you're feeling alright?"

"Heh! You hush. It ain't dangerous, I just don't know if it'll work. We'll have to pull a fast one on the universe."

Ford was dying to know what that meant; but before he could ask, the credits ended and Momoko's voice actor perkily announced, "Next time on Neon Crisis Revelations Angry Cute Girl: Annihilation!"

A school exploded. A bright orange combat mech as tall as a skyscraper exploded. A steel grey warship exploded.

Director Bunbun's voice said, "Remember, Momoko, your true enemy isn't the angels, but entropy itself. We are fighting to save the universe from a cold grave. If God wants to kill us, we'll just have to kill God first!"

A giant one-eyed mechanical angel spread out four white-hot arms and six wings with metal feathers like enormous knives. It threw back its inhuman head and trumpeted toward the heavens. And then it exploded.

Tate pointed at the exploding angel, pointed at his father, and said, "Don't even think about it, Dad."

"I wasn't! I ain't got enough beards to run all them arms." Between episodes, Fiddleford hissed to Ford, "I'll explain tomorrow. Come over with Stanley and Soos. I'll need all y'all's help to pull this off."

Ford nodded. He'd have to tell Stan in the morning. He just hoped whatever Fiddleford had in mind would work.

####

As soon as the vending machine opened, Ford could hear Mabel in the living room: "Checkmate! You owe me a soda."

"That's what yooou thiiink," Bill said, voice sing-song. "Congratulations on cornering my king's body double."

"Aw, man! I hate when you do that."

"Good luck finding him amongst all my pawns!"

They were up this early? Ford had thought he'd have to wake the kids. (He'd hoped he would get to them before Bill was up.) He leaned into the living room to see what they were up to.

Bill and Mabel were sitting at the table, playing chess. He recognized some of Mabel's "fairy chess" pieces on the board. They were obviously well into their current game; each had claimed about half the other's pieces.

(It was eerie how much more Bill looked like Bill these days; he'd somehow found a top hat to add to his ensemble, and now when Ford saw him from behind—yellow hair blending into his yellow hoodie, with the eye on his hood laying flat on his back—for a split second, he nearly looked like himself again.)

Mabel waved. "Good morning, Grunkle Ford!" (Bill glanced back at Ford over his shoulder, and the illusion was shattered.) "You're up early!"

"Good morning. So are you." He nodded toward Bill with a disapproving frown. "You do know he cheats, right?"

Mabel gushed, "I know! It's so fun!"

"She's a worse cheat than I am," Bill announced proudly.

"It's not cheating when I do it, I'm a senator!" Mabel leaned across the table, snatched the top hat off Bill's head, and proudly set it on her own. "I can legalize anything I want!"

"Well oh-kay, Miss Senator." Bill stole the hat back. "We're still monarchists on this side of the board."

Ford took a few steps closer to inspect their game more closely. "Why are there sandwich cookies on the chessboard?"

Bill said, "Mabel's got the knights all cozy in the horse stable," he pointed at the "nest" Mabel had made by folding the bottom of her sweater up, "so I'm trying to coax mine back out with delicious treats."

"It'll never work!" Mabel crowed. "The horses are too cozy!"

"I'll get them eventually! Even the loneliest monkey goes to Wire Mother to feed!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Ford said, "He's referring to an important psychology experiment where baby monkeys were..." He caught sight of Bill's face, looking right at him and grinning oh so brightly, and mumbled, "Never mind." He cleared his throat. "Anyway—Mabel, when you've finished your game, could you head downstairs? I need to discuss something with you."

"Oh. Okay, sure," Mabel said, giving him a questioning look.

"How come?" Bill's exposed eye was locked onto Ford like a laser. "Is it about the Mysteries?"

The what? Before Ford could ask, Mabel quickly said, "I haven't told Bill anything about the Mysteries, I promise!" She winked at Ford.

Hmm. Ford looked at Bill and said coolly, "I don't think the Mysteries are any of your business, Cipher." He had no idea what game he'd just been roped into, but he was gratified by how quickly Bill scowled.

"I'll be back downstairs in a few minutes," Ford said; and then left to pass the same message on to Dipper and Stan.

####

Ford woke Dipper; told him, like he'd told Stan, not to go through the living room to reach the elevator so Bill wouldn't notice how many people were congregating downstairs; and then headed back down. Stan was out of bed by now, drinking coffee and still in his underwear as he spectated the chess game from the doorway. Stan nodded, "Morning."

"Morning." Ford paused to watch alongside him.

Over thirty years ago, Ford's chess games with Bill had been minor acts of psychological torture. In their first meeting, after flattering the dickens out of Ford's intelligence, Bill had set up a game of "interdimensional" chess; Ford had quickly figured out from Bill's moves that some rules of interdimensional chess were different from Earth's chess; and then, afraid of looking ignorant in front of this strange, friendly muse, Ford had decided to try to pick up the rules of interdimensional chess based on what Bill did rather than ask for an explanation.

The challenge of figuring out the new rules might have been fun, if he hadn't lived in fear of making a fool of himself in front of an interstellar angel. As it was, though, he constantly fell into traps he didn't know were there ("Rookie mistake, by using your bishop to check me you activated my wormhole!"); he never seemed to remember all the things the pieces could do ("Sure, I upgraded my queen to ricochet off the edges squares—I'm surprised you haven't yet!"); and more often than not, when he tried to emulate Bill's moves, Bill gently "reminded" him that it wasn't the right time or place for Ford to do that; and Ford, humiliated and sheepish, had "corrected" his error. He won rarely, but not often.

It took years for Ford to learn there was no such devil as "interdimensional chess." Bill had used the name as a ruse to make up whatever rules he wanted. And on top of that, Ford had it from several reliable sources that Bill wasn't even that good at chess.

Now here Bill was pulling the same con on Mabel with "fairy chess"—and when he tried to tell her it didn't matter that she'd taken out his (disguised) king because the queen was co-regent, she told him that her pieces had democratized and Bill couldn't win until he'd defeated all of them. He not only allowed her this rule; he actually seemed thrilled. Proud.

It was so different from the cordial, half-interested way he'd played chess with Ford.

Ford was sure Bill had just decided this was the best way to keep Mabel's attention; she would have seen secret rules as an unfair imbalance rather than a mental challenge, she had no doubt asked Bill to explain how "fairy chess" worked rather than stupidly tried to guess herself, and if she noticed her opponent was disinterested she'd probably lose interest too rather than try harder. Obviously, Bill had to handle Mabel differently than Ford.

But a small part of Ford wondered: if he'd ever looked Bill dead in the eye, moved a rook like it was a bishop, and confidently informed him that the board had slipped into a mirror universe—would Bill have laughed in delight and congratulated him on figuring out the game?

Stan nudged Ford. "Hey. You look like you could bite through a chair leg," he murmured. "Are you alright?"

Ford snapped, "No, of course I'm not."

Stan gave him a surprised look. "What?"

"What?" Ford shook his head. "Sorry—I misheard you. I thought you asked if I was jealous. Of course I'm not jealous; and yes, I'm alright." He cleared his throat. "What was I—? The study. Right." He clasped his hands behind his back and marched across the living room, nodded to Mabel as he passed, ignored Bill, and swept into the gift shop.

Stan stared after him, stared into the living room trying to figure out what the heck Ford could possibly be jealous over—Bill and Mabel were cracking up over a rook Mabel had turned upside-down and debating the mechanics of a reverse-gravity chess variant—then shook his head and headed back to the kitchen.

Mabel took out one of Bill's bishops and snuck two sandwich cookies off the board to eat without him noticing. He was only half focusing on the game now, distracted by the sound of the most beautiful word in the English language ringing in his head: jealous, jealous, jealous.

####

Stan was the first down, followed by Mabel—"Grunkle Ford, just so you know, I told Bill you gave me that clear pyramid because you inducted me into the Mysteries! He's been going cuckoo trying to find out what that means!"—and then Dipper, hair still disheveled from sleep. Ford nodded. "Good. Everyone's here."

"Great," Stan said, "now what's going on? What's with the whole cloak-and-dagger act?"

"Yesterday, Fiddleford informed me that he may be on the verge of a scientific breakthrough—but he needs some assistance. Stanley, he specifically said it's crucial that both of us and Soos help."

Stan groaned, rolling his eyes. "If this is another one of his cockamamie giant robots..." (Mabel laughed, "Cockamamie.")

"It isn't," Ford said seriously. "Soos is already prepared to go. But if the three of us are at the Northwest estate..."

Stan nodded in comprehension. "And Mrs. Ramirez is out visiting family today." He looked at Dipper and Mabel. "So it'll be just the two of you in the shack with the demon today."

Mabel nodded. Dipper frowned; he'd had an investigation he wanted to go on today. "So, this scientific breakthrough—is it...?"

Ford paused. "Too soon to tell. But, if everything goes stupendously well... it could be, yes."

"What are the odds of it going that well?" Stan asked.

"At a loose, uneducated guess? 20%. But I'd give only 20% odds that it will end in complete failure, too. Far more likely, what we do today will just bring us one step closer to... to." He shrugged. "To the end of everything."

There was a split second too long of silence as everyone tried not to look at Mabel to see how she took that. But she just nodded again.

Ford took in a deep breath and nodded. "So. Dipper, Mabel, you've got Soos's number in case of emergency," he said. "I know you've dealt with Bill yourselves a few times, but—are you both confident you can handle him entirely alone today?"

Stan laughed, breaking some of the tension in the room. "Of course they can handle him! Have you seen 'em? Mabel's got that monster doing anything she says!"

"Oh, come on," Mabel said, waving off the compliment but grinning. "I just get how he thinks, that's all."

"Yeah, and that makes you the only one!"

Dipper gritted his teeth. It stung that only Mabel was getting a vote of confidence—what, did they not think he could handle Bill, too? But he supposed he couldn't argue with it. Mabel was the expert on Bill. Dipper couldn't even have a full conversation with him without getting tangled up in weird haunting metaphors about caves and shadows.

Ford nudged Stan. "But they still need to keep their guard up around him." To Dipper and Mabel, he said, "Do not tell him we're gone, so he can't try to take advantage of the adults being missing. And don't leave him unsupervised. We should be back by dinner."

"Got it," Dipper said.

Mabel snapped off a salute and said, "You can count on us!"

####

Mabel burst into the living room, made a beeline for Bill lying down on the couch, and flung herself across his stomach. "Hey Bill! If you don't tell anyone that I told you that the adults are gone, I'll take you outside to do something fun!"

Bill grinned and tossed aside the Gold Chains For Old Men issue he'd picked up. "Deal!"

####

"This is such a bad idea," Dipper told Mabel as she collected buckets and towels. "You don't trust him that much, do you?"

"It's fine. We have an understanding now," Mabel said. "We speak the same language!"

Dipper grimaced. "I don't really think..."

From the entryway, Bill called, "Found the bracelets! They were hanging on the coat rack." He ducked into the kitchen, already wearing one half of the enchanted bracelets. "Ready?"

"Ready!" Mabel grabbed her half as she ran by, and they were out the door.

Dipper reluctantly followed.

####

On Summerween, some kids had gone at Stan's car with eggs, toilet paper, and—by the looks of the damage—probably also several rocks, keys, and the scratchiest branches they could find. Stan had already washed off what damage he could; but there were still some bits of egg stuck in the seams of the car, and the paint job was a tragic scraped-up disaster, capped off by the giant phrase "TRICK-OR-CHEATER" scratched across the driver's side doors.

Mabel led them to the car and set down her buckets. "Wait here, I've gotta get the hose."

Bill studied the contents of the buckets—cleaning brushes, towels, various liquid soaps. "So, what are we doing?" He emptied one bucket's supplies. "Adding to the damage?" He lifted the metal bucket over his head, prepared to throw it down on the car's hood.

"NOOO! BILL!"

He laughed, "I'm messing with you!" He set the bucket back down.

Mabel returned with a running hose and started filling the buckets. "Grunkle Stan was complaining about how hard it is to repair a classic car like this," she said. "So, I thought we could surprise him by fixing it while he's gone. And you can show everyone how much nicer you're getting by helping!"

"Aw, what?" Bill planted his hands on his hips. "You took me outside to do community service?"

"Bill." Mabel grabbed his arms. "I think it's really important that you show everyone how much nicer you're getting. Really."

Bill swallowed down the urge to scoff. "Sure—but by doing chores for Stan? I'll be nice, but I won't be boring."

"We can play with the hose, too!"

Bill thought that over. "Okay, I'm in." It was an opportunity to get some sunshine, at least.

"Good!" Mabel grinned evilly, lifted the hose, and sprayed it at Bill's face.

He ducked just in time for the stream to miss his head and knock off his hat (which Mabel had generously permitted Bill to hold onto, since she'd forgotten she owned it). He snatched up a brush and a towel like a sword and shield and backed away from Mabel. "Ha! You'll have to do better than that, kid! I can see every possible future branching out from this moment—you'll never land a surprise attack on me!"

"You can see the future, but can you see... this?" Mabel yanked on the hose. It pulled taut behind Bill's ankles.

He tripped, yelped, and landed on his back. "No," he said, staring at the sky. "Apparently I can't."

Mabel sprayed the hose in his face.

Within a couple of minutes, they were on opposite sides of the car, lobbing soggy soapy sponges and towels back and forth at each other—and, in the process, accidentally managing to get the car a tiny bit cleaner as their projectiles drizzled soap over it. Bill had thus far successfully dodged nearly all of Mabel's projectiles—his lower legs and sleeves were more soaked than the rest of him, and mainly from preparing his attacks—while Mabel was quickly drenched and accusing Bill of cheating. Waddles, who had been allowed outside (and, Bill noted, not required to wear a leash), elected not to join the battle, but was quite content to bask in the mud puddle expanding around the car.

And Dipper, meanwhile, sat on the porch, his journal open and ignored in his lap, glaring at Bill and Mabel, disapproving of this scene as hard as he could.

"Okay, truce!" Mabel shouted. "Time out! Pause! Sto—" A soaked towel landed on her face as Bill cackled. She pulled it off. "My bucket's empty, I've gotta refill it."

"You think I'd show mercy just for that?"

"Seriously, Bill!" She ran over to the porch with her bucket and hose.

"Coward!" Bill called; and then, bereft of any targets to attack, entertained himself by picking up a sponge and actually starting to clean the car.

Dipper leaned over toward Mabel. "This is such a bad idea," he muttered.

"No it's not, it's great. Look, he's already helping."

"I'm serious. His aim's getting too good, he could throw a bucket over the top of the car and knock you out or something—"

"But he won't," Mabel insisted.

"How do you know?"

"Because..." Mabel attempted to convey her knowledge by swinging her arms emphatically. "Because he won't, okay? Bill's gonna do community service today and nothing's gonna go wrong!"

Dipper glared toward Bill—just to see that he was looking straight at them, not even trying to hide that he was listening in. He flipped up his eye patch to wink at Dipper.

"Fine." Dipper slammed his journal shut and got to his feet. "But I'm not sticking around."

Mabel gave him a surprised look. "Dipper? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong!" Just Mabel thinking washing a car would make Bill worthy of coming off of death row—which meant she wasn't taking the threat he posed seriously. Which apparently she didn't need to, because she understood him so well—everyone said so—while Dipper, official junior paranormal investigator, somehow wasn't the one who understood the alien demon, and now Mabel kept spending all her free time around Bill because they got each other so well—but Dipper didn't care. Why would he care? There was like a 20% chance Bill could be dead by the end of the day. Which wasn't big, but it was something. "I just don't wanna sit around watching you wash the car, okay?"

"Oh," Mabel said, shifting awkwardly. "You could help out?"

"No he can't!" Bill yelled.

Dipper ground his teeth and tried to ignore him. "I've got other stuff to do. I have a paranormal investigation to go on. It's what I wanted to do today until we got stuck on triangle-sitting duty. So if you're so sure you've got the situation under control, I can just go ahead and do that anyway." Under his breath, he muttered, "I thought we could do it together, but if you'd rather hang out with Bill..."

Mabel bristled. "Well—fine, then! I do have it under control. Thanks for noticing." A tad guardedly, she asked, "So... what's today's big investigation?"

Dipper hesitated, trying to decide how irritated he really was; but if Mabel had extended an olive branch, so should he. He flipped through his journal. "You know about all the recent nighttime burglaries?" He showed Mabel a page where he'd glued a printed-out photo of a long-legged, armless, ghostlike creature, and next to it paperclipped an article cut out from the Gravity Falls Gossiper. "Something's been stealing jeans from every clothing store in town. Based on the surveillance footage, I bet that it's a mysterious, little-known creature called—"

"The Fremont Nightwigglers?" Bill cut in. "Yeah, this is about the time of year their migratory route should take them through Oregon. You oughta check the dumpsters in town. They flock in parking lots at night, but during the day they tend to nest together in half-empty dumpsters."

Dipper stared at Bill.

"You're welcome!" Bill said.

Dipper couldn't even enjoy a good old-fashioned monster hunt without Bill stealing half the thrill of discovery. "Great," Dipper grumbled. He'd better get out of here—before Bill also spoiled what planet the Nightwigglers were from. "I'll see you later, Mabel." He trudged off to find his bike, angrily kicking a patch of grass as he went.

Mabel watched him go, half considering chasing after him.

And then Bill very carefully lobbed a soaking sponge straight at the back of her head.

Mabel squealed—"Bill!"—and charged back into battle.

####

It took them the better part of the morning to finish washing the car—in part because the growing mud puddle kept undoing their work. When they were done, Mabel stepped back and announced, "Okay, great work! Now it's time for... part two! Covering up the scratches." She whipped out two aerosol cans, "With spray paint!" She rattled the cans like underwhelming maracas. 

"Whoa, and you didn't even bring me safety goggles?"

Mabel stared at him. "Since when do you use safety anything?"

"I'm just saying. I'm not sure I trust you wielding spray paint near me."

Mabel thought it was still too soon to be cracking jokes about anything that happened in the Fearamid; but she punched his arm and said, "You'll be fine as long as you don't try to kill me. Here!" She handed him a third can.

He accepted it and shook it up. (Mabel felt like he was just doing it to hear the little ball rattling, too.) "So what's the plan?"

"Grunkle Stan said usually, car dents are... hammered out? Somehow?"

Bill nodded. "Intriguingly counterintuitive."

"But I don't know how to do that," Mabel said. "But! I saw this great makeup tutorial that explains contouring! You use makeup a little lighter and darker than your skin to make fake shadows so your face looks like a different shape!" She held up her cans next to Bill's; his was as near to the same color as the car as Mabel could find, while the other two were a bit lighter and darker. "So I thought, maybe we can use different shades of red to contour the dents and make them disappear? If we spray the shadowy parts with light red and spray the pokey-outie parts with dark red?"

Bill looked at the car thoughtfully. "Yeah, that makes perfect sense! I mean, what's 'three-dimensional' vision anyway?" He set his can on the ground so he could hold his arms out, forming a rectangle between his thumbs and forefingers, framing the car in between like it was a picture. "It's just a two-dimensional view that you take on faith is three-dimensional, because your mind's learned that highlights and shadows are the curvature being revealed by sunlight!"

Mabel had never considered that her vision of the world was a 2D view that looked 3D; but she had taken a lot of art classes, and the first lesson of a new art class was always drawing a circle and carefully shading it in pencil so that it looked like shadows being cast on a ball, so she kinda sorta figured she got it. "Yeah! Exactly like that."

"So you're absolutely right: shadowing the highlights and highlighting the shadows will just cancel out that curvature and make it look perfectly flat," Bill said. "You're an art genius, Shooting Star. We'll have this car looking good as new in no time."

####

Thirty minutes later, they had a scratched, dented car covered in terrible-looking mismatched blobs of red. They actually made the dents stand out more.

Mabel and Bill surveyed their masterpiece silently.

"I've figured out our problem," Bill said. "We forgot to account for Earth's rotation. As the planet turns, the sun casts shadows at different angles, so the dents' shadows will look slightly different."

"Ah. Yeah," Mabel said. "That's gotta be it."

"When I take over this town again, I'll freeze time and we can paint this thing properly."

Mabel wondered if there was a way to briefly freeze time with the time tape they'd confiscated, before quickly remembering exactly what she'd been trying to do when she'd started Weirdmageddon in the first place. "Let's come up with a plan that doesn't involve messing with the fabric of spacetime."

"Hm." Bill planted his hands on his hips thoughtfully. "I have a great idea. What if we cover up the dents with something cooler. Like—flames. Or lightning—"

Mabel gasped, "Or a wizard!"

Bill gave her a puzzled look. "Where are we going to find a wizard—? Oh, right, painting a wizard."

"Bill, that's perfect. We could give Grunkle Stan the airbrushed wizard van of his dreams!"

"Oooh. Oh yeah. I love that." Bill nodded appreciatively. "I've always thought Stanley was more of an 'airbrushed hot babe' guy, though."

"We can put a hot wizard babe on the other side," Mabel said. "And the wizard could be fighting a unicorn! Because that's awesome! And the unicorn probably deserves it. Grunkle Stan would totally fight a unicorn if he ever met one."

"I think we've got a plan."

They retrieved a wider variety of spray paint cans from inside the shack. Mabel took over the majority of the art duties—she was the only one of the two of them who could draw wizards or unicorns—and she left the little details (stars and lasers and so forth) to Bill. He got sidetracked several times drawing multiple copies of his own face around the battle scene, until Mabel pointed out Stan would get arrested driving around with those so they'd just have to cover them up.

Mabel had finished the first mural and was working on the hot wizard babe (it was riding a dolphin) when Bill called from the other side of the car, "Head's up, we're out of orange."

"That's the fourth color you've run out of. What are you doing?" Mabel circled around to the other side of the car to see his work. He'd added some graffiti across the windows in an alien alphabet—Mabel recognized some of the letters from when he'd left coded messages in Dipper's journal—and between the wizard and the unicorn...

Mabel wrinkled her nose. There was an immense multicolored blob stretching between the two figures, scribbled over multiple times in random patterns with every color they had. Well, now she knew why Bill was running out of colors. "Bill, what is that?"

"It's the wizard's magic rainbow laser! The one he's shooting at the unicorn."

"It's too many colors," Mabel said.

Bill gave her a shocked, deeply offended look. "Too many—? Who are you and what did you do with the real Mabel?"

"You can't use every color. For a laser like this, it's gotta be three or four colors."

"Unbelievable."

"And they need to be straight! If it's scribbled like that, it looks like a blob."

"It's more realistic that way! Wild magical powers don't go in a straight line—the more powerful it is, the more chaotic it gets!" Bill gestured insistently at the blob. "I'm doing a perspective thing, here—the colors layering over each other shows how they're all weaving together and wrapping around each other! See?"

Mabel studied the blob more closely. She shook her head. "Sorry Bill. It's just a mess."

Bill threw the empty orange can on the ground and flung his hands in the air. "I can't believe you of all people don't appreciate my art."

"The stars look nice," Mabel said. "And the alien text. It looks like magic wizard runes."

Bill grunted.

Maybe they needed a break. "I think we need to buy some replacement colors before we can finish," Mabel said.

"Yeah, sure," Bill said. "Pop open the car door for me, I can drive us to the hardware store—"

"Nope!" Mabel didn't trust him that much. "You're staying here. We'd get in too much trouble if anyone finds out I let you drive."

"You worry too much about getting in trouble," Bill said; but now that the conversation had moved on from the blob, he already sounded less irritated.

"Sorry, but you've gotta wait here while I get supplies. I'll just bike to the hardware store." She pointed at the house. "Back inside!"

Bill considered the command like he thought he had a choice in it; then nodded in approval. "Fine. Just help me get lunch outta the fridge before you go."

Surely he could find some way to entertain himself, all alone in the Mystery Shack, completely unsupervised.

####

(This chapter was a nonstop train of the most ridiculous scenes I could think of, I hope y'all enjoyed. If you did, I'd love a comment—some of my favorite jokes and character moments so far are in this chapter and I wanna know what y'all liked. Also after spending 9 hours on a comic my internet is too shitty for me to post I could really use some nice comments, thank you, I suffer so much for my art)

#bill cipher #human bill cipher #mabel pines #gravity falls #gravity falls fic #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher #gravity falls fanart #my art #(now that it's been ADDED) #(last couple weeks I've been trying to draw Bill more 'on model' relative to the body proportions used in canon. which means Big Head.) #(looks kinda goofy to me. helps him look shorter tho.)

[narudoodles]

Update! A kind soul over on twitter let me know that there are pretty reliable AI art checkers online, that have been developed by people specialising in AI and machine learning!

An NYT article also talks about the pros and cons of a number of them.

I tested all the 3 free open access sites (Illuminarty, Optic AI or Not, Umm-Maybe) and only Illuminarty and Optic AI or Not gave consistent results on both art and photographs.

I'll put the links below so anyone can go and check for whichever art they want to (download the original images from tumblr posts, and upload them)

https://www.aiornot.com/#home

https://app.illuminarty.ai/

These are the results :

Optic flagged it as AI immediately.

But Illuminarty had very interesting aspect : when I uploaded the full image, AI probability was 10%. but, on cropping out the bottom of the image (jacket) the probability jumped to 73.9%

This is consistent with my original comment on the art here

My limited understanding of these programs indicate that they scan the entire image including all the individual pixels. AI programs like Stable Diffusion, Mid Journey, DallE all leave signal artifacts when they process an image, which is then left on the final pic generated!

Compare these two @/skykashi original arts, that are immediately flagged as human made.

And now I get to my favourite AI art bro in the fandom @madasama! I commend you for admitting that you not only use AI, but are proud of producing a large number of "real" arts in such a short time!

Here's your "art"s results!!

@elhnrt made a far more detailed and organised post about this specific weirdo, feel free to check it out!

I will be using fandom tags on this particular post so that it has a broader reach. Especially for genuine digital artists and art lovers. Save the links, and always keep an eye out for AI, it's everywhere these days.

#Naruto #Fanart #Digital art #Anti AI #say no to ai art #Fandom #Tumblr #AI resources #Idk if tumblr is gonna eat up this post on the tags #But it's worth a try #Also since I've been accused of trying to spread misinformation without 'solid proof' #Here's an attempt from verified widely used websites that anyone can access free of cost #The NYT article was a great resource #It talked about the pros and cons and limitations of each site #Worth a read tbh #These AI checkers are not 100% guaranteed to give accurate results all the time #It's best to check with multiple AI flaggers and compare results #And also with context clues like the artstyle skill set and frequency of posting arts of the acc in question

[idolomantises]

Hello there! It's great to see your askbox open again because I cannot stress enough how much I adore your art style and storytelling.

I've got two questions, if that's alright.

1: How do you keep a consistent upload schedule of your comics? As someone working on a series myself, it's hella difficult due to real life stuff and trying to find the time to actually sit down and start illustrating and writing stuff.

And 2. Will we ever see The Seven Deadly Sins in MnG? I remember your Asmodeus design which was absolutely brilliant looking and am curious to know if you're gonna end up doing more with that really cool idea!

As always, keep up the great work, seeing your comics and art in my notifications is always a treat. Have a great night!

I actually don't want to explain this because my work schedule is far from healthy, and I'm only able to produce so much art thanks to my incredibly talented assistants. And even still, I don't have much free time! I'll just say, take a hiatus and start developing back ups ahead of time.

Yes absolutely, I actually planned to introduce Asmodeous WAY earlier, hence dropping her (she's female now) design so soon but decided to hold back, and fine tune her a bit more (she's actually getting and outfit update because I dont really like what she wears). I like the idea of portraying the deadly sins as Gods to these demons, so you very rarely see them and are only mentioned in passing. I prefer showing the demon descendants because it allows me to humanize them more while representing their sin. i dont want to portray the deadly sins as irredeemably evil (they'll still be. awful lmao trust me, none of these sins are good people), but I want to flesh them out a bit, without putting too much focus on them. so it'll be fun to see how people react.

#monsters and girls #ask quill

[kimtaegis]

This Christmas I'd like to share my love for this community by doing a little Xmas Gift Giving! I prepared some little presents that I would love to exchange for just one simple thing:

Send me an ask or make a post tagging me (#annietrack) in which you give a person that's part of armyblr the love they deserve. Whether it be you telling them how much they brightened your year, if there was a post of them that made you especially happy, what you wish for them for 2024, it's completely up to you; you can even gift them something, like a gif(set) or any other kind of art!

Of all the people who participate I will randomly choose five people that will receive some little presents from me. The presents are

🌙 1x Jimin's Photofolio with all inclusions ❄️ 1x 2 official photocards of your choice from my small pool of pc's that I would've sold otherwise (all in great condition) + lots of freebies 🎁 3x one bts gifset of your choice from me; it can be anything you want (yes, also a huge compilation if you'd like!)

Christmas at Annie's (I'm laughing writing this) will end on Taehyung's birthday, 12am KST on Saturday 30th December 2023. I will announce who will receive the gifts on Sunday, 7th January 2024 and will then contact the persons privately as well.

I kindly ask for you to follow me and reblog this post if you participate (reblogging just to spread the celebration is very welcome)!

For some more (important) info, please read below!

Lots of love,

Annie

I will cover all costs to get the first two presents to you (worldwide).

If you're only interested in one or two of these gifts, just put the respective emoji somewhere in your ask or in the tags! If there're no emojis, your name will come in all three selection pools (but please note: you will only receive one present max. I will randomly pick names in the pool order: Photofolio, photocards, gifsets. e.g. If you receive the photofolio, I'll take your name out of the other two pools. I hope this makes sense, if not, let me know!).

Since a lot of you like to keep yourselves anonymously/ might be too shy to express their love for someone openly, I would like to offer the option of sending asks on anon as well. In this case, please think of a unique pseudonym (no emojis please) which I can add to the participants' list(s). If you get chosen to receive a gift, please contact me on anon again, telling me your username so we can talk about everything else. I will keep your identity a secret, I promise.

Please please please tag or otherwise make clear who your ask or post is dedicated to so I can make sure they'll see it!!

I will start shipping out the presents the following week after the announcement!

Lastly, here are pictures of the Photofolio and the photocard pool for your consideration (I apologise for the quality of the pc photo; it's already dark as I'm uploading this)

#I'll put this in the most frequented tags: #btsgif #userbangtan #bts #and tag some belovedst (hope it's okay): #usersky #userkelli #trackofthesoul #usermaggie #tuserandi #userpat #idk this was kind of an impulsive decision I made while wrapping presents lol #I just felt like the tumblr fandom is swindling more and more and that we should kind of... spread some love for those who are still here? #idk. I hope everything makes sense #love youuuuu #christmas at annie’s

[civilotterneer]

"Well, gotta refuel before I make my way to Prescott Valley. I didn't see this town on my map, but gas is gas." He doesn't realize he's about to enter just as the hysteria hits.

Decided to make a fun little art piece about Echo, my current reading material. However, I kinda have a lot of thoughts about it so far.

I'll keep my dialogue here spoiler-light, and will avoid giving anything important away.

Echo is one of those stories that, as much as I typically detest horror, has completely enthralled me. Not to get to philosophical, but its use of foreshadowing reminds me of a few strong mystery and sci-fi points:

The overall foreshadowing reminds me of solid Arthur Conan Doyle-style. ACD was known for his novels having given you everything you need to solve the mystery long before the characters can. While the mystery isn't solved in each ending, there is a heavy amount of this foreshadowing that is just like ACD. Things mentioned early on that feel like minor statements become important later. For example, swimming is heavily mentioned by Chase early on in TJ's route, and to those who have done the route, they realize why. With Leo, its the trainyard. These are the only routes I've completed so far, but I will be watching for these now when I do the rest.

Another neat note is how each story gives a bit of foreshadowing to each other. In Flynn's route, its mentioned that the railing by Lake Emma wouldn't stop a car from going in. Though I haven't finished Flynn's route yet to see if this is direct foreshadowing, I do remember the car doing exactly this in Leo's route, and it's never mentioned there.

Second is the push for "Man is the Monster", akin to Frankenstein. So far, TJ's route was heavily this (Chase you heathen), and Leo's was from Leo. The use of the monster physically in Leo's is almost unnecessary, as the monster's been with them the whole time. It's a great dive into man is the monster that reminds me of the common scifi tropes that aim to point that out instead of just putting a monster in the way (See Alien and how though the monster is a very real threat, the true monster is the company that keeps sacrificing people to study the alien).

This story is so well written and uses a lot of very-strong scifi writing traits, and I'm excited to continue and analyze these more. Props to The Echo Project for really having some great writers so far!

It feels really weird (and even moreso enthralling!) because I don't live that far from the approximate location Echo should be, not to far away from Prescott. I've even located Lake Alamo, which has a lot of similarities to Lake Emma, though there isn't a nearby settlement that matches Echo's description. I'm tempted to do a quick study of the area, take a weekend and hike around after doing like a week of local research to see what I could find that matches the descriptions of Echo. Maybe make some kind of literary analysis out of the photos and the story itself once I complete all the routes.

Note: I noticed a render error and re-uploaded the fixed version.

#fursona #3d render #furry #otter furry #echo project #echo vn #echovn #Civil

[valentinekau]

A Moderneopets Lament, and my last request.

Hiya, the name's Velu, I was recently removed without warning from Moderneopet's art panel for what they called "targeted harassment". I was kept in the dark about what this harassment was but was allowed to think I was offering concise critique with the purpose of keeping things on model as per the artist rules. (there is a post here on tumblr that i will reblog in a moment that succinctly explains) If you've played modneo maybe you've seen, and enjoyed my pets! And if you have, thank you from the bottom of my heart! This was my first attempt at pet art and it was cathartic getting to be a part of a panel of likeminded folks who were open to critique and discussion!

and one that i was excited to debut, finished, and uploaded ready for release as my apparent harassment and infractions were happening unbeknownst to me!

I have been extremely silent after the removal, outside of contacting Hazer, and, after leaving the server and closing connection to anyone who hadn't friend requested me, contacting the only mod I'd had the pleasure of speaking to privately outside of the art director at the time. I do not speak up online about most anything due to being a quiet person, but I'm burned at the turn of events POST being kicked off, and i would like it to be made public the requests I made, and the promises given to me about my artwork.

Since I did not know why I was being kicked off, Hazer was open to my request, so my pets will hopefully be replaced sooner, rather than later, because due to this clause I cannot ask him to remove them because of an issue that was never communicated with me.

I, perhaps out of the want of having even an inkling of what i'd done, contacted a mod to see if i could get info. I had my guesses, and i felt defeated. Hazer specified "Your suspension from the team was brought due to the multiple threads that have been in made in staff channel over the months for you and wrens behaviour", so since none of it had been brought up to me, i went and asked, and was told they could likely do something for me.

I waited 24 hours, i asked for an update. I went onto moderneopets to find this.

I asked the mod for clarification, and i was blocked. So! That's that, i lost access to a community i was enthusiastic about, was told i was targeting and harassing, was offered clarification, not given any, then blocked! Communication is so important, and the last bitterness i'll feel is that while i attempted to discuss and compromise and work with the rest of the team, no one felt the need to tell me something was wrong. So i want to hold them accountable, please get my pets off your website, thank you.

#moderneopets #mod neo #modneo #modern neopets #neopets #moderneo

[herotome]

Devlog #120

Hi-ho, Wudge here. Early devlog...!

This week I drew a blush just for Warden and nobody else. There are two very specific ways to see it, and only in this office location. So... good luck!

I playtested the game enough to get allllllll 26 achievements. I actually... had to reference my own walkthrough to get one of them. ;;; But I was able to do it!!

I also had a small.. incident where Griffin promised he'd talk to everyone to help fix their negative opinions of me (aka, reset the approval points to a more neutral zone after I thoroughly antagonized everybody).... and then he didn't. It's fixed now ;;;;;; But woo that would have been an awful lil mistake hahaha.

I finished the 'updating ur mc pfp' tutorial - seems to be intuitive and working seamlessly enough!

I converted converted alllll the pngs into webps, and converted alllllllllll the mp3s and wavs into oggs...

...and deleted all unnecessary files and notes from the development process. This is usually the stage where I'll end up breaking something from accidentally nuking an important file... but so far so good.

I put in a cute, special lil sfx for the reward you get after the credits.

Finish designing and coding my SECRET NG+ screen, and wrote a personalized dev note to put in it.

And - we've finally updated Mr Whidden! Wahoo!!!! Remnantation did an amazing job as always!

I thought about putting in some animated smoke coming out of his cannon arm but I had to tell myself No... No Wudge....stop.. ......I did add a lil ember and smoke at the very edge of the gun but THATS IT I restrained myself there and did not animate!!!

So, what else is left?

Thanks I'm glad you asked.

Test my email subscription service to see how much I can customize those emails.

Film and upload the Griffin CG video.

Finish and import a few final pieces of in-game art (1 bird sprite, 1 background, some food art).

Review some sound effects in a final, final dev playtest.

Schedule out some social media release posts; wherein I might do like, a week of counting down until the game's release.

Finish updating my itch page (adding the final few lil graphics, putting up the new Content Warning, linking to the new video, then finally, uploading the game files and walkthrough).

Decide how I'm gonna update my pinned post. I should save a link to the old one bc most of its information should be quite relevant, but I'll want a temporary, shorter pinned post for new players who aren't familiar with this blog and are looking to troubleshoot or say hi or something.. Should still have fun attention-grabbing gifs and stuff from the itch page though. <_<

.... So yeah, mostly like - social media promo stuff. That should be it. Fingies crossed. Whew.

By the way?

Super Demo comes out December 2nd. Mark your calendars <3

Stay safe and keep warm,

Wudge.

#herotome update #amareteabreak #oelvn #visual novel #superheroes #otome game #otome #interactive fiction #english otome #fiction #indie dev #indie otome #indie game #indie games

[babacontainsmultitudes]

So you wanna sell your art on Redbubble but you don't know how?

(Or, I meant to write this months ago but better late than never lol)

OKAY okay. I have a bunch of friends as well as mutuals who have lovely lovely art and have considered selling it online (specifically on Redbubble lol that's what's being covered today anyways) but don't really have any clue how RB works, if it's right for them, or what to expect. SO I'M HERE TO GUIDE Y'ALL THROUGH ALL THE BASICS and hopefully, if I've done my job right, this tutorial will help you set up your RB shop and start selling your art online (or help you decide that RB isn't for you lol).

Table of Contents:

What the heck is RedBubble and should I use it?

How to make your account and set up payment

How to add a new work

Pricing? Markup?

Extra: Checking sales and payment history

Extra: Taxes and copyright, in case that scares you.

Extra: The Partner Program (or how to make "officially licensed" fanart)

What the heck is RedBubble and should I use it?

>> RedBubble is a site that allows you to upload your artwork and sell it on quite a variety of different products.

>> The main benefit of using RedBubble, aside from reach and visibility, is that RB handles *everything* when it comes to the manufacturing and shipment of your product. You are literally not responsible for anything other than making the art, uploading it, and deciding how you want it to look on different products. If there is any kind of problem with material quality or delivery (though in my experience they're pretty good with both of those things), it's not your responsibility to correct!

>> RedBubble does not charge you to sell on their site, but they do set a base price for all products to cover manufacturing and to ensure that they make some level of profit for each sale. We'll look into the specifics of this in a later section when discussing pricing and markup, but it would be considered pretty standard, for example, for an item to cost $20 and you to make $4-$5 upon making a sale.

>> At the end of the day, whether or not RB is right for you largely depends on whether or not you feel their pricing and payment is fair, and whether their available products correspond to what you wish to sell.

Okay, so how do I get started?

Well first you're gonna need an account!

>> Head over to the RedBubble main page and click "Sign Up"

>> Select "Artist Signup"

>> Fill in your email, shop name (this is your username also), and password

>> Click "Sign Up"

>> You will be brought to this dashboard page:

>> We will discuss creating products in the next section. Everything under "Set Up Shop" is optional and I'll let you explore that on your own so we can focus on the essentials. That just leaves... Getting paid!

>> First, check the email you used to confirm your email address. If you didn't receive an email to confirm your email address, don't worry, we can resend the form- keep going with the steps for now.

>> Then, under "Get Paid", click "Add your name & address". Note that all of the options in the "Get Paid" section actually lead to the same form, but selecting this option starts us near the top.

>> Fill out all the fields on this page. If you didn't receive the email to confirm your email address, click on this button:

Then check your email again.

>> Note when choosing your payment method: if you are from Canada, like me, then paypal is your only option. Same for parts of Europe that aren't in the UK. Otherwise, you also have bank transfer options:

>> Once you've finished filling in everything on this page, click "Save Changes" at the bottom and... That's it! Now you can get paid :)

**Note: I believe RB still requires you to make a minimum amount of money before they do a transfer (for me in Canada I believe it's $20 CAD?), so do keep that in mind!

>> Payments are made to your account monthly, generally on the same day every month (assuming you've made profits!).

How to add a new work

So you've made your account, fantastic. Now you're ready to actually add your works to RB and make them available for purchase to the wider public! To demonstrate the process, we're gonna use our pal Nicky here (who was a gift from my lovely friend @llumimoon) and pretend that we want to upload him:

Ain't he a doll? Anyways, let's begin.

>> Hover your mouse over your pfp in the top right corner to make this drop down menu appear:

>> Click on "Add New Work"

**On a new account with nothing uploaded, this will look a bit different. instead choose "Sell Your Art" from this dropdown menu, then "Add New Work" from the top right corner of the same dashboard page from earlier.

>> Click on "Upload New Work" (and note the file type and resolution requirements at the bottom. I always stick with PNGs, but in theory JPEG or GIF works as well.)

>> Select the file of the image you want to upload. In our case, that's Nicky.

>> Now write a title for your work, tags, and a description if you want. The tagging system is how people will actually find your work, it works a lot like Tumblr's! Try to choose things that are relevant to whatever your piece is. If you're uploading fandom-related art and aren't sure what tags are used for your fandom on RB, try looking some up and seeing what generates the most relevant results!

>> You may have noticed the "background color" section right below Nicky. This sets the default background color for your piece on different products. We're gonna keep this as the default white here, and I'll show you how to adjust this for individual products very soon.

>> Scroll down. This is where we decide what products we want this design to be available on and how we want Nicky to look on each thing we've enabled.

For example, if I were actually selling Nicky here (if that wasn't clear obviously I'm not actually selling my friend's art lol don't do that ofc) I would definitely want people to be able to buy him as a little sticker :]

>> In this case, "Stickers & Magnets" have been enabled by default. If you wanted to disable them, you would simply click that little "Enabled" button. Similarly, if we want to enable a product type that is disabled, just click that same button (which will be grey rather than green and say "disabled").

>> If a product is disabled and you are being prevented from enabling it, that's because the dimensions of your image are too small for the product in question! You'll wanna resize your image (preferably in a manner that retains its resolution of course) and come back.

>> Hm. Let's use the hats here as an example of how we might make edits to the layout of a specific product.

He's kind of cut off, as you can see actually that's pretty in-character, and I think I want this hat to be pink rather than this default beige-looking color.

>> Click on "Edit"

So, the first thing I'm gonna do here is use that "Scale Image" slider to scale him down a bit. I'm also gonna click the image and drag him up a bit to re-center him.

Next, I'm gonna pick from one of the default colors and choose the pink one.

>> Notice the two arrows beside the words "Bucket Hat"? This lets me go through the different types of hats available and change the background/base color for each of those, like the dad hat:

>> Before we apply our changes, click that little gear icon right under the pencil icon

>> This lets us adjust the markup price for each individual hat. It is 20% by default. Changing the markup percentage affects how much you will make off of a sale, as well as how much your product will cost. More on that in the next section!

>> Click "Apply Changes"

The "dad hat" was the last hat I had selected (when setting its color), so the display has changed to show that one in the preview. Here's our bucket hat from before:

Nice!

>> The specifics of how you can adjust your design will vary depending on the product. With pillows & totes, for example, the editing menu looks like this:

Using the "Choose pattern" option, I can make the Nicky image repeat as a pattern like so:

(note that I also scaled the image down a bit here too).

>> One last thing. See that "Replace Image" button near the top?

You can use this when you want to use a different version of your image altogether for a specific product.

>> That's the gist! Play around with the settings for each item as you see fit. You can always edit them again later.

>> Scroll down. Select up to 2 relevant media types.

I'm pretty sure this affects search results when users choose specific filters, but tbh otherwise I don't think it's all too important.

>> Let's look at what remains.

>> I have the "Who can view this work?" section set to "Only You"- THIS IS SO I CAN FINISH THE STEPS HERE AND SAVE THE WORK WITHOUT ACTUALLY MAKING IT AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC. In practice, you'd only use this option if you wanted to buy your own work on something but didn't want other people to be able to see or buy it. Otherwise, you're always gonna choose "Anybody (public)".

>> Collections can be created to organize the pieces in your shop (for example, by fandom), but we won't cover the specifics of how to do that here.

>> Set whether or not your work contains "mature content".

>> If you want, you can set which product shows up in the preview for your work when people view your shop. If you think your piece looks especially nice on a mug, for example, you can make sure that's what people see first.

>> Finally, agree to RedBubble's User Agreement (read that little blurble, since that's basically all you generally need to care about when it comes to what you can and can't sell on RB, but more on that later).

>> Click "Save Work" and voila! Your piece is now available in your shop, and can be found in the search results of whatever tags you left on it (this may take a few minutes to take effect).

>> If you want to check out your design in your shop, navigate to your pfp and click "View shop"

>> Don't fret if the design doesn't appear in your shop right away! Again, this can take several minutes.

>> To edit your design again (and to view/purchase privately uploaded designs like Nicky here), click the "Manage Portfolio" option instead:

>> Here is Nicky as he appears in my portfolio (again, your portfolio and your shop are different things- Nicky will not appear in my shop at all because he is set to "private")

>> You can click that little gear icon to do a variety of things, like return to the editing menu from earlier. The three icons below Nicky refer to the amount of comments, sales, and likes your design has received in total.

>> Click on your design either from your shop page or your portfolio page. Wow! Your cool art is now available on all the products you enabled. Be sure to look through them and make sure that everything is to your liking!

Pricing? Markup? What's that about?

Well good tumblr user, RB handles everything regarding the production (and shipping) of your product, which means that they set a base (minimum) price for every kind of product to account for materials and production, and of course make some amount of profit themselves. The *markup* is a percentage that you the artist set (see the previous section on how to do so), and will determine how much you actually make off of a sale. Note that increasing the markup price means that your product will increase in price as well!

>> An Example (using hypothetical but more or less realistic numbers):

Let's say that the base price (0% markup, i.e. no profit for you) of a phone case on RB is $15. You set the markup to 30%. 30% of 15 is 4.5, so the public price is increased to $19.5, and if anyone purchases this phone case with your design on it, you will make $4.5.

And that's really the gist! Ultimately the markup price is up to you and what you feel is reasonable, though RB sets it to 20% by default.

Extra: Checking sales and payment history

Eheh, unfortunately I've reached the image limit for this post but:

To check your sales:

>> Click on your pfp

>> Click "Account Settings"

>> Under "Artist Tools" (on the left side), click "Sales History"

To check your payment history:

>> From the same "Artist Tools" menu (see above), click "Payment History"

Extra: Taxes and copyright, in case that scares you.

>> Do I need to report the income I make on RB when I do my taxes?

Yup! But dw, it isn't anything special. I mean, I'm not here to do your taxes for you, but money you make on Redbubble counts as "Self-Employment Income", same as if you sold your art just about anywhere else really!

>> So what am I actually allowed to sell on Redbubble? Is fanart okay?

Generally speaking... Yes! Obviously work should be your own, and it should not contain any company logos or names that you don't have the right to, nor photos of actual people unless you have their explicit permission.

>> Hm, okay, but what if I *do* accidentally sell something that isn't allowed?

In most cases, it'll just get taken down 👍. And no, you won't be asked to pay back any profits you made off the work in the meantime.

**A more extreme case: Story time. So, years ago a friend of mine uploaded some official Rick and Morty art that he forgot to set to "private". Overnight he made... Let's just say he made quite a bit of money. RB responded by taking down the work and banning his IP address, effectively preventing him from ever selling on the site again. But they still let him keep the money he made, and he didn't get into any actual trouble outside of that. What I'm saying is, even if you really fuck up, it'll be alright. And again, this was a pretty extreme scenario.

***Note: if your work falls under one of the brands in Redbubble's "Partner Program" (see the next section), it will be temporarily removed from the search results and your shop while it undergoes review. So don't panic if you see your fanart suddenly disappear from your shop!

Extra: The Partner Program (or how to make "officially licensed" fanart)

Very briefly, Redbubble has their partner program, which I won't explain in full detail here, but basically it means that if you upload a work and tag it as one of these brands, it will be inspected for review and, upon passing that brand's guidelines, will be considered "officially licensed" merch for that brand. Just felt worth mentioning!

So that's really the gist folks! There's certainly much more to play around with when it comes to RB, but that's all you need to know to get started! Hopefully this was useful? Hopefully lol. In any case, good luck out there!

#*breathes* OKAY #gee I sure do hope this is actually useful lol #artists on tumblr #redbubble #selling art #idk what to tag this as lmao #baba's tutorials #<- new tag ig lmao #if y'all have other questions (especially friends and mutuals and followers) feel free to reach out and I'll answer what I can! #so if you're wondering. yes I've sold on the site before. no you don't get to know what haha. #bought a lot from RB too- their shit's good quality! #but to be completely clear ofc I don't speak on their behalf haha this tutorial exists so that I can buy more of my friends' cool art lmao

[stupidscav]

DNI: zionist, antikin, ableist, lgbtq+ phobic, proshipper, support ai art, general bigotry. sorry once again I am too lazy to make a proper dni

RB > LIKES on art, preferably!

ok new pinned time finally

hello!! I'm fester, awoo, or scav! feel free to alternate names (aka pls pls pls pls/nf)!! I go by it/they/thing, but I'm also okay with he/him. I am neurodivergent (autism, anxiety, probably adhd, I'm a triple a battery) please be clear about things,, my mental health also is not the best currently so I might not be in a stable mood sometimes. i am also a minor, and I love microscopy, indie music, Fe (EA), and Rain World. :3

I am also otherkin/fictionkin, and my identities are here.^^

about my tw tags: I tag the word itself. if "geko" was a trigger, I would simply tag the post "geko". you can always ask me to tag something!

tags + info:

#scavs silly misc: miscellaneous posts/original posts. I upload random shit sometimes🔥

#scav finally draws something: drawing that I'm actually proud of! a good amount of art is in misc though

CHANGED TO: #festers fuckery dont ask/silly

#dark pearls: dark topics, vents. formerly #scav feels shitty.

#happy scav: positive vents mostly

#pearl treasury: asks and polls! formerly #scasks.

#scavs favorite pearls: gifts! at least I think that was the tag

#scav is serious: announcements mostly

#scavcanons: headcanons, ocs maybe

#scav rejects humanity: kin^^

#fester finds: things I find/find to be cool, usually music !

#fester friends: posts w/ friends ^^

alt acc: @scavssupersecretaltacc

spam acc: @i-like-to-explode

fe sideblog: @fe-enjoyer

heavy vent: @d-arkpearls

music sideblog: @woflester

elite rp sideblog: @elited-scavenger

ohh i made a cohost also

old pinned, for more info (outdated kinda)

btw, I love being tagged! I love being asked! I love getting doodle requests, though idk if I'll get them all! these are basically always open!! unfortunately I am a horrible procrastinator so I might not always answer timely :']

probably gonna add more if I forgot, which is very likely. ty!

notes below!!!

NOTES:

-if I change my PFP from your art to something else that doesn't mean I don't love it and cherish it forever!!!!! thank you so fucking much for every gift you make I love them!!!!!! seriously why do people keep making me things helppp/pos

-sorry I haven't been answering asks often:(( still don't mind asks though!

-please don't make jokes on my vent posts or anything unless I say you can btw. should have said that earlier sorry

-also, this explains a lot of why I don't respond sometimes

#scavs silly misc #dark pearls #pearl treasury #scavs favorite pearls #scav is serious #scav rejects humanity #rain world kin #festers fuckery #fester finds

[straitjacketzz]

HAVE YOU EVER DRAWN THESE GUYS?

Sooooo idek where to begin with this. I'll start by saying that yes I contacted Rebornica/Bones/Voltergeist and bought two of their old FNAF au designs. Those being Scott/Phone Guy and Jeremy. Before I get into anything I feel like I'm obligated to address Volt's past and let it be known that I do not Care about a mentally ill teenager faking other disorders or aggressively yelling at people to stop copying them or whatever other overdramatic thing they did like a decade ago and I don't think buying from them is anywhere near comparable to "supporting problematic people" compared other designers who are like homophobic or whatever the fuck else, and I'm not here to talk about or argue about "the ethics" of me giving Volt money. So jot that down before you even start typing.

I'm here to ask if anyone here has drawn art of Scott/Phone Guy and Jeremy so that i may save it and add it to their toyhouse galleries. You'll see they both currently have like 100 pieces in their galleries right now but I know that's not even scratching the surface. Theres just so much of it It's overwhelming to look for. Theres also issues of these designs being so popular to the point of people making their Own personal redesigns of them. And it starts to muddy up which art belongs to me or not. This isnt toooo much of a big deal with Jeremy as the giant "?" on his face makes him pretty distinct and easily recognizable as The Guy That I Own. But this becomes a problem with Phone Guy specifically. He is... pretty much The design that everyone draws him as regardless of if they intend for it to be Rebornica fanart or not. People use this design in their own AUs, people use this design as their own OC. Theres so so so so so much art of people labeling their art as "heres my phone guy design!" and its just the Rebornica design. And I don't feel comfortable or really have the heart to save anything that people consider to be theirs even if its literally the design that I own x__x It's just a bit hard when you own a design that is considered canon enough to a real video game to the point where people just. Take him. and there's nothing I can do about that. And it's not something that upsets me tbh because I knew this was an issue when I Bought him. Literally all I want to know is what art I can or can't save and upload to their archives lmao. So I figured asking people to send me their art directly would help reduce the chance of me just taking someone else's art that they didn't intend to be My phone guy. Not even counting the fact that a popular FNAF fan game called Dayshift At Freddy's has their own version of phone guy that ALSO had the red rotary phone head but wears a black business suit. So, any art of That One isnt mine.

But anyway yeah! And just know i'm looking for literally anything involving these guys. Digital art, traditional art, gifs, animations, physical/irl art, doodles, comics, fanfic, cosplays you made, even weird misc stuff like ponytown designs for them, literally anything and everything!!

also because i keep getting asked about it, Vincent, shadow vincent, mike, vendetta, mahogany, faith, captain, vex, sheriff, fritz, hocus, and boss have also all been sold and multiple different people own these guys now. and for vincents owner specifically, i will not be giving out their username as they Do Not Want To Be Contacted About It.

im cross-posting this on multiple websites so feel free to reach out anywhere where its most convenient for you. reblogs are appreciated for reach

twitter: straitjacketzz discord: straitjackets toyhouse: straitjackets

#fnaf #rebornica #rebornica au #phone guy #jeremy fitzgerald #five nights at freddy's #voltergeist #night terror #vincent bishop #purple guy #fnaf au

[tamelee]

As a beginner artist im only happy when people reupload and share my art. I don’t want to be arragont enough to think im like samdoesart or something and you’re not really on that level either no offense though your art is inspiring me a lot

Okay, I'll address this then... (Art-rant for anyone who cares;) 

... no offense taken. I'm very aware of my (skill)’level' in art and definitely feel a certain type of way about it ;-; .... but that aside, what is your argument here?

Is anyone who doesn't want their art reposted or uploaded on other accounts considered arrogant? Is there some kind of popularity threshold you need to cross before you can request something as simple as this? And if so, what's that threshold to you? I'm genuinely curious.

When does someone become "good" enough to have the right to say that their art is theirs and protect it from being stolen or decide where it gets shared? Who has any say in it, other than the artist or creator themselves? Isn't that extremely subjective to base it solely on that?

Hm. If you're a beginner artist, I'd like to offer some advice....

It's entirely up to you whether you read it, give it any thought, or find it valuable in any way. I'm no Sam, after all. But there are plenty of ways for others to support your art, engage with it, or share it even in their own accounts without taking anything away from the original creator, whether it's art/writing or any other type of creation. However, it's also perfectly fine if you personally don't care about it or if someone allows it only with proper credit because that's your decision as.. you know- the original creator.

You mentioned that you're happy when your art gets reuploaded as a form of "sharing." But do you know what makes me the happiest as an artist Nonee?

Do you know what really brightens my day? 🥹

...It's knowing what people are saying about my work because I can read it on my own posts that are on my own accounts. When I can respond and take it in fully. When I see people using tags that make me snort my drink or when I have to stifle a laugh to the point I’m choking because it's just SO funny! (I genuinely need to make a compilation!!) Sometimes, I get comments that are cursing me out in a playful manner, and it's often followed by an incoherent keyboard-smash. I end up making embarrassing alien-like noises because of it that makes me more grateful than ever to live alone. Other times, I bawl my eyes out because someone left a comment or tagged it with something that just hits differently. A while ago, I got an ask that said I should stop saying 'thank you' on everything because it got repetitive/annoying(?), but I genuinely feel so grateful for all of it 😭!!

I get new ideas because someone suggested something different. I see friends having entire conversations under a drawing that I'm not even a part of because apparently, what I drew resonated with them personally, or it made them feel a certain way, which is oddly fulfilling with art ;-; Just so you know, I read everything... and all this feedback (because it's all feedback in a way) can be very inspiring, don't you think?

Honestly, when it comes to activities like drawing, it's true that it is better to never do it solely for the sake of engagement. Drawing, or more specifically, living as an (aspiring) artist is incredibly lonely.

So, so lonely...

Relying on engagement alone to keep you creating for hours, days, years, or maybe even decades is just not sustainable. It takes an enormous amount of time and dedication to practice, come up with new ideas, and endure the inevitable frustrations that come with it. With anything, keeping yourself inspired at times takes effort also because it requires for you to be in a state of mind that allows new idea’s in the first place which in itself takes practice because you won’t always feel like drawing. You might even encounter nasty comments or discover that something you poured your heart into gets criticized, YOU as a person may even be criticized because what you drew with your current skills (and such a journey is never-ending) in a single moment could get paired with your entire personality or even your humanly morals (ffs) to judge. Which can be more hurtful than you'd expect... especially in the beginning.

Although it may sound silly, the saying "the fun is in the journey” is very real and likely the most important thing to keep you going as an artist. No matter what, you gotta have fun or find a way to have fun.

Yet, even so, now more than ever, the process of creating is very underappreciated as many are looking for “content” that's quickly generated for entertainment. Tsk, some even call art “content” which, IT IS NOT. It's a proven fact that we, as humans, currently have become dopamine junkies with short attention spans. (I totally understand this – I was diagnosed with ADD, hence my extreme hyper-fixations also 😆 it's both a blessing and a curse, tbh.) So, right now, the very thing that can support artists (which means you as a beginner also!) on their creative journey is letting them know you appreciate their art in any way or just let them know your thoughts maybe even by specifying what it was you liked about it so they can carry that into their next drawing.. which is only truly possible through your own accounts y’know? :’) I'm being sincere when I say this really can help. 

I get that many people believe that creating should be satisfying in itself, and everyone may expect you to think that way because, after all, you want people to see what you've made and a reposter ‘helps’ you with that, so, it should be enough and you should be happy and grateful actually. Anything beyond that might be considered "arrogant."

And... based on your ask, it seems like you might view having your art reuploaded as a form of 'help,' and if that's the case, it's totally fine. But I want to share a rather harsh reality, because even if those who repost your art provide credit...

They don’t do it for you and it’s not necessarily because they love your art so much 👀 rarely anyone cares to go through a description full with useless trend-based tags or promotive texts they always use only to put in the effort to find your name and most likely, if they follow such accounts there is zero connection with the original artist/creator which means it is WAY more likely in this case that the art you worked on for idk how long ends up becoming a forgettable blur as it is scrolled past 🤷🏻‍♀️

And even if the reposter likes your art personally, that's probably not their primary motivation to share it (except for a very few who are in it for a fandom, sns has a few also). Art that gets ‘selected’ for reposting is typically selected with a specific, often trend-oriented, goal that has little to do with the artist. It's frequently shared with the mindset of a rather poorly-driven marketer. Especially on platforms like IG- many of these accounts exist to benefit the account owner only by making high(er)-follower accounts that later get a different purpose. Many of these accounts will discard all art once it has reached an engagement goal to then move onto something new that's more financially profitable to the account owner, which original art by others is not. And yeah, a lot of these accounts are sold after. There are especially many now due to the IG affiliate program, and recently tiktok also. The same is quickly happening on X with its monetization... and guess what :’)!!! Although original art is hard to monetize, Ai is completely approved.... 🤨🙄 But I won't bore you with all the specifics any longer.

Me not wanting my art on other platforms/accounts, has little to do with credit nor do I think in the very least that I have some sort of control over it by making that decision... but still. I refuse to willingly take part in anything that currently takes ‘art’ (any creative form) and makes a mockery of it, using it for mere "content" or treats it as this ‘thing’ that appeared out of nowhere to then just use any way people like and participate in the narrative that gives the impression that investing time in creating something isn't valuable or a cherished part of human expression that brings and promotes joy. 

Because rarely do people take the damn time anymore.

I want all artists/writers/creators/etc- to be acknowledged for their work in general, or, even in the least, acknowledge the work that isn't seen that goes into the final result for others to enjoy. I don't want to continually see art stolen and exploited so rapidly. This phenomenon enables tech bros who don’t have a single ounce of argumentative skill or self-proclaimed "entrepreneurs" to generate their little stolen jpg’s for their absurd 3 a.m. morning-routine videos and use them as banners on their get-rich-quick schemes, scamming the unsuspecting and spamming the internet with this bs, largely thanks to AI making this partly possible... for example. There's not a single platform left that supports artists or helps them fight for security and protection for their work. I know and I'm aware. At the very least, we can say 'no' to reposting because giving up completely makes no room for possible solutions... and then we can work from where we are at all times to find ways to protect a right (because it is) that some might perceive as trivial. 

Nevertheless, it is a right, and it definitely isn't an issue of arrogance or skill.

#asktamelee #art talk #anti ai #personal #art theft

[matryosika]

Day 12 — Recording + Toys with Hyunjin

Wordcount — 4,371

Includes — Established relationship. Consensual filming and uploading of intimate videos on 18+ internet platforms. Exhibitionism kink, dirty talk, masturbation (f. receiving), use of toys (butt plug with ankle cuffs), overstimulation, multiple orgasms, dacryphilia.

Author's note — I'm aware Kinktober is almost over but I'll keep on updating it during november too haha! This was fun to write because lately i've been a sucker for intimacy and love in Hyunjin's drabbles, so I hope you guys like it as much as I did. Please remember that english is not my first language and this is not proof-read so I apologize for any mistakes in advance!

Not a day goes by without Hyunjin being grateful that he found you —a woman in his likeness.

You two are the perfect match; it seems like everything you lack, Hyunjin compliments it. And everything he is missing, you have it.

At first glance, you two appear to be completely different —an intuitive arts major and an observant science student, whose career paths were so far from each other that it was almost a miracle you two met, precisely at college. But in reality, although that much is true, there’s something you two bond in and share amazingly.

“Here,” the long-haired murmurs, slim fingers adjusting a strap of the harness decorating your thigh. “Too tight?”

“It’s good,” the dim lights of the motel room makes everything a thousand times more erotic, and you find yourself struggling to not discard the project and move on to the most interesting part of it. “I loved it, by the way. Burgundy is my favorite color”. 

Hyunjin smiles fondly while he makes sure everything is in place, trying to get you as comfortable as possible for what’s coming up next. 

“I know,” he replies, “It looks so pretty on you, the lingerie and the harnesses. I think they will like it”.

You bite your lower lip and smile at him, heart pounding loudly while you feel anxious to start, “I’m pretty sure the last thing they care about when looking at our videos is the clothes I am wearing”. 

“You are not wearing this for them, anyways,” he laughs wholeheartedly, his fingers fixing a strand of hair behind your ear. “You are wearing this for me and they are lucky they get to see”.

The whole environment feels cozy and intimate, as if it is oblivious to what will happen next. But, in the meantime, you remain exactly the same as the environment —your heart feels warm, and fuzzy, and you are reminded of the first time you ever recorded something with Hyunjin.

It wasn’t anything serious, and it was more out of curiosity than something with an actual purpose. At the time, your boyfriend was starting to get into the visual arts —specifically photography and video making. These days, Hyunjin has new interests, but the two latter still remain.

“I brought your bag,” he tells you as he walks towards the big mirror in front of the bed, gathering his hair in a short ponytail to get it out of the way. “Said we were using toys for our next video, most people requested the usual —butt plugs and dildos”. 

“Yeah, I’m fine with the butt stuff tonight,” you murmur while you reach for the bag, your hands wandering along the products in hopes of finding something you might like. “But the dildo… feels like we've used it a lot recently. What do you think?”

Hyunjin hums in approval and you can’t help but stare at him —he is standing right in front of the mirror, shirtless and wearing only a pair of black pants that enhance his thighs. The amount of people who click on your videos to see him it’s overwhelming, and you really understand why.

“I want what you want,” he tells you, turning around to face you. “Pick something from the bag and let’s see what we can do with it”. 

While he waits for you to decide, he continues to set everything up in place. In little time he became an expert in the visual arts, and not precisely because he paid any particular attention to any of his courses.

“What about this?” you hold the item with curious hands in the air, attracting Hyunjin's attention. It is a heart-shaped dildo, nothing too out of the ordinary —the peculiarity, though, is that it comes with some ankle cuffs. “We haven't used it before, have we?” 

The very thought of getting to use it on you turns your boyfriend on, even more than he already was in anticipation of getting to be with you. 

“It is pretty,” is all Hyunjin manages to say. 

Convinced you aren't going to find something as interesting inside your bag, you put to the side the anal plug and anklecuffs combo along with a bottle of lube. 

“Whenever you are ready, then”. 

Your boyfriend gives you a cheeky but heart-warming smile while he finishes setting everything up in place. When he is done, he walks towards the night stand and picks up an item you have grown to know well, ever since you started to record videos with him. 

“We should buy new ones,” you tell him while he helps you put the mask on. “Think we have enough money to purchase something even fancier now”.

Truth is, you both have some savings from what you have managed to make from the videos. But, in all honesty, Hyunjin would rather not change the masks at all. 

It reminds him of the very first time you both recorded something with the intention of uploading somewhere, anywhere for people to see. Whenever he puts the mask on you, which is some sort of ritual now, Hyunjin remembers how nervous you looked back then, when you weren't used to sinning in front of a camera. 

These days, there's no fear in your gaze but complicity —it's a filthy little secret you two share. 

“Let's see where this takes us tonight, pretty”. 

He puts his mask on and starts recording while you sit on the bed with your legs spread, being the guide that is telling Hyunjin if the camera is well focused or not. He makes a couple of adjustments before getting in bed with you, and the whole time you wait for him with your cunt soaking wet. 

“What's the mood for tonight, hm?” he whispers to you while he sneaks between your body and the bed, ending up in a position you utterly adore —your back against his chest and your arse near his crotch, all while sitting on the bed with your legs open. 

“I'll let you set that one,” you purr, voices suddenly turning sweet and sensual opposite to the tones you were using during the trivial conversation prior to filming. 

It always goes like this, unplanned. There's always a general idea on what the video is going to be about, but the scenes are almost always spontaneous. 

“Want to ruin you tonight,” his lips are brushing against your cheek, and feeling his hitched breath is giving you butterflies. “Touch you gently and sweetly while I say the nastiest stuff”. 

You hum in response when he drags his big hands along your skin, stopping themselves on top of the thigh harnesses to trace them with his finger tips. “You're not in the mood to go rough tonight?” 

Hyunjin shakes his head softly, cupping your breasts while he massages them in front of the camera. 

“I have other plans in mind,” he tells you with a cheeky smile, one that sends shivers down your spine despite it being a cute gesture. 

The thing with Hyunjin is how versatile he can be in bed —he can be as sweet as he can be cruel, and that's one thing you utterly adore about him. 

Your relationship isn't too focused on power dynamics either —everything goes as whatever the two of you are feeling at that moment, and there's not really a preferred role you like to play in particular.

“What are your plans then?” you ask, offering him the main protagonist of today's video: the buttplug and anklecuffs combo. 

Hyunjin takes his time prepping the toy with some lube, switching his position to be able to put it all on you. The camera welcomes his toned and slim body maneuvering the ankle cuffs on you, leaving a trail of kisses on your legs and ankles whenever he has the time to do so —what a fucking view! 

He makes sure to not obstruct the camera when his fingers press the anal plug directly against your tightest hole, welcoming the cold item with an awkward stretch. 

“Oh,” you breathe, eyes fixed on the way he pushes the buttplug further inside you. Then, you turn to face him. “It feels nice”. 

Hyunjin gives you a smile before returning to his initial position behind you. 

“It does?” 

“Not as good as your cock does”. 

Dirty talk. A major turn on for you, Hyunjin and the audience. 

The dialogues aren't forced, nor mandatory —you talk when you feel like it, and say stuff you normally would between you. 

Although having a camera in front of you isn't as natural as being on your own, you have learned to pay less attention to it —whenever you are recording, it's frequent you forget you're even doing so. Everything is still so intimate and it flows beautifully, that you can assure everyone neither you nor Hyunjin are playing a character in those videos. 

They really show who you are. 

“You wish it was my cock?” Hyunjin purrs and you are reminded, yet again, of the power his voice has on you. “Deep inside that tight hole of yours?” 

You focus your eyes on his plump lips and nod, not even caring to glance into the camera every once in a while. 

“You better end up fucking me if you are going to keep on teasing me,” his hands are all over your body, caressing it and giving you goosebumps. “You know, it's been so long since I've had your cock inside my ass”. 

You're a sucker for dirty talk in general, but Hyunjin is a sucker for that kind of vulgarities —the ones that you can't even say outside bed. 

When you are inside his arms, you transform into something completely different, into the real you. The one that doesn't care about rules, or standards, or the fulfillment of expectations. When you are with Hyunjin, you get to be yourself, the most human and carnal part of you, the one that craves love in every possible and rough way. 

“Easy,” he laughs softly, helping you get in the most comfortable position.

Although comfortable is just a synonym of bearable right now —there’s no way you can feel comfortable while having your ankles cuffed to the anal plug inside you.

Still, you and Hyunjin manage to find the perfect position, one that allows the camera to have a full view of both your holes spread. 

“What should I do to you tonight, hm?” He plants a kiss on your forehead while you look up to him with admiration, eyes shining brightly albeit the dim lights in the hotel room. “Should I be good to you?”

You nod sweetly, sticking your tongue out just slightly as an invitation for him to kiss you. He teases you before doing so, making you chase his lips. It’s all so seductive, and intimate, that you really couldn’t care less about the camera in front of you.

“Please”.

You both know there’s no rush, that you should take your time with the foreplay to get a good amount of video content, but your bodies don’t —your cunt is clenching around thin air repeatedly, feeling as if something’s missing, and Hyunjin’s cock is leaking inside his black pants begging for its release inside you.

Patience is a virtue, but completely nonexistent when your boyfriend is around.

“You look cute like this,” he tells you, running his hands through your body, touching your belly and inner thighs while spreading your legs further, as much as the ankle cuffs allow them to. “Chained up, with your ass full”. 

“Cute enough for you to fuck me?” you taunt him and he smiles defeately. It’s the second time you ask him that, and he is really struggling with his self-control right now —if you were to ask him again, he would most definitely forget about the recording session and make you his right then and there.

“If you keep your mouth shut about it, maybe,” he murmurs, caressing your inner thighs while he makes sure you’re wet enough to take his fingers inside your cunt. “But for now, this will have to do, right?”

He guides his fingers to your mouth and, with a single gaze, asks you to get them wet for him. You do so, this time staring at the camera, and Hyunjin groans in response. 

Up and down, you bob your head as if it is his cock you’re sucking, earning a couple of quiet whimpers and groans from him; you make sure to do it as lewd as possible, as lewd as the people who will get to see it like it.

“Hungry?” he teases you with a smile, one that shows off a silhouette of his dimples. 

He takes his fingers out of your mouth, a string of saliva still connecting them to your lips, and sucks on them right after you. It is not as sensual as you did, and it happens way too fast for you to process such an attractive and nasty scene, but he is just making sure his fingers are completely lubricated to make it easier for you to take them in.

“Yes,” you hum through gritted teeth, finding the way his tongue swirls around his digits pleasantly hot. “Very”. 

“Let me take care of that, then,” it’s only after these words that he touches you deliberately; his wet fingers trace your slit and you unconsciously buck your hips against his palm. “Too eager?”

Hyunjin loves how responsive you are to his touch —you are never as sensitive as you are when you’re with him. Every time he touches you, it feels insanely intense. It makes your body react instinctively, like a little electric shock.

“Weren't you going to be good to me?” you whine, feeling excruciating impatient by his teasing touch. “You’re making me lose my mind”.

“Then we are even”. 

Truth is, you make him lose his mind. Ever since the day he met you, you’ve done nothing but to mess with him and his thoughts —not a day goes by without him spending a good amount of time thinking about you. From your voice, body and smell, to how insanely smart you are, Hyunjin still can’t wrap his mind around how he got to be with you.

If he is making you lose your mind just because he isn’t touching you when you need him to, then he better start doing this often —he wants you to be as obsessed with him as he is with you. 

He doesn’t’ tease you for long, though, knowing that the faster you finish filming content, the faster he gets to have you all for himself —no cameras, no plans, not the overwhelming sensation of knowing you have to get something done. So he applies more pressure to his fingers against your slit, returning them back to your clit.

“Happy?” he asks condescendingly, but it is exactly that condescension that gets you going. “Or do you need more than just this?”

You want to ask him to fuck you, to ask for his cock in any hole of yours. But Hyunjin knows that a pair of his fingers is enough to get you to come, that’s why he asks that question with such an ego that you don’t know if you like it or you hate it.

Truth is, he has made you come with just his thigh without even touching you. So no, your boyfriend knows you don’t need more than just that. 

“Want them inside of me,” you tell him, cunt visibly throbbing for the camera. The muscle contractions paired with the pink, heart-shaped dildo makes it even more appealing, and you’re certainly happy you chose that item for this video.

“So greedy,” Hyunjin huffs, but he gives you exactly what you want. “You’re acting so fucking needy, the people watching might even think I don’t fuck you properly”. 

You laugh softly, but the sound is quickly drowned in a moan when he thrusts his middle and ring finger inside you, bottoming out to the point of making you gasp. He is also wearing a couple of rings on them, and the coldness of the material against your entrance makes you tremble.

“Fuck, yes,” you finally sigh with relief, now that the teasing has diminished. “Like that”.

Hyunjin kisses your cheek sensually, lips peppering wet pecks on your temple, cheek and part of your forehead. 

It’s as filthy as it is intimate and romantic.

“You’re dripping,” he murmurs with his lips attached to your skin. “I’m sure you wish it was my cock and not my fingers”.

You moan in response, hips grinding slightly against his touch. Slightly, as much as the ankle cuffs allow you to. 

“I don’t know,” it’s an answer you don’t even believe in, but it is always fun to tease him in front of the camera, “I’m not always thinking about your cock, you know?”.

He lets out a hoarse, quiet chuckle, one that sends shivers down your spine.

“Don’t lie to yourself,” he tells you, curling his fingers inside your throbbing cunt. “Not a day goes by without you begging for it”.

The comment is embarrassing, but that’s exactly what you need right now.

To be honest, you and Hyunjin never plan anything regarding the videos. Yes, maybe you do talk about which practices you would like to perform, or which toys you would like to show off to the camera, but there’s never really a script or something to follow.

Right now, that you are laying on your back with your legs spread, somewhat chained and with a butt plug deep inside your ass, you’re definitely looking for some humiliation from his words. 

“And what about it?” you query in a whimper, turning your face to the side so that you can make eye contact with him. 

“What about it?” his voice is turning deeper and raspier, and you can feel his hard bulge pressing against your lower back.  “You’re always so fucking needy, doing everything you possibly can for my attention”.

That much is true, but it is not like Hyunjin doesn’t enjoy it. 

Matter of fact, he loves it. He loves how desperate and aroused you always are, how you try to provoke him at all times, indirectly begging for him.

“And you always give it to me,” you arch your back when Hyunjin’s fingers curl against a particular sensitive spot, and the words come out more as broken whimpers than something coherent. “So we are even”.

“Seems like we're perfect for each other, then,” he purrs, the end of his palm pressing against your clit while he thrusts his fingers in and out of you. “You're always aroused and I'm always down to satisfy you”. 

You moan at his words, grinding your hips even harder against his touch —there’s a really harsh movement restriction provided by the ankle cuffs, but you can still move freely a bit. 

“You always make me feel so good,” your pussy is clenching around his fingers just fine, hugging them tightly while your ass is pulsating with the plug inside of it, “so full”.

Hyunjin smiles fondly at your words, his left hand playing with your breasts while his right one focuses on getting you closer to your orgasm. 

“You’re only missing something in your mouth tonight,” he tells you, feeling you getting wetter and wetter as the seconds pass by. “Should I kiss you?”

You nod almost desperately, turning to the side yet again to find his sweet breath. The lace eye mask only allows you to see much from his face, but with his gaze is more than enough —it tells you everything you need to know. 

“Please,” you cry out, lifting your face to reach for his lips. “Please, Hyunjin”. 

He smiles cockily yet again before leaning for a kiss, using his tongue fully even from the first seconds. That’s how Hyunjin’s kisses are, intense and passionate.

His tongue brushes against you delicately, tasting you and allowing you to taste him. It dances gracefully inside your mouth, making you tremble under his touch.

“I truly can’t wait to fuck you tonight,” he murmurs in between kisses, voice so quiet you know it won’t be picked by the microphone. “You’re driving me insane, can’t spend another second without being buried deep inside your pussy”. 

You clench around his fingers again and Hyunjin gets even more desperate, imagining how it is going to feel your pussy around his cock tonight. He has had you a thousand times, but he still can’t get enough of the feeling.

“You really want that?” 

There’s a moment of silence in which Hyunjin allows the audience to hear the way his fingers get lost inside your pussy, your own wetness creating the perfect friction for the lewd sounds. It’s as humiliating as it is appealing.

“I want more than just that,” it’s all beautifully rhythmical —your bodies move together in sync, grinding against each other while you put on a show for the camera. “I want to mark you, let everybody know I’m the one you belong to”. 

You cry against his lips, feeling the tension building up inside of you. Judged by how often you clench around his fingers, and how sloppily your hips are moving against his palm, Hyunjin knows you are just a few seconds away from your orgasm.

“Mh, want to come already?” you have always been a sucker for dirty talk —it is really not a secret. But ever since you two have implemented such dialogues in your videos, you've received positive feedback about it. You two do it for each other, but also because you know the people watching like it too. “It hasn’t even been more than five minutes”.

You nod with your head kicked back against his chest, eyes closed and teeth nibbling your lower lip. It’s pathetic, how much he knows your body and how fast he can get you to come, but you really can’t complain.

“There,” you moan, “right there baby, right there”. 

Hyunjin’s nose brushes against your cheek as he increases the pace of his fingers inside you, his heavy breathing and quiet groans resonating near your ear and sending chills throughout your body. 

You are both so immersed and lost in each other that you no longer care about anything else but your pleasure. 

“Please come for me,” he begs, hugging you tightly in place with his left arm while your body spasms underneath his hold. “Come for me, show me how much you like me”. 

It doesn’t take you long to fulfill his plea, hips grinding uncontrollably against his hand just as if you were riding his cock, eyebrows furrowed while you moan in both pleasure and pain. He continues fucking you with his fingers even after you’ve reached the highest point of your arousal, even when your wrists wrapped around his in hopes of stopping the overstimulation, but he doesn’t stop.

He is still touching you eagerly, spreading your fluids all along your slit and holding you right in place, an appealing image for those who will watch.

Your body resists it, tries to get away from him while you do anything you can to bear the overwhelming stimulation, but there’s not much to do —you can’t close your legs. 

“Hyune!” you gasp, tears running down your cheeks while your body trembles. “Fuck!”

He buries his nose in your neck, inhaling the remains of your lotion while his fingers continue his motions. Your hands clasp from anything you can get them on: the satin bed sheets, his arms, his biceps and even the fabric of his pants. Your body jolts aggressively, wanting to get away from the overstimulation, but Hyunjin’s strength is ten times more than yours.

“One more,” he groans, still with the sweetness and love he has always shown you. “Come one more time, please”. 

You know it is going to happen, that you are truly not that far from coming again. But this time, the overstimulation is making it a tad painful, and that only makes your heart beat faster.

“Fuck!” a guttural groan escapes your lips, “More, more!”

The more you beg, the more your eyes get clouded with tears. Is it wrong for Hyunjin to get aroused from it? He doesn’t know, but seeing you cry gets him harder than ever. 

“Come,” he groans, curling his fingers against your g-spot. “Make a mess, let them know how good I can make you feel”. 

Part of the reason why you enjoy filming videos is that it feeds your preference for exhibitionism. You and Hyunjin are not that bold to perform such activities out in public spaces, but you still enjoy the idea of being caught or seen during the act —knowing that people will get to watch and even jerk off to the things you are doing with your boyfriend right now it’s what pushes you to your second orgasm of the night. 

“Come on, doll,” a couple of more thrusts and you are already coming around his fingers, wailing in pleasure. “Just like that, let them see how cute you look while coming”. 

Your body hasn’t stopped shaking ever since your first orgasm, but the second one makes it even more obvious —your thighs tremble while you are being forced by the plug to keep them open and Hyunjin’s arm tenses around you tighter, preventing you from getting away from him.

“Stay here with me,” he tells you, decreasing the movement of his fingers inside you. “That’s it, relax for me”.

He makes sure to soothe you after such a scene, peppering kisses on your head, while he massages your swollen clit, being extremely careful not to cause you any pain this time.

You have a hard time stabilizing your breathing and heartbeats but, after a couple of minutes of just laying down with him, your body manages to come back to normal. 

“That was…” you want to say something, but you’re at a loss of words. Really. “Think it came out fairly well”. 

Hyunjin laughs. “Want to watch it?” 

You smile and bite your lower lip. 

“Only if you let me suck you off while the video is playing on the screen”. 

#kpop smut #stray kids smut #skz smut #hyunjin smut

[nentofus]

okay to like / reblog / tag / save / whatever!

thought i should pop my personal prompt list for this year's OC-tober here! for ease of reading, the prompt list is as follows:

The Introduction Week 1. Newest OC 2. Your favourite OC 3. OC who gets the most love 4. OC who needs a little more love 5. Show some Pride 🏳️‍🌈 6. Your favourite ship (romantic, platonic, found family, any relationship!) 7. Draw over an IRL picture - Alternate option: OC you'd most want to meet IRL

Appearance Week 8. Extra appendages (like extra limbs, eyes, etc.) 9. New hairstyle / New outfit 10. Gloves or socks? 11. Swimsuit 12. Mascot costume / Cursed outfit 13. Crossdressing 14. Wearing something from your culture!

Aesthetics Week 15. Cyberpunk - Alternate option: Vapourwave 16. Cottagecore - Alternate option: Lolita 17. Galaxy - Alternate option: Ocean / Forest 18. Monochrome / Noir - Alternate option: Light academia / Dark academia 19. Neon / Eyestrain - Alternate option: 2000s scene kid / Hot Topic emo 20. Rockabilly / 50s - Alternate option: Ah Beng / Ah Lian (lol) 21. Your favourite aesthetic - Alternate option: Your least favourite aesthetic

Fun Week 22. Song redraw 23. Collab cafe item 24. Limited palette 25. Family Feud 26. Idol / Band subunit 27. Fake screenshot 28. Barbenheimer

The End Half-Week 29. Your OC with a canon character 30. Your comfort zone / comfort character 31. Halloween costume dressup - Alternate option: Guts & glory / Free day!

I'll be putting the explanations for a couple of these under a read-more so that those who aren't interested can skip the rest of my blathering! Feel free to ask questions if y'all like! My ask box + the replies on this post are always open :D

---

General - I wanted to make another self-indulgent prompt list this year for OC-tober so I did :3 - If you do feel like following along, remember that your health, comfort and motivation come first! Do as much as you want or as little as you want, or feel free to mix up the order or skip the prompts you don't like! - The alternate options were added because 1. I'm indecisive and 2. If a certain prompt doesn't appeal to you, then there's another choice! - I always have OCs on the brain so if you want to mention/tag me in your posts please do! I'll be responding under my main blog @complementary-oxymorons due to the interaction limitations of side blogs + wanting to keep my art blog as my personal art archive.

About the prompts - I understand that some prompts can be a bit confusing so I'll try to preemptively explain some! - Day 7: Draw over an IRL picture - For some ideas, it could be like drawing your OCs on a picture of a beach as if they're there having fun! Or maybe you could draw little chibis of your OCs sitting on your shoulder / messing with your hand while you draw :D (please do be mindful about the risks that come with uploading IRL photos though!). If you're concerned about privacy but still want to involve your "IRL self" in the piece, a possibility is to fully re-draw / trace over the reference photo you took! - Day 10: Gloves or socks - Yeah this is just me finding an excuse to draw my OCs who wear gloves or draw them in some super cute socks / stockings. Which team are you on? - Day 20 alternate: Ah Beng / Ah Lian - I thought it'd be funny because someone put it on Aesthetics Wiki (link). To those who have ah beng in ur neighbourhood just put portable speaker escooter tattoo slipper can liao also if yall know the typical ah beng spotify songs can tell me pls ok xiexie i only know 小幸运 and heng ong huat - Day 22: Song redraw - Some ideas could be redrawing your OCs on album art, or adapting them into the visuals of a song as if they're covering it! (Like how vtubers do hehe) - Day 23: Collab cafe item - Create a food or drink item that represents your OC! Some IPs (anime, games, etc.) collaborate with IRL cafes to create a themed menu which runs for a limited time only. The items on the menu tend to be references to the IP and its characters (e.g. an orange-haired character in the game gets a menu item that's an orange soda with decorative sprinkles, or a character who loves curry gets a menu item that's a special curry dish, something like that). If you're still unsure, google stuff like "collab cafe"! - Day 25: Family Feud - Feel free to redraw your favourite Family Feud clip as your OCs because there are a lot of strong contenders kekdog - Day 28: Barbenheimer - Exactly what it is! Feel free to draw your OCs dressing up to go to either movie or something. - Day 31 alternate: Guts & glory - This one's for those who prefer a more bloody Halloween :D Feel free to gore it up in any way you like. Plush, candy, flower, extra visceral... get those guts some air!!!

#prompts #oc-tober #oc-tober 2023 #little chats

[hwaightme]

Your fan, San (part 2)

(part 1) (your fan ml)

💬 pairing: san x interpreter!reader 💬 genre: romance, fluff, mutual pining, drama 💬 summary: a bulletpoint-style wordstream of what it would be like if san was stanning you 💬 wordcount: 4.5k 💬 warnings/tags: language, conflict, two shy dorks, homie sabotage?, misunderstandings, love above all, touring, busy life, reader is a pro linguist, we stan simpteez, unedited oop- 💬 taglist: @acciocriativity, @doom-fics, @layzfeelit @jcngh0-hq @black--awsum @honey-lemon-goose @i-luvsang @jackinmyarea , @izuijin @justhere4kpop 💬 a/n: Hello there <3 here is PART 2 of YOUR FAN SAN!! Hopeless romantic? Check. Chaotic? Check... and the FINALE is coming soon??? ;~; P.S. that uni life do be getting wild so apologies if I'll be haphazardly uploading or if trains of thought are derailed~

'The Beauty of Falling in Love - a collection of short stories, poems and musings'

That was the title of the book you had to translate. And if you were not a (fully) sappy and sentimental mess before, you sure as hell were now. Because each little chapter, be it an anonymous recollection of favourite moments with a loved one, or a vignette dedicated to someone special, was some of the most heartwarming work you have ever read.

Each piece sounded so personal, so real, that you found yourself spending more time than usual on this commission. You had made an agreement with the client that they would be sending chapters out one by one, and prior to receiving one, you would send back a completed translation.

It was an easy enough arrangement, and was not too taxing when it came to your personal time. You could ruin your sleep schedule to your heart's content by watching dramas that you had missed whilst on tour, could make late night trips to the convenience store because you did not want to be caught in the businessperson rush, could catch up with people who you had inadvertently ghosted because of work and inability to find words when you wanted to.

Outside of your preferred mode of relaxation, you kept in touch with some of the members of ATEEZ, thanks to a group chat that San had created and 'simply had to add you' - at least that was how he had advertised it. The group chat consisted of him, you, Wooyoung, Yunho and Yeosang, who to you seemed like a random pick, since you did not interact with neither Yunho nor Yeosang as much.

But over a very short period of time this had changed for the better, and you had grown very comfortable, attached even, to the chaotic quartet. If anything this it was a top up vaccine for being able to keep up with the ATEEZ chaos - otherwise you would be familiarising yourself with it again for tour, as if it was the first day of work.

Little did you know, you were talking with the Operation ring leaders + Yeosang who was in it for the gossip, and to control the fire... in the way he wished. It was more or less a regular conversation, aside from San occasionally panicking and running up to one of the guys for advice.

"Yeo why did you write 'AMOGUS'?"

"Don't question me. This is art- ah see, Y/N sent the prayer hands emoji, she agrees." Yeosang responded, pointing at his phone screen.

"I feel like you guys are six parallel universes ahead of me and I don't like it."

"Make that ten, you boomer."

"This is an ancient meme you are quoting Yeo~" Wooyoung joined in, trying to poke fun at his friend.

"Say that again, the king of social boomers? Are you salty that I did not put hyung after AMOGUS because it's old?"

"What even is this chat-" Mingi, who was observing from his position lying across three dining chairs, threw the question out into the air.

"It is us trying to force San to dm Y/N by pushing them together like two dolls." Wooyoung, slightly irritated, explained.

"Man, you really are done." Mingi responded, chuckling

"I don't know, am I? San is breaking up with me so I am going through all stages of grief."

"Double u tee eff?" San raised an eyebrow and stared at Wooyoung, phone loose in his hands.

"How far along is she?"

"She isn't pregnant dude."

"Ugh you know what I mean."

"Like... a third of the way?"

"Damn you guys are slow as shit. We planned for this to take how long? You even have the confession already written up for the last chapter, this is kind of ridiculous. You know what, hold up."

Wooyoung tackled San, and thanks to the surprise nature of the attack, got the perfect opportunity to grab his friend's phone. After securing 'the bag', Wooyoung strode off to the other side of the room, clicking away, while San attempted to stand up, shouting.

Yunho seemed to have caught onto what the other was about to do, as he launched himself at the shorter man sat on the sofa and splayed himself right over like a blanket.

"No hard feelings bro this is necessary."

As San way trying to battle his way out, but was further restrained by Yeosang who had finally stopped taking photos, Wooyoung giggled deviously and locked the phone again, sauntering back with a devilish grin and handing it to San.

"It is done. You can thank me later."

"What did you do?"

"Something that you should have done like... a year ago."

"DID YOU TEXT HER?"

"Yeah. And don't worry, nothing Woo-style, you grilled me enough times for me to remember her preferences. Plus, I know how to text like you."

"And when did that come in handy?"

"Uh... I have to go water my fish BYEEE~" Wooyoung quickly departed from the living room sprinting back to the dorm, while San remained in shock, swiping at the screen to reveal the message that his friend had sent on his behalf.

Damn. It really was just like him.

The text came to you as a surprise. Though you have had some conversations over private message before, most of them had been in some way work related. Not San messaging you out of the blue to ask how you were and that you should catch up.

With the group chat all but abandoned, you happily launched into texting San. There was never any pressure for a phone call, which you greatly appreciated, and there was no specific guidelines that either of you enforced - without a care you double, triple, quadruple texted, abruptly disappeared only to reappear with a link or a photo... main things was that together, you kept your conversation alive and thriving.

You would have never, not in a million years, imagined yourself getting this close to San, or anyone with a celebrity status for that matter. Simply because you felt like they would need and deserve more than you could offer socially. You were all about human connection and uniting minds, but when it came to your own personal preferences, you would much rather write out your thoughts in astonishing detail and hit send, than say the same things out loud and to somebody in person.

And yet, contrary to your assumptions and what you could only say had been prejudice on your part, San was supportive of you and of your choices, saying he could 'imagine your voice well enough anyways'. He steered clear of pushing you to communicate in a style that was not yours; though you did enjoy hearing his voice, and would be lying if you said he was not a charmer, you could not bring yourself to reciprocate that approach. It was too overwhelming to do during the time that you had allocated for yourself as your regenerative state. And San made your heart melt by showing that he got that, without you having to tear yourself apart and explain.

To him it had been fairly easy to figure out that you were a text over call kind of person, and was something that he had advertised to the Operation Love Language squad. Given your notes app being packed, post it notes sometimes threatening to pour out of your bag, and him spotting you willingly sitting far away from any groups so you could watch something, earphones in, all pointed to that conclusion. And San found that he liked it more than he would have guessed.

Each text was like a memory, and an expression not only of something that they wanted to blurt out, but more often than not of a considered, weighed out opinion, even if it was onomatopoeia or a string of emojis. He would have never been able to get to know you like he did over text, and get so close to you that you were now happily discussing with him your own worries, and passions, and dreams, not just responding to his stream of musings and questions.

It was through one of these extensive texting sessions that you had revealed to San your endeavors as a freelance translator, and gushed about the commission you were working on.

This made San's thumbs freeze midway through typing. Carried away and impatient, he had tried to strike on all fronts, and now that he was in continuous communication with you, he regretted it. Deeply. Except he did not yet know just how risky the decision to parade as someone he was not could be.

After the first time you had mentioned your side work, he had begun to get progressively more quiet. Bit by bit. Until his responses to you turned almost into a conversation with a wall. You were unable to figure out just what had gotten into San, what had changed?

You turned to the work you were meant to translate as a distraction, expecting that the client would have shared the new chapter with you already... but no such thing.

Instead, there was an order cancellation, and a short apology.

What did you do wrong?

What happened?

Was there something that had not been quite right?

You looked over your already completed translations - you were searching for anything to suggest a reason for cancellation. The words appeared blurry, fading into one big mush. It was all terrible... wasn't it?

Who were you kidding you were probably rusty after not working with fiction for so long, and for not focusing hard enough. You had stopped paying attention to the craft. Who even were you? And interpreter, a translator, or a fraud?

You looked at the cancellation email again, knowing full well that it was pointless to try and reach the customer - they might have blocked you for all you knew. This hurt. This really hurt.

You saw that San had responded to your messages, again in a weirdly cheery tone, asking you how you are and what you have been up to? San would understand... right? San would listen to you...?

So you did something that you yourself did not expect, and pressed on the call button. He picked up on the first ring.

He sounded nervous, and almost tearful as you bared all and talked him through what had just happened. You needed him. He was the only one who had understood your language.

When you told him that you were probably over reacting and just humiliating yourself by being 'so deep in sad mode' over a whole lot of nothing, he instantly was there to catch you and call you out. He emphasised the importance of your work, of the beautiful job you had done so far... but then halted, unsure of how to proceed.

This left you confused. He then picked his words in a strangely careful manner, and almost beginning to side with the customer, saying how maybe it was for the better, and that now at least you could relax and find another project...

"San. This is really unlike you. What is up with that personality switch?"

"What do you mean Y/N? It's nothing-"

"I have an ear for speech, San, if there is anyone who could be a bullshit filter, it is me."

Silence.

More silence.

You were about to call out to him again, when you hear a muffled, barely there whisper:

"I'm sorry..."

You were sent reeling. What did he mean? Why was he sorry?

"I... it was me. Y/N. I am sorry. I really did not mean it to turn out that way I-"

"Okay first of all, why?"

"I..."

"Second of all, whilst I am grateful for your support and stuff, it does make me uncomfortable."

"I'm-"

"Thirdly, actually you know what focus on point number one."

When you did not hear an answer, you tried again: "Hello? I am waiting."

"I like you."

"...What?" you were left in shock.

You had suppressed your feelings for San in the deepest caverns of your soul out of the terror that it was bound to be unrequited, but here you were. Listening to that same man who had supported you from the beginning of your career to now (and exposing yet another ridiculous attempt at that), who had read your quirks and style and knew you better than most. Listening to him confess.

"I... how do I say this... it has been a while. A long while. I have been trying to approach you but... I was either too shy for it, or the attempts were just ridiculous. So we- so I came up with this idea, to try and tell you... this book right. The Beauty of Falling in Love. It is... it spoke to me. And I had planned to give it to you piece by piece until I could then reveal myself to you... but then we started talking outside of that and then I panicked and- yeah, I am... I am just so sorry, this is confusing as hell."

"Wait... wait wait... this is... so were you paying me to get me to like you? Was that what you were doing?"

"GOSH! NO! NO, DON'T MISUNDERSTAND!"

"Look. As much as I do like bringing joy to people through my work, this crosses a line. And it's not the fact that you ordered something from me - hell, support the artist right? It's the fact that you decided to be somebody else. You decided to conceal yourself to talk to me. Like you did not trust me. Even though you want me to like you.

I'll be returning the money to you shortly. M-kay? And... talk on stage, I guess."

Before San could respond, you ended the call sharply. No more phone calls. They were cursed, apparently.

With these thoughts, and a heavy heart, you departed for Japan.

---

"Maybe... just maybe if you had seen it through and not abandoned ship... your ship could have sailed?"

"Yunho just because it's your idea does not mean is good!" San retorted, having recounted the story to the members, gone into full crisis mode.

"Hello!? You agreed? I am just generating ideas here."

"I think we all blew this out of proportion and did not consider risks... at all." Mingi interjected, massaging his temples.

"You guys, I have an idea-" Wooyoung began, but was quickly cut off by San, who was already half way out of the door.

"You know what? I am done with the ideas. I will just do what I think is right."

---

You were conflicted. In a way, you had gotten what you wanted. A confession from your crush that you had been quietly keeping in the shadows. But at the same time, your anxiety spiked. Were you that unapproachable that San had to have twisted everything to get to you? Was your work more entertaining than you could ever be?

With these thoughts, and a heavy heart, you departed for Japan.

If your presence was not explicitly required at the venue, you would not go. Once an event ended, you would leave. If anything, you were acting just like any employee would.

You were trying to bury the conflicting feelings that you were experiencing. To an extent, you felt disrespected. Like you had been mistreated via the means of 'i am using your translation services so you should love me'. And it was one unpleasant thought.

So, you stuck to what you knew and were more or less confident in. Words that were not yours. ideas that were not yours. Feelings that were not yours.

In a matter of an hour after the first small event, however, you could not sulk in your room how you wanted, thanks to a random slip of paper being shoved under your door. You ran across the room and slammed it open in an attempt to catch the culprit, but there was no one in sight.

You gingerly picked up the papers, and read. It was unmistakable. It was the next chapter of the book, with an interesting translation on another sheet of paper, and an additional note.

"I am sorry, and I can only hope that you will read this and let me fight. <3 San"

As much as you were ready to forgive him then and there, you decided that you wanted to see just how far he was going to go.

The next morning - another letter had arrived. The next chapter, a translation, and another note.

During filming for a morning show, San had shot you numerous glances in an attempt to see whether you were even reading what he had been Amazon Priming to your room, but with a cheeky smile dancing on your lips, you let your fun continue.

Another package.

And another.

And another. Until, finally, the last chapter had arrived. At least that was what you thought right up until the evening of the same day. You had assumed that it was going to now be your turn to act, or at least to start talking again, but a loud knock jolted you out of your thoughts.

And another.

And another knock on the door. This man was an unstoppable force.

"I... I translated the last one. Well, tried to."

"But there were only eleven stories-"

"Nope, twelve. Here."

You saw a two pieces of paper appear from under the door, just like before. Except instead of the Korean page being a scan from the book, it was evidently a document that either San... or somebody else, had typed up, and then managed to print.

To be respectful, you attempted to read the Japanese, but soon enough gave up since the kanji somehow managed to look cursive, and instead took the Korean text in your hands.

You took a seat with your back against the door and knees almost flush against your chest, and began to read, your heart rate picking up pace as soon as you saw "Dear Y/N,".

It began as a little story. A re-telling of how both of you had met, and how you had come to own a little space in his heart, eventually leading to him simply giving it to you.

"Did you know that you look so beautiful in those moments when you don't think anyone is watching? The more I think about it, the more I feel like it has been what had drawn me in. How you typed and typed on your phone. If time allowed, I liked to try guessing whether you were going to switch the keyboard at some point or not. How you were and are in your element. And of course, how you are, simply, you."

He recalled the moments that you two had shared. The levels of pride and admiration he felt when he saw you being approached and congratulated by the fans, and when he could take a moment to just enjoy what you did.

San moved to explaining 'the plan' to you, and though you were ready to scold him then and there (especially since there was the door between you that made confrontation easier), you could not help but admit that the general notion (aside from making affection and crushing on someone a monetary exchange - better not put feels on Etsy) was heartwarming.

As it turned out, both of you were shy dorks who could not act on feelings. Admittedly, one of you was a LOUD shy dork and the other a 'language is life but still can't read between the lines' shy dork, but at least you made it here.

San was a nervous wreck, barely stopping himself from either pacing up and down the corridor or going into a meltdown and lying face down on the carpet. He already looked suspicious enough as is, just standing by a random hotel number like a vampire who had been refused entry.

Or perhaps more accurately, like a cat who had been shut out of the house and was now desperately trying to claw its way back in.

But that stress was quickly washed away when your form suddenly appeared before him, peeking out, drowning in an oversized hoodie. The papers were still clenched in your hand as you motioned for San to come in.

You waited until he was right in the middle of the room before closing the door. Part of you was afraid that he was going to nope out at any moment. You needed the reassurance. The confidence that was normally there when you were working. But every fiber of your being was screaming in protest, wanting simply to hide.

You observed him. He looked like he was barely breathing.

"I... really I am... so sorry... again... I know that it was so fooli-"

"私でもあなたのことが好きだ..." (I like you too)

"eXCUSEME?!"

"All this translating and you still can't process?" you joked, but began to pull on the drawstrings of your hoodie in an attempt to make your face disappear.

"ohHH NoONOOO I just want to hear you say it in every language that you know!!!" San exclaimed and in a matter of seconds was inches away, peeking at what was not yet concealed by the fluffy cotton.

As he leaned closer and closer, flustering you (and himself) in the process and took both of your hands in his, in the last leap of bravery you whispered:

"Well that, you'll have to earn, San. And I don't take traditional currency."

"You will never let that go."

"Never ever, Choi San, it's a core memory now."

"Well hey at least it means you are not letting go of me~"

"Oh the way you twist words..."

"Like you twist me around your finger, not to give you an ego trip or anything..."

"It's 'wrap'. The correct word is 'wrap' around a finger."

"Okay you know what how about I translate it to body language?" he puckered his lips, making you giggle.

"As long as I don't need to correct grammatical errors."

"Now now I'd say I'm fluent."

--

The habit of sliding notes under your door or passing them to you did not stop - it only got stronger and became an 'any location', Mission Impossible note transfer agreement.

It had become something of a game, muddling languages together and writing near-nonsense just to sit there almost crying, trying not to laugh.

Soon enough, the game spread to Wooyoung, who would on occasion intercept the messages and add in his own flair, and soon enough to a curious Yunho and Mingi, who then turned it into impromptu paper plane throwing tournaments.

Really, the only reason why Hongjoong did not intercept was because you managed to at least keep the messages under strict PG rating and had good aim - with a saving swoop you had managed to return one such airmail right into San's lap during a fan sign, leading ATINY to give you an additional "aimbot" title.

It did not matter what the schedule was, you left each other encouraging notes (and without the other knowing, stored them away in your luggage).

"Good luck being the first one to get hair and makeup done..."

"Good luck with the translation deal on the book <3" (after an entire evening of a pouting and pleading San, you had reached out to the editors of the romance book you had translated for him, and now were in very promising negotiations)

You raced ahead, in time with each other, creating your own language.

The extended time ATEEZ had spent in Japan was coming to an end, and in the blink of an eye, it was the final concert. The "closing remarks", the epilogue.

You were prepared to interpret in full, as always. One member down. Another... finally, it was only San left. The other members were looking at him expectantly, while some sent glances in your approximate direction.

You took Hongjoong's tranquility and him nudging San in the shoulder as a sign that no, you will not have to pretend he said something different and double speak it - whatever he was about to do was, apparently, captain certified.

At that moment, San pulled out a note from a pocket that you had no idea even existed. The action seemed to have the same effect on ATINY as they "oooohed" - Yunho fake whispered into the microphone that San was now a part-time magician, so these things were the norm.

You had your microphone at the ready. With bated breath, you waited for San to begin. And that, he did.

In Japanese.

Grammatically correct, coherent and well-delivered Japanese.

Even though some of the phrases were obviously not his style and word selection, leading you to imagine him poring over this text like he was writing the declaration of independence with the boys, it was him. It was his feeling. It was his message.

Your arm fell to your side with a thud, and you were grateful that your microphone had been turned off for the time being. You caught yourself gaping, and had to forcibly compose yourself to reveal only a soft smile, as you took the scene in.

San was not exactly trying to hide that he was paying special attention to a specific part of the arena, with his body turned almost completely in your direction and only a few glances off to the sides and at the note.

"...and I hope that we will always be together, as one, and share this world. sometimes there may be struggle, there may be darkness, but WE," he makes a grand gesture with his hand, as if highlighting the area in front of him, but really it was just to, again, symbolise that certain someone at the forefront of his mind, "will last, and be the light."

The crowd roared, and you could allow yourself to internally combust as you watched ATEEZ wave, bow and bid their farewells.

Some things did not need a translation to be understood, and some things were not up for interpretation.

Like how San sprinted to you as soon as he was out of public sight. How he swept you off your feet both literally and metaphorically.

How Jongho muttered 'get a room', but still smiled at both of you when he passed by.

How, upon your return to South Korea, he had practically made it his mission to dote on you, and any moment he got, show that you were together.

Matching plushies? Check.

Basically exposing you both on Late Night Dive (though there was not really anything to expose because the entire ordeal was almost a live streamed ATEEZ drama)? Check.

Happily chatting away with ATINY about love and about finding it, sending loving stares your way? Check.

This was the love language you shared. No hiding, no scheming. Two native speakers, who found each other in translation.

#k-labels #san x reader #choi san x reader #ateez san x reader #choi san #san x y/n #choi san x y/n #ateez san #ateez san fluff #your fan series #ateez #ateez fluff #ateez fanfic #kpop writers #kpop writing #hwaightme #ateez x reader #ateez au #ateez wooyoung #ateez yunho #ateez yeosang

[ludwigplayingthetrombone]

Hello! Firstly I wanted to say that I'm an old fan since your overwatch days and I've always admired how much depth you're giving all the characters and relationships you touch! I'm talking like, mariana trench DEPTHS. And how confident you seem about just doing the things you enjoy and exploring the themes you want? I really respect that.

I'm having a bit of an art crisis recently and I was wondering If you could offer some advice?

I'm thinking about self-indulgence in art, particularly fanart. I like to dive in deep to expand on characters, I find it as enjoyable as creating my own work. But I fear of people getting angry at me for latching onto these characters, thay they'll say the original work wasn't THAT deep, or that I'm completely wrong or cringe or whatever. And I don't care about being right or anything, I just want to have fun here and tell my little stories? :( The fear is making me keep the work to myself and I don't know what to do. Would it be better to just enjoy it on my own?

Your blog really is goals when it comes to that, so I'll respect your opinion a lot. Thank you for your time!

holy moly thank you so much for your sincerity first of all!! Second, this is making me misty eyed ngl!! I have alot to say about this so i shall put it under a read more bc im gonna ramble

If someone cares about you fixating on your fave characters, then they're usually the fucking weirdos in this situation if they dont just block you and move on. I LOVE making shit up about my faves like i have a modern au hc that kakashi and gai are ddr competition rivals and i gave yeehan 7 dogs just for funsies!! we were in the trenches in early overwatch making up our own lore bc there was none and it was so fun

I've always been like that now that i look back bc when i first started uploading my shitty ms paint fanart on deviant art in like 2006(naruto funnily enough we've come full circle) i was still drawing cringey shit /I/ wanted to see. I don't agree with almost all of it today, but i remember the fun i had while making it, and that's really the trick. Drawing what you personally want to see then people can come and go audience wise. If they like it, they like it, if they dont? oh well! There's people who still follow me from when i was 14 and i follow them even tho we're in completely different spaces now.

The fanart part i vibe with personally bc im really bad at coming up with totally original work and premises. i much prefer having pre-established rules and worlds to work with (plus the characters i love getting massacred in the writing i HAVE to save them)

Just existing online will garner you mean comments or asks, and my best advice is its not worth it to take the bait even if its absolutely absurd and wrong, i just block and go now, and im much happier :) this all being, of course, as long as what you're doing isnt harmful, bc even with good intentions, you'll mess up/blunder eventually. If the heat gets too much for you, no one will judge you for withdrawing your art from social media. thats a perfectly safe thing to do to keep it for yourself.

As an adult, shits not that serious im 28 drawing naruto fanart bc it makes me happy after a long day of work, so have fun!! art's supposed to be fun don't let the fear win i love sharing my art with strangers on the internet!! Hope this made any sense at all and I wish you the best, my friend!!! If you ever wanna dm me, feel free

#asks #happy tag #if we survived early overwatch fans we can survive anything

[lady-of-disdain]

I've been totally OBSESSED with your writings, and since then have developed from not knowing anything about killer into going head over heels over him thanks to your beautiful stories

I'm totally invested in both save load reload and poor little meow meow, and had devoured your other oneshots as well since all of them are just soooo good and deliciously written! also I can't stress enough about the characterization!!

With that, while I prefer to remain anonymous, I present to you my contribution! It's not much but I totally love popsicles trope so I can't NOT draw this

https://imgur.com/ZVW7VxP (anonymous unfortunately means that I sadly can't upload any media, so please accept this link instead)

(Feel free to upload the art/use it however you want, it's made just for you afterall!)

pst raspberry amirite

Sweet, lovely Nonny! I got all the comments that you left on the fic and I love every single word of them! People who leave comments on every chapter of a fic as they read like you did are precious and so, so, so beloved. I would sneak away during work to peek and see if you had finished the next chapter yet. It was so much fun and gave me so much life through this week! It gave me a lot of motivation to keep working on the next chapter too (I'm about two-thirds of the way through!)

But oh my goodness! Your comments were so much of a treat, to find this art in my inbox also? You are simply amazing! I am so in love with this art! Your style is so cool, and you did Killer's expressions so well. I AM JUST INCREDIBLY UNWELL ABOUT IT! <3 <3 <3

Aaaaaaa! And you have no idea how happy it makes me whenever someone says that I helped them start simping for Killer! He is one of my favorite AU's and I love seeing him getting attention and love.

Gosh, I just don't know how much more I can tell you how much I appreciate you Nonny!

I'll go ahead and post the art for people who might have difficulty with the link, but I'll put it under a cut because A) it's a teeny-tiny bit suggestive, and B) it's not my art. <3 I would love to share this on the next chapter, I suppose I can link back to this post to do so. Would you mind if I also embedded the art into the chapter it was based on so people can see it like that also?

#plmm