#i’ll get all the Ws documented. I WILL

[an-ivy-covered-summer]

the [W] with the monster bellibomb 💣

rockies vs cubs // apr 2, 2024 (x x)

[wellbelesbian]

an ask game for writers to procrastinate working on your WIP(s)

thanks for tagging me @theearlgreymage!

1. 🦈Tell us the name of your/ one of your WIP(s):

comfortable coats, calico cats, and collapsible canes. i just liked the alliteration.

2. 🍄Describe your WIP/one of your WIP(s) in the format of “___ + ___ =___”

artist + nude model = flustered

3. 🌍What tags or warnings will one of your WIP(s) need if you intend to share it?

oof, there's one that might need a major character death warning. but haven't fully made up my mind yet.

4. 🧭An alternative title to one of your WIP(s)?

the very last thing i do is title a fic, so none of them have alternative titles.

5. ⚠️Which WIP your most likely to finish or update next?

my first sapphic week fic, for the prompts moonlight and reflect.

6. 💾What is your document of your WIP/ a WIP called? (not the stories actual title but what you’ve saved it as)

my trojan war novel ones are all titled Part One Astyanax, Part Two Briseis, Part Three Hermione, and so on.

7. 🖍Post Any sentence(s) from your WIP.

“Where’s your hat?”

“Crowley, I think I left it at the cafe!” I realise with a start, and we both dissolve into giggles.

“I’ll buy you a new one.” Simon offers.

“It cost £60.”

“It did not!” He looks at me incredulously.

“It’s designer!”

“I will buy you a cheaper replacement.”

8. ♻️A scrapped idea for your current WIP.

i scrapped the idea of Natasha and Malcolm having marital problems in blow on the tinder, it ended up feeling unnecessary and just slowing down the plot.

9. 🤔What’s a story you’d love to write but haven’t even started yet?

a few years ago i toyed with the idea of a Carry On Once Upon A Time In Space AU, and i've started thinking over it again, but haven't made a start.

10. 🤡How many WIPS are you actively working on?

at least 10, which is a lot more than i usually have at one time.

11. 🛠Is there a scene or anything in the WIP you are struggling with right now?

i'm struggling to get Margaret and Blue's voices right, i need to reread their chapters in WS.

12. ❤️Not a question, just a second Kudos to send.

thank you!

tagging my fellow writers so they can procrastinate too: @forabeatofadrum @j-nipper-95 @artsyunderstudy @that-disabled-princess @prettygoododds @confused-bi-queer @imagineacoolusername @ic3-que3n @aristocratic-otter @larkral @hushed-chorus @ivelovedhimthroughworse @shemakesmeforget @fatalfangirl @ebbpettier @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @cutestkilla @youarenevertooold @alexalexinii @shrekgogurt @bookish-bogwitch @thewholelemon @supercutedinosaurs @shutup-andletme-go @ileadacharmedlife @alleycat0306 @carryonsimoncarryonbaz @comesitintheclover @blackberrysummerblog and @orange-peony

[littlemisslipbalm]

“Harry’s stylist, right?”

Summary: Harry and his personal stylist are great collaborators, on screen and off. She helps his visions come to life and in turn they’ve become close friends. As she helps him to bring his fashion dreams come to life during the Fine Line era, will some other dreams come to life as well?

or

Harry and his stylist go from colleagues to friends to lovers because they’ve been in love with each other from the jump

this fit is very important to this part lmaooo - I literally have no idea what to call this lol, anyway I've been sitting on this for forever and I wanted to get something out for yall and i love this story there will be a part 2 when i get to a writing mood. I love this story bc its my literal dream - anyway!! pls enjoy and reblog and lmk what you think :)

Word Count: 14k | Warnings: swearing, drinking, tame for now, should be smut eventually - aka slow burn (what else would you expect from me at this point i guess)

part 2

-

“Hey, H, I just had a question about one of the SNL outfits? Do you have a sec?”

Harry looked up from his phone and raised his brows at his stylist, Y/N.

Y/N had worked with Harry previously. In photoshoots for Another Man magazine and his most recent Gucci campaign. As well as some other random times, such as one-off award show looks and specific appearances. However, this past summer Harry had hired Y/N to work fulltime for him, exclusively. He had told her that he was planning on releasing his second album in the winter and he wanted someone there to help him plan his clothes for music videos, award season, interview appearances, as well as tour outfits.

Y/N stood just inside the doorway of the room, leaning her back against the wall, looking expectantly at him. Her eyes were wide and her lips were pursed. She was dressed simply in a white satin skirt and a matching cropped button-up, they both had cream flowers embroidered on, paired with horsebit slim Gucci mules. Her style was eclectic, but she had definitely noticed an increase of Gucci in her wardrobe since starting her employment with Harry.

Y/N’s passion in life was fashion and clothes and she constantly worried that one of Harry’s outfits wouldn’t deliver as much as she wanted it to. He was quick to tell her not to worry so much though, as long as they both were happy with it, how could anyone else not love it. Plus, he’d always add, it didn’t really matter what anyone else thought. But as more and more events began to crop up, Y/N’s worry over her work grew. She had only been the head stylist for Harry on projects that were still underwraps - except for Lights Up which had been released a couple weeks ago now.

The first project she ever worked on with Harry as his full-time personal stylist was the Lights Up music video. She had never worked so closely with one person for so long on just one project. Harry was insistent in vision and came in the first day filled with ideas, what he imagined for the video's concept and how he wanted to incorporate clothes. She had been happy to make his dreams become reality.

The two of them spent hours at his house for weeks, pouring over every detail of every outfit he planned to wear. They both wanted it to be perfect. And eventually, it all came together, exactly how they had planned. All of the garments for the video took up two entire garment racks. Y/N had made Harry pose in every single outfit for polaroids that she dated and then put into a lookbook she started for him. She had told him she planned to document every outfit she styled for him and Harry had been so excited. The outfits he wore in the video were received with praise when it was finally released, and Harry and Y/N were overjoyed. There was already a party for its release, but they both were especially happy that night. Throughout the evening, Harry and Y/N would gravitate to one another and fall into side conversations about the outfits and what people had been saying. Even if Harry said it didn’t matter, he and Y/N both knew, at the end of the day, they loved when people were happy with their work.  

“Sure,” he bounced to his feet, but Y/N made a hand motion telling him that he could stay seated. He settled back down as she crossed over and sat beside him on his couch.

She was at his house in London today planning his next few appearances that were promotion for the upcoming album, Saturday Night Live was next. Harry had been taking a break from their work until she had come in.

It wasn’t unusual for Y/N to be at his house, they had been working together for months now. First, it had been for his outfits in his music videos that were filmed in late summer and early fall, like Lights up, but also a few other ones. Now, it was clothing for promo appearances, interviews, and listening parties. Next, it would be tour outfits, which she had already started planning, but officially, they hadn’t started discussions yet. Harry had helped her to get a flat closer to his house in London just for her to be able to head over and help with the planning or fitting of his outfits more easily. She also was constantly traveling with him to his appearances, making sure outfits were perfect right before whatever show it was or making last minute adjustments in case either of them decided something wasn’t right.

While Harry was a big guy, his waist was far trimmer than a usual man built to his size, this meant she had to take in a lot of his trousers at the waist. As well, with his shirts and coats, she’d have to take them in or out depending on how Harry wanted the fit to be - either perfectly tight or perfectly oversized. He was particular, but she appreciated his drive for fashion and how he cared for his appearance. Before performances, she often had to take things in or out based on any body fluctuation that had occurred since the initial fitting.

She was looking at her sketchpad that held all of her notes on his clothes - which was different from the lookbook of polaroids - including patches of the actual colors and little Harry figures dressed in what he was going to wear. Right now, she had the pad opened to a page titled “SNL Opener - November 16, 2019”.

“So I was thinking with your opening monologue outfit, it might look better to have a different colored blazer? A matching yellow would be great, but if you did more of a toned down - maybe light tan or beige - blazer with gold embellishments, you’d elevate it to look sophisticated and stylish, rather than just stylish. It’d be exactly like the runway look - which I know you sometimes don’t like, but I think it’s what looks best.”

She ran her finger between two swatches of what she thought would be the better blazer color and the one Harry had originally wanted. He wet his lips and gazed at the page as he thought about what she said. Normally, she liked monochrome on him, but she thought the deep blue underneath a completely yellow suit might wash him out on the stage.

“Yeah,” he pointed to the top beige swatch, “I think I do like this better.” He paused and turned his head to Y/N, looking in her eyes before asking, “Is that all?”

“Er...no,” Y/N ran a hand over her unstyled hair, slightly fluffed by her constant musing of it. She often fiddled with it while she worked, better than biting nails she always said when confronted about her tick. After a sigh Y/N continued, “I was just on the phone with Jane from Gucci and she said that for Look 57 they could only send your technical size, for some reason they can’t custom make it. Meaning, I’ll have to tailor the whole thing to you when it arrives. Is that alright? Or do you want to choose something else?”

She flipped to a page that said “SNL WS.” Harry followed her hands and nodded realizing she was talking about the Gucci suit he wanted to wear for Watermelon Sugar. It was a watermelon’s inside red. When he had found out the suit came in that color, he had danced around the dining table for what Y/N had felt like was an hour, humming the tune of Watermelon Sugar excitedly. Finally, she had coaxed him to sit back down and get back to their other work, which was still picking out clothes.

“No, that’s fine,” Harry shook his head and used his thumb to scratch under his lips absentmindedly, “It really needs to be that color.”

She nodded, she knew what his answer was going to be, but she also knew he still liked to make the final decision.

“Alright, we’ll just have to meet for longer when everything arrives, to tailor that one. Then the rest of them should just be making sure the fit is perfect.”

She rose up from her seat and patted Harry’s shoulder, leaving him to his thoughts, as she went back to finish up the calls with Jane and the designers.

He caught her hand in his before she completely walked away, “Thank you, Y/N.” He was so grateful he had hired someone who was as driven as he was and understood his fashion sense and wanted to help enhance what he was thinking, rather than someone trying to control him or just going along with whatever he said. Neither would be productive or helpful, thankfully Y/N loved her job and cared to do things right.

She grinned before exiting, “H, you’re going to be this century’s style icon if it’s the last thing I do.” He laughed as she walked out of the room, leaning back on the couch to continue his lurking on Instagram.

-

One week later

“I’m here, H! I come bearing Gucci and more!” Y/N said as she shuffled through Harry’s front door, she held a deconstructed rack and a garment bag filled with heavy suits and things. Inside were Harry’s four most important outfits for SNL, some other garments for SNL, and some clothes they had talked about for his upcoming listening sessions later in the month. Y/N needed to check the fit on all of them and begin tailoring the Watermelon Sugar suit. The key Harry had given to Y/N, previously, had let her in, but she assumed he was home. He said he’d be.

When Y/N rounded the corner she found another empty room. Confused, she set down her large items and went to search for Harry. Y/N literally needed him to be here for this part. It was the only real time she actually needed to see him in person - but that was beside the point.

“H?”

She wandered through the different rooms of his home. Normally, Y/N didn’t go into the other rooms, she was always mainly in his lounge area, the dining room, and a little casual office room he had - sometimes the kitchen for water, his bedroom once. Still not finding him, she decided to venture to the furthest door, Harry’s bedroom, she remembered.

Harry groaned at the sound of a knock on his door, he rolled over in his bed. After a few moments of hearing nothing else than his groan, Y/N felt like she had to go in and check on him.

“H, it’s 12:30 and we agreed we’d meet at noon. Are you feeling alright?”

Y/N moved into the room and found a shirtless Harry surrounded by rumpled sheets, clutching at a pillow. He groaned into his pillow again in response. Her legs bent at the edge of the bed and she reached out to smooth some of his chestnut hair out of his face, “What’s wrong?”

He moved his head to allow his eyes to look at her, “‘M so tired, don’t know why. My stomach kind of hurts too…” Y/N looked at him quizzically, before running her hand over his tan forehead once more, this time checking for a fever. “You don’t have a fever. When did you go to sleep? Have you eaten anything today?” With her help, Harry moved into a seated position, head tilted back against the bedpost. He sat silent for a moment before blowing air out of his mouth. “Went to sleep kind of late for me, I guess...Haven’t eaten.”

“Ok, you’re just tired from staying up late, you old man, and you might be a little dehydrated and hungry. Listen, I’ll go make you some food if you get up and prepare yourself for the day. We need to get all your clothes fitted so that I can fix anything before next week.” Y/N was always good at getting Harry back on track when he got distracted - or even out of the station, when he wasn’t in the mood to work on something. She slid from her perch on the bed and walked to almost the edge of the room before Harry called her back.

“Can you pick out my clothes for me?” His soft, tired voice whined. “So hard...and you’ve got the best eye. Pleaseeee,” he pleaded softly.

Rolling her eyes, Y/N sighed and made her way back into his room. Crossing to the door that led to his walk-in closet, she set to work. As silly as he was being, she could never pass up on a chance to pick out an outfit for Harry.

“You’re literally going to be changing the entire time, H, you could have just thrown on sweats,” she called back to him once inside the smaller room. He repeated how she always picked the right thing, even for just around the house. Again, Y/N rolled her eyes at Harry, but she also couldn’t hide the warm smile on her face that was due to his compliment.

She couldn’t believe how dramatic Harry could be sometimes. Right now, he was a lesser form of hungover and he was acting like his life was ending. Y/N had made a note a while ago to never agree to a meeting on the day after any partying. She learned the hard way one particularly terrible Sunday. She had come round his house at a similar time, noon-ish and found Harry dead asleep, backwards in his bed. When she had roused him, his only responses were grumbles and groans. She had to not only pick out his clothes, but also help dress him. Then, after providing water and aspirin, she moved all their work into his bedroom so they could work from there. Harry had proved to be a baby when it came to hangovers.  But, she hadn’t realized he could get like this even without being truly hungover.

After settling on his live aid t-shirt, that Y/N was eternally jealous of, located at the front of his drawer and his favorite corduroy trousers, she walked out and threw them in the direction of his toned, but slumped body. “I will not get you boxers, that is most definitely not in my job description, Boss.” Y/N sent a pointed look in his direction, moving to finally leave the room. While he was technically her boss as her employer, their work relationship was extremely collaborative and it never felt like he was in control of her, she just liked to give him shit for being a drama queen.

“Guess I’ll be going commando. How’s that going to work with me changing in front of you a bunch of times?” He teased right back, taking the clothes you had thrown at him and giving them a onceover. His teasing signalled that he was already feeling better.

Y/N shook her head and walked out of the room, “For the love of God, Harry, please put on underwear before you come out and continuously strip in front of me!”

The words he shouted after that were muffled, but they were something along the lines of how the human body is beautiful and shouldn’t be covered up. Unbelievable. As she set to work on making both of them some lunch, she finally heard Harry begin moving around. They had a lot of work to do as it was and whenever Harry was in a mood, whether it be a good mood or a bad mood, they always seemed to have a hard time focusing.

One night, that could be seen as the poster child for Harry and Y/N’s procrastination, was during the planning for the Adore You music video. Harry was in a super good mood that day and he had brought that energy to their meeting at his house. Y/N was supposed to be fitting him for the various outfits, but Harry, in his mania, ordered an overzealous amount of Chinese food. It took her and Harry hours to even make a dent in the food. And while they passed the time with eating, Harry and Y/N got further and further from their tasks, opting for conversations that included more fun topics than work. They had gossipped about some of the other people they worked with, Harry had begged for “the tea” about some of his other staffers and Y/N was happy to oblige. As much as Y/N would hate to admit it, she loved when they got off of work subjects and talked about how their day’s had been and what has been on their nerves lately. It was a nice way to decompress, it was like hanging out with a friend, except it wasn’t, not really.

Harry shuffled into the kitchen wearing what Y/N had picked out for him. Her smile grew knowing that he hadn’t changed what she’d picked. His confidence in her and her abilities never failed to feel like the biggest compliment.

“Go sit at the dining table, I’ve made us some little sandwiches and then we can decide the order we want to go through the outfits in.”

Before following Y/N’s orders, Harry continued his shuffling around, first to the cabinet for a glass, then to the fridge for water. At the end of the table, she set the plates between the head of the table’s spot and the one to its left. Harry took the side spot, so Y/N was on the end. After a bite of his food, Harry moaned loudly in contentment. This caused an amused look on Y/N’s face, there had been nothing special in his house so she had just made what was possible. This meant that Harry’s satisfaction was a little over the top.

“You’re acting like you haven’t eaten in a week. What did you do last night that got you in such a twist?” Y/N asked as she took a sip of her own glass of water. Harry nibbled at his lower lip after swallowing, trying to understand why he was particularly tired today.

“I guess I forgot to eat properly yesterday and then I went out running. And I stayed up late on the phone with,” he paused, eyes flashing to Y/N and then away again, “someone for SNL.”

Y/N hummed at his words before going back to her own eating. She didn’t understand why he hesitated about telling her he’d been on the phone last night, it especially irked her that he wouldn’t even say with whom. Professionally, it wasn’t really her business, but Harry was never secretive with her. Plus, it seemed to be work related so why was he being so flighty about it.

Moving forward, Harry peppier from eating and simply moving around, the pair set to work. They decided on trying on everything else first and then saving the Watermelon Sugar suit to the end. The other three main pieces for the night fit perfectly, Y/N had to only do minor reworks of certain areas.

“H, I need you to hold still…” Y/N interrupted Harry’s ramblings as she was crouched beside him.

She had to take up the hem on the pant legs so right now she was trying to pin them in the place she and Harry had agreed upon, without messing with the pleats.

“Sorry,” He mumbled, straightening out his back to stand taller.

He stayed quiet for a bit until Y/N popped back up, she looked at her notebook for reference on what she still had to tailor.

“Okay, next, the pants crotch is looking pretty fitted, so I assume you want it taken down a bit,” Y/N said as she got back into her crouching position. “Look in the mirror and tell me where you think letting it out looks best, I don’t have the best vantage point when I’m up this close…” she trailed off, placing her measuring tape directly on top of Harry’s crotch and running it down his leg a ways.

Once done with her first attempt at where she thought was best to let the pants out, she turned her eyes to the mirror that showed Harry in his suit with Y/N on her knees before him. Harry cleared his throat as he looked in the mirror, seeing Y/N with her eyes wide in anticipation in the position she was in made him want to run and hide. Her hands were extremely close to his dick, but it was literally her job, he knew he had to shake the thoughts that were running through his mind.

“Maybe just a bit further up actually, as much as I like the high waist with dropped crotch, I want this suit to have that specifically tailored look,” his hands motioned for Y/N to bring the drop up a ways.

Her hands then brought the measuring tape up, once again grazing over his area. Again, Y/N looked at Harry through the mirror for approval, and this time he gave it and she placed a single pin in the place where the pants would be let out to.

Standing up, Y/N hoped Harry didn’t notice the blush gracing her face. She was a stylist and used to being around naked bodies as well as touching around a man’s crotch when working. But Harry in this suit must have been magic, because she had felt extremely vulnerable on her knees in front of him in it. She had felt flushed the minute he hadn’t liked what she had done initially and she hated that she felt that way for some reason. Beginning to work on the sleeves of the suit set her at ease, Y/N was thankful to no longer be kneeling or in such close proximity to what was under Harry’s pants.

“Anything on your mind of late?” Harry broke the silence.

Y/N hummed with a pin stuck between her lips, folding up the suit jacket’s right sleeve. Plucking it from her mouth after a few silent moments, she said, “Not really, haven’t had time to do much else lately. Always thinking about you,” Y/N flushed as she realized what she had just said. “I mean, thinking about you like about your clothes and when they’re going to arrive and what I need to do about them, not you personally, sorry that came out wrong,” her blush intensified as she rapidly fumbled through her last sentence.

“Ow!”

“Oh my god!”

While Y/N had gotten flustered with her words, she managed to stick the pin she was using straight into Harry’s flesh. She immediately removed the pin from where it had stuck him.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry, H, we’ve got to get this off. I need to make sure you’re not bleeding onto the suit.”

Y/N rushed around to Harry's backside and began slipping off his suit jacket as Harry chuckled and began to unbutton the shirt as carefully as possible.

“‘S alright, Y/N, if there’s any blood on the shirt it’ll blend in, blood is practically the same color.” She glared at him through the mirror and Harry continued to laugh, “That is not funny, H, I shouldn’t have stuck you in the first place.”

“No, no,” Harry hushed Y/N as she began to slip off his shirt from one side to the other, taking off the sleeve on the side she hadn’t poked, “you’ve got so much on your plate with all the planning for the upcoming events. Then you worked yourself up over a little slip.” As Y/N carefully unbuttoned the cuff of the sleeve to try and slip off the shirt with the least amount of blood on it as possible, Harry finished with, “I wouldn’t mind if you were just thinking about me, though, an’ not the clothes.”

This time, Y/N was very in control, not willing to let herself slip up a second time today. She didn’t know how to respond to what Harry had just admitted. It wasn’t like this hasn't happened before. Both of them were guilty of making little comments that made it sound like they were interested in each other in a way that was a little different than professional or friendly. But every time the other person always had the responsibility to shut the idea down or completely blow past what their counter had just said.

“Harry…” She began, it was soft and pleading, like she was saying she couldn’t entertain that idea. Examining his forearm, after pulling the shirt completely away and resting it on a nearby chair, she saw a little spot of blood protruding from the pin prick she had caused. “Where do you keep your bandages?” Y/N decided that it was best to brush past Harry’s words this time and went off to find his first aid kit. Harry stood there, shirtless, staring at the blood on his arm. It really wasn’t a lot and it wouldn’t have done anything to the suit, but Y/N was always so careful and never wanted to ruin any of Harry’s clothes.

On her return, Y/N came upon a shirtless Harry perched on the edge of the table, with one arm crossed and his other - that was bleeding - being held slightly away from his body, as if Harry was afraid to touch it. His posture was slumped so Y/N could see his spine curving beneath his tanned honey-soft skin and his shoulder blades slightly flexed. While most of Harry’s body was covered in tattoos, she noticed how the closest tattoo to his back was the small line drawing of a guitar on the back of his left shoulder. Other than that his smooth back was bare. Y/N found it interesting that Harry had never chosen to ink his back. She jogged lightly back into the room and Harry’s head turned to watch her approach. His bottom lip was caught between his teeth as he regarded her. She noticed he was being particularly quiet, but she had no idea why. Maybe he was still tired.

Y/N set to work on finding the correct tissue, neosporin, and bandage for Harry’s small wound. As she worked on fixing up her mistake, Harry’s eyes followed her movements. Green eyes flickering between her hands on his arm and her own eyes focusing on her task.

“After this, I actually can just head home and finish the rest of the work,” Y/N said as she unpackaged the bandage, “I already know where I need to take in the suit sleeves and the shirt’s sleeves were looking fine. So, I can get out of your hair and you can get to sleep early tonight.” She placed the nude toned bandage over Harry’s arm, she was a little sad to find he didn’t own fun bandages. That was something that she expected from Harry, but she resigned that maybe she didn’t know everything about Harry.

Before Harry could speak, Y/N continued, “Don’t rehearsals for the show start tomorrow? When are you flying to New York?” She ran her hand over the bandage, smoothing it in place. Her hand lingered there as her eyes looked up and met Harry’s. Harry twitched his arm away from Y/N’s touch and scratched his nose slightly.

“Yeah, I’m flying out tomorrow morning. When are you set to fly out?”

“Friday. I’ll get in before the final dress rehearsal and then I’ll be there for the show.” Y/N stepped back and began to rehang the suit jacket and shirt that they had discarded in her haste to not get blood on them.

Then Y/N stood there staring at Harry. He looked at her slightly confused by her doing nothing when she said she was leaving. “Pants, H.” She said finally when she realized he had forgotten he was still wearing the suit pants. “Oh! Sorry,” Harry exclaimed as he began to unbutton and remove the pants he was wearing. He handed her the pants and she exchanged them with his live-aid t shirt. He took it graciously before slipping it on and disguising his toned body beneath it. Then he took his pants from earlier and fully redressed himself.

“Damn!” Y/N said and Harry’s head flipped to watch her as she began to put all of the clothing back in their garment bags and take down the rack.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just pinched myself with the rack, I’m all left feet today.”

“Here,” Harry chuckled as he walked over to help Y/N, ��let me help you with all this. Just in the boot of your car, yeah?” Y/N nodded and smiled in appreciation for Harry. He grabbed her keys laying on the table and then took the rack and a garment bag. Even if things sometimes got tense between them, for whatever reason, he was always quick to move past it and be thoughtful and kind in the best ways for Y/N. After shaking her hand out, she grabbed the last garment bags and followed Harry out to her car. Harry shut the back of her car softly and turned to face Y/N, she stood beside her car door, ever so slightly leaning against it. He walked to her side and smiled.

“I’ll see you in a week,” he said before wrapping his arms around Y/N’s much smaller frame. His body was radiating heat and it felt good against Y/N in the crisp night air of London. She pressed into his hold and wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed him hard. “Less than...Can’t wait to see you make an absolute fool of yourself out there.” Harry protested her tease with a small, “Hey!” but mostly focused on his hands on her back and the way her hair felt especially soft under his chin. Finally, Y/N pulled away, “Kidding! You’ll be amazing and you’ll look killer while doing it.” She winked before opening her car door and driving off. Harry was left with the lingering scent of her perfume and shampoo mingling in his nose.

-

It was the Saturday night, November 16th, 2019.

Harry and Y/N were in his dressing room before the show started. His outfits for the night were lined up, except for his opener one that Y/N had just dressed him in. His first change would be for Light’s Up, then a couple skit outfits that had to be moved elsewhere for quick changes, then the Watermelon Sugar suit, and then finally his end of the show casual look. The opener looked incredible, it’s fit was impeccable and Y/N knew people were going to love it.

She stepped back from Harry to give his whole body a once over, the SNL hairstylist had just blown out his hair and given him a sort of middle part. It definitely looked good and paired with the suit - Y/N could already tell it was going to be a hit by all accounts. Harry grinned back at her, doing a little dance to show just how much he was loving his clothes and how excited he was.

Grabbing the lint roller, Y/N gave the lapels of his suit jacket a once over and then moved it slightly out of the way to roll the big collar of Harry’s shirt and the bits of the body of the shirt that were showing underneath the jacket. Basically, Y/N was lint rolling over Harry’s clothed abs. Apparently, that was a ticklish area for Harry because he began to squirm and giggle under the tool’s touch.

“Seriously, H?”

She smiled as she said it, so excited for Harry that she couldn’t be mad at his relestness.

“Can’t help it. ‘M so giddy. Plus, I’m a wee bit ticklish.”

Y/N gave him a single laugh before removing the lint roller and smoothing over the shirt against his stomach and then over the lapels when she put the jacket back in place. She adjusted the Gucci reader’s she was wearing today, that were more for decoration than anything, but she liked to pretend they made her see better.

“You look smashing, Mr. Styles. Absolutely gorgeous, if I do say so myself.”

“Are you talking to me or the suit?” Harry asked as he flipped to look in the full length mirror in the dressing room.

“Can’t it be both?”

“Sure,” Harry said, he noticed the clock and realized it was his time to get in places. He leaned down and placed a small kiss on Y/N’s cheek, “It’s my time, thank you, Y/N.” She blushed at his words and actions. As he walked out the door, she called after him, “Break a leg, H!” He sent a final air kiss in her direction before completely disappearing.

She looked at the clothes hanging on the rack in the room and palmed over the fabric. Checking the lapels and brushing the lint roller over the, she finally stepped back and was happy with how they looked. When the show was just about to start, she flitted to the part of backstage where she could watch Harry perform. She giggled along to his monologue and grinned whole-heartedly when the crowd would roar with approval. Y/N had heard all of the jokes already because of the dress rehearsal yesterday, but it didn’t matter. Harry was killing it. She also took time to appreciate how good Harry looked in his suit on stage. In front of the lights and all the people, his suit shined brightly with the pops of blue and yellow and the oversized grey-iege jacket. His soft chestnut hair billowed perfectly to frame his forehead as he sipped from the faux martini. Y/N bit her lip to stifle her laugh. The fact that Harry, her boss and friend, was up on the Saturday Night Live stage with pink and blue nails sipping from a faux martini, it was perfect.

When Harry came back for his first performance change Y/N was right there waiting for him.

“Hi, that was really good,” she smiled up at him as he began to take off his coat.

He smiled brightly back at her as he exhaled a hefty breath, “You think so?”

“Yes! C’mon, everyone loved it. You delivered it all perfectly…” she took over undoing the buttons on the shirt because Harry was moving too slowly. “I’m in a man band now…” Y/N mumbled under her breath before chuckling.

“Did you just imitate my accent?” Harry said, now pulling off his sleeves.

Y/N moved around his back to take the shirt to hang and grab his Lights Up outfit. They worked like a well-oiled machine together, constantly taking over roles to get things done more efficiently, but never stepping on each other’s toes.

“Nope,” she winked before handing him the black sequin jumpsuit and exchanging it for his yellow pants. After rehanging the pants and bringing over Harry’s different set of boots, Y/N said, “Y’know, I’d have to say that your hair is giving your suit a run for its money.” She placed the shoes on the table beside Harry and began to fix into the place different parts of the jumpsuit, moving to zip up the back and then coming to the front to smooth it.

“What do you mean?” Harry looked in the mirror and delicately touched the edges of his hair, considering Y/N’s statement.

“No one ever really sees it how it is, nicely blown out but not too much product so it falls to frame your face. What’d you tell the hair person you wanted?” Y/N stepped back to allow Harry to change his boots from one Gucci pair to another, like he did with most of his wardrobe.

“Just told them to make me look mature. You think it looks good?” He looked up at Y/N when he asked the question.

“Think it looks sexy, that’s what I’m saying, no one’s gonna be able to focus on your clothes with how good your hair looks.”

“Ah,” he deftly runs his hands down his suit as he looks in the mirror.

Y/N just stares at Harry, checking him over one more time. She wasn’t lying about his hair, it was sexy and she wanted to run her hands through it to feel how soft it was. In a complete friend way of course.

“I like it…”

“It looks like you just rolled out of bed, but the bed was made of angel feathers.”

Harry laughed at Y/N’s description. He shifted his body to face her more and moved closer to her in the process.

“Alright, you should probably get back out there,” Y/N closes the gap between them and adjusts the chain of his jade and silver crosses and brushes over his broad shoulders.

They’re professional touches, but her movements hold an undercurrent of intimacy that neither of them realize. If anyone had been looking on, they would see how Y/N’s fingers delicately caressed Harry’s skin right before she cradled the pendants to move them in place. They would also see Harry instinctively lean forward into her touch and breathe slightly deeper to take in her scent. When she brushes over his shoulders, he straightens up at the touch and shows he’s ready to get back out there. It’s as if she prepared him to go.

Harry sings Lights Up and the crowd loves it. Sarah kills her drumming and Mitch eats up lead guitar. The backup singers bring out a different tone to the song. It is all around an amazing performance.

As Y/N clapped along with the crowd from backstage, Aidy Bryant approaches her.

“You’re Harry’s stylist, right?”

Y/N turns her head at the woman next to her, “Yeah?”

Aidy smiles, eyes slightly gleaming, “Well, you’re wonderful at your job.” As Y/N is about to thank her, Aidy continues, “And Harry knows that too, he talked about you all week. We all thought you were his girlfriend at first.”

Y/N laughed lightly and had to keep herself from letting her jaw drop at Aidy’s words. She even choked a bit on her own spit and had to cough slightly before even being able to think of a response, “Well, um, yeah...no, H, Harry is just my employer and...friend. No dating, we just get along well. Which is important since we spend a lot of time together - for work of course!”

Aidy smiled sweetly at Y/N, “Yeah, Harry explained that when Beck asked him how long you’d been together. At first he had said a couple months and then said ‘wait, Y/N is just my stylist, we’ve been working together for a couple months’ and then we all felt really dumb.”

“Don’t feel dumb,” Y/N reassured her, unsure why she was actually continuing this conversation, “He loves to talk about clothes and that’s where I fit in to his life, so I’m sure my name would come up a fair bit. Was that it?”

“Yeah I guess, but-” Aidy began to say more, but Y/N cut her off.

“Oh gosh, I’m sorry, but Harry’s finished and I’ve got to go help him change for his next song.”

Aidy was left in Y/N’s wake, chuckling to herself, fully reassured about the reason that they had all thought Harry had been dating Y/N. Because they already acted like a couple. And they were both helplessly in love with one another and neither of them knew.

The rest of the show went off without a hitch. Harry continued to wow the crowd and Y/N sent him off from his dressing room always looking fabulous. Just as he was about to walk back on stage for his final farewell, Y/N noticed a tiny string on his trousers zipper. Unable to stop Harry and unable to grab at the string without looking odd, she had to let him walk on stage with it. It wasn’t actually a big deal, but Y/N sighed in annoyance because she knew that string was going to bug her for the rest of the night.

“Treat People With Kindness!” Harry finishes off his farewell.

Applause begins to sound and the cast is out front hugging and chatting, while Y/N is watching from the side still fixated on the string on Harry’s pants, now simply dangling. Finally, they begin to clear the stage because it’s time for the after party. Y/N knew there was no stealing Harry away to fix the problem that was now fixated in her mind. Every cast and crew member was trying to talk to him, congratulating him, hugging him, anything to spend time with the incredible man. Y/N couldn’t blame them, but she also wanted to be able to go some place quiet and debrief with Harry about his outfits. She wanted to look up what people were saying about his clothes and discuss the critiques with Harry. She also wanted to start discussing what was coming next with Harry. But most of all, she just wanted to hang out with Harry.

What Y/N wanted wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, which she knew, but it still only grew her annoyance with that string. If only she could get it off of him, maybe then her mind would be able to relax a little.

She meandered backstage, resigned she wouldn’t be talking to Harry for a while. There she went to find the band’s dressing room, knowing she would find Mitch or Sarah who she’d be happy to talk to. They weren’t ones for the spotlight and no one ever really seemed to want to brownnose with them at events like this. Y/N had met them a few times.

The first was when Harry had asked Y/N to meet him in the studio in mid July, Mitch and Sarah had both been there helping Harry finish up something for the album. Y/N never asked what, she liked music quite a bit, but when it came to the technical part of it, it went completely over her head. Harry had introduced them both and they seemed lovely. After that, she had seen them around for an event or two of Harry’s. It wasn’t much, but it was more than any of the other people around right now.

Just as she was about to knock on the door it swung open, revealing Harry’s entire backing band. “Hey,” Y/N said sheepishly, “Harry’s being fawned over by the masses and I don’t actually know anyone else here. Is it alright if I hang out with you all at this after party? I doubt there’s going to be anyone really dying to meet the stylist.”

She smoothed her own clothes as she spoke. Y/N wanted to look professional tonight because sometimes when she was dressed in more fun or “young” clothes she got mistaken for someone who had snuck in. The only thing that got people to not question her authority to be where she was, was a card that read ‘staff’ that she would clip onto whatever she was wearing at places like this. Tonight, she chose a pair of purple plaid pants, a sleek lilac tank underneath a cream knit shawl, and cream Gucci mules.  Ever since Harry took an interest in Y/N’s pearl necklace, she had largely stopped wearing hers because she hoped never to be photographed matching with him. However, she had known the pearls would have completed the look, even putting them on in her hotel room, twisting a pearl in her hand as she looked in the mirror, and then taking the necklace off again and settling on a different silver necklace instead. The ‘staff’ card was clipped to her pants pocket tonight.

“Of course!” Sarah said as the band began to file out of the room, “You might want to take your tag off now, though, you’re done working for the night.”

Her laughter rang sweetly through Y/N’s ears and she smiled back before removing her identifying card. She hated the piece of plastic and was glad to take it off, it never went with her outfits, but she had gotten tired of taking out her business card every time someone asked what she was doing. Y/N was sure that during the tour she’d be fine without it, but as Harry’s show appearances were beginning to ramp up she knew it would be helpful to have.

“Thanks...you all were amazing out there tonight. Second time on the SNL stage right?”

The group of you began to walk in the direction of where the after party was being held. Mitch piped up, “Thanks. Yeah, I love their box stage setup, it’s pretty cool.” Y/N was happy that she had people who were easy to talk to so that she wouldn’t be alone tonight.

Arriving in the room of the party, they were all quick to grab the alcohol that was being provided at the pop up bar. Y/N wasn’t normally a fan of drinking at events like these, mainly because she was not usually invited to this part of the night and when she was she wanted to be alert. But she figured there wasn’t much else to do so she took a hearty sip of the champagne. It was a little sweet, her face scrunched.

“Too sweet?” Mitch questioned when he saw Y/N’s face.

“Just a little for my taste.”

“Harry’s not going to be drinking tonight then. So particular about his alcohol,” Mitch continued.

Y/N laughed, “Well I’m glad, then I don’t have to deal with him being a baby about his hangover tomorrow.”

Mitch quirked an eyebrow at Y/N’s statement. Sarah and the others in the band had dispersed to mingle with the SNL party goers, leaving Mitch and Y/N to their conversation.

Realizing what she said could be seen as slightly weird out of context, Y/N quickly started again, “because I’m supposed to go shopping with Harry tomorrow. He wanted to go to Gucci and a couple other stores here before flying to LA. I’m going back to London until the listening parties, so we need to figure out the finishing touches for those and..” Y/N trailed off trying to remember which looks weren’t completed yet for the next few shows, Mitch waited patiently, “a few of the suits for the Late Late Show. He’s not happy with one of them so we might switch it. But anyway, you know how he is with a hangover. Proper child.”

Mitch threw his head back in laughter at Y/N’s serious look that she gave him. “Yeah, he can be...a lot. I meant to tell you, Harry looked great tonight. All of the clothes were fantastic,” Mitch added.

He was kind and Y/N appreciated him sticking with her. The two of them had rested themselves against a wall near the bar, sipping their champagne and enjoying each other’s company.

“Thank you.”

Mitch opened his mouth to say something else, but Heidi Gardener, another SNL member interrupted.

“Y/N, right!?”

Y/N and Mitch both turn to her, equally taken aback by the sudden burst of energy from this person they didn’t really know. Y/N nodded.

“Oh my gosh! You have to tell me where you got the jacket Harry is wearing!”

Heidi even goes as far to point in Harry’s direction. Y/N knows what she’s talking about, but her eyes still wander to where she pointed. Harry stood in a clump of people, surrounded by Ben Winston, James Corden, and the Gerbers who had all come to watch. She sighed as she watched his eyes shine as he laughed with a smile on his face. She hoped that by now the string had fallen off his pants by now, if not she was going to kick herself later.

“Oh, it’s Bode,” Y/N’s eyes coming back to meet Heidi’s happy face, “but it’s custom made from a vintage blanket. There’s only two that exist.”

Y/N and Mitch watched as Heidi’s face dropped.

“And I’m pretty sure the designer owns the other one,” Y/N added, “Sorry.”

Heidi smiles and jokes, “Know any ways I could possibly get Harry to give me his?”

“He loves that coat. I have no idea what you could possibly do to convince him he didn’t need it anymore.”

“Sex, probably,” Mitch says under his breath.

Heidi doesn’t catch it as she walks back off and Y/N turns to swat him with her free hand.  

“What? He always gives away his clothes to girl’s he has crushes on.” Y/N rolls her eyes at Mitch’s words.

“Probably best if you don’t inform the masses about that,” a new voice says.

Unbeknownst to Mitch and Y/N, Harry had broken away from his entourage to steal a few minutes with his two friends, his best friends if he was being honest. They laugh together as he wraps his arms around their shoulders and pulls them both into his chest. Y/N feels the warmth radiating from Harry’s body as she snuggles into his side. Her hand wraps under his jacket and around his waist to squeeze right about his hip bone. His face is gleaming with a small sheen of sweat, but his smile is so big she barely notices his perspiration as he looks down at her.

“Heard you were talkin’ shit?”

Mitch quips, “Us? Never.”

Harry scoffs, “Come off it!”

When he releases Y/N and Mitch from his grasp, Mitch straightens up while Y/N’s eyes immediately go down to Harry’s crotch. She’s not paying attention to their conversation as she tries to make out in the dim light whether the string is gone or not. The men realize she’s not listening and they both follow her gaze.

Confused, Harry asks, “Y/N, any particular reason you’re staring at my dick?”

Her head shoots up, eyes wide and cheeks flushed from embarrassment.

“I wasn’t!”

Mitch laughs and decides he wants another glass of champagne right then, mumbling something about how that was his cue. Harry smiles, knowing she wasn’t doing what he had said, but still intrigued to know what was going on in her mind.

“You had a string right on your zipper and it’s been bugging me since you went out for your outro. This is the first time I’ve seen you on your own and I couldn't exactly go up to you in a random crowd and grab at your crotch. But now I can’t see in this light…” Y/N bit at her lower lip and furrowed her brow still trying to see if the string was there.

“Have you really been thinking about it this whole time?” Harry asked, slightly concerned.

“Yes...I know it doesn’t matter, but I just want your clothes to look perfect.”

Harry takes a deep breath as he makes a small smile at Y/N. Then he brushes over the front of his pants, hoping he removes the string if it's still attached to him. “There, I’m sure it’s gone now. I’m sorry you had to worry about that. Just know everyone I’ve talked to has been raving about the clothes.” He placed his ring-clad hand on Y/N’s upper arm and squeezed it.

“You did an amazing job,” Y/N said.

Harry pulls her into his chest one more time. This time without Mitch so both of Harry’s arms go around her shoulders and both of hers go around his slender waist. Again her hands disappear under his coat and thumb over his warm white t-shirt, her face resting on his chest right next to the word ‘Sex’. His arms tighten around her back as they rest there for a while. Y/N always has to make herself pull away, knowing that Harry will stay there for as long as he can - in anyone’s embrace - and remembering they’re in a public setting, she didn’t want anyone to assume things, even if she had already been made aware that people had.

“We’ll debrief more later tonight, yeah? The champagne is terrible so I won’t be drinking,” Harry said.

Y/N laughed under her breath as she smiled at his words. Mitch and her knew Harry too well. She nodded about getting together later, “Alright. Get back to your fan club.” Harry narrowed her eyes at her words, not sure if she was trying to sound sarcastic or not.

-

Hey, I’m back at the hotel. Just let me know when you want to debrief :) x

Y/N texted Harry the minute she got back to the hotel, she had no idea if he had left before her or was still at the after party. All she knew was that it was late and she was starting to get tired. Still, it was important for them to talk about their plans for tomorrow and she also really wanted to just be with him alone. Whenever they would debrief after big events Harry and Y/N would laugh at all the outrageous stuff they had seen go on throughout the night.

When she was still a freelance stylist she had helped Harry to plan his Camp outfit at the Met Gala. That night, they never even went to bed and had to debrief about the clothes the next afternoon over tea at the Palace. Both her and Harry were recovering from their exhaustion and nursing equally terrible hangovers. But there they were, sitting in the center of the dining area of the hotel, being served some of the nicest tea and sandwiches Y/N had ever had. It was amazing. Y/N had never felt that rich in her life before and Harry had told her the craziest stories about the most famous people in attendance. It was almost unbelievable what these people would reveal to Harry and Y/N was happy to listen to all of it, promising to never tell anyone else. That outing was probably the first time Harry realized he really liked Y/N and wanted to work more closely with her.

While tonight wasn’t quite as wild as the Met Gala had been, Y/N was still excited to hear any funny stories Harry might have in addition to their clothing talk. They really hadn’t had much time to chat since she had gotten to New York yesterday so it would be nice to just be alone together. Even if Y/N chalked their debriefs up to ‘shop talk’, she was always very excited for them.

As she reached her hotel room door, her phone buzzed with a message from Harry.

I’m still out, but should be heading back soon. Up to you if you want to wait up or we can just debrief in the morning while we shop. x H  

Y/N sighed at the message, she wanted to wait up and debrief before tomorrow, if not for alone time with Harry but professionally for being able to plan out their shopping tomorrow. Where Harry was carefree, Y/N was meticulous and planned out. She liked to have fun, but she knew when she had to get her work done, even when Harry was off in his own mind. Their work styles mostly coincided, Harry could be serious and focused, too, but often when he was surrounded by all his famous friends he had a hard time saying ‘no’ to whatever came up. So Y/N knew that Harry’s definition of ‘soon’ could range from actually soon to almost dawn. She really hoped he actually meant soon, so she shot him a text saying:

Just knock on my room and if I open it we can debrief lol x

Harry smiled down at his phone when Y/N’s text came through, slightly chuckling before double tapping and placing a heart reaction of her text. Then he was pulled into the limo that one of his friend’s had gotten them and was handed a flute of champagne.

Back at the hotel, Y/N threw her phone on the bed and decided to change and simply settle in for the night. If Harry made it back, he made it back and if he didn’t she’d wake up well rested.

Maybe thirty minutes into scrolling on her phone, Y/N heard a rough knock on her door. She was actually quite surprised that Harry had indeed been back soon. Rising from her snuggled place in the bed, she shifted around her night clothes and padded to her door. There stood, rather hung, a slightly disheveled Harry. His hair was whipped into disaster, something was smudged on his face, and she noticed a stain on his t-shirt that hadn’t been there the last time she’d been with him.

He slurred her name as he stumbled through the doorway. Y/N closed her eyes and sighed in exasperation. She was in awe that somehow Harry hadn’t gotten off his ass in the past hour and a half.

“What happened to not drinking tonight?”

She walked beside him and helped shove him into a sitting position on her bed. He flapped his arms, chaotically trying to get his plaid jacket off. Throwing her phone in the direction of her pillow, she moved to help Harry with his jacket. After quite a bit of strugglings, Y/N finally got the Bode jacket off of him successfully and threw it onto the nearby chair. Sighing, she settled beside him.

“So, Harry, care to explain?”

“Hi, Y/N…” He swayed slightly, attempting to face Y/N more. She threw out a hand to his shoulder, gripping him tightly to try and steady him.

“We went in this limousine, and they had champagne - good champagne - and I drank a bottle or so pretty quickly.”

“Or so? Oh Harry...I mean you’re free to make your own choices, but I don’t know if this was one of your best.”

“Wasn’t...wasn’t my idea. I was planning on just going back to the hotel. Then James convinced me to come out for a bit. Then the champagne was looking good so I went for it.”

“Like I said, you can make your own choices,” she patted his arm and went to the en suite bathroom to wet a washcloth to clean off his face.

“So, is it champagne on your shirt or am I going to have to go through hell to get the stain out?” She called.

Harry groaned and leaned back on the bed, fingering at the crisp white sheets. “Champagne,” he finally muttered as Y/N reappeared into the dim room, only the outside world and the light in the bathroom lighting this area.

“And on the face?”

She climbed onto the bed and kneeled beside Harry’s prone body, beginning to swipe at the smudge on his face. He tilted his head to face her, bringing the cheek with the dirt to lay facing perfectly up. His jawline showed perfectly and she felt the strength that laid beneath the skin she was washing.

His eyes flitted up to her face, trying to stop the spins he was currently experiencing. He hadn’t thought he was that drunk until he had been required to find his way up to their floor on his own.

“Lipstick?”

She sighed, running the washcloth over his cheek once more, and tried to push the image of some woman (or man who wore lipstick, she guessed) with her lips all over Harry’s face. She didn’t want to know who it was or why it was. It was too hard, especially after the day of people asking her about Harry and her relationship and insinuating things about him and his romantic life. She just liked to keep the words Harry and romance apart as much as possible, it made her life easier that way.

“It was only from-”

“It’s ok, Harry, I don’t need to know who you were…” She stopped herself, not even wanting to say ‘kissing’ or ‘snogging’ or even worse ‘shagging’. Adults were human beings and they could do a lot in an hour and a half. And again, she didn’t want to know.

“You keep doing that. Are you mad at me?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Calling me Harry, not ‘H’. Is it because you’re mad at me?”

“No,” she sighed, shifting to sit more casually, “No, I’m not mad at you. I just wasn’t expecting you to show up at my door like this. I try not to worry about you, but then when you show up like this, it kind of affirms I had reason to be concerned.”

She took a hand and smoothed over Harry’s tousled hair, he rolled his head back to face the ceiling. “Like I said, you’re an adult, capable of making his own decisions. And, I am just your stylist. I’m just glad you made it up here and knocked on my door. Probably would have given someone else a fright.”

He laughed, starting to sober up as the spinning in the room stopped. Her hands on his face and hair were soothing and sobering.

“Thank you for caring about me, love. And going beyond being just my stylist, you’re my friend Y/N.”

His eyes flickered shut and Y/N stared at his soothed features. His words were still slurred and she was sure the use of love was just his britishness slipping through his drunken state. The part about being more than a stylist, she tried to push it away, telling herself not to read more into it than her heart would like to. Even though he said she was a friend as well as a stylist and not anything more, it still sent so much joy through her body. He didn’t just see her as a work colleague and he had said it. But in his inebriated state, Y/N didn’t want to take everything he said as gospel.

She moved him up the bed with a little bit of his sleepy self’s help into a more comfortable position. It was pretty late now and she wasn’t going to kick him out. It would have been rude and unkind and that were two things Y/N rarely was. She went and grabbed the extra blanket from the cabinet and draped it over Harry’s large body for extra warmth since he refused to get under the covers. She also slipped off his boots and stained shirt per his request before getting into the other side of the bed and falling asleep.

-

She awoke to a shifting body beside her and she sat up confused as to who it could be. Quickly, Harry showing up drunk at her door came flooding back and she turned to look at the groaning Harry beside her. His arm was thrown over his face as he moaned, just waking up as well and experiencing the first bits of his hangover. This was going to be a long day.

“Hullo,” his voice was especially low, groggy and hoarse from the night before. He peaked over at her from behind the crook of his elbow. His eyelids barely open and his eyelashes weighing them down so much so that she could barely see his sleepy jade eyes.

“Good morning, H. Have a nice rest?” Y/N sat up and began to ready herself for the day, rummaging through her suitcase for an outfit and moving about the room.

Harry’s arms went to his sides as he worked to sit up, eyes following her figure as she moved around, seemingly not groggy very much unlike him. “Erm...I’m sorry for showing up pissed.”

“S’fine, H. Just glad you didn’t end up in a ditch or someone’s bed - someone’s that you might regret…” She barely regards him, throwing a single glance his way before shuffling to the bathroom to change. She knows they’ll be photographed today, it’s almost inevitable right now. Everyone knows Harry is in New York and people are buzzing to see him after his performance last night. She slips on the 70s inspired dress, the v-neck and long sleeves settling perfectly on her frame, it hugs her curves and lands around mid-thigh. Rolling on the bold mustard yellow tights and strapping up the brown leather mary jane heels, she looks herself over in the mirror. She then tries to tame her hair and do the rest of her routine, knowing she needed to get on with the day, shopping first and flying home second. Making sure Harry was okay was also on that list, but she couldn’t pretend like she wasn’t a little disappointed in him after last night.

When she returns, Harry is sitting with his legs hanging off the edge of the bed, head hanging as he’s hunched over himself. “C’mon, you gotta get going, kid. Lots to do today.” She’s pacing over to Harry’s deflated figure to pick him up and prompt him to get moving. When she arrives by his side his head lifts and his now more awake eyes stare up at her.

“I’m sorry for yesterday, really. I mean it.”  

“I told you already. It’s fine.”

“It’s not - or it wasn’t. You called me ‘Harry’ last night. I don’t think I’ve heard you call me that to my face since we started working together. I took your answer last night because I was swimming in it, but now, thinking about it. I know you were upset.”

She huffs, taking a seat beside Harry on the bed, choosing to not look at him, slightly confused why she had been so upset and why he was pushing it. “Ok, yeah I was annoyed, but I was also genuinely worried. I didn’t know you could physically get that drunk in that small amount of time. And then you show up at my door with somebody else’s…” Y/N falters, catching her slip up and deciding to fix her gaze on her shoes and their intricate design built into the leather.

“You’re upset that I had lipstick on me?” He’s trying to meet Y/N’s gaze, but her eyes are really interested in her shoes. His tone is confused, he’s trying to understand what’s going on in her mind.

She scoffs, risking a glance to Harry but then returns quickly back to her dress this time. “Please...it was just inconvenient for me, okay? Thought we were going to debrief and stayed up late for you. Then I had to take care of you after you hung out with your famous pals and I had barely even seen you all day. Felt a bit used.”

Harry shifted in the bed, turning to face her by tucking one leg beneath him. He places a hand on hers that was placed on the end of her dress. Her eyes finally meet with his and she feels her breath slightly catch in her throat. His eyes are piercing, his gaze intense, maybe even a tinge of anger. “Y/N, I would never have come to your room if I even had an inkling that this would be how you’d interpret it . Even though I was drunk, I wanted to see you, that’s why I came up here, because I wanted to be with my friend, one of my best friends, not because I just needed some pushover to care for me.”

She sighs, feeling icky still about the whole situation. She sometimes found herself in fights that she never intended, she wished she hadn’t said anything at all. But she also knew that wasn’t healthy either. Flipping her hand, she intertwines her fingers with Harry’s and smiles for the first time that morning. His expression softens at it. “Look, I’m sorry too, H. It honestly wasn’t that big of a deal, but I appreciate that you’re such a great guy and boss to want to truly apologize and make sure I’m comfortable and happy… Oh, and I promise I’ll never call you anything but H from here on out - unless you tell me otherwise.”

He cackles unabashedly at her words, before suddenly clutching at his temple with his free hand. “Fuckin’ hangover,” he mumbles. She smiles and stands up, beginning to throw his shirt and shoes from the end of the bed at him, “You need to get ready. Go pop some advil or whatever. My flights at 5 so we haven’t got all day, H.”

“There she is,” Harry grins, beginning to put back on the stained ‘Sex’ shirt.

As he hustles out of the room, shoes in hand, she calls to him one last request, “When you’re in fresh clothes make sure you bring me that stained shirt. Gonna have to spot clean it when I’m back in London!”

“Of course! And we’ll debrief as we shop, yeah?”

“Yes!”

The two of them were shouting to each other as the door continued to close on them. Chuckling to herself, she begins to pack up her room, knowing she had to check out before they left. Her spirits already lifted, she doesn’t even notice as she throws Harry’s forgotten Bode jacket into her suitcase with some other items that had been on her chair. She wouldn’t notice it until she was back in London unpacking from the trip.

Shutting the case, she springs back up from her crouched position and walks to look in the full length mirror again. Her fingers run the length of her dress, leafing over the slightly darker brown embroidered flowers that were woven into the tan fabric. She squints as she turns sideways and pops a heel up behind her. It looks good, but something is missing. Rummaging through her carry-on she pulls out her old butterfly bandana she used as a head scarf and begins to fix it into place on her head. Placing large sunglasses on the bridge of her nose, she feels like the look is complete and gives herself some poses in the mirror; a peace sign, an air kiss, a Marilyn Monroe. She laughs at herself.

A knock on the door shakes her from her childish fun. Straightening up, Y/N saunters over to the door, swinging it open with ease. “H?”

“You ready?” Harry stands in a fresh pair of Marni trousers paired with a striped orange and mauve Marni sweater. He, like Y/N, had this thing about wearing the brand you planned to shop at. He didn’t always stick to his rule, but he usually didn’t like to wear Gucci when he shopped at Gucci.

“Yeah, just need to check out and drop my baggage at the front to be held for later.” Y/N slips through the door and notes how his outfit compliments hers. She wouldn’t mention it, but it's something to think about since he had known what she was wearing. She wasn’t sure why she noticed things like that, if asked, her answer would probably be that it was the stylist in her, just her job.

-

Stepping out of a black town car on the side street next to Gucci to go in the side entrance would never get old for Y/N. She had never really enjoyed the idea of fame, but from a young age she had known she wanted to be able to afford the finer things in life. Going into the Gucci store now, especially with Harry, was like going to the candy store once you’re a grown up and can buy whatever you want rather than what your parents will allow you to.

Today, Harry and Y/N didn’t have as much time as they would usually like to spend in the store, but they were just happy to be doing what they loved. Y/N had been ecstatic to find out Harry found shopping to be an essential part of his life and that he liked to do his outfit shopping in person rather than online. Trying on clothes and picking out things you liked just was so much more fulfilling when you were in the physical store. Then make that all happen with Harry Styles as the buyer, then it was a real party. The stores liked to pull out their Champagne and clear the store to allow him privacy, specifically when it was for clothes for projects under wraps. In the beginning of her employment, it was only ever Harry who would do the trying on of clothes, but as the two of them got acquainted and comfortable with each other, she found herself trying things Harry would pick out for her. At first, she would veto some items saying they were too expensive for her, but eventually she learned that her new salary covered whatever it was. She had always enjoyed designer labels and choosing to be a stylist meant she had nice clothes, but only working for Harry had caused her closet to double in size and triple in value.

“So we are looking for some trousers today,” she tells the worker at the store, reminding them of what she had already called ahead about. The employee nods and proceeds to lead them into the room where they had laid out an assortment of pants for Harry to pick from.

“What do you think of these?” Harry walks out and strikes a pose, popping one of his hips to the side and his hands on his hips. The pants strain around his thighs, but fit practically perfectly everywhere else. His slim waist is perfectly encircled by the fabric and he’s decided the sweater he was wearing didn’t match them and he’d rather go shirtless. This choice technically should allow her to solely focus on the pants, but it actually makes her focus that much more diverted. She makes a spinning motion with her pointer finger as she purses her lips. He takes a quick spin and the boot cut slightly flares with his movement. The pants are a dark brown with a single plaid crossing in a lighter brown. They are only lightly flared, which she prefered to the extreme flare that some of Harry’s suits had. She narrows her eyes at the pants to keep her gaze from shifting to the taut muscles of Harry’s arms and torso or the dark ink that licked over his skin in the beautiful designs of his choice.

“They’re nice,” she pulls up a picture of the top part of the outfit he was planning on wearing, “Do you think they match with this though?” Harry walks over to her seated position and bends to look at her phone. His skin radiates heat and the smell of his cologne and she sniffles slightly with her sensitive nose. His eyes flicker to her face when he notices her little noise, but returns to looking at the phone when she doesn’t spare him a glance. She felt his gaze on her, but couldn’t bring herself to look from the phone. She knew his proximity would make it even harder for her to keep her eyes off his naked torso. The expensive smell of Harry mixed with the expensive smell of the store was a lot to handle.

“Yeah...no. You think they’re not right,” she widens her eyes at Harry’s words when he pulls away. He turns to the mirror in the open dressing room and fiddles with the waistline of the pants. “I agree,” he finishes before stalking back into the room and shutting the heavy velvet curtain that worked as the door to it.

He tries on five more pairs of trousers and finally settles on two pairs for the two different listening parties. A heavier, wool-tweed pair that was dark brown and then a lighter brown tweed pair. He was still in the lighter pants as he stared into the mirror. He beckoned to Y/N, and she quickly set down the flute of Champagne she had been sipping at lazily as he admired himself.

“Is it possible for you to take it in a bit more,” he says in a hushed tone to her, not wanting the workers to overhear. They were helpful but if they overheard they would wait for the store to tailor the trousers and he preferred for Y/N to do it. He rubs at the waistline again and she moves closer, her hands going to his sides. Her fingertips graze the naked skin above the trousers and Harry shivers at the coldness of the new touch. She ghosts softly over the waistline herself and smooths the fabric until she’s pinching a small amount on each side. She hums, pulling back from Harry and looking at the fit of them now, examining whether that makes them look better.

Then she nods and smiles up at Harry, “Ever the slender waist,” he grins right back as she admires him. She knew how much he liked praise and she was happy to give it to him, especially when he was so deserving. “I’d say size down, but then your thighs and bum might strain the fabric too much.” His face turns to a smirk as she blushes at her words. She releases the fabric and takes a hand to pat Harry’s smooth chest before walking back to her seat on the lovely couch.

“You sure you don’t want to try anything on, Y/N? Saw some killer boots when we walked in that screamed you.” Harry calls from behind the curtain, presumably getting redressed. Her laugh comes through the curtain slightly muffled, yet still a sweet melody in Harry’s ears.

“Definitely not now, we’re leaving any minute. Plus, I’ve got plenty of Gucci boots, don’t even show me them or I’ll be tempted.”

His laughter rings through the curtains, loud and unrestrained. She smiles to herself, unable to discourage the pleasure that weaves through her at the sound. His presence in all the different ways she experienced it was instantly comforting.

-

When she arrives back to her London flat, she practically flops on her couch once she’s inside the door. Her luggage forgotten at the door, as she shrugs off her coat. It was around 7 am because she had chosen to take the red eye for some reason. She groaned as she thought about the day ahead of her. Even though Harry was halfway across the globe, she still had plenty of work to do. She had to finalize the outfits for the listening parties now that they had the pants to complete the looks. Then she had to start thinking about Harry’s December appearances. She had sent ahead his Late Late outfits that he had needed in Los Angeles for the pre-filming, but she still had to deal with the outfits for the live part of the show.

Today, she was set to go pick up the other pieces needed for the listening parties as well as items for the Graham Norton Show and Jingle Ball. She was most excited for her travels because that meant looking at brand new clothes that were perfect and gorgeous. She also knew she needed to spot clean Harry’s shirt, which didn’t spark as much joy in her tired mind.

The idea of the shirt staining with alcohol was what brought her out of her snuggling with her comfy couch. Sure, it couldn’t get that bad, but still she was a worrier and it would pain her if the iconic shirt got ruined. She padded back over to her luggage, now without her jacket or shoes. Her major suitcase got flipped on its side and she began to unzip it. It came open easily seeing as it was stuffed with her clothes and various items. She had to rummage a minute for Harry’s shirt that seemed to have run away inside the bag. Finally, the large white shirt made itself known and she grasped it happily.

As she looked over the stain near the collar of the shirt, her eyes traveled to a piece of fabric peeking out of her suitcase. It was a familiar blue, cream and white. A specific fabric she would never misplace, would never not recognize. Harry’s plaid Bode jacket. It was iconic and she loved it, but why did she have it in her suitcase. She definitely didn’t mean to have it, it’s genuinely just one of Harry’s jackets so it wouldn’t make sense for her to bring it back with the show's wardrobe. She tries to think back to yesterday, when she was still in New York. Thinking about why she would have it, she places the memories of Harry coming to her room, taking off his coat, and accidentally leaving it in her room all fit together. She must have just absentmindedly placed it in her suitcase without even realizing. She’s sure Harry wouldn’t mind, she’d shoot him a text, though, to tell him she had it. So he wouldn’t worry about whether he’d lost it or not.

When she gets ready for the day, she finds herself being drawn to blue and cream. Her outfit is understated and she just knows the jacket would finish the look. She loved that jacket and now that she had it, would it be a big deal if she wore it out. She figured it was fine. After she grabbed her purse, keys, and other essentials, she slipped on the coat. Harry was very broad shouldered and it hung oversized on her. She loved the look and snapped a selfie in the mirror before she headed out. While it felt a little narcissistic to constantly take photos of herself, she felt like as a stylist it was important to document her looks just as much as she documented her clients.

What she didn’t think about is just how much the rest of the world liked to document her client and those who were seen with her client. She didn’t think about how she had just been seen with Harry yesterday. That thought didn’t even cross her mind as she walked around the streets of London picking up her work. As she saw some photographers out and about (whom she assumed were for famous celebrities, not her). How it might seem with her wearing the Bode jacket Harry had worn on SNL two nights ago. The Bode jacket that there were only two of.

None of it crossed her mind. Not until it was the end of the day and she had a whole slew of texts from Harry’s manager. A few from Harry, and others but the other fifteen were solely from Jeff. She was a bad texter so as she walked into her flat and finally looked at her phone after putting down all of her garment bags her eyes went wide.

Please tell me you’re not out in London right now!

What are you wearing??

That cannot be Harry’s jacket Y/N

Seriously?

Please call me.

CALL ME. NOW.

      - All from Jeff.

She grimaced. The others from her friends including Harry would have to be ignored right now. Even if Harry was her boss, Jeff was who she had to deal with when it came to public appearances and it didn’t seem like she could get around this one. Normally, she never had to deal with him, but it seems today wasn’t normal.

- 

part 2

[swimmingleo]

Harry Styles and Two Loves - A love that dare not speak its name.

‼️Disclaimer I am in no way an English literature expert or student for that matter and can barely organize my thoughts but I’ll try my best. If something doesn’t make sense or is regretful thinking please tell me‼️

Basically Harry is a fervent reader that does not limit himself to Buk*wski and Mur*kami though for some reason he loves to bring up those dudes. Queer literature seems to play a big role when it comes to his inspiration and I love that about his music. A good example is his Shakesqueer Sweet Creature madness. But another one that I hold close to my heart are the parallels he draws with Alfred Douglas’ poem, Two Loves.

Here is the full poem. Give it a read if you can because I won't break it down verse by verse for this post sorry :(

To make it short, the poem is about the narrator (let's say Douglas) wandering in a garden where he meets a young man that turns out to be his lover. For context, Alfred Douglas was very much queer and in a romantic relationship with Oscar Wilde. Both developed their own coded language to express their love and ''sexual tendencies'' through their art (been this way foreverrr will we ever leaarn). However they were not always so sneaky about it and Two Loves in particular was so in your face that it was used against Wilde to prove his homosexuality in trial. He did get away with it this time. Here is his defense. Blueprint of denials. No iPhones at the time.

In Two Loves, two different personifications of love introduce themselves to Douglas and his lover:

The first love is loud and cheerful and sings about pretty women and men that love the said pretty women.

The second love is discreet, almost erased by the other’s presence but is beautiful and draws the attention of the narrator.

Obviously the first love is Heterosexuality, the one that is openly praised by society and the second is Homosexuality who is bullied into silence by Heterosexuality if he tries to speak. The poem ends with Homosexuality saying "I am the love that dare not speak its name." Yeah. And isn’t that the story of H’s career.

HS1 opens with MMITH which ends on "We don’t talk about it, it’s something we don’t do". And from there follows SOTT, "We don’t speak enough". And right after we get the very loud, very explicit and very well documented Carolina. So far the album narration goes "There is something painful going on but we can’t talk about it, I say ‘we’ because there is a you and I and yeeEEAAH THIS GIRL I MET ONCE GETS A WHOLE SONG THE WORLD DESERVES TO KNOW HOW GOOD SHE FEELS FOR A LADDY LAD LIKE ME ALSO HER NAME IS TOWNES YOU CAN CHECK FOR YOURSELF SEE IF SHES REAL I LOVE REAL WOMEN AS IN WOMEN THAT EXIST". Heterosexuality is loud and sings about pretty women right.

But then, THEN we get Two Ghosts. Which is the center piece of this whole post. I mean, the title... Two Ghosts//Two Loves Two hearts in one home ? Sick.

The parallel that hits the most is the physical description that is made of Douglas’ lover and of Homosexuality (which are technically two different characters in the poem).

Douglas’ lover / Homosexuality

Same lips red / Same eyes blue / Same white shirt

Red were his lips / His lips were red / His eyes were clear as crystal / His large eyes were strange with wondrous brightness / White as the snow / His cheeks were wan and white

In Douglas’ poem, it is meant to be understood that the young boy he meets first, his lover, is related to Homosexuality through their physical appearance. Douglas’ love is therefore inherently queer. With Two Ghosts, I’ve always wondered why Harry chose specifically to point out a white shirt as it comes across a bit generic and not really personal yk? But if you compare it to Two Loves, it checks out the recurrent descriptive color scheme: red, blue and white. In both works, red are the lips, blue are the eyes, and white is the ~envelopp. RIGHT. I suppose Harry didn’t feel like describing his lover with pale white skin since it’s brown with lemon over ice when under summer skies so he went with a plain white shirt instead.

I’m not going through a whole analysis of Two Ghosts yet I can safely say that it deals with unspoken words. Not saying things is a recurrent theme in H’s songwriting but within the album, Two Ghosts is the first song that deals with it through the undeniable prism of romantic love. Right before with Carolina, H had no issue being straightforward and wanted to "scream and shout it out", but with Two Ghosts he’s tongue tied and doesn’t say what he really means. Communication issues go on with the following track Sweet Creature, btw may I just:

But oh, Sweet Creature (!), Sweet Creature

Would he […] cry "O sweet creature!", Othello

I cried "Sweet youth…, Two Loves

Queer Literaturry is going wild(e).

Expanding this post with Sweet Creature allows me to speak about the garden metaphor. In lyric poetry, the expression of emotions is often done through nature. It is a process that Harry seems pretty fond of when singing about love (ie Olivia, Adore You, WS, Canyon Moon and Sunflower are good examples) but it’s way more subtle with TG and SC. In Two Ghosts, nature is the moon, and in Sweet Creature it’s the garden.

Would you look at that, Two Loves happens to combine both:

Moon dances over your good side and this was all we used to need, Two Ghosts

Running through the garden oh where nothing bothered us, Sweet Creature

Flowers that were stained with moonlight / Alone in this fair garden, till he came unasked by night, Two Loves

For Harry, the night is where the moon enhances his lover’s beauty, when it’s just the two of them and they need nothing more than each other. The garden is where they run (free?away?), once again alone, unbothered. For Douglas, Homosexuality took form and began to occupy the garden at night, while Heterosexuality who thrives in the golden light (um I- nvm) wasn’t paying attention.

It is also interesting to note that Homosexuality is associated with the night but also with death. And he’s super pale. So like… A ghost ? ANYWAY.

The garden in Two Loves is where love happens, it is a piece of heaven. It’s elevated on a hill and untamed with flowers of various colors growing everywhere. There is sunshine and moonlight, there are "pools that dreamed" and by pools I assume the author means vernal pools which are habitats where flowers grow and oh look over there:

Nice ruffles on that white shirt by the way. Very Victorian.

Two Ghosts, 2017 Mularry so true

So yeah. I don’t want to go into full analysis mode but I find it all interesting. Once again, Two Loves holds a great significance regarding the Oscar Wilde’s lore, and Harry is probably very familiar with anything Wilde related (don’t even start) and by that I think about the Carnation business.

I’ll just conclude with that quote from Maurice by E.M Forster whom I love very much:

"I am an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort."

[cblgblog]

I know I’m probably beating a dead horse at this point but I feel like it isn’t talked about enough how the accord do not and will never affect Tony the same way they’ll affect those like Steve & Wanda. Tony can always just blow up all of his suits again & go back to a fully normal life if he wants to. He doesn’t have to wear a tracking bracelet, or submit dna samples, or fear getting shoved into a straight jacket or electroshock collar if he gets arrested. I’ll I just don’t think it’s addressed enough how blatantly privileged Tony & other normal humans like rhodey & nat would be under the accords compared to their other teammates. No wonder they were so supportive of them from the beginning.

Ah, but what is fandom for if not the beating of dead horses?

I agree with you. I generally prefer the film over the comic event (granted I haven’t read it in a few years now), but I do like that the Civil War comic had more time to discuss those civil liberties issues. Like, the damn thing, as with most comics events, is annoyingly massive. Not if you just read the core 6 books of the main CW storyline, but the tie-ins, oh my God the tie-ins. Comic events and their damn tie-ins…

For the sake of telling a fuller story though, I do like that the comics had so damn much. There was much more room for side content, for lesser characters who aren’t in the MCU, or weren’t, at the time. There’s a fuller picture of why various people are taking the sides they do. Some of those reasons make more sense than others, but yeah.

There’s a bit from the comics that I’ve posted before where Tony and Peter (mid 20’s, his own hero Peter, not Frankenstein, Tonky Jesus fanboy Peter) are arguing about the Registration Act—as it’s called in the comics—and talking about the civil liberties being violated. Being a 2006 book, it’s got a very post 9/ll, Guantanamo Bay theme going. The lack of trial, of legal representation, the prison that’s even worse than The Raft. There are several scenes like this as I recall, and yeah, the film is sorely missing them in places. You kind of see it with Team Cap in The Raft, but it’s very much a quick thing in the larger narrative of the film, and that’s annoying.

I’m not exactly advocating for this, because the film version with it’s smaller focus works a lot better in many respects, but I do sometimes think of the alternate reality where Disney Plus existed sooner, and Civil War was turned into a series instead of a film. Say six episodes, match the number of installments in the main comic event, eight eps if you wanted to push it. Then we could get something that delved deeper into what these documents actually say, what the public’s reaction to them is, how they would affect people besides our core Avengers group.

Show some kid like Peter who has abilities but doesn’t want to go out and fight bad guys, just wants to live a normal life. Show someone who can’t reveal their Enhanced nature to friends or family because it wouldn’t be safe for that person. Show the every day or every day-ish people (ala the Netflix shows) and where they stand on this. Wanda talks about people being scared of her after the Lagos incident and you kind of see that, but not really. Actually show that. Show the fears that people have of these Enhanced people, the legit and less legit ones, and show the other side too, the regular, every day people who still look at this and say hey, no, hang on, this is wrong.

Again, not necessarily saying I’d want this over the film, but if the Mouse overlords ever wanted to revisit that storyline and expand on it, I wouldn’t complain.

And yeah, people have talked about this too, but it kind of sucks the way the film handled everyone and their reasons for siding how they did. Steve is all about choice and keeping the government from abusing its citizens ala Hydra, Tony’s got his whole, we need to be kept in check thing, but very few of our other players land where they land because of the actual Accords. Nat doesn’t want her Avengers family to fall apart, and wants to maintain some control over the situation rather than none. Rhodey’s the career military man who (generally) follows orders and hey, if this is what most people want, we don’t get to just decide eh, no thanks. Panther doesn’t care about any of this, dude just picks the team that’s going after Bucky. Peter doesn’t know what the fuck he is actually fighting for, Tony didn’t tell him, Scott and Clint are there because Cap asked, and also, presumably, because of the danger the Accords would put their family in, but that second point is never explicitly stated.

And Sam…I feel like we really got fucking robbed with Sam, especially in light of what we’ve learned about his character in Falcon and WS. The film doesn’t much go into his reasoning, beyond the fact he believes in Cap, he’s Cap’s ride or die, etc. But given the history he has in Falcon and WS, again, we were robbed. Dude is all about making sure minorities aren’t oppressed, aren’t punished for existing. Dude is very much aware of the double-standards in this country. I know that stuff was written in later, but my God did we miss out on a Sam monologue about this in CW. Sam, who’s like Nat and Tony in that he can theoretically hang up the wings and be free of the Accords, but still takes the other side. Would’ve been hella interesting to see Sam and Rhodey’s little argument they have about it be an actual scene, an actual debate. Sam who knows of the US government and it’s unjust laws and abuse of power, knows it long before he hears of Isiah Bradley. Who has those nephews that will have to grow up in a post-Accords world. It just would’ve been super interesting to see Rhodey and Sam, both Black men who joined the military, one who left, one who didn’t, have an actual discussion on why they feel what they feel. Even discounting the finer details of the Sam stuff, the stuff that wasn’t written yet, it would’ve been cool.

And, of course it would’ve been awesome to see Tony and the non-powered on Team Iron Man (but mostly Tony) get called out on their privilege with this issue, but that of course couldn’t happen, because Tony has plot immunity. Let fire and lightning pour forth and destroy all who dare to question the wisdom of Tonky Jesus, praise be to Tonky and all he has given us.

[forabeatofadrum]

A half-empty girl

Summary: Agatha and Simon finally have a moment to talk about everything that’s happened. It’s painful, but needed, and it might help Simon and Baz on the long run.

Notes: So. I still suck at summaries. I had this prompt and then I wrote it in one day. I just really hope that Agatha gets closure. She’s grown so much and she’s had enough. The title is from Paramore’s Rose-Colored Boy. The next line is “Don’t make me laugh, I’ll choke”. That song is just my CO/WS jam.

AO3

--

AGATHA

We’re all in Penny and Simon’s flat. This is the first time that I’m here and seeing all the empty crisp packets and empty cans in the bin says more about the past year than anything else. I don’t comment on it though. 

Everyone’s a bit of a mess. My dad is talking with Penny and Shepard about the curse that he apparently has hanging over him. Penny’s mother is sitting in a corner, typing rapidly. She has had a lot to say, but now she’s just documenting everything for the Coven.

Simon and Baz are standing in another corner and they’re talking. It looks like they’re fighting. I cannot hear a word that they’re saying, but Simon looks very unhappy and Baz just looks annoyed while he talks.

At one point, Baz sees me looking.

“Ah, Wellbelove,” he says, loud enough for me to hear it, “Please, help me out.”

I feel like a deer caught in headlights and I curse myself when I start walking towards them. Simon is not looking at me.

“Wellbelove,” Baz draws out my name, “I need your help with our relationship.” 

Simon quickly shoots Baz a confused look before looking back at his feet. 

Now, I know that they’re dating. It was quite the gossip in the World of Mages when it was revealed. It was one of the last things I heard before leaving that world behind. While packing my stuff, I heard my mother talk about it over the phone with friends from the club.

Also, seeing them together in California made me realise that this is real. To the outside world, it can be easily ignored. But I had never seen Baz so content and, in a way, relaxed. And Simon was ready to die for him in that desert. There were subtle changes, but I saw them, even though I hadn’t seen these boys in a year.

Am I bothered by it? Honestly, I haven’t had time to unpack it. Simon and Baz are part of the World of Mages, so I left them behind as well. Or at least, that was the plan. I was never going to see Simon, Baz and Penny again.

(That didn’t work out, huh?)

“Snow here cannot seem to accept that I truly love him. Was he ever this stubborn with you?”

Simon looks up again, but this time in shock. I am also quite shocked by this direct approach, but maybe that’s what Baz is like. Simon then looks at me with wide eyes. 

I feel very uncomfortable, but I answer: “Well, to be fair, I don’t think I- uh, I ever loved him.”

Silence. Awkward.

I want to shove my fist into my mouth. That was such a terrible thing to say.

“Jeez, thanks,” Simon eventually mutters.

Baz claps his hands. “Well, I thought it was time to resolve our relationship troubles, but it seems like you two need to fix whatever shit you have got going on first.”

And then he just walks off. Classic. What a piece of shit. Penny and Simon might be friends with him now, but I still don’t know how to feel.

Simon is still looking at me. 

“Simon, I’m sorry. I didn’t- I mean, I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that.”

He shrugs.

“It’s not that you are not lovable, it’s more that I just don’t...” I trail off. I think about Ginger. I think about all the confusion and feelings that I’ve been having in the past year. 

“Ags, are you giving me the classic ‘it’s not you, it’s me’?” Simon jokes. I think he’s joking to conceal the fact that he’s sad. I think back to the crisp packets and empty cans. He must’ve been sad for a long time.

We’re the same, aren’t we? Our lives have gone in an opposite direction with him losing magic and me running away from it, but we’re both not okay. 

I hate it, though. I am trying so hard to leave the World of Mages behind, but I can’t. Simon didn’t have a choice and now he’s floating between both worlds, not really belonging anywhere. I wish I could give him my magic. It’s not much, but it’s something. This way, I can leave and he can stay. 

So much has happened between the two of us.

Maybe Baz has the right idea. We don’t have to fix whatever relationship we had, since, well, what kind of relationship was that? But we haven’t resolved anything. I just ran away, but the past few days have shown me that I cannot do that.

Simon is still looking at me. 

“It is a shitty excuse, isn’t it?” I finally say.

“I did love you, you know?” Simon admits.

I nod. I knew that. I think that’s one of the main reasons I let it continue for so long, even though I knew it was going nowhere. Pity is a strong feeling. That, and a part of me had accepted that this was ‘meant to be’. I was meant to be the pretty girl on the sideline, waiting for the hero to come back to her. I was meant to be the prize at the end of the road. Simon’s never seen me like that, but so many others did. I believed it as well.

“I loved you too,” I say back, “But not in the way people wanted me to. I grew up with you. You were my silly brother to watch Doctor Who with. You groaned when I had to drag you along to races. That’s it.”

“Oh.”

And I didn’t know what else to do. My mind goes back to the confusion. I wish I could’ve kissed Ginger. But I was so caught up in the idea of what was ‘supposed to happen’ that I never actually took my time to let myself feel.

“I hated our relationship,” I admit, “I didn’t hate you. I didn’t hate dating you. I hated what our relationship meant and stood for.”

I fully expect Simon to ask for an explanation, but to my surprise he says: “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“It does?”

No one ever tells me that I make sense. My parents never did. Penny constantly made me feel dumb. I wasn’t even the best mage at school. 

“I hadn’t even thought of it like that,” Simon says and it looks like he’s staring into space, but I follow his gaze and I see that he’s looking at Baz. Baz is sitting on the sofa, staring at his phone. He tries to look bored and unimpressed, but he’s probably dying to know more about Simon.

They’re dating. Yup, it is weird. I guess it’s time for me to finally think about that. Am I bothered by it?

“Thought of what?” I ask Simon.

Simon doesn’t take his eyes off Baz. “How much of the love I felt for you was real. Did I love you for real, or did I love you as a sister, but with me being under the impression that it was romantic? I really did love you once, like that, but all the time? Was I still in love with you in our last year? I don’t know.”

“We never had time to figure it out,” I say. We were too busy with the war and everything that came with it. “I think we were both holding on to something familiar.”

“When I first kissed him, I wondered how long I had wanted that. He’s apparently been in love with me since our fifth year. I wonder how long I have loved him.”

Oh, we’re going there? 

Yup, we’re going there. Simon and Baz are in love.

Baz doesn’t notice that we’re staring at him. 

“Simon, are you gay?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t?”

“I don’t,” he affirms, “You’d think that I would’ve figured it out by now. I’ve had a year to realise whether or not I still like girls. I think I do. Hence the whole part where I loved you, but, yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know anything about myself, I suppose. I never had the space to get to know myself.”

It’s like I’m listening to my own thoughts. He’s putting it into words. 

I nod. “You spent years of your life not even knowing that there was a possibility, so when you do, you’re so thrown off guard and you try to look back on your life to see where it’s-”

“Gone wrong?” he finishes.

“... Yes.”

We really are the same.

I don’t have to explain myself here. We both understand that what we’re feeling isn’t necessarily wrong. It isn’t wrong that he likes men and maybe also women. It isn’t wrong that I maybe like no one. But it feels wrong, especially when you’re growing up not knowing that it was a possibilty. We were thrown into certain roles and breaking from them is stressful. 

Well, I tried to break away by pursuing Baz, thinking that were the solution to my confusion. I thought that I just didn’t love Simon the way I was supposed to. I guess I don’t love anyone the way I was supposed to.

The ironic thing is that the boy I tried to leave my boyfriend for ended up dating my boyfriend. Simon got there first and he scooped Baz up.

I still don’t know how to feel about this. I don’t think I understand how these two opposites can attract.

(Honestly, I don’t think I can understand any attraction.)

Simon and I are standing there in comfortable silence. There’s a feeling of mutual understanding between us. For the first time since everything that has happened in the White Chapel, I feel a sense of peace about it all. Maybe I never should’ve run away. Maybe I should’ve faced my past head-first.

The crips packets and empty cans show me that he’s been running as well.

We look at each other and there’s just mutual admiration in this moment. 

“Agatha Wellbelove,” Simon says and he smiles, “I’ve known you for years but I think this is the first time we really... talked.”

“Simon Snow, don’t go falling in love with me now. That ship has sailed,” I joke. 

Simon snorts. It makes me freeze in shock. I can’t remember the last time I heard him laugh. 

He doesn’t notice, though. He’s looking back at Baz.

“Can’t do,” Simon says, “I already am in love with someone else. I have a boyfriend. Although I wonder how long that will last.”

Oh. Right. That’s what started this whole conversation.

Talking to Simon has given me a feeling of catharsis. I had been avoiding it for so long, because I thought it would bring me pain, but it’s given me peace. They deserve that as well.

“Hey Baz!” I call out and Simon instinctively pulls my sleeve to stop me. He’s too late, though. Baz looks at me and he raises an eyebrow. “Come over here!”

“Agatha-”

Baz pockets his phone and he walks towards us, graceful as ever. He’s really had a glow up since our Watford days. 

“Wellbelove, I’ve been summoned. To what do I owe the pleasure?” he says. He speaks like we’re back in Watford. On the surface, it sounds condescending, since he draws out his sentences, but I think I know better now.

I think I might like him after all. If Penny can do it, then so can I.

“You have been, Basil, and trust me, it’s in your best interest to listen,” I say in a similar tone.

He looks at me as if he’s never seen me before. It’s subtle, but I can see that he’s surprised. I think the two of us might get along fine if we get to know each other a bit better. 

He thinks he is the only one who can hide behind snark and aloofness. He thinks he’s the only one who can hide between a façade of ‘I don’t care’. He is wrong.

Baz should’ve seen me in California. Well, before the whole vampire thing. They all should’ve seen me in California and how I live there. Sure, I just realised I can never run from the World of Mages, but I did find a new life.

No one can fuck with me anymore. I’m choosing my own path. I’m going to show them.

Simon looks to me, then to Baz, then back to me. 

“Simon loves you. You love Simon. Case closed,” I say shortly. 

“He literally just tried to break up with me,” Baz says.

“He- Simon!” I let out a long sigh and I look at him, aghast. Simon just spent a lot of time talking about how he’s in love with Baz. What the hell is all of this?

“I just- you deserve better!” Simon says back to Baz, ignoring me.

“He’s been trying to break up with me ever since Las Vegas,” Baz says to me, “Claiming shit like that. You apparently never loved him, but I did.” 

“Cute,” I say shortly. 

Simon needs soft and tenderness in order to reach him. Baz needs directness and an edge to my voice. I can do both. I do thread thin water, since I am currently talking to both.

Part of me wonders if I should recruit Penny and turn this into a big intervention, but Penny has never been the emotional intelligent one. 

“Boys, as the girl who has dated one of you and who has tried to date the other one - both of those a mistake - can I just say that I don’t understand why you need my help.”

“He’s the one who asked you!” Simon says.

Baz holds out his hands in defense and he smirks at me. I know it’s a defense mechanism to prevent him from showing his true feelings, but I’m going to wipe that smirk off his face.

“Yes, because he’s the one who lacks the emotional maturity to have a normal conversation with you,” I say to Baz.

Success.

Baz’s face changes slightly, but I can see him swallow and his eyebrow is raised slightly. Simon notices too.

“But Simon, so do you,” I say kindly.

Simon tries to protest, but I silence him by shaking my head.

“And so do I,” I add.

“Great, we all need therapy,” Baz says off-handedly.

I ignore him and I take Simon’s hand. He almost pulls back in surprise, but I grip his hand tightly. “Simon, you just told me that you’re in love with him. Have you ever told him that? Maybe it’s time to believe Baz when he tells you something. I know it’s hard for you after everything that’s happened. I get that.”

We’re the same, I think.

I continue: “Don’t make assumptions on his behalf. Don’t break up with him because you think it’s best for him. Let yourself love him. Let yourself love life, damnit.”

I think about all the fun I have living in California. I think about getting chai lattes with Ginger, eating takeaway taco’s after almost burning down my kitchen, going clothes shopping to prevent studying for finals, and how I finally had time to just have a normal life. Did I run from my trauma? Yes. Did the whole vampire thing give me a huge epiphany on life? Sure. But Merlin, I loved the moments where I could ignore everything that’s happened.

Simon looks uneasy, so I let him be so that he can think. I’m still holding his hand, but I turn to Baz.

“And you,” I say sharply. Baz has his back up, he’s ready for me to destroy him. “I know it’s hard to watch him in pain. I know it’s difficult to make him believe you and that frustrates you. I know you very well understand why Simon’s acting this way and you don’t want to push him, but how are you?”

Simon grips my hand even tighter. Baz blinks a couple of times. He’s absolutely dumbfounded. 

“How are you, Basil?” I ask. 

Baz tries to speak, but nothing comes out. I wonder how many people ask him how he’s actually doing. Simon doesn’t talk to him at all and Penny probably ignores all the problems. I don’t know how his family relations are and I wonder if he has any other friends.

I suddenly have an idea that comes straight from a rom-com. 

Part one: I use my free hand to take Baz’s. He tenses up, but I insist. Right now, I’m quite literally in the middle. I didn’t ask for this, but here we are.

Part two of my rom-com idea: I step away, so that I am no longer in the middle. I am holding both their hands, but I put Simon’s hand on Baz. I pull away, make a peace sign, and step out of this conversation. Literally.

I don’t know what Baz expected from me. He only needed me as a buffer. What as I supposed to do here? I am just as fucked up as the both of them. Still, I think I have achieved something here.

As I back away, I look over my shoulder. The two of them are looking at their joined hands as if they’re looking at something alien. Merlin, the two of them have a lot to figure out.

“Are they- are they holding hands?” Penny asks when I pass her. It’s kind of sad that this small act of affection shocks everyone so much. They love each other so deeply, but they just suck at expressing it.

I can hardly speak about emotional maturity and well-being and whatever, but I think this is going somewhere. They needed a push and I have given them one. But I’ve had enough. I’ve done my part, again. Now, I can focus on my own shit.

“Why is happiness so difficult?” Penny asks herself. 

“I wish I knew,” I answer, even though she didn’t want my reaction.

Simon and Baz have started talking. They no longer seem sad and annoyed, but there’s a long road ahead for them.

“But I still believe we’ll get there one day,” Penny mumbles, “We will be happy. One day.”

I think about what it will mean to me to semi-return to my past. I think about my confusion and feelings. I think about my road ahead of me. Yet, I smile.

“Yeah, one day.”

[elliemarchetti]

What if scenarios for red queen: What if Shade lived? What if Elara had survived? What if Maven had a kid with Iris? What if Cal had said no in king's cage? What if Montfort was involved with the scarlet guard before the events of red queen? What if Mare accepted Montfort's offer in glass sword? What if Mare wasn't captured by Maven? What if Maven survived? What if Tiberias Vl died before the events of red queen? What if Mare didn't fall into the arena? What if indeed.

Once I wrote a story called What If (you can find it in my old masterlist but I suggest not to read it  or do it lightly because my writing style and my english improved a lot since when I wrote it and I don’t really remember if it made sense) but unfortunately it doesn’t answer any of your questions as I have been  struck at chapter 4 for years so I will address your questions in a sort of bullet list that I couldn't wait to use (even if it doesn't seem to I love when things are well ordered).

What if Shade lived

Shade was a valuable asset for the Scarlet Guard, maybe the most valuable they had, and as it happened to George Martin with Robb Stark (as he said in an interview, he had to kill him off otherwise he would’ve conquered the Seven Kingdoms without all the drama that whoever read ASOIAF or watched GOT knows very well) Victoria Aveyard had to do the same, otherwise things would’ve been “too simple” for the good guys. His death shocked Mare and the readers very much, but I consider it extremely wasted as: 

we already knew how Mare mourned and missed him since she believed he was dead in RQ

although he remained her favorite their relationship had still changed, showing how even if two people love each other and are incredibly similar they can grow and take different paths even if in the same family

she was already scarred by other things and at the end of the series she would’ve been way more even without his death

Farley lost again someone she loved and we already know that her reaction to pain is anger.

To balance these points, and still leave the same psychological outcome in the characters, I think it would’ve made more sense if:

one of Mare's older brothers had died, leaving her wondering how things would’ve changed if she had prevented them from fighting as they’re Reds in a war full of people with abilities and leaving the Barrow’s still incomplete but with a different loss to manage 

the Colonel had died, leaving Farley to wonder if she couldn’t have fixed things before his premature departure and what would’ve changed with Clara’s birth (not to mention the fact that I like to imagine that after Clara they would’ve had another girl called Madeline and, after several years and long debates in Diana’s mind, a boy called Willis)

Either way, by analyzing more pratically what would’ve changed if Shade hadn't died, the first thing that comes to my mind is that Mare’s captivity in KC would’ve been way shorter, partly because of Shade's ability, partly because he and Cal would’ve come up with a plan in less than ten minutes and acting on their own, with Farley and Kilorn’s help, they would’ve rescued her. In general, KC and WS’s events would’ve taken much less time, to the point that I think they could’ve been a single book.

What if Elara had survived and what if Maven had a kid with Iris

There are two different options to this question: Elara survives and returns to the role she had in GS or she’s captured by the Scalet Guard. With Elara to force her son's hand, and, let's face it, reign in his place, as she has always been a puppeteer, her whispers the threads she used to move her puppets, Maven’s reign would’ve been much more dangerous. First of all, I don't think she would’ve ever allowed her son to publicly offend the Samos, with the possibility that they would turn against them, but she would’ve created another complex scheme to kill Evangeline by putting the blame on the Scarlet Guard or on Cal's allies, for then team up with the Cygnets anyway, although I think the alliance would’ve been far less shaky with her to manage it and Iris would’ve been the condescending queen necessary to allow Maven to have the heir who would’ve made his position on the throne safer. Knowing her thirst for power she would still have sinned of arrogance and once Cenra died she would’ve attacked Tiora, obviously always in a subtle way and by putting the blame on someone else, so that Maven's son would become heir to Norta and the Lakelands, creating a single, large state. Without Elara's whispers if Maven and Iris had had a child it would have been through an act that bordered on rape, and once things had gone as they went in WS I'm not sure Iris would’ve brought the baby with her in the Lakelands therefore he would’ve ended up exiled, as it happened in the past with children in uncomfortable positions, in Prairie. On the other hand, if Elara had survived but had been captured by the Scarlet Guard, she would’ve died anyway as I don't think that, although those closest to the Mare would’ve proposed it, an exchange would’ve ever been made between them, Command too conscious of her political power and of the danger that the woman's ability entailed.

What if Cal had said no in KC

Assuming you are talking about rejecting the crown, surely there would’ve been less romantic drama in WS, at least until Maven's death, but things would’ve been politically much more difficult since, if Cal had abdicated before his brother's death, Maven would’ve been the actual heir and it wouldn’t have helped anyone, so he should’ve accepted the crown anyway to convince the Silvers to join the cause and at the same time make Maven illegitimate while only a limited circle should’ve known that his effective intent was to abdicate once the kingdom was reunited, perhaps with a lot of signed documents as I can't imagine the Scarlet Guard base the outcome of the war on another Silver prince’s word after Maven’s betrayal. But if he had actually refused they would’ve had to fight not Maven’s kingdom but monarchy in general, therefore losing the support of many Silver, although I am convinced that they would still have been able to win, although probably with many more dead, thanks to the help from Montfort and a couple of allies convinced that Cal's decision was wise, probably the Lower Houses and common Silvers who would’ve benefited from the abolition of the monarchy and racial laws

What if Montfort was involved with the SG before RQ’s events

It would make complete sense because the SG’s purpose is to obtain a government like Montfort’s. Obviously, even in this case, things would’ve been much faster and much safer and the saga would’ve been much shorter, not to mention the fact that newbloods are not new there and therefore the SG could’ve started talking about Reds with abilities much earlier, which would’ve given Norta’s Red population much more courage.

What if Mare accepted Montfort's offer in GS

In hindsight, it would’ve made sense as they would’ve attacked Corros prison much better prepared, not to mention the fact that Mare is a wonderful trainer, so she would’ve had the best team ever. Also the electricon squad really has too little space in the saga while I would’ve liked to see them bond further.

What if Mare wasn't captured by Maven

Again there are several options: if Maven had captured the others but Mare had managed to escape she would still have tried to negotiate for that exchange, once she realized she had no other way to save them, while if he killed all of them the entire outcome of the war would’ve been different since Cal would’ve died leaving Maven as the rightful king, not to mention the profound psychological damage Mare would’ve faced after she left most of her friends, family and her boyfriend to die. The last option is that they weren’t intercepted at all and managed to get to the Choke, but the possible outcomes are too many to be analyzed and the various results would’ve incredibly modified the subsequent books in completely different ways. Honestly, if I can dream and not force Mare to endure captivity, I would’ve liked if she and others had managed to escape but someone, including a person she cared about but not Cal, since this would’ve made things more difficult, had been captured. Maven would try to organize some kind of exchange and Mare would accept but all the others would prevent her, showing her that she wasn’t selfish to save herself and reminding her that she isn’t only a weapon but also a powerful political pawn. Obviously Maven, keeping his word, would’ve killed the hostages and this would’ve hurt Mare but certainly less than being imprisoned at his mercy.

What if Maven survived

I think that @elane-in-the-shadows has written something about it and I recommend you take a look at her blog because I think it's exactly how things should’ve gone but if I'm wrong about the author and someone knows what fanfiction I'm talking about (where Maven escapes before Mare could find him) feel free to let me know and I’ll add the link here because it’s a masterpiece

What if Tiberias Vl died before RQ

If he died of natural causes just before RQ Cal would’ve been king and would’ve listened to what Julian claimed Elara did, and he would probably have read his mother's diary before, consequently exlingin her or killing her if he considered it the only possible option to please everyone without certainly considering that Maven could’ve acted against him as, and it’s stated repeated several times, Cal is definitely blind about his brother therefore the saga would’ve been mainly about Maven who wants revenge and consequently the throne for which his mother had fought so much and performed such horrible acts. I can already imagine Maven saying he can marry Evangeline in Cal’s place so that he can stay with Mare when he’s just plotting with Volo Samos for the Kingdom of the Rift to split from the rest of Norta and then launches a consequent attack to conquer it entirely, promising peace between their kingdoms and a legitimate throne for House Samos. If Tiberias VI died instead shortly after Maven’s birth Elara would’ve tried to control Cal as she did with Maven but according to the bloodline the regent would’ve been Julian, therefore it wouldn’t have ended well for her anyway, which is why I consider that the plan devised in RQ tremendously brilliant since it contemplates years of waiting but strikes at the right time, so much so that many High House believed the story woven by her and supported her son, at least as long as she was there to control him and make him seem less insane.

What if Mare didn't fall into the arena

If we want a similar story she could’ve shown her ability when she and Cal first met and they could’ve tried to analyze and understand it with Julian without Mare having to be Mareena and meet Maven, which, in the long run, could’ve only benefit her and at the same time she and Cal could still have fallen in love while she still had the opportunity to help the Scarlet Guard, while if the question you ask me is "what would have happened if Mare had become a maid anyway and had never shown her powers, or at least not immediately" I think she and Cal would’ve had a clandestine relationship and she would’ve used it to learn as many things as possible to report to the Scarlet Guard until a life or death situation would’ve triggered her ability, making historical events not very different from those of the saga but erasing Maven's interest in her if not as a weapon to weaken his brother.

[strvwberryblcnde]

👫 lana & dom

send a 👫 and I’ll write four headcanons i have about our muses’ relationship.

lana buys lots of things on random whims n i feel like smthn she wld have bought the summer her n dom started properly seeing each other is a polaroid camera. probably one of those fujifilm mini ones in pink w stickers on of holographic mermaids n butterflies. n all her friends wld be subject to hving their photos taken on this at 447294734 parties but fr the most part like 50% of the film wld be spent on dom esp considering how often they’d see each other. i cn imagine her being annoying abt it e.g. bursting in unannounced when he ws showering n flinging the curtain bk n shrieking in delight as she tkes a pic of him in there. penis NOT in shot (lana ws very disappointed when she realised altho inevitably dom ws relieved). it ws probably rly blurry too from her springing out of nowhere n running away after she’d dazed him w the flash bt lana wld never dream of throwing it away she’s probably like ugh cole sprouse WISHES he ws me tht stupid i’m weird i’m a weirdo bitch i’m taking his photographer crown n i’m loving it..... another time if she ws wearing his tshirt or smthn jst to laze around in she wld have tried to convince dom to wear her cropped bowie t-shirt she usually lounges in she’d b like OUTFIT SWAP!!!! like it ws a reality show segment. she’d do his hair w her strawberry clips n everything n wna take a polaroid of tht as well. a majority of these polaroids wld b taken w her sat on top of him in bed peeping thru the viewfinder n grinning sickeningly wide after. she’s bad at organisation bt she wld keep very close track of these polaroids n treasure them a lot bc they’d document a summer where she was rly rly happy. probably took them with her to la too she jst has them hidden somewhere.... idk if she’d ever b able to bring herself to throw them away to b honest

i jst had this vision of lana n dom taking franklin to the park n i already told u abt how she’d tell franklin tht she gives the flowers all their own names n say he shld come up w his own names fr them too bc it’s more fun tht way bt. i cn imagine if they saw two bees trying to pollinate the same flower n like buzzing close to each other if franklin pointed it out lana wld gasp n be like OMG they’re in love. they’re married bees. u can tell frm how bright their stripes r they’re extra yellow n glowing like the sun tht’s what happens. tht means they’re in love franklin. n idk if franklin wld say this or not bt if he asked what loves like lana wld b like hmMMM well. love’s kind of like being first in the queue fr the best rollercoaster. or licking the sugar off ur fingers when they’re all sticky frm candy floss. going to the zoo n getting to see all ur favourite animals on a day tht’s sunny but not TOO hot. enough to give ur nose freckles bt not burn ur shoulders. make u feel toasty like ur inside a cocoon. n love’s like........ she’d pause here. she’s crouched dwn on his lvl as she says this mayb dom hs walked off to get them ice creams n she briefly lks at him in the distance as he’s paying before lking bk at franklin. scrunching her nose playfully as she tries to stall. when she hesitantly continues she’s like. n love’s like getting home after tht perfect day at the zoo n finally getting into bed w fresh sheets when ur sleepy n ur eyes r all droopy n heavy. the pillows r fluffy n it’s safe n warm n all of the gd in the world at once. i think love’s like tht. it’s jst.... nice n stuff. n she’d jst be like :) afterwards realising she’d rambled on n change the subject like hey lk at that BUTTERFLY franklin............. bt i jst think this is. particularly heartwarming to me bc not only wld she have been basing tht on hw she feels abt dom bt. in the past love ws always a thing w barbs tht hurt her whenever she tried to hold it n.... he jst rly transformed her idea of being loved by someone into smthn safe n reliable n consistent......... smthn she cld actually make a home out of instead of constantly hving an eye on the door in case they leave / she needs an escape route..... a relationship isn’t a scary concept w him

lana n dom r like. opposites when it comes to social media esp instagram...... dom jst nt even knowing hw to use it n lana posting so regularly hving a small following fr her fashion n whtever.......... i feel like lana wld try to teach him how to use it bt it wld consist of a lot of her being like no that’s--.... dom that’s--.... that’s not ri--.... n jst throwing her head bk n cackling so much she wld b rly endeared by him being clueless abt it she’d be like ommmmmmmmmg it’s ok i’ll b steve jobs n u can be my sexy assistant tht just has to strut besides me like a car dealership model whenever i go on stage to debut the nxt technological advancement. dom wld have to be like... isn’t he dead? lana wld gasp so suddenly n be like omfggggggggg tht explains why me calling this tech nerd wearing a turtleneck steve jobs lst week bombed so hard mayb he thought i ws telling him to die..... dom’s probably like... i doubt he thought tht lana..... she wld laugh at the thought of this anyway n change topics jst the worst attention span already over it. ALSO this is instagram related bt.... bev.kingston wld rly centralise her hate crusade onto dom when it became clear they were dating / things gt mre official n serious. mostly lana wld b like this is so funny n dumb bt.... i think she wld dm bev.kingston one time being like. ok all jokes aside can u cool it a little on the dom hate not to b gross bt he makes me rly happy n i dnt want him to b sad if he ever advances beyond a technological grandpa n sees all this stuff. bev.kingston wld literally screenshot this n post it on her insta like LANA AND I HAVE BEEN IN CLOSE CONTACT I HAVE DECIDED EVANS BOY IS ON TRIAL BASIS EVEN IF I HATE IN MY HEART AND KNOW FREYA IS ONE FOR HER  n she’d update her page like 21/08/2020 LANA DM’D ME ABOUT EVANS BOY (or whtever the date ws) n it’d be sm. lana wld b embarrassed she’d try to get her to delete it she’d b like fk my fking life ur sick bev ur lit rally sick.....

lana treats halloween as a week long celebration she goes to sm parties tht she literally hs to have like..... 482759872 costumes planned each yr. n fr one of them. she’d b like let’s go as each other :) n she’d dress as an angel n he’d dress as a devil. she’d put on red lipstick before they went purely to “help w his costume” n it’d jst consist of her leaving lipstick prints on his cheek n neck n hip even if. his hip wsnt visible w the top he ws wearing she’d b like dom listen.... listen. it’s literally part of the vision n it’s necessary......... it doesn’t matter if ppl can’t see it we’ll both kno it’s there n it’ll elevate the look so mch...... w that attention to detail u cld even b in the running fr winning a prize...... then she wld take the lipstick off like it wldnt even be part of her outfit she only put it on to do this specifically. she’d insist on them getting a photo tgether n it’d b a bit gross it’d b a whole thing she jst.... wld b very proud to b seen w him she’d show him off a lot.... if anyone complimented her outfit she’d b like ya n have u seen dom he’s a devil we match :) n if there ws another pair tht had worn the same which i mean there probably might it isn’t a hugely original concept bt lana wld be like......... ummmmm tht guy is the most pathetic devil i hv literally ever seen..... if she ws drunk she might even b like ummm.... hw does it feel fr dom to be a sexier devil than u............... does it sting? jealous i bet....... n dom wld have to b like lana please.... im sry abt her.... u lk gd haha...... cushioning the blow. taking her hand n leading her away. n lana is jst tittering n murmurs in his ear like. he knew it ws true u cld see it in his eyes. he knew u lkd better than him. 

[mittensmorgul]

I was asked to transcribe these video clips regarding Angel Theory and the incident at WS Atlanta on Saturday October 19, 2019. I’m posting my transcript here for anyone who wants to read it, rather than keeping it locked in a private document. It was hastily typed, so for other hearing people, if I made any errors in transcription, please let me know and I’ll make corrections as needed.

This document doesn’t contain the context, backstory, and other information. This is only the transcript of the videos contained in the four linked tweets, provided here for the purposes of equal access to the information they contain.

(video 1-- transcription video source: https://twitter.com/_cunaa_/status/1185902669166186497?s=21 )

So, Friday came, and she did not have an interpreter, like I said. Someone volunteered to help her. So, that came, Saturday came. Her line was posted. Angel was, you know, meeting fans, and had finally had a break in the day-- well a break in the day, and this is where, this is why that conversation is so important. Angel started to play with Nova around the floor. Nova is less than a pound. You guys all know that Nova is about the size of this water bottle, to be honest.

And so, as playing with Nova, Angel cannot hear. Her hearing aid is off because this place is humongous, and it’s noisy. So, as she’s running around with Nova, a security guard who was standing across from us-- now take it, Nova has been there all day Friday. Never addressed. Saturday comes, Nova’s been with us. Nova goes everywhere, because she is Angel’s service dog. So, I mean, airplanes-- everywhere. So, Angel’s playing around with Nova.

The security guard begins to scream at her to stop, to pick up the dog, in a very demeaning manner, enough that he caused a commotion. Now, all of this could’ve been avoided if the security guard walked up to tap her to ask her to pick Nova up, and it would’ve been over. That’s not what happened.

The security guard started yelling at her in a demeaning tone to get the dog, stop stop stop. Well, we have very protective booking agents, and agents that sit with us. And her agent that was with her told him to stop yelling, she can’t hear you. He continued to yell and said, “She’s ignoring me, she’s ignoring me.”

Now, also, if the security guard was provided the information that she was hearing impaired, he would’ve known she doesn’t speak that way. She can’t under--she can’t hear you.

So, he continued to… to, um verbally-- pretty much verbally assault her, and say, you know, “Pick up the dog,” and “You’re not listening to me.”

Well, Angel sees that there’s a commotion going on. Remember, at this point, Angel still cannot hear. She physically cannot hear, so all she sees is a commotion happening, so she picks up Nova and she walks over.

(video 2)

So when she walks over to try to understand what’s going on, there’s no interpreter there to explain to her that something needs to happen, you know, as he’s continuing to say--what really drives me crazy--made a comment “She was, she was gonna hit me. She was gonna hit me.” That’s not what happened.

Angel never even addressed him, never even said anything. She couldn’t. She didn’t even know what was happening.

For the first time I’ve ever walked around a convention where there were police officers that are in full gear, holding pretty much assault rifles. I’ve never seen it before, at not a convention I’ve been to. And so there were officers at the time walking around with assault rifles. It is what it is, you know? That’s not my convention, so I can’t say why they were there, or why they weren’t there.

So, Angel’s standing there, and they’re trying to explain to this man that this is her… that this is her service dog.

(video 3)

Angel proceeds to, um, to walk off, because she’s upset, she can’t understand what’s happening. She sees it happening, but she can’t hear it. So, Angel walks off.

As Angel’s walking off, um, many of us are still trying to talk to the guy, to understand what’s going on.

Now, the person who runs this event-- I’m not gonna say the name. I don’t care to-- and I say this all about letting them know that we are, we’re still going today, to meet fans. Angel will be there today to meet fans. And the reason I wanted to address it is that I didn’t want people going up to her, asking her what happened, and her, and whoever’s there with her having to explain this consistently. And I talked to her, and been given permission to do this.

So, in that happening, she, uh… the person who runs the event decided to stand around in the background and watch as all of this was happening. Never once addressing that this is a talent. This is talent who is here. This is, you know, she needs this dog. You know, trying to de-escalating the situation. It didn’t happen.

About five minutes of standing there, um, I made the comment to him, “Can you handle that?” I was told, “It’s handled.” Walks over.

He walks over, and the first thing that is said to her is, “I have a disabled child, that I’m also learning ASL, so I understand where you’re coming from. I have over 100 members of security, here, and it’s impossible for me to let them know all my guests’ needs.” Which is not true. That’s not true. Last year, everyone knew what was needed. Last year, it ran smooth. We were able to get in and out of booths, things were… people knew who you were, what was happening. So it was not impossible. It’s irresponsible to not do it, but not impossible.

Um, so I found that very disturbing. Very disturbing.

So, as we were leaving, I was also approached by another member, who is a talent that’s there, and it was said that… it was told to this person that Angel didn’t need an interpreter.\

(video 4)

It was told to this person that Angel didn’t need an interpreter because she could talk. That has boiled my blood so much, because yes, Angel can talk. But that’s not her requirement. Her requirement is an ASL interpreter. Because although she can talk, she cannot hear the talking. Which is unfair. It was unfair to her.

[broanimekindasmacks]

Laying the Foundation

There a number of streaming services that are available to watch anime on. Of course each on is going to have it's pros and cons so I would suggest trying out multiple ones until you found one suitable for your needs! Just to note, if you're looking to watch specific animes it's always a good idea to check if it's available on your favorite streaming service before paying for it!

Subscriptions (These ones are going to cost a monthly fee that is automatically charged to a debit/credit card.)

Crunchyroll -has a 14 day free trial -$7.99 + tax month -no ads and fast translation times from when new episodes are aired -has a dark mode -decent and large selection (recently expired funimation license) -link to titles leavings cr: https://www.crunchyroll.com/forumtopic-1025862/update-to-the-crunchyroll-x-funimation-partnership A personal note: I've used my sister's CR account in the past and loved the lack of pop-ups or obnoxious ads. Also, the translations are done professionally and the video quality is HD, so I would definitely reccomend this to those who can afford it!

Netflix -has a 30 day trial -netflix has different prices depending on what plan you'd like and is as follows -basic: $8.99 for one screen in standard quality -standard: $13.99 for two screens in HD -premium: $15.99 for 4 screen in HD and ultra HD -no ads, mildly reliable translation -in constantly in dark mode -smaller selection as compared to cr, most aren't full seasons -definitely went more for variety than completion for anime A personal note: This is where I'd recommend newbie go! Almost everyone has access to Netflix and thankfully Netlfix has a wide enough variety to have some of the more popular shows. If these shows can grab your attention then you're more likely to venture to other streaming sites for other animes.

Hulu -has a 30 day trial/7 day trial depending on what plan you pick -plans are as follows: -hulu:$5.99 a month (has ads) -hulu (no ads): $11.99 a month -hulu + live tv $54.99 a month -has a good amount of english dubbed anime if you're into that -good balance of variety and completion A personal note: I'm ashamed to admit it, but I used to use Hulu. This was back when I was elementary school and I could actually bring myself to watch ads. Of course this was for the sake of Inuyasha so it was all good. Like Netflix, I would only recommend this to someone who already has Hulu and is looking to explore anime.

Free Platforms Anime Planet -is both free and not depending on what you watch, BUT a majority of the animes are free to watch -is a legal streaming service,,,,which is GREAT -uses different video streaming services (ie. youtube, etc) -doesn't have a dark mode A personal note: I haven't really used this platform but am planning to after doing this research. Will get back to you with feedback, but looks promising!

Youtube -i'm gonna be honest you're probably desperate if you're here -this is some subbed in a language that isn't english and 1 episode is cut into 3 parts type of thing -most animation/licensing isn't not gonna let a whole series slide on yt -sometimes little clips or the first episode to attract to you to new anime are here -otherwise...only for 2010's nostalgia and bad AMVs

...Sketchy...websites If you've more seasoned then you'll recognize the mysterious kissanime urls. KissAnime -are shapeshifting forms with endings like .ru,.in,.ws -defintely run smth fishy in the background of your computer -have to turn off adblock -require you to choose a picture before watching each episode -pop-ups and....intense ads -streaming services sometimes botched -BUT will have ANYTHING you are looking for anime-wise -great for when you're digging for some more niche animes A personal note: Ah, who hasn't used kissanime? If you're a seasoned anime watcher than any of the slight inconveniences that come with the site practically don't even exist because you're so accustomed to them. This is my last place to watch an anime because the way that it is. I wouldn't recommend it to someone who like my dad who doesn't understand how to close a pop-up, but otherwise it's there when you need it.

This is my masterlist so far as to the streaming sites you can use. I'll be adding any if I find anymore but for now, these are what I (and many others) use to watch anime. Of course if you have the luxury, then I would suggest getting a subscription service. Since not all of us (which is also many of us) can't we deal with what we can get.

I’ve attached an image of this information in table form and will also link to the google doc itself, which has clickable link to each official site!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vS4peS_XaFrxigUZ7TUbPAdDUqC72g2lPhPYQMNFib_8tTNxmtXQ59GTjmKifRQBqDokSMW6DHu-fic/pub

[anogete]

Hi! First things first, love your stories. Not just for the smut, but how beautifully you craft the storyline and write the characters to be so realistic. To be on that level of storytelling is a privilege to read and gives me inspiration to write and be that good one day. Sorry for the fan girling but I do have a serious question...how do you plan out your fics? Chapter by chapter or just dot points or write and see what the hell you come up with?

Thank you, @famousluminarypeanut ! 

So, how do I plan out fics?  Hmmm...  Well, most of my projects start out the same way: I have an idea of the overarching plot of the fic (very general) or maybe I just have this scene in my head that I have to get out.  With Seventy-One, I had that scene when they first meet in the lounge in my head--very early morning, dark outside, quiet building, Bucky slips in and they have coffee together in silence.  With Out of the Woods I had the idea that I wanted to have Bucky capture Darcy right after the events of WS and go on some grand theft auto escape from HYDRA and the authorities.  Either way, I usually start writing without a plan other than the initial idea.  I open up a blank document and get to typing.  I tend to break my chapters every 10-20 pages because that is what I like as a reader.  I find I write to cater to myself as far as length and content goes, so hopefully, that works for my readers as well.  Anyway, I start writing and just break up the chapters by the page numbers as natural breaks happen in the text.

I’m pretty driven by scenes that I see in my head.  As I’m writing, I’m thinking ahead to what would/could happen next.  I think about it throughout the day, so I’ll jot it down in a notes app on my phone or (if I can’t type because I’m in the car) I’ll dictate ideas for scenes or even strings of dialogue on a voice memo app so I don’t forget these little nuggets when I sit down to write.  Sometimes those notes make it into my writing and other times they don’t or they get heavily modified.

It always seems to happen that around chapter 7 or 8, the bigger story starts to gel in my head.  This is probably because my writing tends to focus on building a relationship.  I like to start out without a prior meaningful relationship.  By this, I mean that I like the characters I’m focusing on to meet at the beginning of the fic or to not know each other very well until the beginning of the fic.  I like to build the beginnings of the relationship myself instead of assuming an established friendship.  Again, this is another personal preference of mine as a reader that carries over to my writing since I write to please myself.  Anyway, it takes a few chapters to establish the relationship and build it up to the point where I have more freedom to throw in the drama.  That’s probably the biggest reason why it takes time for the larger storyline to gel in my head.  So, between chapters 6-9, I’ll start plotting out the rest because things are coming together and I know where I want to go (even if I usually don’t know the final scene or exactly how it will end).  I keep a little bullet list at the bottom of the file I’m working in.  I’ll do a very basic outline--maybe three or four bullet points (usually one or two sentences per point) per chapter of what I want to accomplish.  That doesn’t always work out and bullet points get push up or pushed back to other chapters.  Sometimes they even get rearranged. I let it happen and don’t try to force anything.

It’s around this time that I start getting more comfortable with the fic and am able to post to followers about when to expect the fic to be posted.  I don’t post any of my fics until the first draft is completed, but by the time I’m halfway in, I have a pretty good idea of how much longer I need to get the story told and how many days that will take me with my schedule.  I’ll use those bullet points to write the final chapters of the fic (I normally don’t exceed 20 chapters).  I try to send the first half to my betas while I’m working on the second half.  Getting their feedback at that point allows me to redirect things if something isn’t working.  It also prevents them from having a long-ass fic to beta in like two days.

I’ll write even if I only have twenty minutes.  I’ll write at home at my coffee table or in my book nook.  I’ll write in the middle of a busy Starbucks.  I’ll write in the library on my lunch break.  I’ll write anywhere I can.  I even write on my cell phone at night while I’m in bed.  Google Docs is my friend.  To block out interruptions, I’ll put on music that has the same tone I want to portray in the fic/chapter or I’ll put on ASMR videos on YouTube.  These are just videos of people making repetitive noises (crinkling paper, scratching a table, tapping on a candle, etc), and I find them soothing and great ambient background noise that won’t distract me from writing.  When I start a writing session, I’ll go back 1 to 3 pages and read what I wrote before I stopped.  Then I’ll pick up from that point and go until I feel like I need to stop or until I run out of time.  I have a 9 to 5 job, so I spend most of my weekends writing (I can write two chapters a day or about 10,000 words if I’m inspired and free of responsibilities).  My company is generous with vacation days, so sometimes I take days off work just to write.

I usually read my first draft chapters once or twice before sending them to my betas.  When I get the chapters back, I’ll fix the small things my betas noted immediately.  Then I’ll read the chapters again as I fix the larger things they noted.  At this point, all the chapters are written and most of them are beta’d and I’m ready to start posting them on AO3.  I’ll read each chapter the day before I intend to post it and then I’ll read it one final time right before I the post button.

This is way more info than you asked for.  Sorry about that.  Either way, I hoped this helps.  I think every writer is different.  It took me years to figure out my rhythm and what works best for me.  It might not work for you, but hopefully it gives you some ideas on things to try.  Getting better at writing takes practice and practice and practice.  I’m still learning.  I’m still trying to be better and try new things.  Regardless of all that, though, I think writing fanfic is about having fun and doing what you want to do.  So, that’s my advice.  Have fun.  Write what you love.

And now I’ll shut the eff up.

[s2he-gamewalkthrough]

Part 5: Defeating the Maka Yonshou (Again)

The title really says it all.

If you don’t know what this is about, please refer to this previous post.

[Any new comments by me will be designated by brackets.]

Back to where we left off last time...

The whale-shaped paopei, Kakoten, is attacking the town, for seemingly no apparent reason. If you've read the manga before, then you'll remember that these are the really devastating type of paopei that was used on the city of Zhou.

Oh hey, it's Youzen!

You don't get to read much of the convo between him and Tensho though, before you're rudely swept off to another area (I think) nearby.

Also, wow, the colors are really messed up here. [That’s not from my emulator, I think it was an intentional game design choice.]

And we get to see Nataku! Yay, it's like one big get-together party!

Unfortunately, the "reunion" doesn't last long, as you're immediately forced into a battle with a guy named Ma Reijyu and more of his annoying Kakotens. [The game forces you into a solo battle here between Nataku and this guy. You get to control Nataku.]

Wait... didn't Ma Reijyu get Houshined already? Anyway, just spam Nataku's third attack (a multi-hit attack), and when the Kakoten (the whale thing) gets destroyed, use your standard attack on Ma Reijyu (the... guy). Nataku's second attack is just a more concentrated attack that costs EP and only hits one enemy. You can use this to defeat Ma Reijyu faster, if you want, though it's not necessary and you'd want to save the EP for the Kakotens (which can respawn).

The Kakotens will go down pretty quickly--Ma Reijyu takes a bit longer to go down, and he'll probably summon another Kakoten during the course of the battle. Don't worry about the Kakoten so much; your main objective is to kill Ma Reijyu otherwise he'll just keep summoning more of them.

Nataku is pretty powerful, even this early in the game, so don't worry about him going down too much. I finished the battle in about 4-5 turns with the above strategy.

(I'll fully document Nataku's last two attacks later...)

After the battle, you're swept back to the village where Youzen and Tensho last left off their conversation.

(Youzen looks pretty cute here)

Anyway, he joins your party! Yay!

...My (Tensho's) level looks crappy in comparison here. orz.

Anyway, Youzen's action button allows him to transform Tensho's sprite into a different character. (Press the s key for the WS camp)

It's pretty fun to mess around with... You get random girl, random dude, another random dude, one of Ryuukitsu's disciples (I think it's Hekiun, judging by the hair), Hakkan (the turtle thing that guards the Houshindai), Hakutsuru Doji (the white crane yousei), a random yokai senin, and my personal favorite:

A sheep.

Yes, a sheep.

Just press the s key again to un-transform. I don't know if Youzen's transformation ability actually serves a specific purpose later in the game, as I've never really had to use it (except for my own amusement). We shall see...  Also, the characters are randomized, so it may take a while to get the one you want. There's nothing you can do about that unfortunately.

Going down from Tensho's house, you'll see this guy--the same guy who was talking to Nataku earlier. (I didn't cap that convo because I was lazy...) His name's Ma Reisei, and wasn't he also Houshined?

Going down again, and to the right, you'll meet TWO familiar faces--Ma Reikou (guy with umbrella) and Ma Reikai (guy with guitar). All together, including the Ma Reijyu guy you defeated earlier, they form the Maka Yonshou. But they were all supposed to be Houshined already, so what gives?!

Anyway, here's one of the rare instances where you can actually pick which boss you want to fight. You can either fight Ma Reisei, or Ma Reikou and Ma Reikai. (Ugh, too many "Ma Rei"s.) Ma Reikou and Ma Reikai are harder, obviously, so if you want an easier time, then go with the Ma Reisei fight.

You CAN NOT fight both Ma Reisei and then Ma Reikou and Ma Reikai, because after completing one battle, they will all run up in front of the palace, grouped together (along with Ma Reijyu, the guy we fought earlier using Nataku). But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

There are slight differences between the two battles, (which makes this chapter a bit of a pain to write...) If you choose to fight Ma Reikou and Ma Reikai, then Nataku will join your party then to fight them. If you choose to fight Ma Reisei only, then it's just you and Youzen on your own. I would personally choose to fight Ma Reikou and Ma Reikai, because you can get exp for Nataku there, which is nice. (He still leaves afterwards, though--but you'll meet up with him again soon enough.)

Either way, if you want to level up now, you're still free to. There's nothing holding you back from exiting the town and going back to either the cave or the spaceship area. (Though it's not really necessary, and its probably best to grind after Nataku joins anyway.)

In this walkthrough, I'll only be detailing how to defeat Ma Reikou and Ma Reikai, as Ma Reisei is pretty easy to defeat without any help. (Though if you do need a suggestion, then just spam both Tensho's and Youzen's standard attack until he dies and use Tensho's healing move as necessary.)

But I might as well just detail Youzen's attacks now:

His standard attack is just a slash with the Sansentou (his trident-looking paopei).

His second attack (costing 3 EP) is one where he sends Koutenken (the giant dog-thing) out to attack enemies. Maybe it's just me, but I personally have a hard time getting this attack to hit enemies, and the damage it deals is about the same as Youzen’s standard attack. So I rarely ever find it worth it to use.

His third move (costing 5 EP) is some kind of supporting attack... I don't know what it does but I think it cures status ailments?

His fourth attack allows him to transform into one of the bosses.

For now you can only transform into one of the members of the Maka Yonshou. (It's randomized which character you turn into, and it costs 20 EP too, so beware of that.)

Youzen's fifth move (costing 5 EP) allows him to analyze the enemy you're fighting, which is pretty useful, I guess; as the enemies/bosses don't come with a hit counter so you don’t know how much HP they actually have.

Anyway, back to actually getting the Maka Yonshou out of town.

(Hint/Tip: You won't fight them until you actually "talk" to them.)

And since I'm fighting Ma Reikou and Ma Reikai, Nataku joins the fray!

Okay, onto how to defeat these guys... They're not as easy as Ma Reisei, but they're not too difficult, either. Just spam Tensho's multi-hit attack, stick to Youzen's standard attack (since, as I've said earlier, his second attack doesn't do much damage for the EP it costs), and Nataku's multi-hit attack.

Ma Reikou and Ma Reikai have some pretty annoying attacks of their own, but just have Tensho heal when it's needed and you should be fine. You should preferably take out the umbrella guy first, as he'll tend to block your attacks. After taking him down, you can just use standard attacks to take the other one down. All in all it still took me less than ten turns to beat them. Everyone should get a level up from the exp.

Now HEAL! And SAVE! Nataku leaves your party temporarily, but he'll join you in the next battle. Like I said earlier, all the Maka Yonshou have gathered in front of the castle.

...I must admit, their color scheme of just black, white, and... maroon(?) does look nice when they're standing next to each other like that.

Talking to them will create this monster:

Annnnnd, now we have to defeat it. Nataku rejoins your party here, at full HP and EP. (If you're wondering why he didn't just stay in your party before, well, that's because of the "split path" the game employs here... since you can choose which boss you wanted to fight earlier.)

Anyway, just use Tensho's standard attack, Youzen's standard attack (and secondary attack, if you want), and Nataku's standard attack. And heal with Tensho when the need arises. Yeah... there's not much in the way of strategy right now... especially with your limited characters and attack moves.

The combined Maka Yonshou... basically has all the attacks of the four members separated--making for a pretty annoying boss battle. But it's still a lot less annoying than those to come. (Oh yes... a LOT less annoying than those to come...)

The most annoying part of the battle is when the monster uses some kind of status effect. It's even more annoying for me since I can't read Japanese.

Oh, you can also do "team" attacks now... One with Tensho + Nataku and Youzen + Nataku. Beware, though; as they cost EP from both characters involved, I think.

Anyway, the reason I don't mention team attacks in the above strategy for this boss is because they're not as effective as the standard attacks... at least, not at this level. You'll be doing much more damage with the characters attacking separately, plus your team attacks can still miss, meaning that when it does, your two characters will have basically lost a turn.

After all is said and done, the boss isn't that hard. So far, for boss battles, I still have been able to defeat the boss in around ten turns or less. And everyone should level up again! Yay!

But then we get thrown immediately into a cutscene. Apparently the monster isn't completly defeated yet, so Tensho goes and throws the meteor he found earlier in the spaceship at the monster and it... dies? Well, talk about your duex ex machina!

After some more talking, you're finally free to walk around again. And the town has returned to normal! And Nataku has officially decided to stay in your party! Yay again!

You really have no place to go at this point, so go back and talk to Ki Hatsu. (Insert WALL OF JAPANESE TEXT THAT I CAN’T READ HERE)

When you go to leave the palace, this cutscene will appear. (Mostly capping this pic for Yuukyo... Because she only really has two "faces" in the game...)

Oh hey, Mount Kongrong 2 has now opened up on the map!

To be continued...

[don9756]



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Covington and Burling: The secret conspiracy undermining Michael Flynn

The well runs deep – the other side of the Michael Flynn scandal.

by SCOTT BENNETTDecember 2, 2017, 12:114K Views 1Comment

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Here’s an earth-shaking, time-stopping truth you won’t read anywhere in the world, except The Duran: Michael Flynn’s attorney—which today persuaded Flynn to take a “plea deal” and admit to making a false statement (18 USC 1001)—is the same law firm that in 2009 not only worked with Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Loretta Lynch,  and Eric Holder at the State Department, Justice Department, Treasury Department, CIA, and the Military to conspire to confiscate and hide 19,000 Union Bank of Switzerland  bank accounts used for laundering funds for terrorist financing from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and the same law firm protecting Saudi Arabian clients funneling millions of dollars into Wahhabi mercenaries invading and waging war in Libya, in Syria and killing Russians, Iranians, Syrians, and someAmericans, and the same law firm that hired Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer and Roger Zakheim after their government service,  but is also the same law firm that helped advise Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation on not only the Clinton Presidential campaign, but how to transform that potential Clinton Presidency into the most corrupt syndicate of international terrorism, human trafficking, financial fraud, racketeering, and extortion since the invention of death itself.  This law firm is Covington and Burling, and their website and client list and history tells the story—but not all of it.  I’ll tell the best parts here, and no doubt outrage those who are guilty of the most outrageous government criminality in America.

Covington and Burling is a global law firm, headquartered in Washington DC, that represents, among others, Saudi Arabia and Union Bank of Switzerland as separate clients, yet with suspiciously profitable mutual interests and relationships.  If we draw out a schematic and connect the dots of these interests and relationships—like Sean Hannity clumsily tried to do on Fox News a few weeks ago—we will see that Covington and Burling is directly connected to Hillary Clinton, former President Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton, former Attorney General Eric Holder, former Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, House Armed Services attorney Roger Zakheim and his father and Booz Allen Hamilton and Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakheim, U.S. Central Command’s terror financing operation, and General Michael Flynn as Defense Intelligence Agency Director in 2012.





This original schematic connecting all of these people, and others, was originally filed on September 25, 2012 as a military intelligence whistleblowing report by an Army Psychological Warfare and Booz Allen Hamilton counterterrorism analyst with a Top Secret/ Sensitive Compartmentalized Information security clearance, who happened to have worked at the State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism, and the Joint Intelligence and Operations Center at U.S. Central Command, and was the liaison officer for U.S. Special Operations Command.

Interestingly, General Michael Flynn and his agency (D.I.A.) wrote intelligence cables, disclosed later by WikiLeaks, that described these very same Saudi-Qatar terrorist financing operations and networks.  Hillary Clinton cited these materials in her report calling attention to Saudi-Qatar terrorist financing, as did Vice President Joe Biden and others.  Ironically,  WikiLeaks also released these Hillary Clinton emails and cables.



The only State Department cables and Clinton emails not yet released by the American mainstream media, have been those in 2009 describing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s desire to “make a deal with Switzerland in exchange for making the Union Bank of Switzerland issue ‘go away’ and stave off any further disruptions caused by the 2008 financial crisis.”  Make no mistake, these materials WILL be coming out eventually, and will most likely be the climax of the corruption of the Clinton-Obama saga because intrinsic to this story is the false imprisonment of an American Swiss Bank (UBS) whistleblower named Brad Birkenfeld who originally presented these materials to the American government—and was betrayed and jailed to hide his information.  Miraculously, or mysteriously, this falsely imprisoned Swiss bank whistleblower Brad Birkenfeld met with, debriefed over six (6) months, and physically provided these banking documents and communications to a U.S. Army Officer whose very job was tracking down and destroying terrorist networks and operations at U.S. Central Command.  This Army Officer, and Booz Allen Hamilton contractor, not only worked with Edward Snowden and his team in Hawaii, but is also the author of this article you are reading now.





Because of the recent dishonest and unconstitutional condemnation of RT as a “foreign espionage asset”, these materials will be shared here by The Duran, and are available for verification and review in the original report titled “SHELL GAME: A Military Whistleblowing Report to Congress” available at www.shellgamewhistleblower.com  and www.lulu.com and https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Scott_Bennett

CONCLUSION:

Essentially these materials prove the accuracy of the WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden revelations: that from 2009 to present, Michael Flynn’s attorney Covington and Burling and its attorneys Stuart Eizenstat and others, was a co-conspirator with the Clinton Foundation, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, Loretta Lynch, and UBS Chairman of the Americas Robert Wolf, in various money laundering, terrorist financing, pay-to-play, and other criminal conspiracies and racketeering schemes that has not only killed millions of Syrian Christians and Muslims, and numerous Russians, Turks, and Iranians, but also thousands of American, Britons, Germans, and soldiers from other NATO allies illegally present in Syria.  Treasonously, many American politicians and military officials were informed about this story between 2012 and 2016 by the American Army Officer who compiled the report, and chose to do absolutely nothing.  For this they will ultimately be prosecuted if not in the courts of law, then certainly in the courts of public opinion as the materials are digested.

For this reason, Covington and Burling should not be recognized as Flynn’s attorney, but rather considered a criminal conspirator in the larger Michael Flynn-Russian investigation-Uranium One cases.  To do otherwise indicates either a corrupt court, or a lazy and ignorant court which must be informed about this material as “Newly Discovered Evidence of Fraud on the Court” in the form of an Amicus Brief; which most likely could be submitted by Judicial Watch and Jay Sekulow, with the direct witness testimony of Senator Dick Black of Virginia—who can confirm the validity of this article.

This material also explains why Covington and Burling is far too eager to throw Michael Flynn under the bus and shackle him with a “plea deal” that will force Flynn to falsely answer every question posed by Robert Mueller in a manner intentionally designed  by Mueller to construct a trap of lies and propaganda and treasonous acts implicating Trump and essentially guaranteeing a Presidential impeachment.  Unless of course, the entire case against Flynn, and Paul Manaforte, is thrown out on the legal basis of “Fruit of the Poisonous Tree” which argues that everything derived from the wiretaps and investigations resulting from the fake Russian dossier written by Christopher Steele and paid for by the Democrats and Clinton Presidential campaign is absolutely and irreconcilably inadmissible in a court of law because it violates the Constitutional rights of the people targeted, and thereby jeopardizes the rights of every American citizen.   In that case, it opens up another possibility: that the Justice Department knows this, and will use the Flynn-Manaforte indictments as a smokescreen to indict, arrest, and prosecute the larger criminal actors involved—such as Tony and John Podesta, Huma Abedin and her Muslim Brotherhood agents, Clinton Foundation agents Donna Chalela and her nephew David Chalela, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her brother at the Washington DC Courts incompetently investigating the Seth Rich murder (DNC staffer who allegedly released the DNC emails to British political figure Craig Murray, who in turn gave them to Julian Assange at WikiLeaks).  If that’s the case, Trump may very well be taking chess lessons from Russian President Putin.

The reason why The Duran is sharing the links to these materials is not only because it is an authentic champion of the freedom of speech, honesty and transparency in government, and believes that truth and justice are natural antibodies against corruption and deceit, but because the American mainstream media has demonstrated its agenda—and I would even say its religion—is willfully anti-truth and anti-justice as a means to global neocon-Zionist subjugation of the world using the license of “democracy” and the boot of “human rights”—as ridiculous as that may sound.

And since the American people, and indeed the world, deserve to know every single corrupt and criminal act perpetrated by those entrusted with government service, The Duran will honor that right, and enact it, even if those in the American government refuse to.

–to be continued…

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

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'RUSSIAGATE'COVINGTON AND BURLINGDONALD TRUMPMICHAEL FLYNN

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[deeisace]

I haven't worked out how far I can get with three hours research yet, But I do know that to do one half of my stepdad's family (his mum's family, including seven entire generations and bits of the eighth - that's people born from the 1960s back to the 1780s, 180 odd years), by the amount of editing time on the word document (which was open nearly the entire time I was researching, tho here I have to research on my phone and only do the tree document on my laptop, cs the net's shite), Took about an entire day, 23 point smth hours, stretched over three days (half 3 on the 18th to about 3 ish on the 21st) And that didn't have any knots or difficult bits in it, really at all, so like And I've worked out, vague prices? I guess? For what things I could do? Liiiike, three hours research and a word document tree emailed could be £15 Extra tenner to carry on to whatever past 3 hours An extra £5 or £10 for military records where possible (images for a fiver and then also a transcription for an extra fiver, which could take 2 or 3 hours - tho course if I looked and didn't find anything that needn't be charged at all) The same for newspaper records where possible £5 for images of all marriage, baptism and census records (and a transcription if they want? Maybe that should be £10 for the transcription too? I ws gonna be like pfft ydont need a transcription for those, but some people would, and some enumerators (the census writers) are shite, an just cs I'm used to it, an if I'm doing transcriptions for everything else, I ought to for those) where possible £5 for researching into the occupations of specific relatives And as well, if you need to order a record (rare, but sometimes you can't get any further without one), they cost £22.50 each to get sent. So I'd ask if they want me to but that would mean they have to pay that too. And I'd probably ask throughout like, I've got here and ive got this, d'you want me to carry on, i spose But like. If you add that all up, if someone wanted everything I can possibly do, it's £75-£80 for roughly 30+ hours work, I think. Which Is a lot, like a big chunk of money, or for me anyway But it works out £2.50 an hour, which is perfectly reasonable, I reckon It's something I enjoy anyway, so like Or £15 for the really basic one, that's like £3.50 an hour or smth. Cs I can work the tree as I go but that's extra time a bit still to do that? Still reasonable tho I reckon. And as well I know that the really like established people that do this, they can charge £25 an hour, so really it's a bloody bargain like And as well like, I'd say it'll take me a week steadv three days to do half a tree, cs I'll definitely have other shite to do at some point. Food and sleep are good things haha Pffft ahaha now I just need to find people who want their trees done, haha Rather, they need to be able to find me I guess?

[mbaljeetsingh]

How To Build An Ionic App With A Graphcool Backend - Part 5

In the previous parts of this tutorial, we created a Shopping List app with Ionic which uses Apollo Client to query and mutate data in a Graphcool backend.

In this part, we'll set up a GraphQL subscription to get real-time updates from the backend.

This tutorial is split up into these parts: Part 1 - Introduction to GraphQL, Graphcool, and Apollo Client Part 2 - Creating a Graphcool backend Part 3 - Querying data in an Ionic app Part 4 - Mutations in an Ionic app Part 5 - Real-time subscriptions in an Ionic app (this post)

Initialize the network interface

First, we'll need to install a couple of packages to be able to set up the subscriptions connection to the Graphcool backend.

$ npm install --save apollo-link-ws subscriptions-transport-ws

Note: I also updated the apollo-angular and apollo-angular-link-http packages to the latest version (1.0.1).

Update the file graphql.module.ts to add the code for the subscription connection. This code configures Apollo Client to use both the Simple API and the Subscription API.

import { NgModule } from '@angular/core'; import { HttpClientModule } from '@angular/common/http'; import { ApolloModule, Apollo } from 'apollo-angular'; import { HttpLinkModule, HttpLink } from 'apollo-angular-link-http'; import { InMemoryCache } from 'apollo-cache-inmemory'; import { WebSocketLink } from 'apollo-link-ws'; import { split } from 'apollo-link'; import { getMainDefinition } from 'apollo-utilities'; const simpleAPI = 'PUT YOUR SIMPLE API ENDPOINT HERE'; const subscriptionAPI = 'PUT YOUR SUBSCRIPTION API ENDPOINT HERE'; @NgModule({ exports: [ HttpClientModule, ApolloModule, HttpLinkModule ] }) export class GraphQLModule { constructor(apollo: Apollo, httpLink: HttpLink) { const http = httpLink.create({ uri: simpleAPI }); const ws = new WebSocketLink({ uri: subscriptionAPI, options: { reconnect: true } }); const link = split( // split based on operation type ({ query }) => { const { kind, operation } = getMainDefinition(query); return kind === 'OperationDefinition' && operation === 'subscription'; }, ws, http, ); apollo.create({ link: link, cache: new InMemoryCache() }); } }

See the Apollo Client Docs for more information.

Add subscription GraphQL

Let's set up the subscription in ShoppingListProvider. This particular subscription will fire for these kinds of mutations: CREATED, UPDATED and DELETED. You can also set it up to only handle one specific type of mutation.

We are specifying which data we want to receive, this will include the mutation type, the item data as node and any previous values that we're interested in. In this case, I only want to know the id so that in the case of a DELETED mutation, I'll know which item was deleted.

const subscription = gql` subscription changedItems { Item( filter: { mutation_in: [CREATED, UPDATED, DELETED] } ) { mutation node { id name done category { id } createdAt updatedAt } previousValues { id } } } `;

Now let's create a method on the provider to use this subscription and handle the mutations. We use the subscribeToMore method on the query and pass it the subscription GraphQL and a function that gets as input the local cache and the data received from the subscription.

private subscribeToChanges(query: QueryRef<any>) { query.subscribeToMore({ document: subscription, updateQuery: (prev: any, { subscriptionData }) => { if (subscriptionData.Item.mutation == 'CREATED') { return Object.assign({}, prev, { allItems: prev.allItems.concat(subscriptionData.Item.node) }); } else if (subscriptionData.Item.mutation == 'DELETED') { return Object.assign({}, prev, { allItems: prev.allItems.filter(i => i.id !== subscriptionData.Item.previousValues.id) }); } } }); }

We are only handling the CREATED and DELETED mutations because, as I mentioned in the previous part of this tutorial, we don't need to manually update our local cache for UPDATED mutations. Apollo Client takes care of that for us.

Change the getAllItems method on the provider and add the call to subscribeToChanges.

getAllItems(): Observable<any> { const queryWatcher = this.apollo.watchQuery<any>({ query: queryAllItems }); this.subscribeToChanges(queryWatcher); return queryWatcher.valueChanges .map(result => result.data.allItems);; }

The last thing we need to do now is removing the code for updating the local cache from the createItem and deleteItem methods because we are now updating the cache in the subscribeToChanges method.

So your createItem and deleteItem methods should now look like this:

createItem(name, categoryId): void { this.apollo.mutate({ mutation: mutationCreateItem, variables: { name: name, categoryId: categoryId } }) .subscribe(response => console.log(response.data), error => console.log('Mutation Error:', error)); } deleteItem(item: any): void { this.apollo.mutate({ mutation: mutationDeleteItem, variables: { id: item.id } }) .subscribe(response => console.log(response.data), error => console.log('Mutation Error:', error)); }

All done, now fire up the app with ionic serve and change some data on the backend in the Graphcool Console and you should see that data updated in the app instantly.

via Gone Hybrid http://ift.tt/2omByee

[haleytconnolly-blog]

DCI Internship - Week 12 (08/21 - 08/24)

Monday, August 21

I spent most of the day working on the Tahiti Reps Conference PPT. I spoke to Amalia over the phone and worked on it while she gave me feedback and additional content to add.

I also started putting together a PDF of a 16 page article from a Canadian newspaper. I got swamped with other assignments, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to finish that tomorrow.

I also finished up the charts for North Carolina for Luther to add to the booklet.

I also worked a lot on Winning Strategies. Dariel sat down with me and helped me fit all the content the way she wanted it, which was immensely helpful since it’s a fairly complicated document and layout.

Tuesday, August 22

I came in early today to work more on Winning Strategies. We managed to finish around 11:30, so now all I have to do is fix some charts and some copy. Once all that’s done, Luther will hopefully take over and make it look nice.

I also spent a while editing a PPT for South Louisiana based on its brand guidelines.

I also edited a tri-fold brochure for Charles County, Maryland.

The Tahiti PPT is also finally done! Unless Amalia has more edits for me tomorrow.

Wednesday, August 23

Today, I continued to work on Winning Strategies, compiled a PDF of a Canadian news article, made some more progress on the Tahiti postcards, and had a meeting with Dariel regarding our progress with WS.

Thursday, August 24

I mostly worked on the Tahiti PPT and postcards today. When they’re done, I’ll post them here. I also made some more bathroom signs since the original ones are no longer going to be used:

I also edited some copy on an infographic for Texas and The Netherlands:

I also edited a couple PPTs and handed over Winning Strategies to Luther to finalize.