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innerchorus · 2 years

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Okay, this is the Book 15 scene where Hilmes and Burhan share a meal! WARNING for novel spoilers including mentions of character deaths. For some reason, I did a rough translation of the entire scene, even though the food is right at the start. Also warning for Hilmes being both heartbreaking and awful (it’s pretty typical of second half Hilmes, to be honest).

(Tiny bit of context going into this scene; Hilmes and Burhan have left Misr after things there didn’t go to plan. They were on board a ship heading for Maryam, and jumped overboard on horseback to reach the shore without having to disembark at the port.)

Translation Disclaimer: This is essentially a machine translation of a fan translation, edited for readability, so please don’t count on it being 100% accurate!

‘Thanks to outstanding horsemanship coupled with the calm seas of Maryam, Hilmes and Burhan were finally able to land safely on the country's shore. In the case of Hilmes, there were Lusitanian officials or soldiers in the port, and so they had needed to avoid the danger of his face being recognised. In order to do this, they had exhausted the strength of their horses, which had dropped dead when they came ashore.

Hilmes sat at rest on the sand dunes, and Burhan, who had gone out in search of food, returned with a shamefaced expression.

"I was only able to find such rudimentary food... If it is unsuited to your tastes, I'll try again."

"No, never mind that, it's best to eat our fill at once."

Hilmes unfolded the round flatbreads, added roast lamb, chicken, onion, mashed beans and so on, then wrapped it up.

"Go ahead and eat, too."

"Thank you."

There had been many different types of fish at the marketplace, both large and small, but as he was a Turanian, Burhan did not eat fish. It had taken a lot of effort in order to find meat.

While eating the flatbread, Hilmes was struck by a sudden thought.

'Kharlan, Sam, Zandeh, even this fellow's companions... I have made countless people who were loyal to me die meaningless deaths. As a lord, I really am like a seed of disaster.'

The capricious sea breeze had been both stronger and faster than human prediction, and in blowing from the southwest, the ship had reached the coastal waters of Maryam by the end of the ninth month.

The turquoise blue of the sea became ever more intense, and combined with the sunlight shining upon it to appear purple; this was the Sea of Maryam, known as the 'wine-coloured sea'. It was a sight to behold, but Hilmes had seen it before, and Burhan did not want to get close to the shoreline. The two of them sat in silence on the dunes while eating.

"By the way, what became of Lord Sebuk and Lord Framantas?"

"Huh?"

With regards to these Parsian generals that he had promoted, Hilmes had forgotten all about them. Not only that, he had not even recalled that he had left them behind in Misr.

"They're probably dead. There's no use in thinking about it."

If this line had been overheard by the 'wandering musician' of Pars, he might have sneered and said, "Your sort are always the same."

"Thinking about it like that, I've always had bad luck until now."

"Indeed it is so."

"So, from now on..."

Hilmes stroked his chin.

"It's time for others to experience misfortune."

The unpretentious, blunt Burhan stared at his master, perplexed. As far as seizing the throne in Misr or invading the kingdom of Nabatae were concerned, Burhan had no objections or doubts. Life is like a battle, a fight in which both body and mind bleed. Yet Burhan knew that battles were all about moving forward bravely. At least, that was what he believed.

"My Lord, there is no hero who is your equal. Postpone the matter of Misr and do great things in Maryam first. What do you think?"

A hero with only one subordinate? Hilmes mocked himself internally. But twenty years ago, I started out alone.

"Guiscard is the king of Maryam. But his rule is evidently not lacking."

That said, it resembled the harsh cruelty of Bodin's reign, as no matter what one's religious beliefs, it felt like being in hell. Hilmes did not consider Guiscard to be incompetent, and therefore did not find the liveliness and prosperity of the port surprising. The question lay in how the country of Maryam could be forcibly seized from the grasp of someone who was far from incapable.

If he had succeeded in usurping the throne in Misr, Hilmes ought to be in the process of striving to become a better king of Misr. In the case of failure, he should have been treated as a traitor and executed. However, the man named Tunip had not killed Hilmes, but merely exiled him. That hateful figure had assumed an air of easygoing lenience!

For Hilmes, spending the rest of his life as the one who had lost was impossible to accept.

"I'm going to make that fellow Tunip regret letting me live."

After a taking short walk from the dunes, Hilmes and his companion deliberately entered the town from the direction of dry land. They were mentally prepared to draw their swords and fight at any time.

"Come to think of it, that's strange."

With such a large-scale port, it ought to have been possible to catch sight of the figures of more soldiers. However, at first glance, there were very few people who appeared to be soldiers. They were all merchants or sailors, in addition to civilians or perhaps slaves.

"Are they hiding? But what reason is there to hide?"

To concentrate one's troops in the capital, Heraklion, and if necessary, advance directly to one's destination all at once. Hilmes did not know the reason for Guiscard's change of strategy.

"Never mind that, anyway, we need two new horses first."

The eyes of the Turanian Burhan, who had lost his horse and so had no vitality, began to shine brightly.

A short time later, there was a commotion in the port. The bodies of two soldiers were discovered, both stabbed to death. Furthermore, the warhorses they were supposed to be riding had disappeared.’

So...

First of all, Burhan really thinks this is The Heroic Legend of Hilmes 😭

I can’t help but see him as a spiritual successor to Zandeh, in a way. He has a different outlook (largely thanks to being Turanian rather than Parsian) and he has his own reasons for serving Hilmes, but at the same time he is intensely loyal and really looks up to him.

(The fact that Hilmes is so good at convincing people to follow him, not just in Pars but also in other countries... He knows how to get what he wants out of them, but he can also inspire genuine loyalty in his leadership, like with Burhan. I maintain that the potential is there for him to be a good ruler, and by this point he knows more of what it takes it run a country, but...)

Anyway, Burhan desperately scouring the market for meat is cute. He bought two types! He was worried about whether it would be good enough for Hilmes! I know I said he was kind of like Zandeh, but Zandeh would have bought fish as well even if he didn’t like it, just in case Hilmes might prefer it. I think that highlights the difference between them, lol.

Hilmes thinking about his dead followers... 😭😭😭

(There are a few moments like these scattered through the novels and they hurt every time. He doesn’t know it, but soon he’ll lose Burhan, too.)

Then we get some typical Hilmes bitterness.

He’s just so absolute, he cannot accept being the loser, he cannot leave those perceived wrongs in the past. I liked Burhan’s attempt to redirect him. Why think about Misr now when all that is behind them and Maryam lies before them instead?

Lord Sebuk and Lord Framantas... In case you’re tempted to feel sorry for these two being left behind by Hilmes, don’t. They’re part of an anti-Arslan faction living in Misr (think nobles who are dissatisfied with Arslan’s reforms and those who made a lot of profit out of slavery, etc) who Hilmes recruits there while he’s using an alias (...the name of the oldest son of Kaykhusraw, who was killed by his younger brother and therefore never succeeded the throne of Pars... I see what you’re going for there, Hilmes...).

They weren’t actually dead at this point, either. They defected to Misr, were used by Tunip to assassinate the 8 year old king, and then took part in an attempted invasion of Pars where they concealed themselves as Parsian troops in the hopes that they could get close enough to assassinate Arslan. They are not likeable in the least, but they do illustrate that Hilmes is quite willing to use and discard people for his own ambition in a way that does not speak well of him.

He feels genuine guilt for what happened to people like Kharlan, Zandeh, etc but the irony of that moment being followed by a rather more callous one is not lost on me.

#arslan senki #the heroic legend of arslan #arslan senki novel spoilers #arslan senki spoilers #hilmes #burhan

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firstkanaphans · 3 months

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hi! if you don't mind me asking, i was wondering if i could ask you about how you're able to write at the speed/output that you are able? i'm always so impressed with the rate at which you're able to update and was hoping to ask for advice 😅

because one of the hardest things for me is speed...i write soooo slowly, and so as much as i want to write multichapter fics, i feel like it would take me months between updates because of how slow i write. i think one of the reasons is that i am also constantly live editing as i write maybe? which really does slow me down, but i'm not sure how to bypass that.

i was curious if you had any tips/advice for how to write at a steady pace? do you set aside time every day to write regularly, or only when the mood "hits"? and how do you tackle those scenes where you just have no idea what to write (if that's something if you've experienced?)

of course no need to answer any of these questions - i hope i didn't overwhelm! i'm just always so impressed with your writing output that i'd love to hear any advice if you had any. thank you and can't wait for the next update of BLP 🫶

This probably isn’t the answer you want to hear, but the honest truth is that I just have a very easy day job. There are probably only about three days a month where I have to put in an eight-hour work day. The rest of the time, I use any excess work time I have to write.

It wasn’t always like this for me, though, so I understand the frustration of working a full-time job and then coming home exhausted. The last thing you want to do is write because as much as we try to pretend like it’s fun, it’s still work. It’s not mind-numbing. You can’t do it if your tank is already empty. The main reason I’m able to write quickly is simply that I have the time and the mental energy to do so.

Like you said, one of the biggest tips I can give you when trying to write faster is to turn off your inner editor while writing your first draft. It took me a long time to learn how to do this, but it has been immensely helpful. I will obviously correct typos while I’m writing, but other than that, I really don’t go back and edit anything until the whole first draft is complete. The only exception would be if I get halfway through a chapter and just know something’s not working. At that point I will stop and at least figure out what the problem is so that I don’t waste time writing scenes that may need to be cut depending on what I have to change. But other than that, I largely ignore correct grammar and even good writing in favor of just getting words down on the page.

If you’re a perfectionist like me and the thought of doing that is just completely off-putting, I’ll sometimes trick myself by pretending I’m not writing anything important. In all of my documents, I put the word START where I’m meant to start writing for the day. If I know I’m going to be writing really rough, I just don’t move the START from where it is and that tricks my brain into letting me write bad because I know the next day I’ll start from that same place. So essentially, I’m writing very badly one day and then going back to edit it into something readable the next. I cannot stress enough how much difference even just a day makes in your ability to edit more objectively. I never post chapters on the same day I finish them because I want to give my brain at least 24-hours to mull it over before I start editing.

As for writer’s block, I have pretty much eradicated that from my life simply because I outline everything so thoroughly beforehand. For instance, today I’ve been going through my outline for Chapter 4 of Best Laid Plans so that I can start writing it. One of the bullet points says, “Akk, Aye, Kan, Wat, and Thua eat lunch together.” My job today is to figure out what they’re going to talk about during that lunch so that when I get to that scene, I won’t draw a blank and spend days trying to figure it out instead of actually writing.

Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t days where I just don’t want to write, but for me, those days are few and far between. I don’t, however, believe in forcing yourself to write even when you don’t want to because your output is going to show your frustration with the task. I would never encourage someone to set a goal to write every day because I believe that’s just setting them up for failure. In the end, this really is just a hobby and you should work at your own pace and comfort level. If you’re bored with a multi-chapter fic you’re writing, take a break to write a one-shot. Or add something to your outline to spice up the next scene so that it re-energizes you.

It’s funny because I think output numbers get wildly skewed in fandom because some of us are actually insane. It’s not odd to see 20K-word chapter updates or fics literally longer than the Bible (773K words). If you write 1000 words a week (less than 150 words a day), that’s 52K words in a year, which is very nearly novel-length—and longer than any multi-chapter fic I’ve written. You would never expect a published author to write more than one novel a year, so don’t expect that from yourself either.

#asks #writing advice

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blysse-and-blunder · 1 year

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in lieu of a commonplace book

10pm sunday, jan 29, 2023

your gentle blogger has entered her next decade of life, thank you to @dying-suffering-french-stalkers and @redstar-winterorbit for the good birthday wishes last week!

reading not a ton if i'm honest, i've been deluged with gift books and library loans while at the same time crashing back into the semester, and the overall effect has been, uh, to freeze my recreational reading a bit. stuck trying to finish things like my audiobook of through the whispering door and ebook of maybe you should talk to somebody (have i talked about this one? it's a memoir of a therapist and reading it is like reading an episode of the gossip podcast, but i can also tell it's giving me occasional useful ideas and perspective on things to think about or ask for in therapy. but i can only take so much of it at once). the gift book i'm most into right now it lindsey ellis' axiom's end, which is a first-contact, aliens are real and the government has been hiding them scifi-- it's quick and readable, lindsey does a great job for a first novel, and i'm loving the alternate-history flavor of it being set in the Bush era and the southern california details i actually appreciate now. also the way the aliens are described, i love the design of them. beautiful and terrifying. but i haven't made progress in a few days.

through the whispering door is perplexing me right now, in that the gentle romance has developed pleasingly (predictably), but there's been a lot of talk about the main character 'having changed' and 'not being the same as he was when he arrived' and i can't actually. point to why or where that happened. this is part of the problem with me and audiobooks, i think, because i don't care enough to go back and re-listen to the parts where i tuned out.... there's been a new heightening of the stakes now that there's a time-limit, and i always like the flavor of an eldritch stag character.

EDIT: finished the monster baru cormorant, still recovering, immediately checked the third one out of the library though the psychic damage this series does to me without warning (dear seth: i'm taking away the word 'clotted' from your lexicon for a bit. also ‘lobotomy’.) is hard to rectify with how smart and good some of the new narrative details are. the introduction of ‘trim’ and its associated reliance on / trust in other people, to a story where the main character's stated weakness is thinking about things from others' perspectives? or anticipating others' reactions? chef's kiss. and the navy full of rugged, determined, salt-weathered women is just very good to me, personally. aminata my incredibly violent beloved. the end of this book was- devastating. not in the same way as the last one: this time i have the kind of fascinated-horrified-sickened-fixated feeling that i get about horror stuff sometimes, and i’d say body horror is what i expect from book three.

watching i got unlucky with weather-based flight cancellations last week, and spending a night in a random detroit hotel room created a great opportunity to check out my university's criterion collection access. for some reason i decided that this was the right moment to experience wong kar wai's in the mood for love (2000), which i have since finished in slightly calmer circumstances. despite knowing that tony leung and maggie cheung were both active in the 90s i somehow totally thought that this movie was like. actually a historic film and not a period piece? probably because of how much the visuals / how it’s shot and colored / the overall design feels so classic, feels like old school film in the best possible way. having now read the wikipedia page for this film i can tell i missed a lot of the actual plot, or rather, thought that there was more experimental / nonlinear story-telling going on than there might actually have been-- but that’s okay, it just means i’ll have to watch it again.

listening i don’t remember when this song first popped up in my spot ify, possibly on a discover weekly playlist a while ago? but it landed for me last week, somehow brand new and meaningful as i was contemplating the musical direction of my next playlist. listening to it with better headphones revealed lots of nice layers, depth and harmony, i like that bass throb under the chorus, it’s produced well and rewards paying attention to the extra stuff-- the contrary motion of the background vocal line in the opening to the chorus is nice.

something something i will get up regardless. currently repeating to myself, all you gotta do now is walk.

playing had the pleasure of hanging out with my Dnd friends on my birthday last week and playing a whole new style of game with them! Y introduced us to gloom, which is very Edward Gorey-core and therefore was delightful, and got our game-design nerds all excited about the cards themselves, and then K skunked us all at anomia. the adrenaline in this one is addictive? it is somehow so fun and yet so infuriating, and I have yet to regret suggesting it to a group or party.

making cleaned my room finally (somewhat) and have a stack of mail to send and cards to answer, now with the help of the beautiful fountain pen my roommates gave me for my birthday! It’s one of these, and while I can try to promise not to become a fountain pen nerd, time will tell…

working on this award letter for a prof is somehow the hardest thing to just fucking finish. I think because I want it to be better than just okay, and am worried that it’ll counteract its own message if it’s not? But also—I have palaeography homework now! and the abstract of a talk to finish, and that talk + associated chapter to outline! not to mention finishing reading and commenting on a friend’s chapters! taking it slow last week was nice and probably needed, but fuck.

#in lieu of a commonplace book #ilcb #weekly roundup

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thewertsearch · 2 years

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Asks Compilation 16/6

The best thing about categories like Sburb Titles is that once you have a big enough sample size of Person/Category mappings, you can extrapolate their traits to any character you like.

Example: I got an ask a while back asking whether I have any Titles for my own OCs, and to be totally honest I can’t stop thinking about it

Oh, that is awesome. I’m bookmarking that for reference, when I’ve finished the comic. Biology is not my strongest suit, but I do find it fascinating, and speculative biology is my jam.

It’s a balancing act, trying to make a quirk both unique and readable. i thought about a capitalization quirk WHERE i only capitalize common programmINg keywORds, but it looks kind of funky, and I wasn’t sure how to define what keywords to include.

@capribornio submitted: Part 1! Terrible memes to help you cope with what just happened.

Part 2! (Dunno why tumblr wouldn't let me submit you the two images at once, but.)

jettison to the moon drop it on those stupid pawns bye bye kids, you're gonna die now your session's dead and gone

That was made by abysswarlock! Their blog is linked below the main links in my bio. It’s great, isn’t it? Really makes the Land come to life.

Man, I’m really mad I missed the Club Penguin craze, because if I’d played it, I would absolutely have answered this ask with penguin designs for each of the kids.

Classic Tumblr. When you edit you blog description in the appearance editor, it actually scrubs all the HTML you added, and replaces it with plaintext. To update your description properly, you need to do it in the theme editor.

I fixed the blog description on desktop, but I don’t think it ever worked on mobile, since tags generally don’t work properly on the app. I think it should work if you access the blog through say, Firefox, rather than the app itself?

So do I!!!

That’s one of my favorite anime tropes, and it’s vary Homestuck-friendly, considering how many characters are bespectacled. I’m glad that my ‘sona is continuing this proud tradition.

Thank you! I think a big part of it is just that Homestuck happens to deal with stuff I’m really into. I love time travel and alt-self/identity shenanigans, so I was already looking at the Paradox Clone system from every angle even before the Veil. Once that cursor targeted Nanna, a lot of things immediately clicked into place.

I didn’t see the paired tubes coming, though. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that moment.

Maid! That was the first class I chose for myself, because I liked the connotations around ‘organizing’.

I’m planning on doing a bunch of Title tests over the weekend. The Official Sally Classpect will be an open question for a long time, but I am interested in how much the various tests will agree.

We’ve already talked a bit about it on the blog, but Homestuck is a kind of meta story on a lot of levels.

We saw it with the reader suggestions at first, but there are other things too, like Hussie’s narration interacting with WV. Is that ‘canon’, per se? Much to think about...

[ sent on the 12th! - Cat ]

Happy belated birthday Carcino ‘Cancer’ Geneticist! May this year bless you with Grist, Boondollars and a successfully salvaged Sburb session!

Honestly!!!

Hussie is very good at turning on the waterworks. It doesn’t happen much in Homestuck, but when it does, it hits hard.

True, true. But that was just John’s opinion - now Hussie’s narration is saying she sucks!

These guys really have been great recently. It’s like Hussie has spent a while giving them improvised character traits based on reader commands, and now that their personalities are fully established, they’re actually getting full arcs with awesome moments of development.

I honestly can’t wait to see what the Windswept Questant’s real plan is. She’s abdicated to PM, and seems to be putting a team together. Did she know WV had the Ring all along? What’s up next?

#full liveblog #act 4 #asks #classpect

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morrak · 2 years

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Untitled Wednesday Library Series, Part 86

So John Robert Gregg, right? His shorthand, right? Pen stenography used to be something of a big deal, and in the US Gregg’s system was (and is, if it can still be called popular or widely disseminated) the most popular and widely disseminated. A bevy of editions and modifications were published from 1888–1988, sometimes serving a few million users, but most compact — and most cheaply reprinted, as far as I’ve found — is from 1916. That’s this, weirdly printed in Coppell, TX on 2022-06-01. Small run publishing is a strange world.

The How

So @jaimehwatson, right? His fault that I considered it at all, and this book was bought to (kind of, slowly) follow along with his progress in learning the system.

The Text

I can’t speak to other Gregg editions, but this one is pretty clipped. Functional in its teaching progression, and probably pretty well conceived — I’m only about halfway through the lessons — but it can’t escape the quick pace. It doesn’t always explain why it does what it does until after it’s several tricks deep, but for the goals of this edition, namely personal and classroom use, I think that’s maybe for the best. Takes the load off learning it as a linguistic thing and makes it simpler to waddle along with.

Each chapter introduces some new phenomena, then gives ‘general exercises’ that incorporate them, then has some reading and writing practice. I like it when things come in blocks and units and slices. Modular chunk type species.

The Object

This printing is a scan from an older one. Usually it’s pretty good quality — the type is still readable, is what I mostly mean — but the margins are wonky as the paper doesn’t match the original’s ratio. Sometimes the script portions are crispy and lose details, but they’re not hard to reconstruct if you’re tracking with the lessons. Not a nice book, but if you’re trying to learn Gregg shorthand in the third decade of the twenty-first century, it’s about the right vibe.

The Why, Though?

I’m trying to learn Gregg shorthand in the third decade of the twenty-first century, right? It’s been slow going but a decent occasional nighttime pursuit. Ideally I’ll be good enough to scratch out a proper rejoinder to Jaime’s postcards before too long, but in the meantime it satisfies my desire to learn new codes and scripts and shit. After this it’s back to Sütterlin.

#images #untitled wednesday library series

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cchapsticck · 1 year

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✍, 🎶, 🤲

Thank you for the ask!

✍️

Do you have a beta?

Yes and no. @bettiebloodshed and @nuricurry have historically gotten the most unhinged first draft versions of everything I’ve written. Like I’ll just bang out whatever comes to mind first and do a singular pass for like “did I even type a complete word” sort of editing and fire it off to them like a kid trying to get their art on the fridge. But like I think I’ve said before, this is actually the first time in many moons I’ve put what I’ve written out into the void for public consumption. So a lot of the feedback process on those versions of my writing has been sort of more and then and then and then style story building between us that might prompt me adding more to the thing and less about readability or editing or clarity. So anything that I have published on Ao3, as far as formatting and the like goes, is just me Doing My Best, and not so much beta’d.

🎶

Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?

I listen to music while I do literally anything lol I think I said in a previous ask I make playlists for pretty much everything. It helps me organize my thoughts and filter out some of my own brain noise. Finishing the final section of Metalhead I had this acoustic version of Passing Through A Screen Door on a near constant loop. It definitely became kind of the thematic bedrock of the final section and I don’t know if the finger marks of that are on the writing itself if you know the song but honestly? I wouldn’t be mad if they were. Pretty much all of the stuff I’ve thrown onto Ao3 has a song that I would consider anthemic to it.

Now that I’m kind of in the WIP no mans land I’ve been kind of all over the place but I’ve been obsessed with Fake Your Death for months now. I just keep coming back to it. Dunno why, its just scratching my brain good.

🤲

Would you please share a snippet of a wip?

Please enjoy some Come Back Wrong:

#asks #steddie fic

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kinetic-elaboration · 9 months

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September 27: Nap

I started feeling really tired today around 3, 3:30 or so and it let up a little when I got home but not that much. So I took a nap. I had terrible nightmares while I was asleep. I can’t remember the details but they were just awful. I mean, I still wouldn’t call it a terrible nap and I don’t regret it (honestly I’ve used my post-work time way worse this week) but it’s not exactly an ideal for me to spend my entire free time either asleep or, like, doing the bare minimum of things to survive (eating dinner, getting ready for bed, etc.).

And since I’m taking Friday off, the week is basically over! Oh well. It’s fine. I remain optimistic. This weekend is supposed to be gray, overcast, and in the 70s, which is idea weather for me: the perfect temperatures to be outdoors but not too sunny and nice so other people stay inside and don’t crowd me.

I also really need to work on the Time Loop fic, even though… ugh, I am just getting tired. It’s probably going to be awful and repetitive to read too but I really am trying my best to balance all the elements and stuff in a way that’s both logical and readable. And of course it’s way more repetitive for me than it would be for anyone else because I brainstormed, outlined, thought about, wrote, and edited every scene, as opposed to just read it once. So hopefully it’s not a slog to read, that would be just awful.

Anyway, doing the edits during the week has made me less excited to write because I’m just so deep into it and I want a break, not to move on to an even harder task. I don’t regret doing the edits before the draft is finished because editing the whole thing at once would be too overwhelming but… yeah. I need a break. I’ll get one soon with Troped and some other Halloween writing. I’m worried about coming back to it after the break but… I’m a worrier. It’s no use worrying. Just focus on the scene directly ahead and write it and writing it is easier than worrying about it and soon (eventually) it will be done!

#the year 2023 #2023: rl

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hydrus · 1 year

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Version 510

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tar.gz

I had a good week improving notes and UI quality of life. It is Hydrus's 11th birthday today!

full changelog

highlights

File notes got several updates this week, mostly for copying notes from one file to another. First off, the 'duplicate metadata merge options' finally support notes! All users will get some basic 'yes please, merge my notes' defaults set, copying from worst to best and copying both ways when the files are the same quality. If you do a lot of duplicate filtering and have been waiting for this, double check your options (under the duplicates processing page) to make sure you are happy. Relatedly, the notes dialog now has copy/paste buttons for copying from one file to another. To get this all to work, these actions use some Note Import Options tech to handle conflicts, generally by extending existing sub-notes where possible and renaming on conflicts. If you want to work with notes in the Client API, this 'easy merge' tech is also optionally available in the Client API. Let me know how this works for you--I think I am going to have to adjust the logic to handle two-way related note merges a little better, so feedback on IRL situations would be great.

I significantly improved how the taglist handles shift-selections and drag-selections. A bunch of position and logic jank is cleaned up, and now you can 'undo' a multi-selection, just like I did for thumbnails recently. Best way to test this is just click and drag down the list, and then move your mouse up--it undoes the selection as you move up, and it remembers what was originally selected before! Also, holding ctrl down to start a deselection drag is cleaner and more human. Give it a go, and you'll feel the difference.

next week

Just one more week of work and then I am on my vacation. I'll do some more cleanup/small jobs and try to catch up on github bug reports, which I have been neglecting.

birthday

The first non-experimental beta of hydrus was released on December 14th, 2011. We are now going on eleven years.

I had a challenging 2022. Several IRL problems appeared from nowhere, but I decided to keep on trudging, and we got some work done regardless. I'm satisfied with the result. We started the year with the run up to multiple local file services, a long-planned expansion to the sheer shape of the database, and with that, beyond the new file services, came an array of new database search tech, from the ability to search deleted files and search unions of different file domains to enhanced cancel tech for snappier UI and more accurate tag counts and the nice user-made file history chart. We also saw new time search tech, with nicer UI, the ability to search the last view time of a file, the recording of archive times, and the broad 'modified time' parsing expanson, which combines post times from many sources to give you a more precise 'source time' of the things you download. Thanks to user help, we also figured out the new help, which looks great, is easily searchable, and is simple to edit. We hammered out more stable versions of mpv and other spicy libraries for the different builds and user environments. The UI had numerous quality of life improvements, from dejanked layouts and sizing calculations to fixed custom widgets and overhauled hover windows to cleaner selection logic and quick-action buttons for easy pastes and mass-application actions. File notes are finally parsable and now display on the media viewer. Sidecar importing and exporting became more powerful. EXIF and other human-readable file metadata is now parsed and viewable. The serverside janitor workflow finally received some improvement. The Client API grew to support autocomplete tag searching, note editing, cleverer file reference and file delete, nicer thumbnail fetching, better error/disconnect handling, tag display type support, more hash fetchings and lookups, and the new timestamps and file metadata statuses like EXIF. And the program became significantly easier for any user to run from source.

There is still no end of work to do, and I am thankfully able to continue, so I plan to keep going into 2023. I deeply appreciate the feedback, help, and support over the years. Thank you!

If you would like to further support my work and are in a position to do so, my simple no-reward Patreon is here: https://www.patreon.com/hydrus_dev

#release

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grandhotelabyss · 2 years

Photo

Pure self-indulgence but as a prelude to my new essay on the Odyssey please enjoy above a poem I wrote about Penelope when I was 18 in the year 2000 and published in my high school literary and art magazine. (And I do mean I published it, because I was the editor.) Painfully influenced by a nauseating mélange of T. S. Eliot and Neil Gaiman, yet still oddly readable. Maybe someday I’ll post the other good poem I wrote in that period, “and Aphasia and,” written in a daze the day after Columbine and within an hour of first reading “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.” In general, I think youth can write good poetry; fiction, on the other hand, probably requires more experience. I wrote novels and novellas from my teen years on, but no good ones until I was around 30.

Anyway, my essay on the Odyssey, also the topic of a forthcoming Grand Podcast Abyss, all in the lead-up to the great Ulysses re-read of 2022. I can’t write these days about Homer without thinking about the question that persists from Plato’s Republic to the wokelord classicists of Twitter: should these violent representations be the aesthetic fount of our civilization? As a bad person (almost typed “bard person”), I’m not actually that vexed about the subject. The world’s brutal, why shouldn’t the poetry be brutal? But the case is worth making carefully, and, as in last year’s essay on the Iliad, I gave it my best effort:

In Book 1, in medias res, a now-mature Telemachus and his long-suffering mother Penelope are tormented by the presumed widow’s many suitors, eating them out of house and home as they make their own bid for the throne of Ithaca. In one moment, the household bard strikes up a song about the Trojan War, and Penelope gets what we might now call “triggered” by the aesthetic reminder of the conflict that took her husband away from her 20 years before. She chides the bard for his insensitivity, only to be rounded on by her son:

“Bards are not to blame— Zeus is to blame. He deals to each and every laborer on this earth whatever doom he pleases. Why fault the bard if he sings the Argives’ harsh fate? It’s always the latest song, the one that echoes last in the listeners’ ears, that people praise the most.”

Some 25 centuries later, this will be Théophile Gautier’s reasoning in one of the first modern defenses of art-for-art’s-sake against moralizing, politicizing, and otherwise censorious critics: that the artist just represents what goes on in the world, and if you don’t like all the sex and violence, you had better reform nature and society instead of misdirecting your anger at the artist’s truthful representations of them.

One more tale out of high school. I edited the annual lit/art mag for three years with my friend Dan—I was the writer, he was the artist. Early in our tenure, I devised a three-year plan for the cover designs allegorizing the growth of the artist’s talent, which Dan drew beautifully.

Cover #1: in the artist’s tender youth, execution bursts forth from vision, the hand exploding out of the eye as the artist hastens to record perception. Cover #2: as the artist grows to maturity, execution begins to shape vision, the sense of artistic vocation beginning to influence what is perceived, the hand now directing the eye. Cover #3: for the mature artist, vision and execution, hand and eye, are at one, indivisible.

My God, were we ever serious in the year 1998! For more on that, please try my novel, The Class of 2000.

#homer #classics #greek literature #ancient greece #poetry #epic poetry #literary criticism #plato #theophile gautier

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nothere-notthere-nowhere · 3 years

Text

Oblivious

Word count: 1509

Genre: fluffy as fuck

Pairing: Wanda x Fem!Reader

Warnings: very brief mention of trauma (nonspecified), let me know if I need to add any

Summary: When Wanda goes on a date with Vision, you’re left to question your feelings while Natasha laughs at you.

A/N: Hi, this is my first piece I’m posting. I’ve been a long time reader on this hellsite but this is the first time I’m actually posting my own writing. I’m open to feedback! Forgive any mistakes, I did not edit this :)

You weren’t necessarily a jealous person. Well, you had been, but you moved past it. You learned that you didn’t, and shouldn’t, be possessive of your friends. It was hard, coming into a new place and wanting the pretty girl with long brown hair to spend all her time with you. Especially since you’d never had a friend before.

But now, you were questioning your sanity.

Wanda had announced to you that she was going on a date. Your heart sunk and something close to rage was burning through your veins. You couldn’t understand why! Wanda had talked about Vision before and you always had to remind yourself that she was friends with the other Avengers too. It had never bothered you this much.

But you had to come up with a bullshit excuse as to why you couldn’t gush about what she would wear or where they would go, because you thought your head was going to explode. You knew Wanda was upset by that, but you needed to figure this out.

“I seriously don’t understand what’s going on!” You pulled at your hair in frustration. “I mean seriously, I thought I’d worked through all the trauma and shit. Like Wanda’s not even my only friend. But she was talking about him and I got so mad, Nat, like so, so mad.”

Natasha snorted at you, watching you pace with an amused smirk.

“For real, like, am I a terrible person?” You paused your pacing to stare at her in horror. “I have no claim over her and I’m acting like a-a possessive a-and controlling piece of shit!”

“Okay, calm down.” Natasha told you. She patted the couch beside her for you to sit but you’re too busy overthinking.

“I can’t calm down! I should be happy for her. But I’m just so angry and I don’t even know why! Vision’s not a terrible person. I mean technically he’s a robot, which is a little odd but-”

“Y/N, relax.” Natasha stands and grips your shoulders, forcing you to look at her. “You have a crush.”

“On Vision?” Your face squished up in confusion. “No, Nat, I’ve talked to him like twice.”

“No, idiot,” She sighs heavily. “On Wanda.”

“No-” You start but then your eyes widen and your jaw drops comically.

Natasha barks out a laugh at your horrified look, only gaining volume as you burn bright red. Clint walks into the living room, taking in the scene and furrowing his brows in suspicion.

“What’s going on here?” He asks, taking in the way the gears are turning in your head.

“I’m gay.” You say confusedly.

“Yeah?” Clint looks like he’s waiting for you to continue. “Wait is this supposed to be news? I thought everyone knew.”

Natasha is overcome with another wave of laughter and you scratch your head lightly. It made sense, you supposed. You had never taken an interest in boys but you had figured that was because of your upbringing. They don’t exactly give assassins in training a lesson on feelings.

“Oh my god!” Natasha shoves your shoulder lightly. “How are you so oblivious?”

“Well, we’re friends.” You stutter out, still confused. “I thought this was normal!”

“Do you feel like that towards me? Or anyone else?” Natasha rolls her eyes.

“But you’re, like, old.” You dismiss, before squeaking out, “I mean, not old, Nat, but like, Wanda and I are the same age, you know? You’re not old! But you’re not as much a friend as like…. An older sister?”

Natasha’s eyes soften, the corners of her lips quirking up just slightly. You can see the words meant a lot to her, even if they were to cover up an insult. It was true though, Natasha had always had your back. She’d shown you the ropes, made sure you were comfortable, and she was always there for advice. Like the big sister you never had.

“Well, kid,” Clint broke the moment, “now that you’ve had your gay awakening, maybe you should tell Wanda how you feel.”

“What?” Your stomach lurched. “How’d you know-”

“The two of you are inseparable. You literally melt when she’s around.” Your cheeks burn a little at his words. “Seriously, kid. For someone who was trained as a spy, you don’t have an ounce of subtlety.”

“Well, she’s with Vision now anyway.” You can’t help the jealousy and almost sadness that twinge your stomach. “It doesn’t really matter.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that.” Bucky muttered as he passed through the living room.

“Woah, how does everyone know about this but me?” You ask incredulously. Bucky shakes his head at you lightly, a small smile on his face before he leaves the room.

“Seriously, guys,” You glare at Nat and Clint, “I just figured out I’m gay. Can we at least pretend like it wasn’t obvious.”

“If it’s any consolation, I don’t think Ms. Maximoff knows.” FRIDAY’s voice only makes you groan.

Nat and Clint begin to laugh at the AI’s teasing but they’re cut off by Wanda storming through the living room. Her head was down, a slight red glow about her, as she passed the group standing by the couches.

“Wanda?” You call lightly, but she doesn’t stop.

“Ms. Maximoff did not enjoy our date, it seems.” Vision slides through the wall, scaring the shit out of you.

“Stop doing that! And wiat, what?” You question, clutching your chest where your heart was racing.

“She does not want to be with me.” Visions tells you simply. “She is upset. I do not know why.”

You stand there, wracking your brain for possible explanations. She had been so excited for this date. She’d talked about it for hours the day before, much to your annoyance. So, why would she have been so upset?

“Y/N,” Natasha snapped in front of your face. “Go after her.” She looked exasperated.

“Right!” You stumbled over your own feet racing after your best friend.

But you couldn’t bring yourself to knock on the door. Now that you knew you liked her, it all made sense. Of course you’d be jealous of Vision being able to take her on a real date. So, you stood at her door, trying to figure out what exactly you were going to say to make her feel better, if you even could.

“Y/N, come in already.” Wanda’s soft voice made your heart flutter. Your cheeks burned as you pushed open the door.

Wanda was sitting on her bed, leaning up against her headboard, knees pulled into her chest. She looked nice, even though her brows were furrowed the way they were when she was thinking hard about something.

“What happened?” You asked her, moving to sit on the bed. Your body was tense. Part of you was happy she wasn’t going to date Vision, but that didn’t mean you wanted to see her upset.

“We got as far as the zoo parking lot when I realized that I couldn’t do it.” Wanda fiddled with the crystal on her necklace. “It took going out with Vision to realize that I’ll never be able to feel anything for anyone else.”

“Anyone else?” You questioned. “Wanda, you’ll find someone. We’re still young! You have plenty of time to-”

“No, Y/N,” She gave a small, nearly sad, smile. “I found someone.”

“Oh,” the words startle you. Wanda had never mentioned someone else. The two of you were supposed to be best friends. She found someone and she didn’t tell you?

“It just took half a date with someone else for me to realize that what I feel for her isn’t platonic.”

“What do you mean?” Your eyes were wide as you searched hers for something, anything, readable. The only other girls she was friends with, that you knew, were Natasha and maybe Pepper. But that wouldn’t really make sense.

“I don’t want Vision. I don’t want anyone, really, except you.” You can hear a slight shake in her voice. “I don’t know why it took so long to realize this but, I don’t just have love for you as a friend. I really like you, Y/N.”

“Oh,” You nod. “I’m sorry. This is just a lot. Natasha just told me I was gay like twenty minutes ago.”

Wanda giggled at you. “I guess we’re both a little oblivious, huh?”

“Can I kiss you?” You blurt out, staring at her. “Sorry, uh, let me… It took you going on a date with Vision for me to realize I like you too, or, well, Natasha pointed it out. I was so angry. I thought about beating him up.”

“Y/N,” Wanda pulls you from your rambling.

“Can I kiss you?” you ask again, too focused on her to be embarrassed.

Wanda nods, fighting the big grin on her face. She cups your face gently, pulling you to her. Her lips are soft against your own and her hands are warm, her skin smooth. Your head is spinning as you lean into her touch.

Clint was right, you do melt.

#wanda x reader #wanda maximoff #fem!reader #marvel

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hyunjilicious · 4 years

Text

that night [harry styles]

A best friends to something else type of story. Exactly 7.8k (literally 7800 words which is scary) and you know I can’t write that much without SMUT. This takes place during a sleepover at the end of quarantine! Maybe tell me what you thought? :) (I promise I’ll edit this soon!)

“Show me yer phone, love” Harry groaned, sending you the coldest of death stares. The night started off as usual, you two just watching some old documentaries, paying more or less attention to them as you mostly just sat and talked. Things took a turn when your phone started blowing up with messages. Being the kind of person who always replies in an instant, suspicions arose when you decided to completely ignore the texts. Although Harry never violated your privacy and never pushed you for answers you didn’t want to give, when you started laughing and got nervous about whoever it was that kept texting you, he figured it would be worth it to push your buttons.

“I said no” you repeated yourself, standing up from the couch. There were two main reasons you didn’t want to talk about the person texting you, and these 2 reasons were also probably the only two things in the world you wouldn’t want to discuss with him.

“Why no’?” he asked offended, following you into the kitchen, like a small child begging his parents to let him have his way, “What can be tha’ bad? I wouldn’t have asked any questions if yeh hadn’t been so off about it from the start”

You turned and looked at him dead in the eye, contemplating what to say next. He beat you to it.

“Is it a guy? Have you been seein’ someone?” Harry asked as he walked over to you, completely ignoring your personal space. “Is tha’ it? I don’t wanna read yeh texts, just tell me yes or no, and I’ll drop it. Promise”

You took a deep breath. “Yes, it’s a guy” you said calmly, “But we’re not seeing each other”

“Then why does he keep texting yeh like crazy?”

“Crazy…” you sighed, tapping your chin, “Good description”

“Come on, Y/n” Harry whined, tapping your shoulder as he walked past you and towards the refrigerator, “Just tell me, I’m really curious, crazy how?”

“Promise you’re not gonna freak out?” you laughed, grabbing whatever he was pulling out of the fridge and handing to you. You stopped paying attention after three cups of pudding and one bottle of wine.

“When have I ever freaked out?” he joked, mocking himself. He was usually a calm person, more composed than anyone you’ve ever met, and he less than rarely got angry. And from those times when he did lose his temper, 90% of cases were mild and he was still calmer than anyone else in that kind of situation, but that 10% left was pure terror. When his friends told you years ago that nothing’s scarier than Harry when he was truly mad, you didn’t quite believe them. You had to see for yourself to accept it. It only happened a few times in almost 5 years, but you always still did everything you could to keep him from going off again.

“Ok, so” you started speaking as you rummaged around your kitchen for bowls and glasses, “His name is Marcus and we actually met on Tinder-”

“Wait a second” he cut you off, “During the lock down?”

“Oh, no. It happened before all of this madness. Around january, I think”

It was obvious he was already bothered by how this conversation started, but he did his best to control himself so you wouldn’t decide to drop it. “Pretty serious, then, huh?” he said eventually.

“Literally the opposite” you laughed, pouring the pudding into the bowl, “We saw each other once-” and it hurt you to say the following part but you did it nonetheless, “hooked up, and didn’t talk since”

Pure annoyance was readable on his features. “Apparently haven’t talked until now?”

“Yeah, I mean-” you cringed, “He texted me like a week or so ago and we didn’t - vibe, and he got weird, so like I muted the conversation for 7 days because I didn’t want him to bother me anymore but he got so defensive it was funny so I didn’t really wanna block him”

“Yeh muted the guy a week ago and he still keeps trying?” Harry asked, completely taken aback, “Can’t blame him, but still, tha’s a bit much”

“It is” you nodded in agreement, and motioned for him to open the bottle of wine for you.

“He must have liked yeh a lot” he mumbled, twisting the corkscrew into the top of the bottle, “Maybe you two had a really great time, and he-”

“Harry” you stopped him, leaning your head to the side, “I know you’re squeezing information out of me right now, but I honestly don’t think you want to hear more of this”

“Ok” he sighed defeated, “I’m gonna stop pushin’ yeh. Thanks for tellin’ me tho. And sorry if I crossed any lines''

“You haven’t, H” you smiled, giving him a hug from behind. “It’s fine”

After gathering everything you had fixed up to take into the living room, the pudding and the wine, as you passed the threshold of the kitchen, you heard Harry speak up, traces of amusement audible in his voice. “But like… At least was the sex good?”

“You want me to answer that?” you chuckled, plopping down on the couch. “Do you seriously want me to answer that?”

“Yeah” Harry shrugged, smiling innocently.

“It was horrible” you said bluntly and watched his grin wilt away. “Probably the worst sex I’ve ever had. No, no, no.. Definitely the worst sex I have ever had in my entire life”

His mouth fell agape. “Seriously? Why?”

“Well, i got to his house… And you know, up until then everything was fine, like he seemed like a completely normal and fun guy while we texted but like, as soon as i got to his place he became really… I don’t even know how to put it, he was um.. Very clingy and weird and we talked for a bit but then when we went to his room he turned into literally the biggest asshole I met”

“What?” Harry exclaimed, “Tha’s not wha’ I expected”

“Exactly!” you laughed, “Neither did I!”

“Then wha’ happened?”

“I went down on him and he didn’t do the same because apparently he finds that gross? That’s what he told me but I didn’t wanna get into it because I went there to get dick so I was like let’s just fuck, and we did… We made out a bit, got him worked up again, and when we fucked I literally thought something was wrong with me, because he just.. I don’t know. Bumped into me and after he finished I was there like… What just happened?”

“Yeh were right when yeh said I didn’t wanna hear this”

“Told you” you giggled, grabbing your pudding and toying with your teaspoon.

“Jus’ stop using Tinder, please” Harry eventually shook his head.

“A girl has needs, ok?”

He was enraged and completely ignored your words, “And wha’ does he want from yeh now? He really thinks yeh’d see him again? Really?”

“I don’t even know what he’s been saying, honestly” you shrugged.

“Can I see?”

“Can you like, read from the notification box? I don’t wanna leave him on seen”

Harry nodded in agreement and you gave him your phone. He pressed the lock button, the screen lit up, and it was instantly flooded with texts from him. Since you put the conversation on mute a week ago, you had no idea what he had been saying. It seemed that he didn’t appreciate your lack of interest and that he didn’t bother to hold back.

‘You pathetic whore, u really think ur gonna find someone better than me? U think ur so high and mighty and hot but ur gonna die alone you bitch. Do u feel better about yourself if u juts ignore my texts???? Well good for fucking u-’ and Harry locked the phone, the screen going black.

“The fuck did I just read?” he questioned, his annoyance from earlier, now morphing into pure anger.

“You said you wanted to read” you shook your head.

“Why does he think he can talk to yeh like that?”

“I don’t honestly care” you sighed, “It’s not like I’ll ever see him again, so he can go and say anything he wants”

“‘S not how that works, darlin’” he said.

"Can we drop this, please" you sighed, unable to quite look in his direction, "I don't like this"

"Well-" Harry erupted and judging by the way his voice instantly died down, you could tell he almost lost control, "I don't fucking like it either, ok? But yeh shouldn't jus' accept tha'!"

"I wouldn't call it acceptance, H" you shook your head, discarding your bowl of pudding and jumping straight to the bottle of wine. "I told him I'm not interested, and I stopped replying. It's not acceptance... he just keeps trying"

"But for some reason yeh're letting him talk t' yeh like tha'"

"Well-" you shrugged, and took a big gulp of red wine, "He talks by himself"

"Y/n…" Harry called, his voice soft and you could tell that there was anger hidden somewhere deep inside, but you still appreciated the fact that he managed to keep it contained. He extended his arm, his fingers brushing against the side of your thigh. It was a soft, delicate touch, that made every hair on your body stand up. He did it to get your attention and boy, did it work. Instantly, your eyes snapped to his, and were met with something you did not see coming. "Can I say something?" he asked cautiously, his eyes shining with genuine worry.

"You're making this into something much more significant than it actually is"

"I'll drop it" he eventually nodded, "If you promise me something"

"What?"

"If anythin' similar to this happens again, tell me"

"And what are you gonna do about it?" you giggled, trying to lighten the mood. As you kept staring into his green eyes, you brought the wine bottle up to your lips, took a long sip, and then handed it to him.

He took the bottle out of your hands, seemingly not giving more than two shits about it. The warmth in his eyes accentuated as his eyebrows gathered into a concerned furrow, "Make sure it doesn't get to yeh"

"It doesn't" you smiled.

"Lemme make sure"

"Ok, Harry" you laughed, "I promise you that the next time a guy from Tinder gets mad about me not reciprocating the feeling, and he starts sending me that kind of texts, I will tell you"

The sarcasm just flowed out of you, and he was not impressed.

"I meant in general, love"

"Any guy?" you taunted, "Not just from tinder?"

"Fucking put on tha’ movie" he shook his head, "I know yeh too well. Won't get anywhere until you get some wine in tha’ belly"

"That's your plan?" you laughed, "Get me drunk and make me spill all my secrets?"

"I never assumed you had any secrets, but yeah, now I wanna know those too" Harry grinned, throwing his arm around you and pulling you to his chest. Although this kind of intimacy was something you've been somewhat used to, tonight it was just a bit more difficult to bear. And it may all have been due to the way he mentioned he wouldn’t want anything to get to your head, and the way he said he’d make sure of it. Even though you weren’t truly clear how he’d do that and what exactly was going through his head, it was crystal clear how you’d have him do that.

But now was not the time. You glued your eyes to the TV screen, and begged your brain to focus on the movie in front of you and not whatever Harry was thinking about, mere inches away from you.

There had been something in the air that night, because neither of you managed to pay any kind of attention to the movie anymore. You talked, the conversation not going back to the previous topic, you laughed, gossiped like there was no tomorrow, and now it was almost 4am, and you and Harry were 3 bottles of wine in. Deciding to cut the alcohol before it was too late, you settled for water, as Harry went on to finish a weird story he once heard from a hippie touring the states in his van. He was completely smitten, his eyes shone with admiration for the old man. Harry spoke with words of great respect about a life he wished he could once live. It was only a matter of time until it would get to you.

“But,” you sighed, laying down and placing your head into his lap, “You really seem like the kind of guy to pack his bags and just leave. Like get a couple of friends or something, leave a note saying you’ll eventually be back, and just travel around the world”

“I kinda already do tha’ love” Harry laughed, double chin showing as he looked down at you.

“Not what I meant” you shook your head, “And you know it”

“Wha’ did yeh mean, then?”

He looked down at you, his hands finding their way into your hair as you contemplated how to put the words together. “I don’t know… Less social interaction-” you finally said, “Make it less about living the same songs in front of thousands of people, and more about living a completely new experience as you really get to know just a handful of people”

He didn’t look convinced. His dimples were showing, and a chuckle was threatening to escape his lips.

“That didn’t make any sense, did it?” you laughed.

“It did” Harry smiled, “Might have’ta resume this in tha’ morning, but i think i got the idea”

You pointed your finger to him, “Best”

“Me?” he grinned, grabbing your hand, “Oh, stop it!”

“Not you, your idea”

“Nice save, love”

You wanted to object and keep this topic going as the butterflies in your stomach started to riot, but just as you opened your mouth to speak, the sound of your phone receiving another text filled the air. In an instant, your eyes locked with Harry’s and you knew he wasn’t gonna let any of that shit slide. Not wanting to give him the chance to protest, you sprung up and leaned towards the coffee table, your fingers barely managing to brush against the side of your phone before Harry grabbed your waist and yanked you back, pressing you against the cushions of the sofa as he hovered above you.

The intimacy and urgency of this whole charade made your skin crawl, and you couldn’t help but let a few giggles escape, “What are you doing?” you laughed.

“Not lettin’ tha’ asshole ruin your night, love” Harry smirked, tilting your head so that you had to face him.

“I’ll see the text in the morning and it will ruin my whole day” you played along, but as it turned out, you dug your own grave.

“Oh?” he grinned, “So it does get to you”

“No!” you belted, “That is not what I meant, Jesus harry”

“Come on, hon”

His head tilted to the side, before he leaned down and nudged the tip of your nose with his. “Jus’ say the word”

That sent burning chills down your spine, and your cheeks couldn’t do anything but to comply and turn an erotic shade of pink.

“I’m not sure what to say” you mumbled, fighting against the urge to jump on him.

“I’m yer best friend, love-” he made a small pause, for dramatic effect, and just stared down at you while your blood boiled, “Lemme show yeh how good yeh can feel”

“I-”

He cut you off, obviously proud of himself, “I obviously wouldn’t have asked twice if I hadn’t felt you squeeze your thighs around me”

“Fuck, Harry-” you said, embarrassment rushing all over you as you threw your hands in the air.

He leaned down, and brushed his lips along your jaw, “Yeh could be screaming tha’ name”

Regaining your composure, you grabbed his chin and forced him to make eye contact once again, “What does this mean to you?”

“It doesn’t have t’ mean anything we don’t want it to” he nodded, “Just friends looking out of one another”

“Mhm..” you choked, “Yep”

“Tell me, and I’ll get off of you”

Your answer came a short second later. “Yeah, get off” you said sternly.

His features barely got a chance to show the disappointment that enveloped him, because as soon as the words left your mouth, you pushed yourself up. Excitement started showing on his face as you pushed yourself up. With a devilish smile on your lips, you grabbed the hem of his shirt; not giving him a chance to secure his balance on his knees before you pulled the material up his body. He clumsily shuffled out of it, his tattoos coming into full view.

“Is that a new one” you asked, pointing to his left shoulder.

To your surprise he took you seriously, and looked down, obviously confused, “Which one, love?”

“This one” you grinned, pushing yourself up and against his chest, this way, giving yourself a chance to press your lips to the base of his neck.

Harry’s whole body shivered under you as he let out a small chuckle. Instantly, his hands found your waist. Once your lips grazed his sensitive skin, the muscles of his neck relaxed as if under a spell and his head fell back. Harry’s fingers dug into your sides as your teeth sunk his flesh, sucking profusely. Having waited for this so many years, it felt all too real and completely unreal at the same time. There was a fire burning inside of you and the soft moans slipping past his lips were no help with taming it.

“Having fun?” Harry laughed, but his confidence and usual air of self control were shaking.

As a response, you bit into his ear lobe and delighted yourself with the whimpers of pleasure he didn’t even try to hide.

Although burning for it, you didn’t have it in you to go for his lips, so when he was the one to do it, all your radars went crazy. The way he grabbed your chin and pulled you closer, it was all you wished for. Years worth of pent up emotions dripped from your lips and onto his.

How ungrateful and inappropriate would it have been for you to beg for more and guide the situation in a different direction? Even if his gentleness made your knees weak, the heat between your legs begged for a less kissing and a lot more biting.

It was when he pressed you down against him that made you forget about everything that held you back. His erection was rubbing against your thigh as you grinded down on him, and you couldn’t help but break the kiss and sink your teeth into his lower lip.

Harry threw his head back against your touch, and a proud smile lifted up the corners of your mouth.

“Come on” you moaned, kissing your way down to his ear, “Show me how you should treat a girl”

His fingers snuck into your hair and pulled your head back, forcing your eyes to meet his’, “Is it me? Or are yeh a bit more excited for this than you initially let on?”

Your eyes sparkled as you let out the fib, “It’s just you”

Grinning, he shook his head in mock approval, and secured you in his hold, before effortlessly spinning the two of you around. Now, a mess of limbs, you looked up at Harry with what could only be described as pure lust. And it all reflected on his features. His ridiculously messy curls framed his face perfectly, allowing his proud gaze to fuel your engines.

With all your might you wanted to let him take the lead and not show too much enthusiasm, but it felt next to impossible. Before you knew it, your hands were cupping his cheeks again, forcing his body flush against your own. He kissed you back with no hesitation, as if he too waited years for this to finally happen, as if this was his dumb way of confessing to you that he too, was head over heels for you. But that was a scenario that regardless of its likelihood, was sure to ruin your mood.

So you pushed it aside, forced your mind to fall on standby, and instead, you concentrated on the way his hands explored every single inch of your body. When he broke the kiss, you wanted to protest, your tongue crying from the sudden loss of contact. But his lips traveled lower, kissing all the way over down your neck, along your collarbones, and across your chest. It was all aggravated and hungry, as if he couldn’t get enough.

“Yeh good?” Harry asked, looking up at you, cheeks all flushed.

“Yep, yeah” you whispered, the weight of the moment turning your voice into a light chuckle. Breathless and innocent, you were on cloud nine, and all your struggles to keep that hidden were in vain.

Delicately, as only he could, Harry pushed your shirt over your head, leaving you exposed, a fact which sent a whole new wave of pleasure down your body. This gesture alone shook your whole world, but he wasn't wasting any time. You barely even got a chance to catch your breath before he lowered himself, and cupped your breasts into his palms. Your back arched in an instant, and when his warm lips connected to your skin, goosebumps propagated all over your whole body. As circled his lips and caught your nipple between his teeth, your mind went crazy, muscles sizzling with anticipation. A suggestive moan slipped from your throat, and you could tell it surely tickled his ego.

“Gettin’ there?” he questioned even if he already knew the answer.

You threw him half a shrug, tilting your head to the side and pressing your cheek to your shoulder.

“So fuckin’ cute, angel” Harry chuckled, shaking his head as he crawled up your body, “Why’re yeh so cute?”

“How would I know?” you blushed, playing along with his overly teasing approach, “You’re the one who sad it”

“Don’t know why I think yeh’re cute?”

You nodded no.

A small but sure fire lit up his features, and he knew it was on. He did maintain the eye contact for a while, but when he finally looked down at your body, nonchalantly staring at your chest, that was when your breath got caught in your throat. The pressure was building up, yet Harry kept pushing your buttons.

In desperate need to pick up the pace, you nudged his chin with the back of your fingers, and when his eyes caught yours; you raised one eyebrow, motioning for him to continue. “Wha’ do yeh want me t’ tell yeh, love?” Harry grinned, leaning down to kiss your neck.

“Tell me what you like about me” you laughed, linking your fingers in his hair. While you laughed due to the amount of different emotions that coursed through you, Harry made it all the more difficult for you to keep it together. His kisses were light enough for you to feel the ounces of love that dripped from his lips, but carnal enough to keep you on your toes.

“I love everything about yeh” he murmured against your skin, his chain of passionate kisses crossing over to the other side of your neck, “I mean, wha’s there not t’ like?”

“Word” you giggled, your sarcasm coming in perfect contrast to the weakness his question brought to your knees.

“Fuckin’ love every inch” Harry said, having completely ignored your joke, “Every single part of yeh, yer body and god, yer mind”

His hands cupped the sides of your rib cage, as his lips traveled down your sternum. He seemed lost, completely absorbed. Every time he looked up at you, it was impossible not to notice how out of this world his eyes seemed. Glossy and dark, extravagant green looking to explore more of you. And those were only the times you managed to catch him staring. The pleasure this man provided surpassed the moaning level, he got you working hard not to scream in ecstasy, as his tongue ran laps around your nipples, and the way his lips sucked with that specific amount of pressure. It looked as if he already knew where all your buttons were, he acted as if he knew your body better than you did. And for you, that was a new experience, which would’ve already been too much, even without Harry involved. But seeing your fingers get lost in his absolutely perfect in a messy kind of way locks, as he treated your skin with such refined skill, you found yourself way too close to the edge.

In the high of the moment, probably following an unidentifiable stimulus, you found yourself concentrated on the way his palms felt against your skin. He held you in his arms as if you were the most precious thing he ever laid eyes on. And for some reason, that feeling alone had you skyrocketing.

It was when you moaned out loud, for the first time not holding back, that he finally decided to give you what he promised.

“Yeh sure this is ok, angel, yeah?” he murmured, looking up at you.

His light stubble tickled the lower side of your abdomen as his breath barely managed to reach your skin.

“Yeah” you clumsily nodded, your words coated in fervid enthusiasm.

Something happened. Something clicked inside of him. You saw it in the way his eyes warmed up. For a second he didn’t move, instead he just took in everything that was happening. When he eventually pushed himself up, you expected him to help you or motion for you to undress, but he didn’t. Harry lowered himself on top of you, pressing his chest against your own.

His fingers locked themselves against your chin, “I really wanna fucking do this right for yeh”

His confession took you aback. The seriousness in this tone was not something you anticipated. At first, he was the one who made it all seem like a meaningless game, yet right now, it seemed as though he fell into his own trap.

All you could do was nod. Nod in approval, nod as a sign for him to keep going. As a promise that it was all ok. This attitude of his was not something you signed up for. Even if it looked like the beginning of what you always wanted, it also felt a little bit too sudden.

“Come here” you cooed, cupping his cheeks in a loving manner.

In an instant, he leaned into your touch, his skin burning against your damp palms. For the x-th time that evening, his lips melted onto yours, but something felt different. But you kept going, allowed the moment to carry you further without giving yourself the burden of dictating a direction.

And seconds passed, and with each one, his touch became more and more aggravated. You could feel his need, and you have loved to think that what you were feeling from him was love, but it was just too big of a step to take right now. Not too shortly after, the situation escalated towards the point you left off earlier. You let him take the lead, and he soon returned to his usual self.

Harry made his way down your body through a chain of lingering kisses, each one of them awakening yet another side of you. This time, you were given no time to prepare. His experienced hands grabbed your thighs, groping their way up to your hips. Although it was fairly fast, it felt like an eternity. You breathing picked up when his fingers hooked themselves into the waistband of your leggings, and without even thinking about it, you pushed yourself up, allowing him to take them off.

Now, you hadn’t seen this coming, because if you had, you probably would have chosen to wear something less embarrassing than your Superman underwear. Your cheek heated up as if it was the first time a man had seen you naked, and all your insecurities washed over you. None of those thoughts crossed Harry’s mind though.

He just smiled - a gesture whose roots you’d never know.

Harry positioned himself between your legs, his fingers gingerly tracing up and down your outer thighs. “Really fucken gorgeous, yeh know tha’?”

His compliments have never been this hard to receive, “Shut up” you chuckled, rolling your eyes as you couldn't help but squirm under his stare.

“Wha’?” Harry grinned, leaning his head to the side as he let his teasing side take over,

“Tha’ tinder fuckface never told yeh just how perfect yeh look?”

“This is still about him, huh?”

“It’s about yeh, love” Harry rolled his eyes, letting his nails graze your skin, “Always been about yeh, always will be”

With each word that let his mouth, he leaned down, lower and lower, until every inch of his body was pressing against your own. He dominated the moment, and you love it.

When he engulfed your lips into a kiss, his right hand traveled between your legs. That alone made your core vibrate, and knowing there was no way to hide your enthusiasm, made you smile.

You felt the back of his fingers trace up and down your opening, and his words confirmed your suspicions. He pulled away from your lips just enough so he could speak, but he was still too close for you to properly see his features - he was just a few literal inches away, “I can’t wait to taste yeh, doll”

The grin on his lips and the pride of his tone, had a visible effect on you. The hairs on your body stood up in anticipation, and you couldn’t help but arch your back and close your legs around him. You kissed him back, and this time, it was on.

As his tongue pushed past your lips, Harry’s hands lewdly traveled down your sides, caressing every inch of exposed skin they found in their way. You didn’t see the eagerness coming, but when he reached between your legs, the flimsy material of your underwear didn’t even begin to come in his way. He shoved his hand under your panties, his fingers instantly coming in contact with your opening.

It was solely the emotional value of the moment that made you nearly gasp. Harry took his sweet damn time, as if you needed any more foreplay. The pads of his fingers gingerly traced up and down your opening a few times, before coming back up again to rest against your clit. It was soft and easy at the beginning, but the feather light touch of his fingers started gaining more and more pressure as subtle circular movements started to form.

When you looked up at him, you were met with the mess of curls that had fallen onto his forehead as he had his head hanging low, with his eyes trained between your bodies. With a gentle nudge against his chin, you prompted him to look up. At first he seemed a bit disoriented, but a wicked grin shortly appeared on his lips. It made you smile.

He was the one to resume the kiss, making it gentle this time - in perfect contrast with the action of his fingers, as he slowly made his way past your folds. When the first finger went in, you curled the corners of your mouth in anticipation. It felt fine, but it was just the tip of the iceberg and you knew it. Eager for more, you allowed your teeth to lewdly sink into his lower lip, willing to show him you wanted more.

With a grunt, Harry shuffled a bit, his knees bucking into your hips. The deep breath he released tickled your skin, but you weren’t going to let this go. As you forced your teeth just a bit deeper into his plush skin, Harry let his forehead fall against yours.

His tongue neatly traced along your upper lip, and you thought it was in response to your actions. And this erroneous thought kept you from anticipating his next move. When Harry pushed one more finger in, your senses went mad, and the simple fact that he didn't give you too much time to adjust before he pushed a third finger in, rocked you completely.

You moaned in return and arched your back.

"I got yeh, baby girl" he whispered softly, "Look at me, I got yeh, ok?"

After receiving an enthusiastic nod from you, Harry made his way down your body. This time, he swiftly shuffled to the side, pulling your legs together and riding you of the unnecessary piece of underwear you still had on.

Not waiting for him to take control, you spread your legs, and feasted on the carnal look he had in his eyes as he looked down at your body. He didn’t waste any time before finding the perfect spot between your legs. Your whole body shivered as he leaned his head to the side, his light stubble tickling its way down the inside of your thighs.

And following the rough feeling of the still shy beard you didn’t think he was able to grow, when his soft lips brushed against your skin, you involuntarily clenched. You bucked your hips and your legs tried, but to no avail, to close the distance between one another. You wanted more - needed more. And he noticed it.

Looking down along your body, you could only see the top of his head. And his fingers, pressing into the skin of your legs. And the tip of his nose as he proceeded to tease you into oblivion with millions of kisses, each of them nothing less than heavenly, but still, nothing compared to what you knew was coming next. The only warning he gave you as a hurried grin, and it was nowhere near enough.

It was on. Elegantly, but with traces of dominance in his touch, and with two fingers, Harry spread your pussy wide open, his tongue lewdly slipping right inside you. The contact and the buildup made you gasp. Had you not been so over the moon and distracted already, you’d have heard him snicker in response to the sound you just made. But you were too caught up. You felt him on every inch of your body, and the signals your core were sending you, were not what you wanted.

You wanted this to last. To have him go at it, lapping at your core for hours. To feel his tongue wag until your senses went numb.It might have been the dry spell that was forced upon you as the pandemic overtook your life, or the timeless, painful crush you’ve had on him for years, but you were already on the edge.

Trying hard to make the moment last, you curled your pointer finger and shoved it into your mouth, biting down hard. Your back arched dangerously as your head flew back, but it all just worked in his favour. Your pleasure was building up, and the careful, experienced movement of Harry’s tongue against your clit was only gaining momentum.

“Yeh taste like fucking heaven but I think yeh already knew tha’” he said, for a second pulling away from your core and giving you a chance to catch your breath.

All you managed was a pathetic excuse of a nod, along with a shy roll of your eyes.

“None of tha’” Harry laughed, licking his lips, “Don’t care how close yeh are, ‘m not gonna stop until yeh moan my name, love”

“Jesus christ, Harry!” you panted, shaking your head.

He responded in a similar manner, and again, with no warning whatsoever, he went back in. This short break allowed you to regain your composure, even if it was just a tiny bit. Your excitement, although still there and just as consuming, was easier to control now. You felt his touch all throughout your body, his tongue tickling all your senses.

What brought you closer into the moment was the feeling of his hands, as he grabbed your thighs and pushed your legs up onto his shoulders. For whatever reason, this felt even more intimate, and as his fingers sank into your flesh, you felt your engines start up again.

The delicate flicks of his tongue were getting more and more aggravated by the second, and now it was close to impossible to keep calm. Sweaty palms gripping tirelessly into the cushions under you, your back under constant strain, your eyes squeezed shut - he had you entirely.

And as if that wasn’t enough, he went further. Harry pushed one finger inside of you, moving his lips up to fully concentrate on your clit. His tongue prepared you, got you all ready and wanting, and then, he wrapped his lips around your bundle of nerves and sucked - gently and with a minimal amount of pressure, but god-

“Fuck, Harry-” you called out. It was more of a cry, choked back in the depths of your throat, all breathy and muffled.

“Come on, angel” Harry whispered.

As you looked down, past your heaving chest, your eyes landed conveniently on the top of his head. Complete chaos - his unruly curls tickled the inside of your thighs, as his fingers dug into your flesh. The two rings he never takes off were sure to leave proud indents on your skin.

Harry sucked at your bundle of nerves, the eager touch of his tongue awakening absolutely every need inside your being. Add the experienced pumps of his fingers and the fact that this was Harry Styles and none other, and you were done.

With each passing second you started to lose more and more of the control you had on your body. Sweating nervously out of every pore of your body, you squirmed under his weight hoping you’d make the moment last.

“‘S good, love, isn’t it?” Harry smirked for just about a second, “I can see yeh, yeh’re a mess fo’ me”

“Fuck” you whined, covering your face with your right palm as your head tilted backwards, “Shut up”

“Oh!” Harry faked surprise, “Gettin’ cocky?”

As he spoke, Harry curled his fingers inside your pussy; maybe intentionally - maybe by chance, hitting all the right spots and making you moan out loud.

“I’ll take tha’ as an apology”

You scoffed.

Harry shook his head. When you looked down at him again, you caught him licking his lips. It was obvious he waited for you to catch him doing that.

Already at the edge of your self control, you curled your fingers into his hair, motioning for him to resume his work. He followed your lead without any complaints, and when his bottom teeth grazed your clit, even if it was light as a feather you lost it.

Your mind became numb, drunk on the pleasure he provided. Your eyes rolled back as you enjoyed every second of your high. Harry kept you spiraling, continuing to lap at your core as the muscles of your legs tensed uncontrollably around his frame.

“Holy fuck-” you breathed out, voice shaky and wounded.

He made sure to milk every ounce of pleasure out of your being, leaving you a heaving mess under his stare.

Harry pushed himself up, nonchalantly wiping his chin, his eyes not allowing yours to look away.

As you gathered yourself and worked on bringing your breathing back to normal, there was only one thought going on inside your head - that it would only be fair if you reciprocate the gesture. Thinking about it was enough to make your core buzz again, but you didn’t have it in you to bring it up, and instead hoped he’d show he wished things didn’t stop either.

But he didn’t.

However, you got to kiss him again. And no matter how badly you wanted to keep the atmosphere on fire, he had other plans.

“Did I take good care of yeh?” Harry asked as he leaned down beside you. His hand found your cheek, keeping you in place for another longing kiss, “Did I do yeh right?”

You nodded against his lips, not willing to actually word the answer.

His chuckle made it clear that the point got through. And for a second it seemed as if the night wasn’t done. None of you was willing to pull away, and allowed the minutes to go by without a care in the world, lost in each other’s arms.

“Freakin’ love yeh, angel” Harry said.

It wasn’t the first time you’d hear this coming out of his mouth, but you couldn’t help but smile thinking this time it was meant in a different manner. You answered him by cuddling deeper into his chest, and that was a moment you wouldn’t have traded for the world.

And you fell asleep like that. No matter how big and luxurious your couch was, you still spent the night glued to one another. Harry felt every calm breath of yours on his skin and everytime he moved a bit to adjust his position, his hold tightened around you to make sure he wasn’t pushing you away.

After what was probably the best sleep you’d gotten in the whole year of 2020, morning came around. Actually it was lunch time, if we’re being generous. The sun was high up, proudly making its way into your living room, past the curtains to forgot to draw the other night.

When you awoke, Harry wasn’t there anymore. However, panic didn’t have the time to settle in as you heard movement coming from the kitchen, and the strong smell of coffee reached your nose in no time.

You got up from the couch, with herds of butterflies in your stomach. Harry’s words from last night still echoed in your head, and even now, with no alcohol in your system, they managed to bring goosebumps all over your skin.

“When did you get up?”

That was how you made your presence known.

Harry turned around with a smile on his face. He had a bag of avocados tucked under his arm, as he typed away on his phone. His undone pants were hanging onto his thighs for dear life, and the only other piece of fabric on his body was a thin, brown hair tie around his wrist. There were a few purple marks along his collar bones and his hair looked rougher than usual, things which deep down, shook you up a bit.

“Wanted to take yeh out fo’ breakfast, but I gotta leave in like an hour, so I figured this should do”

“Yeah, yeah sure” you agreed, “It’s perfect”

“Would’ve done mo’, but Y/n, yeh have no food in this house”

You laughed, walking over to slump down into one of the chairs, “Didn’t get a chance to get any perishables”

“You got some” Harry chuckled, “You got weeks’ worth of everything you need to make guacamole and pancakes”

“I have no idea how that happened, those will spoil” you shook your head, “You can take some of them actually”

“Or I could just come over”

“Even better”

The food was ready in no time. Harry had everything done and set while you washed up a bit, and after that, you both sat down to eat. Minimal and light, but still, there was a weight in the pit of your stomach.

“About last night-” Harry began to say, but you tried to stop him.

“You don’t have to-”

“We kinda do, love” he smiled, “I need to apologise, angel”

You squinted your eyes, “For?”

“I don’t really have t’ apologise fo’ what I said because I meant every word” Harry slowly said, as if he has a hard time putting his thoughts together, “I jus’ wish I hadn’t said it like tha’ though”

“Like what?” you questioned, a bit lost.

“Like I had the right to say that kind of crap” he laughed. It was nervous laughter, like he was afraid of what was coming next, “I do fucking love yeh, but I shouldn’t have assumed you wanted to hear that”

“What are you talking about, I don’t understand” you groaned, growing a bit tired of the impatience he brought upon you.

“You’re my best friend, ok?” he sighed, “That’s all we are, Y/n, and that was not supposed to happen”

The food got lodged in your throat, and you felt like if you didn’t stand up, you’d no longer be able to breathe. “It was your idea” you scoffed.

Harry’s eyes followed your frame, but he remained seated, “I know”

“So what changed? If anything even changed. I don’t understand what the problem is. You regret we did what we did-”

“I don’t regret anything” Harry butted it.

“You said it was not supposed to happen!” you exclaimed, rolling your eyes as you walked over to the sink, just to make yourself useful and to stop just standing in front of him.

“The things I said to you-” he said sternly, pushing his chair back and throwing his hands into the air, “I shouldn’t have said those, ok? It doesn’t matter who meant what, I told you things that-”

“What did you tell me that’s bothering you so much?” you almost yelled, annoyance dripping out of your pores. You walked over to him, and he closed the distance by standing up.

“I-” Harry stuttered, playing with his hair to buy himself some more time. “All the-”

“What?” you pushed, “That you like everything about me? That’s what you regret saying? And what else?”

“God” he groaned, “I don’t regret saying tha’, it’s just tha’ it wasn’t my place to say it”

You fell silent.

“If I were you... I’d want to hear those things from someone that is more than just a friend to me” he confessed.

“And you can’t be that to me? More than a friend?”

After a few seconds of painful silence, realization hit him, “Y/n…”

He did reach out. He took a step towards you but you stepped back. The remorse in his tone was too painful to ignore. So you moved away from him and slowly made your way out of the kitchen.

“Y/n!” Harry called, following you.

“Just go”

“Please...”

“Please what?” you shook your head, but he didn’t have the words you needed to hear.

“I’m sorry”

“It’s fucking fine” you sighed, walking backwards towards your room, “Just show yourself out”

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