#i like my irl job and it pays very well so im going to try to not have 2 jobs if i can help it hahaha

[bi-writes]

Not that entitled ass motherfucker coming here on anon trying to say how good their ideas are and how fucking dare you not answer them on THAT ANON'S unspecified time frame. 🙄 Make a fuckin sideblog and write your own posts then?? Tag the person you're writing AUs for with their permission so they see it if it's really that big of a deal that you have their attention?? And also, maybe, JUST MAYBE, find OTHER FUCKING PEOPLE TO INTERACT WITH INSTEAD OF PUTTING ALL OF YOUR ENERGY INTO SOMEONE THAT IS TOO BUSY TO BE YOUR PERSONAL FUCKIN WRITER WHEN YOU AREN'T COMMISSIONING OR PAYING THEM FOR THEIR ART OR FICS ANYWAYS. WHAT A FUCKING THOUGHT, AM I RIGHT GUYS??? Ugh. I get a little irritated/sad when people don't answer my asks too, but that's MY problem, not theirs, plus who knows what the reason behind it is? Maybe the author really loves the ask and is keeping it so they can re-read it and not lose it under other posts. Maybe they're waiting to answer it when the Time Is Right mentally, or when they have time to actually flesh it out and do it justice. Maybe Tumblr fuckin ate the asks bc tumblr does stupid shit like that. And maybe, just maybe, the person behind the blog is a fucking real person with a life and hobbies and work and is just trying to enjoy themselves when they get on here. (Or they have a million asks and just haven't seen it. Seriously, the scenarios are endless.) God. That shit just grinds my gears, I hope this was cathartic/entertaining for you to read, and sorry people were once again being entitled jackasses. Love your writing, I'm glad to see all the positivity after That ask, and I hope you get the time to relax and write what you want to write soon, you know we're waiting patiently and excitedly for whatever you want to give us. 💙

ha yeah. this blog for me is just a creative outlet, as in my real life i am an engineer. i love writing, but it doesn't pay the bills (for me at least).

im a corporate girlie with a 9-5, so i do try to write what inspires me, but at the end of the day, if i start to feel obligations to write what other people tell me to write, then this isn't a creative outlet, it's a job (that i'm not paid for).

[caffeinatedopossum]

I always feel bad for being even a little dissatisfied with my circumstances and then I remember that most of the people around me (both irl and online) would probably go absolutely bonkers in my circumstances

[3liza]

thank you for speaking rational thought AS AN ARTIST into the ai debate. i get so tired of people over simplifying, generalizing, and parroting how they’ve been told ai works lmao. you’re an icon

some of the worst AI art alarmists are professional artists as well but theyre in very specific fields with very specific work cultures and it would take a long and boring post to explain all the nuance there but i went to the same extremely tiny, hypefocused classic atelier school in San Francisco as Karla Ortiz and am actually acquainted with her irl so i have a different perspective on this particular issue and the people involved than the average fan artist on tumblr. the latter person is also perfectly valid and so is their work, all im saying is that we have different life experiences and my particular one has accidentally placed me in a weird and relevant position to observe what the AI art panic is actually about.

first thing i did when the pearl-clutching about AI art started is go on the Midjourney discord, which is completely public and free, and spent a few burner accounts using free credits to play with the toolset. everyone who has any kind of opinion about AI art should do the same because otherwise you just wont know what youre talking about. my BIGGEST takeaway is that it is currently and likely always will be (because of factors that are sort of hard to explain) extremely difficult to make an AI like Midjourney spit out precisely wht you want UNLESS what you want is the exact kind of hyperreal, hyperpretty Artstation Front Page 4k HDR etc etc style pictures that, coincidentally, artists like Karla Ortiz have devoted their careers to. Midjourney could not, when asked, make a decent Problem Glyph. or even anything approaching one. and probably never will, because there isn't any profit incentive for it to do so and probably not enough images to train a dataset anyway.

the labor issues with AI are real, but they are the result of the managerial class using AI's existence as an excuse to reduce compensation for labor. this happens at every single technological sea change and is unstoppable, and the technology itself is always blamed because that is beneficial to the capitalists who are actually causing the labor crisis each time. if you talk to the artists who are ACTUALLY already being affected, they will tell you what's happening is managers are telling them to insert AI into workflows in ways that make no sense, and that management have fully started an industry-wide to "pivot" to AI production in ways that aren't going to work but WILL result in mass loss of jobs and productivty and introduce a lot of problems which people will then be hired to try to fix, but at greatly-reduced salaries. every script written and every picture generated by an AI, without human intervention/editing/cleanup, is mostly unusable for anything except a few very specific use cases that are very tolerant of generality. i'm seeing it being used for shovelware banner ads, for example, as well as for game assets like "i need some spooky paintings for the wall of a house environment" or "i need some nonspecific movie posters for a character's room" that indie game devs are making really good use of, people who can neither afford to hire an artist to make those assets and cant do them themselves, and if the ai art assets weren't available then that person would just not have those assets in the game at all. i've seen AI art in that context that works great for that purpose and isn't committing any labor crimes.

it is also being used for book covers by large publishing houses already, and it looks bad and resulted directly in the loss of a human job. it is both things. you can also pay your contractor for half as many man hours because he has a nailgun instead of just hammers. you can pay a huge pile of money to someone for an oil portrait or you can take a selfie with your phone. there arent that many oil painters around anymore.

but this is being ignored by people like the guy who just replied and yelled at me for the post they imagined that i wrote defending the impending robot war, who is just feeling very hysterical about existential threat and isn't going to read any posts or actually do any research about it. which is understandable but supremely unhelpful, primarily to themselves but also to me and every other fellow artist who has to pay rent.

one aspect of this that is both unequivocally True AND very mean to point out is that the madder an artist is about AI art, the more their work will resemble the pretty, heavily commercialized stuff the AIs are focused on imitating. the aforementioned Artstation frontpage. this is self-feeding loop of popular work is replicated by human artists because it sells and gets clicks, audience is sensitized to those precise aesthetics by constant exposure and demands more, AI trains on those pictures more than any others because there are more of those pictures and more URLs pointing back to those pictures and the AI learns to expect those shapes and colors and forms more often, mathematically, in its prediction models. i feel bad for these people having their style ganked by robots and they will not be the only victims but it is also true, and has always been true, that the ONLY way to avoid increasing competition in a creative field is to make yourself so difficult to imitate that no one can actually do it. you make a deal with the devil when you focus exclusively on market pleasing skills instead of taking the massive pay cut that comes with being more of a weirdo. theres no right answer to this, nor is either kind of artist better, more ideologically pure, or more talented. my parents wanted me to make safe, marketable, hotel lobby art and never go hungry, but im an idiot. no one could have predicted that my distaste for "hyperreal 4k f cup orc warrior waifu concept art depth of field bokeh national geographic award winning hd beautiful colorful" pictures would suddenly put me in a less precarious position than people who actually work for AAA studios filling beautiful concept art books with the same. i just went to a concept art school full of those people and interned at a AAA studio and spent years in AAA game journalism and decided i would rather rip ass so hard i exploded than try to compete in such an industry.

which brings me to what art AIs are actually "doing"--i'm going to be simple in a way that makes computer experts annoyed here, but to be descriptive about it, they are not "remixing" existing art or "copying" it or carrying around databases of your work and collaging it--they are using mathematical formulae to determine what is most likely to show up in pictures described by certain prompts and then manifesting that visually, based on what they have already seen. they work with the exact same very basic actions as a human observing a bunch of drawings and then trying out their own. this is why they have so much trouble with fingers, it's for the same reason children's drawings also often have more than 5 fingers: because once you start drawing fingers its hard to stop. this is because all fingers are mathematically likely to have another finger next to them. in fact most fingers have another finger on each side. Pinkies Georg, who lives on the end of your limb and only has one neighbor, is an outlier and Midjourney thinks he should not have been counted.

in fact a lot of the current failings by AI models in both visual art and writing are comparable to the behavior of human children in ways i find amusing. human children will also make up stories when asked questions, just to please the adult who asked. a robot is not a child and it does not have actual intentions, feelings or "thoughts" and im not saying they do. its just funny that an AI will make up a story to "Get out of trouble" the same way a 4 year old tends to. its funny that their anatomical errors are the same as the ones in a kindergarten classroom gallery wall. they are not people and should not be personified or thought of as sapient or having agency or intent, they do not.

anyway. TLDR when photography was invented it became MUCH cheaper and MUCH faster to get someone to take your portrait, and this resulted in various things happening that would appear foolish to be mad about in this year of our lord 2023 AD. and yet here we are. if it were me and it was about 1830 and i had spent 30 years learning to paint, i would probably start figuring out how to make wet plate process daguerreotypes too. because i live on earth in a technological capitalist society and there's nothing i can do about it and i like eating food indoors and if i im smart enough to learn how to oil paint i can certainly point a camera at someone for 5 minutes and then bathe the resulting exposure in mercury vapor. i know how to do multiple things at once. but thats me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[brb-on-a-quest]

Well im back now and I have found my history notebook (debating whether I should throw it away but I did a good job decorating it)

so. @igotthisaccountunderduress let me tell you about Aaron Burr.

Aaron burr was an orphan raised by an uncle, went to lawschool, stopped lawschool to fight under benedict arnold (ha. ha. ha. this really shouldn't be that funny but it is -> benedict arnold was a traitor from US to British ppl). He got appointed to George Washingtons personal military cabinet before both men realized they got a long like stray cats (not very well at all) and Burr was transferred to some other not-as-important dude.

Then him and hamilton got Beef (very famously) but this kind of all started when Burr beat out Hamiltons Father In Law in political stuff and then FIL beat out Burr during the next thing so things are all dandy.

And then he got in as vice president under jefferson. How this worked back then (doesn't now) is that whoever got the Most Votes is now in charge and whoever got second most votes is now VP.

As you can imagine this doesn't lead to really great coworker dynamics especially if you and ur boss/vp are like so opposite. Like when Thomas Jefferson was VP to president John Adams, Adams hated Jefferson so much that he didn't let Jeffy have a say in anything. Like thomas Jefferson did one thing once in all the two terms John Adams was in charge I think, idk, it was something rediculous.

But anyway, all this to say, Aaron Burr is now vp under jefferson. And as you can imagine, they do not get along well (Jefferson accused burr of 'secret dealings'). but their differences are mainly due to opposing beliefs on whether we should support or rewrite the constitution fo the united states.

Anyway, time for reelection, Burr doesn't get enough votes for either presidency or VP and he decides to try and get governership of New York where he was actually really popular.

Remember how hamilton didn't really like him becus of burr's political campaign against his FIL? Hammy decides to send a rediculous amount of irl subtweets (derogatory letters) against Burr to get him to lose.

Burr takes this very personal and challenges Hamilton to a duel, stepping from across New York to New Jersey. This is because, although duels were outlawed in both places, penalties were less severe over the border.

Now take this next part with a grain of salt bc it comes direct from the history prof.

Duels were common; but they were never usually fatal. Essentially it was like lukewarm Christians going through the motions on a sunday in church. A lot of the stereotypes still apply. Two people back to back, walked a x amount of feet, turned around and would usually shoot upward or otherwise shoot to miss the target.

Burr was not one of those people. Alledgedly, he told Hamilton he meant to kill him and he didn't care wether hamilton would try to shoot him or not. No one's sure whether hamilton was like "haha bet" and tried to kill him or whether he was like shooting up in the air as the practice usually went. Either way sum of that was Burr: 1 (unharmed), Hamilton: 0 (very much shot due to Burr's word, and died the following day).

Aaron Burr... idk if he didn't think this through but he's now considered a murderer for challenging Hamilton to an agreed-upon duel. So he runs to join his new BFF who is secretly in the pay of pain and wants to take over the US napoleonic style. Burr gets *to into it* to the point BFF turns him into Jefferson. He gets cleared.

he then gets involved with the Essex Junto, an organization in New England, tries to help the secede from the entire country (New England hated US before it was cool to) and then he did the same thing again somewhere in the middle west (I forgot where, sorry Dr. W). He gets away both times because even though Jefferson hates Burr's stupid guts, John Marshall is head of the supreme court (John Marshall also hates Jefferson sees this as a very innocent way to undermine him) and Marshall creates the definition of reason that we still have today that basically says Burr gets off scot free twice because we're not at war so there's no enemy for Burr to be helping.

Burr finally accepts that he is now a persona non grata and fucks back off to NY where he marries a second widow for money (again) and she divorces him on the grounds of adultery. This divorce finally is finalized on the day Aaron Burr dies.

[hauntedwizardmoment]

hi I'm sooooo fundamentally obsessed with your party oc lore and i come to you now to ask what the initial forming of the party was like!! what were their initial impressions of each other!! how did they originally form a group of professional adventurers, what was the story there? when did jace meet everyone? what's the early timeline on all the messy relationships and what kicked off the various jace/other party member hookups? did it take aurora a second to develop her grudge against jace and vice versa, or did they have it out for each other on sight? I want all the tea 👀

YAYYYYY IM SO GLAD YOU ASKED omg i literally screamed w joy when i saw this in my inbox last night... preemptively putting this under a cut bc i anticipate it getting long

so to start out i think that jace graduated from aguefort and then went to college. we don’t know a ton about colleges/post-secondary education in spyre aside from a couple of named places in the early eps of FHJY so i took that as permission to just. invent some. jace (in keeping w the idea of sorcery classes as art classes) went to the Arcane Arts Institute which is like, an analog for like. literally any art school in NYC. the student body culture is very nyu tisch (disaffected hipsters and gay people) combined with like, the prestige of parsons or the pratt institute or the school of visual arts. this is jace being like “i’m gonna get out of my shitty hometown and go to the BIG CITY and PROVE myself” 

[also as an aside bc this will likely never make it into a fic. I also made up a school for artificer programs thats called Mordenkainen’s Institute for Technomancy (MIT)]

the only person from his party who’s here is dagbert, who much like ragh is in an athletic program at another university, trying to go pro (he does not, like the majority of college athletes), and he and jace interact briefly in this ficlet, but not much throughout the rest of college. dagbert is busy with his classes and his athletic career, and jace is busy with classes and getting cheated on by guys who play electric bass. 

i think there are like, two other aguefort grads in the party, aurora and peregrine, who are a year and two years ahead of jace respectively, so they didnt interact much but jace does recognize the names. maybe a little unrealistic but like its a small world! two people from my irl high school in florida that had a graduating class of 85 people also moved over 1000 miles away from home to the midwest to work at the same company as i did!! crazy shit!! so there’s a bond there initially from being aguefort grads and growing up in elmville

so like the party is officially Formed by them all working for the council of chosen. like i think theyre all in their early to mid 20s looking for stable work:

jace (22) is like “well it’s this or try to find a fucking wizard to do an unpaid apprenticeship under in fallinel”

dagbert’s (25) athletic career falls through and he needs an alternate plan 

Peregrine (24) and aurora (23) are dating atp, peregrine wants a higher paying job and aurora is looking for a way to travel more for her mission work 

invidia (23) is like an established solo adventurer who’s been looking for a team bc she’s lonely

ysvelde (22) is an out-of-work actor who is about 3 seconds from pulling a patrick bateman style killing spree at the fantasy starbucks she’s working at. she NEEDS to move out of her mother’s house. 

they meet like a few weeks before they get sent out on their first mission as a team for like a “team cohesion” type thing; initially aurora peregrine and jace are like “omg we’re all from aguefort! thats so cool! did you have class with [insert teacher here]?” and jace and dagbert vaguely recall each other, but theyre all trying to be professional atp. but it doesnt take long (like a few days into their first mission) for invidia and jace to become the Party Besties bc theyre like moths to a flame. i think they find out that they like the same bands (in my head. jace and invidia listen to 90s riot grrrl) and hit it off from there. and jace and ysvelde are also bonding super quickly but like. most of that is ysvelde getting way too personal w jace way too quickly bc she finally found someone like her (no sense of identity and desperate to make friends by contorting yourself into whatever you think they’ll like). 

i dont have a suuuuuper solid timeline on the relationship drama bc i wanna keep it open for Extreme Mess potential. HOWEVER. peregrine and aurora’s relationship is SEVERELY strained by having to spend extended time in each others’ proximity without the distraction of anything else they have going on (friends who arent their mutual coworkers, jobs that dont have them working with each other, etc.). and when the relationship drama does start, jace cycles between peregrine (when he’s off-again with aurora) and ysvelde (who is so happy to finally be dating/sleeping with a guy who is actually attracted to women. fun fact about her, every single man she has dated turned out to be gay. the curse of being a straight woman in theater. s/o to kinsey 5 jace, it’s really doing a ton of heavy lifting here) with the occasional one-off thing with dagbert that doesnt involve a lot of emotional investment. 

the whole time jace and peregrine are falling harder for each other but peregrine is also desperate to settle down with someone as he gets older, and views aurora as the only “real” option because could you imagine if he brought jace home?? his parents would kill him! and somewhere in this poor ysvelde is like “jace what if we got married” and maybe in a manic episode threatens to have him eaten by her family of driders if he doesnt go through with it. dont worry it blows over they laugh about it eventually but jace Is afraid for his life briefly. 

NOW. jace and aurora’s whole deal. they kind of have friction right away after the initial recognition of having the same hometown wears off because jace is like “oh aurora is from that part of elmville, full of snobby helio-and-sol worshipping humans who think theyre better than everyone and pass judgment on everyone’s ‘lifestyle choices’ while being super hypocritical” and aurora is like “jace is an arrogant, hedonistic, heretical prick who’s way too comfortable making passes at my boyfriend and throws the fact that he gets special treatment from literally everyone we meet because he’s attractive and charismatic in everyone’s faces” and it slowly builds from there. but the buildup is slow, until ofc it’s not (peregrine comes clean about the fact that he’s been sleeping with jace for years during their breaks bc he feels like he cant propose to aurora without telling her about it, he doesnt want to go into a marriage with a guilty conscience)

[yooniesim]

I don't like to share financial struggles on here but, I have always made a point of being transparent as possible too. So let me tell yall frankly. I am 1-2 months away from not being able to pay any of my bills including rent. the new medication I have to switch to bc of the national shortage is $182 per month. I don't know how im going to afford it. The one i switched to already and have been paying for has had no effect at all. I have had doctor's visits every few weeks for various health issues since March and no insurance since January. My student loans have unpaused and I have been paying them for several months now. I was laid off from one of my jobs this year and the other was paused when my family member I was caregiving for passed away. I have another caregiving job now but it doesn't pay nearly enough for all my bills, medical expenses, and food. I am in the red every month and what I have saved will not last much longer.

Regardless of all this, I still do not paywall my cc, even early access, and I do not ask for donations. I took up curseforge because it seemed like a good place to host my files, and then was pleasantly surprised by the small amount of money I was able to get from it every month or so. This money doesn't even touch my expenses and will not even be enough to pay for my meds anymore. It ranges from $50-200 over the course of several months depending if I am active enough to post any cc or not. Any of you that are independent know that this is nothing in terms of the current cost of living. I haven't even received my payment from last month yet and as soon as I do it is already spent. If I had any leeway at all, I would have already deleted my cc from there, but the gravity of the situation right now is... extremely high. If I deleted it now, I probably wouldn't even get the money I already earned there, as it is still in process. And I cannot risk that. What i can do is not upload anything new to their website in the meantime. But I cannot delete my old uploads.

I have spent most of my life being vocal about social justice issues. I have donated very often to the causes i cared about, spoken to people both irl and online to raise awareness despite being in an area where it is dangerous to do so, done volunteer work, and hosted fundraising efforts. Much of my breath over the past weekend was spent talking about Palestine. It is not that I do not care about this issue- far from it. I've lost a lot of sleep trying to figure out what to do about this. It's not easy trying to weigh the impact of a boycott against your own well being. Especially getting conflicting info on whether or not Overwolf is actually supporting the IDF or just victims of the terrorist attacks as they say. It's all complicated, confusing, and heartbreaking. And even so, I am boycotting in the terms of not uploading new stuff to there and offering alternate download links for my old stuff. And when I am able, I will eliminate curseforge completely. But I hope this helps anyone understand why it's not gone immediately and what my current perspective is.

[the-fiction-witch]

I'm Employed

Media IRL

Character Thomas Brodie Sangster

Couple Thomas X Reader

Rating Flirty AF

Concept Assistant

I sat working away on this damn report on my third cup of coffee since getting home when the apartment door opened to a very happy Thomas.

"How'd it go?" I asked as he dumped his stuff and went for a beer from the fridge 

"First place was a bust he wanted five years customer service experience, second was a flop I needed first aid training"

"That's not hard to do Thomas"

"Next two where big no's apparently I didn't have qualifications" 

"So you wasted your whole day at hat bus fair I lent you" I sighed 

"AHH ah ah. Don't be so negative."

"Kinda hard when your four months behind in rent, don't have any prospects and just fucked four job interviews"

"I had five today" he says sitting at the table with me smiling widely

"And How'd the fifth go?"

"I'm employed. I start tomorrow"

"..... What the hell did you do beg?"

"No, I was just what she was looking for"

"She?"

"Y/n y/l/n, she wanted an assistant"

"An assistant? Even though you have no business training. No secretary experience. No reception experience. No admin or administration work ever in your life. The computer knowledge of a young bommer and the inability to remember papersizes?'

"Yes."

"And you were hired?"

"Yes"

"...are you sure because you're not great and picking up sarcasm Thomas?"  

He grabbed a folded bit of paper from his pocket and it was true he had a job "... I'm so confused how the hell you did this"

"I'll be honest I'm not sure how I did either but I'm not questioning it"

"Company's to big to be a scam. And doing too well to be trying to pin shit on you. It might be a cult?'

"No I'm good at picking up cult vibes"

".... You almost joined a cult last year"

"Yeah and now I know the signs" he says "I think she might have hired me because I'm cute?"

"Really?"

"She did ask me to pick up pencils alot. And turned the heat way up so I'd take my jacket off. And now im thinking about it I'm not confident that was a spider on my thigh?'

"...and that's sexual harassment" 

"Not if I'm into it"

"Are you into it?"

"She was wearing pencil skirt."

"Thomas. You need a job. For just ten whole minutes could you not think with your dick,"

"I have a job. I get paid on Friday and my dick is very happy"

"I can't believe I have to tell you this but don't fuck your boss"

I only got more and more worried about Thomas, he's my best mate but… he's not the brightest. And not the best and picking up social cues. Especially romantic ones, I can't even count the amount of times people have very obviously hit on him and it goes over his dumb blonde head like a rabbit on a pair of skiis, he comes home and explains his day and I honestly have to sit there and question how he isn't picking up that this boss of his is clearly into him, clearly hitting in him, and honestly sexualy harrasing and even exploting him a little and still he hadn't even picked up on it. So on my lunch break I decided to get him some lunch and pay his office a visit, I got our stuff and headed up having a little bit of a time to find the office but I found the small room eventually with a door to another office beside it 

"Hi jack" he smiled

"Hi… what uhh what is happening here?" I asked looking at the general state of his office

"Ohh y/n said she didn't want to bother the maintenance guys with her broken spare chair, so I said I'd fix it for her" he explained working on fixing the small office chair meaning of course he had to roll his sleeves up and often be bent over or in strange positions as he worked and it was then I noticed the glass wall between the door and the other office the blind quickly closing as I looked at it 

"That her office?"

"Yeah?"

"Okay" I sighed honestly kinda surprised he hadn't picked up that she clearly made him to this so she could watch him out her window 

"How much work have you actually done today?" 

"Uhhhhh… I forwarded an email this morning"

"How's it going?" A voice spoke up I looked and saw the door open and immediately I understood

"Almost done y/n" he smiled 

"Hummm my handy boy" she Cooes stroking acrobat his shoulders as she checked his work "meeting in ten, bring the coffee cutie" she smiled before quite obviously slapping his butt and heading back into her office I glanced at her as she walked away and noticed him looking too before the door shut 

"Did she actually just call you cutie?"

"It's a joke, she always says that when she asks for coffee"

"She slapped your ass"

"Yeah, that's how she tells me I'm doing a good job" he says 

"Why are you okay with this? You know this is weird right?"

"I'm not an idiot jack I know this isn't how a typical office works. But… I'm fine with it"

"Why?"

"I'm getting paid to wear tight suit pants and get constantly complimented."

"You have a point"

"Plus… pencil skirts and stockings."

"What is your weird obsession with good legs?"

"You have your kinks I have mine, I like an authoritative woman with good legs sue me. And currently I am getting paid to do literally nothing for an authoritative woman with good legs all I have to do is look cute and bring her coffee"

"Yeah but this is a job a real job not some werid porno or fanfic, how are you ever going to explain to anyone job that you basically worked as a soft core pet boy for some business woman"

"Cutie coffee!" She called from her office 

"Jack just stay out of my business" 

[aromanticle]

i just got out of the shower and i have some thoughts to share about something that happened a few days ago

i went, with my sister, to see a psychiatrist. i didnt really want to do that cause deep down i just know that nothing a third party could ever do would truly help me in any way and the only person who can change the way i do things is myself, but that brief period i had with her actually did open my eyes. just not in a good way.

no one irl knows this but i actually have talked to a therapist online for a few months though one of those mental health related apps, a few times for free and i paid two dollars twice which actually ends up being not so cheap for me lol but i stopped because of something that was said to me. the person i talked to seemed to actually pay attention to what i said and she'd always tell me that the main problem i have in life in executive dysfunction which is very accurate. i dont actually know if the people the app provides are licensed or not and idk how trustworthy this all is but i actually feel like i had a positive experience with it for the most part. of course theres not much one can do when i only call them to talk about things that frustrate me and things i wish i could change about myself once every two weeks but at least i felt like there was someone out there who actually understands what i have to say.

my sister and i sat in front of a psychiatrist and told her we wish our mother actually gave a shit about us and did something to help her children have a better life instead of spending the day on her phone and guess what she said? "you cant change her, deal with it"

we were just around 10 minutes into our time together and my sister brought up concerns she had about me and she basically dismissed it completely, saying "but you dont have this trait" that someone would only know if they actually knew me when she had barely even talked to me at all. i always felt like i struggle with certain things that she said i have no problem with when she simply does not know me even a little bit at all. she just heard a couple things about me and assumed i am someone im not.

i said "i actually went back to school because i wanted to avoid trouble with my mom, not because i wanted to" and what she heard was "i loved going back to school". i said i used to want to be a literature professor and what she heard is "i like reading". my sister said i go to sleep too late (which is only partially correct) and she said "ok, i'll give you this so you can sleep"

i told her i gave up on the idea of being a teacher when i was 15 because i know how hard it would be to get there and thats not even what i want to do and she said "well this is a generation thing" like the reason i didn't pursue a goal i knew would lead me nowhere is because im a tiktok brained little gen z child that doesnt want to put effort into things that take time ???????? my dream is to star in a musical, i just dont have the means to do that. i know i dont. im never gonna have what i truly want so i can only chase after these smaller little things i could feasibly do but they dont last long. i know i'll never be happy as a teacher, not even as a literature professor, that's why im not gonna even try. i know this is gonna take years and im not even gonna be satisfied when i get there. im not gonna waste my time and money doing something i only kind of wanted to do, i shouldnt even have brought that up but we were talking about teaching and jobs and i thought it was appropriate to mention i once wanted to teach. not anymore.

i said i changed schools a lot. i liked the first school i went to, but my mom put me in a public school in third grade because well. it doesn't cost anything. but i hated going there because i couldn't get used to it. my mom then put me in a different school. i hated going there because i couldn't get used to it, but i knew if i said that to my mom she'd get mad. when i was in seventh grade my mom "threatened" to take me out of the school because of my grades and because i put no effort into my studies at all (because i hated going to school) so she put me back into a different school. i didnt like going there because i couldn't get used to it but i knew there was nowhere else for me to go. then i finally got to actually choose which school i was going to when i changed schools for the last time for high school. i went with a friend, so i assumed it would be easier. i hated going there. it was only at the end of my third year there that i thought "actually, i like this school. i wish i didnt change schools in third grade and stayed right here". and the psychiatrist said "you changed schools a lot so you clearly don't have a problem adapting to new environments". #girl you have talked to me for a grand total of 7 minutes.

i'm supposed to go back there and talk to her again in less than 30 days now and i am dreading the day i have to open my mouth and say a word to that woman again. i'd rather have my sister go alone or my mom or someone else and talk about me, i think i would be more helpful than if i go there and try to explain myself just for her to misunderstand everything i have to say.

[hpdfag]

Hi!! We’ve both been less active but I’m sure we both are still missing each other…how have you been, once again? I’m sure it’s very stressing to think about the idea of wedding now, it’s probably very frustrating too. I can’t confirm much for you, but I really hope and pray in my own way that someday you can fulfill that need, even if it’s not in the way you now wish it to be. These days are an example of that for me! I’ve always wanted to be a ballet dancer since I was a child (became an irl of a ballerina, you know!) but my mom could never afford or be able to bring me to classes, which frustrates me; I always wanted to be a professional dancer. Well, these days I got my first dance class! In fucking kpop!! And maybe it’s not what I wanted and maybe it’s not the career that I’ll have, but it still gave me so much happiness; it wasn’t exactly what I wanted for, but in the end it fulfilled and satisfied the little child in me. Ranting aside, I think that’s possible for you, too. Maybe the “picture perfect day” won’t be as you wish now, as you dream of; but maybe it’ll bring you just as much happiness you know? Wether it’s not a wedding, wether you fall in love with someone else in this reality, or even something else, I think it’s possible for you to find that happiness, somewhere, somehow. I can assure you! When we’re in the shit as teenagers we’ll always be scared, thinking that this truly will never end. But it does! Trust me, it does. I hope you’re feeling better now! About the uni thing I asked some days ago…damn I just remembered you’re America and you guys have to pay for your Universities and </3 I am so sorry?? If you could maybe move to Europe in the far future to study medicine maybe? I don’t know, but if I had a dream like that I’d want to chase it at all costs…but you should do what makes you happier and safer now! We’re young, we have time to dream. To change! This was a bit of a messy ramble honestly, but I’m still glad I put my thoughts out about this to you :} and I hope it brings some light to your ongoing day too!!

- 🧶

hi, im doing alright, just exhausted,, and i get what you're trying to say but i can't imagine myself falling in love with anyone else, let alone to the point of marrying them. even just considering it makes me feel sick, like im betraying hinata. i'd rather die

i've just been in the grief trenches the past few days, hence the elevated levels of complaining (my dad passed away 9 years and 3 days ago now, so its just. a rough time of year. it comes in waves)

and yeahyeah haha uni is EXPENSIVE here especially if you want to go to a good one, thats why im starting at community college and hopefully getting financial aid as well. the state im living in has a grant that pays for your full community college tuition if you get approved for it, which would be a LIFESAVER since the job search is taking for fucking ever /silly

and yeah, i could at some point move out there for med school, but i'm content with my current path in life i think. i can still work within the medical field even, working on in-house software and IT management and stuff like that. it's not what i wanted to do as a kid, but it's what i think will make me happiest. i cant handle being in charge of someone elses life, it'd burn me out too fast

im so glad you got to do your first dance class though!!! whether it turns into your career or you just end up doing it for fun, i hope you continue to have a wonderful experience.

[gibbearish]

to give a little more info without spoiling it, it's about a foundation employee who was caught for espionage and was given the choice between termination (which in SCP world means death) or joining the Surrealistics Department, and he chose the latter. so now we follow him going through his first day on the new job!:))))! and i should clarify, you may be able to get it w/o the post, i def wasnt tho so jic lol

some other rapid fire faves, declassified recommended or not:

there is no antimemetics division - this one is an entire story arc but i can't not list it, its about anomalies whose whole thing is making people be unable to remember them and it rewired my brain. if you only want one sample chunk though, "introductory antimemetics" stands entirely on its own and is sosososo good

3519 - a highly transmissible disease that makes people believe the world will end on may 5th, and suicide beforehand would be better. you might feel confused by the wall of containment updates before the description and timeline but i promise its important to read it in order, just take it slow and really try to parse what these containment updates must mean about how the disease is progressing

3449 - a highly transmissible disease that makes people make typos. its way more than it sounds but literally anything else would be spoiling it so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ just whenever you think youve reached the end keep clicking the next iteration button

1733 - a recording of a football game, the inhabitants of which are alive and are aware they are stuck inside an inescapable loop, and get more and more freaked out every time the tape is replayed. gets very graphic jsyk

1459 - well its. you see what it is. what this one does is it generates a puppy. and then. it uh. it. well you see. it. hm. you'll see. just, also very graphic. the ten mile long experiment log takes it from horrifying to ridiculously funny, i still feel bad for recommending it though

1346 - scary hallway

073 & 076 - IM SO SORRY TO ANYONE WHO BELIEVED ME WHEN I SAID TO START PROJECT PARAGON WITH 072 AND 073 i got the numbers wrong:((( but anyways. cain and abel. read these then go to the project paragon hub. or if you need more to hook you in, do 343 then 4840 then 6666 THEN hit up the hub. oh and scp 1000 is an important part too. and REDACTED PER PROTOCOL 4000-ESHU (you'll understand why its named different dw. irl it also goes by scp 4000). im pretty sure all of those are linked in the hub in one way or another tho so dw

4514 - knife that kills people (pay close attention to everything in the experiment logs)

2922 - ahhhh corbenic. very interesting (afaik incomplete) arc about where humans go when we die. after this you go to the project galahad hub to continue, also hit up 3922 it is extremely funny. from what i remember 1346... might? be linked to this somehow? but i could never find more about it, maybe ill stumble into it later tho thats how it tends to go

5935 - another one that i think needs the declassified post after to really get it and can't really be explained without spoiling it, its v cool though.

3288 - haha dude how fucked up would the hapsburgs get if they went underground and kept Doing Their Thing for like. hundreds of years? pretty fucked up right? (so fucking graphic dude. listen to every single one of those tws it puts up they are not jokes)

835 - scary human vore coral (also so fucking graphic, once again listen to the tws)

033 - Secret Undiscovered Number that breaks things if you use it because our tech is all based on the Wrong Math

2718 - GO BACK AND READ 4514 IM SERIOUS. DON'T LET YOUR EYES DRIFT DOWN AND READ THE NEXT BIT FIRST or do if you want, personally spoilers dont ruin things for me usually so you don't have to. it will however be way better that way around i pinky promise

lalalalalalalalalalala

anyways 2718 is death. like, death itself. one of the least graphic but by far most unsettling versions imo, and ive seen a lot of people say the same, like. its one of those ones that you stumble on and go ohhhh right this is a HORROR horror site. if you like it tho, definitely follow it up with the End Of Death (you see now?) canon. this one is super graphic though jsyk. i dont remember if theyre supposed to be linked or if i just happened to read them right next to each other and mistook them as the same canon but w/e both are excellent and they mesh very well thematically even if they aren't. but for real though, that first one WILL stick with you forever so if you're even a little queasy about death and Unsure About The AfterWards i would recommend skipping these, your brain does not need extra ammunition to scare you with abt that lol

4051 - MAJORLY fucking sad one about a kid who can make portals. if youre confused by the 350-PROMETHEAN notes and the therapy session notes search up the declassified post. not directly graphic but. its absence makes its shape visible regardless

6113 - scp of trans your gender. has false endings, youll know youve made it once you see a "handwritten" note followed by 3 pictures of a lake

2316 - everyones heard "you do not recognize the bodies in the water," but did you know theres more past that? start at Not Fade Away and click the link at the bottom to come back to 2316, click every superscript¹ < like that, and once you hit ⁶, highlight /everything/ past that, especially the blank parts. or if youre on pc just ctrl+a. you'll figure it out from there

lily's proposal - i mentioned this in the tags of another post but the scp-001 spot is kept open so that different writers can use it as they need for their individual canons, and this proposal is really cool and gentle

that's all the ones i can think of right now 👍 if you read these because of this post you should tell me what you thought of them

also if anyone wants an example of an INSANELY good scp that you almost certainly cannot understand without reading the declassified post, 5145 is so fuckin cool

[littlemisslipbalm]

“sorry to bother you”

Summary: Y/N meets Harry in a little shop in France. It was a lovely meeting between the fan and the rockstar, but when Y/N realizes she’s lost her phone, will she see Harry sooner than she had ever thought possible?

AKA Harry meets a fan and accidentally steals her phone

vibes bc they snack and she walks up to him while he’s looking at the sky lol ^

Ok so I just wanted to preface this: this was initially just going to be a short blurb about a respectful meeting between Harry and a fan because of the terrible stories I’ve been hearing lately about rude people being inconsiderate of Harry and his privacy and I wanted to showcase that you can treat Harry as a human being rather than an object when you see him irl. But then my writer brain wanted more and so it turned into more. All I have to say is if you ever meet Harry in real life, please be respectful and kind. Also there is a 0.00001 chance that this would ever actually happen as most fiction goes so please don’t expect more than a short convo and maybe a photo from him. For him to even speak with you is more than enough, he really isn’t a disneyland attraction. 

Also not proofread bc apparently its long lol, I’m not super in love with this but I think it’s good-ish the end is meh - pls lemme know what yall think :)

Word Count: 10.2k (wait im actually so confused how this got so long omfg) | Warnings: swearing, angst, fluff, idrk its long but it’s sweet?

-

She saw him long before she approached him. She was truly unsure of herself, not wanting to bother him or upset him. She had been a fan for so long and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to meet someone who meant so much to her.

In the small Bayeux shop, she hesitates as she risks another glance at the tall man. She whispered to her mom minutes ago about how Harry Styles was in the same shop as them. Her mom was texting her non stop telling her to go up to him or she would do it herself. Y/N shook her head, distrusting her mom and feeling self conscious. No one else was in the store and her interaction with him wouldn’t disrupt the rest of the store, but for some reason she felt a tinge of discomfort about going up to him.

Harry leafs over a tablecloth, not paying attention to the other patrons in the store or anything else for that matter. He was staying on the coast of France for the week and he hadn’t run into many fans, so he was feeling at ease. Mitch was somewhere else in the store, but Harry felt comfortable on his own. He feels a soft, small tap on his broad shoulder. He turns expecting the quiet Mitch, but is presented with a short, sweet looking woman.

“Excuse me. Um, hi...Sorry to bother you,” she starts, eyes wide as she works to maintain eye contact with Harry as she looks up at him.

His green eyes are widened, realizing this isn’t someone he knows.

“Hello,” he says simply.

“I-” she pauses, her hands fiddling, “I’m sorry to bother you, honestly. But, your music means so much to me and I’d kick myself for the rest of my life if I didn’t say something before you left.”

He smiles, his expression softening at how genuine she sounds. “It’s quite alright.”

“It’s not though. I’m sure you’d appreciate not being bothered for once.”

“No,” he cuts her off, “I love talking with fans.”

“Yeah, but I’m sure there’s days where you wish you could just go to a random store on the coast of France - so out of the way - and not be walked up to by a random person.”

“I mean, I guess, but you seem rather nice.”

“Thanks...I’ve been a fan long enough to know that there’s people who don’t always treat you with that kind of respect. I really wouldn’t have bothered you if it wouldn’t have changed my life.”

“Don’t feel like you’re a bother, please,” he pleads lightly as he grasps her hand out of instinct, dropping it immediately when he realizes what he’s done. “It’s the people who don’t actually come up to me and treat me like an animal that are upsetting. Or the people who are only after a photo and aren’t very nice to me. You… you’re treating me like a human being. Being overly courteous -- if I’m being honest.” He chuckles lightly at the end.

She blushes at his words and smiles up at him, mirroring the soft smile on his lips. “I’m only treating you how I would want to be treated if I were in your shoes.” She glances down at his feet and notices the Gucci boots and smiles to herself, laughing lightly.

“What?”

“We’ve got the same shoes on actually.”

“No way!” His voice is playful at first as he glances down at well and realizes she’s right. He laughs at the weird little coincidence.

“I’ve had these for years, my favorite shoes…” She mumbles, seeing the ways his eyes shift  with a flash of concern. It’s what she fears he would think of her, why she was so hesitant to approach him in the first place. It’s why she had tried to hide her laugh from him when she noticed the similarity. She just wants to interact with him in a normal way. He again softens at her words, her sincerity, realizing it really just is one of those random things.

“They’re good shoes,” he laughs again, kicking his left heel with his right foot. The way she barely touched him to get his attention and the way she stays a safe distance from him is reassuring. She’s aware of his situation, yet she’s treating him with the utmost care and respect.

“So what brings you to Bayeux?” He asks, deciding he wants to continue the conversation with her. Y/N flits her eyes behind her shoulder and sees her mother watching their interaction out of the corner of her eye. She sighs and runs a hand through her hair, leaning against the counter her and Harry are at.

“Vacation, I guess. My family and I love to travel and ever since the pandemic settled down - finally, we’ve been jetting everywhere we’ve ever been or wanted to go. Seize the day vibes.” Her voice is serious, but she falters and laughs at the end. Her words are honest and she’s happy to actually get to talk to Harry more than just hello and a picture.

“I get that. You’re from America, yeah? It was really rough there for a long time.” He says solemnly, mirroring her figure, leaning against the counter, getting comfortable with her.  

She laughs again, smiling up at him, eyes sparkling, completely in love with her idol, but desperately trying to play it cool. “The accent gives it away, huh? I’m trying to fix that, get a job out of the states and never go back.”

“Hey!” Harry interjects, throwing his hand out from his stance in her direction, like he might touch her, but this time being careful to not actually. “It’s not that bad. I like your accent...And I love LA.”

She can’t stop laughing with Harry. It feels so simple and common to just be talking with him. He doesn’t seem like he’s in a rush anywhere, but she also fears to take up too much of his time. “I’m originally from up north in California actually. Living in LA right now, though. But I don’t know, I’ve just always felt like I was meant to live somewhere else. Do you know how that is? Just feeling like you’re meant for something different?”

He watches the way she moves her hands and works through her thought process. He feels like in another world they would have been close friends. The way she talks about things is so familiar to him. It’s like she’s read his mind, even though he knows for sure she hasn’t. She’s funny and laid back, yet mature at the same time. He wonders how old she is, out of college it seems if she’s trying to get a job out of the United States. He wonders what she plans to do and who she wants to become. Her aura intrigues him to no end. He thinks he could talk to her for hours.

Realizing he hasn’t made any sort of response to her somewhat philosophical question, he nods quickly, eyes blinking rapidly, his body straightening up back to his full height. “Yeah..I mean that’s how I felt about music. Like, I always felt like I was meant for something more… Turns out I was!”

They smile together again, knowing the conversation is ending. She knows he won’t keep asking questions and she doesn’t want to keep him.

He knows he can’t completely turn himself over to this stranger, she’s obviously younger than him and even though he feels connected to her, she could surprise him still. He knows he can’t talk to her forever, the cashier glancing at the pair of them every so often since they haven’t been looking at any merchandise for a while now. He knows he shouldn’t flirt with her, ask her out for coffee or anything of the sort. He simply knows this must come to an end any moment now.

“You should definitely follow your heart,... I didn’t catch your name?” He realizes when he can’t finish his sentence by calling her name.

“Oh!” She says surprisedly, not realizing she never gave her name, “Y/N. And thank you, means a lot to hear encouragement come from someone who’s been such an inspiration to me. Honestly, thank you.”

He perks at the way she says her name, again feeling like he’s known her for much longer than these five minutes.

“It’s me who should be thanking you, Y/N. Your support is what makes my life the way it is. It means a lot to me - and you truly seem like a lovely person, genuinely.”

She throws her head back in laughter at all of the words he’s saying. The way he’s trying to convey his sincerity is earnest, but his word choice is simply funny to her. Without realizing what she’s doing, she throws out her arm and her hand lands on his bicep to steady herself while laughing - something she would do with anyone normally. He doesn’t shift from her grasp when she opens her eyes and even widens them at the sight in front of her. Her hand on Harry Styles. How is this happening? She thinks as he doesn’t disintegrate underneath her touch. He’s definitely real as she feels the coat fabric and the muscles beneath it. He smiles down at her, so sweetly that his dimples pop out. She’s in awe, but has to contain the slight sense of coolness she’d been maintaining during their conversation.

She removed her hand, gingerly, “I won’t keep you any longer, Harry.” She blushes when she says his name. “If you don’t mind, I’d love to get a picture with you, but I totally understand if you’re not okay with that. I wouldn’t post it anywhere, it’s more just for me to remember this.” She rushes the last bit, feeling nervous and shy yet again. He was so big physically, but his presence was also so strong that she felt even smaller around him.

His smile calms her immediately and this time it's his hand to touch her, his hand landing over hers that’s been resting on the counter during their conversation.

“Of course,” His lips are soft and plush as they maintain his sweet smile. “Hey Mitch!” He looks over his shoulder as he calls to Mitch who has returned from the upstairs part of the shop.

Mitch blinks at the sight of Harry with a stranger before coming over, “Yeah?”

“Do you mind taking a picture of Y/N and me?”

Y/N is still in disbelief of what is going on, completely awestruck that Harry just said her name again to Mitch Rowland. And that Mitch Rowland was even in this shop with her as well. She hadn’t realized that at first. But now she was going to be forever grateful to her father for insisting they come back to Bayeux during this trip.

Mitch nods and takes her phone once she slips it out of her pocket, fingers fidgeting to get it open quickly. Mitch smiles at her reassuringly as she lets go and moves to stand beside Harry against the counter. He pulls her into his side gently and her hand goes around his waist, feeling his warmth and substantiality for the first true time. She tries to ground herself in the moment, memorizing every detail of right now. His cologne that emanates from his neck, the way the material of his jacket feels against her bare arm, the way he puffs out a slight laugh as Mitch shifts around to get most of their bodies in the frame. Oh and the way he looks when he tilts his neck to check on her and he even risks a wink of one of his emerald eyes and she promises herself she’ll never give away any of the clothes she’s wearing right now. Her nonchalant response is to wink right back and then they both smile, turning back their attention to the phone in Mitch’s hands.

Her mom had gone up to the cashier, effectively distracting them from the photoshoot that had begun to take place. Y/N never wants Harry to let go of her, but again she knows this can’t last forever. Mitch takes a couple of photos before handing the phone back. Y/N assumes that’s it and is about to thank Harry, but he speaks over her and her words die in her throat.

“How do they look?”

“Oh?” She flips through them and Harry leans over her shoulder, respectfully. “Pretty good,” she sums up, she loves them and she’d love even more, but she’d obviously never ask Harry for that.

“Pretty good?” He echoes, unsure of her response, looking from her to the photos, “Do you want to take more?”

She thinks on his offer, already knowing the right answer, “No, no. It’s all good. Thanks.”

Then turning to face Mitch, who’s been watching the pair of them converse, “Could I actually get a photo with you, Mitch? Sorry if that’s super weird, I just think you’re really cool. I had no idea you were even here until, uh, Harry called you over.” She laughs nervously, blushing yet again.

Harry laughs under his breath at how both her and Mitch blush at her words. She’s more unsure with Mitch, which he finds interesting. She had carried their conversation easily and maintained eye contact casually, but with Mitch, it was like he was her schoolyard crush, nervous hands and fleeting glances. He wondered if she genuinely only liked Harry for his music and didn’t find him physically attractive. This nagging feeling at the back of his mind perplexed him, he twitched trying to shrug it off. Why did he care if this woman found Mitch attractive and not him?  

“Yeah, of course. It’s not weird, have had plenty of people say much weirder things to me than that…” He smiles at Y/N and she mirrors his expression, but then she bites her lip. Her expression falters slightly as she processes his words. “I’m sorry if you’ve had similar experiences as Harry with so-called fans being disrespectful and inconsiderate.”

“No need to apologize, you’ve been nothing but kind and respectful,” Harry interjects

She only fidgets at his words. She’s growing slightly more nervous, being in the presence of both Mitch and Harry was starting to wear on her calm exterior. Still, Mitch trades places with Harry and Harry plucks her phone from her hands. He takes more photos than Mitch, doing close ups and full shots, causing Mitch and Y/N to laugh as they hold onto each other. He gives them little instructions on what to do in the photos and soon Y/N is rolling her eyes at Harry like she’s been best friends with him for ages. She feels like she’s just out with a couple of her friends and they decided to stop and pose for photos randomly, rather than meeting rock legends that she had only dreamt of ever seeing in real life.

When Harry is finally satisfied and comes up to the pair of them, she moves away from Mitch first, his long hair shifting as she pulls away from his side. She turns to face him immediately and starts to gush, “You’re an amazing guitarist, by the way. I forgot to say that. When I heard ‘She’ for the first time...I was blown away. The guitar on it...Feels like you’re in another universe. And it follows up ‘To Be So Lonely’ which your guitar on it is also like crazy epic. ”

Harry and Mitch laugh, but Mitch’s smile is appreciative, like he’s about to speak, but Harry speaks first, “That’s because he was in another universe. You know the story?”

She smiles and nods. Harry nods in approval. Mitch interjects, “Thank you. Also, Y/N,” he stares intently at her face and she meets his gaze this time, “You’re truly one of the kindest people - maybe the kindest - who have come up to us. And I’m not just saying that because you complimented my guitar playing.”

“He’s right,” Harry nods solemnly. Her face beams up at them both, now she really felt like this was too good to be true. Meeting her idols and having them both say very complimentary things about her, she’d cherish it forever.

“You both are amazing people and deserve to be treated as such.” Her tone is the sincerest she’s ever been, meaning every single thing she says. Then she rushes out her next few sentences, “But thank you again, seriously, you both mean a lot to me - I’ll let you get back to it...Have a nice day!”

After they say their farewells swiftly, she turns to leave and bounces over to her mother who is grinning with pride for her daughter. Before she exits completely she risks a glance over her shoulder and throws a peace sign up, Harry returns it. Then she walks out of the shop, her mother finishing up her shopping minutes ago. Mitch and Harry stay back, talking and continuing to look around the store.

Y/N tries to keep her cool until they’re out of sight of the shop. Once they round the corner and are on the next street over, she’s jumping up and down and squealing to her mom. “Can you actually believe it? What the fuck just happened? That was real right? I wasn’t hallucinating?”

Her mom laughs and reassures her it was real, “You did that, I’m so proud of you. You handled yourself very maturely”

“Well I tried! I can’t believe Mitch was there too!” She interjects, cutting off her mom, completely ecstatic from the previous experience.

“So how did the photos come out?” Her mom asks once Y/N had stopped rambling about Harry’s outfit and their matching shoes and their conversation and basically anything that had happened in the last ten minutes. They were blocks from the shop now.

“Photos?”

“Yeah, the photos you took with them. How do they look? I was ready to come over, but then that other man popped out of nowhere.”

“He’s smooth like that,” she says wistfully, her little crush on Mitch being nowhere near her love for Harry, but still present, and pats for her phone. “Oh.” She says, stopping in her tracks.

Her mother stops with her, “What?”

“I...I left my phone in the store, I guess.”

“Y/N…” Her mom drags out her name in exasperation, in awe of her daughter’s ability to be so smooth with her own idol yet how forgetful she could still be.

“Shit!” She confirms that her phone is nowhere to be found.  

“Really?” Her mother sighs, hands sitting on her hips in the center of the French street.  

“Sorry?” She asks sheepishly. In her starstruck stupor she had been too transfixed on Harry and Mitch and must have placed it down on the counter.

“Well, let’s go back,” her mother states, tired but also not completely mad. She lost her phone plenty of times and it was usually because of less acceptable reasons. Meeting your idols warranted a spacey head.

The door chimes as Y/N reenters the store, she walks quickly to wear she had her conversation with Harry almost twenty minutes ago and her mom goes to ask the clerk if they had grabbed it. It’s not on the counter where they had been leaning. She glances around checking to see if it had fallen on the ground or if by some grand luck Harry and Mitch were still there. Due to her luck, neither of these hopes came true. Her mom joins her in the area and shakes her head, the clerk hadn’t gotten any phones turned in since they had left the first time.

“Give me your phone,” Y/N says suddenly. “Find my iphone,” she explains when her mom looks at her questioningly. Checking the phone, she sighs in exasperation, silently cursing herself for not sharing her location with her mom when her phone icon says ‘location unavailable’. She rubs a hand over her face in disappointment.

“Don’t click the sound button!” Her mom says quickly, “If someone stole it, they’ll turn it off when they hear it.”

“But how am I supposed to find it? It could be here and I just can’t see it.” Her finger hovers over the ‘play sound’ button, hesitant, but desperate. She had met and gotten photos with Harry Styles and they were already gone - oh and she’d have to replace her phone, which would be terrible, as well.  

“Maybe Harry Styles has it?”

“Mom, don’t be dumb.”

“Hey! Watch your tone. I’m serious. Did he ever hand it back to you after he took those second round of pictures?”

Y/N scratches her head nervously and hands back her mom’s phone. She places both over her face and presses her fingers harshly over her eyes trying to think. She hadn’t been paying attention to her phone at the time, too busy trying to commit everything about Harry to memory in her mind so that she’d never forget it. She was sure she’d never forget today, now, even if she ever stopped loving Harry, which she was doubtful of. Hey kids, I met a rockstar and I was so starstruck I lost my phone in France! She groaned. “Oh my fucking god!”

After a few deep breaths with her fingers pinching the bridge of her nose, she composed herself, “We need to play the sound. Either it’s here and we’ll find it. Or - worst case scenario - it sounds and Harry Styles realizes he has my phone and we go from there… Well, I guess in the worst case scenario some jerk stole it and they turn it off and sell it for parts, but I just don’t think that’s what happened.” She bites her lip and stares at her mom, who hesitantly raises her finger to press the button that sets off the alarm on the lost phone. She clicks it after an overly dramatic pause. Y/N prays to anyone who’s willing to listen, she says in her mind, please sound the phone in here. Life would be so much simpler if it worked out the way we wanted. But, in place of the annoying echoing ring of the Find My iPhone tone there is only silence. At least there’s silence in the little shop in Bayeux.

-

In a tiny taxi cab that was headed to a small chateau outside of the town of Bayeux, the phone sounds and causes Harry to furrow his brows. He was sure he had his phone on ‘do not disturb’, but he pulls it out anyway to see why it’s making this annoying sound. What he pulls out of his coat pocket is not his phone he realizes immediately.

“Shit,” he says under his breath, still loud enough for Mitch to look over from the opposite passenger seat.

“What?”

“This isn’t my phone.”

“What?”

Harry rolls his eyes at Mitch’s repeated question and opens up his purse digging out his actual phone and holds up his and the one he had apparently stolen.

“Oh, yeah, that’s not your phone. That’s not good.”

Harry huffs as he turns the unknown phone over in his hand, the screen was a scene of a city he didn’t actually recognize - San Francisco maybe - the lavender silicone case is smooth in his hand and he notices a little sticker, it’s of Y/N and two other women. His eyes widen at it and it makes a little more sense to him. He hadn’t really stolen a phone, he just forgot to give it back. It wasn’t much better, but it was how he was going to comfort himself. Dropping his own phone in his lap, he runs his hand through his hair, rings slightly tugging at his mused curls. Then he turns the sticker to show Mitch, “It’s that girl we met, it’s her phone.”

“You stole her phone,” Mitch states. Voice deadpan and eyes boring into Harry’s.

“No!” Harry defends, but quickly slumps, “I mean, technically? Yes...But-” Mitch’s laughter cuts him off. “You’re an idiot, Harry, y’know that?”

-

“I feel like I’m on punk’d right now…” Y/N grumbles as it becomes clear that the phone is not in this shop. “If this is punk’d, at least my phone’s not actually gone,” she says to no one really. Her mom is pacing the store and stops to look at her daughter, “This is most definitely not punk’d for so many reasons, dear. Mainly because the show got canceled but also because we are in Bayeux, France not Malibu.”

“Fuck…”

She walks out of the shop, barely paying a glance to the shop keeper this time, her usual kind demeanor nowhere to be found under the piles of distress and anxiety plaguing her body.

Back out on the street she looks around, again hoping that with any luck Harry is still around and will come running up to her to give her back her phone. Again, no such luck.

“What the fuck am I going to do?” She looks to her mom helplessly, her arms flapping by her sides, defeated.

-

“What the fuck am I going to do?” Harry asks as they get out of the taxi, glancing at the purple phone in his hand.

Mitch shrugs, “Hope she has her location on?”

“Then she’s going to come here...But wouldn’t she have tried to track it first instead of playing the sound?”

“Dude, I don’t know.You can try to unlock it and find her mom’s number, get in contact with them.” Mitch sighs as they walk through the front door. “Or we can go back to town, see if they’re still there? Did you get her last name? You could find her on social media maybe?”  

“I feel terrible...She was so nice.” Harry throws his bags down on the entryway couch and begins to pace, Y/N’s phone never leaving his hand. “Could go back into town tomorrow, maybe we’ll run into each other again.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Mitch sits and runs a hand through his hair, “Just calm down, right now, Harry. There’s not much else you can do.”

He’s right and Harry tries to not fixate on the phone, but he fiddles with it for the rest of the day. He doesn’t let it leave his sight and sets it beside his bed when he gets ready to go to sleep. As he shifts in the bed, unable to fall asleep he takes the phone and begins trying to unlock it, guessing random numbers and failing miserably. Eventually, he decides he should go to bed and drifts off into an uncomfortable sleep.

-

After being unsuccessful in town, Y/N and her mom went back to the little villa they were staying at on the outskirts of Bayeux. It was located next to some vineyards that the villa co-owned with the private chateau that sat on the other side of the vines. It was beautiful and she had been so excited to be staying there. But after the events of today, she was not in the mood to join the rest of her family for dinner among the grapes. She lays on her bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering how she had been so stupid to forget to ask for her phone back.

In the middle of the night, she wakes up in a cold sweat. She’s still in the clothes she had worn out and was laying on top of her covers at the end of her bed. All the windows of the room were closed and her shades weren’t drawn. Groggily, she rose from her uncomfortable position and changed. Moving to the window to let some air in she sees the lights flickering in a room of the private chateau across the way. She wondered why someone would willingly be up at this hour, even though she was unsure exactly what time it was without her phone. Her phone. That’s what had woken her up. She had dreamt that her mom had called her phone and the frog from the Frog and the Toad stories had picked it up. That was ridiculous, of course, but the idea to call her phone instead of just pinging it was solid. If Harry still had it, then he could pick up and they could figure out how to meet up. She decided she’d have to do that at a reasonable hour, however and moved on, opening her windows and closing the sheer shades, before getting under her covers to sleep.

-

Y/N wakes up early the next morning. Her sleep a restless one. Padding down the hall to her parent’s room, she knocks solemnly. She was far from a morning person and it was much to her mother’s surprise to see her standing in the hallway when she opened the door.

“Hey..” her voice catches in her throat, scratchy from lack of use in the night.

“Good morning, sunshine,” her mother laughs slightly, but Y/N only gives her an unamused look and walks into her room immediately searching for her mom’s phone.

“Need to use your phone, gonna call my phone,” she mutters, none of her thoughts being coherent sentences.

“Y/N, it’s 7 am. You’re going to call Harry Styles at 7 am? With your morning voice?”

Her eyes narrow and her lips form a straight line one her face, clearly not amused by her mother’s questions. Even if she knew her mom was right. She clears her throat and rolls her eyes at her mom, who is moving around the room beginning to get ready for the day as her daughter sits on the rumpled bed. Y/N’s father had already gone out to breakfast in the main area of the villa.

“Fine,” she slides off the bed when she realizes her mom isn’t offering her any more words of wisdom. “I’ll get ready for the day and then I will call my phone.”

Pattering back to her room, she slowly begins to dress and liven herself up for the day. Her hands instinctively reach out to her bedside table to pick up her phone to turn some music on, but of course she’s greeted with nothing. She groans loudly, “Of. Fucking. Course.” Shaking her head, she moves to take fresh clothes out of her suitcase.

Exiting her room again, this time far more awake, she walks down the hallway in a babydoll style top that read “Don’t play with my heart” with little girls playing racquetball with a red heart emblazoned over her chest and white jean floods. Her feet were covered in red high top converse today, matching the color of the small heart on her shirt. She liked the contrast of the white pants and the bright red of the shoes and she smiled to herself as she walked confidently into the breakfast area.

Her entire family was sitting around one of the tables, sipping coffee and eating pastries, it was now around 8:45 - a slightly more acceptable part of the day. They were all early risers, especially in comparison to her, and her older sister looks at her curiously. “What are you doing up so early, kid?” Y/N leans down to grab a slice of a peach from her brother’s place, which earns her a slight yelp of protest. She rolls her eyes at her sister and stalks off to the buffet, knowing she’s made her presence known enough.

“Can I borrow your phone now?” Y/N says after finishing a small danish and the lukewarm coffee that was at their table when she arrived. Her mother finally nods and hands it over. As Y/N grabs it, she’s already halfway out the doors that lead into the backyard of the villa. 

She stands on the grass that goes for a few feet before a hedge that separates the villa ground with the vineyard. Flipping through the contacts, she settles on hers and sighs, trying to calm her nerves. Her free hand ghosts over her hair and she uses one foot to step lightly on the heel of the other shoe. Please pick up, she sends out a prayer once again. Her last twenty-four hours seemed to consist of dreams, hopes, and prayers and she was starting to realize that she didn’t particularly like any of them. Biting her lip, she raises her phone up to her ear and gets her automatic voice message. Realizing she has her phone on ‘do not disturb’, she immediately rings herself again, knowing that it will go through this time.

-

Harry strolls out of his bathroom and widens his eyes when he hears a buzzing hear his bed. Seeing it’s Y/N’s phone he grabs it quickly and furrows his brow at the contact. Her mother’s name, but he doesn’t know that. To him it’s just a person’s name, it could be anyone she knew. Still, he thought about the odds of it being just one of her friends or her calling from someone else’s phone and decided to risk it.

“Hello?”

“Thank fucking God!” is all he hears and he’s pretty sure it’s Y/N’s voice.

“Y/N?” He laughs and takes a seat on his bed, staring out his window that opened to the vineyard.

“Yes! Harry? Hi!” She’s ecstatic that anyone picked up at all, bouncing up and down on the other side of the phone. She mutters to herself, once again, “Thank fucking God.”

“Who’s phone are you calling from?”

“Oh, my mom’s,” she says, calming down slightly as she begins to walk around the grass, unable to contain the renewed sense of energy she has.

“You don’t keep her in your contacts as ‘mum’? I almost didn’t pick up.” He tilts his head, trying to think of anyone else he knew who kept their mother’s contact as the actual name rather than ‘mum’ or some other variant of it.

“Well, thanks for picking up,” she laughs at his words, bringing her pacing to a stop to stare at the chateau across the way. “It’s really not that weird,” she insists, her arm going to cradle the elbow of the arm that holds the phone to her ear. “I don’t think any of my siblings have her as ‘mom’ in their contacts.”  

“I think it’s a little weird. I’m going to have to start asking people what they’ve got their mum down as in their phones. You’ve got me intrigued,” he muses, only slightly teasing. A smile curves onto his face as he hears her huff over the phone, obviously not liking his ribbing.

“So...you have my phone,” she changes the subject.

“Yes…” he scratches his head and she swears she could hear him awkwardly rubbing at his hair. “Sorry ‘bout that. Guess I forgot to give it back.”

“Not entirely your fault, I probably should have asked for it back. It was like twenty minutes before I even realized I didn’t have it and that was only really thanks to my mom.” She tries to not make him feel bad, because she honestly felt responsible for the mess up.

“Yeah, but I probably wouldn’t’ve realized till I got back to my place and pulled out one phone from my pocket and another one from my bag if you hadn’t tried the ‘find my iphone’ thing.”

“Oh my god, was it loud!? Did you have a hard time shutting it off?” She rushes as all the possible ways she might have annoyed Harry yesterday run through her mind.

“No, no, it was fine,” he reassures her, laughing lightly, standing up now and beginning to pace in front of his window. “Felt like a proper dick, though. Never in my life have I forgotten to give someone their phone back.” He sighs and stops in front of the window, deciding to open it for some fresh air.

Her gaze flits to a movement on the second floor of the chateau, someone opening up their window apparently. The long paned windows flip open and the little sheer curtains flutter in the slight morning breeze.

“So are you still in Bayeux?” Harry asks, hoping her answer is ‘yes’ as he takes in a deep breath of the air from outside.

“Yeah. Are you still here?” She asks timidly, moving her gaze down to her shoes bright red sticking out of the green grass. “Because that will make getting my phone back much easier,” she adds, clarifying that it’s not supposed to be a personal question, just simply a logistical one. Even if her heart skips a beat at the thought of seeing Harry again.

“Yes, I am. Well...just outside the town actually.”

“You don’t say? I’m staying just outside of town, too. At a little villa located next to a vineyard,” She looks around her surroundings again, walking the length of the garden once more. A movement from the same room that had opened their windows at the chateau catching her eye once again. A man, with his arm placed on the sill, leaning out slightly.

“You’re not wearing red shoes by any chance?” He smiles and she can hear the way it affects his words. Looking out of the window, he eyes the villa and the person who was pacing around its patio, seemingly on the phone.

Her brows raise and she stops in her tracks. “Did you just open your window?”

The only response from Harry that she hears is a soft chuckle. But, more importantly, the man in the chateau is waving to her. She grins and waves her free hand over her head, doing a slight jump to make sure he sees her. His laughter only grows, crackling slightly over the telephone line.

“What are the odds?” She breathes out after a moment. Her waving hand fell to her side and she looked at the figure in the window. It wasn’t exactly clear to her that it was Harry, but the way the man was hunched was enough to convince her. She vaguely sees him shake his head in agreement at the serendipitous nature of their current situation.

“Have you had a chance to dine in the vineyard yet?” Harry bites his lip after he asks the question, feeling a little more confident in his flirtation over the phone.

“I have - only once for dinner. Last night I was so stressed I couldn’t eat.”

“What do you think about lunch in the vineyard?” He’s smiling now, the charm dripping in every word he says. His accent is music to her ears and she thinks how could she ever say no to that offer.  

“I don’t know...lunch with my phone thief?” She imitates an unsure tone. Her tease is lighthearted and Harry huffs, playfully indignant.

“As an apology for keeping your phone by mistake,” he adds, emphasizing the ‘by mistake’ part.

“As long as I can get my phone back, I’m up for anything you want,”  She laughs, but then blushes at the innuendo that could be found in her words. Harry hears it and an amused look spreads across his face, the definition of anything running through his mind as well as his assured belief that Y/N did not mean what she had just implied. “I mean! Not anything, I just...Lunch in the vineyard would be lovely, Harry.” She sighs, a hand trailing down her face at her complete foolishness.

“Great. How does one o’clock sound?” He moves on from her slip, not wanting to embarrass her anymore. Especially when he was the one to cause this entire situation.

“Sounds smashing, Mr. Thief,” She breathes out, but laughs when she hears Harry groan.

“You’re something else, missy.”

“I know.” She rolls her eyes, trying to contain her giggles at their playful back and forth.

“See you at one.” He says finally.

“See you at one.” She echoes, continuing to watch him in the window. Neither of them seem to move to hang up. She’s stood in place and so is he, his head hanging out of the window now, resting himself on his arm. It’s just their breathing exchanging over the line and some gusts of wind crackling the connection every so often.

“Are you going to hang up?” She whispers, after a minute of complete silence, her voice coming out impossibly small.

“Thought you would’ve by now.”

“I don’t know why I can’t.” She admits, but she just feels weird hanging up on him even if they have plans to see each other later.

“Me neither.” His response causes her to tilt her head in confusion. Why would he have trouble hanging up on her?

“Okay.”

Then, it’s quiet again. Both of them shifting their bodies around, yet still managing to stay on the line. Y/N is the one who hangs up the phone after hearing Harry’s breath shake slightly, like he’s steeling himself to actually hang up. She realizes that while she doesn’t want to hang up on him, she’d rather do it than have him hang up on her. If that made any sense. She wasn’t sure, but the way he had invited her to lunch, it just felt like he had shifted their relationship from fan and star to something else. Something she didn’t fully grasp, but whatever it was made her stomach flip.

-

She informed her family that she wouldn’t be going out with them today and that she was getting her phone back, but not that she would be having lunch with Harry. She had no idea what they would think about it, but she didn’t want to give them the chance to inform her.

Walking through the vineyards, she watches the slight dust from the dirt gather on her shoes, the red converse. She had settled on what she had been wearing originally after changing her outfit upwards of twenty times. Best to be casual, she thought, like it was no big deal that she was about to dine with a musician whom she loved.

There was only one table on this side of the vineyard, it was the part owned by the chateau, a couple rows from where the villa had their tables. The simple cream tablecloth laid across the wooden table that had two matching wooden chairs with cream cushions placed around it. On top of the table was a picnic basket and a bottle of red wine, made from the grapes in the vineyard. And in one of the chairs sat Harry. Big square green glasses perched on his nose as he looked up at the sky. Y/N takes in his appearance, his cream shirt with stitched patterns on it, half unbuttoned to grant a full view of his swallows and butterfly as well as baggy light wash ripped jeans and dirty white vans. His shirt almost matches the tablecloth, but she’s not sure if he would take that as a compliment.

He hadn’t noticed her presence and he rubs his lips together, smoothing the lip balm he had applied before settling outside.

“Mr. thief?” She touches lightly on his shoulder, similar to how she had done yesterday. His head shoots up and he readjusts in his chair, to sit up slightly more upright. A smile curves onto his face and he moves his glasses up into his hair, pushing his curls back behind them.

“Y/N,” he drags out her name, toying with the sound of it. His eyes flit over her figure, taking in her outfit but quickly run back to her beautiful face. He motions for her to take a seat and she complies.

��The red shoes,” he smiles, glancing at her shoes. She laughs and does a little click of her heels.

“Can’t believe my phone was less than a mile away from me last night.”

“Oh! Your phone!” Harry’s eyes widened, “I forgot it in my room!”

Y/N laughs, her smile spreading on her face immediately, but her face falls when she sees Harry isn’t laughing. “You can’t be serious.” Harry says nothing, a blush creeping up his neck. “Harry…” she doesn’t know what else to say, scratching at the back of her head. “I guess stars really are just like us, complete space cadets.”

“I’m sorry! I was..distracted.”

She can’t keep herself from laughing and she places her hand over Harry’s on the table, trying to calm him down. “No worries, seriously, I was just teasing you. I’ve gone this long without my phone, an hour or so more won’t kill me.”

He smiles sheepishly, mentally kicking himself for how foolish he had made himself look. “Sorry ‘bout that. Seems like I’m really trying to keep your phone, doesn’t it?”

“Kind of...but I don’t think there’s anything in particular on there that you’d really be interested in having access to.”

He grabs the bottle of wine and takes the temporary cork off, he had previously uncorked it before Y/N had arrived. He pours the wine and then quirks a brow towards her. “I’m sure you’ve got some funny notes on there, you’re hilarious.”

She scoffs as his look is serious. Picking her glass up, she clinks it with Harry’s and takes a sip. She hums at the taste, judging the flavor and deeming it good. He watches her as she makes her silent decision and smirks at the way she smiles to herself. Coming back to the conversation she makes eye contact with Harry as she sets the glass down and leans back in her chair.

“You barely know me.” A coy smile flits across her features now. Harry’s heart skips a beat at her tone. He had been expecting some lighthearted quip, but this held something far more intense. It’s still teasing, but it’s far closer to flirting than friendly joking.

He begins to unpack the basket and place food onto the table, eyes constantly flickering between his task and Y/N. Her eyes are fixated on his hands, the way they flex and move and the way his rinks clink against the containers he’s moving around.

“Then tell me about yourself.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything.” He finishes placing the food on the table and removes the basket from the table so there’s nothing obstructing their view of each other.

“Very specific,” she takes a sip of her wine again, refraining from rolling her eyes. It was easy to talk to Harry, like they had been friends forever.

Harry lets out one of his loud single laughs. “See! You’re hilarious.” His compliment makes her finally roll her eyes playfully. Instead of responding, she puts some food onto the plate in front of her and takes a bite of a peach slide she had grabbed.

“You’re a flirt,” she says finally, her smile spreading across her face.

“That’s a fact ‘bout me not you, love.”

She bites her lip. For being extremely forgetful, Harry was also extremely charming. “Well, I’m not a fan of flirts.”

“I thought you said you were a massive fan yesterday?” He tilts his head to the side and looks at her with an inviting look in his eye, obviously trying to goad her.

She let out a gasp at his words and began to blush. His stare felt like a second sun boring straight into her, its heat traveling directly to her core. Trying to maintain her collected appearance that she had played so well yesterday, she takes a breath and another sip of wine. The liquid ran down her throat, soothing her. Shaking her head she says, “You know what I meant.”

Biting a piece of bread, Harry nods and shoots her a wink. Her legs instinctively shift together. Finishing his chewing, he speaks up, “Okay, but seriously, tell me more about yourself.”

They settle in, getting more serious and having an actual conversation rather than flirty comments shot back and forth. By the end of the bottle of wine, Harry and Y/N are cackling about some story she’s told about her first solo trip to Amsterdam and all the trouble she got into being a twenty year old college student with easy legal access to weed.

“I remember the first time I went to Amsterdam with the band,” Harry easily segways into his own story and she perks at the words ‘the band’. After all the fun they had been having talking and getting to know each other, the idea that Harry was a famous musician had left her mind completely. For the last forty-five minutes he had just been a really nice guy who was treating her to lunch.

She looks at him expectantly. “It was crazy cool, I think I was only seventeen then? But everyone else was over 18 so they bought us a bunch of pot and we smoked it and got high off our asses. Can barely remember what we talked about, but we definitely thought it was the smartest shit ever”

“Do you ever miss that?”

He finishes off his last bit of wine, “Being young and dumb?”

“No, the, like, relationship you had with them. I don’t mean to pry, but I feel like with any close relationship, when you stop being together all the time...it’s never the same.”

Harry sighs, thinking over what you had said, now knowing it was rather serious and not just about being young. He runs a hand through his soft curls before starting his response. “Short answer is yes. But, y’know, they were my family for so long and that bond doesn’t go away, even if we go through rough patches. Like that part of my life is such an essential part of who I am, I could never throw it away or discount it. I don’t know if I miss it all of the time though. I really like who I am right now.”

She nods, finishing her wine now too. Her body is fuzzy and warm under the soft light of the afternoon. Sharing a bottle of wine was enough to make her tipsy, but she felt sober enough to carry on their serious conversation. “That’s good. It’s important to like who you are right now. It’s how you know you’re ready to be there for others.” She says thoughtfully and then adds, “I like who I am right now, too.”

Harry smiles at her, a calm expression maintaining on his face, and twists his rings on his fingers. “That’s good,” he echoes. “Do you want to go for a walk?” His voice is soft and of course she’s going to say yes.

Her response is to stand up from the table and begin putting things back into the picnic basket. Harry watches her for a moment, taking in the way she moves with so much elegance even when doing such a mundane task. He is honestly so happy that he had gotten to see her again. She had intrigued him yesterday, but he had just expected her to be one of those fleeting thoughts in his mind. Now he wasn’t so sure. He had a feeling she would live in his memory for far longer. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll come back later and grab it all.”

“You set this all up, the least I can do is clean up a little,” She looks up at him from her crouched position as she packs up the leftover food into the basket still on the ground. Her hair is slightly falling into her face and she reaches to push it behind her ear while they continue to look at one another. Harry takes his lower lip into his mouth as he continues to look at her, trying to convince himself she’s not the most beautiful woman he’s ever met.

As they walk between the grapes, they continue to talk, further investigating Y/N’s job aspirations and what Harry was planning on for his next few weeks of vacation. He leads them down a dirt path after they cross the street, moving away from both the villa and the chateau. The path has tall grass flanking its sides that pushes around in the cool summer breeze. She mentions the beautiful sound of the birds chirping and Harry agrees. They walk until they reach the small lake that’s about a ten minute walk from their respective current residences. It’s not a lake for swimming so there’s no one around, just more tall grass, some small trees, and the animals.

“It’s really so beautiful here.”

“I love it a lot, I’ve been coming down here every evening and just sitting alone for an hour or so,” Harry motions to the little wooden bench located beneath a shady tree. She looks at him questioningly, unsure if he means for them to sit. He takes her hand in response and leads them over to it. It’s right before the edge of the pond and if their legs were just a bit longer they could touch the feet into the water.

“It’s nice,” She says, turning her attention from the scenery to stare at Harry, who she finds is already looking at her. Their eyes meet and she bites her lip. He’s so close to her. Closer than they were in the shop yesterday and now their faces are on the same level. His glasses are still pushed into his curls and she decides to pluck them from his head and place them over her eyes instead. Harry protests, but she says smugly, “I’m putting them to better use than just sitting a top that head of yours. It’s quite bright out.”

Harry leans into her, extending his arm behind her and resting it on the back of the bench. She sighs peacefully, with her gaze now hidden behind the glasses. She returns her gaze out against the water and tries to shift closer to Harry casually. They stay silent, listening to the rest of the world moving around them. Soon she’s resting nestled into his side and his arm has moved from the bench to rest around her shoulders. She exhales in contentment, but neither of them have said anything for a while. They were okay with it, being held was enough. Her right hand goes up and threads with Harry’s that is hanging limply against her.

After a few more minutes of silence, Harry decides he wants to talk. “I like being around you.”

“I like being around you too, Harry. You’re different than I had expected.”

“Really?”

“Yeah..I mean there’s that sinister quote about how you should never meet your heroes. But still, you were even kinder than I expected and even though you stole my phone,” she pauses to laugh,”it kind of turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I got to see you again.”

“Thanks…” Harry sighs and she turns her face to gaze up at him. “Well, yeah, now I’m sorta glad I did take your phone. You’re really wonderful.” She smiles and he smiles just as wide.

But then her smile falters, suddenly remembering everything. It was like a self-fulfilling prophecy, she mentioned that thing about heroes and it all came crashing down around her. Yes, it was amazing to be around Harry and it was great that he had been so down to earth. But what she had just said was true too. He was her hero, he was famous and their lives didn’t connect at all. Just that one fleeting moment in the shop. If she hadn’t known him they would have never interacted. She had even been on her last legs of being in that store, she was just about to ask her mom to leave when Harry had walked through the door.

She sits up and drops her hand from his and he looks at her confused. “Did I say something wrong?” He asks, concerned. She stands up now and walks the short distance to the edge of the water, pushing his glasses on top of her head. He follows quickly, growing anxious as she stays silent. “I just..” she laughs in spite of herself, “I just feel really dumb right now.”

“What? Why?” Harry’s really confused now, she won’t meet his gaze as he faces her trying to figure out what just happened.

“I can’t believe I fooled myself into thinking for even a second this could ever be something more.” She turns to Harry finally, looking him directly in the eye, even though her eyes are prickling with tears. She’s angry with herself, not Harry. “You’re you and I’m just a fan at the end of the day. All of the flirting and touching, it can’t be anything more. At most, I’m a one night stand. And as great as that would be in the moment, I know how I feel about you and I know it would ruin me. I can’t be a fling for you, Harry. I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” he grabs her arm, trying to comfort her, she shrugs him off. “You’re more than a fan to me, I thought that was obvious by now. You wouldn’t be some meaningless one night stand. When I say I like being around you, I mean I like you, Y/N.” His voice is strong yet soft. He needs to convince her that she can feel comfortable around him, but he sees the darkness in her eyes, how scared she is of being hurt.

“I don’t fit into your life, Harry.” She shakes her head, moving her hands more as she grows more anxious.

“That’s not true. You told me you want to move to England, we could see each other there and see if this was anything.”

She knows he’s right, that it was possible, but she had worked herself up so much now that she had a hard time believing it. She takes a deep breath, “Just answer me this. Would you have given me a second glance if I hadn’t come up to you in that shop yesterday? Or a second thought if there hadn’t been the phone mishap?”

Harry is taken aback. Her words had nothing to do with what he had just said. He had thought his solution was actually really great, a plan he had been meaning to tell her if the rest of the day had gone accordingly, which it didn’t seem to be doing. He pauses and if Y/N was anymore distraught that would have been her cue to leave. Thankfully, she had grounded herself enough in the situation to not let her hot head get in the way of this conversation.

“That’s a pretty unfair question, Y/N. It’s not like I’m constantly looking for someone to fancy.”

“Just answer the questions.”

“Probably not, about the first one, I hadn’t even noticed anyone in the shop before you came up to me. I was off in my own world.” She nods, taking his words into account. He continues, “But yes, about the second one, I thought about you in the car ride home before your phone even rang. Like I said, I like you.”

“Okay.” She softens.

“That’s it?”

“I mean you’re right. We could see each other in London and see if this is something. I just had to know about the other stuff, it was racing through my mind and I wouldn’t get over it unless you gave me an answer.”

“Oh, so can I kiss you?” His words broke the uncomfortable tension that had surrounded them.

“You still want to?” Her voice is small and unsure. The most nervous she had been around Harry was right now.  

“I want to do so much more than that, darling, you have no idea.” He cups her cheek and wraps an arm around her waist. She giggles in nervous anticipation. Then his lips gently push onto hers and she sighs into the kiss. At the edge of the lake, the pair of them taste each other for the first time. Tongues begin licking into each other’s mouths and the kiss becomes breathless. Her hands are at the base of his neck, tugging him closer to her while he tightens his grasp around her waist. She moans slightly when Harry nips at her lower lip and he smirks, happy with the sound she makes.

“We should probably go get my phone.” Harry whimpers at her words.

“What?” Harry is once again confused by the woman before him, who had now pulled from their kiss.

“My phone is in your room…” She trails off and then eyes widen and he giggles excitedly. Eventually realizing what she’s implying.

“Yes! Yes, we should go do that. Get your phone. In my room. Sounds like a good idea. Mhmm.” He pecks her lips between each sentence.

“You’re so weird,” she laughs and brings down his shades onto her face once again. He pulls her into his side and kisses the top of her head as they begin their walk back to the chateau.

“Do you want your phone or not?”

[probably-haven]

after binge reading i have come to a new revelation: I’m not a fan of most Xiaoven fanfics

Don’t get me wrong, I love the ship and its one of my favorite to think about.... but most of the fanfiction for the ship just- doesn’t sit right with me for a number of reasons. 

Disclaimer: these are personal opinions from my own taste and are in no way an attack against any authors out there, because frankly fanfic authors are great and not like i could do better lol. As these are personal opinions, I acknowledge here and now that a number of people disagree and that they are under no obligation to change their opinions in any way as it is not and never will be my intention to tell others what they should be thinking That said- read at your own risk if you want- meh, anyway-

time to share some opinions that have been on my mind lately

The biggest reason.... is how they handle Xiao. And I don’t even mean mischaracterization because Xiao is such a complex and yet simultaneously simple character that as long as you’re somewhere in the range of “Xiao vibes” it’s really hard to write him out of character because of his complexities. What I mean is something that i actually completely agree with as being accurate to his character. In nearly every single fanfic I’ve seen, there is some element of idolization that Xiao has for Venti, or for the sake of reference, Barbatos. He tends to think himself beneath Barbatos and/or indebted to him, whether that be because he’s an archon, because he saved him, or simply because of Xiao’s tendency to dehumanize(yes i see the irony in that word usage) himself.  This by itself isn’t an issue but its often how this trait of his is treated.

Imma just list a few ways I’ve seen this be handled within Xiaoven fics. - It isn’t handled, it’s just there and accepted as a part of who he is in the story - It isn’t handled but his trait is treated as source of humor within the story - Venti(and others) roll with it (finding humor in it, just cant change it, encouraging it, making jokes about it, etc.) - Venti takes advantage of it(whether accidentally or purposely) - it’s actually addressed(by Venti or someone else or the narration- can go a number of ways, but just- even a brief reference to the fact that its not a good mindset fits in here) - savior!Venti(Where venti disagrees with it but the way it’s written gives off “god among mortals” vibes- like he’s just being humble and truly is above him in reality) - its the focus of the story  - not directly addressed but shown to be destructive.  - they chose not to not include this in the story’s characterization of Xiao(just saying that this is valid ahead of time) Theres others but i have a lot already.  Note that I tend to read more ‘serious-toned’(idk if that makes sense) fics so that may skew my perception

Now there’s a few that i have issues with on their own- both instances of it not being handled, Venti(and others) rolling with it, Venti takes advantage of it(purposely(and without good intent)), and savior!Venti. Xiao not only has this trait, but he is unfamiliar with what is normal in relationships or emotions as a result of isolation and inexperience. He is also either not aware of or not concerned with what is considered strictly “healthy.” Combining these makes for a rather dangerous combination and just accepting it as “oh he’s just like that, it’s who he is” or making it out to be something funny- It’s not wrong or bad by any means necessarily, and I could still possibly enjoy it to an extent depending on a series of different factors, but its- not as often.  Even in the case where I do enjoy reading it however, I would still feel uncomfortable sharing it with or recommending it to others because in the first instance it feels like normalizing a destructive and dangerous mindset, and in the second case it does the same while simultaneously making a joke of it. It’s the same deal with Venti or other characters rolling with it, but that’s probably gonna be mentioned later too. Not to say that this is a “wrong” way to handle it, that it makes the fic bad, or that authors even are normalizing anything by doing so, just that in my specific instance- not a fan. 

I’ll get to the others when i talk more about Venti, but for now: It’s the focus of the story. I think I saw like... 2? where the story was like- focused on this and why its a problem which- power to them, address those real world problems like a boss- but also i wouldn’t actively seek it out or anything- like, good job, but doing so just leaves it open neutrally for other factors to decide how good a story i think it is. 

not directly addressed but shown to be destructive. You’d think i wouldn’t like this- but frankly in fanfiction not everyone wants to address every character flaw verbally because it can through off story, narration, dialogue, and general flow to do so. This can be with an event, an action, a dialogue, a mere comment, making it actually fit into the it’s actually addressed category except that its- subtle enough to make its own category. plus i live for show not tell- in everything- its a thing. im- very much a fan of when the fics do this but the subtlety is easy to miss and its not common so- 

It’s actually adressed- doesnt have to be a lot- just mention anywhere or imply anywhere that maybe idolizing someone as a god and savior and being in a relationship with them while having little knowledge of standards, emotions, relationships, or healthy behaviors in general- maybe isnt the smartest idea in the word. (”Call me Venti, not Barbatos” by itself is not enough to fit in this category tho as a note)

-

Now lets talk about Venti...

uh.... those who have followed me for awhile will probably already know this but... I have a lot of opinions on Venti and a pretty- “niche(?)” perception of his characterization that isn’t shared by a lot of others- so I don’t actually read as much Venti fanfic in general as you might expect because I often end up disagreeing with how writers portray him, which again, in no way is their characterization wrong, but- “their perceived truth” conflicts with “my perceived truth” and by extent so does the characterization, though neither is any more correct than the other from an objective point of view, if that makes sense... but anyways now that that’s said, moving on before this becomes a philosophy lecture, as fun as that would be for me.  I’ll try to keep my “perceived truth” out of this for the first bit. 

Venti’s response to this: 

He rolls with it: this depends on the mood of the fanfiction. If they dont put a lot of stress on that trait of Xiao’s it totally fine but if the trait seems to be a major part of Xiao’s character, it seems like normalization once more. (more on this later)

he takes advantage of it purposely: if its an AU or something and Venti’s like a villain(i saw a few) then- villain venti isnt my cup of tea but i have no qualms. If they don’t portray Venti in a negative light while having him take advantage however that’s a bit uncomfortable to read for me because it feels like normalizing taking advantage of that mindset as well as the mindset itself. However, i did see a number of instances of Venti using it as leverage for like- self care- which i definitely have no qualms. Xiao: [insert probably destructive idolizing statement about being indebt] Venti: How bout you pay me back by actually sleeping for once smh or other variations are okay and depending on the vibe are actually a really fun dynamic as long as it doesnt turn into romanticizing or normalizing it, y’know?

Venti accidentally taking advantage of it.... I love angst- and in most of these theres a sense of guilt when he realizes- and i just think thats a lovely way of addressing the dangers of such a mindset for both sides. As long as it doesn’t keep repeating to the point of romanticization its totally cool to read in my eyes(not irl ofc). If Venti never realizes he accidentally took or is taking advantage it feels a bit like normalization, and if he does but just- doesn’t care thats- a rip.

savior!Venti...... i- i hate. the story giving off vibes that Xiao’s mindset is technically correct while Venti oh so humbly tells him to treat him as an equal like the wonderful and charitable person he is.... i just- no. of course thats over dramatizing it- I think the main thing that gives it this vibe is when Venti doesn’t seem either concerned, surprised, uncomfortable, or otherwise have a negative feeling towards Xiao’s mindset. Just- it makes the whole thing weird in my eyes when Venti doesnt really seem to have his own reason to oppose the mindset idk- 

-

fact time!

Venti is the god of freedom. His backstory is freeing Mondstadt from a god’s tyrannical reign. His origin is a windsprite, just another breeze bringing changes for the better. His form is a nameless boy who played an instrument and then died, thus failing at his only dream and only ever accomplishing anything because of the help of others. He slept for a thousand years after the archon war to avoid putting Mond under the rule of yet another tyrannical god. He only even became a god because Andrius chose to let him. He wouldn’t have even had that chance if the nameless bard had survived, he’d remain just another wind while his friend ascended to godhood. Venti sacrifices his own power for his people’s freedom. 

now that I’ve laid out a number of canon facts, time for opinions:

Venti has little to no desire to be seen as a god. He thrives in, comes from, and emphasizes a lack of superiority in quite nearly everything. The first Ragnvindir, who canonically turned his back on Venti after Decarabian’s fall, likely did so because one- he anticipated power would corrupt and Venti would soon become just another tyrannical god, two- he suspected Venti used the nameless bard in an attempt to rise to godhood, or three- idk insert other possibilities to acknowledge again that i could totally be wrong.

Look me in the eyes and tell me Venti wouldnt trade godhood for his friend in an instant. His godhood was only granted to him because his friend died and could easily serve to constantly remind him of what could have been and what he lost. Venti takes no enjoyment from being seen as superior and in my opinion, I feel that it could actually make him largely uncomfortable when his divinity and abilities as an archon get involved-

also self promotion for my favorite posts- check out #archon war era venti if thats interesting to you

so anyway Venti rolling with it or making jokes about it just doesn’t sit right with me.- 

-

Okay! enough talking about that mindset!

idk- i have... a few/lot of other gripes and stuff or just things that kinda throw off the vibe for me but that’s the main one plus my general personal pickiness when it come to Venti fanfics- but this has gotten long enough already- 

idk i just felt like rambling about it and i haven’t done a long post in a while so-

again, I love the ship and its actually one of my favorites- just the fanfic isnt my thing..... that doesn’t mean i don’t still love it and come up with a whole ton of brainrot and ideas on it tho lmao

[lol-q]

There’s so many things I love about the show that I haven’t seen people give enough credit for and I want to go on a little ramble because people are focusing so much on what they don’t like vs. what they do. So here’s my list. Sorry for the grammatical errors 😬

I love that the lesbian main character is this sweet, innocent, big hearted young woman and not portrayed as a overly sexual fuckboi that hits on every woman. I love that Fatou is soft and gentle. More lesbian rep like that please

I love the soundtrack. It’s exactly the type of stuff I imagine Fatou would listen to and it’s not just the top 100 hit songs.

I love that they use the soundtrack as a way to connect to the plot line, like the lyrics to the song Fatou was listening to when she was on the rooftop said “And I hate to leave you feeling all alone.But your story cannot start until you've grown. You can find how to be OK on your own. I just can't be the one that makes you feel at home” which was a hint as to where the plot was going

^^ also the song playing during Kieu My and Fatou’s museum date

I love the little mannerisms Nhungi chooses to show as Kieu My. The happy little bounce she did in ep 1 when she called out Fatou’s name and when she subtly checked Fatou out by looking her up and down.

I love how their rooms show their individual personality so well. Like Fatou’s room in the beginning of the season was normal and then it became increasingly messy as the episodes moved forward, showing her stress and chaos in her life

I love the height difference between Fatou and her brother lol

I love when her brother and her were thinking of what to get their parents so they split the bill on a gift - a very subtle way of showing siblings interacting

I love when Fatou and Ismail interact cuz it’s so funny

I love the physics teachers speaking voice, he sounds like kermit the frog

I love fatou’s eyebrows. Idk it’s just so perfect. Give me tips plz

I love that the characters rewear clothing. And it’s not a show where every episode is a new outfit with new clothes. Very realistic and it always bothered me when teens on highschool on tv have new clothes every episode

I love that Fatou’s original bio on tinder was “wanna cuddle?”. I feel like that girl would rather cuddle with someone than win the lottery. She’s so soft (also why did it say she was 24 in ep 2 when she was on tinder lol)

I love that the show showed the struggles of coming from a bilingual family and being the only one that struggles to speak it. When fatou was talking to her grandparents with her brother and her brother had to translate for her and it was awkward af, I felt that. I’m the youngest in my family and I struggle to speak Tagalog so people have to translate for me sometimes and it sucks.

^^ I relate to fatou so much in that scene cuz the dynamic in my family is the same as Fatou’s. My parents lay off and let me and my brother do our thing unless there’s an indication we need their help. The only time I ever spoke about school with my family was when report cards would come and they would see my grades weren’t that good. I remember my mom seeing I had a D in middle school and automatically jumping to conclusiosn without letting me speak. My brother is academically successful and he would also try and get me to do more school stuff when I was younger. Like he would make me do math problems to help with my grades. So it’s all very relatable for me

I love when Fatou sings, her voice is so soft and smooth.

I love whenever Kieu My and fatou are flirting both so blatantly and yet so subtly. Like the tension is there but it’s still awkward despite how smooth they both try to be it’s so adorable

I love how Fatou and Kieu My are so confident flirting and talking to eachother through texting but when it’s irl it’s still awkward and new. It shows the reality of an actual relationship in the making. It’s not just a full head dive into “I love you”.

I love when they were at the table tennis bar place and Fatou was hyping up Ava when there were dudes looking at them and Ava did a fancy ass turn and smile. She’s so pretty

I love that Fatou’s problems were shown in subtle ways in the beginning with money. Counting money at her job and when she wa trying to pay for the drink at the bar. It was a small interaction but in real life it would cause a lot of stress and anxiety if money counting problems kept happening over and over again

I love Yara and Josh’s friendship. More platonic friendship between a male and a female please. Also more Yara in general please.

I love that Zoe owned up to her actions last year to the entire group (minus Ismail Constantine and Kieu my) on New Years. I see her owning up to the role as Nora’s big sister.

I love when Josh was drinking a lot during New Years and Fatou was trying to get him to slow down. It shows how big her heart is for her friends. Also I think Josh and Fatou could be great friends

I love that Kieu My looks at Fatou like she hung the stars. When Fatou mentioned she knew Kieu My was a Scorpio, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen that girl smiled so big (before episode 5 of course)

I love that whenever they kiss Kieu my is smiling.

I love Sira’s side profile. There I said it. Girl has the jawline of a Greek goddess.

I love that they change Fatou’s hair. She looks good in every hair style but it’s always nice to see her in different styles.

I love that they showed the struggles of being a passive and gentle person. Because we’re not assertive in regular everyday life we are easily looked over. And it’s hard for us to muster the gusto to be assertive and take what we need because we prefer shying away from conflict and just letting things flow. I relate to fatou’s character so much in that sense. I lowkey think this is the universe’s way of telling me to stop being so passive about life and to take charge idk.

I love that the topic of white savior and performative activism was touched on. And I love that it was between two friends because it’s very realistic to how dynamics work between young people these days. The way they handle it differs in opinion but the fact that they even spoke about it was great.

I love that moment when Kieu My wrapped the vietnamese pancake in the lettuce snd handed it to Fatou. Its so sweet. If I was Fatou I would have forgiven her right then and there lol

I LOVE THE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWo. YES MORE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE.

Episode 6. Just all of it. Even the angsty part. I want more of that. Episode 6 yes. I’ll marry episode 6

Kieu My wearing Fatou’s cardigan. 💕💕💕💕💕💕✨✨✨✨✨😫😫💕✨✨🥺

^^ but also as a person that tried bangs before, you can’t tell me that girl woke up with her bangs perfectly in place lol. This girl probably bought a mini straightener or something too

Fatou telling Kieu My it doesn’t matter if she wears make up or not rather than going off on how she looks prettier without it. She’s just like “it doesn’t matter. You’re pretty no matter what, my little space nerd”

Pissed off fatou is a hot fatou. Js

I love Sira’s acting in general. But the way she shows Fatou’s sadness is great. It’s not just tears and that’s it. When she got fired it was a build up of tears but she wasn’t sobbing, same thing with the cashqueens argument. But she broke when her and Kieu My got in a fight.

Finn being socially awkward. It’s so funny cuz Zoe is this bubbly party girl and her boyfriend is so awkward. Nice balance.

^^also his hair makes me laugh idk why

Ismail opening up to Fatou shows how so many people feel at ease with her. Girl has a calming presence for everybody, she doesn’t even realize how much she’s helped others.

I love that Constantine wears the same jacket over and over again. Idk it seems to fit his character.

^^also kudos to the actor who plays him, he’s doing an amazing job

Love Fatou. Love her dimples and her soft voice. She gets all high pitched when she’s normally speaking but when she was fighting with Kieu My her voice became lower. Just love the way Sira’s voice sounds. Also Nhungi’s speaking voice.

Love the shaky camera movements. The fast pans and the slow motion dance scenes.

Love the aesthetic of Kieu My smoking but PLEASE DONT SMOKE, CHILDREN. ITS BAD FOR YOU.

Love the different aesthetics of the cashqueens

Love maike. Great actress. Give this turtle an Oscar.

Love Kieu My climbing the roof to help her Fatou. Softie to her girlfriend but an ice queen to the world lol.

Love the actors. Love the characters. It just makes me so happy.

This is so well written, i might actually cry no but really it was really nice to read your positive and cuteee facts after the tag check :/ and it really helped because i get mad and sad when i see bad takes. Everything you said was so true and i think im fangirling over this essay. And it made me emotional 👉👈.  Represantation does really matter.

This season is so important for so many people and i don’t think some people realize that when they’re ‘’criticizing’’ some things. Not only we have a lesbian main, we have a black lesbian main who is the softest person in the world and she has LD and/or ADHD. I sometimes can’t believe we got to the point of skamverse where we get rep instead of hurtful,problematic seasons and plots, some might interpret that as shade but it really isn’t, careless storylines really does hurt ppl and why would you want to hurt people when you can give 8 min of sapphic museum date instead 👭🌌 :)

i love this season, i love this gen and i love this essay

[pluviophile-imagines]

Fic Reflection: Rule of Three

↳ This fic was one of the fastest I’ve ever written. From concept inception to post-ready it took days, though I’ve been wanting to write a poly getting-together fic since like the very start of this blog I just hadn’t found a ship that spoke to me enough (almost happened with Dabihawks but I didn’t get my shit together in time)

↳ The first line written was “‘Sei’s being impatient.’”

↳ The last line written was “In fact, he’d come to genuinely enjoy spending time with you, both when Nagi was around and otherwise.”

↳ Reonagi as a ship holds a v special place in my heart bc it’s probably the only thing I really ship in Blue Lock. It’s also a ship where i can definitely say id be interested in dating both parties, and i think they would work well in a triad like depicted

↳ Big fat shoutout to mr @venexus​ who somehow shot me with a reonagi raygun when they wrote their reonagi fic; i blacked out for 12 hours and when i woke up I’d written like 80% of the fic. Also shoutout to them for beta-ing and listening to me scream about the reader getting a mind of their own and becoming a dom

↳ It’s not openly stated in the fic but nagi and reader met through online gaming! Reader’s a bit of an e-thot; when they got together with nagi they weren’t quite popular enough but by the time of the fic they’d quit their job to do it full-time. nagi didn’t meet them through a stream tho they just met on an mmo and hit it off. They got together literally the first time they met irl; they realized they lived rlly close to each other so reader stopped by to meet nagi & hang out one day and he just. Impulsively kissed them while they were gaming together lmfao

↳ In case u couldn’t tell from his narration at the beginning, Reo fell for the reader almost immediately upon meeting them, he just didn’t realize it. The reader knew about it the whole time, both his feelings for them and his feelings for nagi and nagi’s feelings for him. The only reason it took so long for the poly thing to happen was bc reader thought Nagi and Reo were oblivious to the whole situation and it took Nagi broaching the subject for it all to click (if anyone’s interested in how that convo went,,,,,, send in an ask)

↳ Reo definitely tries to sneak away in the morning but reader catches him in the kitchen and they finally have like. A real conversation explaining that yes they rlly do wanna bring him into the relationship and no it’s not just bc they want a third they specifically want him while nagi is asleep in bed and Not trying to make out with the two of them. Hes a fucking menace (I might write this scene too if theres any interest tbh shoot me an ask im truly a sucker for morning after scenes)

↳ Deadass considered learning how to color just for this fic’s banner ngl….. I had a rlly great mental image of the two hapibas i chose with watercolor-type coloring, rlly simple with just their hair and eyes colored, but that didn’t happen. Would’ve ended up spending more time on the banner than the fic LMFAO

↳ I do imagine this in a universe where the bllk team is a professional team and i think the whole thing is…. Not exactly hush-hush (bc dear god nagi would never be able to keep something like that a secret hes way too impulsive in a “i dont fucking care who sees im tired and i want a kiss right now reo” way) but deffo low-key they dont go announcing it so it just kinda…. Comes out slowly n naturally and the reactions are either “oh thank god we were about to lock all three of you in a closet” (isagi, chigiri, bachira, etc. basically the ones who r closer to nagi n reo) or “ur saying reo wasnt dating them this whole time????” (gagamaru, karasu, eita, etc, basically Everyone else) bc tbh he like. Basically fucking was

↳ In that vein their relationship genuinely doesnt change all that much once reo starts dating them tbh the main difference is that now he can kiss them and spoil tf out of them (bc why does reo have money if not to spend it on me 🙄)

↳ First thing he does is buy a bigger bed and a bigger couch cause it gets cramped with the three of them on either….. And then reader complains enough about them being too big for their apartment and reo buys them a new apartment obvi (“no this isnt an excuse to move in. stop laughing reader im being nice bc you keep saying the couch is too big- no you will not be paying for it at all stop trying to”)

↳ Nagi doesn’t like dates that involve going out and doing things so more often than not reo takes reader out to mikage corporation dinners etc while nagi stays home. He pretends to be exasperated when they do their spitfire routine but tbh he brings them on purpose so theyll make the geriatric executives and bad-touch-happy daddy’s boys uncomfortable…… and when the two of them come back home at like 2 in the morning nagi is always up pouting on the couch cause he couldnt sleep without them and they promised theyd be home three hours ago

[lassieposting]

Hi i havent read the books post-resurrection so im kinda lost on why you dont like phase 2 val? She was easily one of my favourite characters ever, she was flawed (and the books took time to acknowledge them) and relatable and still really admirable (intelligent, brave, loyal) and i really liked her and really appreciated that she wasn’t perfect unlike every other young adult heroines. What went wrong😢😢😢😢

Okay I'm gonna put this under a cut because I very strongly dislike phase 2 val and I know it bugs people who don't feel the same, so. Dead dove dont eat

Okay so first off, phase 1 val and phase 2 val are completely different people. literally. phase 1 val was based on an ex-friend of lardo's who used to apparently be involved pretty heavily in like, editing the books and "she'd react like this" or "val wouldn't say that", and that val she was one of my favourite fictional characters from when book one came out to the release of resurrection. phase 2 val is based on his whiny little girlfriend who likes to start shit with 14yos on twitter, and you can absolutely tell she is no longer the same person. so the long story short of "what went wrong" is "the original irl val's friendship with dirty laundry ended for whatever reason and he decided to retcon her entire personality to suit his gf"

Phase 2 Val, in my opinion:

Weak, like won't even fight back when she gets jumped bc boo fucking hoo she's so awful, bitch get up already, nobody signed up for ur pity party

Whiny. So fucking whiny. All the time. And she's the POV character so it's inescapable.

"Pacifist" but in a really pathetic virtue-signalling kind of way like "Oh, I've done such terrible thiiiiiiiiiiings I'm so awfulllllllllllll look how good I'm trying to be nowwwwwwww pay attention to meeeeeeee" kind of way, it was both boring and a massive eye roll. It's a book about magic and asskicking. Kick some ass. We're here for escapism not "realistic" whining. Yes, irl she'd be a mess. As an author it's his job to strike a balance between the "realism" he wants to portray and making his readers so depressed and done with his heroine that they quit reading, and in my case, he absolutely failed.

Everything must be about her at all times. Skug is having personal problems? Fuck him, they're about her now. Everything is about how it affects her, and her feelings, and be damned to the person actually having the problem. Fucks phase 2 val cain gives about anyone except herself: 0

Bitter and jaded. Which yeah I get why but it's like jesus christ what do we get out of reading about this? It's not even good bitter and jaded where it makes you empathise or admire her strength in adversity or whatever, she's just become a really nasty person with no redeeming features that I could see. Which? Landy outright said she's based on his gf? If your boyfriend is gonna drag ur entire personality through the dirt like that and write "you" as just a collection of incredibly negative traits...yikes.

Really ungrateful about the awesome life she leads? Which bugs me bc I fucking hate mundanity and knowing that all there is to life is fucking working and bad mental health. I would kill to live her life. All she does is moan about it. Like? Quit then. Fuck off back to being a mortal if it's that bad and live the shitty life you wanted to get away from in the first place. That way we'd get no more books, and quite honestly, thank fuck for that. But anyway, she needs to pick one, stick with it, and stop complaining about whatever she chose.

The girl wallows in self pity. And if someone else isn't indulging her enough, she'll wallow harder and louder and more obviously. Yawn.

Her POV is now so depressing to read that Resurrection literally tanked my mental health. I'm not kidding. I fell off the self-harm wagon, the suicidal thoughts came back, reading her dissociating would make me dissociate, I just did not cope whatsoever. Being in her head was just like being in my head during my worst points, and I hate myself, so naturally, I hate her too. Like I get why some people like phase two val. I get that her depression is "realistic" and that trauma does just make some people completely dislikeable and self-pitying, and if people want to read about that, then...sure. you do you, my dudes. But I live that reality, I am that person whose trauma made her a dysfunctional, isolated bitch, and I hate, passionately, having it infest the media I consume to escape.

Essentially if I wanted to engage with a bitter, spiteful, depressed piece of shit in her 20s who pushes everyone away and sucks at everything, I'd live my gd life. Yall see me tryna engage with my real life? Hell nah I'm on tumblr dot com burying my head up the ass of whatever fandom will force my brain to produce some s e r o t o n i n and that is what I need this series for

Also? The dynamic she had with skug in phase one? "Until the end"? "You save me, I save you, that's how we work"? Forget that, it doesn't exist anymore. I stopped reading after Midnight, because she was written like he was a coworker she could barely tolerate. They went from "Lardo confirms on twitter that they talked on the phone a bunch while she was in america and he'd always ask her to come home" to "she comes home and proceeds to blank him for five months while she sits in her fuckin multimillionaire's mansion feeling sorry for herself". Their friendship completely disintegrated, they were totally separated for most of the book, she's written as not giving a single shit about him. She treated him like dirt, and their dynamic basically felt like it was becoming "Local Man With History Of Gravitating Towards Abusive Women Makes Same Terrible Choices For Fifth Time" and? that was the point of no return to me. he supports her unconditionally, no matter what he's going through at the time, he's walked on broken bones to try and get to her when she was in danger, she can tell him anything and he'd never use it against her. I did not, for one second in phase two, believe she felt the same about him. tbh it felt like she could - and wanted to - drop him at the first opportunity and not even feel bad about it, and that's not the dynamic that made me so emotionally attached to phase one. i signed up for "until the end", not whatever bullshit phase two has going on.

Apparently she's "less depressed" now and their relationship is "better" in the books published since midnight, which! might well be true. but I haven't read them and don't intend to, and she's gone from one of my favourite fictional characters ever (which! was impressive! because i almost never bond with the female lead - i normally get attached exclusively to the character i crush on, which would be skug here. val was the first female lead i actually cared about since xena! so im deeply salty about losing her!) to a character i? honestly prefer to pretend doesn't exist. i live in war era dead men/generals crackship land because that way, i don't have to acknowledge her or the fuckin character assassination phase 2 pulled on her.

so yeah, no hate towards phase one val at all. phase one val was awesome and flawed and gave me something to aspire to despite my shitty mental health and trauma, and if she'd kept her original personality she might still have been those things. but the original "real life" val is no longer involved (and doesn't talk to landy at all anymore, apparently), and the val based on landy's insufferable gf? i cannot get behind her at all ever, four for skug and none for phase two val cain bye

(tldr; you're not missing anything by quitting after spx)

[muwur]

long distance headcanons

✧ hc’s ✧ for daichi, suga, hinata & tsukki

❧ gn reader

✎ 1.5k words

a/n: hello yall this is my first post! nobody asked, but i just started this haikyuu reader insert blog, feel free to check my page n see wazzap. also requests are open pls come fhorfjepfiwf;

daichi

✧ after high school, he stayed in miyagi while you went to tokyo, about 5 hours away, for college

✧ texting or calling whenever u can!

✧ you be like “heyyy”

✧ then he clap back with a “go focus on your lecture”

✧ “im not in lectureee”

✧ “you gave me your schedule so i know you’re in the middle of class”

✧ “...”

✧ makes sure you’re awake on time for your classes and calls you if he thinks you’re oversleeping (and hes usually right, this man just KNOWS)

✧ “morning y/n, i think you need to get to class soon”

✧ “mmrghhhghhh” *checks time* “holy sHI-- i forgot to set my alarm. IMMA BE LATE. THANKS DAICHI I LOVE YOU ILL TALK TO YOU LATER BYE”

✧ definitely skips out on some nights out with his friends to video chat you. you catch up, talk about future plans, reminisce, complain about not being able to hug one another, etc. occasionally one of you falls asleep on call, particularly after a long day or week. if he sleeps, you make sure you screenshot his sleeping face and start a picture collection  

✧ you hit him up when you get drunk lMAO

✧ “daiichiii, i miss youuu, i needdd youuuu AND i needa peeee---” “hey daichi, this is y/n’s friend. y/n’s pretty out of it now but they’ll be okay! we’re heading back to our place right now” “im gonna pEE IN THIS CAR”

✧ daichi coordinates with your friends to make sure you arrive home safely, use the bathroom, and get tucked into bed. he thanks the universe you have good friends. if it weren’t for them he’d probs have a heart attacc. sends you cute, reassuring voice messages for you to wake up to the next morning with hangover tips he learned from suga

✧ always checks in with you throughout the day, every day. able to pick up on the slightest hints if you’re feeling unwell and calls you immediately to try to make you feel better

✧ makes plans to visit you! you get really excited to introduce him to your college friends (who, after meeting him, tell you not only is he a hottie but is such a kind guy, fosho a keeper. they also ask if he has any cute friends)

✧ either holding your hand or has an arm around you most of the time.

✧ you spend all day together outside and wandering the city, then spend the night back at your place (sorry roommate, but we’re gonna have to kick you out for a lil bit--)    

sugawara

✧ you finally secured a job! unfortunately, the company required you to work for a year at their main facility, which was a 4 hour drive away from miyagi

✧ if suga wasn’t needed in miyagi for his teaching job, he would’ve tried to come with you

✧ after unloading your things in your new apartment and before parting ways, suga was like

✧ “everything’s unloaded everything from the car?”

✧ “yes maam”

✧ “do you have enough snacks?”

✧ “we just went to the grocery hun”

✧ “did you bring enough underwear?”

✧ “gDI yEs I dID”

✧ “:c promise to call me often”

✧ “<3333 of course”</p>

✧ good morning texts before y’all leave for work! you send each other cute pictures when you’re getting ready for the day (suga with bedhead, brushing his teeth? suga with his tie half done?? sign me up)

✧ always texts you when something reminds him of you, usually sends a picture along with it

✧ “the store was having a special on oranges today! this one reminds me of you”

✧ “why”

✧ “it just looks so cute~”

✧ will immediately call you if you send him any sort of message that worries him

-“hello? y/n what’s wrong, why is there blood?? speak to me, you haven’t replied in 5 minutes”

✧ “ohhh my bad, i’m just cleaning up don’t worry! i didn’t explain, but the picture i sent you isn’t blood, it’s ketchup i spilled on myself lolol”

✧ poor man nearly fainted from worry

✧ would pay you a surprise visit, making sure to plan it carefully so he knew you weren’t busy with work or plans. brings you gifts of your favorite snacks and a scarf that matches one of his own for the upcoming winter

✧ plans out that weekend for y’all, mans did his research beforehand. together, you toured the city and the surrounding nature, took lots of selfies (and many candids of you), and taste tested lots of foods before returning to your apartment and collapsing into your bed with exhaustion

✧ but y’all not too tired for cuddling n a lil something else >.>

hinata

✧ sure, being a couple hours away was hard for some... but y’all in different countries right now

✧ calls you immediately when there’s any inconvenience that occurs in his life, no matter how minor, thinking you’ll know how to fix it (or at least give him the reassurance he needs)

✧ “hey y/n...”

✧ “what’s wrong? you sound worried”

✧ “i broke my bike, what do i do”

✧ “you what? are you alright?? how? where are you? it’s midnight there, honey”

✧ “i was biking back to my apartment after staying late to practice! i didn’t wanna hit this turtle, so i swerved into a pole and now my bike’s wrecked :**”

✧ “ahh, are you okay?? you’re not hurt are you :(”

✧ “no, im okay... but im tired and i have two miles to go ;(((”

✧ “;( im sorry babe but you gotta walk home. we’ll get you a new bike. ill stay on the phone with you until you get back. tell me about your day <3″</p>

✧ talks about you all the time to his friends! introduces you through video chat to them! “look how pretty and cute y/n is!”

✧ together you work out your time differences and busy schedules so you can chat whenever possible

✧ he lets you know whenever he bought something for you, but never shows it to you because he’s excited to see your reaction in person when you reunite

✧ always asks you to send him pictures of yourself, he wants to see what you look like everyday he’s missing you in real life

✧ you surprise visit HIM. he’s so happy he could cry. shows you around every place he loves, shows you off to everyone he knows, holds your hand the entire time and never wants to let go, is practically glued to you not that you mind  

✧ you spend your last night together lying in the grass, hand in hand, looking at the stars and sharing sweet kisses  

tsukishima

✧ y’all went to separate universities. while he stayed relatively close to miyagi, you went across the country to okinawa, which was about a 3 hour flight away

✧ he sees all the couples around campus n becomes lowkey bitter, texts you immediately about gross pda like hand holding that he secretly wishes he could do with you “these people in relationships are too happy, i didn’t ask to see them gawk at each other all day” “u just miss me lmao”

✧ once overheard a convo on a shuttle at school that went like :

✧ person 1: “ugh, he’s so cute”

✧ person 2: “why dont you go out with him??”

✧ person 1: “i dunno, his dorm’s down the street, i can’t really do long distance”

✧ nANI (by the way, this is a irl conversation my friend overheard, oml)

✧ tsukki nearly choked on his morning coffee

✧ bothers texts you in class bc he’s bored and in need of your attention

✧ “hey tsukki this prof’s lectures are rlly dense, i needa focus, ill text u after”

✧ “but arent i more interesting than rocks”

✧ “trust me, id even rather watch some dino documentaries with you than be here”

✧ *read*

✧ likes to chat with you most nights as he lies in bed before going to sleep, staring up at the dark ceiling and listening to your voice through his headphones. usually just talking about how your days went (as if you weren’t texting all day) or just casual talk and banter

✧ you remind him to make sure he’s taking care of himself and eating well

✧ “who are you? my mother?”

✧ “no but you’re about to be single”

✧ surprise visits you, tells you it was yamaguchi’s idea when it was really his own and yamaguchi was just teasing him about it  

✧ you show him around the city, sharing what you know about its rich history and culture. you visit most areas you both wanted to see before calling it a day

✧ your roommate conveniently spends that night over at their friend’s they just wanna give you alone time, which y’all very much needed. you make it a note to repay your roommate somehow.

✧ sweet lovin that he’s been missing, then some spooning as you sleep    

a/n: just wanna tackle these about 4 characters at a time but if u wanna see this headcanon w/ other characters feel free to hmu w/ an ask <3<b> also sorry if i text type a lot and that im inconsistent with my apostrophes, let me know if that’s something you want me to fix!