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transmascissues · 3 months

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it's silly but the biggest reason why im not into t yet is bc im so afraid of losing my hair. do you have any solutions/tips for it?

first of all, i don’t think it’s silly — it’s natural to be worried when hair loss is talked about by so many people as like…one of the worst results of aging for men. listening to my dad talk about how much he hates balding definitely did not make me feel particularly good about the knowledge that i may very well be joining him someday. i’m not saying the fear is right, because i don’t think hair loss is something awful that we should avoid at all costs, but it’s an understandable fear given the beauty standards we’re working with, and it’s one that a lot of us (myself included) feel.

one thing that’s helped me is just…paying more attention to the guys that i interact with on a daily basis. i’ve learned two things from it: 1) hair loss is super fucking common. i’d say it’s much harder to find an adult man who isn’t balding at all than it is to find one who’s completely bald. and 2) if you forget everything you’ve been told about how bad hair loss is, you’ll realize that quite frankly, every single one of those guys looks totally fucking fine. it doesn’t ruin their appearance and make them ugly, it looks totally natural and isn’t really even something you’d notice if you weren’t looking for it. we put so much weight on it but it’s really just not that big of a deal. i’ll hear my parents talk shit about men in my family who are losing their hair when i didn’t even notice a difference last time i saw them. it’s one of those things (like so many other appearance-related things) that you really only notice at all because you’ve been taught that you’re supposed to care about it.

this isn’t something i’ve done personally, but if you really want to desensitize yourself to the idea of it, embrace the time-honored queer tradition of just shaving your whole damn head! find out what you’d look like without hair, find out how you feel about it and what you can do that makes you feel good about your appearance without hair, test the waters while it’s still a temporary change and not something permanent. that way, it won’t feel like this big scary unknown, and you’ll actually have a frame of reference for your feelings about how you look without hair rather than accepting the societal assumption that you’ll inevitably hate it. if you don’t want to actually shave your head, you could also just fuck around with bald filters or photoshop and see what happens.

oh, and if you’re attracted to men, keep an eye out for guys who are bald or balding and also hot as fuck. in my experience, there’s no insecurity or potential future insecurity that being gay for other men hasn’t helped me with. just off the top of my head, i can think of a couple actors who i think are absolutely fucking gorgeous who have helped me get over my fears about losing my hair. despite what our anti-aging-obsessed world might want you to think, there is no such thing as a physical feature that automatically makes someone less attractive, and while making attractiveness less of a priority in your life is good, it can’t hurt to also give yourself some proof that actually, you might lose your hair and look hot as hell doing it.

basically, entertain the possibility that it won’t be a bad thing at all! whether that’s just because it turns out to be a neutral thing for you or because you end up actually liking it, it’s not an inherently bad thing. i’ve ended up liking a lot of things that were “supposed to” be bad effects of t — i love the weight i’ve gained and the new shape it gives my body, i get a lot of gender euphoria from the fact that my acne is now on parts of my face that i saw a lot of guys in high school get it and i’m not complaining about the scars i get from it either because i’ve always liked the added texture that acne scars give my skin, and so on. i think there’s a lot of joy to be had in the changes we’re taught to fear, once we look past that conditioning and actually explore how we feel about it.

but if it’s something you really don’t want and you just want to improve your chances of not having to deal with it, it’s not like there’s nothing you can do! products like finasteride (oral) and minoxidil (usually topical but i think there might also be oral versions) are pretty commonly used among trans guys, for the purpose of avoiding hair loss and for other reasons, and there are plenty of other anti-hair loss products out there (though i don’t know how effective any one of them might be). if it’s a big enough deal for you, you can just decide that you’ll go off of t if/when you start noticing signs of it, since no longer having higher t levels would stop the process in its tracks. and if you don’t find prevention options that work for you so it ends up happening, you can always explore different hair styles (judging by the pattern of hair loss i see in my family, i suspect that keeping my hair long would make it less obvious if i started losing mine), find your preferred method of covering it when you don’t feel good about it (personally i love a good beanie generally and would probably wear them a lot more if i didn’t have hair to worry about because my main complaint is the way they press my hair onto my neck), or just shave it all off if you don’t like the look of the partial balding but don’t mind a shaved head. the point being — you have options!

at the end of the day, whether you go on t or not, you’re going to see your body change as you age in ways that aren’t always going to be attractive to others or aesthetically pleasing to you. that’s just the reality of having a body. even if you never went on t, you’d get older and you might see your hair thin out even if you don’t bald, you’ll see your skin start to wrinkle and sag in places that used to be smooth, your metabolism might slow or your body fat might start to gather in new places; hell, you might lose your hair for a totally different reason and end up in the same place but without the benefits of having been on t that whole time. life is full of bodily changes like that. transphobes will fearmonger about the permanent changes of testosterone all day long but the truth is, there is no escaping permanent bodily changes. whether or not you go on t, your body now isn’t the same as it will be in 1 or 5 or 10 or 20 or 50 years, just like it isn’t the same as it was at any point in your life before now. our bodies are never supposed to stop growing and aging and changing throughout our lives. there’s no guaranteeing that we’ll love every single change our bodies go through, but that’s okay! there are so many things in life that are more important than the way our bodies look. even if you go on t and lose your hair and don’t like how it looks, your life won’t be ruined; plenty of other things will bring you joy and more than make up for the insecurities.

just think about the gender euphoria and relief from dysphoria that t could give you. would losing your hair be bad enough to outweigh all of that? or is it just the pressure of a society that decided balding is bad that’s making you fear one single change despite how much joy you could have if you let that fear go? only you can decide if going on t is worth the potential downsides for you, but i suspect that for most of us, the benefits of going on t far outweigh the possibility of side effects like hair loss happening down the line.

#when i say i love helping people beat their fears about t this is what i mean. i will simply write a whole essay about it #some people might think it’s silly to answer a question like this so extensively #but i don’t think it is! i feel like this is a really common fear but also one i don’t see talked about much #maybe because it’s so common among cis guys that people don’t see it as a question to ask in trans spaces? idk #but i think we should talk about it more. especially when transphobes use it as a way to talk shit about t #ask answered #testosterone #hrt #ftm hrt #hair loss #trans men #transmascs

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sirfrogsworth · 3 months

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This was one of the first photos I took of Otis after I got my DSLR 12 years ago. I had been studying photography for months before I got that camera. I wanted to make sure I would be able to take cool pictures of my new furry pal. And while all of that study helped, I was still a novice when it came to photography. I wasn't even a photographer at that point.

Otis is the reason I picked up a camera in the first place. Perhaps you could even say my passion for photography was his gift to me.

I took this photo with a shutter speed of 1/1000 and an ISO of 500. That is a low ISO by today's standards, but on the Canon 60D that was still enough to get a little noisy. I definitely could have done 1/500 at ISO 250 and captured this moment a little cleaner. And my current lens is about 50% sharper too. But it's still a great photo and I was proud I captured it at the time.

I was good at photoshop, but I wasn't great at photo editing. I didn't realize those were two different things at the time. So adding the cape was easier than processing the RAW photo. His patch of white fur is nearly blue.

Eventually I started over and re-processed the photo and added a new cape. I had a few years of photography under my belt and I think I made some improvements.

This edit is probably one of my most shared photos of all time.

So what could I do with this photo in present day with everything I've learned in the last 12 years?

And could I do a better job at adding a cape?

I think maybe I could.

I'd like to thank donlad for inspiring me to go back and redo this photo. It was a lot of fun seeing how I've progressed. I didn't care for him claiming Otis as his own, but I feel some good came out of all of that.

I miss you, Otis.

You were always super, with or without the cape.

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nvrsaidiwasinurcloset · 2 months

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https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMMAb4KUo/

Smut w biker Ethan Landry ?!

Hi💕 I hope you like it! I got out of the hang of writing over the last few days so I might go back and make a few changes once i re-read over this at some point lmao

Roll Up - Ethan Landry x Fem!Reader

This Contains SMUT - Minors DNI

Summary: Your boyfriend's new hobby scares you, but he shows you it isn't that bad.

Contains: Oral(f receiving), p in v, rough-ish sex.

A/N: We're going to pretend that this isn't based off of the photoshopped pics of Jack lmao. If this sucks, don't let me know. I'm sensitive👉👈

When your boyfriend mentioned getting his motorcycle license, you thought he was crazy. You even created a power point presentation, showing him how dumb of an idea it was. He just rolled his eyes every time you made a good point, because he knew it was what he was going to do regardless.

“You aren’t going to break up with me if I get a bike, are you?” he asked, putting on his shoes as he got ready to go take the driving test. “I think it’d be a lot of fun to have one.”

“It’d take a lot more for me to break up with you…but what if something happens to you? I’d just be worried the whole time you were out,” you sighed, getting a little anxious.

You heard a knock on the door, as Ethan walked away from you to answer it. You took a deep breath when Chad walked in, carrying his extra helmet for Ethan.

“Why’d you have to corrupt my sweet boyfriend?” you asked, as Chad smiled at you.

“I think you’ll like it…Tara does,” he said, smirking at Ethan as he handed him the helmet.

“Yeah, what if I get one and you can’t keep your hands off me?” Ethan asked, cocking his eyebrow as he looked at you. “I like the sound of that.”

“Yeah, and I’d not like to hear the sound of your eulogy being spoken,” you said, as Ethan scoffed.

“You’re so overdramatic,” he said, walking over to kiss you. He placed a kiss to the tip of your nose, your lips, and your forehead before he pulled away. “I love you, baby. Wish me luck.”

“I love you, too,” you said, as both boys walked to the door. Ethan stood in the doorway for a minute, waiting for you to hear the other thing he needed you to say. “Fuck it, fine. Good luck. Please, just be careful.”

“I will, babe,” he said, chuckling as he walked out.

One thing about Ethan was that the second he got an idea in his head, you knew he was going to stop at nothing to get what he wanted. This was by far the scariest thing he’d ever wanted to do, and you’d done nothing but panic whenever you thought about it.

It all started when Chad brought Ethan to his friend’s garage, and they were talking about Chad getting his license. At first you laughed it off, thinking it was about Ethan wanting to have more in common with his best friend, but once you saw him browsing for bikes online, you realized how serious he was about it.

Once he got his learners, he started to spend more time with Chad and his friend. He’d lay in bed with you until you fell asleep, then sneak out of the bed once he’d get the text from Chad that he was outside. You hated it when you’d roll over and he wasn’t beside you, but you wanted him to practice when there were a lot less cars on the road.

He was always in the best mood when he’d come back home, still feeling the adrenaline. He tried to be quiet when he snuck back in, but you always woke up. You’d jump out of bed once you heard the shower cut on, strip off your clothes, and join him in the steamy bathroom. He’d tell you all the things he did and new stuff he learned as you sleepily listened, but it always ended in the hottest shower sex you’d ever had.

You kept checking the time on your phone, wondering what was taking Ethan so long to get back home. It’d been a few hours, and you were trying to prepare yourself. As worried as you were for him to get his license, you knew you’d be excited for him. But the possibility of him not getting it worried you more than if he did. You knew how much he wanted it, and you knew he’d be upset if he didn’t get it.

Once you saw Ethan’s name and picture flash across your phone screen, you quickly answered the call.

“Hey, babe,” you said, “How’d it go?”

You heard traffic passing him and sirens off in the distance.

“Come outside, I want to show you something.” You could hear the happiness in his voice, and you kind of had a hunch about what your boyfriend had done. Once you made your way down the stairs of your apartment complex and saw him standing there, a helmet under his arm and the matte black bike behind him, you didn’t know how to feel.

“I guess you passed,” you said, your eyes squinting as the early afternoon sunlight hit them just right. “I’m proud of you, baby.”

“I can still tell you’re mad,” he teased, as he leaned down to kiss you. “but thank you.”

“This is yours, isn’t it?” you asked, as he tried to fight off the excited smile.

“Yeah, I hope you don’t hate me because I didn’t talk to you about it first,” he said, reaching around and grabbing the extra helmet off the bike seat. “I want you to go on a ride with me.”

“Absolutely not,” you said, his smile dropping at your words. “Not right now, can we go out later tonight? I’m a little scared and I’d feel better if I didn’t feel like we were going to get hit.”

“Of course,” he said, his smile appearing on his lips again. “I think you’ll love it.”

“Whatever you say,” you said, as he grabbed your hand and led you inside.

As it got darker outside, Ethan got more excited. He knew how close he was to taking you out to see what made him almost as happy as you do. As much as you were freaking out, you knew he’d never put you in danger, and you really wanted to know what the big deal was.

“Okay,” Ethan said, as you slipped your hoodie over your head. “Just a few quick things…I know it’s a little scary, but you need to lean into any turns we take. Don’t ever let go of me and sit as close to me as you can.”

“If we lean, won’t you lose control?” you questioned, as he shook his head.

“We’re not doing anything crazy so don’t think I’m going to take you on any super curvy roads…but if you stay upright when we need to lean, that could cause me to lose control.”

“Okay,” you sighed, as he handed you the helmet.

He looked you over to make sure nothing on you was loose fitting and made sure your helmet was good before he slung his leg over the bike.

“You coming?” he asked, his hand reaching out to help you on.

“There’s not a lot of room back here,” you said, as he slid his helmet over his head.

“I already told you, just hold on to me, and stay as close as you can. I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said, his words a little muffled. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” you said, as he started the bike. Your arms tightly wrapped around him, his hand rubbing against your thigh to let you know he had you before he pulled off.

He took you on a few of the streets he first learned how to drive on, not wanting to freak you out too much. Once you came to a stop light, he started to yell over the hum of the bike.

“You okay?” he asked, his hand moving to rub against your thigh again.

“Yeah, you aren’t going very fast, though,” you yelled back, as he started to laugh to himself.

“You want me to go faster?” he asked, “I just didn’t want to scare you.”

“You can go faster, just don’t kill us,” you said, as the light turned green.

He revved the engine before he sped off, going significantly faster than he did before. You didn’t feel scared though, you were…turned on? You weren’t sure if it was the vibrations coming from the bike, or how hot your boyfriend was at that moment, but you knew you were going to jump him as soon as the two of you got back home.

He started to drive out of the city, taking you to one of the back roads he’d always pull off at with his friends. He stopped in the gravel area and helped you off the bike before he got off.

“Was that too much?” he asked, pulling the helmet off of his head. You quickly pulled yours off, mumbling a “No” as you stood on your tippy toes to kiss him. Your hands went up to his curls as his tongue brushed against your bottom lip to deepen the kiss. You stood there making out, the only light coming from the full moon and the glow of the headlights.

“We need to go home soon,” you said against his lips, “I understand why you always want sex after your late-night rides.”

“We’ll head home soon babe,” he said, his hand reaching down to squeeze your ass as he pulled you closer. “Or…we could do it right here.”

“I know this is a back road, but someone could still see us,” you said, glancing at the road for any other cars off in the distance.

“So what?” he asked, as his lips moved to your neck.

He pulled away once he heard the familiar loud hum heading up the road, slowing down a little once it got closer to where you and Ethan were.

“Is that Chad?” you asked, as Ethan nodded.

“Tara’s with him,” he said, noticing her tiny frame tightly clinging to him. “Good think I didn’t get you naked yet,” he laughed a little, thinking about how awkward that would’ve been.

“You know how I am when I want sex and I don’t get it,” you said, giving him a warning look. “Please don’t get caught up in talking for too long.”

“I won’t, babe,” he said, as Chad pulled in and took his helmet off.

“She didn’t kill you!” Chad yelled, as you rolled your eyes.

Ethan walked up to him as you walked over to Tara. She had the biggest smile on her face when she saw you standing there.

“Ahh! We can go on late night rides together, now!” she said, pulling you into a hug. “Isn’t this fun?”

“Yeah, I thought it was going to be scary,” you said, glancing over to Ethan to see him smiling at you. “Now I just have to convince him to take me home soon.”

“I get it, I feel the same way,” she said, picking up on your suggestiveness.

When Ethan walked around to you, he looked a little nervous as Chad motioned for Tara to get back on the bike.

“I hope you don’t mind, but Chad wants to ride around for a little bit. There’s this straight, flat road near here that we like to go way faster than we should, but if you’d rather go home, we can.”

“As long as we go home soon, I’m fine with it,” you said, as Ethan started to smile.

“Put your helmet back on,” he said, walking you back over to his bike.

He slid his over his head and helped you get on the back before he started it again and took off. You got a little confused once you hit a certain point in the road. Chad and Ethan both came to a stop on opposite sides, as you felt his hand grip your thigh.

“Do you trust me?” he asked, the question making you nervous as Chad gave him a thumbs up.

“Yeah,” you yelled, as he said, “Hold on tight.”

He revved the engine again before taking off, going way faster than he’d gone before, at least while you were on the back. The way you were rested against Ethan made it easy for you to see that Chad was keeping pace with him before he dropped a gear and flew past Ethan. Ethan did the same, your grip on him getting even tighter as you felt the adrenaline coursing through your veins. He quickly caught back up to Chad and passed him before he started to slow down a little.

“You okay, baby?” he asked, once he came to a stop and your grip on him relaxed.

“If you don’t take me home and fuck me, I’m not going to be okay,” you said, as Chad pulled up beside you and pulled his helmet off.

“Fuck, that thing’s fast,” he said, as Ethan pulled his helmet off.

“Yeah, I didn’t expect it. We were going over a hundred,” Ethan said, your eyes going wide as you listened to him speak. “I’m going to take her home.”

“You coming back out later?” Chad asked, as Ethan shook his head.

“No, I have other plans,” he said, as Chad nodded.

“You guys have fun. Don’t be an idiot,” Chad said, putting his helmet back on before speeding off.

“Over a hundred?!” you yelled, as Ethan started to laugh.

“Yeah, and I wasn’t going as fast as I could’ve,” he said, putting his helmet back on. “Let’s get you home.”

As soon as he got you home, you both were so needy. Various clothing items were scattered across your apartment, from the front door to the bedroom you shared with Ethan. He wasted no time, burying his head in between your thighs as soon as he pushed you back on your bed. Your fingers ran through his curls as soft moans slipped past your lips. His hands were kneading at your thighs as his tongue swirled around your sensitive clit.

“Use your fingers, babe,” you gasped out, as he suckled on your clit. He did what you said, sliding two of his fingers into your soaked, dripping pussy with ease. “Fuck, just like that.”

“Did being on the back of my bike turn you on that much?” he asked, his eyes boring into yours as he curved his fingers to brush against that spongy spot inside of you. “Yes,” you said, letting out a low moan. “You were just so fucking hot.”

His mouth went back to your clit as you tugged at his curls, the sounds of him fucking you with his fingers and your moans filling the room. His free hand was roaming your body, from your thighs up to your breasts. Once he started to pinch one of your nipples, you felt that familiar feeling starting to build inside of you.

Ethan knew you were close. Your legs were starting to shake as his fingers moved against your g-spot faster. He sucked your clit into his mouth, hard. Your back arched up off the bed as you pulled his hair so hard that it hurt. He didn’t let up though.

You let out a whimper as the feeling washed over you, your pussy fluttering around his fingers. He gently lapped at your clit until you started to come down from your high.

The grip you had on his hair relaxed as he sat up to look at you, his mouth coated in your arousal.

“Do I still have hair?” he asked, running his fingers through his curls. His scalp was so sensitive that he winced when he touched it.

“I’m sorry, baby,” you mumbled, as your breathing started to get a little more regular.

“It’s worth it if I made you cum that hard,” he said, smiling at you. “I loved having you on the back of my bike. It’s like you weren’t scared at all.”

“I wasn’t. I trust you.”

As much as Ethan loved watching your face when he fucked you, he wanted to be as deep as he could inside your warm, wet pussy. He positioned you so your ass was sticking up in the air for him as the side of your face rested against the cool comforter.

“So fucking perfect,” he said, rubbing the tip of his cock over your wet folds. “You ready, baby?”

“Yes,” you said, as he started to inch himself inside of you. The slight burning feeling as he stretched you out made you gasp, his hand roaming over your lower back as his hip bones met the curve of your ass.

He started out with slow thrusts, still giving you time to adjust. Once you whined out to let him know you wanted more, he moved faster. You heard the soft slapping of his skin against yours as the head of his cock hit that special spot inside of you. You glanced back to see him watching his cock disappear inside your pussy, slide himself out, head and all, before he started to pound into you.

“Fuck,” you whimpered, your eyes still on him as your hands grabbed at the sheets.

He looked up to watch your body as you started to roll your hips back, meeting his thrusts. His cheeks were red as his mouth hung open, a few of his curls sticking to his forehead. One of his hands tightly held your hip as his other hand reached around brushing against your lower stomach. You soon felt two of his fingers strumming against your clit, your moans getting louder by the second.

“Harder,” you whimpered, a smirk playing on his lips as he started to mercilessly pound into your pussy.

“That’s it, baby. You take it so fucking well,” he said, some of his words getting broken by the random grunts slipping past his lips.

Once he put the right amount of pressure on your clit and started to roll his fingers in circles, you felt your body start to tense up, your orgasm sneaking up on you. You were a whimpering mess as the slapping sounds got louder, echoing off the walls. He was getting close, but he was trying so hard to fight it.

He watched your fists ball up in the fitted sheet, pulling it lose as you cried out. Your pussy was squeezing him so tight that his thrusts started to falter.

“Where do you want it?” he rushed out, but you couldn’t form words, completely fucked out.

He slid out of you, releasing his hot cum all over your ass and lower back. His hand ran through his sweaty hair before he flopped down on the bed beside you. Your hips started to relax as you eased the lower half of your body to lay flat across the bed.

“Jesus,” he sighed, catching his breath. “That was amazing.”

“Was it as good as the shower sex?” you asked, smiling as you turned your head to face him.

“Well, we do still need to shower…”

#ethan landry #ethan landry x reader #scream smut #ethan landry smut #smut

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mcmansionhell · 2 years

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a fine selection of bonker facades from the DC suburbs

Howdy folks! In honor of Halloween, here are some of the scariest houses currently for sale in the ever-cursed suburbs of Washington, DC. It's been awhile since I checked in on this particular hotspot, and once more, it did not disappoint.

I'll just get this one out of the way. Long-time McMansion Hell-heads are well aware of this monster estate in Potomac, MD, once allegedly owned by a particular professional athlete who will not be named, because the house should suck on its own merit. The only nice thing I can say about this house is that the designers kept the materials and colors consistent, which adds some unity to what is, in reality, five turrets in a trench coat.

Some things, the economists tell us, are too big to fail. This is not one of them. Let's move on.

Many McMansions exist to mock the concept of architectural consistency and historical continuity. This is one of them. About every single type of expanded second-story window elaboration exists here: bay window, covered balcony, juliet balcony. None of them work. The house can't decide if its 19th century eclecticism or tony DC Georgian/Federal cocktail. The random cupola merely adds insult to injury.

I don't know where realtors learned how to do photoshop, but whoever taught them should have their Adobe licenses revoked. There's a certain type of McMansion I call a "hat house" - which is exactly what it sounds like. It's a house with multiple bays or masses and each has its own special hat. This is one of the most egregious examples because all of the hats are different shapes and scales. Not even the most Disney Theme Park pink sky and fairy lighting can mitigate the controlling aesthetic influence of hät.

No compilation of Bad Facades would be complete without at least one Frankentudor™. Rich people in America really like to harken back to the days of feudalism, yet uglier, more drab, and using materials mostly derived from petrochemicals. The lighting is not helping this house, which is about as gloomy, hulking, and bloated as they come.

I have some fondness for houses that derive new, inventive forms of being ugly. The spread eagle McMansion is one of them, two oblique wings with no real core. A corner lot specimen. This one is especially weird, with the quadruple portholes, the windowless bays, the mall foyer, and the hipped roof that's not quite clipped, complete with tacked on gables. Kind of neat, sad to say.

I know most of you won't agree, but I actually believe this is the worst McMansion of the set. The absolute banality of it, the out-of-proportion everything, the compound-like demeanor, the nonsensical spacing of the mind-numbingly identical windows. The most infuriating part is that whoever designed this had some kind of order, continuity, proportion in mind and just failed utterly at it, like Sideshow Bob stepping on all those rakes. I hate it!!!!

When rich people try to make overly-inflated temples to their dumb piles of money, it's deeply satisfying when they end up looking like this house, which is just a pile of roof and wall tacked on to the worst proportioned portico imaginable. Classic McMansion Hubris. Let us all laugh.

Now we're getting into the more eldritch horror part of the list. Some houses make me wonder if I have the same set of eyeballs and conceptions of what "a house" looks like as other people. This one is playing dress up games with foam stickers. It looks like Steve's shirt from Blues Clues. It abuses the prairie muntins, which is an insult to my chosen hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Bad house.

Not enough time is devoted on this blog to bad modernism, though it would be rather generous to call this house modern. It's more like postmodernism trying to remember what modernism looked like and tripping down a flight of stairs collecting random masses and windows on the way down. Houses like this give modern architecture a bad name. It's borderline libel. Also it looks like it was made out of cardboard.

This brings us to our final, and objectively worst house:

I don't even know what to say about this freak of architecture. I don't know how it came together or why. I don't know what it wants or even pretends to do. It is a horrorshow. Gables protruding from random places, stealth roof fragments, windows too small for the walls they're embedded in, a weird cathedral-like entrance, the mosquito-infested pond, the worst example of realtor sky I've ever seen, all of it is terrible. It's haunted. Trick or Treat, but without the treat.

Anyway, that does it for this installment. If you're curious about more McModern badness, this month's Patreon bonus post will be to your liking!

Happy Halloween and Día de Los Muertos!

If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including extra posts and livestreams.

Not into recurring payments? Try the tip jar, because media work is especially recession-vulnerable.

#architecture #design #mcmansion #mcmansion hell #bad architecture #ugly houses #dc suburbs #90s architecture #2000s architecture #y2k #urbanism #virginia #maryland

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feyspeaker · 3 months

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Hi! I made an account just so I could follow your work. Your art is brilliant and honestly and inspiration to where I want to be. I’m an older artist who has all the anxiety when it comes to improving my process. I’m trying to get into digital portraits and I have so many ideas in my head, but it’s frustrating because I’m not where I want to be to make this happen. What are some tricks that help you/software do you use? Of course, you don’t have to share anything that makes you uncomfortable. I currently have procreate and an iPad, but I feel a little lost. Wondering if I need a different writing tablet and photoshop. Not sure. I just eventually want to find that 3D, but also artistic look you are able to achieve.

hey there! thank you so much!!

ultimately, I will sound like a broken record but I always recommend you sign up for local figure drawing or painting classes. have people pose for you at home and sketch with charcoal and paper. go to the zoo and sit down in front on an exhibit for an hour and try to draw the animals in front of you as fast as you can and fill a couple of pages, move on to a new exhibit and do it again!

nothing is more powerful of a tool to learn than whatever writing utensil you have in your purse and the back of a napkin when you see something you'd like to capture. I've spent quite frankly my entire rememberable life doing this. I used to spend every single day in middle school/high school/my brief failed stint in community college with a pack of cheap sharpies and a beat up binder full of old worksheets and homework to draw on the backs of.

drawing/painting from life will teach you better than anything.

I use a very outdated version of Photoshop, and only got a "nice" tablet in the past 7 months.

Also, a huge tip to you and anyone else reading this: do NOT get too focused on a "style" that you want. Obsessing over that just ruined me for years and years. I wanted so, so, so badly to be the next Matsuri Hino when I was a kid. I copied her work religiously and it NEVER looked right. Frustrated me to no end. And you know why my stuff never looked like hers? Because I'm not her! You can't force your art to come out any way that isn't natural, and the sooner you can accept the art your hand wants to create, the happier you'll be and the easier art will get for you.

The past couple of years before I started diving into this more realism based work, I was just shoving myself through trying to make what art I envied of others. Very stylized/textured watercolor comic book style stuff. And I just was NOT getting any better at it. I have always been more inclined toward realism work, but I've hated it and yearned for stylized work. Yoshitaka Amano? God, I just drooled over that artstyle and beat myself up for never being able to capture it in studies or otherwise.

I finally essentially restructured my entire career around making the art that makes me happy instead of what I "wanted" it to look like. I was extremely depressed, my life was falling apart, and I still needed to make art to survive but I couldn't "art" if I was depressed and hated doing it, so I just had to step back and stop worrying so much about what I thought I wanted to make, and started making what felt most natural.

there's no easy way, and art can be a soul destroying path at times, truly. your software and hardware should come very last place compared to practicing from life (it doesn't matter if you want to paint cartoony stuff of realistic stuff, always start from life). naturally you will find what makes your heart sing the most.

I get a lot of messages from people telling me similar stuff "oh your art is EXACTLY what I want to do!" but I promise you that kind of thought process is chasing a dragon that is likely to harm or drag your creative process down. art style is such a deeply personal thing, so of COURSE it's important to find inspiration, but the second looking at someone else's artwork stops inspiring you and starts frustrating you, put it away.

There are some artists who I love, that I do not check up on often because their artwork ignites, like, serious bitter jealousy in me. It's the truth. I get so mad at myself for not being more like them, and it's such a poison. I think more artists should be transparent about this feeling because I KNOW the art community has a lot of jealousy and ugliness in it.

A fact of being an artist is that you will never be completely happy with a piece you make. You are always going to see the flaws, and that doesn't change whether you'd been drawing for 2 months or 20 years. Occasionally, you will get one piece that you are like "how did I make that???" and then get frustrated that you can't recreate it lol! It's a tough beast.

It's just really important to step back and work on yourself and where you are at, because at the end of the day, the way your soul wants to express artwork might be WILDLY different from what your brain wants, and it can be really detrimental to let those two go to war.

I hope this helps. I'm very passionate about this, and when I started out I ALWAYS ignored the artists who gave the same exact tips as above. I thought they were so annoying and unhelpful, but now I /get it/.

#ask

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bizarrequazar · 11 months

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Zhang Zhehan, 813, and Zhang Sanjian FAQ

I’ve been thinking for a while that I should make this as a starting place for people just learning about the situation. Please let me know if you have any corrections or anything you would like me to add.

1. What happened to Zhang Zhehan? / What is 813?

On August 13. 2021, a photo was spread by online water armies of Zhang Zhehan in front of cherry blossoms from a trip he had taken to Japan in 2018. This was accompanied by claims that he had been there to visit the Yasukuni Shrine—a politically controversial shrine which honors WWII war criminals—and that he held right-wing anti-Chinese sentiments. This photo was later joined by others, all either photoshopped or with falsified context, “backing up” these accusations along with further claims slandering him and his family.

In the days following, Zhang Zhehan lost all of his endorsements, had all of his past works taken down, had all of his social media shut down, and was boycotted by the private association CAPA without the chance to defend himself. His name and image were also later banned from social media, he was used as a negative example in schools and on exams, and his name is blocked from registration on some social media sites and certain devices. He and his family have been subject to intense harassment including death threats.

All of the accusations against him have been shown to be false and he is currently pursuing legal action, but he is still unable to speak or appear publicly in any capacity.

Further reading: - Talking points pamphlet - Wiki page

2. Who was behind 813?

The boycott was issued by the China Association of Performing Arts (CAPA), a private industry association that at the time held sway (but no official authority) over many social media and streaming companies. CAPA is heavily suspected of being the ones who orchestrated the entire incident and related events, see point 4 below.

2.5. Was Gong Jun behind 813?

No, he had no motive whatsoever, was still a small name in the industry at the time, has no industry sway, had his most popular show taken down because of 813, and was targeted by similar attacks in the months after. If he had not stayed quiet about 813, Gong Jun very easily could have been taken down by it as well. Please see point 7 below if you have this belief because of Zhang Sanjian / zhangzhehan_super3, and if you have this belief because of the Twitter account Justice for Zhang Zhehan please know that she is an idiot.

3. Was 813 caused by censorship / homophobia / the Chinese government?

No. There is no evidence for 813 having anything to do with censorship, it was perpetuated by private venture capitalism. The Chinese government had no known involvement—CAPA has no government affiliation, and both the NRTA and MCT confirmed after inquiry that they had nothing to do with Zhang Zhehan’s cancellation. Quite the opposite, it was said by Li Xuezheng that government officials were in attendance during the interview between him and Zhang Zhehan released 2022-01-01.

4. Why Zhang Zhehan? / What was the motive behind 813?

The exact reason is not known for sure, but it is heavily suspected that he turned down an exclusive endorsement deal with one of CAPA’s subsidiaries around March / April 2021. CAPA took this as a slight and, because he was heavily in the public eye at the time, they decided to make him an example of what they could do to people who refused to play their game.

Other smaller parties who participated in 813 were driven by industry competition, private capital, mob mentality, and/or because they’re shitheads who found it fun.

Further reading: Lead-up to 813

5. Does the lack of news about Zhang Zhehan mean he’s given up / he’s lost his case?

Absolutely not, and quite the opposite in fact. Avoiding the public eye is the best thing Zhang Zhehan can do to avoid media frenzy and the potential skewing of the narrative that that could cause. Due to the length of time it has been since 813, whatever Zhang Zhehan first does when he becomes public again is guaranteed to cause a stir, and therefore he has to be very careful about not saying anything publicly until he and his case are at a favourable point to do so.

Further reading: - Question about the length of the case - Breakdown of the legal process in relation to Zhang Zhehan’s case

6. Could Zhang Zhehan pursue a career internationally instead?

Until his name is cleared, no.

Zhang Zhehan did not have enough international recognition prior to 813 to realistically build a career overseas, and he has not shown fluency in any language other than Mandarin with which to do so. Even if he did pursue this, until his name is cleared he will always be associated with 813 and would struggle to find success with how he would be viewed by Chinese diaspora.

As well, given the nationalistic nature of 813, seeking a career overseas would communicate guilt and/or giving up on his case.

7. Is Zhang Sanjian / the zhangzhehan_super3 Instagram account / the person releasing new songs Zhang Zhehan?

No. There is overwhelming evidence that Zhang Sanjian etc. is a scam using Zhang Zhehan’s name and image, utilizing photoshopping, deepfakes, and impersonators.

The people behind this have known professional connections to CAPA, and the activities the scam has engaged in have consistently been aimed at further damaging his image. The Zhang Sanjian persona is characterized as having given up on clearing his name, being degrading and rude to both his fans and former costars, and giving up on his career in China to pursue international fame (see point 6 above). Practically every action made by the persona and related parties go completely against Zhang Zhehan’s character and/or make no logical sense for someone in his position.

Further reading: - Timeline of the IG’s early activity - Deepfake breakdown - Collected information about the Bangkok concerts - Wiki page for the IG account

8. Why doesn’t Zhang Zhehan speak out against Zhang Sanjian?

See point 5 above. It is likely that part of the original aim of Zhang Sanjian was specifically to try to bait him into saying something against it. The scam has been trying very hard to control the public narrative via buying public screens, commissioning tabloid articles, releasing a ridiculous number of songs and artificially raising hit counts on these, etc.

9. Why go through so much effort to erase Zhang Zhehan / continue the Zhang Sanjian scam?

For CAPA, Zhang Zhehan winning his case and overturning his boycott will heavily diminish their industry influence (not to mention jail time, hopefully). It could, in the best case scenario, even lead to the complete disbandment of the company under Chinese anti-monopoly legislation. (see the first point under [this post])

For the smaller players involved in the scam specifically, the motive is by and large personal financial gain. Many are known to be in debt / have been in debt but are suddenly now making lavish purchases (Sophie for example), some are known professional con men (Peter), and some are seeking other personal goals such as trying to get famous themselves (Lexus), to promote their own businesses (the Chens and the gym bros), or even for sexual gratification (Hewitt).

As well, it’s important to keep in mind the financial scale of the extremely lucrative Chinese entertainment industry. The amount that has been spent on 813 and everything since is barely anything in the grand scheme of things.

Further Resources: - Zhang Zhehan wiki - Masterlist of my posts about Zhang Zhehan - My ZZH info tag

#Zhang Zhehan #Zhang Sanjian #813 #Word of Honor #Shan He Ling #zzh info

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dandylovesturtles · 11 months

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I said to myself, “I’m going to write a short little ficlet about April taking the boys’ pictures for Splinter, that will be cute,” and then the Donnie portion got so long that I was like “okay I’ll just write about that.” I’m sure later I will circle back to the other three, and April showing the pictures to Splinter.

Support 100 Feet and a World Away in the TMNT Separated AU competition if you wanna! I have no idea when my poll is coming…

…

“Okay, before we start planning today,” April pulls out her phone, turning on the camera, “I’m gonna take your picture!”

Donnie looks suspicious. She can’t blame him - he’s had to put a lot of trust in her, a person he barely knows. She’s sure there’s some part of him that still thinks she’s planning on turning him into some kind of freak show attraction. “Why?”

“I’m gonna show your dad.” She lifts the phone, frowning at the bad lighting. Too bad she can’t turn any more on… “He wants to see what you look like all grown up!”

That’s half of it. The other half, she’s sure, is that Splinter wants to know that she isn’t jerking him around - that she really has met the boys, that she can get to them. He’s having to put a lot of trust in her, too.

It’s a little overwhelming when she thinks about it too long, so she doesn’t. Just focus on getting the photos - that’s all she has to do.

“The man who claims to be my father, you mean,” says Donnie.

April swallows down an exasperated groan. “Donnie, he has baby pictures of you.”

“Are you telling me there’s no way of manipulating pictures?”

“What, you think they’re photoshopped?”

“Aha!” Donnie points at her dramatically. “So there is a way!”

She needs to change tacks here. “These would be hard to fake. He’d have to know what you look like - what all of you look like.” She gestures at him. “He’d have to know that you have markings on your arms and shoulders, your eye color, what your shell looks like… That your color is purple.”

Donnie still looks suspicious through her little speech, but at the last point, she can see something else break through. After all, that’s the one thing the scientists here don’t know.

He’s still not sold, she knows that, but she can’t blame him there, either. All the walls he’s built up are defensive, and they’ll take time to wear down.

“I wouldn’t show this to anyone I think would hurt you,” she says, hoping he believes her. “I’ll even delete it when I’m done, if you want.”

He hesitates a second longer, and when he moves back from the fence and lowers into the water she thinks he won’t agree. But then he surfaces again, a few feet back, and holds his arms straight out to the sides.

“Okay,” he says resolutely. “I’m ready.”

She stares at him. “Uh… why are you standing like that?”

“Is this not the normal protocol for taking pictures?”

She doesn’t want to ask, but she does, anyway. “Is that how those creeps make you stand?”

“Yes.” He twists at the waist. “Front and then back.”

Of course. Every day she learns some new, messed up thing.

She wishes she could have five minutes alone with these creepazoid scientists - just her, them, and her trusty baseball bat.

But Donnie doesn’t need her justifiable rage right now, so she breathes past it and focuses.

“No, it’s not… Most people don’t take pictures like that.” T-pose for dominance crosses her mind, but there’s absolutely no time for explaining memes right now. “You wanna look more… natural.”

“Natural. Okay.” He drops his arms, then fidgets with his hands. “How do I do that?”

“Just stand how you normally stand when you talk to me.”

He frowns, then wades closer. Sways a little, his eyes locked on her. It’s interesting, how it doesn’t scare her like it did at first. “Like this?”

He looks angry like this. His mouth is set in a line, eyes intense. April knows it as his resting face, but what will Splinter think?

Telling Donnie to smile feels weird, though, so she sucks in a breath and nods. “Yep, like that. Okay, I’ll take the pic - it’s gonna flash, okay?”

“Flash?”

“Yeah, flash a bright light. Just for a second.”

He nods. “Okay.”

She holds up the phone, focuses, then takes the pic. Donnie doesn’t startle at the flash, and she’s glad she warned him about it.

The picture itself is… well, depressing is the only word she has for it. Donnie looks angry, standing alone in the dark, feet from the camera and behind a fence. The shadows from the chain link crisscross over his face and body, stark reminders of his captivity.

On one hand, it definitely shows the situation Donnie is in.

On the other, she can only imagine how it would feel to see this picture as a parent.

She kinda hates the idea of bringing Splinter only this… But what else can she do?

“Hmmm…” She taps the phone against the palm of her hand, thinking. Her eyes land on the slot in the fence they use to give Donnie food, and an idea forms.

“Is something wrong with it?” Donnie asks, and she shrugs.

“I was just thinking, the fence makes it hard to see your face.”

“I can’t leave the fence yet, though,” he reminds her, and she shakes her head.

“No, but I can give the phone to you.” She indicates the food slot.

Immediately his eyes light up. “You’re giving me the phone?” His voice pitches up in excitement.

“Hold your horses! We don’t have time for you to go down an internet search rabbit hole, okay?” He opens his mouth, and she shakes her head. “And you are not taking it apart.” He shuts his mouth again. “You’re just gonna take a selfie.”

“A selfie?”

“Yep!” She turns around, then lifts her phone so he can see the screen. He gets as close as he can without touching the fence, so close she can feel his breath as he exhales. His eyes are locked on the phone in fascination. “See this button? If you click that, it switches to the selfie camera.”

“There’s a camera on the front of the phone too!?” Donnie sounds delighted by this information. “Where are they hiding it!?”

“Uh, it’s up here… somewhere.” She gestures at the top of the phone, then shakes her head. “Anyway, once you’re ready, you click this button, and it takes the pic! And that’s called a selfie, because you took a picture of yourself.”

She shows him the picture they just took, of herself talking and Donnie leaning in close, watching with rapt attention. It’s definitely not her best picture, but Donnie looks so much more alive than he did in the last one, even still obscured by the fence.

She thinks she might keep that one, too.

“I see… a selfie.” Donnie says the word like he does all new ones, like he’s turning it around in his mouth to see how it feels. “And you want me to take one?”

“Yep!”

She turns to the food slot, then hesitates. There’s always a chance Donnie will completely disregard what she just said and take the phone for himself - she can’t exactly get it back from him if she hands it over.

But he’s been putting a lot of trust in her, so she can give a little back.

“Here - don’t let it get wet.”

She slips it into the slot. Donnie shakes off his hands, then takes it between his fingers, looking at it with entirely too much reverence. If he ever gets a phone if his own, she thinks, they’ll never get him off it.

For a moment he looks extremely tempted to start rooting through the internet no matter the risks, but after she clears her throat (twice) he gets back on task.

“Right, okay… so I just hold it up like this…” He squints, then moves around in the enclosure, watching the screen. “…I can see myself better here,” he says after he stops.

“You have better lighting there,” April agrees - not that the lighting was ever going to be great with just the dimmed safety lights. “Look at you, you’re a natural!”

Donnie lights up at the praise, his face loosening if not quite smiling. He takes the picture, then ducks like he’s about to go under the water (“Donnie, not with the phone!”), before wading back to the fence.

“Is this okay?” he asks, showing her the screen.

He doesn’t look angry anymore, and the lighting is better - and without the fence, there’s a clear view of his face.

April grins. “It is. Hey, how about you take a few more, though, just to be on the safe side.”

“Ah, yes… to be on the safe side,” he repeats, before wading back to the same spot as before. He lifts the phone, and starts taking pictures, looking at them each time.

After the first two, his lips twitch up, and then his smile grows and grows. April watches as he takes ten more pictures, even starting to tilt his head and angle this way and that. Like a normal kid trying to get the best shot for his instagram.

Her heart warms over it.

She’d let him do this all night if she could, but she only has a few hours and she has to get to the other boys, so after a few minutes more she calls out, “Donnie, I think that’s enough.”

“Can I take a few more?” He glances back at her. “This is… fun.”

“I know, but I gotta take pictures of your brothers, too.” She smiles reassuringly. “Once you’re outta here, you can take all the selfies you want, okay?”

He holds the phone tight, considering… but then he comes back to the slot and gently pushes it back to her.

She takes the phone and opens the pictures, flipping through them in order. His smile in the pictures gets wider and wider, quickly taking on that manic, unhinged quality he gets when he gets really worked up about something.

April feels like she likes those selfies the best. He looks most alive. Most like himself. She can’t wait to show these to Splinter.

After all, if he can’t love this kid at his most weird, he doesn’t deserve to be Donnie’s dad.

#dandy fanfiction #100 feet and a world away #rottmnt #rottmnt april #rottmnt donatello #I’m supposed to get my computer back today #if I don’t I’m rioting

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backslashdelta · 8 months

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How To Gif: Glass Shatter Effect

By popular demand (ie, 7 people who voted in this poll), here is a tutorial on how to do the glass shatter effect I used to create the first gif in this set.

I use Photoshop CC 2015 (yes I know it's old) for my gifmaking, but you should be able to apply everything to newer versions of Photoshop. For this tutorial I'll be assuming you know the gifmaking basics, but if not, I would recommend this tutorial, which is the process I use to make gifs. Note that this particular process involves saving all of the frames, importing those frames into Photoshop, and then using an action to convert to a smart object.

Keep reading below the cut to learn how to do this effect!

Before I could start making this gif, I needed three things; the two scenes that I wanted to use, and a video of the glass shattering effect. I already knew the scenes I wanted, so then I took to YouTube to find a video which I can't for the life of me find again, but it looked like this:

Something like this is what you want. Ideally the green part would be entirely white, but as long as there are two clearly different colours you can usually work with it.

This looks a lot slower than the gif that I made, but that's not because of the frame rate - which is exactly the same above as in the final gif - it's just because there are extra frames in this slower one that I cut out. In the video I used, the glass shattering happened very slowly. I didn't want that, so I ended up skipping several frames when I loaded the frames into Photoshop before using my gifmaking action. I just did this by manually selecting one frame, skipping the next several before selecting another frame, and repeating this until I had selected 60 frames.

After using my gif action, I had a smart object of the glass shatter effect that looked like this:

That's a much better speed! It still wasn't quite where I needed it to be though. I needed this in black and white, so I slapped a hue/saturation adjustment on the smart object and set the saturation all the way down to -100.

Okay great, I could start putting the gif together now.

First, I made a copy of the glass shatter smart object, because I'll need that later. Then, I pulled in frames from the scene that I wanted to appear in the hole after the glass shatters, and I used those to create a new smart object with my gif action (we'll call it Scene-bg). I pulled Scene-bg into the same window as the glass shatter objects. Then I created a new smart object by combining one of the glass shatter objects with Scene-bg, which I did by selecting both layers right clicking, and selecting "Convert to Smart Object".

I renamed this smart object to Shatter-fg. I opened it by clicking on the little icon next to the layer name in the layers window here:

The most important thing here is that the shatter effect object should be the top layer, and I set the mode to "lighten". This will make sure that the lightest colour of either this layer and the layer behind it is displayed; that means that anywhere that's white in our shatter animation will still show up, but anywhere that's black we'll see what's in the layer(s) behind it.

Then I threw some adjustment layers between them to get the colouring I wanted. I used a curves layer, a hue/saturation layer, and I also added text with an outer glow layer effect. Here's what the layer order looked like and the settings I used for each layer:

After this process, Shatter-fg looked like this:

Okay nice, this is starting to look like something! I saved this and went back to the main file with the other glass shatter object.

I needed to invert that other glass shatter object. There's a weird quirk with the version of Photoshop that I use where it doesn't like it when I apply specifically an invert adjustment to a smart object (it appears correctly when editing, but not on export) so I did this by creating a new smart object which included a separate invert layer, but if you have a newer version of Photoshop you can probably just apply the invert adjustment directly. Just note that you'll need to do one of these options; it won't work if you add a separate adjustment layer in the main file, it needs to be applied specifically to the smart object (which we'll now be calling Shatter-bg). It looked like this after I inverted it:

Once that's done, I made sure Shatter-fg was the layer directly above Shatter-bg, and set the mode of Shatter-fg to "darken" and Shatter-bg to "lighten". Since Shatter-fg is set to darken, it will be visible only when it is darker than the layer behind it. By setting Shatter-bg to lighten, I've guaranteed that the layer behind it will always be lighter (ie, white) in the places we want Shatter-fg to be visible, and will be black otherwise. Once I update those settings, this is what the gif looked like:

This is all there is to the glass shatter effect itself. Next I pulled in frames from the second scene to fill in the black areas. This layer needed to go below both glass shatter layers, so that it only shows through where the black. Then I added adjustment layers and some text. I used curves, hue/saturation, and vibrance adjustment layers, and I also added the "archer" text below the glass shatter layers so that it would be hidden to reveal the "prey" text. The other text I added above all of the layers, since I wanted this to be visible all the time. Here is the layer order and all of the settings I used for each of the layers:

I also grouped Shatter-bg and Shatter-fg and shifted them on the timeline so there would be some time to see the background gif before the shatter effect starts.

And that's all! Then it''s just a matter of exporting the finished product:

This is the first gifmaking tutorial I've ever made, so I hope I was able to be reasonably coherent and helpful! I'd love to hear if you make anything by following these steps, or even if you just feel like you've learned something reading through this. And if you have any outstanding questions, feel free to reply or send me an ask and I'd be happy to answer!

#gifmaking #tutorials #gifmaking tutorial #gif tutorial #photoshop #photoshop tutorial #usergif #gleesource #my tutorials #mine #how to gif #tw mark salling #mark salling tw #not tagging as glee because it's not actually about that but wanted the tw tags just in case #this was so much more effort to put together than I thought it would be lmao #I was like oh yeah I've already made the whole gif I just need to go back and explain how I did that...#it took A WHILE #anywayyyy it was fun though so I'm glad I did it #would love to know if anyone finds this helpful or interesting or tries out the effect or something similar!#you can also just grab the black/white gif I included above if you want to do the effect since I can't find the video... sorry lol #but yeah you have my permission to steal the black/white gifs for gifmaking purposes if you would like #just don't like. post your own tutorial claiming you made it or something?? but like you don't need to credit me or anything obviously.#ANYWAYYYY #I feel like... a LITTLE pretentious thinking I'm good enough at making gifs to be qualified to make a tutorial #but like it's fineeee everything is fine #gonna finally post this now enjoy byeeee

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shina913 · 1 year

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On Tilt, Part 5 | KNJ

On Tilt, Part 5

Definition: a poker term for a state of mental or emotional confusion or frustration in which a player adopts a suboptimal strategy, usually resulting in the player becoming overly aggressive.

On Tilt Masterlist

Pairing: Namjoon x Fem!Reader

Rating: M 🔞

Genre: idol!AU; strangers-to-FWB-to-lovers; toxic relationship; angst; fluff; smut

Warnings: unhealthy/toxic relationship dynamic; cussing; miscommunication; bitchy friend with the reality check; trouble setting personal boundaries; neck kisses; light petting; soft, fluffy Namjoon

Word count: 5.9K+ words

Summary: You’ve said time and time again that you wouldn’t lose yourself to him. You were in control now. You were going to make better choices. For a minute there, you were able to keep up with it. It wasn’t ‘til Namjoon’s extended break that you found yourself falling into old habits. Will you ever learn to quit Kim Namjoon?

A/N: Thanks for being soooo patient with my super-slow updates! I’m trying to pick up the pace here as next chapter will be date number 5 (huzzah)!!!

If you're still following this story, thank you 🥹 Also, my meager Photoshop skills were tested with this banner photo 😅 Sorry to Namjoon’s friend and the other museum-going guest in the background 🥴

"What are you doing?"

It wasn't the question that made your belly flutter, but the undertone behind it.

You direct your voice to your phone on speaker mode, which sits on one corner of the table, next to the piles of new author manuscripts that you had to review before the end of the week.

"Do you always have to switch to that voice when you ask me that question?"

Namjoon feigns innocence. "What do you mean?" he asks, his voice already low. He then adds insult to injury by rasping, "This is my usual voice.”

He was in Spain spending some much-needed downtime with his family. Before that, he was in Italy for a scheduled public appearance, a week after he kept you company while you were sick.

The vacation was pre-planned and he offered to pay for your ticket so you could come along. While it sounded like a great offer, you declined. His family hadn’t seen him much and with his solo album gearing up to be released soon, free time would be more difficult to come by.

You pick your phone up off the table and lower your voice, mimicking him. “You know exactly what I mean.”

Namjoon’s laugh was deep and husky, it made your toes curl. “I can’t help how I feel when I talk to you while you’re not with me. I miss you.”

There was an ache in his tone now and you were missing him just as much.

“Are you feeling better?”

You sighed, “I miss you, too—and yes, I am. Thank you for asking.”

“I wish you’d just taken me up on my offer to come along. My parents would have loved to have you on the trip.”

You and Namjoon were communicating more openly and were better at managing each other's expectations these days. If one of you had to cancel plans, which he still did, but not as often, you no longer felt disappointed. Similarly, he was less cranky whenever you couldn't break pre-existing commitments to rush off to him.

Just as you no longer felt the need to move your whole schedule to fit his, he’s also made some concessions to spend time with you, which was refreshing.

“Next time,” you say in consolation. “Besides, you know I’ve got way too many things going on right now. Between work and house-hunting.” You groan at the thought.

“How’s that going? Are you closing in on any properties?”

You shared your initial plans to buy a new home, but they became more concrete when Lani told you that she and her boyfriend, Kai would move in together, speeding up your timeline. Investing in purchases that would contribute to your future was crucial at this point in your life, but browsing listings online was overwhelming. Jia, who worked as a realtor, stepped in to help.

You hummed in disappointment. “There are a couple of good candidates.” You suddenly remember Jia’s email this morning about another possible listing. You make a mental note to check it out after you hang up.

“Remind me why you’re getting kicked out of Lani’s place again.”

“She’s not kicking me out,” You correct him. “I just didn’t feel like becoming this third wheel. Anyway, Jia says based on market trends, it’s the perfect time to buy. I’ve got enough money saved up from the last two years. It’s the perfect storm!”

"Is there anything I can do to help?" he asks.

"Not unless you have information on affordable real estate in the downtown area. Otherwise…" you trail off as you walk back to your desk.

"Actually, I might have a lead on something if you're interested," he offers.

"Really?" Of course, Namjoon would have leads to the best properties. Some of them were probably not even publicly listed.

“It’s about half an hour from downtown, without traffic.

“Oh.” You scrunch your face in disappointment at the prospect of a longer commute. You spin your chair around to face the window behind you in your office, which had a beautiful view of the bridge over the bay.

"Now, hear me out for a sec,” he says. “It's on the east side and I know you said you didn’t want anything farther than a 15-minute commute. But it’s in a nice area and I happen to know the listing agent and the owner.”

You smile at Namjoon's attention to detail. Even though the city you lived in had a commuting culture, it wasn't something you pictured doing for the rest of your life.

"Can you send me the information? I can have Jia connect with them."

“Sure, I can give you the contact info right now, whenever your ready.”

“Okay, hang on,” you say hastily while turning your chair back around to reach for a pen and a piece of paper.

“Also, I don’t think Jia needs to get involved. At least not much.” He had a slight edge in his voice when it came to her. Even though they had a silent truce, it still didn’t ease your discomfort.

But you didn’t feel like hashing that out during this call. “Namjoon, the number?” You ask him.

Namjoon dictates the number on the other line. After jotting down the last four digits, you pause and stare at your handwriting. “Are you shitting me? This is your phone number!”

“And?” He says, unperturbed.

You groan. "Come on! Be serious, please."

"I am being serious! Three bedrooms, two full baths, and a sizable kitchen. It's fully furnished with the basics. The downtown area is also very accessible. All you need to do is call Kim Namjoon!"

You snort. “You sound like one of those late-night infomercials.”

“Aw, don’t make fun of me,” You practically hear him pouting. “I’m trying to sell you on my place!”

You choke on nothing. "Yours? Uhm...are you moving out or something?" He just bought his place less than two years ago.

"Nope," he replies simply.

"So, if you're not moving out...then…"

He laughs at the panicked tone in your voice and assures you, "Relaaax! I figured you'd run for the hills if I asked you to move in with me."

He was right about that.

"Not gonna lie, though. It's crossed my mind before,” he adds nonchalantly. "But I know that would be inappropriate of me to offer since we’re taking things slow.”

His casual admission is a huge surprise to you. Before you could say anything about it, he quickly adds, “Anyway, I own the unit next door. That’s what I’m offering."

You stifle a laugh. “Okay, let me get this straight: You thought it was inappropriate to ask me to move in with you, so you’re proposing that I move in next door instead?”

“Well…” he laughs, feeling cheeky. “Worth a shot!”

"I don’t understand how or why you even own a second unit," you wonder out loud. “You’re barely in your main home as it is.”

"It was sort of an impulse purchase six months ago. The woman who used to live there decided to sell it. I even got into this stupid bidding war with Seokmin,” he adds begrudgingly. “Anyway, my plan was to knock the wall down to convert it into one huge space. But between the last tour wrapping up and finishing my album, I just haven’t had the time. So right now, it’s a glorified storage closet!”

Welp, he had a lot of disposable income. His rationale also quelled your skepticism. "Oh, okay."

"I figured, it would at least liven up the space if someone was living there instead of my clothes and books."

"That’s really tempting, Joon, but you know I can’t afford your place."

"You didn't think I'd give you the family and friends discount?" he teases.

You snort. "Oooh…friend, huh?"

“Or girlfriend,” he corrected himself. There was that word again, ’girlfriend.’

“Don’t you think we’re too old for those terms?” You say in jest.

He laughed heartily into the phone. “Would you rather use, ‘person whom I’m in a committed relationship with’?”

You giggle at his suggestion but your cheeks warm at the sentiment. He was making an effort to define what this relationship was. It certainly counted for ‘more’ in your book. “How about we shorten it to ‘person’? Like, I don’t know…” you sigh, “You’re my person and I’m your person. What do you think?”

You’re met with dead silence on the other line. You think the call has dropped.

“Namjoon? Are you still there?”

Still nothing.

“Fuck. Hello?” Maybe it didn’t drop, you think. Maybe he thought your idea was so stupid that he just hung up.

Seconds later, you hear faint trilling on the other end. You pull your phone away to check the screen, thinking it was your other line ringing. Instead, you see Namjoon trying to convert your call into a video one.

You feel a sense of relief to see him call back, knowing that he didn’t just hang up on you. You press the green button to accept it and his face immediately comes into view. He was already in bed, his hair all mussed up.

“I think I lost you there earlier.”

“Nope. I was on the line the whole time,” he says with a wide grin.

“Okay, well…You know, w-what I said, uhm, earlier…” You’re feeling completely flustered, thinking that your suggestion was idiotic.

“I like it,” he interrupts softly. “You’re my person and I’m your person.” His dimple flashes on-screen.

You laugh nervously. “Yeah?”

He nodded his head gently, rocking back on his pillow. Your chest flutters in response and your cheeks hurt from grinning so hard.

"Ah, man," he sighs when he sees you smile. "Now I really wish you were here with me."

The warmth in his gaze pierces its way through your phone screen. You take a moment to appreciate the sight of him looking restful and relaxed. Could you love this man any more?

"I know that look.” He shifts in bed, his words interrupting your completely wholesome thoughts of him.

"I am not giving you a look."

"Are you sure? I don’t think we excluded phone stuff from our agreement," he wiggles his eyebrows.

You laugh. "Nice try, but we’re not doing ‘phone stuff’ either! Not to mention I’m at the office, for crying out loud!”

“Damn,” he clicks his teeth and pouts in mock defeat. “But it’s not like that’s ever stopped us before. Remember that one flight from Tokyo? The Wifi was shitty on board but my god, your thighs were–”

“Oh my god, Namjoon! I’m at work!” You squeak in between a fit of giggles. Your office door was shut but people who walked by could still see you through the partially frosted glass wall.

“So was I! Do you know how hard it is to hide under those standard-issue blankets? Do you know how big I am? I had to ask for two just to make sure that my movements weren’t too obvious!”

You let him continue his tirade while your stomach hurts, wheezing from laughter.

As you sip on your mocha at the cafe table, Jia peers up at you. "Please tell me you told him, 'Thanks, but no thanks,'" she says after hearing about Namjoon's offer.

You hesitate before answering. "Well...I didn't exactly rule it out," you grimace.

Jia groans in disappointment. "YN, I thought you two were taking it slow. Now you're telling me he's asked you to move in with him?"

"No, he didn't ask me to move in with him,” you insist. “It's a second unit that he owns in the same building where he lives. It's right next door to his place but completely separate.”

"Tomato, to-mah-to," she says dismissively waving her hands. "Wasn't the goal to buy your own place?”

“Well, yeah…but have you seen his place? The area is a little bit farther but it’s super nice out there and the neighborhood has changed a lot–" You babble aimlessly.

Jia rolls her eyes. She knows that the only person you are trying to convince is yourself. Seeing as she’s tuned you out, you get right back to the point. "Anyway, if I decide–and this is a big 'if'– to take him up on his offer, at least the unit is already paid for. All I’d be paying for is annual taxes!"

"Okay, sure," Jia responds, clearly unconvinced. "But at the end of the day, the unit won't be under your name." She pauses, taking a breath and rubbing circles on her temples. "I don't know what to say anymore." She shakes her head in exasperation.

“I don’t need you to say anything,” you argue, growing annoyed at how rude she was sounding. “I'm only telling you out of courtesy since you've been so helpful during the loan application process and finding great listings.”

Jia, feeling a pang of guilt, changes her approach and softens her tone. "Look, I'm not trying to be overbearing. Obviously, I can’t tell you how to spend your money. At the end of the day, it’s your decision. And if you’re choosing to go with Namjoon…" she trails off.

But you couldn’t simply ignore her being dismissive of Namjoon. "I just wish you could see how much things have changed this time. If you did, perhaps you wouldn't keep writing him off."

She purses her lips in thought before continuing. "It's not that I'm 'writing him off'," she gestures with air quotations as she tries to explain herself, "I'm only worried about you. I care about you and I love you. I don’t want you to be disappointed again."

You sigh in frustration. "And I'm grateful and appreciative of that, Jia. I know you're just trying to be a good friend–which you totally are. But things really are different this time, and we're both on the same page now."

Jia continues to stare at you silently while you rationalize your relationship.

“This is also the last chance I’m giving him and myself. If this blows up in my face, then that’s on me,” you say, placing your hand over your chest. “But if it works out, then he and I could be happy and…that’s what’s keeping me going. And not to throw this in your face, but I always thought you would be more understanding of my situation since you went through something similar with Yeonjun,” you said, hoping to appeal to her better nature.

When Jia and her boyfriend Yeonjun broke up a while back, she was devastated. But when there was a chance that they could get back together, you encouraged her because she still loved him so much.

“But Yeonjun is a normal guy. He’s not an idol,” she said, reasoning. “We split up because of his job. The whole long-distance thing was taking its toll on us. I was tired of waiting around–”

She fell silent when she saw you staring at her wryly. “What?” she asked, scrunching her face in confusion.

You slow-blinked at her. "I mean, I don't know, Jia... your story sounds exactly like mine, except for the part where Yeonjun is not an idol."

Jia opened her mouth to argue, but immediately shut it in concession. "Okay, fine. But the difference between Yeonjun and Namjoon is that my man is not tied to some contractually obligated schedule. He is entitled to vacation time and even sick days. Does Namjoon have the same benefits?"

You couldn't deny that Namjoon's career obligations weighed on you. You also had your own flourishing career keeping you busy. Striking a balance and making compromises between your professional lives would prove to be challenging. It was definitely something worth discussing in detail if you both wanted to make this work.

"I know that Lani and I have different approaches when it comes to Namjoon, but I swear to you – the one thing we have in common is that we would never shit on your happiness. You're one of my best friends! Of course, I want you to see you happy!"

Back then, Lani used to tease you, saying that she didn't know where you started and Namjoon ended. You were so into him and adept in his ways. However, that was precisely what made it difficult to break away from him and realize that things just wasn't working for you.

You feel a twinge in your chest as you ponder what to do next.

"Congratulations and welcome home!" the agent tells you.

"Thanks," you smile as you look up from the documents you just signed. The agent hands you the keys, which you accept. You shake hands with them, and they shake hands with Jia. It's been over two weeks, and you've closed on the multi-level townhouse that was only 15 minutes away from your office.

"Will there be anything else?" the agent asks.

"Nah, I just need to take these back to the office, but other than that, we're all set," he smiles politely.

"Thanks again," you tell him before he shuts the door.

Jia beams at you before wrapping you in her arms in a tight hug. "You did it, babe!"

You laughed at her. “No, we did it. Thanks for finding this place for me.” You looked around the room, which was a blank canvas for now, but you couldn't wait to fill it with furniture and memories.

Her face softens and she fixes her gaze on you. "I know it's not exactly a luxury high-rise--"

"Jia," you say with a hint of warning, "He was perfectly fine with my decision. He’s happy that I’m happy so, can we ease up on him now?"

Jia bit her tongue. “Okay, I’m sorry,” she offers sincerely.

“Thank you,” you tell her.

Afterward, she continues to ramble on about some new fixtures you could include in your place, practically planning out how your space should look. You rolled your eyes, nodding and smiling as she gave you suggestions.

Right before move-in day, as much as Namjoon wanted to help out, his schedule wouldn’t allow it. He had several meetings that day–mostly involving his album release.

He was apologetic and to make up for it, offered to hire and pay for the moving company. Lani and Kai were there to help unload and unpack some of your items the day of.

It was after 10PM by the time your friends left after you bought them some dinner. It was the least you could do, after they bickered while they mounted the TV in your living room.

You had a few minutes of quiet so you decide to put away the empty takeout containers to continue unpacking. While sorting through some dishes and kitchen utensils, you hear a knock on your door. You walk over to check the peephole and immediately grin.

"Hi!" You beam at Namjoon.

With a tilt of his head, his adorable face appears behind the arrangement of gardenias that he carried, along with a bag of takeout. You greet him with a quick kiss before taking the bag and flowers and setting them both on the counter.

"This actually looks nice," he remarks as he turns his head, scanning the kitchen and living room area.

"I told you, the videos make it seem misleading," you tell him. "I can give you the grand tour so you can see for yourself!"

He slowly settles into a still shrink-wrapped barstool. "Let’s do that later. For now, I just want to look at you."

As he regards you, you take the opportunity to drink him in, your gaze sliding all over him. He looks exhausted but still handsome, your eyes burning just from looking at him. The way his black hair falls above his eyes makes your fingers twitch with the urge to run them through it.

Before you can say anything else, you round the corner of the kitchen counter and slot yourself between his legs to grab his face and kiss him.

When you pull away, a big smile breaks across his face. "Wow,” he says breathlessly, “What did I do to deserve that?"

"Well, I missed you,” you smile at him. Then, you inhale sharply, taking in a luscious scent. “Is that fried chicken and jjajangmyeon?" You pull away from him, reaching out to grab the bag of takeout to dig in.

He swipes the bag away to tease you. “On second thought, maybe you should give me that tour now!” He laughs.

******

After a quick tour of your new place, both of you settle in the living room, sitting on the floor and eating fried chicken while drinking beer. It feels like an impromptu picnic, much like like the old days when he had a couple of hours free between shows. Before their group hit it big, you and Namjoon used to sit on the grass at the nearest park wherever they were playing that week, and snack on fried chicken and noodles.

You start discussing what upgrades you would make to the place–some recessed lighting and a new backsplash in the kitchen. The house that you bought was slightly older and despite the previous owners making some modern additions, you still wanted to customize a few things to fit your taste. In the end, Jia was right about some of her design suggestions.

"Well, you could have just taken me up on my offer. Then you wouldn't have to worry about outdated fixtures."

Recalling your conversation with Jia, moving into Namjoon’s place would further blur the lines between you both. You were in denial about it at first but you knew she made a good point. It wasn’t that Namjoon’s offer was bad but you wanted to make more independent decisions that didn’t directly involve him. It was hard to break away from that pattern but it was necessary. If you didn’t make those decisions, then you’d end up resenting him again.

"I really have no problem sharing. In fact, I could sign it over to you," he nonchalantly drops that comment in just before taking a bite of fried chicken.

You gasp at his ridiculous suggestion. "Joon? What–"

"Don't worry. I'll pay taxes on it and whatever maintenance or repairs needed. Only difference is legally, it would be yours." He said it as if it was just as easy as settling the check at a restaurant.

"I need you to stop doing that," you say calmly.

"Doing what?"

"Trying to pay for everything. The movers were great and that was a big help for me but signing over property to me?” You shook your head. “That’s too much and I don’t need you to do that. I have money, too. Not as much as you do but I have enough.”

He shifts in his seat, looking apologetic. "I’m sorry, I didn't mean for it to come off like that. I thought, hey, I have the resources and I can help. I figured it would be one less thing for you to worry about."

"And I appreciate that. But I need to do things for myself," you say.

Namjoon nods in agreement. "I understand. But I hope you’ll understand where I’m coming from, too," he hesitates, biting his lip. "I just want to show you that I can be here for you…even when I can’t be," he mumbles.

"That's what you're worried about?"

Namjoon looks at you with trepidation in his eyes.

You look at him calmly, then gently take one of his hands to clasp it with yours. "I don't need you to give me a condo or pay for flights just to assure me that you’re here for me.”

His lips narrow into a thin line. “I just feel guilty that I can’t make a lot of compromises when it comes to my work. I can take small breaks and make time for our dates but there are times when I feel like I’m not doing enough.” he sighs. He doesn't want to keep using work as an excuse, but there's only so much he can do.

“Some days, I think that if it were up to me, I’d just say ‘fuck it all’!”

"You don't really mean that," you say quietly. “You love what you do.”

He holds your gaze, hiding nothing and letting you see his insecurities and fears. "I just don't want us to end up in the same spot we were in before."

“And you think that me living next door to you solves all that?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “Maybe? I like having you close.”

“And I do, too. But that’s not always possible, is it?”

He pauses for a few beats then says, “I hate it when we’re apart for too long. I just miss you so much and then here I am, acting like a selfish asshole again.”

"We'll keep working on the distance thing," you say but it doesn't placate him. He takes a long swig of his beer, then sighs wistfully.

"Hey," you rest your hand on his arm. "We can only learn from the past, right? It's not about our missteps but how we move on and grow from them."

After a pause, his frown fades, replaced by a half-smile. “I thought that was my line.”

You snort at his lighter tone. Reaching forward, you brush his dark strands away from his eyes. “Guess you’re rubbing off on me, Kim Namjoon.”

His lips quirk up slightly. “And I cannot wait until this fifth date to rub off on you.”

You pause to smack him on the shoulder with a laugh. “You are so not helping!”

Namjoon laughs again, his deep chuckles reverberating throughout the living room. He tightens his arm around you, pulling you in closer to him, and places a gentle kiss on the top of your head. As you feel his lips on your hair, you sense a shift in his demeanor. His mood appears to have improved, if only slightly.

"So, one of my meetings today outlined the marketing and promotional schedule for the album."

"Oh?" You welcome the change of subject, but deep down, you are anxious to hear about his schedule.

"It's pretty exciting. We're kicking it off with a launch party in two months. I'd like for you to be there if you can?" It was a plea that was hard to resist. But it has also been a while since you attended any "official" appearances with him—and by "with him," that meant you being smuggled into a separate entrance by a manager or lurking in the background of a party until he could retreat backstage, largely inaccessible by cameras or fans, so you could pretend that you were on a date.

"Is it safe?"

"I'll make sure of it. We have a guest list and only a few members of the press covering the event. They're ‘friendlies’,” also known as members of the media who were in the record label’s quid pro quo payroll.

“Could you include Lani or Jia to the list so I could hang out with somebody while you mingle?” This was also a standard protocol from before. You’d have your girlfriends with you so you’d have a cover story in case some tabloid decides to put two and two together. You weren’t sure if Namjoon’s bandmates were inviting dates to this event as well.

"I could but it might be lonely for them since I was hoping you’d be right by my side."

Your mouth falls open at his suggestion. “Uhm…what about…” you hesitate to finish your thought. Actually, you weren’t sure about what he was thinking, taking you as his date during his solo album launch–where all eyes would be focused on him.

“What if people asked questions? What does your label think about bringing a date to a huge event like that?”

He straightened but the warmth in his gaze remained. “But you’re not just my date. You’re my person, remember?”

Your eyes start to sting with emotion. You bit your lower lip, heart twisting in your chest, then agree without further argument. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he echoes, smiling warmly before planting a soft kiss on you.

******

After a few more bites of jjajangmyeon, you ask, "So, when do I get an advance copy of this? Will just send me a link or do you have a demo CD that I can listen to?"

"Nope," he says with a laugh, surprising you. "You'll hear it first when everyone else does. Which is on the day of the party!"

"But you always give me first dibs," you whine.

"Can I be honest?"

"Of course."

He blows out a shaky breath. "I'm really nervous about it," he confesses. "I know I keep saying that I can't wait until this whole thing is done, but in reality, I'm fucking terrified." He laughs humorlessly.

You tilt your head to the side, looking concerned. "Why?"

"I went for a different vibe on this album. I've been anxious about it the whole time. And when I say nobody has listened to this--I really mean nobody! Apart from my co-producers, of course. Otherwise…" he trails off.

"Okay, now I'm really intrigued," you say before turning away to take another piece of chicken.

He shrugs. "I started working on this project three years ago, so there were a lot of intense, unfiltered feelings there."

As you pause, you slowly peer up to find him staring. Your face can't hide all of the thoughts running through your head. During those three years, you took a break from him and had a real relationship with somebody else.

Namjoon always turns his pain and joy into art. Although you are worried about what kind of pain he channeled into his album, you don't want to be presumptuous. You give him an encouraging smile to let him know that you can't wait to hear what beautiful things he's created.

"I'm sure it will be great," you state confidently. "You always question yourself before a release, but it always works out."

"You believe in me too much." He smiles sardonically.

"Am I not supposed to?"

He smiles sheepishly, his eyes crinkling in amusement. He remains seated on the floor and leans back against your couch. Tugging at your arm, he beckons you to sit on his lap. "C'mere."

You laugh softly but eventually oblige.

You gingerly climb onto his lap, straddling his thighs, and drape your arms around his neck. He tilts his head forward to touch his forehead to your chest. You feel his breaths through your shirt, warming your skin.

You run both hands through his hair, nuzzling against him. "Everything will be fine, you'll see."

"Thank you," he murmurs against you.

"You don't need to thank me. I'm not the one who did all this work to record an album."

His head falls back, and he gazes up at you. "Not the album. I meant this. Thank you for giving us..." He pauses to correct himself. "Thank you for giving me another chance."

You brush his hair back again, noticing how tired and worn he looks. The past few months of nonstop work and trying to make time for you have taken their toll. His fingertips slide gently down your cheek as you continue to silently stare at him.

Being this close to him makes you realize how much you've missed him, how much you've craved physical contact. You lean in and kiss him with ease.

The feel of his mouth on yours sent a searing trail of goosebumps racing up your arms, stirring memories of his mouth on other parts of your body. He groans when you move your lips down to his neck to suck on it.

You hear and feel him gulp audibly, trying to regain control of himself. “Baby, slow down...”

You ignore his pleas and push his hands under your shirt. “Touch me, please,” You sigh against his skin. He gasps when your warm breath brushes at his earlobe. You nuzzle deeper, taking in his scent. It was intoxicating.

"We can't." All of his teasing in the last few days and his little joke about rubbing off on you earlier tonight have pushed you past your limit, and now you are sitting on his lap, all hot and bothered, and he decides to turn you down while you’re practically begging him to rip your clothes off? What kind of mental edging is this?

You sit up and whine, "Why not?"

"This isn't even our fifth date," he chuckles. "I just wanted to bring you some dinner and flowers."

"Please, Joon...you did it last time," you purr, trying to entice him again by dipping lower to lick his earlobe.

He lets out a pained groan when he feels your breasts press against his chest. He fights off his natural instinct to palm them and instead makes a pitiful effort to dislodge your mouth from him.

"I just really want us to see these five dates through," he says.

You playfully jerk your neck back. "Excuse me, Mr. 'Are you sure that 5-date rule is non-negotiable?'" you recite the same words he said during your first date after making this agreement.

A deep laugh rumbles within his chest, then he pulls you closer. "I know, I know... but..." His expression turns wistful. It's as if he knows something you don't.

"But what? Tell me," you coax him.

"There was something you said the last time we were together. It's been on my mind these last few weeks."

The last time you were together, you were a congested mess hopped up on cold medicine. What could you have possibly said to him? Did you suggest more dates?

Nervously, you ask, "And what exactly did I say?"

He purses his lips for a moment, seemingly unsure whether he wants to reveal it or take it to the grave.

He looks directly into your eyes with a calm expression on his face. "You said you loved me."

Your mouth falls open, as you don't recall verbalizing it to him. Perhaps you thought about it so often that your subconscious ended up blurting it out for you.

He cracks a smile. "You're not denying it."

There's no point so you just stare back at him, with gentle eyes.

"Did you mean it?" he asks.

His question takes you back to your old apartment, lying face-to-face with him while you tried to define your relationship. You were falling for him then, but you settled for whatever crumbs he could give you, downplaying labels.

This time, even though you had taken your foot off the gas, you weren't intending to slam on the brakes. You were cruising at a steady speed. Easy. Comfortable. Familiar.

"Yeah," you nod softly. "I did...I do." It isn't how you imagined saying it to him, but since it's been on your mind for a while, the words just decided to slip out on their own.

He smiles sheepishly at your admission, eyes drifting down to his hands. "I really want to earn those words, enough for you to say them to me when you're wide awake.”

"I can tell you now."

"No, don't do that," he says, loosening his hold on you. "I want you to decide when I deserve to hear it. At that point, I'll know that I deserve you, too."

His words hit you like a punch to the gut. He's always been poetic and an expert at wordplay when it comes to his lyrics.

"I love you," he says effortlessly.

You stare at him and let his words sink in. Like it or not, Namjoon was the only one who can make your heart soar to the highest of highs, but you also knew that he could very well pull the rug from underneath you. If that happened again, you weren’t sure whether you’d survive that fall.

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Thank you so much for reading!

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Tagging: @internetjunkdrawer @itdoesntmatterwhy @serendididy @onlythehobi @majamarantha @joonschocochip @yoongukie-ff @betysotelo18

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