#i dont annotate my books much at all. i hate writing in margins i feel so crammed. i always write my thoughts in a notebook

[britneyshakespeare]

I have been sitting on the floor in the early-modern English section of my college library a lot lately. Incidences of at least one time per week. But truly when you get over your pride and just sit on the floor the skim the books in a particularly interesting section of the library is the best. Unrestrained summer fun.

As is no secret I do like to browse various Complete Works of Shakespeare, and there was one with a particularly vague spine, I'm pretty sure it had been rebound? From its original binding? A lot of the books in this library have these hard plastic bindings that I'm pretty sure are not what they originally came in and it's very strange to me. I know I'm not actually very experienced with lots of libraries (being from an extremely small town with an underfunded one, and other than that only having attended a community college with a pretty small library too)... but it's very strange and I'd never seen it before. I opened up to find out which company published it and when, but the page with the publication info seemed to be missing? I couldn't even find the general editor? But it WAS a sufficient edition with like, original notes and prefatory material. So it was strange.

It seemed to have been previously owned by a particular person who annotated VERY heavily. Either that or somebody read several plays and vandalized the shit out of a library book. The first random page I flipped to, just wanting to see what the footnotes situation might be, was the first page of Richard III, and I was struck how EVERY. SINGLE. PAGE of this VERY LONG play was thoroughly annotated in small, messy handwriting. Lots of highlighting and underlining too of course. Mostly the annotations seemed to be summaries of what was happening, but still I found it very charming. I noticed that when I flipped at random to Much Ado About Nothing, everything was completely blank, making a very clear distinction between what this person read from this edition, and what they did not read. I immediately wanted to go through and see which were the plays they read and annotated.

So the plays they read, which were all furiously annotated on every page in the like manner, were (in order of the table of contents): Richard III, Titus Andronicus, the introduction to Love's Labor's Lost but seemingly not the play, Richard II, Romeo and Juliet, the introduction to A Midsummer Night's Dream but seemingly not the play (what an L on this one), the Merchant of Venice (this was still annotated on every page, but maybe with like still 20% of the margin space left, which I'm wondering if it meant it was either the first or last play they read in this copy?), Henry V, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Othello, the introduction to Measure for Measure but seemingly not the play, and Macbeth.

And then out of nowhere, the Tempest is sparingly annotated, in what is unmistakably an entirely different person's hand. Original owner used only black pen and wrote in very small characters; this person had varying-size penmanship and wrote in a variety of ink and graphite. They also didn't take up 100% of the margins at all times. I don't know who this impostor was that read the Tempest, perhaps a friend of my beloved former possessor of this mysteriously anonymous Complete Works of Shakespeare (after flipping through all of their annotations, we are bosom-friends now)... I don't know. The mystery remains.

I did not take high quality pictures but I was so shocked when I flipped to Richard III I just had to document it

Every. Single. Page is filled like this (I did go back and read their annotations to I.ii because I wanted to experience the scene with them) (I did not take pictures of it but perhaps I should later)

And. PS. Nobody seemingly read and annotated Antony and Cleopatra, but there is some arithmetic on the first page of the introduction. Lol

[oh-for-fic-sake]

What will daddy Henry do if his little is sad because someone took something valuable from her?

So i wanst sure what to base this on entirely, so I'm going to go with something I went through over the last few weeks. I had a little bit of anon hate, which I deleted but the words stuck with me making me second guess everything i was working on and the confidence i had in my writing was taken away. so this is like a shameful self indulgent fantasy that im going to read to myself when ever im down.

Warnings: Pretty Personal For Me, Angsty, Fluffy, Self Doubt, Happy Ending, DDLG, Long!!

Tagging: @viking-raider @isitmine @tinabean37 @loserrlauraa  @msblkfire84 @henrythickcavill @plainbrunettelbl @dummiesshort @cynic-spirit @pandaxnienke  @two-unbeatable-beaters @libbymouse @wolfieash @eldarwen333 @princesssterek @mom2000aggie @blackestpinkworld 

(not sure who to tag in headcannons? these are the ones on my everything taglist)

Henry watched quietly with a frown as you sat down in the living room, eyes cast down at the tablet in front of you shoulders slumped.

"poppet what's wrong love?"

"n-nothing da-addy" you said with a small stutter

Henry shifted on his feet looking at you critically before coming over to you.

"nothing? So your sitting here almost in tears over nothing" he stated sceptically rounding the sofa sitting next to you.

"I'm not cryin" you sniffled trying to bite your lower lip to stop it from wobbling.

"not yet, but close enough poppet, hand it over" he said holding out his hand waiting for the tablet.

You whined not wanting to hand it to him at first but after a mini battle of wills you placed the colourful tablet in his hand.

Your head was cast down and you rubbed your eyes trying to catch the tears before they were noticeable.

"okay then, so this is your new story?" he asked scrolling through the page not reading it all but scanning the words, it was well written like always.

At the beginning of the pandemic he suggested you started a blog, and you had. A writing blog all full of fanfictions of... Him.

He didn't mind he actually love you doing something constructive, it kept you happy and busy which helped him because there wasn't many free days even in lockdown. He was working out, reading scripts or rearranging covid tests and travel.

Plus knew these smut blogs existed, even lurked on a few.

"y-yeah" you mumbled leaning on him hugging his arm scanning the page as he scrolled, you knew he wasn't reading everything maybe every few lines

"sooo what's the problem?" he said not finding an issue with the writing.

"i... I cant post it" you muttered looking down avoiding his gaze

"why?" he asked frowning not liking the defeated tone you had.

"j-just because..."

"ah I see, you have lost your confidence" he said quickly figuring out the problem, the downside to writing was everything was personal preference so tiny comments could knock your confidence.

In a way it was like his work, you put your heart and soul into it and then people don't like it? It was always a bummer. But he was used to it, you were not.

You nodded to him it was true you'd lost your confidence, you hadn't wrote for a while.

You couldn't seem to find the words to fit together anymore.

You felt silly, they were just a few mean comments, words from a nasty troll who didn't have anything better to do but it hurt, you poured your heart into every chapter and then for people to rip it to shreds? It stung.

"y-yes I... They didn't like it" you hummed fiddling with your fingers, drawing deep breaths trying not to cry

"and so what?" he said shrugging making you snap your gaze to him.

"wha?"

"it doesn't matter love, so a few people didn't like it, lots of people do, I love your stories"

"you have to your my daddy"

Henry huffed and shook his head at you ruffling your hair pressing a kiss to your head amused that you thought that's the only reason he liked your writing.

"don't stop writing just because of a few mean people nugget, it takes a lot of skill to write and a lot of bravery to share it. Your a brave talented little baby and I'm very proud of you"

He said cooing as that seemed to be the final push sending you over the edge making you burst out into tears.

He hugged you moving the tablet out of the way before pulling you to his lap, unbuttoning his shirt half way and squished you into his bare chest knowing you needed to feel him, not a shirt.

"shh its okay babygirl, your stories are wonderful, and you have fun writing them don't you baby?"

You nodded crying harder trying to get the words out but you just couldn't instead whining incoherently into him.

"and you enjoy making the little banners? And collect all your photos and gifs?"

"y-yeah but they di-dn't like it last time!"

"they don't have to like everything you do sweety"

"but I don't wana upset them!"

"did you do the warnings?" he asked knowing all about the do's and don'ts of posting your erotica.

You nodded whining you always did warnings on stuff to be safe.

"and make the little cut thingy you were telling me about?" again you nodded at him

"so your telling me they read the warnings, clicked to see it and then were mean?" you sniffled biting your lip trying to calm down but nodded to him humming quietly.

"well then it sounds to me like they were going out of their way, looking for someone to pick on" he said slowly rocking you slightly.

You fell quiet resting your head on his chest as he rubbed your back and patted your bottom soothing you.

"but what if they wasn't? What if my stories are bad- and encourage bad stuff!" you cried tucking yourself into him tighter.

"no-no you repeat after me, fiction is fiction" he said pulling you back wiping your tears waiting for you to say it out loud.

"fic-tion is f-fiction" you repeated

"I did everything I could to warn people"

"I-I did everyth-ing I could to w-warn people" he smiled at you as you drew a huge breath calming yourself down.

"and they are jealous because I'm an adorable, smart, funny kind and caring babygirl who has the cutest little peach butt in the world~" he said smirking at you from above holding you tightly to him pressing a kiss to your head.

"and they- daddy! Noo! I can't say that~" you gasped flushing as you realised what he had said

"oh yes you can because its the truth now come here let daddy bite that peach~" he growled playfully snapping his jaws at you.

"ah-no!" you screeched giggleing as he began tickling you all over wrestling you playfully trying to lean over and bite your but through your shorts.

He landed two solid bite's on your bottom before pulling back. Even though he had cheered you up he could see you were still doubting yourself.

Henry cast a glance to the tablet and smirked forming a plan that might just get you back on track. He was not going to let anyone steal your sparkle.

"come on you you've spent enough time writing go play in the garden with Kal"

Once you left henry got to work swiping up the tablet and going on your one drive seeing the meticulously organized notebooks, recognising a few by name.

A few weeks later Henry came in to the living room with a medium size box and plopped it on the sofa next to you.

"here we go nugget!" he said placing the gift next to you, they couldn't have come quickly enough, he had noticed you hadn't been writing at all, which upset him because he knew how much you loved it.

"what's that daddy?" you asked peering over the box not expecting any gifts.

"why don't you open it and find out?" he said sitting the other side of the box handing you a pair of scissors to slice the tape.

You moved slowly cutting it open and pulled the box open then froze.

"d-daddy? What thats my..." you trailed off pulling out the hard back books your banner on the front cover.

"your stories? Yes poppet, I realised that you were putting so much work into these things but could loose them, they are soo good that daddy wanted to read them over and over and now we can!" he said pleased with himself as you sat there shocked looking at the small collection of a5 books.

"but their- i dont..." you said happy but completely shocked, flicking through the pages, there were even a few comments in the margins from henry pointing out the pits he liked making your heart swell with pride.

Henry moved to stand behind you pressing a kiss to your hair.

"They are brilliant! So good I'm so proud of every thing you have achieved and I want them on our book shelf, in the living room" he said making you tear up.

"Really? You... You think their that good?" you whined eyes blurring with tears as you hugged the first book to your chest.

"absolutely poppet now go on, you do the honours~" he said pressing your shoulder urging you to go to the cube bookshelf.

You tiptoed over to it and slowly pulled out each little custom book with your banner on the front.

You sat down placing each one delicately on the shelf the five books each lining up with one another half filling the empty cube shelf.

"oh no baby look? The shelf isn't full is it? You know what that means" he said standing looking

"I-I've gotta write?" you asked sniffling weeping softly but this time because you were happy.

"exactly! You need to fill the whole shelf, so you keep up the good work and tell daddy when you finish your next story and we can keep adding to it!" he said cheerfully walking over handing you the tablet.

You smiled to yourself and looked to the books, your books- actual real life books on a shelf!

You grinned throwing yourself at him latching onto him feeling your confidence come back just from seeing how much you had done.

Suddenly the hate didn't matter, your daddy like them enough to make them into real life books! And even annotated them himself?

And if your writing was good enough for your daddy then it was good enough for you.

"daddy, can I have my screen time now, I want to write!!" you said jumping up and down on the spot excited to start your next chapter.

Henry grinned nodding deciding you can have as much screen time today as you wanted as long as it meant you wasn't giving up your new hobby.

[details-later]

im so close to just paying someone to finish this fucking project for my holocaust class.

I hate it so much like having to read a book from a holocaust survivor? yeah i can do that. Having to annotate the book? sure, it’s annoying but sure. Have to write a journal about my feelings? why, like my feelings are in the annotated margins? Having to also write a paragraph reflecting on it? OK BUT ISNT THAT JUSTMY ANNOTATED BOOK????

like it feels that all of the extra stuff is just so we can feel like we are actually thinking deeply. I already am extremely sympathetic i was fucking sobbing 8 pages in! and its also just so much work cause we also do alot of work everyday in that class! like i wished we had some in class time to read so we can actually have time to read!!!!!

being someone who only just got three days open for school work i need in class time to read! and most of my class is also busy from chorus to ROTC to acting and FFA and Sports like we dont have the time!

literally only 4 people of a 30ish student classroom have turned in their work!

i feel like im just complaining to make an excuse but like i legit dont have the time! like my free time is like the three hours i have after school but i want to use that to ya know RELAX im so fucking tired and i want to read books that interest me not a book im assigned to just make me uncomfortable (she legit told us we are doing this book project to feel uncomfortable with the conditions they had to endure)