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imsobadatnicknames2 · 1 month

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How can you consider yourself any sort of leftist when you defend AI art bullshit? You literally simp for AI techbros and have the gall to pretend you're against big corporations?? Get fucked

I don't "defend" AI art. I think a particular old post of mine that a lot of people tend to read in bad faith must be making the rounds again lmao.

Took me a good while to reply to this because you know what? I decided to make something positive out of this and use this as an opportunity to outline what I ACTUALLY believe about AI art. If anyone seeing this decides to read it in good or bad faith... Welp, your choice I guess.

I have several criticisms of the way the proliferation of AI art generators and LLMs is making a lot of things worse. Some of these are things I have voiced in the past, some of these are things I haven't until now:

Most image and text AI generators are fine-tuned to produce nothing but the most agreeable, generically pretty content slop, pretty much immediately squandering their potential to be used as genuinely interesting artistic tools with anything to offer in terms of a unique aesthetic experience (AI video still manages to look bizarre and interesting but it's getting there too)

In the entertainment industry and a lot of other fields, AI image generation is getting incorporated into production pipelines in ways that lead to the immiseration of working artists, being used to justify either lower wages or straight-up layoffs, and this is something that needs to be fought against. That's why I unconditionally supported the SAG-AFTRA strikes last year and will unconditionally support any collective action to address AI art as a concrete labor issue

In most fields where it's being integrated, AI art is vastly inferior to human artists in any use case where you need anything other than to make a superficially pretty picture really fast. If you need to do anything like ask for revisions or minor corrections, give very specific descriptions of how objects and people are interacting with each other, or just like. generate several pictures of the same thing and have them stay consistent with each other, you NEED human artists and it's preposterous to think they can be replaced by AI.

There is a lot of art on the internet that consists of the most generically pretty, cookie-cutter anime waifu-adjacent slop that has zero artistic or emotional value to either the people seeing it or the person churning it out, and while this certainly was A Thing before the advent of AI art generators, generative AI has made it extremely easy to become the kind of person who churns it out and floods online art spaces with it.

Similarly, LLMs make it extremely easy to generate massive volumes of texts, pages, articles, listicles and what have you that are generic vapid SEO-friendly pap at best and bizzarre nonsense misinformation at worst, drowning useful information in a sea of vapid noise and rendering internet searches increasingly useless.

The way LLMs are being incorporated into customer service and similar services not only, again, encourages further immiseration of customer service workers, but it's also completely useless for most customers.

A very annoyingly vocal part the population of AI art enthusiasts, fanatics and promoters do tend to talk about it in a way that directly or indirectly demeans the merit and skill of human artists and implies that they think of anyone who sees anything worthwile in the process of creation itself rather than the end product as stupid or deluded.

So you can probably tell by now that I don't hold AI art or writing in very high regard. However (and here's the part that'll get me called an AI techbro, or get people telling me that I'm just jealous of REAL artists because I lack the drive to create art of my own, or whatever else) I do have some criticisms of the way people have been responding to it, and have voiced such criticisms in the past.

I think a lot of the opposition to AI art has critstallized around unexamined gut reactions, whipping up a moral panic, and pressure to outwardly display an acceptable level of disdain for it. And in particular I think this climate has made a lot of people very prone to either uncritically entertain and adopt regressive ideas about Intellectual Propety, OR reveal previously held regressive ideas about Intellectual Property that are now suddenly more socially acceptable to express:

(I wanna preface this section by stating that I'm a staunch intellectual property abolitionist for the same reason I'm a private property abolitionist. If you think the existence of intellectual property is a good thing, a lot of my ideas about a lot of stuff are gonna be unpalatable to you. Not much I can do about it.)

A lot of people are suddenly throwing their support behind any proposal that promises stricter copyright regulations to combat AI art, when a lot of these also have the potential to severely udnermine fair use laws and fuck over a lot of independent artist for the benefit of big companies.

It was very worrying to see a lot of fanfic authors in particular clap for the George R R Martin OpenAI lawsuit because well... a lot of them don't realize that fanfic is a hobby that's in a position that's VERY legally precarious at best, that legally speaking using someone else's characters in your fanfic is as much of a violation of copyright law as straight up stealing entire passages, and that any regulation that can be used against the latter can be extended against the former.

Similarly, a lot of artists were cheering for the lawsuit against AI art models trained to mimic the style of specific artists. Which I agree is an extremely scummy thing to do (just like a human artist making a living from ripping off someone else's work is also extremely scummy), but I don't think every scummy act necessarily needs to be punishable by law, and some of them would in fact leave people worse off if they were. All this to say: If you are an artist, and ESPECIALLY a fan artist, trust me. You DON'T wanna live in a world where there's precedent for people's artstyles to be considered intellectual property in any legally enforceable way. I know you wanna hurt AI art people but this is one avenue that's not worth it.

Especially worrying to me as an indie musician has been to see people mention the strict copyright laws of the music industry as a positive thing that they wanna emulate. "this would never happen in the music industry because they value their artists copyright" idk maybe this is a the grass is greener type of situation but I'm telling you, you DON'T wanna live in a world where copyright law in the visual arts world works the way it does in the music industry. It's not worth it.

I've seen at least one person compare AI art model training to music sampling and say "there's a reason why they cracked down on sampling" as if the death of sampling due to stricter copyright laws was a good thing and not literally one of the worst things to happen in the history of music which nearly destroyed several primarily black music genres. Of course this is anecdotal because it's just One Guy I Saw Once, but you can see what I mean about how uncritical support for copyright law as a tool against AI can lead people to adopt increasingly regressive ideas about copyright.

Similarly, I've seen at least one person go "you know what? Collages should be considered art theft too, fuck you" over an argument where someone else compared AI art to collages. Again, same point as above.

Similarly, I take issue with the way a lot of people seem EXTREMELY personally invested in proving AI art is Not Real Art. I not only find this discussion unproductive, but also similarly dangerously prone to validating very reactionary ideas about The Nature Of Art that shouldn't really be entertained. Also it's a discussion rife with intellectual dishonesty and unevenly applied definition and standards.

When a lot of people present the argument of AI art not being art because the definition of art is this and that, they try to pretend that this is the definition of art the've always operated under and believed in, even when a lot of the time it's blatantly obvious that they're constructing their definition on the spot and deliberately trying to do so in such a way that it doesn't include AI art.

They never succeed at it, btw. I've seen several dozen different "AI art isn't art because art is [definition]". I've seen exactly zero of those where trying to seriously apply that definition in any context outside of trying to prove AI art isn't art doesn't end up in it accidentally excluding one or more non-AI artforms, usually reflecting the author's blindspots with regard to the different forms of artistic expression.

(However, this is moot because, again, these are rarely definitions that these people actually believe in or adhere to outside of trying to win "Is AI art real art?" discussions.)

Especially worrying when the definition they construct is built around stuff like Effort or Skill or Dedication or The Divine Human Spirit. You would not be happy about the kinds of art that have traditionally been excluded from Real Art using similar definitions.

Seriously when everyone was celebrating that the Catholic Church came out to say AI art isn't real art and sharing it as if it was validating and not Extremely Worrying that the arguments they'd been using against AI art sounded nearly identical to things TradCaths believe I was like. Well alright :T You can make all the "I never thought I'd die fighting side by side with a catholic" legolas and gimli memes you want, but it won't change the fact that the argument being made by the catholic church was a profoundly conservative one and nearly identical to arguments used to dismiss the artistic merit of certain forms of "degenerate" art and everyone was just uncritically sharing it, completely unconcerned with what kind of worldview they were lending validity to by sharing it.

Remember when the discourse about the Gay Sex cats pic was going on? One of the things I remember the most from that time was when someone went "Tell me a definition of art that excludes this picture without also excluding Fountain by Duchamp" and how just. Literally no one was able to do it. A LOT of people tried to argue some variation of "Well, Fountain is art and this image isn't because what turns fountain into art is Intent. Duchamp's choice to show a urinal at an art gallery as if it was art confers it an element of artistic intent that this image lacks" when like. Didn't by that same logic OP's choice to post the image on tumblr as if it was art also confer it artistic intent in the same way? Didn't that argument actually kinda end up accidentally validating the artistic status of every piece of AI art ever posted on social media? That moment it clicked for me that a lot of these definitions require applying certain concepts extremely selectively in order to make sense for the people using them.

A lot of people also try to argue it isn't Real Art based on the fact that most AI art is vapid but like. If being vapid definitionally excludes something from being art you're going to have to exclude a whooole lot of stuff along with it. AI art is vapid. A lot of art is too, I don't think this argument works either.

Like, look, I'm not really invested in trying to argue in favor of The Artistic Merits of AI art but I also find it extremely hard to ignore how trying to categorically define AI art as Not Real Art not only is unproductive but also requires either a) applying certain parts of your definition of art extremely selectively, b) constructing a definition of art so convoluted and full of weird caveats as to be functionally useless, or c) validating extremely reactionary conservative ideas about what Real Art is.

Some stray thoughts that don't fit any of the above sections.

I've occassionally seen people respond to AI art being used for shitposts like "A lot of people have affordable commissions, you could have paid someone like $30 to draw this for you instead of using the plagiarism algorithm and exploiting the work of real artists" and sorry but if you consider paying an artist a rate that amounts to like $5 for several hours of work a LESS exploitative alternative I think you've got something fucked up going on with your priorities.

Also it's kinda funny when people comment on the aforementioned shitposts with some variation of "see, the usage of AI art robs it of all humor because the thing that makes shitposts funny is when you consider the fact that someone would spend so much time and effort in something so stupid" because like. Yeah that is part of the humor SOMETIMES but also people share and laugh at low effort shitposts all the time. Again you're constructing a definition that you don't actually believe in anywhere outside of this type of conversations. Just say you don't like that it's AI art because you think it's morally wrong and stop being disingenuous.

So yeah, this is pretty much everything I believe about the topic.

I don't "defend" AI art, but my opposition to it is firmly rooted in my principles, and that means I refuse to uncritically accept any anti-AI art argument that goes against those same principles.

If you think not accepting and parroting every Anti-AI art argument I encounter because some of them are ideologically rooted in things I disagree with makes me indistinguishable from "AI techbros" you're working under a fucked up dichotomy.

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literalgrill · 5 months

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Do NOT Support Hard Drive On Patreon

You might see friends today suggesting you support Hard Drive on Patreon today. You know, the funny video games version of The Onion? As a journalist, I will firmly tell you DO NOT GIVE THEM A DIME.

The CEO has pushed out all former staff that have built the site up to its current greatness and has been pushing the use of AI. The staff begged to have a Patreon before basically all being pushed out, but the idea was refused until now, when it will only line the pockets of a single person instead of hard working writers.

I know they might have provided laughs before, but Hard Drive is a shell of what it was once. Let it die and support the people who actually made those moments of joy possible. Don't believe me? Check out what former employees are saying below:

Kevin Podas: Okay you know what, I would feel bad saying nothing about this, so here goes:🚨SAVE YOUR MONEY🚨

We passionately advocated for a Patreon at Hard Drive & were aggressively shot down. The talent & people who built the site were pushed out. To see this now is beyond upsetting. For the past few years or so I put a lot of myself into this website. I pitched a ton of jokes, got over 120 articles published, & met a lot of great people. I'm sure if you've been following me for some time you could easily see this.

However, there is a lot of misinformation. I was eventually promoted to Managing Editor of the site & was ecstatic. Grateful for the opportunity. Felt like all of my hard work in the comedy mines was finally paying off. But things took a turn for the worst, & each day there were new surprises that affected our livelihoods. These were all very avoidable surprises, mind you.

A patreon was going to be our hail mary, but alas, for some reason, the power that be did not want it. Causing us to leave a dream job behind. "At least we did all we could," we consoled ourselves afterwards. I put a lot of myself into this project. I pitched all sorts of ideas that could have helped-- we all did. Merch collaborations, Patreon-integrated YouTube content, so much more. And most of them were shot down out of sheer stubbornness and nothing more. To see lie after lie spread, and multiple big publications and YouTubers that I am a fan of promote this Patreon under these pretenses is incredibly upsetting. There are so many receipts.

Please share this and consider pulling out if you've already put money into this. On Hard Drive using AI, also from Kevin Podas: I can't personally confirm that part aside from some of the recent header images for articles on both Hard Drive and Hard Times are being made with AI. As far as writing, it's been mentioned in the past, but I personally do not know. Maybe others do, maybe not. MORE From Kevin Podas suggesting the owner denying a Patreon being set up earlier cost an artist a job that was replaced by AI: We had a social media person who was awesome! He made the images until this AI implementation. He had to leave because ad revenue was low and a Patreon was aggressively refused.

Luca Fisher: at the risk of burning some bridges, i have to back up kevin here. i've only been part-time, in-and-out of hard drive since i got in last year, but i can corroborate that management doubled and tripled down about not hosting a patreon/crowdfunding and that many other suggestions and ideas, including mine (and ones much smarter than mine!), were shot down in really long, apocalyptic threads of everyone left on deck desperately trying to come up with ways to keep the lights on. managerially it has been messy and sad

i've written for multiple publications that have long since died, ones that were in the process of dying, and ones that, in this case, are soon to be put in the ground. it is sad and sucks every time. i don't know what could have been done differently, but i do know that a lot of great writers and content creators were left shorthanded and unhappy by the way things have gone. and it is sort of puzzling to see the sudden championing of patreon after we were all told plenty of times that it couldn't work and we should move on also, just to add my own personal two cents here, i was really disappointed by the shuttering of many different article sections on the site over the past 6-8 months. i understand cutting corners in a deficit, and i know it had to be done. that said…

all in all, i'm really sad to see this all happen. i don't fault anyone, if only because i don't really know enough about how this all can happen to make sense of it. games journalism is in a sad, sorry state, and will likely no longer be a thing in the next decade

VideoSealMan: I'm gonna say this because I think I deserve to. For months, MONTHS on end I was bugging Hard Drive management about a Patreon. Often I got ignored for a week+, but when I actually got a response I was encouraged to - of all things, write up a Google Doc pitching the concept I did it regardless. I wasn't the only one trying to sway management on a Patreon, but so fiercely was I fighting for it that last night, I was accused of making this comment directly by the CEO! With no evidence whatsoever! After I'd been gone for over a month.

I vouched so hard for Patreon because I wanted all the writers and creatives working with Hard Drive including myself to get paid better. When I actually got a response, the idea was often shut down. Eventually due to the state of my company, my pay was cut for a second time I confronted management alongside a couple other important figureheads at the org and told them that if we couldn't do a Patreon - I could no longer financially justify staying there. The answer was still no, so I left. Baffled at the decision, but whatever.

It is unendingly frustrating to know that myself and many other people who put their soul into Hard Drive LEFT because of management's absolute refusal to compromise on a Patreon, to then see them launch one anyway a month later and get over 1000 people pledging money. I'm seeing a lot of things float around about greed and people being fired. No one was fired. Everyone who left, left because they were sick of management's decision-making. And honestly, management is a lot of things but I would not call them greedy. (From my experience.) They did genuinely make an effort to pay people as much as possible. I found the pay very fair for a while. I am not disputing that I was paid what I was owed - yet management frequently feels the need to remind critics of that. Lmao, yes. I was paid what I was owed. No one is disputing payment. You did the bare minimum a business owner should do and paid everyone their due, very well done. I make no allegations of greed, cheating or foul play. I make allegations of poor management and incompetence that has fucked over other people.

Basically the only people left at Hard Drive have been there for about 2 months. They will reap the rewards of this successful Patreon I and so many others passionately fought for for so long. We will not see a dime.

I do not know the new people at Hard Drive, But I feel bad for them. They were haphazardly thrust into Hard Drive's workplace with little to no explanation on how anything works, or given any context on the state of the place. Even now managements feeds them half-truths and misinformation about other people's grievances. I am broke and have been for a while. I had to move out of my flat in Reading and back with my family because of how little money I was making. This has basically doomed my flatmate to moving back in with abusive parents, which is something I feel guilty about every day. If we had gone with the Patreon I worked myself hoarse over back then, this could have been avoided. Some of my other good pals could also not have been fucked over.

It was a bad judgment call, but it's not a crime. It's just management getting it wrong.

So should you give to the Hard Drive Patreon? I don't know! I don't think any of the new people working there to patch up the holes left by the recent mass exodus have any bad intentions. Maybe they deserve it! But it is not the same site you knew a year ago, or even a month ago. Myself and many people who were there far longer than me and did far more for it than I did are all gone now because we could not deal with management's terrible decision-making and dogass communication any longer. That's what you should know, imo

I had an agreement in place with management that I would receive the next 8 months of revenue from the Hard Drive YT channel from my leaving in November. This was a deal I appreciated, and thought was very fair on management's behalf. So far, the deal has been honoured for 2 months. However as of last night I was removed from the Hard Drive Slack without warning, and as an editor for the YouTube channel. This means I no longer have any way of verifying how much I am owed, I just have to take their word for it. I'm sure management will make their own statements full of half-truths and weird language on the many cases being brought against them - I'd take everything they say with a pinch of salt if some of the screenshots I've seen of them talking about me are any indication lol

To management; I do not want to talk to you. I want you to DM me a screenshot of how much I'm owed every month and then send me the money per our agreement until June, then we can go our separate ways. Do that and admit to your mistakes, and maybe you can recover your reputation! That's it from me, lol. If they pull out of the deal and fuck me over I'll have more to say, but most of what I know is other people's stories of incompetence and poor decision-making, lol. I genuinely get no pleasure out of doing this; I do not think management is evil - I just think they're really bad at what they do and it's cost other, more talented people, lol. You should believe the writers imo

One last thing I wanna say btw, management did often stress that no one should try to make Hard Drive a full time thing. They were transparent about that, and that is fair. I was working on it because at a few points, I was lead to believe we actually were doing a Patreon. Many other ppl have similar stories of being strung along by management changing their minds and stop-starting shit every 2 weeks. We all made the fatal mistake of overestimating our manager - who would tell you one thing one day and something totally opposite the next week lol

Hunter R. Thompson:

I'm not your dad, but speaking as a Hard Drive writer, I don't know that funding Hard Drive on Patreon is worth it

The driving talent on the back end—behind the kickass site I joined in 2019—have peaced out over the years as the site's been (in our view) increasingly mismanaged. Mismanagement like, not setting up crowdfunding before the ship sank and all its best crew failed; or publishing a screenshot of Andy Ngo pedojacketing a trans writer, complete with her deadname; or a disgruntled ex-writer getting falsely accused of shit-talk, by actual staff. I'm grateful for the writing I've gotten to produce for HD (and will forever be kicking myself for not writing even more, in the four years I've had to do it!! i'm a dumbass!!!) but it is very much no longer the site I signed up for.

I don't want to resign as a contributor altogether, because I'm open to the idea of the site recovering and bad practices being retired as finances level out-- it would just be dishonest for potential backers to not be Aware Of The Circumstances, I think.

Jeremy Kaplowitz: i truly don't want to start shit, but feel compelled to say: i want to see Hard Drive succeed w/o resorting to throwing former writers & editors, myself included, under the bus. surely there's a way to save the site without building it over the corpses of those who left. my $0.02 i don't blame anyone who wants to sign up for the HD patreon and i support the website, but that includes those who worked on it for years, have complaints, and don't deserve to be treated like bitter assholes like this kind of stuff is just objectively true, meanwhile there's these new writers who joined the site after i left (meaning, in the last ~3 months) claiming people are liars. decide for yourself if you care, but this is what happened! [Quotes this Tweet]

Seth Finkelstein: Writing for Hard Drive has been a privilege the past few years, and it makes me so angry to see people I looked up to get jerked around behind the scenes. The amount of grenades the editors jumped on our behalf is immense, and I don't think the way they're being treated is right.

Other Bits On AI: We do know for sure however that AI art has been used by the site. Its fucking owner confirms it here:https://twitter.com/MattSaincome/status/1743040541603123622. Seems the owner pushed AI written articles as well! TayFabe: My vaguetweet is making the rounds & these made me apoplectic. - owner regularly lobbied using ai. Once he tested it & said ai was writing better satire than 25% of the HT/HD writers. - ai images were used on the site & socials w/o consulting the team or disclosing it publicly I found the ai bit relevant to include bc 1) it illuminates a stark change in HD's current direction & leadership, 2) ai images have previously been used on the site and (since deleted) ig posts, 3) ai content fucking sucks, and repeatedly pushing to use it is a telling quality The "handful of writers who chose to leave" includes 2 editors-in-chief (both cofounders who wrote a combined total of >1,000 articles & defined the voice of HD), & at least 3 other editors. These guys put in WORK since 2017, so cool to be corrected by ppl who joined in Nov 2023 [Link to mentioned vague tweet from post.] More from TayFabe: owner continuously lobbied for using ai in every possible way. No one else wanted to do it, but he kept on, saying ai was writing better satire than 25% of the HT/HD writers. Also, ai images were used on the site & socials without public disclosure or consulting the team.

The owner has responded now multiple times in a private discord... Thank you for people sharing screenshots! First Screenshot:

Kevin's Response: He banned me from the server for speaking out, so no, I didn't see it. And he gave no indication of a timeline, it was just "we'll do one when *I* say so" and gave every inclination he was totally against it. It bred an environment that pushed our hands to have to leave. Screenshot Round Two:

Kevin's Response: "Starting one in 3 months" is an absolute lie. He denied it, I have screenshots and others who can confirm. No timeline was given. Just "this is what it is now" and like, I couldn't live off of that. I wanted to do more but he was allergic to good ideas from others around him.

Matt, owner of Hard Drive, responds publicly on Twitter.

Matt: Kevin, the patreon launch was delayed because I didn't think it would work. Everyone is happy that it did work. Everyone who left the site because we didn't have money to pay for creative content which didn't revenue is welcome to return home. But unclear why the hostility.

Hard Drive paid out literally every dollar it had, then a bunch more, to creative people who worked on the site. When we ran out of money, we couldn't pay anymore. We did our best.

Kevin: Right, and my point of this thread was that it was completely and totally avoidable. This is reasonable to be upset about. How could I have been any more clear?

Matt: If we knew with 100% certainly that the community would have supported us via patreon, we would have done that. We didn't know. We had tried 4 years ago and got no support. We were wrong this time. We did our best to figure it out. We paid all the money we could.

Kevin: So you knew with 100% certainty this time? Or you took a leap of faith?

Matt: It was a last gasp panic effort after ad rates got cut in half on january 1st due to seasonal spending changes. We didn't know it would work. We were embarrassed to ask for support. We wanted to figure it out.

Kevin: Every site has a Patreon. Every YouTuber, comedy group, etc. But you insisted that nobody cared about Hard Drive. Which is wildly untrue. I know you see that now, but again, I think you can see why I and many others are pretty upset. A last ditch panic effort was long overdue. A couple more things from Matt:

It was about the size of the hole we needed plugged budget wise, the time I had left of personal resources, and the past data I had about us trying a patreon (which turned out to be a bad indicator). I didn't think the Patreon would help us fast enough. I made a bad estimation

aka "if we make $1000 more dollars a month via patreon, which would be 10x what we got last time, we will not solve any of our problems. If instead we try to plow down path B, we might make it out in time." That was the thinking. I chose the wrong path, but didn't mean to Kevin also retweeted this comment from the user Matt was responding to: So you're saying that you're bad at running the business, didn't listen to any of your employees until after they were forced to leave their jobs, and now you're going to get more of the money from the Patreon that was their idea in the first place? Matt's Response: Respectfully, I made a mistake delaying the patreon decision. But keeping a comedy site alive for 9 years is not easy, there are lots of potential ideas, and think overall we've done a good and honorable job. Will leave this thread in peace now to allow people their space.

Sorry for linking to Elon's hellsite (derogatory), but sources need links so...

#video games #patreon #hard drive #ai critical

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dexaroth · 1 year

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it's kind of a fun move to make my very very personal blog also the one I post my drawings on

ive purposefully done it to not create that kind of environment where it's just an account posting art, a one-dimensional abstract thing that's so detached that if I were to post something like 'teehee I tried to off myself so I'm opening comms to pay the bills' it'd be met with utmost surprise bc it'd break the illusion yknow?

but sometimes I do want some drawings to not have context. to be as impersonal as a vintage figure whose sculptor has never been fully known or a golden locket with the picture of someone who you don't know anything about

I want both, to be honest. it's always been a struggle of the need of external validation but also to not want to taint everything with myself

I want to draw a pet portrait for someone and not have it be judged with all the ramblings and half-jokes about how everything sucks every now and then.

I want to draw a guy being mechanically separated for no reason and not have it show up besides someone's pet portrait and having to explain to the average person I don't even know why I like gore so much besides rendering it is fun

it's all like a cycle of making it clear who is behind the art for context but also sometimes wanting everything to speak for itself and wanting a sort of pure reaction to it

and it culminates into that overly familiar feeling.. of wanting to be consistent. to have a feel, a look that you can maybe hope someone will identify as yours.. and the question is always the same - for what? why? why does it matter?

if anything the first thing I'd ever say to someone who remotely showed interest in art and wanted to know my side of it is that nothing matters and everything is subjective and that there will always be people who see too much meaning where there isn't and people who miss the point entirely. and that diversity is just as good as quality and not a binary switch that you have to pick for the rest of your life. and that often by trying to achieve perfection you just end up dumping what gave your art a personal touch because it wasn't absolutely on par with the version of you that you so desperately want people to identify you with or the vibe you want to give off or whatever else

it's kind of a problem that also has different connotations depending on the way wherever you post works, too

on devart and I think insta too favorites and likes are the easiest way to show a kind of support that happens to streamline everything into images on a page instead of actually taking in most detail, the title or description or lack thereof, maybe even a message or line or music lyric intended to aid in the perception.. that ends up getting completely ignored because it takes extra effort to do. and it gets exponentially worse the more people you follow

then, well.. tumblr. because of the way the posts are organized and at least show captions it has a bit of a leg up, but then the sideblog stuff comes up. posts 95% of the time only give traction to the account that posted it, so a sideblog where you reblog your art is pretty much just a gallery for the convenience of whoever follows them. if you post on that sideblog however, then that facilitates no one visiting your main and just looking at the drawings, leading to the art-artist detachment as it is also plenty of extra steps and effort

then, independently, the path you choose is hard to undo. choose to be unknown and be bound to the façade you have to keep and not break your persona, or put all bits of yourself out to the public and there will forever be an image/ background version of you that will contextualize everything you do

try to turn around and choose to hide and it will put people off and affect how some will look at your new stuff now that you're less of a social butterfly because of the instinct of curiosity and wanting to know what happened , choose to show yourself and now you're too real and people don't want to associate with you because of the things you express or how it hits different knowing x and y or just not caring about you enough to be bothered to keep up with your life with sporadic drawings inbetween

it's all ironically about your own self-image and knowing others who know you

oh and it just hit me the financial side of things too. but that's too much for me rn and it's sort of a bonus to my point anyways

idk man. I feel like I'm having a stroke while an influencer tries to explain branding to me

#the public vs hidden thing is also like trying to balance the evils #do you want to enable being made fun of by quirky neurotypicals and edgelords bc of ur 'archetype'#or do you want to enable everyone to put any meaning to your art including dogshit ones and treat it like a commodity #public enough to have your name or style used pejoratively to describe other people #or hidden enough to blend in and represent nothing and say nothing. just like a blank piece of paper #these two sort of types are everywhere and there just doesnt seem to be a grey area. its just.... awkward.#ah yes look at my painting and tell me what you think of it! dont take me into consideration at all though. pretend this came out of thin>#>air bc thats how i want it to be perceived. bc of course we all know thats a thing that can be controlled by sheer will right? lol #i want to draw whatever. i want to stop giving a shit. not care of what people think its all about. but i want to be seen as well. ..#and its frustrating bc i find it immeasurably valuable to find meaning in the mundane #to find the whimsy and care on someone's 'bad' stickman cat doodle even tough sketches dont mean barely anything to the artist #and then i get sad when someone below my skill level finds My sketches good despite me posting them as a 'look at how bad this looks lol'#just. being desperate for wanting everything to go your way #like a filmmaker who swears the theater is an integral part of their movie when in reality a guy watching at home cherishes it just as much #i think id turn inside out of disgust if i ever truly legitimally considered all the 'wrong' ways people can experience my art #compressed to hell or they just didnt bother to zoom in and didnt notice the brushstrokes and effects #which is totally normal and common and i myself do it! but my ego says nuh uh. go feel bad bc other ppl have agency lol #i can definitely pretend i dont care anymore and even try to believe it so much i unconsciously start assimilating it #but the Moment someone comments something that contradicts what i thought and wished was happening i just. break .#im truly trying to stave off negative thoughts and teaching myself that what others think of me doesnt define me #and one day im overhearing something i wasnt meant to know and its that someone thinks im a child #and ends up treating me like one. like im too stupid to do anything #and then i look back at my eyestrain/cartoonish stuff thats in fact considered childish by people who try to use age as>#a token of 'i dont enjoy X because X is for kids because/therefore im an AdulT! respect me!'#and i just have to face the reality that thats the image of me my art gives off by itself and what society chose it to symbolize as well #which it all leads to wanting so deeply a way to control how others view you because of how age gate-keeping for example is so stupid #and it bleeds into every other feeling and paranoia and self doubt #either you act cool and lie about who you are or let others label you what they see fit especially what they consider to be deserving of>#>ridicule #dextxt

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illnessfaker · 3 months

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tw: black+trans death

from the_yvesdropper on instagram:

our beautiful black trans brother, 35 year old Righteous Torrence "Chevy" Hill, was murdered in Atlanta, GA this weekend.

he went by his nickname 'Chevy' he was originally from Macon, GA. he owned Evollusion, which is a black/ queer owned LGBTQ+ salon in Atlanta that provided and dedicated full service to specializing in hair, nails, barbering and makeup. growing up as young black queer boys/kids, the barbershop experience can sometimes be a tricky space to occupy, this was something that Chevy understood and wanted to cultivate a space of safety where you can also get the affirming look and style you want, and he did exactly that.

Chevy was a beloved son, brother, partner, and father.

one of his last posts that had a photo of himself said :

"if you truly know me, you know i am a humble, modest, private man, that i love my community, i have the love of God in me and will give the shirt off my back to any soul in need, also i never post pictures of myself, legaey give myself credit, that stops today, i am my legacy!"

(a close friend of Chevy asked if i could share more then one photo of Chevy, since he never posted photos of himself and in recent years he got the confidence to want to share more photos and now he won't get the chance to)

Chevy, hey king, hey brother, hey angel, thank you for everything, i lové you, we lové you, i'm so sorry. there are a lot of photographers in heaven who will be able to photograph you as the glorious black trans angel that you are.

there will be a homegoing service/memorial for our brother

there aren't many details about what happened but apparently he was shot by a family member last wednesday, the 28th (at least this article was the one linked in relation to his murder.)

judging by both the IG post and the comments section he was well-loved by many people and those people have many good memories with him and nothing but good things to say. this is a comment that was left by tirajmeansgolden which was hidden by IG for some reason:

I started testosterone in February 2020. I hit this man up at the end of 2019 after numerous Google searches for an LGBT-friendly barber near me (and by near me... he was a good 35-40 minutes from the rural area I was in outside of Atlanta: but when I found out he was a trans man and that his business was the first and only LGBT hair bar, I knew it would be worth the trip). I was a dysphoric mess in his DMs one Sunday. I hated how my hair was growing out. I never had a "masculine" hairstyle before but decided one day I would buzz it all off myself, then allowed it to grow out a bit... I sent him a video and despite him being closed on Sunday, he told me to come through. I got my hair braided and he gave me my first really masculine fade. Explained the different terms. Lined me up. Was asking me about my decision to transition and provided some helpful advice + guidance. I told him how I was a therapist and he was hype and said he talked with a group of trans men and he would love for me to stop by and also give some mental health tips. So whoever said he was humble - wow, what an understatement. Such a community man! Made me feel SO comfortable because barbershops were a source of major trauma and triggers for me. They were such an integral part of my early transition (I just celebrated 4 years later week). And he was such an integral part of the Atlanta Queer community with hosting events like Queer Con. How I found so many other great resources + queer businesses/artists. May you rest in peace, Chevy. You'll be missed. You've made such a different in the lives of countless people. You definitely were living your Purpose + left a legacy behind ...

#op #rest in power #black trans lives matter #death -#black death -#trans death -#didn't add a tw to the top of this post at first. sorry everyone.

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hightowered · 1 month

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and you know i gotta say. the vast majority of the people losing their shit this weekend made it very clear that they do not understand the difference between "artists who want a measure of comfort in their lives" and "the billionaires actually being targeted by phrases like eat the rich." that is such a weird thing to be so proud to announce to the whole entire internet.

it's also extremely weird to behave as though any individual is entitled to an artist's work for free. or that the audience should be the final say in determining what an artist creates. there is a major difference between the betrayal of an artist who produces art and then banks on their social capital to engage in harmful, violent, bigoted behavior (like jk rowling) and the "betrayal" of an artist who decides that they should be or need to be compensated for their work. the latter isn't actually a betrayal at all. it's just a shift.

the thing is that the watcher boys didn't invent capitalism, they didn't invent the streaming model, they didn't invent youtube or patreon. they aren't getting 100% of the money from either. their merch doesn't magically appear as if made by elves while they sleep. their videos don't happen out of nowhere and without incurring bills. they have a business which employs people, and sure, you can say they employ too many people, but do they actually? a bunch of randos on the internet don't actually know that. they don't know these job titles, or how necessary it is to have everyone there. it's pure speculation. the entire company exists within a system they did not invent and are trying to stay afloat in said system while a bunch of assholes on the internet berate them for not acquiescing to their every whim at the expense of their artistic integrity, their ability to compensate their staff fairly, and their ability to keep making art.

and jumping from "i want to continue enjoying this artist's work for free" to "i think people should be fired and the remaining employees should be given greater responsibilities and more tasks to complete" is wild to me. there's nothing leftist in that and so trying to leverage leftist jargon to prove some sort of moral superiority is fucking wild, it's disingenuous, and it's sketchy as hell. you're allowed to be disappointed. you're not magically exempt from being told you're being an asshole if you decide your disappointment entitles you to take part in asshole behavior.

"but we don't want something heavily produced and we don't want these shows" then don't watch! that's it! don't watch! you are not being held hostage and forced to engage with this content. you have the choice not to. throwing a tantrum and launching racist vitriol at steven lim and demanding he step down as CEO shows a level of entitlement and childishness that, frankly, i wish they could have ignored, but they're both kinder & more patient than i am.

anyway congratulations to watcher on their new streaming service and their gorgeous new website, congratulations to the boys on a new step in their careers and on achieving something they've made clear they've wanted for ages, thank you to the boys for all their hard work and for sharing their creativity with us. thank you too for taking such a big and genuinely brave step to no longer be beholden to major corporations and advertisers so you can make the art you want to make. thank you to steven lim for taking so many steps back to keep the company running and for doing your best in a shit economy and while being targeted by this kind of nastiness online. and thank you to the entire team at @wearewatcher for continuing to do amazing work despite being treated like shit by the fan community at large on the internet while you're trying to make a living and create art. you all deserve better than you've been shown of late and i hate that such an exciting moment got overshadowed by so many temper tantrums.

because the whole fucking point, the dream, is getting to make the art that matters to them, without being held back. i'm sorry y'all don't want the heavily produced and high quality shit but your preferences as a member of an audience are not the law by which artists should abide. they are artists and they are free to, and deserve to, make the art they want to make.

#watcher #watcher entertainment #could this rollout have been handled better? sure! but for the love of god the way y'all have been reaching to demonize them #steven in particular #it's frankly pretty horrifying #like y'all actually behave that way? and are proud to have a record of it?

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cdlum · 5 months

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I just wanted to say I think your art style is awesome! I was wondering if you had any tutorials on how you draw anatomy in your style (hips and legs especially)? Sorry if there's already one posted and I just didn't see it 🥲. Happy New Year :>

thanks for the kind words. i tend to draw people pretty stylized and then some so a good bit of artistic licence gets used. these tips are just what i use so feel free to take them with a grain of salt. with anatomy in particular you can kind of talk in circles because human/animal bodies are that complex so ill just zone in on the points you specified. here's a little image with a bunch of pointers:

the above image condenses a lot of the points I'd make, but basically the key parts are to start with the bare essentials and build up that complexity. using a line of action is a good way to get a quick, rough start. you draw a line out in the general direction of the pose and do your best to adhere to it to give the pose a sense of flow.

you can also draw smaller, thumbnail versions that throw a lot of caution to the wind but capture the basic energy of what you're going for. even having a tiny little stick figure version of your idea can make for a good guideline of where to take it forward.

when it comes to actual limbs, you wanna consider how they integrate and work together, kind of like how chains do. you can see on some of the parts of pear i've drawn out these wireframes to kind of portray how the mass of her legs works in a three dimensional space. for aspects like the waist/hips, i use that X technique i highlight above a lot, particularly for the lower torso. a lot of the times, even when drawing a character totally naked, imagining them wearing things like skintight underwear can help a lot to guide you in the right direction.

its also a good idea to consider things like gravity and weight to a degree. humans are essentially big meat sacks and gravity is always pulling down on that, but theres all kinds of aspects that effect that, such as character build or clothing. pear technically isn't naked in this, but i've tried to imagine her as such and take that into account.

if you are drawing digitally, don't be afraid to take advantage of the convenience you get with that workflow. you can retry and iterate on things a lot faster that pen and paper, and do things that aren't really feasible at all when it comes to editing and modifying your existing work. things like resizing certain bodyparts, instantly flipping the canvas, or using selection tools to completely adjust the positions of parts of your drawing. to give you an example heres a timelapse with all the little edits i made just to this demo drawing:

you don't have to use these techniques linearly, either. sometimes ill have a really solid idea for a piece in my head, and go back to basics with certain elements if they’re not coming out right or i just want to brush them up a bit more. some of the tutorial-y parts i added in i didn't actually use during the drawing but often do use so they're there just for demonstration. not every drawing i do starts as building blocks or a really basic version, often ill just start with a face and build it out from there.

i always encourage liberally using references (this can include yourself) and trying out stuff like life drawing or looking at things like existing photographs of real people/places/things if you can, the more you use learning material the better you'll draw up a mental inventory in your head that you can rely on more and more. some of these tips are things i've learned from other artists over the years (the chin one especially i remember seeing a tutorial about lol), so this is a lot of knowledge i've amassed from other sources over time myself. there are plenty of times ill use all sorts of reference material and its all in service of arriving at the final destination as smoothly as possible. learn by doing, as they say. hope this helps!

#tutorial #2024

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tcfactory · 6 months

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Since my brain has been full of SVSSS brainrot lately:

I want a fic where the transmigration mostly fails and Shen Jiu wakes up from his qi deviation as User002 with the goddamn System treating him like he is Shen Yuan. Trashy yellow book what??? No, he doesn't need stats on his fellow peak lords, if he is supposed to follow a plot then he wants to see the script! You wretched floating rectangle, how is he supposed to play along if he doesn't know the source material?!

The stress of having what feels like a very pushy curse or an insanely weird demon inflicted upon him makes him deviate from some minor plot points and he gets punished for being OOC a couple of times until the System takes pity on him and directs him to Airplane bro, with the very clear suggestion that if he can't remember the early arcs of the story - System understands, User! It's very long after all. UwU - he should go and discuss it with the author.

He basically kicks down Shang Qinghua's door in desperation for some clarity and maybe an explanation, right now before he works himself into a stress-induced qi deviation, Shang-shidi. Shang hamster looks at his miserable scum villain, takes a deep breath, brings out all of Shen Qingqiu's favorite snacks that nobody should know about, makes a pot of calming tea and tells him everything.

Shang Qinghua expects Shen Qingqiu to be angry, to rip into him for writing him into this wretched life. And Shen Jiu is angry, but not at Qinghua. His anxious, mousy little shidi who lives his entire life under the looming threat of a horrible, seemingly unchangeable future doesn't look like a god. Shang Qinghua, who does his best to run his peak well and look out for his disciples despite his admittance that in the story the original Qinghua did a shoddy job - he doesn't look like someone who would have put pen to paper and written a tragedy if he knew it would become someone's reality.

And how could Shen Jiu, who has seen people sell their bodies and their very dignity for a cup of stale water, judge someone for writing a very bad yellow book so he can eat? Please. Peak Lord Shen might have developed a very discerning taste in literature over the years, but you can't fill your stomach with artistic integrity, Shang-shidi. Shen Jiu understands.

So they sit and for that first evening, Shen Qingqiu listens to all the differences creeping into the story, Shang Qinghua's retelling of the drafts he abandoned due to peer pressure, the long rambling tangents of the research he's done, even if they never made it into the story. Qinghua is so caught up in having someone to talk to that he doesn't realize that Shen Qingqiu put everything that happened to Qi-ge together, somewhere between the musings about how a sword inspired by kintsugi would be so cool looking, shame that nobody ever sees the thing, and the griping about how much one of his patrons complained about Yue Qingyuan dying without ever drawing his sword.

Later, when the snacks are gone and the tea is replaced with something stronger, he tells Shen Qingqiu about the stories he really wanted to write. About how he shamefully sneaked his dream man into PIDW, just so he could have some small part to himself, and oh, Shen Qingqiu will have to remind him about demon courting practices when they are both sober again, because it sounds like that Mobei prince is down bad for him.

He leaves that night with a newfound determination. Shang Qinghua might be resigned to the whims of his System and the shackles of the Plot, but Shen Jiu didn't burn the Qiu manor down and break his chains to give up so easily. This is his world, his sect, his Qi-ge on the line, and he would sooner wrest control from the System and become custodian of the world himself than let something take away and ruin what is his. He is the strategist of Cang Qiong Sect, there is no situation he can't think a way out of and he has had enough of tragedies.

Before any of that, however, he needs to go and have a good yell at his Qi-ge, smack his stupid face and then curl up in his arms for a good night's sleep. It's long overdue.

#svsss #shen qingqiu #shen jiu #shang qinghua #that last bit can be read as qijiu or platonic #but I'm personally very partial to qijiu. they just have so much tasty tasty tragedy to sink your teeth into #sqq fixing the world by directing his anger at the right thing for once? more likely than you'd think #idk how they would deal with all the binghe related nonsense but sqq is nothing if not resourceful #tc writes

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omegalomania · 1 year

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the full apple music interview with zane lowe is out! we got snippets of it when love from the other side dropped, but they finally rolled out the full thing. here are some highlights that stood out to me :)

patrick describes pete's lyrics as what gets him out of bed in the morning. if pete doesn't send him lyrics, he doesn't write a song.

andy and pete used to draw fake snake tattoos on each other using magic markers as kids omg?

so evidently patrick was the one who got covid during hella mega tour. and he hated it and he was miserable and that's when he called neal avron about the new record lmao

patrick says that joe was hesitant at first and he was the one who said that for this record he wanted to make something that they could all savor and spend time on and patrick was immediately on board with that

pete says patrick's job is to interpret him because pete calls his mentality a "little bit off" but patrick is capable of understanding him and translating it

patrick describes his and pete's creative relationship as "twin speak." it's not linear and it's like living in his brain a little bit. he calls it the "weirdest thing i've ever seen" when pete can just Tell that some words that patrick adjusted weren't ones he wrote despite not remembering writing them. patrick says he's gotten better at connective tissue and knowing how pete would say things

pete: back in the day patrick was like, "what's the difference between cry and weep i will KILL YOU. THEY'RE THE SAME THING. I'M GONNA KILL YOU RIGHT NOW."

zane says patrick's vocals are next level for this album. pete agrees that he kills it on this album and said he never would've expected that voice coming from him when they first met. zane says patrick could sing a recipe and it would be good. he then passes patrick a recipe and patrick. sings it???

patrick: i'm not gonna belt it. (starts belting) NINE INCH PIE PLATE ROLLING PIN

patrick says that pete doesn't mean to have rhythm to his words but there's a rhythm to them all the same and patrick can find this syncopation in his words and thinks it's amazing

more talking about patrick and pete's Magical Mystical Transcendent Soul Bond. patrick says "if we were one guy, we'd be an INCREDIBLE DUDE"

patrick and pete say that interviews with all four of them are hard because it's chaos and everyone's talking at once but it all makes perfect sense to them and no one else. zane says that sounds like fun flkjdfd [i agree please do this more it's a joy]

pete says joe really stepped up and wrote a lot for this record!

patrick: "joe is kind of a conundrum because he's this really talented...he's a brilliant writer, a brilliant player, but pete and i became the "team" and it wasn't really a plan, but that's just kind of how it happened. [brief tangent about the hiatus] we come back from the thing and joe is this fully-formed writer with a very distinct - he has one of the most distinctive writing voices. when i hear his parts, when i hear his ideas, i could pick them out of a crowd. like i know the way joe writes, and it's VERY joe." part of the process with post-hiatus was integrating him into the writing process more.

discussing the hiatus and fame and pete says his life kind of "blew up" and took it pretty hard. apparently during production for folie paparazzi actually broke down the gate to neal avron's house

patrick goes on a big tangent about how bad things got during the height of pete's fame. "part of my role is to tell his story. i'm a composer. that's what i like to do. i work on movies, i work on shows, and i work on pete. pete has a story that needs music, and if he's removed from himself, if he's not even able to access himself because he's behind all of this stuff, i don't have a story! so not only did i not have my buddy, which was heartbreaking in its own way, but then i also don't have a purpose as an artist."

patrick says that andy is always ready to play but when you get him happy to play, it's another level

"and trohman, there were these moments where he...he got so excited."

patrick describes writing what a time to be alive as wanting to write the saddest, most desperate song you could hear at a wedding. pete bursts into laughter and calls it "so twisted"

talking about other endeavors outside the band - patrick talks about composing and said joe's been super busy with his book and writing for tv and because there are so many deadlines for stuff like that, it's what hammered home to him that fall out boy needs to not be that. "there's something special about this that can't be...this has to be passionate and art."

discussing how scared patrick was of his own voice while the band took off. patrick was really scared of the song saturday at first because there are some really exposed vocal moments. he describes saturday as a song where everyone in the band lets each other go for it.

zane calls fall out boy the "emo blueprint" and says they were unapologetic in being emotional. patrick immediately says, "that was pete. i don't think we could've done that without him." he and joe were basically kids and patrick was too anxious to talk on stage.

zane says, "i remember interviewing you in the early days and i felt like every time i asked you a question i was bullying you." pete IMMEDIATELY loses his shit.

"in another life where i didn't have a pete...cause saturday, i did write most of that by myself...so there's a world where that song exists without the band. there's no world where i sing it in front of people without pete."

pete says every night before they put out a new song he calls patrick up and gets really scared and wants to back out and patrick talks him down every time

they talk about how scary it was when arm's race released and performing it at the amas. patrick starts laughing rly hard as they get into how there were giant crickets on stage and the crowd was just stone-faced and utterly nonresponsive and their stage manager was utterly panicked

towards the end patrick really loosens up and starts swearing more dlkfjdfd

#fall out boy #*making poasts #they kept being SO SWEET ABOUT EACH OTHER LIKE. I CANT HANDLE IT #patrick and pete are like lets tell everybody about our magical soulbond for 1 hour straight. thanks guys.

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themidnightcrimson · 1 year

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palette ࿏ wm

summary: in which your mother commissions a renowned painter to paint your portrait.

words: 6.0K

warnings: top!wanda, fem!reader, oral (r receiving), fingering (r receiving), lots of tense gay ogling, so much sexual tension, minor use of paint in sex, very victorian era girlie themed, mentions of men (scary!)

this post is for 18+ only. minors dni.

masterlist.

Your mother was being incredulous about the situation. Time and time again, you tried to convince her that you were not the marrying type, that she need not go to her extreme ends to find you a husband. Whether it was showing you off like show cattle at parties, offering to pay men to marry you with money or titles, or throwing you at the nearest man around, which one time ended up being the innocent post boy, she was relentless in marrying you off.

Any time a man did take an interest in you, which was not unreasonable due to your fair beauty and youth, you hated and despised him and dwindled down his integrity until he ran away like a dog clutching the remnants of his masculinity between his legs. Relief was momentary, for once you ran one off, she only brought around another.

Her new tactic that she invented in that stubborn little head of hers was to commission a renowned painter to paint your portrait to be hung in the halls of your wealthy home. With all the parties and dinners she hosted so desperately often to cling to her respected name in society, she thought that surely a young man would see the portrait of her jeweled and beautiful daughter and demand to own her. Of course, your mother demanded the best, so she hired the infamous Maximoff artist to paint your portrait.

“He will be here any minute,” she whispered behind you as she violently tightened the strings of your corset until you felt your stomach was tucked inside your ribcage.

Taking a shallow breath, the deepest one you could breathe, you looked down at the emerald green dress. It was a beautiful dress, sure. Gold lace crawled over the green corset at your waist, and the green parted at a low point in your bosom, opening wide to reveal your entire chest, metal wires ensuring that your breasts were pushed up and on full display. One thing about your mother was that she hid no tricks. You were her trick, and you were sure she would have you painted naked like a whore if it meant having a son-in-law and grandchildren.

“Mother,” you gasped when she tightened the corset even further, struggling to breathe. “Do you not expect a common man to want a wife who breathes?”

“Hush,” she snapped as she tied off the strings at your back. The dress’s intricate under-weavings made sure that your hips looked wider than your own intellect. Most of the time, you liked to prance around in delicate underdresses in which you could breathe and move freely. This dress, with its constricting corset and heavy hips and layers upon layers of white underskirts, made you feel like you were standing with your head in a noose.

“If he’s such an excellent painter, can’t he just use his own imagination about what I’m wearing? That’s what most men do in their heads, anyway.”

“Mr. Maximoff is the most respected artist in the country,” she breathed, circling you to look you once over. Her hands went to the breast of the corset, trying to lower it down even more.

“Mother!” you shrieked, widening your eyes at her and tugging the fabric back up. “Why are you trying to make me look like a whore in front of who you say is the most respected artist in the country?!”

“He’s Sokovian,” she argued. “They’re exotic.”

You rolled your eyes at her bitter distaste for foreigners, and if you could breathe, you would have let the venomous words roll off your tongue.

“Besides, even if he doesn’t paint you as a doable wife, perhaps he would graciously take you himself.” Her eyes flickered up to your hair which was swooped high up on your head, a few curls of your hair hanging over your cheeks. The earrings on your ears were heavy, and the jewels on your neck were even heavier. You felt like your outer bearings weighed a thousand pounds and were crushing your frail body with every passing second. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to die in that moment, you certainly did, but you would be damned if it was in such a ridiculous outfit.

A housemaid rushed into the room suddenly and declared, “The painter has arrived.”

Your mother nearly slapped you across the face with how fast her hands went to fixing your hair. “Send him in!”

There was a hesitant look on the maid’s face, but she left with her hands fumbling together. Your mother turned your shoulders towards the door, harshly slapping your lower back to make your back straighten. You sighed, feeling anxious at how little you could breathe. You grabbed at your neck as if that would help you breathe, but your mother slapped your hand away. “Don’t fidget.”

She stood next to you, her hands posed at her front, a wide smile on her face. You were pretty sure that she wanted her men to desire herself as much as they desired you, and sometimes you wondered if you might marry a man just so he could fuck your mother and get her out of your own ass.

“Smile,” she whispered, but that was one thing she would have to slap across your face before you ever would.

The door to the library opened slowly, and you could feel your mother’s excited breaths beside you. A booted foot stepped into the room first, your eyes following the body that stepped through. A leg clothed in wide grey trousers, a frilly cream blouse tucked into the pants. You were offput by a mane of long, wavy brunette hair, though your first instinct was maybe Sokovian men donned long hair as a cultural preference. But when you saw the face that glowed into the room, those viridescent eyes, sharp cheekbones with a feminine curve, supple pink lips, your own lips fell open as you realized that Mr. Maximoff was, in fact, a woman.

You thought your mother was going to spontaneously combust in a theatrical display of steaming, rageful sparks. You looked over at her—her eyes were glancing down the woman over and over again, trying to figure out how in the world this person could possibly be a woman, this person who she had built up to the be the key to breeding her own daughter.

You couldn’t help but gleam at the impossibly devastated look on her face. This painter was a woman standing here in pants, holding an easel with a canvas under one strong arm and a bag full of paints in the other.

“Mr. Maximoff?” your mother gasped stupidly.

By the look on the woman’s face, you could tell this wasn’t the first time. “Ms. Maximoff. Wanda.” She stepped forward, setting her supplies down on the floor. “It is a pleasure to meet you and have the honor of being commissioned by your name.” Her Sokovian accent was thick and velvety. She came closer, holding out a hand to your mother. She eyed it like it was a snake, but took it, and Wanda shook her hand like a man.

Her snakelike eyes flickered to you. “I presume this is your daughter—my subject?”

“Uh…” Your mother began, her eyes focused on the shape of Wanda’s breasts under her shirt as if in disbelief. “Yes, this is my daughter, y/n.”

Your eyes were trained on Wanda’s. They were looking at you pointedly, a little wide, soaking up every inch of your presence as if you were the only source of light in the room. Her lips curved into a coy smirk. “Pleasure,” she gently spoke, reaching for your hand. You gave it to her, expecting her to shake it, but she gently turned your palm over, her thumb tracing the soft skin on the back of your hand, before she lowered down and pressed her lips there.

It became even harder to breathe as the woman rose back up, the feeling of her lips still tingling on the skin of your hand. “You are as beautiful as your mother spoke of you.”

For once, you actually smiled without your mother forcing you to. Wanda stepped away, looking between you and your mother expectantly. “Well, shall I get to work? I do charge by the hour.”

Your mother was in some sort of trance. “Oh, um… Sure—well, you see Mr.—Ms. Maximoff—”

“Wanda.”

“… Wanda. I was, admittedly, under the impression that the painter I commissioned to paint my daughter’s portrait would be a man. Are you sure that you do not have a father or brother by the same name, or even a husband, who can come instead? You see, this portrait is going to be very important to me. I intend to show my daughter’s beauty and wealth so that I can find her a proper husband, and given that is such an important cause, I need a painter with the highest skill and artistry to do it properly.”

Wanda only blinked. “There is no other Maximoff but myself. I understand your concern about this portrait, but I ensure you that my skill and artistry will serve the best purpose for your daughter, though her beauty so obvious that even a street painter could convey it.” Her eyes flickered to you again, drawing up another smile on your face. It was funny how she was painting your face without even holding a brush.

Your mother’s eyes danced around uncomfortably. “Well…” She paused, looking over Wanda once again. “Alright.”

“Shall we do it here?” Wanda asked, pointing towards a sofa that sat in the corner of the library against a beautifully wallpapered wall.

“Alright,” your mother said reluctantly. Wanda instantly went to work, setting up her easel and canvas in front of the sofa. She then turned to you, holding out her hand with that sort of smirk on her face. “Come.”

Hesitating, you stepped forward, sliding your hand into her soft, gentle one. She led you over to the sofa, gesturing you to sit, holding your hand until you were fully seated. You squirmed a little as she looked down at you, her eyes appearing darker now that she was turned away from your mother who stood watching with nervous eyes and fidgeting hands. Wanda was staring down at you with an unreadable expression, and when your mother cleared her throat in the silence, it seemed she almost forgot she was there.

Wanda turned to look at your mother, clasping her hands behind her back and taking a few steps towards her.

“My lady, I do find my creative focus more intent when in the presence of only my muse and myself,” Wanda spoke confidently. Your mother was obviously taken aback by this, as if she had expected to watch the entire process, her hand of control over every little thing. She liked to think she was God, or at least God of your world and everything that had to do with you.

“Oh—are you sure?”

Wanda smiled graciously and nodded.

Your mother looked between Wanda and you reluctantly before finally nodding and stepping away. “Well, if you need me, you can ring the bell for the maid.” She paused again, waiting to be told to stay, but Wanda only stared at her, so finally she left, closing the door gently behind her.

You could breathe a little easier now that your mother wasn’t in the room. Wanda sighed and turned on her heel to face you. Your back straightened instinctively under her prolonged stare, your eyebrows creasing to try and figure out why she was staring at you with her head tilted as if you were already a painting hung in a gallery.

“Confusion doesn’t look good on you, darling, and it surprises me so that anything could not look good on you,” she smoothly murmured, taking slow steps parallel from you. She disappeared behind the easel before reappearing on the other side of it, her eyes still trained on you.

You shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. “You’re staring at me.”

She blinked, a smile widening on her face. “I’m supposed to paint you. How can I do that without ever looking at you?”

Your face warmed a little, eyes darting down to the floor. She made a noise with her tongue before she went over to the large window of the grand library, pulling on a chain to close the thick, heavy curtains until the room was blanketed in darkness. You could hardly see anything now—you heard the fumbling of things and the striking of a match before a golden light emanated from the table nearby. Wanda had lit a candle, bringing the match near her lips and blowing on it to put it out.

“What are you doing?”

She walked to the other side of the sofa where another smaller table was and lit a candle there too, so that now you were blanketed in a soft, orange huge.

“This painting is to attract men to you for the purpose of marriage, correct?” she asked as she blew the second match out. “What’s more attractive than dim lighting under the intimate glow of candles?” Her eyes, darker now, flickered to you as she walked back to her easel, dragging a nearby stool to the easel and lighting one last candle there so that she could see her work.

“How sensual,” you remarked, to which a hidden smile curled on her lips, shadowed by her hair.

Wanda reached into her bag and brought out a palette, a tin can of brushes, a jug of water, and several bottles of paint, placing them all on the stool beside the easel. You expected her to just be quiet and start painting, but she walked towards you. Your chin rose to keep your eyes on hers as she neared you, looking down at you analytically.

“Sit back a little,” she said softly, “So your back is against the cushion.” You did as she said, scooting back until you could sit up straight with the support of the cushion. “Good. Now, your hands…” She looked at where you had placed them, lying mindlessly on either side of your lap. “What are we going to about those?” She smirked again.

“What do you mean?”

“Hands are as integral part of a portrait as is the face,” she tilted her head and leaned back, imagining your visage as a whole. “Cross them over your lap.”

You plopped them over each other on your knees, expecting that to be good enough, but when you glanced back at her, she was trying not to laugh. “What?” you asked defensively.

“Nothing,” she said, her Sokovian accent edged with amusement. “Here.” She knelt down in front of you, gently taking your wrists into her hands. You held your breath as she positioned them very particularly over your lap, trying to ignore the way her fingertips grazed the fabric of your skirt and left wrinkles in the fabric there, indentions of her touch. Her hands touching yours so delicately was sending jolts of electricity up your spine. You blasphemed yourself for being so shy of a simple touch, from a girl, nonetheless.

Once she had your hands positioned the way she wanted, she stood back up and assessed your top half. You caught the way her eyes fed upon your chest for a brief, startling moment before she looked up to your face. “Sit up a little straighter.” She put her hands on your shoulders, gently guiding you to sit up, her fingertips sliding to your upper back. You grew bothered at how handsy she was being. Her hands moved to your face, adjusting the curls of hair that were left out of your updo. Her face was close to yours now, her cool breath fanning across your mouth and leaving you no room to breathe, a heat forming under the skin of your face.

You recoiled suddenly, and she looked at you with unnerved eyes. “Did I hurt you?”

Her sudden change of confidence at the thought of somehow paining you by moving your hair eased your discomfort a little. “You’re reminding me of my mother. Always picking at me, fixing me.”

Her lips pursed together. “Your mother fixes you to her liking. I’m fixing you to yours.”

You eyed her suspiciously. “I haven’t said a word to you about any of my likings.” You noticed how quiet you were speaking, how quiet the room was, how close you were together in the corner of the large room.

“You don’t have to. I can tell,” she whispered with a crawling smile, adjusting your hair one last time before finally moving away from you. “Now, just sit.”

“Seems simple enough,” you breathed once she was finally behind her easel, trying your best to stay still.

She picked up her palette and started mixing paints and water, tussling through some brushes before finding one she wanted, and you finally heard the scraping of her brush on the canvas. You would have much rather been behind the easel with her, watching with as much curiosity and intrigue as you had then as she worked, than be sitting still like a lifeless doll as her eyes stared at you.

After several minutes of having her look between you and the easel, you started to get uncomfortable. The corset was still restricting your breath, and it felt impossible to keep your hands completely still. The dress was making your back hurt, and the painful silence and the feeling of Wanda’s eyes constantly on yours was enough to make you go mad. You hadn’t even realized that you were starting to squirm, accidentally moving your hands and your position.

You heard a sigh which led you to look back up at Wanda. She set the palette down, along with her brush, and stepped out from behind the easel, pacing back and forth with her eyes set upon you in a sort of disappointed and confused stare.

“What?” you blurted, feeling offended that somehow she thought you couldn’t even just sit to her liking. “What am I doing wrong?”

“You’re fidgeting,” she said with more seriousness, her artistic focus shining through.

You looked down and realized that somehow over the course of a few minutes you had completely lost the original position she had you in. You sighed, deflating as sharp pains ran up your torso. “I’ve never been painted before.”

“Well, it’s an honor to take your portrait virginity,” she countered with a little smirk, ceasing her pacing to stand staring at you with a tilted head.

A searing hot blush fled to your cheeks. “You speak like a man.”

“You’re sitting like one.”

You realized you were lounging disgracefully on the sofa with your back hunched and legs open. Snapping your legs shut, you groaned and laid back on the sofa dramatically. “I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this.”

“You don’t want to be painted?”

“No! And I don’t want to be married off to some bastard and bred like swine until I die. I cannot breathe without her trying to stuff me into a man’s side like an armpiece. I cannot breathe with her constantly in my ear speaking to me how I should talk better, walk better, sit better, stand better, look better. I cannot breathe—I just cannot breathe!” You leaned forward suddenly, feeling faint and gasping for air, clawing helplessly at the front of your corset whose fabric was stuck to your skin.

Wanda neared you calmly, holding out a hand in front of your face. Still gasping, you looked up at her, eyes falling to her hand. Feeling helpless, you slid your hand into yours and stood to face her. You realized then suddenly just how beautiful she was, with her full mouth and sharp eyes that were always piercing into you. Without speaking, her hands slid over your shoulders and smoothly turned you around. You froze, confused about what she was doing until you felt her fingers at your back and the sound of strings being undone.

“What are you doing?!” you exclaimed, knowing how long it took your mother to zip you up in that dreadful thing and how, if she knew you had undone it, she would tie it up even tighter.

“I cannot paint you like this,” her husky voice spoke close behind you. “You look dead in this dress.”

“God,” you breathed as she tugged at the strings, causing your body to move with her force. “That’s an interesting way to call someone ugly.”

“You are not alive like this,” she explained, “I can tell that this is not you. This is only a shell, a makeup of your mother. I am not here to paint your mother—I am here to paint you. My muse has to be completely herself, with no facades or lies. I need to see you as you are, truly and honestly. And also, you do look two heartbeats away from death by asphyxiation in this damned thing.” With a forceful tug, she ripped the back of the corset open so forcefully that your body was yanked backwards towards her, but she caught you, hands firmly on your waist.

You gasped in a full breath of air, and although it was a dusty library, it was the freshest breath of air you had ever taken. You were leaning back against her chest now, strands of her brown hair over your chest. Her hands holding your waist slid upwards a little, your body shivering at the feeling.

Her mouth was close to your ear as she whispered, “I’m going to undress you as gently as I can…” As her breath fanned against your ear, alighting all kinds of nerves in your spine that you’d never felt before, her hands slid around the front of your abdomen. “But forgive me if my creative expressions make me a little…forceful.”

She punctuated her words with an aggressive tug on your corset, which made you gasp sharply. She peeled it off your upper body, grabbing at the hips of the dress and tugging it down, also, bending and pulling all the green off your body until it was pooled at your ankles in a pathetic lump of fabric. You turned your head, looking down at Wanda who was crouched at your calves and staring up at you with parted lips and seductive eyes.

Wanda’s hand snaked around your smooth ankle first, cupping your shin as she started to rise, moving back around to behind your knees, lifting up your layers of underskirts as she went. She rose up behind you now, dragging her hand all the way up your leg under your skirt until it was on your hip, centimeters away from your bum.

Your heart was beating fast in your body that was growing warmer even without the top layer of clothing now. All that was left was the white slip that covered your body and the second underskirt.

“I need to see the real you, detka,” she spoke, Sokovian accent think and sensual in your ear.

You could smell her strong perfume of fig, her soft hair tickling your shoulders. You couldn’t believe that this woman had just ripped your dress from you and had you standing in barely any clothing that you wouldn’t even let your mother see you in.

“How can I convey you on canvas if I don’t know you?” She whispered, and the slightest graze of her lips against your ear sent a jolt down your body.

Her fingertips went to your shoulders, tickling your skin as she guided the thin strap of your slip down your shoulders, bringing you to shiver.

“Wanda,” you breathed, unsure of what you wanted to say. Sliding her hands over your skin, keeping her touch on you, she circled you, coming in front of you to look into your eyes.

“Trust me, detka,” she whispered, “I’m a master of the arts. I know what I am doing.”

That she did, with a smirk as she slowly pulled your slip down. You tried to stand confidently under her gaze and touch, but when you felt the silky fabric catch over your breasts and then fall below to reveal them, you gasped desperately for air. Her eyes flickered down, feasting upon the sight of you with utter desire and sensuality. Her mouth was open, lip nearly trembling as she pulled the slip down over your intimate stomach, and then pushed it along with the second skirt off your hips so that you were standing bare and entirely naked in front of her.

“Beautiful,” she breathed with ragged voice. “So… fucking beautiful.”

The vulgar word pierced your spine and made your body heat even more. Your skin was flush and pink under the close, golden hue of the flickering candles, that same unsteady light revealing Wanda’s bulging pupils and darkened irises. She was devouring you with her eyes, and through the lust you saw the creative plates molding perfectly together in her mind.

“Lay down,” she said with faltering voice, clearing her throat as she guided you to the sofa.

No one had ever seen you naked before, and you kept that thought in mind as you carefully climbed onto the sofa, her hand on your lower back leading the way. “On your back,” she demanded, but suddenly she caught you before you laid down, reaching into your hair and undoing it with one pull of a pin. Your hair flooded down your shoulders messily, and you gasped, knowing just how undone you looked. Was she going to paint you like this? In the nude? You knew that was far from what your mother wanted in the portrait, but your mother was even farther away from your thoughts as the Sokovian artist’s hands guided you to lay on the sofa.

“Move on your side slightly,” she instructed, voice taught with many different emotions you couldn’t completely discern. You were halfway on your back and halfway on your side, some of your hair over your chest and some of it cascading down the arm of the sofa above your head.

Finally, she stepped away from you, and you thought you would feel cold without her touch, but her eyes were enough to keep the fire broiling in your stomach alive.

You were sprawled out on the couch like a whore. One leg reaching over the other end of the sofa, the other one halfway off the edge of the cushion. One arm laying on the cushion lifeless, the other one reaching across the top of the sofa. You were wearing nothing but the thick jewels on your upper chest and the earrings hidden behind your hair except for a few twinkles where the light shone through the strands. The golden light of the candles sparkled on the erected rosy peaks of your breasts, flickered off the skin of your stomach.

“Perfect,” Wanda said, grabbing a towel that she had laid on the stool and casting it over her shoulder, her ravenous eyes not leaving yours as she picked up the palette and brush, beginning to scratch across the canvas madly, hardly tearing her eyes from yours.

Your chest rose up and down with the tension in your lungs. Something within you was throbbing at being laid out like this, having this sensual woman tear you apart with her eyes as she painted your likeness on the canvas.

The tension did not die with the silent minutes. It grew and built with every stroke of Wanda’s brush, with her every darting, overfilling look, with your every weak breath and throb of the multiple heartbeats throughout your body. It grew to a head until you felt like you were going to burn right through the cushions of the sofa like a soaring comet.

Every time her hand left the canvas to roll her brush into the pools of paint on the palette, her rings sparkled under the candlelight. There was a gleam on her skin, a craze in her eyes, a moistness to her lips that she repeatedly licked and bit. She was driving you mad without even touching you, and you could tell that you were doing the same to her with the way she painted the canvas so hard that it trembled on the easel.

Finally, without you having to even say anything, she dropped the palette and brush on the stool and dragged the towel away from her shoulder, eyes trained on your body. She had painted so wildly that there were smudges of color on the white sleeves of her blouse and covering her hands. She came to you so quickly that you didn’t even know she was there until she was knelt beside the sofa, placing a hand on your lower stomach.

Her hand sent a streak of color up your skin as she slowly slid it up your abdomen. Red, yellow, green, blue, all streaked together from her hands as she touched the smooth expanse of your skin.

“When I first came in,” she began in a tremulous whisper, “I knew it would be impossible to hold my focus while I painted your portrait.” Her hand swiftly curved around your breast and cupped it, relishing in the supple feeling of your flesh. Your eyes fluttered closed, legs mindlessly moving as she touched you shamelessly, and you let her. “You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. I don’t even have to paint you to make you a walking piece of art.”

You didn’t know what to say as her compliments landed on your skin like warm raindrops and evaporated into your pores, seeping into you and imbuing you with warmth. She bit her lip as she looked down to your breasts which she fondled, rolling her thumb over your hardened nipples. Your skin there was covered in her paint now, colors mixing and melting on the warmth of your skin.

“Is this your creative expressions speaking?” you whispered to her, and she smirked and tilted her head.

“No, it’s just me.” Her eyes flickered to your lips, and without hesitance she leaned forward and kissed you hungrily. You moaned, and with your lips parted she dove her tongue into your mouth. Her other hand found your delicate neck and squeezed it, the cold paint smearing on your skin as her tongue explored your mouth with utter force and desperation, like she needed to know every single corner and texture of your mouth and tongue.

She clambered on top of you, pinning you down on the sofa beneath. Her hands went mad across your body, squeezing and rubbing you everywhere she could, memorizing every single curve and sweet spot that made you arch up against her. Her kisses trailed down your skin, sucking and biting harshly until she made bright red and purple spots that blended in with the paint she had already left there. She made a painted mess of you right there on those cushions, mercilessly sucking on your nipples and pinching them until you were squirming beneath you with desperate need, grabbing at her soft hair and shoulders.

“Wanda,” you moaned as she lowered down your body, leaving wet kisses down your painted stomach until she was at your hips. She growled, glancing up at your bare, marked body before her, lowering herself down between your legs.

“You’re the sort of art that needs to be worshipped,” she grunted as she ran her hand over your thigh, swiveling around it to yank it up over her shoulder. Crouched down, she parted your legs open, moaning at the sight between your legs. She had dwindled you down into a wet mess, and the feeling of her warm breaths fanning against you there did no good for how much you wanted her to touch you.

Most of the paint that was on her hands had been transferred to your body, so she brought her fingers to your slippery folds, groaning at how soft and wet you were. “No one has touched you before?”

“No one,” you whispered, looking down at the lewd sight of this woman between your legs, even her slight touch on your folds making you jolt.

“Let me be the first.”

“Please.”

She wasted no time in lowering her head down and placing her mouth over your slit, running her tongue up your folds and to your clit, circling it with exact pressure. The moan that escaped your mouth was foul, and you bucked your hips towards her face as she started to lap at your clit, pausing every now and then to purse her lips and suckle at it.

“Oh, Wanda!” you exclaimed, forgetting that your mother could be right outside.

Reaching her hand up your belly, she clasped it over your mouth to silence your moans. You held her wrist, nails sinking into her skin as you trembled beneath her.

“You must be quiet, detka. What happens between an artist and her muse, stays there,” she whispered thickly, her mouth glistening with your own juices. She brought her fingers to your clit, pushing into it before lowering them down to your slick entrance. She watched your every expression and movement of your body as she slid two of her fingers inside you slowly, stretching your virgin hole around their length and width.

Your muffled moans were under her hand as she pumped her fingers deep inside you, curling them to graze the inner sweet spots inside you. Your hips jerked as she lowered her mouth again to suckle at your clit while her fingers thrusted into you.

“You’re just as perfect inside as you are on the outside,” she moaned into your clit as she spread her fingers inside you, moving them more to just feel you than to pleasure you, but it certainly pleasured you all the same.

“Fuck, Wanda,” you cursed under her hand, feeling a coil spring tight in your lower belly. She trailed her kisses over that part of your belly, as if she could feel the tension there.

“You’re being such a good muse, such a good girl for me,” she whispered, rubbing your clit with her thumb as she squeezed a third finger inside you. “I’m inclined to take you away with me and make you the muse for all my work. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Living with me, a slave to my touch and my kiss, a wet little hole for me to fuck when I’m creatively and sexually frustrated. Wouldn’t you?”

Her thrusts were hard now, her voice snaky and thick. You whined and moaned pathetically under her hands, bucking your hips wildly off the sofa. You nodded to her question, burning at the way she laughed. “My little whore, letting me fuck her right here on the sofa, all naked and covered in paint.”

Wanda’s words twisted in your ears and wound you up even tighter, your inner walls squeezing around her fingers that pushed through them. She bit the skin of your belly hard, and with a few more pumps of her fingers, she wound you so tight that you snapped, the coil in your stomach breaking and unleashing screams and shivers of climactic pleasure and euphoria that blinded you. She talked you through it, praising you for being such a good muse, kissing your stomach and rocking her fingers more gently inside you.

You finally came down from your orgasmic high, knees trembling around her shoulders as she crawled up you, giving you a multitude of calming kisses all over your face. You sighed and looked at her with a shy smile, still struggling to catch your breath.

Grinning, she stepped back and looked at you. Your face was bright red with pleasure, a gleam shining off your skin, your body looking even more relaxed with the post-fuck glow that she had been craving to carve out of you from the very beginning. Grabbing her palette and brush, she eyed you from behind the easel, smirking under the candlelight that remarked her viridescent eyes.

“Stay just like that.”

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff #scarlet witch #marvel #lgbt #lesbian #wanda maximoff x f!reader #wanda maximoff x y/n

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hausofneptune · 2 months

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✾ persona chart series ✾ mercury

[astro notes no. 010]

hey y'all! i'm back with the second part of the persona chart series where we'll be going over placements and aspects in the mercury persona chart, click here to read part one where we go over the moon persona chart. like i mentioned in the first part, these notes are relative to the mercury persona chart, not the natal chart.

the mercury persona chart is representative of matters of the mind, and shows the ways in which how you think and communicate, as well as how internal and external factors influence your self-expression. click here to calculate your persona charts!

༄ ascendant conjunct venus can manifest as being perceived as someone who expresses themselves in a very charming, persuasive way

↝ this has the potential to ease the roughness of any challenging aspects that are also present in the mercury persona chart, as these natives may be given grace by those around them due to venus’ influence

↝ this aspect can also grant the native with a very powerful artistic output, they may excel in careers related to writing or singing specifically

↝ they're also the types who could be very flirty in nature, or may experience situations where others believe they're flirting when they aren't

༄ sun sextile saturn may show up as a someone who's very rational and calculated in their thought process

↝ these natives tend to do well in positions of leadership, despite their tendency to be more on the "shy" side

↝ those around them usually view them as someone to turn to in crisis, as they have a very determined, confident energy about them, despite whether they view themselves as such or not

༄ moon sextile neptune is indicative of relying on one's gut instinct and intuition when processing and communicating things

↝ they can be very creative in nature and are typically viewed by others as ethereal and "poetic" in a sense, others may be find them to be mysterious or alluring

↝ spirituality or religion may be an integral part of these natives' identities, their personal philosophy could have a great impact on the way that they navigate through life

↝ they could be the type of people who can manifest things easily and speak things into existence

↝ they may have to work towards being more direct when communicating with others, as well as maintaining balance between their creative minds and their rationale

༄ pluto conjunct midheaven can manifest as someone who expresses themselves in a way that the public is either enamored by or revolted by (or both)

↝ these natives can be very resilient in the face of adversity, specifically in regards to their careers and the public-facing facets of their lives, and may even come across as ruthless or too controlling to those around them at times

↝ they may be called to positions of power where they can advocate on behalf of people who are looked down upon by society (i.e. homeless people, abuse victims, people who are incarcerated, etc)

↝ they can also make extremely talented artists, and may find ease in healing others through their creativity

༄ mars in the 9H can indicate a desire to dedicate oneself to a "higher purpose", usually through greater institutions like academia or religion/spirituality

↝ these natives tend to be devoted to learning about (and defending) their passions and interests, and could even feel called to teach others about their ideas

↝ they may need to work towards staying focused and not becoming too restless when trying to achieve their goals

↝ this can also be highly indicative of excelling in fields related to teaching, mentorship, or missionary/spiritual work.

༄ moon in aries natives are usually very forthright and direct when it comes to communicating their thoughts and feelings

↝ they can at times speak too soon or come off too rash in the heat of the moment, those with this placement typically need to master the ability to think things through when engaged in conflict of disagreements

↝ those with this placement are also naturally gifted in terms of creativity and innovation, they may jump from idea to idea and come off as scattered or disorganized to those around them, but are generally very driven to reach their goals regardless

༄ venus in the 12H can manifest as an innate fascination for deeper, more subconscious matters of the mind

↝ this can also indicate artistic talents, as those with this placement in the mercury persona chart can explore thoughts and ideas relative to the 12H more easily than the average person

↝ they typically have a very emotional, spiritually-driven outlook on life, but may struggle with expressing their thoughts in a way that comes off as confusing or evasive to those around them

↝ these natives may struggle with feeling misunderstood, especially in romantic relationships, as their idealized version of what love should be can be unattainable at times

༄ jupiter in the 2H is indicative of benefitting materially or financially from one’s self expression

↝ one’s personal values can be of great importance with this placement, this doesn’t necessarily indicate being rich or well off (although it can), but is more so indicative of encountering “easy breaks” in relation to one’s physical possessions or finances

↝ these natives tend to be very optimistic in nature, and seek to learn and expand on new ways to accumulate wealth and/or stabilize their living situations

༄ mercury in leo typically manifests as someone who cares deeply about standing up for not only what they believe in, but the beliefs of those around them as well

↝ these natives can come across as flamboyant or even eccentric at times, and are naturally gifted when it comes to uplifting their loved ones

↝ while they can come across as extremely self-assured in terms of how they think and speak, they still do seek recognition from those around them for their achievements and fearlessness

↝ they could struggle with taking too much pride in their beliefs at times, and may need to learn how to remain balanced and objective when it comes to the things that they’re passionate about

༄ sun in the 6H is indicative of thinking and expressing oneself in a way that typically comes across coordinated and well thought out

↝ for these natives, their day to day activities and routines play a large role in how they navigate through their thoughts and communicate with others, the work that they do could be very mercurial in nature

↝ the way they carry themselves can make those around them view them as reliable and dependent, and they usually feel the most productive when they’re being “of service” to those around them

↝ these natives may also excel in careers related to medicine, specifically fields related to research or communication

disclaimers | masterlist | ask

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nolita-fairytale · 11 months

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don't want to walk alone | carmen 'carmy' berzatto x fem!reader | chapter one: june/july

summary: you and carmy plan a wedding like it's the opening of a new restaurant.

warnings: swearing, eventual smut, lots of tooth rotting fluff, marriage, no use of y/n, second person pov

wc: 3.4k

listen to: let's get married (bleachers cover) - mitski

a/n: the long awaited wedding FIC!! welcome to part four of the 'make my heart surrender' universe (four part series). this takes place a month after the end of 'still into you' but before the carmy as your baby daddy headcanon series (my carmy masterlist is organized chronologically, if you'd like to read in order). anyways, i truly adore writing for these two and feel it important to note that after watching season 2, i've realized this has just become an animal of its own -- its own universe/timeline/entity which also means there AREN'T any SEASON TWO SPOILERS! this chapter was inspired by a conversation from two months ago between me and @carmensberzattos so courtesy of us, enjoy some healthy relationship-future husband!carmy. also don't worry syd will be starring in the next chapter. i missed her too. lmk if you wanna be added or removed from the taglist.

masterlist | part two

"let's just get married, don't wanna walk alone, so let's get married, 'cause we don't wanna walk alone or runaway." (bleachers, let's get married.)

'I just want to be married to you' are the words uttered (first by you, you think, but maybe he said it first, you really can’t remember) that lead you and Carmy to the decision that you should elope. Sooner rather than later, preferably, is what you both agree on. It’s not like you’re planning on having a big wedding anyways. How much work can a civil ceremony at City Hall and a nice dinner party afterwards be to pull off?

Famous last words.

You’re not sure how you’ve gotten from there to here, locked in a heated debate over menu edits with your fiance in the middle of your shared apartment when the sun’s just barely come up, but here you are.

“I’m just saying that we should be open minded and leave room for his artistic integrity!” Carmy passionately argues, winding you up as he makes his case.

“Artistic integrity? Carmy, are you kidding me right now? I-!” you fire back, shaking your head incredulously. “We said we were gonna keep everything chill.”

“It is chill!” he defends, matter-of-factly.

Oh, he’s just looking for a fight.

“There is nothing chill about a parm espuma and it certainly doesn’t belong anywhere near the carbonara!” you scoff, stubbornly. “I mean, the only reason he even brought up the idea of a goddamn espuma in the first place is because he was trying to impress you.”

Carmy’s jaw twitches in response as he grinds his teeth, a display of discomfort at the mere thought.

“He-he was not,” he denies with the kind of conviction of a five year old toddler who's sure as can be.

You shoot him a look.

“Carmen,” you warn him.

Sure it’s a silly thing to fight about, but there’s no malice in this argument. It’s all passion, artistry, and for lack of a better term, foreplay. You let out a sigh, softening before you rise out of your chair.

“Baby, when are you going to admit that you’re kind of a big deal and that people want to impress you?” you level with him, making your way over to your very stubborn and very insistent fiance. You settle down onto his lap, before tucking a stray curl behind his ear as you break, giving the sweetest smile.

He laughs dryly, averting his eyes from you because he’s not sure how much longer he’ll be able to stand his ground (especially when you’re looking at him like that).

You’re right. And he knows you’re right.

And Carmy’s never been able to resist you for long anyways.

A fox-like grin spreads across your lips and you know you’ve won the argument when you feel a pair of hands snake around your waist.

“Don’t push it,” he warns you, seeing the look on your face as he shakes his head, finally returning his eyes to yours.

You raise an eyebrow, “You like that I push.”

He nods slowly in surrender, his face softening as he asks you:

“You really want to fight about this?”

You shake your head with a laugh.

“No, of course not! Of course, I don’t want to fight about this!” you exhale, sliding your hands over his shoulders to wrap around his neck. “But I do think that your new buddy is trying to impress us and that it may be wise for us to reign him in – clear the air on what it is we’re looking for.”

A beat.

“Don’t get me wrong. Of course, we can leave room for creativity… but I don’t want our wedding party to turn into some pretentious fine dining fancy party.”

“Well, we did meet because of some pretentious fine dining fancy thing,” he points out, giving your hip a squeeze.

You giggle, “How could I forget?”

You shake your head once more, leaning in to press your lips against his. Carmy inhales deeply, enjoying the feel of your lips on his, your arms wrapped around his neck, the weight of your body on his lap.

You indulge him for a moment, deepening the kiss as you feel your future husband relax against you, because you really are happy that Carmy’s made a new friend.

Carmy had met a private chef a few months ago and had been trying to hire him for the restaurant for a while now. Wanting to work for himself, the chef had respectfully declined all advances, but he and Carmy had kept in touch, and it looked as if the relationship could potentially extend outside of the four walls of a kitchen. Since you both agreed that no one from the restaurant should work the party, it had been good timing (making a new friend and the fact that he was a private chef) and the right move for Carmy to ask his new friend to cater the wedding.

“Fine,” you resign yourself, pulling away from the kiss. “Derek can keep the liquid nitrogen but that is as far as it goes.”

Carmy shoots you a look – one that says he’s not quite convinced.

“And I will be more open minded in the spirit of… artistic integrity. But I’m not changing my mind about courses. Family style or bust, baby,” you negotiate, a serious look in your eyes.

Carmy thinks it over for a moment before finally coming to a resolution.

“Deal,” Carmy nods with the same intensity as a ‘yes, chef.’

You nod too, completing the agreement.

“I want it to be real, Carm. I want it to be us,” you reiterate, your voice soft as you make your condition loud and clear.

“I know,” he returns, just as determined and committed to the idea as he is to you.

You’re satisfied with the resolution – even more satisfied with the fact that you’ve come to it together.

“You know…” he starts, something in his voice that you can’t quite make out, unsure if you’re going to like what’s about to come out of his mouth. “... it could be a perfect menu if you just let me-.”

“Don’t even finish that sentence, Carmen!” you interrupt, knowing exactly what he was going to say.

You are so not playing this game today.

“You don’t even know what I was-!”

“Yes, I do! You are not catering your own wedding party,” you protest, adamantly.

You know him too well.

He laughs, shaking his head as he leans back against his chair, like he’s in high school again, and you’ve just caught him sneaking back into the house.

“God, I love you! But sometimes you drive me up the wall, Carm,” you groan out of frustration, eliciting another laugh from his chest as you hang your head, resting your forehead against his shoulder this time.

“Such a control freak,” you sigh, against his chest.

“Thought you like it when I take control,” he murmurs, beginning to leave kisses across your exposed skin.

You giggle partially because it tickles, and mostly because of what Carmy’s said.

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

You lift your head and Carmy kisses you again, this time savoring the way your lips feel against his for a little while longer – just long enough to remind himself that he wants to have the option to sneak away in the middle of your wedding party to have sex much more than he wants cater to be in control all the time.

Sometimes, he thinks to himself, control is overrated anyways.

Only sometimes.

“Okay, okay,” he mutters, letting go of the idea. “I’ll get back to Derek about final menu edits and make sure he knows that while we want him to be creative, we also want to keep it… you know….”

“Chill?” you emphasize.

“Chill,” he confirms.

“Okay. Thank you, baby,” you smile softly, trying your best to enjoy the temporary moment of peace between the two of you. Carm squeezes your hip as you roll your eyes with a sigh, muttering an:

“Oh fuck.”

“What’s up?”

You shake your head again, laughing incredulously before letting out another sigh.

“Just wait till we go through this again with the cake.”

“Fuck!” Carmy shouts towards the ceiling, throwing his head back as you laugh. “Why did we say we wanted to plan a wedding again?”

“Well baby, I don’t think either of us can pass up on a chance to create a menu,” you giggle, leaving a few kisses along his jawline before you make your way up to his nose. “Can you imagine if we decided to have a full-on wedding? That’d be a freaking mess.”

He chuckles, “It’d be like opening another restaurant.”

“Yeah, pass,” you hum, so glad to have dodged that bullet.

-----------------------------------------

By the time you and Carmy are even ready to focus on the cake portion of said wedding-dinner-party it’s a month later. You’ve been through half of the bakeries in the city, you think, and something’s just felt off. You’re practically eating your words, as it dawns on you that you’re having the exact same thought as Carmy: that it could just be perfect if you were able to make it yourself.

Then again, you remind yourself that a cake is an entirely different thing versus running a dinner service, so it can’t be that unhinged to have these thoughts, right?

But you and Carmy made an agreement, so in solidarity, you decide it’s only fair for you to make like Tammy Wynette and stand by your man.

You’re grateful for the half day you have today (“Summer Fridays”, as it’s so fondly referred to around your office) – and the fact that you get to work from home. What it means for you is that today you can clock out early and pick up samples from the tenth bakery (okay, so maybe it’s the eleventh but truthfully, you’ve lost count) in the running for your wedding cake.

You change out of your pajamas for the first time today, throwing on a slip dress and one of Carmy’s crisp, white Ralph Lauren button downs – worn layered and open like a cardigan – before you head to the bakery, and then eventually, The Bear.

The restaurant is closed for the afternoon, as they do a shift change over: some stay and take a break, others go home, let the dinner crew come in and take over. It’s different these days and while some days you miss it – the hustle and bustle of the kitchen, the sounds of an ‘all day’ shouted by the expeditor, the careful dance that is working in a kitchen – you remind yourself that you’re enjoying a half day, and that when you’d chosen to leave, you were ready for a change.

After entering The Bear, you make small talk with Gary while he finishes turning over the dining room for dinner, catching up over the flag football league he’s recently joined – one, it seems, to be taken very seriously by all participants. You tell him that you’re here with wedding cake samples, and he’s more than eager to give you some space to set up, because who doesn’t love free cake? Mid-sentence, Gary gestures towards a table for you to set up on, as you begin to unpack your large brown paper bag.

“Well, well. Look who it is,” Marcus calls out, as soon as he sees you. “Heard a rumor you were out here. You brought cake?”

“I brought cake,” you repeat as confirmation, turning to see your dear friend and mentee. “But don’t worry. I’ll be thinking about yours the whole time.”

He snickers, moving in for a hug.

“‘S Good to see you, Chef. How ya been?” he asks, enveloping you in his arms for a tight squeeze.

“Good to see you too, Marcus. I’m good. Had a half day today so… you know, we’ve just been busy with wedding stuff. But what’s going on with you? What’s new?” you answer, turning the focus back onto him.

“Oh you know. The usual. Though, I’ve been workin’ on some new shit for Syd’s new menu when I’m not here,” he answers, a broad smile spreading across his lips as he talks about.

“Jeez, Brooks. I know, Carm’s got ya busy. When the hell do you ever sleep?” you ask, as you shake your head.

“I don’t,” he answers plainly.

And just as you’re about to remind Marcus to get some rest, Sugar comes bursting through the front doors, her rounded belly full on display now that she’s had a chance to tell almost everyone the news of her pregnancy.

“Hey! Sorry I’m running late,” Sugar says, announcing her arrival. “Got tied up running an errand and then I had to stop at the store for Tums. This baby is killing me with the heartburn these days. Fucking christ.”

“Oh, no big deal. I haven’t even seen Carmy yet,” you shrug, as she mutters a surprised ‘oh’ and Marcus mumbles something about going to get Carmy. “It’s good to see you!”

“Yo, Carm!” Marcus shouts, heading back to the kitchen while you and Sugar exchange hellos.

“Awww, it’s good to see you too, sweetie,” she smiles, pulling you in for your second hug of the day.

This is something you miss about working in the kitchen: the camaraderie, the found-family, all the love.

“Wow this is… quite the spread,” Sugar mentions, eyeing the cakes you’ve laid out on the table.

“Yeah… they had a lot of ideas, I guess,” you say with a shrug.

Sugar shoots you an unconvinced look.

“Okay, fine. I had a lot of ideas…” you admit guiltily.

“...aaaand no one is going to do it the way you want it to be done,” Sugar sighs in the middle of your sentence.

“And they were more than willing to play. I couldn’t help myself!” you finish, defending yourself.

“Well, your enthusiasm is one of the many things I love about you, but… yeah, this is a lot,” Sugar grins as she gestures towards the overwhelming amount of cake you’ve just laid out on the table.

Regardless, Sugar really can’t wait to be your sister-in-law.

“Speaking of… I thought this was just a small wedding. It looks like you’re preparing to feed the entire French Army during Marie Antoinette’s reign.”

“Oh it still is – small,” you answer, simply. “I went a little overboard, didn’t I?”

“Why go through all this trouble? You might as well have a small ceremony instead of-,”

“No!” you protest, hearing another voice say the same thing.

“Sugar, we’ve already told you that we don’t want to do anything big!” Carmy adds, as soon as he enters the dining room.

“Hey, babe,” he says, sending you the softest smile as he looks your way.

“Hey you,” you smile in return as he approaches you, giving him a short ‘hello’ peck on the lips.

“Fak attack!” Fak cries out, as he enters the dining room. “Ooooh cake tasting!”

“Yeah,” you chuckle, as Fak is quickly followed by some of the line cooks that have just wrapped up lunch service.

It’s then that you hear Tina’s voice, growling something in Spanish as Richie speaks way too loudly about god knows what, as Ebra follows behind, somehow in the middle of a story that has little to do with whatever Tina and Richie are going on about.

You smile to yourself, because you really do miss this part.

“I told everyone we were doing a cake tasting,” Carmy starts, gesturing towards the rest of the staff as they join you. “That cool?”

“Totally. We have more than enough to share,”

“That’s true,” Sugar says. "And I can't complain because the baby is reeeeaaally craving cake these days."

As everyone at The Bear crowd around the circular dining table where you set up the cake tasting, you all enjoy bites here and there, comparing notes, sharing reactions to each flavor combo.

Earl grey & lemon. A classic red velvet. And of course, you had to get a little weird with the black sesame clementine combination you’d dreamed up with the pastry chef you’d been working with.

“I think my favorite is the black sesame and clementine but I doubt it’s a cake everyone will like. Doesn’t have the crowd appeal we probably should keep in mind,” you murmur to Carmy as the two of you watch his staff go on about the tiramisu-inspired one.

“Well, babe, it’s our wedding! We can do whatever we want,” he encourages you.

“I don’t know,” you sigh, paralyzed with indecision.

“The tiramisu one is good. I’m leaning towards that,” Carmy shares with you, eager to hear your thoughts.

“Yeah, I don’t know. Don’t you think it’s a little too on the nose?” you reply, unsettled and unsure that any of these are right.

“Why don’t you guys just let me make it?” Marcus interjects, asking the question he’s been wondering this entire time.

“I-,” you start, unable to help the fact that your eyes begin to wet with emotion. “Really?”

He laughs, glancing sideways at you.

“Uh yeah. I’m a little offended neither of you did in the first place,” Marcus teases the two of you, though you know there’s some truth to it.

You and Carmy exchange a look that says something along the lines of: ‘oh shit.’

“Well, we didn’t think you’d-,” you stammer, beginning to explain the why behind you and Carmy’s hesitation in the first place.

“We just thought you’d want to- that you should be able to enjoy the party,” Carmy adds, finishing your sentence, his eyes widening as he realizes that you both kinda fucked up.

“Chefs,” he says, looking from you to Carmy once more, with a seriousness in his voice as he rises to his feet. “It would be my honor. And just because I’m makin’ the cake doesn’t mean I won’t be able to enjoy the party. I can do it in the days leading up to it.”

“Oh-, okay, yes! Yes!” you cry, leaping to your feet this time, as if you’re accepting Carmy’s proposal again.

Richie rolls his eyes in response, groaning as he mutters something snarky to Fak, as Marcus pulls you into the biggest bear hug.

“You all are a bunch of saps,” he scoffs, directing this next comment to Marcus this time. “You big softie!”

“Richie!” Sugar hisses, glaring the sharpest daggers from her eyeballs into Richie’s skull.

“Oh fuck off, Richie,” you snort, with a laugh. “You’re just salty because… wait. Carm, you haven’t asked him yet?”

“Babe, I-,” Carmy whines, his eyes wide. “You just ruined the surprise!”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah ‘fuck’ is right,” he pouts, though he can never stay upset with you for too long.

“What the fuck are you guys even talking about?” Richie asks, squinting as he looks between the two of you.

You and Carmy share a knowing look, deciding that now is a better time as ever.

“We want you to be our witness, Cousin. At the courthouse,” Carmy says, a soft intensity in his eyes as he answers Richie’s question.

“Jesus Christ,” Sugar snarks, with an eye roll as she realizes she’ll be stuck with him at the damn courthouse as well.

“Wh-?” Richie begins to ask, looking from Carmy to you, then back to Carmy again, tears welling up in his eyes as he realizes what Carmy’s just said. “You-? Really?”

“Yeah, of course,” you reply, in a well-duh kind of tone. “Plus you know I can’t get married without my Ava there.”

“And sign the marriage license and everything?” Richie balks, because he really can’t believe it.

“Yeah,” you reassure him.

“Yeah. I mean, fuck yeah! Fuck yeah!” Richie declares, even more sentimental than Marcus this time. “Shit, Cuz… Hell yeah, I’ll sign the fuck out of that marriage license as your witness.”

Tina snickers, exchanging a look with Sugar, and earning a glare from Richie. He lowers his voice, directing the question towards you this time:

“Oh and uh… cool if Ava still sings “Love Story?” I kinda promised her she could sing a Taylor Swift song as part of my best man speech and she insists that one is about you and Carmy,” Richie asks, looking around suspiciously, afraid of someone else hearing.

“Awwww, Richie. Of course,” you coo, only melting inside a little at the thought.

“What?” Richie snaps, realizing that he hasn’t been as discreet as he thought he was.

Sugar snorts in response, earning a laugh from both Tina and Marcus.

It’s Marcus’ turn to roll his eyes at Richie this time.

“What?” Richie repeats, this time with a little more annoyance in his voice.

Sugar smirks, firing back with a:

“Who’s the big softie now, Rick?”

#carmen berzatto x you #carmy berzatto #carmy x oc #the bear hulu #the bear fx #jeremy allen white #carmen 'carmy' berzatto #carmy berzatto x reader #carmen berzatto x reader #carmen berzatto #carmy berzatto headcanon #the bear headcanon #carmy berzatto imagines #carmy berzatto fluff #comfort and chaos #still into you #make my heart surrender #dont want to walk alone

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