#chances are the opinion i aggressively disagree with will come up at some point in one of my posts

[a-dragons-journal]

hey, you got radfems following. i don't have the names, sorry, i had already blocked them when i noticed they followed you. i've seen you around alterhuman spaces and wanted to give you a heads up. might want to do a sweep of who's following if it isn't too many.

First off, thank you for the heads-up, I appreciate the thought. However -

fam, you are gonna have to give me names and evidence of claims like that, I simply do not have the time or energy. I also do not always have the time and energy to follow up on a specific accusation if it doesn't come along with at least some direct evidence, so be aware of that (nor do I think you should be making accusations like that without being willing to provide some direct evidence just on principle, generally speaking, unless it's one of those cases where it's blatantly clear from less than thirty seconds of scrolling their blog because it's all they're talking about).

Generally speaking, I... also care more about people I'm following/reblogging from than about people who are following me, because it's not like I'm platforming the people who follow me inherently in any way. I'm thus a lot more likely to follow up on that and actually do something about it.

Generally speaking, I don't prune my followers of anything but obvious bots, because I'm not platforming them in any way, and maybe if they stick around they might learn something and change their mind about some things. There are exceptions, but generally speaking, if they want to listen to the perspective of someone outside their circles, I'm not gonna refuse them that - that just forces them into the echo chamber that's just going to reinforce the bigoted opinions until there's no chance of changing their mind about it, which doesn't help anyone. The only way to change people's minds is to talk to them, and I'm of the opinion that while no one owes anyone that, of course, the world is a better place when it can happen.

(If I'm saying things that are attracting them because of those opinions, that I want to know, because it means I need to reevaluate myself about that, but that's a different story. Similarly, if they're actually starting to say that shit in my notes (or, worse, if I have reason to believe they're using the notes of my posts to find people to target for harassment), I'm probably going to block them about it, but that's also a different story.)

[undertale-data]

[Image Description: an Undertale chat box with the name "PAPYRUS", in all caps and Papyrus font, in its center. On its left is a talksprite of Papyrus sweating anxiously, and on its right is a talksprite of Papyrus wearing sunglasses. End I.D.]

The Great Papyrus is the most popular Undertale character among the fans surveyed here. 19.6% of responders chose him as their favorite. That’s a total of 519 fans! (Wowie!!)

Not all Papyrus fans are unified on his characterization, however. The most obvious divide was between fans who call him a “cinnamon roll” or “precious baby,” and those who find these takes infantilizing. A lot of people like the friendliness and optimism of this character, while others recognize this but highlight his maturity too. Fans who worry about his infantilization seem most concerned with how he can be portrayed as naive or dumb by the fandom. A portion of fans specifically mentioned this naivety as a point in his favor, though the marginally more popular take seems to be that he is not naive, regardless of how he first appears. This fandom divide seems to relate to Papyrus’s autistic or ADHD coding. Many fans relate to him as ADHD and autistic themselves.

Fans also related to him in his desire for friends. Many responders think of him as a friend and a comfort character, so at least in one way his wish has been fulfilled.

The phone calls were a major reason that fans said they felt connected to Papyrus. Thanks to these calls, he has the most dialogue of any character in the game. His humor and dialogue were often highlighted as favorite qualities.

While fans may disagree on some aspects of Papyrus’s personality, it is clear that his fans all value his optimism and kindness. His fans do not see his kindness as weakness. Many talked about the complexity of his character and the strength it took for him to show mercy to the player character, even when the player doesn’t show it in return. He believes in himself, and he believes in you! This kindness and trust has inspired his fans to be kinder themselves.

Papyrus fans were also drawn to his mysteriousness. Several responses pointed out that he is a more mysterious character than Sans, who is also often loved for his mystery. As shown in the phone calls, Papyrus will put on fronts depending on who he is around, making it even more difficult for fans to uncover his secrets. Some people in other sections of the survey found this frustrating, but Papyrus fans tend to see it as another point in his favor.

Among the greatest proportion of responses were from fans who couldn’t choose a favorite trait, or who just love everything about Papyrus. While these responses may be less lengthy, they are still as full of love as the essay-length answers. These responses tended to say phrases like “cool dude” or “Papyrus my beloved” or “THE GREAT PAPYRUS.”

(You were overcome by writing about such a handsome skeleton. He understands.)

Highlights: (under the cut)

Honestly Papyrus just feels like joy. Funny, incredibly kind, with a few mysteries/weird quirks about him that are fun to ponder over. I especially love how he often acts proud and self aggrandizing without putting others down, and in fact sometimes uses that to lift his friends up alongside him. You don't see this take on proud characters often.

Papyrus is strong. Strong in body, but also morally strong. He knows what is right, what it means to be merciful and kind, even in the face of danger or death. Some think him naive. And yet, even facing death and seeing the dust of those he knew, he did not falter or turn from his ideals of mercy and change for the better.

BECAUSE HE IS THE GREAT PAPYRUS

His optimism and his overall personality is endearing! You're always having fun with him :D

He's meeting all of my standards.

Papyrus is very under appreciated, and overlooked, and it's very frustrating to me—he's a complex character but people treat him like he's a baby!!! I like him because he's kind of goofy with how he talks and he's just very charming and kind.

He's weirder than Sans, and it wasn't acknowledged for years because he acts oblivious and dumb, even when he's clearly not. Quite frankly, I find it iconic. Also, his entire personality helps a lot.

I'm ND, trans, and projecting!

OK SO he's just a friendly guy!! A dude who likes cooking for his friends!! We love a hype man!! Also smart as hell and I feel like fanon majorly overlooks this. Making good, fun puzzles is HARD and setting up a flamethrower to go off wirelessly is complicated. Like even if that bridge puzzle didn't go off the components were complicated. Love that cool dude!!!!

I heavily relate to Papyrus as a character and consider him my favorite fictional character of all time. He is a very well-written and thought out character with several quirks and layers in his personality. It is headcanoned by some (myself included) that Papyrus may possibly be on the Autism Spectrum due to his nature, his interactions with others, and overall how he displays himself to the world we see.

I could talk about Papyrus forever, and you have made a grave mistake in allowing me to do so. He is a charming, strong spirited, well intentioned, complex character that is often wildly misinterpreted, and I think originally this is why I was drawn to him. He is presented as one thing and in fact acts as one thing (though not the same way as presented by fandom), and in reality when you look closer than you are meant to he is not, in fact, any of these things. It was intriguing to me. Secondly, and rather contradictorily, another thing that drew me to him is that he is very true to himself, when it comes to idiosyncrasies and moral values. It's true that he does not offer much in the way of personal backstory and feelings, but he offers very much indeed in the way of personality. What a guy! He wears silly crop tops and bright colors, he speaks in a manner specific to him that sometimes doesn't make sense, he cares about something or someone and goes whole hog with it -- he's passionate, damn it! I love him and his weirdo, goofy self with all my heart. He cares about other people to a fault, too. He would sacrifice everything to help someone, and his belief in the potential of both others and himself is indomitable. When faced with the responsibility of a kingdom, his friends gone, his brother lying to him, and himself all alone without a reliable support system, he recognized what he was facing and still bucked up and became determined to get through it. When faced with a murderous, over powerful enemy, someone who had killed many of his friends and fellow monsters, someone who had repeatedly been rude and borderline aggressive and showed no signs of stopping, he saw that they were having difficulty and offered to help and to care for them, and didn't regret his decision or change his opinion on what they needed and their potential for change, even when quite literally killed by them a moment after. Even in death, even directly after a betrayal like that, he never stops believing that they can get better, that anyone can be a good person if they want to be. That's important, I think; that concept of giving people the chances they need to grow and to change. I have a tattoo of that moment on my thigh, it's that important to me. I guess I really like Papyrus because even though he is fictional, watching him out there makes it easy to believe in people, in our inherent goodness and desire to love each other. He makes it easy to see that we can change, that no matter what you've done in the past or who you currently are, no one is inherently a bad person, and no one is incapable of learning how to be a good one. It is just a step by step process that we have to take day by day.

[Image Description: A wordcloud shaped like Papyrus. His gloves, boots, and cape are red; his Battle Body is blue, yellow, and white; and his bones are white. Some of the most visible words are: Kind, Love, Good, Cool, Relate, Funny, Friend, Mystery, and Papyrus. These are the words that responders mentioned most in their essays about him. End I.D.]

Read the full list of responses shared with permission by clicking this link! (The document is 25 pages long, so you may want to make a copy to prevent lagging.)

[harrys-titties]

Y/N and Harry hate each other, until they don’t. 

29K+

Warnings: Asshole Harry, A LOT of swearing (I’m sorry,) mentions of anxiety, a questionable game of drink or truth & smut 

(A/N FINALLY I FINISHED!!  Blood, sweat and tears has been put into this one, so I hope you all enjoy! Love you all <3 Also you may have to open in your web browser bc she is big af xx) 

-masterlist-

It wasn't that Y/N didn't like Harry, in all honesty, she didn't know him well enough to come to that conclusion. But from what she'd seen so far, she wasn't too impressed. She had never found it too challenging to make new friends, often finding herself able to get along with even the oddest of characters, but with Harry, it was a different story.

Perhaps if they weren’t forced to stay in the same house during quarantine, having to spend days on end with only each other and their housemates to cure their boredom, things would be different. Maybe, just maybe Harry wouldn’t have come across as so disagreeable and overbearing. 

However, at this rate, Y/N was led to believe it was just who he was. An asshole who had somehow tricked the entire planet into believing he was the epitome of the ‘boy next door’ stereotype. 

Sarah, Y/N’s cousin, had called her sometime around July, asking her if she wanted to quarantine with her, her boyfriend, Mitch and a few mates rather than alone in her somewhat dingy apartment. Y/N had immediately jumped at the opportunity. Quarantining by herself had already proved to be somewhat tricky and incredibly depressing. While she loved her charming little abode, she was certainly not prepared to spend the next few months stuck inside it, alone, watching ‘Friends’ reruns with a bottle of wine and only her three potted cacti to keep her company. 

So, naturally, that led her to the doorstep of Sarah and Mitch's huge shared house with butterflies in her stomach, imagining what her new housemates would be like. 

Sarah had told Y/N all about Mitch, Jeff and Harry, exclaiming how funny, kind and welcoming they would be, and well, Y/N was excited, she needed some new friends. After her last break up about a year ago, had lost her a boyfriend and subsequently the mutual friends of his that she thought had become hers too, she felt slightly lonely. For Y/N the chance to cure isolation boredom blues and make some new friends was an offer she wouldn't dream of refusing. 

Upon arrival, Y/N noticed that Sarah's description fit Jeff and Mitch to a tee, but Harry? Well, he barely managed to squeeze into it. When she'd walked through the door, Mitch had immediately offered to take her bags and even offered her some of his favourite tea to help her relax after her relatively stressful journey. Jeff gave her a huge hug and asked what her favourite snacks were so he could add them to the shopping list. And Harry? He sat in silence with his head practically glued to his phone, hardly even sparing a glance in her direction. 

Y/N didn't let this discourage her. She prided herself on being friendly and often easy to get along with and so approached him readily. However, greeting him with a cheerful, "it's nice to meet you!" and her renowned smile had only earned her a grunt and a disinterested look. Maybe he was just having a bad day?

On the drive to Sarah’s house, Y/N had been thinking about how exciting it was to be able to meet him. While she’d never been an avid fan of his music, she wasn’t blind to the enormous impact he had on the industry. He seemed kind and beyond charming, and well, Y/N had a working pair of eyes, she knew how handsome he was. She had only ever heard good things and was excited to get to know the man who had made her cousin's dreams come true. 

However, Harry's blase and borderline rude personality really rubbed her the wrong way. Y/N could understand having a rough day, even she could get a bit grumpy the days leading up to her period, but Harry's impertinence surpassed a simple 'bad day' or two. He was impossible! He would hardly even acknowledge her existence, and on the rare occasion when he did, he was insolent and passive-aggressive. He would nitpick everything Y/N did, from the way she would dress to something as simple as how much soy sauce she had on her sushi! Y/N didn't know how she would survive another week with him, let alone the whole of isolation. 

Maybe loneliness, copious amounts of alcohol and friends reruns would’ve been the better option. 

——

It wasn't that Harry didn't like Y/N, in all honesty, he didn't know her well enough to come to that conclusion. There was just something about her that grated on his nerves. It could possibly be the fact that Sarah had insisted she was his type before he'd even met her. While Harry had countered, unless she looked exactly like the ex he was still very much pining over he doubted it to be true, Sarah had insisted. She showed him picture after picture from their trip to Europe together, pointing out how pretty Y/N's hair looked, or how dazzling her smile was.

While there was a resemblance to the girl on his mind, Harry doubted it was enough to remind him of the heartbreak she had instilled upon him. Alas, Harry was wrong. When Y/N had floated through the door without a care in the world, Harry had frozen. While Y/N did kind of resemble his past girlfriend Elle, it was the way she acted that frustrated Harry more. She had the same air about her, carried herself in the same way that Elle did, with humble confidence and poise.  

Harry hated it. The more he got to know Y/N, the more he realised that she was somehow simultaneously similar and completely different from the girl he was still in love with, and he hated it. She was a constant reminder of what he could no longer have, and he didn't know if he wished Y/N were more like Elle so he could have a part of her back, or if he wished she was a completely different person altogether.

Either way, Harry could hardly hold in the frustration he felt around her, snapping at anything she said and nit-picking her every move. 

While he knew he was acting unreasonably, he barely had a cause to stop it. 

——

Y/N was usually self-confident and relatively sure of herself, but she was also stubborn, and for some reason was bothered by Harry's opinion of her more than she cared to admit. 

So, over the first few days of her staying at the house, Y/N had tried her hardest to get Harry to like her, but her endeavours only seemed to further annoy him. She baked him carrot cake because she'd heard it was his favourite, but with a screwed up nose, Harry had swiped his finger through the icing to taste it and grumbled, "way too sweet," before retreating back to his room. Y/N was embarrassed as Sarah had given her a sympathetic look and insisted "everyone else will love it!" 

When doing her washing, she added Harry's whites with hers and even went so far as to dry and fold them too. But when she woke the next day, the clothes had been taken from the laundry, and Y/N was not given a spare glance.

 Harry had insisted they watch a horror movie during their weekly movie night, and Y/N didn't say a word of opposition, even though she knew she would have nightmares that night. Sarah had even tried to say something on her behalf, but Y/N quickly hushed her, not wanting to cause a scene and have Harry hate her even more than he already did. 

But Y/N's quick agreeance to watch 'Halloween' disagreed with her a lot more than she thought it would. She had hardly slept at all, jumping at the smallest of sounds and debating the probability of a murderous man being able to break into the house. When she turns again for what seemed like the fiftieth time that night, only to be met with the glaring '3:30' from the mickey mouse alarm clock she had nearly forgotten to pack, she gives up. 

In an attempt to calm herself down from the numerous haunting images flashing through her mind, Y/N begins her trek to the kitchen. A cool glass of water and perhaps one of the cupcakes Sarah and herself had baked the day before, would surely put her overworked mind at ease. 

As Y/N begins to walk down the stairs, she can't help but imagine behind every door a murderer with a knife, that each step in the pitch black was one closer to her death. The eerie silence of the house full of sleeping people only made her feel worse. 

Scolding herself for ever agreeing to watch the stupid movie in the first place, she turns around to flick on the lights to the hallway and stairway. Feeling slightly more comfortable now that she could see, she walked downstairs only to repeat the process in the kitchen, dining room and living room until the whole house, bar upstairs, was flooded with light.

Standing in the fully lit kitchen with a mug of hot chocolate she had found in the cupboard and munching away at the sweet treat, Y/N finally begins to feel somewhat safe. That is until a dark figure suddenly emerges from the hallway.

 "Harry! What the fuck? You scared the shit out of me," she exclaims while clutching at her rapidly beating chest. With his chestnut curls in a tangled heap upon his head, one sock on and clad in only a white shirt and boxers, he looks slightly worse for wear. "What the fuck are you doing, making such a racket at four in the fucking morning?" His voice sounds strained as if he'd just woken up and his face is screwed in annoyance as he points at the provincial-style clock hanging on the wall for emphasis. 

Y/N hesitates, she knew telling Harry his movie choice had kept her awake would not end well, "I- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you or anything." At this, he scoffs, "didn't mean to wake me, huh? Turning on every fuckin’ light and slammin’ cupboards will usually do that to a person." 

Now Harry knows he's being mean, can hear the way his accent thickens with annoyance and can see how she flinches with every raised decibel, and it makes him pause some. He realises there’s more than likely a reasonable explanation as to why she’s awake at such an hour. He's a dick, but he's not a bloody monster, and as he sees her eyes well up with tears, he decides his anger can be put on the backburner.

 "Why are you even awake?" At the softened tone in his voice, Y/N seems to visibly relax some but still remains tense. "I, um, I really hate horror movies, and I was scared, and I couldn't sleep." He sighs, and his voice lowers even more, "Is that why all the lights are on?" She nod's sheepishly, "why didn't you say anythin'? You were the first to bloody agree to watch the movie." 

"You already hate me enough, I didn't want to give you another reason!" Harry's not sure why his chest slightly aches at that, because if he's honest, she's right, he doesn't really like her at all. As soon as she’d walked through the door and up the stairs to get sorted in her new room, he'd approached Mitch. He'd even made a proper scene, asking why she had to quarantine with them. Mitch had defended her, pointing out that everyone else liked her perfectly fine so far, which Harry supposes was a part of his problem with her. He had made sure she knew of his distaste too, barely even paying her mind, and only doing so to mock her. 

So why it felt like his heart was cracking just slightly, he'll never know, but it does lead him to walk towards her slowly, "I can't really sleep either, did you want to watch tv with me until you can?" If Harry was truthful, he'd actually been sleeping like a baby before he heard the cupboard doors shut slightly above acceptable volume considering the time. However, the way her mouth pouted somewhat, and her eyes misted as she acknowledged his dislike for her made him feel awful. 

So as he sits on the couch with her, now donned with his own steaming cup of hot chocolate, he leaves the lights on and gives her his favourite blanket to wrap herself in. He sits on the opposite side of the couch and tries his hardest not to fall asleep, so Y/N could feel somewhat protected.

After a few episodes of 'SpongeBob' had played he looks over to the other side of the sofa and sees Y/N fast asleep, snoring with her head tilted at a slightly unnatural angle. He can't help the smile that finds its way onto his face, as he turns off the television and settles himself further into the couch to hopefully catch a few hours of sleep too. 

——

To say Y/N is confused would be an understatement. While she wasn't expecting to wake up to Harry presenting a friendship bracelet and a new found love for her, she was expecting him to at least stop hating her.

She was surprised at his kindness last night. She knows Harry gave her his favourite blanket. Jeff was always griping on movie nights because Harry manages to nab it before Jeff has the chance and although he claimed he couldn't sleep, Harry's croaky voice and dishevelled hair led her to believe he was in fact lying.

She definitely hadn't expected him to offer to watch cartoons with her. She also definitely had not expected to wake in the middle of the night to find herself pressed against him with his arms tightly wrapped around her.

 Y/N briefly considered moving back to her side of the couch, but if she was being entirely truthful, she missed cuddling. It was one of her favourite things about being in a relationship, and ever since her last one had crashed and burned, she missed the simple feeling of being held. So in her sleep-muddled state, she decided to stay put and hope Harry was as avid a cuddler as she was.  

To be honest, after all that, she thought he'd at least start to acknowledge her existence, or at least not act as if it was the bane of his. However, when Y/N awakes the next day, Harry is in the kitchen with Jeff and Sarah, debating on where to start their tour when quarantine ends. He moves animatedly and is clearly laughing and joking about as he usually does with the other occupants of the house. But when she enters, he instantly stops talking and instead puts his head down, seemingly very focused on shovelling his pancakes into his mouth. 

Y/N hopes, with every part of her being, that he didn't wake up feeling disgusted by her unconscious affection, but she knew it was a real possibility. And suddenly it feels like she had taken one step forward and two giant steps back.

So yes, Y/N is understandably confused. 

——

When Harry had woken up overheated, and with a stifling sense of claustrophobia, he was understandably confused. As he opens his eyes, he recognises the living room's shaggy carpet and cream walls; however, it takes him a few seconds to process why he was actually here rather than in his own bedroom.

The pressure against his chest causes him to startle some, and when he looks down to see Y/N still huddled under his favourite blanket but now pressed against him rather than the opposite end of the couch, the feeling doesn't fade but instead escalates.

How did they end up in this position? Harry knew he was a cuddler, any past lover would be able to tell you that, but that was usually with people he... liked? Why the fuck was she on top of him?

He can just see the side of her face, while the other looks to be uncomfortably pressed against him. Her hair no longer resembles the bun she usually goes to sleep with but a nest upon her head, and what looks like dried drool is smeared across the corner of her rosy lips. 

Harry can admit she's cute. In a puppy that's just been kicked kind of way. He feels compelled to brush the strands of hair away from her face and wipe the spit away with the hem of his shirt, but Y/N moving in her sleep draws his focus away. He sees his lanky legs tangled with hers and for the first time notices his arms also wrapped around her, keeping her close. 

While a half-asleep Y/N is clearly trying to change her position, his gangly limbs keep her from doing so. And Harry panics. He should not be cuddling with Y/N of all people. Instantly and as gently as possible, he rolls her off him and stands from the couch, only to hear a muffled groan of opposition from the sleeping girl. 

Harry was confused, to say the least. He knows it's not a big deal. Two, friends? No. Acquaintances? Hm nope, 'roommates?'... had fallen asleep next to each other on the couch and woken up slightly tangled. It wouldn't be that much of an issue if the last person Harry had woken up next to hadn't been the ex-girlfriend he was very much still broken-hearted because of. Don't get him wrong, it had felt nice to be close to someone again, but perhaps that's the reason why Harry begins to panic even more. 

So, Harry folds up the blanket he had been using, walks to the toilet and convinces himself not to think of it again. And it's also for this reason, that Harry can't seem to look Y/N in the eye as she walks into the kitchen. He knows she's looking at him in confusion, and he feels slightly guilty, but what was he supposed to do? Greet her with a cuddle and ask if she'd slept as well as he did? No, Harry would act like nothing had happened, and pray that a problem wouldn't arise from that.

But of course, Harry should have known better. 

——

Y/N was quite the baker. She had worked a few summers in her Aunties little bakery and had loved it, but even with her passion and keen eye for icing cakes, there was only so much sweet treat making she could do. She was more participating in copious amounts of isolation baking to please poor Sarah, who was struggling with boredom, and who also happened to love sweets. 

So, whenever Sarah would run into her room with a new suggestion, or send her a link to a 'totally awesome' muffin recipe, Y/N would simply bite her tongue and help gather the ingredients. They had already managed to make cupcakes, banana bread, chocolate chip cookies and cheesecake. So when a new recipe comes through while Y/N reads her book in front of the pool, she wonders what other baked goods could even possibly exist for them to make. 

Alas, macarons. Y/N sighed and walked to the kitchen, where she knew Sarah would be preparing their ingredients. "Hey bug, ready to bake the best macarons ever?" On the inside, Y/N started dramatically weeping, but on the outside, she exclaims, "sure am! These might be a bit more difficult than anything we've tried though." Sarah scoffs, "oh please, we're up for the challenge." 

It's then Y/N notices Harry sitting at the island bench, and he catches her staring, "what? 'M bored." She only nods in response, not really one for conflict. "Are you helping us cook? We could use an extra hand." Y/N kind of hopes he'd say yes, maybe a bit of cooperative, team bonding would mend whatever weird rift they had between them. 

However, Harry screws up his nose at her suggestion as if what she had said was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard. Before he has the chance to snarkily reply to her, Sarah butts in, "Harry actually used to be a baker! Didn't you H." Harry can see Y/N's eyes light up and knows that whatever comes out of her mouth next, he was more than likely going to despise. "I used to work in a bakery too!"

Now, if there was an award for sarcasm, Y/N's sure Harry would probably win it. When he pulls his lips into an over-exaggerated smile and says, "twinnies!" with such derision that it burns, Y/N's smile falls. She didn't know what his problem was. Had it really bothered him that much that they'd accidentally cuddled in their sleep? Who had hurt the poor guy so much that a simple night-time spoon was the be-all or end-all? 

She really hadn't meant it, guessed she'd missed sleeping next to a warm body and naturally gravitated towards him. She liked a good cuddle, for fuck's sake, who didn't? If she could turn back time, she would've stayed in bed, wracked with fear if it meant she wouldn't have to deal with Harry's bullshit.

Rather than responding, Y/N puts her head down and begins to read the instructions Sarah had helpfully printed out. Harry is about to make a snide comment, praying that her baking abilities have improved since the carrot cake she had attempted to make, but he gets distracted by the way the afternoon sun is hitting her skin. 

Was Y/N kind of attractive? For the first time, he notices that while she had similar features to his ex, Y/N was pretty on her own accord. 

While often messy, her hair looked so soft, and her eyes were wide and held a sense of innocence. If Harry looked close enough, he could see the tiny acne spots she hadn't bothered to cover and the small bags under her eyes. He briefly wonders if she'd been getting enough sleep and if he had any of the 'sleepy-time' tea left that had worked so well for him before he realises what he was thinking. 

This was Y/N, not Elle, not some chick he'd been fucking, it was Y/N. Maybe he was just confused about his feelings. That was the first time he'd slept next to someone in a while. And well, Y/N was an admittedly pretty girl, and Harry was an admittedly lonely guy who was attracted to pretty girls…

Yeh, there was nothing for him to worry about. 

Y/N mistakes Harry's staring as a glare and does her best to avoid looking at him. She didn't want him to see the well of tears in her eyes and give him the satisfaction. By now, she knew he had meant to upset her, and he had succeeded. 

It was a shame, he really was an attractive guy. Y/N is fully aware that if she'd seen him at a bar, acting the way he did with Sarah and the guys, she'd be instantly in love. She imagines him at school years ago, he probably would’ve been the guy that everyone developed a crush on at least once, boys and girls alike, and has no doubt he probably knew it too. 

Unfortunately, Y/N had not met him in a way akin to a romantic novel. No, she only knew him as an ass who tended to treat her like the dirt stuck to the treads of his overpriced shoes. The only thing Y/N could do was just try her best to ignore him. 

——

As it turns out, Y/N was right, macarons were a lot harder than anything Sarah, and she had previously tried to make. Y/N was tired, frustrated and too sweaty for simply baking glorified cookies. The macarons had taken so long to make, and worst of all, the first batch had come out of the oven flat and stiff as a board. Sarah had pulled out the tray as Y/N was beginning to wash the bowls with a hesitant, "are they supposed to be flat?" 

Turns out they were not supposed to be flat at all. Y/N tried to hide her distaste as she chewed through one of the shells, but when she saw Sarah's face mirroring hers, she giggled. Harry, who had been sitting at the bench, completing a crossword puzzle, also laughed, "guess you aren't as good at baking as you thought you were." 

Y/N would be offended, but notices he's mainly talking to Sarah, and his jesting tone suggests he's not even acknowledging her. "Here, try one. They aren't that bad," Sarah hands him one and he huffs before taking a bite, "better not poison me. You'll have millions of fans to answer to." 

As he chews, it’s apparent that he's not particularly enjoying it. After a hefty swallow, he tugs at his bottom lip with his thumb and forefinger as if in deep thought. "These are single-handedly the worst macarons I've ever had in my entire life. And I say that with absolute confidence." 

While Sarah scoffs and laughs, admonishing Harry with a gentle slap on his arm, Y/N is entirely distracted. She had never seen anyone else with the same habit as her ex. Ben would tug at his bottom lip when deep in thought, and there Harry was, exhibiting the exact same habit. She was astonished, and she hates to admit it, but small butterflies form in the pit of her stomach. She always had, for some unknown reason found it an oddly attractive trait.

While others might be attracted to muscles or deep dimples, Y/N found the little quirks of others most captivating. She loved the drunken ramblings and the uncontrollable tears during sad films. She loved watching people discover their favourite song and the way they would sing under their breath. She loved the unmade beds, dust-covered books, and overwatered plants. She loved the way people would stutter on certain words or adopt weird nicknames they had heard in their favourite movies. She loved pet peeves and the stories behind them and the routines that they followed. Y/N had always loved people. She loved the things that made individuals uniquely them, and this quirk that Harry shared with Ben, was no different. 

If he notices her staring, he doesn't draw attention to it, only continues to banter with Sarah, while Y/N stands in the middle of the kitchen, lost in thought. It’s Sarah's voice that draws her out of her reverie, "c'mon Y/N let's try another batch. I want to surprise Mitch for movie night, he loves these things."

——

This movie-night, Y/N wanted to make sure she would be able to sleep at the end of it, and for that reason, horror movies were off the table- much to Harry's dismay. Sarah, Mitch and Jeff, readily agreed, and after some pushing from Jeff and the girls, everyone agreed to watch a rom-com. The question was which one. 

As Sarah scrolls through the movie selections, 'Clueless' catches Y/N’s eye, and she immediately yells out the suggestion with vivid excitement and is promptly met with... silence. "Guys? Clueless is icon-" Y/N starts, only to be interrupted by none other than Harry, "'s a shit movie, we aren't watching it." Before Y/N can object, Sarah comes to her defence, "oi H, don't be an asshole. We know it was Elle's favourite, don't need to take it out on poor Y/N."

While Y/N prides herself on being understanding and kind, she knows she can be a tad oblivious to what's going on around her at times. She had tried to pick up on it when she noticed it and improve because it had indeed gotten her into some awful situations. And if only Y/N had paid a bit more attention to the situation around her, she may not have spat out her next words. She may have noticed Harry's misty eyes and pursed lips, Sarah's empathetic gaze towards him, Mitch's awkward glance in Harry's direction and Jeff's head buried in his hands. Alas, she didn't.

 "Who's Elle?"  

Silence. Y/N is met with nothing but silence. After a while, she can vaguely hear Jeff letting out the breath of air he had clearly been holding in, and Mitch's mumbled "oh god" under his breath, but she was much too focused on Harry's gaze that was now piercing into hers. "None of your business," he gets out through gritted teeth. 

Y/N is somewhat taken aback, she can clearly see that whoever Elle was, she was a sensitive topic for Harry and immediately tries to backtrack. "Oh, um I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" For the second time that night, Harry interrupts her. "Does anyone want popcorn? We forgot to get some." He stands from the couch, now avoiding Y/N's gaze altogether, and she looks around the room to try and gauge the situation. 

The only one in the room paying her any notice is Sarah, who shares the same empathetic look with her that she had given Harry not two minutes ago. Sarah mouths ‘ex-girlfriend' at Y/N, and it's safe to say she feels awful. While she didn't particularly like Harry, she would never intentionally hurt anyone, and she makes the snap decision to follow him, in order to apologise to him properly. 

When she enters the kitchen, Harry is leaning on the counter facing away from her. His shoulders seem tense, and his hair is dishevelled as if he'd been continuously running his fingers through it.

"Harry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to bring up such a sensitive topic." At her voice, Harry's shoulders seem to hunch further, and he turns around while taking a deep breath, "just drop it yeah? Think you've done enough." 

Y/N didn't think that was fair. She really hadn't known, and if she had, she wouldn't have even thought of mentioning it. "I didn't know Harry. I won't bring her up again." Y/N had grown familiar with the way Harry's accent thickened sometimes. It happened when he was tired or bored. It was most frequently when he was angry, which seemed to be a common occurrence when she was concerned, and now was no exception. "No shit, stop stickin' your nose into other people's business." 

In any other circumstance, Harry might have noticed the way Y/N's eyes instantly started to water, or how she'd retreated and hunched slightly into herself in submission. Harry had noted she was a sensitive little thing, and while he often tried to get on her nerves, when he saw her nose twitch and eyes mist up, he knew to back off. But currently, he could only see red, and the fact Y/N had made no attempt to move, made his fury run even more rampant through his veins. “Fuck off Y/N, I'm not kiddin'. Go back to the living room." 

"But Harry, I-" Y/N attempts to get out, but Harry's raised voice causes her to immediately stop. "I said, fuck off!" At that, Y/N snaps. For weeks, she had been doing nothing but try to please Harry, but there was just no pleasing him. He was arrogant, apathetic to everyone around him, pretentious, stubborn and worst of all, just plain rude. 

"You're a real asshole, you know that. I understand you're upset, and I'm sorry I caused it, but you don't need to treat me like shit,” she sniffles. “I have tried so fucking hard to get on your good side, but I'm done trying. It's time for you to wake up and realise not everyone is going to hurt you like precious Elle clearly did." Y/N expects Harry to do many different things, she prepares for him to begin screaming, perhaps start crying? She briefly wonders if he would go so far as to push her out of the way and storm out of the room. 

Although, one prospect she didn’t consider was for him to start laughing. "Oh Jesus pet, you think you're that special? You think you can even begin to be compared to her? Think I'm scared you'll.. what? Break my heart?" As he continued to speak, the sound of his voice grew as did his rage. The veins on the side of his neck only became more pronounced, and the crease in his brow caused his whole face to contort. 

The increase in volume had caused an audience to gather. Jeff, Sarah and Mitch stand in the kitchen entrance helplessly watching the two rip into each other. Mitch is the first to step in, "Harry c'mon, that's enough." 

"Fuck off Mitch, stay out of it." He turns back to Y/N, "please, sweetheart, save yourself the heartbreak. Have you ever considered that maybe I just don't like you? You're fucking annoying, and your pathetic attempts to get me to like you are even more so. What were you hoping would come from it? I'd ignore the fact you grate on my nerves 24/7 and pay you a bit of attention? Maybe even get you off once or twice? Is that it?"

Sarah is next to attempt to break up the fight, "Y/N don't bother, Harry's just upset."

It took a lot to get Y/N mad. She was usually calm, maybe a bit emotional, but very rarely did she raise her voice. But Harry, with his constant grouching and aggressive nature, had pushed her well and truly past that point. "Save it, Sarah. Are you fucking serious Harry? I was just trying to be a nice person. I'm not sure how to tell you this, but not everybody is trying to get into your pants. Guess you'd be so used to girls throwing themselves at you until they have a fucking conversation with you and see what a dick you actually are." 

He snarls at that, "trust me pet, they're proper gaggin' for it." Y/N scrunches her nose in disgust, "You're fucking disgus-" The quietest of the group is the next to interrupt. "Oh for fucks sake, both of you, shut up!" 

Jeff was usually quietly spoken and hardly ever lost his temper, he was similar to Y/N in that regard. As Harry's manager, he had formed a close relationship with the green-eyed boy over the past few years, and not once had Harry ever heard Jeff raise his voice. So when Jeff yells, even Harry knows it's time to back off. He stays quiet and instead gives Y/N one last lingering glare before retreating upstairs to the safety of his room. 

Y/N can't help but burst into tears. She hated conflict, and would usually avoid it at all costs, but Harry deserved to be put in his place a bit. Immediately, Sarah is at her side, attempting to console her, but it only makes her cry harder. Y/N feels pathetic, she hated crying in front of people, and Jeff and Mitch's lost stares were not helping the situation. Sarah follows Y/N's eye line, "can you both get out for a bit?" Both boys all but run out of the kitchen. Now that they were alone, Y/N allows herself to really cry, hoping a good sobbing session would clear her thoughts and emotions from the situation. 

——

Harry was sad. He was not going to say he was always sad, because, in actual fact, Harry was happy a lot of the time. He could admit he had a good life, filled with love, happiness and fun, but there were some times when joy felt more like a mirage to him, something unattainable. 

And maybe it just wasn’t for him, maybe true happiness wasn’t in his cards. 

He was someone who quickly became obsessed, found solace and comfort in certain things. Sometimes so much so it became a flaw, something he felt he would die if he lived without, and one of those was Elle. 

It used to be his mum, then music, then Niall, then Mitch, then Elle and then... nothing. Harry hadn’t found something or someone he felt he could rely on entirely since her. It seemed now he only had himself, and in his mind, that was a potentially dangerous thing. His mum was miles away, Mitch found his own solace with Sarah, Elle had left him, and Harry had never felt so alone. 

Isolation made it worse, he couldn’t distract himself with performing anymore, with drinking his body weight in alcohol or finding pretty girls who looked eerily similar to his ex, to spend a few hours with. So often he found himself uncontrollably crying, alone in bed. Harry never felt shame in crying, but there was something particularly mortifying about being loved by millions of people worldwide, yet still sobbing into his pillow because his girlfriend had broken up with him. Not only dumped him but had cheated on, destroyed him and ripped his heart into little shreds. 

And that’s where Harry was now. Lying in bed, his pillowcase wet with tears, eyes stinging and red, his cheeks stained and raw from his constant rubbing at them, and his back aching from the occasional sob pulling at the already taut muscles. 

Harry just needed a hug. He needed someone to tell him it was okay, that things would work out because at this point he honestly didn’t know himself. 

——

The next few days in the house are hell. Not just for Harry and Y/N but for everyone stuck isolating in the space. Y/N and Harry refused to talk to each other, only sharing pointed glares. Harry does all he can to piss her off, without ever having to say a word. While out for his regular morning walk to buy coffee, he purposely 'forgets' Y/N's. When it was his night to cook, he plays the English rap that he knew she hated at full volume, while making prawn pasta. Which really wouldn't have been an issue, if Y/N wasn't bloody allergic to seafood. While he claimed to not know, Y/N saw through him. Just the week before she had refused to eat lunch when Jeff had made tuna sandwiches and had clearly explained why. 

Y/N tried not to let it bother her and instead did everything she could to avoid him. When he'd come home with everyone's regular coffee order but hers, she exclaimed she "preferred homemade!" and brewed her own cup. She put in headphones and shut her door in an attempt to drown out the crap he called music. And when Harry had placed a massive bowl of steaming pasta that she couldn't fucking eat in front of her, Y/N smiled and ordered pizza instead. 

Mitch struggled through the week, staying as quiet as he usually was. If he was honest, he wished he was just quarantining with Sarah. He loved Harry but also knew that he could be a dick when he wanted to be. So despite Harry's constant prodding for him to join in on shit-talking Y/N, Mitch tried to stay out of it. 

Sarah spent the days keeping Y/N company. She felt slightly guilty that she had invited her to spend isolation stuck in a house with what happened to be the only person Sarah had ever met, who hated Y/N. Instead, she listened to her rant when Harry couldn't overhear. She baked cookies with her, and they sang shitty pop music at the top of their lungs whenever Harry decided to blast his music.  

Once again, Jeff surprised everyone. While they were used to his calming and genuine presence by now, no one expected him to play peacekeeper. Harry supposes he should've seen it coming, being his manager for four years, meant the guy had to have some kind of problem-solving skills. So Harry promptly nicknames Jeff, 'Switzerland' and despite his denials, Harry knew Jeff secretly loved it. 

Jeff spends the next few days quietly talking to all the other house members like some sort of pseudo spy. And finally, after three long days of combat, by some miracle, convinces both Harry and Y/N to talk out their issues and apologise. 

At first, both Y/N and Jeff agreed he should be in the room to mediate, but upon the request of Harry, he was waiting just outside the door, waiting for any sign of a fight, to run in and play referee. 

So that led them here, with Harry sitting on one end of the couch, oozing with confidence while actually being a mess on the inside, and Y/N on the other, nervously picking at the hem of her jumper. 

Harry is the first to speak, "look Y/N I'm sorry. You were right, Elle's a bit of a sore spot for me, and I overreacted." She nods in acknowledgement before speaking herself, "yeh, I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have pried like I did.” He nods along, still somewhat convinced he wasn’t entirely in the wrong. 

It’s the next question that makes Harry’s blood turn cold, “I just… I just need to ask why? What did I do for you to not like me? It started before last night. Before I mentioned… her.” Y/N scoots around the heartbreaker’s name.  

She watches as Harry bites his lip in what looked like deliberation before he replies, a deep sigh sitting on his pretty lips. “I don’t know. I know that’s a shitty thing to say, I treated you like shit for weeks, but it’s true. I just don’t know.” 

Y/N’s taken aback. Weeks of torture, hatred and tears and he couldn’t even tell her why he’d acted the way he did. “Harry, you can’t be serious. There must be something! You... you were so mean.” 

Y/N watches as tears well in his eyes, and she briefly wonders if she shouldn’t have pushed the topic. “I don’t know, I don’t fuckin’ know.” He lashes out, once again, his anger getting the best of him. 

Y/N throws her hands up in defeat, “I don’t know what you want from me, Harry. I’m trying here I really am, but you won’t give me anything. What do you want me to do?” 

“I know you are,” he all but chokes out. Harry didn’t know how to express himself, a million thoughts were running rampant through his mind, and he felt like if he were to try and speak, he’d have to spend hours detangling each thought from the other like shitty Christmas lights. He takes another deep sigh. He had to try, he knew it wasn’t fair to Y/N. And well, Harry wasn’t exactly happy either, maybe it would help to tell someone how he felt. 

“It’s just when I look at you... I see her. I see her in the clothes you wear and the way you laugh. You look the same for fucks sake, give me the same doe-eyed look and.. she never apologised. Never said a word, I found her in bed with my… with my best mate, and she just fucking left,” he cries out. “And when I first saw you, and you gave me that fuckin’ look I just... I just got so angry.” Harry’s face briefly scrunches in frustration, but it’s quickly overcome with grief. 

He begins to cry harder, his shoulders racking with sobs and Y/N doesn’t know what to do. She sits helplessly, watching the man she very much despised breaking down in front of her, crying previously unshed tears with his head in his hands. 

What was she supposed to do? She wasn’t going to say it was alright because it wasn’t. But god, he looks so pitiful, and Y/N knows what it’s like to have a shitty ex. She knows how painful it is to see them again after they’ve just broken your heart, knows how hard it can be to feel completely, totally and 100% betrayed by someone you loved. 

It wasn’t okay, and Y/N doesn’t know if it ever will be, but seeing Harry, the stubborn, prideful man she’d come to know, breaking down in front of her, well Y/N can hardly stand it. 

So she does the first thing she can think of, the one thing that made her feel better after her own breakup. 

She hugs him. 

She feels him tense up in her arms and for a brief second, Y/N wonders if he’s going to push her away, but instead, he relaxes. Even goes so far as to push into her slightly, allowing himself to rest his head against her chest, with her arms around him like a tantrum-throwing toddler. 

Harry can’t remember the last time he was hugged. Maybe by his mum before the pandemic, probably in a similar situation, crying over Elle in a pathetic attempt to find comfort in anything that wasn’t her arms. 

Harry had returned to LA to record three songs, “it would be two to three weeks max,” Jeff had assured him. But now he was fucking stuck here, in the same place he lived with her, heartbroken in a house with people he loved, but unfortunately would never talk about Elle with. 

Harry missed London. He missed him mum, his sister, the pubs and the tube. He missed hanging out with more mates than he could count, his little writing studio and his cat. Harry missed his own bedroom, his candles that he forgot to pack and his own record collection. Harry missed walking to the little cafe a few streets from his house, he missed the snow. 

But Harry especially missed Elle. 

He missed her cuddles and her sweet little kisses. He missed the way her nose scrunched when he tried to kiss her in public. He missed her laugh and her awful cooking. He missed her book recommendations and her screaming to pop music on the radio. Fuck, he even missed her screaming at him. 

And what a way to make his longing worse, being stuck with the dead ringer of his ex-girlfriend, only to find she was nothing like Elle, which Harry almost hated more. 

Y/N wouldn’t yell at him when he got angry but rather cry, her tears always sending a sharp pain to his chest. And Y/N didn’t pretend nothing worried her or upset her, she was open and honest. When Harry hurt her, he knew, not because she ignored him or called him a prat. No, he knew because she told him, even if it was with tears streaming down her face and a few “assholes” mixed in there. Y/N didn’t call Harry’s hobbies stupid, she liked them too, even had her own silly ones herself. She enjoyed baking, doing puzzles, and reading out loud to herself. She liked Disney movies and hated horror and loved cider but not beer. 

And Harry found himself not hating her at all, but rather himself. Because somehow, within his heartbreak, he had managed to become attracted to someone who looked and acted exactly like his ex on the surface but was someone completely different in every other way. He couldn’t treat her like Elle, couldn’t pretend she’d hurt him just as bad, and he knew that.

No, Y/N was a completely new risk and a new potential heartbreak. Harry was terrified, and this new territory that at first felt so familiar, made his chest ache and his tummy flutter, so he avoided it altogether. Pushed her away before anything could even happen at all, for his own good, to protect a heart that couldn’t take being broken again.

The two of them sat there for what felt like hours. Until Harry’s sobs slowed themselves down, and he was only shivering and sniffling quietly. Y/N continued to hold him, it seemed like he just really needed to be held.

Elle had clearly broken his heart, and Y/N knew that a part of healing was letting this anger and emotion run rampant. So she stayed put, allowing him to just sit in the sadness, and allow himself to feel a little bit of hope that everything would work out eventually. 

“It’s okay Harry. It’s going to be okay.” 

——

Y/N wasn’t sure this was a good idea. How could it be? Not even a few days ago, she and Harry couldn’t stand being in the same room as each other, and now they were alone in a car, on their way to the grocery store. It all felt too domestic.

But this was Harry, and she definitely shouldn’t be worried about the state of her car, or how to subtly remove the McDonalds wrapping on the floor in front of his feet. Just as Harry, after being handed the aux cord, probably shouldn’t have spent half the journey wondering if she liked the song that was playing and looking out of the corner of his eye to judge whether he should skip it or not. 

But here they were, walking on eggshells around each other. Hoping they both wouldn’t do something to accidentally piss off the other. 

If you’d told Harry a week ago that he would be on the way to the grocery store with Y/N by his side, he probably would’ve laughed and faked a gag. But Harry was actually the one who had suggested the trip, much to the surprise of not only Y/N but the rest of the housemates. 

They hadn’t exactly addressed his breakdown, but it seemed they’d both come to a mutual understanding to try and put the past behind them. Harry considered himself lucky, he knew he had caused and furthered the rift in their friendship, and it was because of this he knew he had to put more effort into building the trust between them back up. 

So, when Y/N was recounting the ingredients for the dinner she was planning on making, Harry had asked if she’d just come to save him remembering the long list. Y/N’s first thought was she could probably just write it down for him before she realised he was actually trying to be nice. And that was more than she could say for the last month of her living with him, so she agreed.

The grocery store was busy, filled with impatient mothers and fun-drunk teens, and Y/N was having trouble pushing the cart through the throngs of people. Harry was walking ahead of her, too preoccupied with his list (and she supposes himself) to notice her struggle and she’s never been one to ask for help. So instead tries her best to avoid the ankles of other shoppers and attempts to keep up with the cracking pace Harry had set. 

It’s only when he turns around to find her ten feet behind him, does Harry acknowledge her, his eyebrows pinched in annoyance, “what’s taking you so bloody long?” To say Y/N was taken aback would be an understatement. After everything, he’d manage to stay friendly for what, half a day?

“Excuse me? Doing so well at being friendly Harry, might want to pull it back, before I get the wrong impression.” 

Maybe it was Y/N’s sarcastic words that pulled Harry back, or perhaps he realised himself, but he really hadn't meant to be rude. At first, it was more of a joke, but he guessed that he’d become so accustomed to being snarky with Y/N, it’d come out a lot more maliciously than he’d intended.

“Fuck, what? No- I didn’t mean it like that. I was tryin’ to joke, but it came out wron- Fuck! I’m sorry, okay?” Somewhere in the middle of Harry’s rambling, Y/N starts to giggle. While she had taken it the wrong way, she was mature enough to understand she’d simply interpreted it wrong. 

“Harry relax, look like you're about to pass out. Sorry I took it the wrong way,” she shrugs, “now, where are the pickles? I’ve been craving them for weeks.” Harry’s slightly taken aback, he’d never met someone who could put an extremely valid argument behind them with such ease. 

Harry wouldn’t have blamed Y/N if she’d gotten angry with him, stomped her feet, made a fuss and yelled in his face, after all, he had spoken to her like a prick. But just like that, she had defused the argument and made Harry feel better instantly, even though he was in the wrong. Nonetheless, he follows her through the isles, making sure to help her steer the trolley when the crowd was busiest. 

Harry had actually started to enjoy himself on this trip, he wasn’t going to lie. Y/N had an easy going way about her that he hadn’t really bothered to notice before. It made it easy to chat about nonsensical things, including Harry’s first dog and his preferred brand of nail polish while they peruse the aisles. He was doing all he could to make sure the rest of the trip didn’t contain any silly arguments like the one that had almost sparked just ten minutes before, and he believes he was doing a good job. 

After stopping by the fruit aisle for some cherries (they were in season, and there was no way Y/N was missing out on the tiny period they were in season for, even if they were ridiculously overpriced,) they reach the aisle that contains pickles. Finally, Y/N had been craving them for weeks, and nothing could stop her now, not even the fact that they were on the top shelf. Y/N’s brows pinch in annoyance, who put pickles that high up anyway? 

She halfheartedly sticks her hand in the air, her fingers barely brushing against the bottom of the jar before looking behind her, watching Harry laughing at her struggle. “Are you going to help me or just keep that smug smile on your face?” 

This makes Harry’s smirk upturn even more, turning into a full boyish grin, dimples and all. “Say please sweetheart, and I might just consider it.” 

Y/N rolls her eyes, “please,” and although it is sarcastic and hardly genuine Harry takes it, walking over and reaching for the last jar of pickles. 

What happens next could be blamed on many different factors; the humidity in the supermarket being higher than the average store, it could be blamed on Harry’s sweaty fingers or maybe even the worker who decided to put them on the top shelf in the first place. 

Whatever the fault, Harry grabs the container and almost delivers it safely to the cart, until it slips from his grip and instead ends in a puddle of shattered glass, stray pickles and dripping juice. And of fucking course it’s the last jar, and of fucking course it’s Harry who drops it, right in front of the girl who’s been craving them for so long. 

Harry is almost scared to look up at Y/N’s face, knowing he was more than likely going to be met with a pouting, red, furious mix. She really had been talking about the fucking pickles for weeks, and after both Jeff and Sarah had forgotten to get them in the last two shopping trips, he can imagine her desperation.

It’s as if time was working in slow motion, Harry sees the residue pickle juice dripping from the handle of the shopping trolley, can feel his sock getting progressively wetter as the liquid seeps into his canvas sneaker. And Harry immediately starts to apologise, “fuck I’m so sorr-“ but is interrupted by Y/N manically laughing. Well, he had expected a lot of different reactions, but he hadn’t expected… laughter?

“How did that even happen,” she gets out through her laughter, “you’re an idiot!” Harry can’t help but join in. He was covered in pickle juice, and in hindsight, the situation was pretty funny. “Oi, ‘s not my fault the jar was more slippery than the average.” This only makes Y/N cackle harder, holding her stomach as though it was hurting. 

“Hold on, I’ll get something to clean it up.” As Harry watches Y/N walk away, probably to find a worker, he can’t help but think again how different Y/N was from Elle. Harry distinctly remembers shopping with her one Christmas and accidentally dropping the last box of red and white candy canes (what can he say, he can be a right clutz.) She had been shaking with fury, voice dripping with poison as she asked Harry why he was “such a fucking idiot?” He guesses she was stressed because of the time of the year, but Harry had always hated her vicious temper, which Y/N apparently lacked. 

Harry had only really seen Y/N angry or upset until now, but he could safely assume that was of his own doing. When they were getting along, she seemed to make him feel better without even trying. She could laugh despite herself, and poke fun at Harry without feeling like she was actually reprimanding him for something, and Harry, well he hadn’t really experienced that before.

Harry sees Y/N returning, with what looks to be a less than impressed worker following behind her. That is until she sees Harry standing there in all his six-foot glory, covered in pickle juice. 

She seemed to be around 20, with blonde hair braided into two plaits that sat around her neck. She had bright green eyes, and if she was a little older, Harry probably would have said she was cute. And by the looks of it, she would’ve revelled in such treatment, when she approaches Harry with a, “I’m so sorry, Mr Styles!” Harry waves off the apology, he had been the one to drop the pickles anyway. “No worries love, ‘m sorry bout’ the mess.” 

It’s like her eyes brighten two shades at the pet name as she begins to sweep up the broken glass, blushing as she does, “oh don’t even worry! Can see you made a mess of yourself as well.” Y/N can’t help but laugh, was she actually trying to flirt with a pickle stained Harry? He catches Y/N laughing behind the worker and grins, “sure did. I’m a bit of a clutz sometimes.” 

Now, Harry knew that his personality was very likeable, he was easy to talk to, and he wasn’t exactly bad to look at, so he was somewhat used to casual flirting. Who was he to pull up someone trying to shoot their shot? Usually, he preferred to go along with it, stay polite and at the end of the interaction, cut the conversation before anything serious came of it. And the girl (Hannah, according to her name tag) standing in front of him, cleaning his mess, was no exception. 

“Can see that,” she winks. Actually, fucking winks and Harry can’t help but feel slightly smug, his presumption had clearly been correct. He doesn’t see the harm in playing along, “oh can you? Thought customer service was all about being nice to the customer,” he teases lightly. Hannah giggles flirtatiously and if Harry thought she was blushing before, his effect on her is multiplied. “I’m nice, I promise!” 

Y/N almost gags, she hated PDA at the best of times, but to see them both drooling over each other made her feel sick to her stomach. Harry’s smooth reply does nothing to quell her nausea, “mhm, I bet.” Y/N would literally rather walk home than be subjected to this torture any longer. “Okay! Thanks again for being so understanding, c’mon Harry, we better get going.” 

Harry thanks the server again, giving her a small wave and a cheeky grin as he follows Y/N to the counter to check out their items. “Really, Harry? She looked about 15 years younger than you.” Harry scoffs, “fifteen years?! You think she was twelve, do you? How old do you think I am?” 

Y/N doesn’t hesitate to respond, “old enough to know better than to flirt with someone so young.” 

He couldn’t believe she was pulling this. Harry was a flirty person naturally! He never meant anything by it, and very well knew when it was appropriate and when it definitely wasn’t. He didn’t see how a little friendly conversation could hurt in this situation. “Oh please, she was at least twenty, and I was hardly flirtin’” As the worker is scanning their items, Y/N is packing them into the reusable shopping bags. “Still gross.” 

Was Y/N jealous? For a second, Harry felt the frustration swim through his veins like poison, but the knowledge of Y/N potentially acting out of envy acts as an antidote. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous lovey.” It was Y/N’s turn to scoff. If she’s honest, she’s not sure why the sight of Harry flirting with the server annoyed her so much. She was young, but Harry was right, she was very clearly of age and also stunning. 

Maybe it was the fact she hadn’t acknowledged Y/N with more than an eye roll but readily grovelled at Harry’s feet. It could’ve been leftover frustration from the pickles she would have to hold out from for another week. Or maybe it was that she didn’t like him calling someone else ‘love.’ Perhaps she was just frustrated that it had taken her months for Harry to be civil with her, but had taken ‘Hannah’ all but five minutes. Whatever the reason, she didn’t like the pit in her stomach or the tingling in the tips of her fingers. “Not a chance, Harry.” 

Harry just smiled in response, while Y/N felt waves of negative emotions rolling through her, he felt butterflies erupting from the pit of his tummy, a small fluttering reaching all the way to his heart. Harry was ready to admit, Y/N’s jealousy made him happy. He was a narcissist; that he knew, and a pretty girl getting frustrated that his attention wasn’t purely focused on her, made his vain little heart soar. 

This little shopping expedition had given both of them huge revelations. Harry realised, the thought of Y/N being jealous over him made him extremely happy, and maybe even gave him some new spank bank material? Y/N realised that while she and Harry could be civil, it didn’t mean they didn’t know the exact places to poke and prod at each other to cause a reaction. 

——

It was Y/N's turn to pick a card, and although she'd initially been hesitant to play this game, she could admit she was having fun. When Harry had first pulled out 'Truth, Dare or Drink,' her first instinct was to ridicule him and say, "I didn't realise we were still in eighth grade," but she bit her tongue. After the supermarket, she still felt like she was continually filtering everything she said, worried a single word may be the negative turning point for their relationship. 

And well, after a few rounds, Y/N realised the game was much too risky for a bunch of eighth-graders and found some questions too intrusive even for her adult self to answer. However, with the help of at least half a bottle of chardonnay, she found herself managing just fine. Jeff had called it a night a few rounds ago, claiming he was "getting too old for this shit," but it didn't stop the rest of the group from playing.  

"Okay, ask the player to your left what their favourite sex position is. If they can't answer- both of you drink four sips." Immediately, Y/N turns to Sarah, who happens to be sitting on her left and also happens to be bright red. With a quick, "come on babe, all friends here," from Harry, Sarah buries her head in her hands before mumbling, "from behind." The answer causes an eruption of giggles and hollers from the very tipsy group and a sly smirk from Mitch, making Y/N laugh harder. 

"Alright shut up you lot," Sarah grumbles before picking up her own card. "Dare one player to share their best and worst hookup, or both of you finish your drinks. Okay, well the only one mean enough to name and shame would be Harry, so off you go H." This is met with a disgruntled, "oi" from the man in question and a casual "not wrong," from Mitch. While Harry huffs, he seems to have no issue and responds immediately, almost like he had the answer on the tip of his tongue. 

"Best was Elle, obviously. And worst, um," he deliberates for a few seconds before continuing, "was this guy I met in Brazil, he was awful! Didn't even prep my poor arse, just went straight in for the kill. Was scarred for months." He's met with roaring laughter, and at first, he tries to look pissed but ends up giggling along with them. While his poor bum really had taken a beating that night, in hindsight it was a funny sex horror story for a drunken night. "C'mon Mitchy boy, your turn." 

Mitch picks up the card and immediately scoffs, "This one's to all players, take two sips if you have ever been attracted to someone else currently playing this game." Unsurprisingly both Mitch and Sarah drink, sending cheeky winks over their cups to each other. But what shocks every player at the table is both Y/N and Harry lifting their glasses. They make eye contact with each other as they are sipping and Harry raises a questioning eyebrow towards her. 

Y/N quickly looks over to Sarah, to see her sitting with her own bewildered look, glancing between them. She had known Y/N enjoyed Harry's music, but maybe didn't know how much she also fancied him- that is until she had a conversation with him. 

"So you've either had the hots for me, my girlfriend or the chick you hate, nice H," a very inebriated Mitch says with a laugh. If Y/N hadn't already been watching him, she might have missed the flash of guilt that flickers through Harry's eyes. He looks over at her with an apologetic look, "I never said I hated-" 

"It's fine, Harry. Just pick a card, it's your turn." Y/N interrupts him, she wasn’t going to lie and say that it didn’t sting. However, while she knew they'd come to a newfound understanding, Y/N was well aware that it had initially come from Harry's resentment of her. He sighs but picks up a card anyway, pausing some, a slight blush appearing on his cheeks, before reading it aloud. "Uh... give the person to your left a hickey, or finish your drink." At first, Y/N laughs until she realises that the person sitting to his left would be her. 

In an attempt to lighten the situation, Y/N spits out, "go on, start drinking then." Mitch and Sarah start to laugh, "I could've called that one," Sarah chuckles, but Harry looks rather unimpressed. While she actually didn't care if Harry were to give her a hickey, (let's be real he was a dick, but a hot one at that!) she knew he would be thoroughly put out by it. They had become civil, not ‘drunkenly-give-one-another-a-hickey’ level friends.

"I'm not the one with the problem. I doubt he'd wanna kiss on the girl he hates." Y/N had meant it to be a joke, she really had! But the underlying biting tone would be almost impossible to miss. She was definitely playing with fire here, knowing Harry could snap at any moment. She watches as Harry's nostrils flare slightly before he bites back, "no problem here, you're just scared you'd enjoy it too much sweetheart." At that Y/N scoffs, his arrogance never ceased to amaze her, "oh please, don't give yourself so much credit, Harry."  

He laughs, "are you saying you wouldn't?"

"Almost certain of it," she quickly retaliates. Now, Harry knew he was a dick. He knew he could be impatient and rude. Was aware of his short temper and sometimes biting passive-aggressiveness. Had been well informed of his bad habit of sometimes oversharing and even bragging too much. Even knew how annoying his constant discussion of the superiority of salads to veggies could get on the nerves of those around him. 

But the one thing Harry knew for sure, was that he was good at fucking. He loved to see the person he was with, shaking with pleasure below him. Thoroughly enjoyed giving his partner everything he had, to hear them screaming his name with their eyes rolled back in pleasure. Harry liked having sex, and on account of others, Harry was fucking good at it. So Y/N sitting there, doubting he could make her feel all amazing and jittery, probably pissed him off more than it should have. 

"Fucking c' mere then." While Harry had merely said that in the heat of the moment (and possibly to get a rise out of Y/N) he was beyond shocked when she actually got up and stood before him. "I'm here. Now what smartass?" His jaw ticks and he raises an eyebrow, silently questioning Y/N's challenge. Did she really want to get involved in this? Surely she knew Harry would come out victorious. Apparently not, because she crosses her arms and scoffs, "knew you were all talk." 

Now Y/N doesn't want to admit she's intimidated because god this was Harry she was thinking about. However, when he grips her arms, flips her around and pushes her back into the chair he was just occupying, Y/N can't exactly say she's fine and dandy. 

Harry was much taller than her when they were both standing up, but with her sitting down, he towers above her, and she can't help but feel childlike and demure. His shit-eating grin only grows when he sees that, and he slowly bends down until his cologne infiltrates Y/N's nostrils and fills her head with a fog she can't quite get rid of. "What was that, darling?" 

Y/N is willing herself to say anything, literally anything that wouldn't fuel his already raging ego. If she's honest the barely mumbled, "um, nothing," doesn't really cut it, but what was she to do? Before she'd met Harry, Y/N probably would've considered his looks to be something akin to her ‘dream guy.' So, when he places his hands on each armrest beside her, essentially trapping her, it doesn't exactly help to calm her nerves. Harry oozed sex, and if the look in his eye was anything to go off, he knew it. 

As his face becomes level with hers, Y/N can smell the sweet apple cider he had been drinking and can feel the bottom of his unbuttoned shirt brushing against the tops of her thighs. And for the second time that month, Y/N wonders if she should move away from the compromising position she and Harry had found themselves in, but she once again decides against it. Harry places his hand against the side of her neck, hooking his thumb under her jaw. He encourages her to move her head further to the side with some gentle pressure, which she happily obliges to. 

Y/N can't help but inhale sharply when she feels his slightly chilled lips gently brush against her earlobe, before placing a tender kiss behind her ear. "Is this okay?" If Y/N were in a better headspace, she might have tried to play this whole thing off with an indifferent nod. Instead, she feels herself nodding rapidly, and takes a moment to curse herself as she feels Harry's lips curl into a grin at her eagerness. 

Harry allows his lips to run down the side of Y/N's neck so lightly he knew it must be tickling her. Once he reaches her collarbone, he places a quick peck against it before once again trailing his lips up her soft skin, leaving light kisses in his wake. Y/N's breathing stops as she feels Harry's tongue touching her skin as he begins his ascent, leaving a chilling trail that sends shivers through her whole body. 

She feels herself slipping into a hazy state, in which all control was given to Harry, and while her first instinct is to break it, her second is to bask in it. Her decision is hastily rewarded when Harry starts to suction his lips against her. 

Y/N actively silences the whimper that arises from her throat as Harry continues to bruise the skin he kisses, and she briefly wonders if he had heard the beginnings of her mewl as he chuckles, sending a gust of cold hair down her neck. Harry gently bites down on Y/N's throat, which causes a small sting, the aftershocks travelling all the way down to her toes. But his tongue laving over the mark works to quickly soothe the ache. 

While she felt as if she had sat feeling the effect of Harry's mouth for hours, it had only been about ten seconds in reality. But the familiar pull in Y/N's lower stomach screams at her to ignore time, grab his shirt and push her mouth against his. However, the cough heard from behind her, quells these dirtier thoughts almost immediately. And just like that, as quickly as it had come, the pleasuring warmth Harry provided was gone. 

Y/N struggles to flutter her eyes back open, that she hadn't realised had even closed in the first place. 

Well, she wasn't expecting that, and while she assumed Harry would feel the same, his deep smirk tells her something different. He looks at her with a hunger in his eyes, and she briefly wonders if he felt the same pull towards her. Y/N was fighting the urge to drag him to the nearest bedroom and instead clears her throat and looks behind her to assess Mitch and Sarah's reactions. 

Safe to say, they were as shocked as she was, with gaping mouths and wide eyes, everyone sits in silence for what feels like far too long. Y/N was embarrassed. Usually, she hated PDA, yet she'd just let Harry suck on her neck like some kind of B-grade vampire in front of her cousin and her boyfriend. 

Y/N stands back up to move around to her own chair, but with her head down, she misses Harry reaching to brush his knuckles against her own, but only feels the comforting touch. Harry watches as she refuses to meet his eye, and while he enjoyed himself, he hoped he hadn't gone too far with her. But when Sarah grabs her head and pulls it to the side to see the blooming mark on Y/N's skin, Harry can't help but smirk and feel slightly proud. Y/N had said she was okay with him touching her, maybe she was just flustered, and if her bright red cheeks were anything to go by, that's Harry's safest guess. "Jesus H, you really did a number on her." 

Y/N refused to acknowledge the effect Harry had instilled upon her, but she can feel her cheeks radiating a cherry-red heat, and she can only pray no one else notices. "Uh, it's my turn," she manages to choke out, and a quick glance at Harry shows she's not hiding her flustered state as well as she'd hoped. His dimples are on full display, decorated with his complacent grin, and he's sitting back in his chair, arms crossed over one another. 

"Pick the most attractive player, both of you take three sips," you've got to be fucking joking, she was pretty sure everyone knew her answer to that, but she refused to give him the satisfaction. "It's Sarah. Who's next?" Sarah cheers' Y/N's glass and takes her sips as she grabs the next card. 

Y/N can see Harry's disgruntled look and can vaguely hear his murmured, "bullshit," but she only sends him a glare as she takes her three sips. 

——

Harry was drunk. No cut that, he was fucked. It was approximately six ciders ago that he began to feel light and giggly. And then maybe two or so ciders ago he began to have trouble walking in a straight line and was genuinely considering shaving his head. And now, he was here. Planted on the couch watching Y/N and Sarah sing some song he definitely knew but couldn't name, Taylor Swift maybe? 

His head felt heavy, and if he was honest, thoughts were entering his head and then leaving it before he could even acknowledge what they were. He can vaguely recognise Mitch's voice, talking about something that Harry, no matter how hard he tried, could actually listen to. So he sits on the couch and watches Y/N. She looked pretty with her hair down and messy, and Harry wishes he could stop her from dancing and ask if she could just sit next to him instead. But he thinks he's probably just drunk and maybe a bit lonely, so he doesn't. 

He's not sure if he was calling Y/N's name and hadn't realised or if she had noticed how not okay he seemed, but she approaches him anyway. "Harry, are you alright?" She looks worried, and Harry hates that he's made her feel that. He's tempted to use his thumb to mould the lines in her forehead back out like cheap clay, but he's not sure she'd want him to touch her. So he nods lightly, attempting a smile, but she doesn't return it. 

"Sarah, I'm gonna take Harry up to bed, he seems pretty gone." Harry doesn't hear Sarah's response because he's too busy focusing on Y/N's lips and how pretty and puffy they are. He briefly wonders what they'd feel like around the head of his cock, but he's drawn out of those thoughts when he realises she's calling his name. 

"Harry, c'mon, come upstairs to bed with me." Um, had Harry missed something? He doesn't really mind, truthfully he'd quite like to take Y/N upstairs and have his way with her, but, Y/N must see the look on his face because she laughs, "not like that you lecher! God, you really are pissed." 

Harry smiles and takes the hand she's giving him, wrapping his arm around her shoulders for stability. The group had experienced quite a few drunken nights during isolation, but Y/N had never seen Harry this intoxicated before and while she's quite enjoying him acting kind of goofy, she's just praying he doesn't vomit on her during their climb upstairs. 

Y/N does her best to guide Harry to his room, who provides absolutely no help, only giggling to himself as she struggles to hold him up. Finally, she makes it, only realising once she had stepped inside, that she had never actually seen Harry's room before. 

Similarly to Y/N’s, his room has the shell of a guest bedroom, the art on the walls a little too unpersonalised and the furniture stark and white. The bones of the room are fleshed out with Harry’s belongings, clearly in random places that were not permanent, as if he’d placed his records and guitar down the first day he got there, and left them in those exact same places. There are dirty clothes strewn upon the floor, and books sitting next to glasses stacked neatly on the bedside table. Next to them, is a candle that Y/N can’t read the scent of from her position in the doorway, something sweet from the smell permeating through the room, mixing intoxicatingly with Harry’s telltale sandalwood like cologne. 

Harry stands in the middle of the room, clearly having forgotten his purpose as he turns to look back at Y/N with a slightly lost expression. "Want to get into bed Harry?" He nods and stumbles over to his mattress, falling rather than laying in it. As Y/N's about to turn around to go back downstairs, she hears Harry's voice, much quieter than it usually is, "I'm sorry." She's not sure if she heard him correctly. 

"What did you say, Harry?"

"I'm sorry." He whispers. 

"For what?" Y/N knows what he could be sorry for, he did treat her like shit for weeks, but they’d already apologised and somewhat buried the hatchet. "For bein' a dick. You don't deserve it, never did." She walks closer to him, until she stands about a foot from the bed, and can see Harry's eyes full of sorrow and close to tears in the dark. 

"Come on, you're just drunk. If you want to talk about it more in the morning, we can." Y/N knows he'll forget by then, she's not sure he even remembers what he just said. He holds his hand out to her, and she hesitantly takes it, "ya just look so much like her, you know? Act like her too." Harry repeats the same words he’d told you yesterday. 

"Who, Harry?" 

He looks at her with his big green eyes, and she knows he's drunk, and she knows he'll forget this all in the morning, but she can't help but sit down beside him on the bed. 

"Elle." 

Y/N didn’t know what to say to that. She didn’t want Harry to burst into tears again, the topic clearly sensitive, let alone in his intoxicated state. So she stays silent, watches as Harry shuts his eyes, and Y/N nearly thinks he’s fallen asleep, until he reopens them again, "nicer than her though. Prettier too." 

Y/N's not going to lie, hearing Harry talk about her in a way that wasn't entirely negative for once was flattering, but she couldn't help but feel it was more the cider talking. She knew how much he missed Elle, that much was obvious, and she had thought that was what had made him hate her so much. She was worried he would wake up angry that he had told her things he hadn't intended to, or even worse, something he hadn't meant. 

So she leans over him to grab the side of the bedsheet he had torn away, but his freezing hand on her neck causes her to pause. His thumb is lightly brushing over the mark he left on her earlier, and Y/N audibly swallows. He was close enough that he could lean in slightly and press his lips against the same spot once more, but he doesn't, only whispers, "looks so good on you." Y/N feels his warm breath against her bare neck as he speaks, causing that pull to return to her lower stomach once more, "H, I don't think we should do this right now." 

Y/N didn’t know what exactly ‘this’ was, she just knew she didn’t want either of them to be intoxicated when it happened. The Harry Y/N knew, would pull back, laugh and ask if she really thought he'd ever want to do 'this' with her, but this intoxicated and unpredictable Harry presses his lips softly to her neck once, before pulling back and sighing. "I know." 

He studies her face carefully before speaking again. "You've never called me H before, I like it." Y/N sighs, "honestly I didn't think we were on that level. Thought you'd get mad at me," she laughs lightly although what she said was true. 

She had thought about adopting the same nickname everyone else in the house used but was too scared he would make fun of her or ask her why she felt she had the right to call him that. So she played it safe, only calling him Harry, but she guessed the nickname slipped out while he was very much inebriated and very much unlikely to say any word of opposition. 

If Y/N didn't know any better, she'd think Harry looked almost hopeful as he whispered, "so we are now?" but the expression is fleeting. She wants to feed into it but isn't sure if it's more her mind playing tricks on her. Showing her things she desperately wants to be true, only to turn around a reveal it was fake the whole time. So she shrugs, "I don't know Harry." 

He nods slowly but doesn't say anything else. "Try to get some sleep." He nods again, "night." 

"Night H." 

——

Harry doesn't know what happened. Had he been drugged? Used as a voodoo doll? Abducted by aliens? Something had happened, because when he woke up with a pounding head, his first feeling was disappointment. But not disappointment about having to nurse a shocking hangover, no, it was disappointing that Y/N wasn't in bed with him. He could’ve sworn she had come upstairs with him. 

Harry was slowly coming to terms with the fact that he didn't hate her and perhaps, just maybe had developed a small crush towards her. But wishing she was cuddling him after a drunken night? That was too close to something serious, something that Harry was definitely not ready for. Not after Elle. 

Walking down the stairs, he wonders if there's a reason for his sudden desperation? He vaguely remembers giving her a hickey, but that was a part of the game. He remembers Y/N walking into his room and sitting on his bed, but can’t recall what was actually said. 

Stepping into the kitchen, feels the same as usual, maybe with added head pain. Mitch is doing the dishes from the breakfast sitting on the table in front of Y/N and Sarah. Everything seems painfully familiar. Except, looking at Y/N now, with sober goggles and daylight, Harry completely understands why drunk him was so enamoured. She looks beautiful, with an oversized tee-shirt barely covering her smooth legs, her hair in a messy bun atop her head, and the striking hickey against her neck painfully obvious. Seeing Y/N with his mark against her neck makes Harry have to will his stiffy away. She hadn't even tried to hide it.

Harry doesn't know how long he'd been standing in the entrance of the kitchen, staring at Y/N like a creep, but she catches his eye and sends him a shy smile. "Mornin' H, brekkies on the table," Mitch states, as Harry quickly returns the smile Y/N gave him and sits across from her, "looks good, man. Thanks for cooking." 

Harry is slightly shocked when Y/N speaks up from the other side of the table, he had been expecting her to ignore him like she had after he’d given her the mark that was causing a tingle in his lower tummy. "How's your head?" She says softly. 

He gives her a small grin, "it's been better if'm honest." She laughs, "yeh, you were pretty fucked last night." Harry can't tell if she's genuinely just making conversation or if she's trying to figure out if he remembered the events that occurred. "Was I? Not too drunk to remember giving you that," he points at her neck with his syrup covered fork. His words have their desired effect as Y/N turns bright red, "really does look good on you love." 

Harry's not sure what he's doing, he's aware of how flirty he is being. While they were now able to be around each other and have a conversation without biting each other’s heads off, hitting on each other was a whole different ball game. All he knows is that the more he looks at Y/N, the more he wants to get on his knees before her. 

Harry had never flirted so openly with Y/N before. What the fuck was he playing at? Y/N had assumed that Harry became a tad clingy and loving with a few drinks in his system. So as he sits across from her, dead sober, and continues to flirt with her, Y/N is confused. Maybe he was still drunk? Had he taken something she wasn't aware of? Been probed in the middle of the night? She wasn't sure, but she couldn't say she didn't like it. 

She also didn't want to get too comfortable, only for him to turn around and treat her as horribly as he had when she first got here. So she gives him a small smile and continues to eat her breakfast, merely listening to the conversations happening around her. 

——

No matter how hard she tried, Y/N could not get the thought of Harry off her mind. Could still feel the ghost of his lips trailing along her neck, and the way his hand brushed along hers. She couldn’t help but imagine the way his lips would feel pressing softly against her own, his tongue licking into her mouth. She imagines his hands to be soft but still firm as they held her hips, her neck, her own fingers laced in his. His voice replays in her head, and she wonders how his accent would twirl and twist around filthy words, whispered into the shell or her ear. 

 She can't forget how she felt hearing the lilt of his voice when it was flirting with someone else. Can’t get away from the pit in her stomach, the aching head and chest. She had laid awake for so many nights trying to figure out why exactly it had bothered her so much. 

She could only amount it all to a certain type of jealousy, but what was she jealous of? Harry had never shown her any sort of romantic attention before, that is until he was suckling at her neck and calling her sweetheart. But what did it all mean? Did he feel the same pull towards her, or was she just imagining his sudden fondness of her? Did she actually like him, or just the idea of his lips pressed against hers rather than her neck. She needed to talk to someone, and thank goodness for her, Sarah was home. 

Ever since they were little Sarah and Y/N had been ridiculously close. They had experienced each stage of their lives together, from playing at the local playground to trying their first cigarette in the bathroom of Sarah’s family home. Sarah was the big sister that Y/N had never had, always there for advice or a bit of fun. Teaching her about sex and drinking, what it was like to kiss another person or drive a car for the first time. Sarah explained everything with practiced expertise that looking back on, Y/N could see she definitely didn’t have at the time.  

Their family homes were only a road apart, and every day either Y/N or Sarah would make the small trek to each other’s house and spend hours discussing nothing and everything. Sarah was the closest thing Y/N had ever had to a sibling, and after Sarah had left for tour with Harry and the band, Y/N had felt a Sarah sized hole in her heart. Honestly, for Y/N, quarantine felt like a blessing in disguise, she felt like they could make up for the months of lost time and distance between them. 

In search of her cousin, Y/N only comes across Mitch reading in the living room, “hey, do you know where Sarah is?” He glances at Y/N from above his book, owlishly blinking as if he was confused, and maybe he was. Mitch is well known for getting lost in anything he loves, from books and movies and especially in his music. “Um, the shower… I think?” 

Bidding him thanks, Y/N heads towards the downstairs toilet where she could hear the water running. While they all had bathrooms in their rooms, they’d found the downstairs communal shower particularly helpful. It was easy to slip into after they’d just come back from swimming at the beach or a run, without mucking salt water or sweat through the whole house. Y/N knew Sarah had gone out for a jog about an hour ago, so had no doubt she was having a quick wash before dinner. 

If it were anybody else, Y/N would’ve waited until they had finished, but ever since they were thirteen or so, Y/N and Sarah had an odd tradition of having intense conversations while one of them was showering. Y/N still remembers the week Sarah’s parents had decided to split up, she had spent every night sitting on the closed toilet seat crying and ranting while Y/N stood under the hot water, listening and trying her best to comfort her. It was a weird habit of theirs, but for them, the chance to chat with someone without having to look them in the eye was therapeutic, almost like a church confessional. 

Although Y/N was relatively happy, she wasn’t about to enter a religious confessional. When it came to Harry, she had definitely committed at least four of the seven mortal sins. No, it was just Sarah, and Y/N knew that no matter what she admitted, it would be received with love and unconditional support. So she charges through the bathroom door, eager to spill all that was muddling up her mind, “Sarah! We need to talk about Harry, I need your help.” 

Y/N expects Sarah’s tinkling laugh, soothing cooing, maybe even a big sigh and her calming voice asking her what was wrong. Instead, she is met with the deep and drawling laugh of Harry himself. 

Looking back now, Y/N wishes she could say she dealt with her mistake with careful grace and poise, but instead she lets out a bloodcurdling scream, and as she sees the shower curtain drawn to the left she slaps her hands over her eyes. The melodic laugh of Harry’s continues as he clearly notices her current predicament, “can look if you want babe.” 

Y/N whines, “I- um, no. I don’t- I thought you were Sarah. What the fuck is happening.” Y/N can hear the smirk in Harry’s voice as he answers, “yeh Y/N, I got that. Seriously, I’m covered up.” 

And maybe, it would’ve been better for Y/N to stay standing with her hands over her eyes like a petulant child because as she drops them, the sight she’s met with is one to behold and one Y/N’s not sure she can handle. Harry is covered with the shower curtain pulled across his bottom half, but Y/N trails her eyes upwards, sees the small trail of slightly damp hair leading down to the white curtain, and her eyes widen comically, he looks like a wet dream and Y/N’s not sure how to react. 

His curls are stuck to his neck and forehead, matted against the soft wet skin. His naturally tanned chest is on display, dripping with water, and covered in his tattoos. Y/N can’t help but notice the inked swallows along his chest, drawing attention to his collarbones, the skin taught against the bone, and Y/N wants to kiss along it and taste the mix of salt and sweetness of his neck. The butterfly covering his abs ripples as he clears his throat, drawing Y/N’s attention away from his body. 

“So what did you need to talk to Sarah about, hm?” Anything I can help you with?” Y/N can feel the blood rush to her cheeks, fully aware that Harry had caught her ogling at his partially naked body. Her tongue feels heavy in her mouth, and she’s not sure whether it’s from the sight in front of her or the embarrassment of being caught staring at it. 

Y/N stutters, trying to force herself to say something, anything at all that would make this situation less unnerving “um, I-no?” Which comes out more like a question than anything, and Y/N curses herself for her weak resolve. Harry smirks, “Cat got your tongue pet?” Y/N hates how easily he can get her worked up, and hates it even more how obvious it is to him. “Stop teasing me! I can’t, you know, I don’t-... you’re naked okay!” 

Harry’s dimples deepen, and a smirk takes over a little less than half of his face, “don’t pretend you don’t love my teasing, darlin’.” It’s at this point that Y/N realises that she had been in this situation much longer than appropriate, standing flustered and hot from Harry being so close to her while nude. 

“I need to go,” it comes out as more of a whisper, her voice rough with lust. She coughs as if to clear her throat, but from what she’s unsure. The intense desire she feels for a man she despised a month ago, perhaps? “Relax Y/N, no big deal. I think Sarah’s in the shower upstairs though if you’re still looking.”

She nods in response, slowly backing out of the room before turning around and quickly shutting the door behind her. She feels her breath heaving in and out of her lungs. Feels her throat tighten and her head dizzy, and an intense tingling feeling starts at her toes and spreads all the way to her lower tummy. The familiar pull of lust and need brings an ache to her core, and she feels the sticky heat between her legs. 

While Y/N may not know it, Harry is affected by her as much as she is by him. He stands in the shower, a stupid grin across his face, dimples indenting his cheek. Harry could pretend he didn’t see Y/N blatantly ogling him, or her cheeks burn a delicious crimson when she had gotten caught. Could even pretend he didn’t see her subconsciously squeezing her thighs together while she stood in front of him, like she was so desperate for Harry she couldn’t even wait to relieve the tension building inside of her. 

Harry could pretend not to notice, but as he felt a tingle zap down his spine, and the accustomed rush of blood to his lower half, Harry realised he didn't want to. Would rather explore this unnerving territory, and see what it had in store for him. 

——

Harry had reached a new level of boredom. So much so, he had resorted to doing a puzzle.

Harry was notorious for always being busy, was constantly on tour, playing shows and promoting his music. The quietest periods in Harry’s life were the months of writing he’d participate in, where his mind was anything but still. He wasn’t used to doing nothing all day, and while he had tried to write during isolation, the months of doing fuck all made inspiration hard to come by. 

So it led Harry to his current situation, trying to complete a challenging puzzle at the dining table. Sarah and Mitch were napping the late afternoon away, Jeff was playing Xbox games in the living room, and Y/N had gone for a walk, right after she had brought the puzzle out from her room after Harry had asked her to. He had heard her talking to Sarah about how much she loved puzzles a few months ago and had even shown her the one she had brought to quarantine; however, she hadn’t gotten the chance to start it yet. 

Harry had been doing nothing all day, and he was sick of sitting in bed, refreshing his Instagram feed every ten minutes. To be honest, a puzzle wouldn’t have been Harry’s first choice of a relaxing pastime activity, but there was only so much social media and movie marathons Harry could take. 

He was nervous at first to ask Y/N. Over the last few days, it seemed like there was a certain tension between them, as if they were both aware of the lust that had been swirling throughout the bathroom as thick as the steam from Harry’s shower, but didn’t want to admit it. They were testing the waters, sometimes stumbling through amorous conversations, while still attempting to maintain their indifference. 

However, he was slightly remorseful of his decision for a different reason, when he asked Y/N if he could borrow it from her, she had squealed in excitement, telling him her ‘top tips’ for completing a jigsaw for at least ten minutes. He guesses her passion and love for the shitty quarantine past time, overrode her awkward feelings towards their situation. If he was honest, Harry didn’t give a fuck about “making sure to find the corners first!” but he didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so he nodded along and pretended to listen. 

But Harry had really come to regret his decision when he hadn’t found a piece in over an hour. He was frustrated and the stifling temperature Sarah insisted on keeping the house at, wasn’t helping. He had completed a small section at the top right corner, five or six pieces on the left, and a few random bits he had stuck together and somehow happened to get correct. He was slightly embarrassed when Y/N returned from her walk, to find him with his head in his hands, looking more than sorry for himself. Her tinkling laughter doesn’t make him feel any better, either. 

“Having trouble H?” 

He looks up to her standing in the doorway, attempting to plaster his award-winning grin upon his face, “if I’d known it was this hard I never would have asked if I could do it.” She grins back, and walks over to the table, looking down at the pieces with a concentrated focus. “Hm I never said it was going to be easy, thought my tips would help, but I guess not.” 

Harry tries yet another piece that doesn’t fit with the ones surrounding it, and sighs, “if the puzzle master wants to help, that would be lovely,” he lilts. She picks up the segment Harry had just dropped and places into the correct position on the opposite side of the puzzle that Harry had placed it in. “You’re flattering me now.” She hesitates for a tick, “lucky for you, I like it.” 

Harry loved this new dynamic between them, it was light and teasing, something he hadn’t had with her before. He’s not going to lie and say that he didn’t slightly enjoy the biting exchanges they had previously shared, but this flirty air between them was exciting.  

“I’ll keep that in mind pet. Now, what were those tips again?” 

It’s safe to say Harry was impressed with Y/N’s skill, he had never thought puzzles were that difficult until he actually tried to complete one. Y/N however, was fast, seemed to pick up pieces and instantly be able to connect to where they should go, and quickly finished at least ninety percent of the puzzle. Harry fit the odd part in place, which Y/N praised each time, with a small cheer and a “well done!” each time. Finally, the puzzle was almost complete with only one gap in the picture of golden retriever puppies climbing on one another. 

Y/N looks at Harry and hands him the last puzzle piece, “you should put the last bit in.” Harry can’t explain the warm glow that emits from his heart, he doesn’t know why it makes him so happy. She was kind and considerate, and Harry wasn’t used to people always putting him first, usually being doubtful of anyone he hadn’t known for a while, worried about what their true intentions were. “You sure? You did most of it.” She giggles, “nah, we did it together!” Harry takes the bit of cardboard from her and places it in the last empty spot. 

He looks up at Y/N who’s grinning at him stupidly, and he can’t help but smile back. It’s then that Harry starts to really look at Y/N. He notices the dusting of freckles on the top of her nose, her eyes laced with pride and happiness and her lips, the bottom one stuck between her two front teeth, but both looking so soft and sweet. Y/N must catch Harry staring at her lips because she releases the supple flesh from between her bite. 

“Did you have fun?” She whispers. 

Harry tries to reply, but his voice dies in his throat. All he can manage is a small nod, his gaze dropping back to Y/N’s mouth. He lifts his hand to her face, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear, and she leans into the touch slightly. Unknowingly, they had gotten even closer, and Harry can feel her small puffs of air against his lips, could brush them against hers if he leaned an inch forward. 

“Harry, what do you want to do for dinner?” Mitch yells from the room one over, scaring both Y/N and Harry, who instantly pull away from each other. Harry coughs, “um, I don’t know man.” 

Mitch walks into the room, Sarah in tow, who sees the completed puzzle on the table and runs over, “you finally did it Y/N!” Harry looks over to the girl in question. Her cheeks a cherry red as she looks over to Harry, “uh yeah, Harry and I did it together.” Sarah looks between them, with an impish look on her face mixed with slight disbelief, “oh, that’s… nice.” 

Harry’s attention is drawn away from Y/N when Mitch pipes up again, “I was thinking tacos, so we could make frozen margaritas for game night.” Harry is grateful for the change in topic, knowing Sarah was more than likely to make a comment that Harry was not ready to address. Particularly if Y/N had indeed continued the conversation she had planned to have with Sarah a few days ago when she’d walked in on Harry in the shower. 

“You know I’m always down for a margarita.” 

—— 

Y/N was slightly buzzed. She hated feeling entirely out of control when she drank, and she’d found the perfect point between dead sober and sloppy. She felt a warm feeling in her fingertips and toes, felt slightly light-headed and was just a tad obnoxiously giggly. The group had been playing monopoly, and while Y/N usually hated the game, she was thoroughly enjoying it tonight. 

Sarah had been helping Y/N, so she wasn’t so lost in terms of properties and the differences between houses and hotels. Jeff was as quiet as usual, but somehow had a secret talent for swindling properties and hoard money. Mitch had prioritised his margarita over the game, buying random properties when he felt like it, and fucking up everyone else’s plans of winning. And Harry had made it his mission to beat Y/N. If he was honest, he just loved seeing her pout every time he would buy whatever spaces were left of the colours she was aiming for, or teasing her every time she got a smaller roll than him. 

As Harry bought another green property that Y/N was gunning for, she realised she was nursing an empty glass. “Does anyone want another margarita?” Agreements come from all around the table, so Y/N gets up, grabbing a few empty glasses. As she stands, she feels the blood rush to her head, a slight dizziness tingling through her body, and she giggles as she stumbles towards the kitchen. 

Harry and Mitch had made the previous rounds, Y/N watching the first couple be made. Which meant she probably should remember the ingredients, but if she’s honest, the copious amount of alcohol running through her bloodstream has caused a lapse in her memory. Was she supposed to put one or two cups of ice in? Y/N curses herself and her shitty memory under her breath, realising she will definitely need help. She was clearly too tipsy to think coherently. 

“Oi, how much tequila do I put in? And is it Cointreau or triple sec? And how much ice do I use” She yells into the adjacent room, sighing slightly, hoping someone would come and help her. And she can’t explain her excitement when Harry rounds the corner, maybe because the pressure of making the drinks had been lifted, but more likely because it was simply him. He comes in with a smiling face, his hair slightly messed and his eyes filled with the misty happiness of someone who is perfectly buzzed. 

Y/N couldn’t quite describe the shiver that travels down her spine or the tension she feels in her stomach, all she knows is in the last few days, the intense feeling had begun to grow stronger whenever Harry was around. There was something about him, the way he carried himself, the shy smirks he’d give her, or the gentle touches he’d provide as he walked passed her. 

In every touch, every look and every feeling she got from Harry, Y/N could sense the tension growing stronger. She was amazed the rest of the group hadn’t picked up on it, other than Sarah of course, who was watching from the sidelines, waiting for one of them to crack. 

“What’s the problem bunny?” His eyes soft as he walks over to a defeated Y/N. He watches as her eyes crinkled slightly as she giggles despite herself, “I wanted to make everyone drinks, but I realised I don’t actually know how to.” She sheepishly watches Harry’s face mirror her own with a small grin, “well that just won’t do, will it? Sit on the counter n’ I’ll show you again.” 

She jumps on the kitchen bench, the surface cold against her otherwise alcohol flushed skin. She watches Harry gather the ingredients from around the kitchen, noticing the way his back strains against the white and yellow t-shirt he was wearing, the arch of his back clear and his shoulders strong and broad.

Over the past week or so, Y/N had started to see the funny and charming personality that the rest of the household had previously been privy to. His witty and sweet persona had shone through, and it had done nothing to curb the intense sexual feelings she felt towards him, instead they were only growing, especially with each pet name that his puffy pink lips shaped around. 

Harry begins to place the ingredients in the blender, and Y/N is confident he’s giving her instructions as he does so, but she is just so distracted by his strong fingers adorned by his shiny rings, each one a different shape and size. “Are y’listening?” 

She snaps her eyes back to his face, to see one side of his pretty mouth tugging upwards, suggesting he already knew the answer to his own question. “What are you lookin’ at my hands for?” She feels the warmth rush to the apples of her cheeks, sheepishly replying, “I was just looking at your rings, they’re very pretty.” 

He smiles and jokingly holds his hand up to her face, wiggling his fingers. Y/N chuckles and grabs his pointer finger, pulling it towards her to get a better look. She holds his hand while looking at the silver band wrapped around his digit, eyeing the small red ruby shining brightly in the centre of it, “like this one,” she whispers. He matches her volume, stepping closer in order to hear her, “it was my mums, she gave it to me after my first concert sold out. Her mum gave it to her after she got married.” She runs her finger over it gently, noticing the worn edges, and tries to imagine the many stories it had experienced in the hands of three generations. “It’s beautiful.” 

This felt like a moment for both of them. Obviously, Harry and Y/N had experienced many conversations and experiences before, but none quite like this. Harry feels the warmth from her body radiating into his, can feel the sweat from her hands as she holds his own. He can hear her calm breathing, the slow rise and fall of her chest. Of course, Harry had felt lust before, but he doesn’t think he’s ever wanted to kiss someone as badly as he does right now.

He can’t explain how desperately he wants to inch forward, hold her pretty face in his hands and press his lips against hers. Instead, he makes do, moving closer to her and feeling a bloom of happiness in his chest when she opens her legs for him to stand between with no hesitation. 

She smiles, his hand still nestled into hers, although her focus had moved far beyond his rings. It now laid solely on his face and the way he was looking at her. He rests his free hand on the counter beside her, close enough that she could feel the outside of his thumb brushing against her upper leg. 

Harry bites his tongue, he wants to say ‘so are you,’ but even he knows that’s cheesy. Plus he doesn’t want to overstep any boundaries, he knows Y/N is attracted to him but is also fully aware that doesn’t equal consent. He settles for lightly brushing his thumb against her leg and watches as a shiver racks through her body. With a slight giggle, she grabs his other hand, that’s causing the mildly uncomfortable sensation, with her free one, “that tickles.” 

And Harry’s not a mind reader, but now they’re just holding hands, plain and simple. He doesn’t know if she feels the same heat and tension settling between their lips, but the way she leans in slightly, tilting her head to the left gives him an indication she does. It’s subtle, and if Harry hadn’t been sitting between her legs praying she’d do exactly that, he might not have picked up on it. But he does. 

He leans in too, leaving a slight gap between them. Y/N can feel the tiny puffs of air, leaving Harry’s mouth and drawing into hers and can feel the little tufts of hair tickling her forehead. 

She brushes her lips against his gently, testing the waters. He feels as soft and warm against her as she’d imagined. Y/N retracts slightly, unsure if she had overstepped a boundary. The only reaction she could read was a sharp inhale on his part, and she was worried that it wasn’t a positive sign. 

But she couldn’t have been more wrong. 

He lifts his hand from hers and places it against her neck, his hands big enough to tuck his thumb under her jaw, while still using the rest of his fingers to gently push her back against him.

She tasted so much better than he would’ve thought, sour from the margaritas with an underlying sweetness that he couldn’t put his finger on. Harry can barely hold in his groan when her tongue slides against his lower lip, and he gladly opens up further. He feels her whimper against his thumb before he hears it, the rumbling sending vibrations up his arm, leading him to feel dizzy. 

He feels Y/N rest her hands against his shoulders, sliding them over his neck and resting her forearms behind his head. She leans further into the kiss, somehow opening her legs further, her hips slightly bucking towards his own in a silent plea for friction. Harry doesn’t hesitate to give it to her, pressing himself against her and instantly feeling the effect of his actions. She runs one hand through the curls sitting at the back of his head, tugging gently and pushing her own hips back with as much vigour as he had.

That is until the click of heeled boots is heard echoing against the kitchen tiles. 

The speed at which Harry jumps away from his position between Y/N’s legs is comical, and she almost wishes she could see it from an outsiders perspective. However, not as much as she wishes Harry’s lips were back on her own. 

Y/N looks between the boy she had been kissing with his hair messy and fluffy, and the apparent growing bulge in his pants to the shocked Mitch standing in the entrance of the kitchen. His mouth hangs open comically, and his hands hang loosely by his sides. 

The silence is too much for both Harry and Y/N to bear and looking at Y/N’s face, now bright red, and brimming with embarrassment and stress Harry feels it’s his responsibility to put her slightly at ease. “Mitch… um look-” 

“What the fuck is going on here?” Harry doesn’t even get the chance to finish his sentence before Mitch is interrupting. Harry pipes up again, “it’s nothing!” Y/N can feel her brows turning downwards and the corner of her lips curling in annoyance. She knows Harry is more than likely trying to cover their asses, but Mitch had seen them kissing, and it didn’t make Harry downplaying everything hurt any less. 

Harry sees her face and quickly tries to backtrack, “well I mean not nothing… it’s something!” 

“No shit it’s something! How long have you guys been fucking for?” This time Y/N is the first to speak up, “we are not fucking! We haven’t even-“ she starts, completely flustered, her face somehow becoming even redder, “we just kissed!” Mitch bursts out laughing, as Y/N and Harry stay completely still, both absolutely mortified. 

“Alright mate, fuck off,” Harry grumbles, praying that Mitch would just leave the uncomfortable situation alone. And he does, still laughing as he finds his way back to the living room. Y/N has no doubt that he would go straight to Sarah and Jeff to share what he’d just seen. Harry turns to 

Y/N and while he tries to maintain a serious face for her sake, he can’t help but let out a small chuckle. 

It wasn’t the first time Mitch had walked in on him during a ‘private’ moment, some a lot worse than what he’d just witnessed. But Harry doubts any would be more shocking than the kiss Mitch had just seen. According to him, Y/N and Harry were at most on civil terms. So to see them, in a more than compromising position must have been a considerable shock to the system. 

“Why are you laughing, you ass?” While Y/N’s words are anything but kind, her face gives away her true feelings, a small grin peeking through. She wasn’t too concerned, Sarah already knew the current situation Harry and Y/N had found themselves in, as well as Y/N’s feelings on it. She was probably waiting for this very scenario to occur.

However, she was worried about where Harry and her would go from here. 

She knew he was attracted to her, he wouldn’t have kissed her otherwise. Y/N couldn’t help but think that maybe Harry had done it in the moment, and didn’t feel that same attraction all the time. What if he saw her leaning in and was pitying her? Y/N was terrified that now that Mitch knew, Harry would be too embarrassed to kiss her again. 

But Y/N’s worry is immediately put to hold when Harry grabs her hand again, “you’ve got to admit it’s funny.” He rubs his thumb against her knuckles, hoping to soothe any worry still running through her veins, “are you okay though?” Y/N smiles and squeezes his hand, “yeh, more than.” 

Harry leans in slowly, making sure that even though Y/N had claimed she was fine, that she would still be okay with him kissing her again. She doesn’t move away, instead moves closer and he smiles and presses a soft kiss against her lips. 

“We should probably get back out there,” he mumbles against her plush lips. She nods in response, squeezing his hand once more before jumping off the counter. “I’ll see you in the living room.” 

—— 

Harry didn’t regret kissing Y/N, not by a long shot. What he did regret, however, is two things. The first was agreeing to continue drinking with Mitch after everyone else had gone to sleep, and the second, kissing Y/N while intoxicated. 

He had enjoyed it, he knew that much. But he’s fully aware that he may not have gotten the chance to absorb every detail of the moment. He couldn’t forget the feeling of her lips against his or the way she bucked up against him. However, he is struggling to recall the way her hips felt under his fingertips, or whether or not he could smell the strawberry scented shampoo she used, that previously, he had only caught gusts of. 

Harry needs to know, when they kissed, did her eyebrows furrow the same way they do when she bites into a warm jam donut? Or when he slotted his hips against hers, did her mouth hang open, eyes shut tightly like when Sarah dug into the knots in her back? Did she make the same sounds Harry had already heard? Or were there some privy only to moments of privacy like the one her and Harry shared? He didn’t think to notice if the skin on her cheeks was as soft as it looked, or even if her hands held onto him as firmly as they had grasped onto the chair, the night Harry had first gotten so close to Y/N. 

Harry couldn’t help but feel like he’d somehow hiked up mountainous terrain, dodged every jagged edge Y/N initially threw at him, stumbled through open conversations and insinuations. Felt he had somehow navigated overwhelming selfishness and every mixed feeling, to finally reach the top and for some stupid reason just close his eyes. He was only just able to smell the mountainside air and feel the rocky surface but was utterly blind to the magnificent sight in front of him. 

Harry was also worried that Y/N was too intoxicated to know what she was doing. Harry was big on consent, always had been, and he knew the chances of drunk him doing something Y/N wasn’t okay with was very unlikely, but what if? What if for some reason he couldn’t read the body language of the girl he had spent months admiring? Or what if she had said something of opposition and he hadn’t heard her? 

Harry was stressed, and the pounding headache beating through his head was definitely not helping. 

He knew the only way to make sure what happened last night was okay and enjoyable for both parties, was simply asking Y/N. So after going to the bathroom, splashing some cold water on his face and changing into some sweatpants, Harry makes the trek downstairs. 

He’s met with an interesting site. Mitch is sitting at the kitchen counter, head in his hands and shaking his head. Jeff is doing dishes and looks to be purposely clanging noisy dishes in front of Mitch and then laughing at each flinch racking from the man's body. While Y/N is standing at the stove, cooking something that Harry can’t decipher, in her cloud pyjama pants and a sweatshirt that looks suspiciously like his.

If Harry listens intently enough, he can hear her humming under her breath, a soft tune that lifts all the features of Harry’s handsome face upwards. 

Harry starts by walking over to Mitch, placing his hands on both of his shoulders and squeezing lightly, “c’mon Jeff, lay off the poor guy!” Jeff only laughs in response jokingly swatting at Mitch's head, still buried within his hands. 

At the joking tone within the kitchen, and the fact that Jeff had not immediately berated Harry about his relationship with Y/N, Harry realised Mitch had decided not to tell the rest of the house. Or at least not Jeff. Harry couldn’t have been more thankful for Mitch's undying loyalty and bizarre talent of somehow knowing exactly what Harry wanted or needed. With Y/N’s relaxed manner, he assumed she had come to the same conclusion.  

At the sound of Harry’s voice, Y/N whips around, her face lighting up at the sight of the man she had kissed not 12 hours ago. And the look of delight and need on Y/N’s face works wonders to calm Harry’s nerves, while Y/N’s were skyrocketing. He looked as handsome as ever with sleep still gracing his features, his chestnut hair in a mess on top of his head and eyes slightly puffy and red. In all honesty, Y/N couldn’t get over how it felt to kiss him, and while it had happened, she couldn’t help but feel thirteen again, with a crush on the cute boy in class. 

It was like he knew exactly what she was thinking, his tongue darting out from between his lips, leaving them wet and glistening in the early morning sun. And Y/N just can’t seem to draw her attention away from them, can’t stop the image of him pressed against her replaying over and over in her mind.

Maybe it was the way her eyes drooped slightly, her nostrils flaring ever so subtly, but Y/N gets the feeling that he knows exactly what she’s thinking, his left eye dropping in a wink that leaves Y/N’s tummy fluttering. 

“Mornin’ love.” His voice is hoarse and deep with residue drowsiness, and it does nothing to ease Y/N’s churning stomach. She coughs lightly before replying, “morning H.” Her voice is uncharacteristically quiet and manner docile, as she tries to hide the less than appropriate thoughts running through her head. 

He walks over to the stove, leaving Jeff and Mitch behind in the presence of someone far more interesting. “Smells good, what are you cookin’?” 

Y/N giggles, the sound unnecessarily loud and she cringes at herself before replying, “um, pancakes. Made some more just in case you guys wanted some.” In truth, Y/N knew Mitch didn’t like pancakes, Sarah wasn’t even awake yet, and Jeff had just started a very strict ‘no sugar’ diet, and so those extra pancakes were specifically for Harry after she had heard his sink running upstairs. And well, Harry knew all of that too. He feels a certain spaciousness in his chest one can only attribute to gratitude, and it makes him want to draw her close to him and kiss her cheek in thanks. 

Instead, Harry grabs her small hand in his and squeezes it lightly, before walking over to the fridge to get the maple syrup. “What’d you want on yours, babe? Nutella?” 

Y/N smiles and nods her head, giddy with the tingling feeling travelling through her hands and the prospect of spending more time with Harry. 

—— 

The day had been quiet. Y/N felt as if she had been wading through water all afternoon, sluggish and slow but somehow using more energy than walking on land required. The whole house felt slow-moving, most of its inhabitants spending the day in front of the TV, reading books or napping. And so it made sense for their daily activity to be a movie night. 

The housemates had decided a Disney marathon would be a perfect end to a hungover day, and with Jeff’s only condition being that they watched ‘Bambi’, everyone was in agreeance. 

Y/N had offered to organise the snacks and drinks while everyone else brought down pillows and blankets from upstairs, the room looking cozier then she had seen it in the past few months, and at the centre of it, Harry.

In the same position, he had been in the night they had sat watching cartoons in the early morning together, only to fall asleep and wake up in each other’s arms. It felt like so long ago now, but Y/N knows in reality, not that much time had passed. She found herself feeling thankful for how their relationship had evolved, and the effect a little time had given them. 

It was funny how far they had come. Y/N was so worried Harry had hated her after that, she now wonders if he’d always felt some type of draw towards her, or if he really had hated her as much as he made out. She briefly wonders if he’s thinking the same thing as she is, as he looks at her questioningly, standing in the doorway of the living room, unmoving. 

Y/N smiles lightly, and begins to move towards the couch, realising that there were three blankets in total, one being used by Mitch and Sarah, seemingly very close underneath the cover, one thrown over Jeff and the other sitting across Harry’s legs. She hesitates for a moment, the obvious choice being Harry, but she isn’t sure where their relationship stood, and more importantly, how much the rest of the housemates knew about it. 

Harry quickly provides a solution, “y’can just share my blanket if you want pet.” Y/N’s tummy flips, but the blank stare she gives him as she runs through all the repercussions (good and bad) coming from her doing that, comes off more as confusion. Did he forget that Jeff didn’t know about the kiss? 

Harry sits uncomfortably in the silence. “Or not, whatever you want.” Silence again, and with each passing second, Harry’s facial expression becomes more and more exasperated. 

Mitch is smirking, giving Harry a knowing glance. Sarah is looking at Mitch confused, obviously trying to figure out her boyfriend's cryptic facial expression. Jeff was the most bewildered of all, clearly completely lost. 

“Fine, fuckin’ forget it. Y’can share a blanket with Jeff ‘Mcvomit’ Aezzof. Or maybe you can jack Mitch off under the blanket with Sarah, and all of us will pretend we don’t know. How bout that hm?” Harry knows he’s being slightly unfair to all those just mentioned. 

A month ago, during a game night, Jeff had consumed slightly too much alcohol and subsequently vomited all over the living room carpet and Harry’s rainbow Gucci boots. Safe to say, Harry was not impressed and hadn’t let Jeff forget it either. 

He also knows he’s being unfair to Sarah and Mitch, although, he’s not exactly wrong. Harry had no proof anything was happening under Sarah’s unicorn blanket but they always sat suspiciously close, and some strange movements had definitely been observed during movie nights, particularly when the crew had binged ‘50 Shades of Grey.’

No one had mentioned it to each other, until one night, Y/N had tried to subtly ask Jeff and Harry if they had noticed too. The two boys immediately agreed, admitting they both had their own suspicions. However, this was the first time anyone had brought it up with the couple in question. 

He’s instantly met with outcry from both Sarah and Mitch.

“Oh for fucks sake H.” 

“You’re so crude.” 

“We do not do that.” 

Jeff also looks unamused, mumbling under his breath, although the shouts from the couple drown his reply out, “you have too much to drink one time, and no one lets you forget it.” 

But Y/N, in true Y/N style laughs, and all of a sudden Harry doesn’t feel nearly as bad for his accusations or his teasing of Jeff. “Alright bug, alright. You made your point, scoot over.” 

Y/N settles under the blanket with Harry, tucking her legs underneath her, trying to maintain a healthy distance from him. She hadn’t really been so consciously close to Harry before, only ever being asleep, drunk or… busy. Y/N noticed his signature scent was present, a warm cedarwood cologne that somehow made her nostrils tickle and insides feel slightly warmer, like a shot of whiskey travelling down her throat and spreading through her tummy. 

Maybe it was the man the smell lingered to that made her feel so comfortable and warm, or perhaps it was the blanket and heat radiating from him, but either way, Y/N loved it. She revelled in the comfort and feeling of safety that she didn’t often bask in, and it was Harry of all people who made her feel like this. 

She briefly wonders what this movie night would entail. She was happy they were already close to each other, stealing glances. Each bout of eye contact bringing a tingle through her spine, a shiver wracking through her shoulders when she noticed him glancing at her with his signature smirk and bright look. 

She was aware that they were slowly moving closer to each other with each passing second of the film playing in front of them. When she had initially sat down next to Harry, she could feel the warmth radiating from him, but now she could feel his side pressed against her, and his leg slightly crossed over hers.

If she’s honest, she was much more focused on the handsome individual sitting next to her than on the movie anyway, and consequently, she missed the first twenty minutes. 

What she cannot miss, however, is Harry’s hand coming to rest gently on her thigh. His palm flat against the plush flesh and his nails lightly scratching at the skin lying over it. 

She looks over at him, his strong jaw and cheekbone highlighted by the dim light of the TV screen, his nose slightly pointed at the end and his long eyelashes fluttering against his skin. She watches as his pink lips tug upwards, bringing a smirk and deep dimple to his handsome face. With that smile, she realises he knows she’s looking at him, and probably knows the effect his touch is having on her. The only acknowledgement she receives is a small squeeze of her thigh. 

She can’t help but scoff, his lax attitude directly opposed her own, if she was honest, she often felt on a different plane than him. Y/N tried to deny it, but she could be highly strung. When she was in a situation where she felt comfortable and safe, she was easygoing, a delight to get along with, and was often confused as someone who was undoubtedly more affable than she really was. 

It was one of the first days of year ten at school when Y/N had experienced her first panic attack. She can still remember the way her hands shook like healthy green leaves in a summer storm, could never forget the tightness in her chest, the closing feeling of her throat, and the tears that blinded her. While the panic attacks had become less frequent as she aged, the underlying symptoms that bubbled into the panic she experienced still tended to rear their ugly heads. 

Harry, on the other hand, seemed endlessly relaxed. While Y/N had initially only seen a more uptight and priggish side of him, it was almost like he enjoyed those negative interactions between them, for the sole reason that he could skillfully get under Y/N’s skin, watch her squirm and burn red. Any other time she witnessed Harry he was almost always equanimous and the voice of reason in the odd little group that found themselves quarantining together. 

He was so comfortable, seemingly so unaffected by her, while she felt his presence made her head spin and heart race. 

He leans closer to her, his curls tickling her collarbone, “are you watchin’ the film?” 

She nods, the action sending a wave of her perfume to invade his nose, the smell somehow so addicting and familiar to Harry now. “Yeh, the sad part is coming soon, though.” 

It’s his turn to scoff, “don’t tell me you’re gonna cry on me.” 

Y/N looks up at him, watching as his bunny-like front teeth capture his bottom lip, “and what if I do, hm?” 

Harry’s first thought is to say he’d get her some tissues and embrace her until the tears seeped into her sullen soaked skin, but he knows that’s even too corny for him. Instead, he looks around the room to find everyone too focused on the movie to pay attention to them, and chuckles lightly, kissing the top of her cheekbone. “Might cry with you love. Poor Bambi, never knew what was comin’.” 

While Y/N looks around the room, she quickly relaxes as she realises no one was paying enough attention to notice Harry’s affectionate action. She stifles a laugh, “we’re in this together then, aren’t we?” 

Harry can’t help but feel like she’s not just referring to a sad Disney movie, but instead the situation they had found themselves in. It was confusing, both of them not entirely over their exes, but both seemingly enamoured with the other, something that felt like it had happened overnight. 

He didn’t know if she felt the same way he did. He simultaneously wanted to fuck the shit out of her and cuddle with her on the couch, for god's sake he wanted to comfort her when she was crying over fucking ‘Bambi.’ Harry was confused. 

He hasn’t felt like this about anyone since Elle, and while Y/N hadn’t spoken about her ex with Harry directly, he had overheard a few snippets of conversation between Sarah and herself. 

Before Y/N had come to stay with the group, Sarah had briefly explained the situation, the fact she had put all her effort into a three-year relationship that had ended brutally, with the asshole showing no remorse towards Y/N or her feelings. Harry didn’t want to push her or himself, but he felt a draw towards her that he couldn’t ignore. 

The way she placed her hand gently on top of his, still laying on her thigh, and tangled their fingers together made his heart swell, and it was at that moment he decided he didn’t care about Elle. For the first time since they broke up, Harry didn’t wish the person he was with was his cheery faced ex-girlfriend. He wanted Y/N, and he hoped with all his heart, she wanted him too. 

He looked over at her, her soft skin and red cheeks glowing gently from the light of the TV screen. 

Harry’s feelings are only confirmed, when he hears the gunshot sounding through the room from the movie, hears a small sniffle coming from the girl next to him, and feels her fingers tightening around his own. Harry knows that somehow, through everything, he wanted Y/N to be there next to him at the end of it. 

—— 

Harry sat stewing in his feelings as the night progressed, each member of the house slowly abandoning the marathon, opting for the warmth of their beds instead. 

If he was honest, Harry was exhausted, but he couldn’t bear to leave Y/N alone. She had waited patiently through everyone else’s choices, sung along with Sarah through ‘The Little Mermaid.’ She had gushed with Mitch over the fantastic visuals in ‘Hercules’ and watched carefully for Harry’s reactions to ‘The Beauty and the Beast,’ squeezing his hand when the last petal fell, and Belle professed her love for the Beast. 

Harry didn’t think it was fair that everyone had chosen bed over watching Y/N’s movie, over singing along to ‘Tangled’ with her. Chosen to sleep instead of talking about how good the animation was and squeezing her hand every time Flynn and Rapunzel were close to kissing. 

So Harry does the best he can. He listens to how excited she gets through the fighting scenes, does his best to sing along to songs he’d never heard before, and listens to her speak about how mean she thought Mother Gothel was. Each scene, he watches her eyes widen in comical child-like glee, and her cheeks flush as she laughs at Harry’s impersonation of Flynn Rider. 

It’s as Mother Gothel is falling out of the window that Harry realises Y/N’s grip on his hand has loosened and that she is resting against his shoulder, asleep. He smiles, bringing his knuckle to brush against her cheek, gently waking her up. As she slightly startles, he kisses her nose, “y’ fell asleep bug.” 

She looks surprised, immediately looking to the screen, “oh shoot. Missed my favourite part too.” Harry can’t help but kiss the small pout that graced her lips as she realises this, which she quickly returns. Harry’s lips tingle as she hums in contentment, causing them to pull apart slightly, Harry touching his lips and giggling. 

It was all so domestic and sweet, a kiss leading to nothing in particular, and Harry loved it. Revelled in the idea of kissing Y/N for the pure pleasure of feeling her soft lips against his own, and for nothing else. As Y/N speaks her lips brush against his, still flush against each other, “we should get to bed.” 

As they both make their way upstairs, hand in hand, they dawdle as if to stall their inevitable parting, and as Y/N prepares to speak their goodbye into existence Harry decides he doesn’t want this night to end. Didn’t want to part from the warmth Y/N provided, to lose the feeling of her face pressed against him or the way her hand felt nestled in his. So Harry does the one thing he can think of, something he may come to regret later, 

“Do you want t’ sleep in my bed tonight? You don’ have to if you don’t want to, of course.” 

Harry observes Y/N’s face, and he feels as if he goes through the same range of emotions as she does. First surprise, then apprehension, her head tilting as she thinks through her decision.

Harry thinks maybe she’s misinterpreting his intentions. Don’t get him wrong, he would jump at the chance to have sex with someone as lovely as her, but he really just wasn’t ready to leave her. Wanted to feel her asleep in his arms, hear the small snores he’s sure she would make and brush her hair away from her face when it looked to be tickling her in the middle of the night. 

“No funny business dove, I promise.” 

Finally, a small smirk graces the young girl's face, her top teeth hooking into her lower lip, a little giggle erupting from her mouth while she nods her head. 

Harry’s face subconsciously matches Y/N’s, a replica giggle floating through his mouth and into the air between them, “yeh?” 

She nods once again, “yeh.” Harry feels nothing but relief, a giddy bubbling feeling erupting from his chest, rushing through to his fingertips. He almost believes she feels the exact same burst of emotion when she squeezes his hand as he pulls her into his bedroom. 

It smells the same as the last time she was in his room, except this time, there was a sense of certainty in the air. While Y/N had previously tiptoed into his private space, terrified of crossing a line both physically and metaphorically, she no longer felt that same apprehension.

She entered the room with confident footsteps, aware that they had already entered a territory in which they would struggle to backtrack from. Aware that Harry would more than likely revel in the fact she was in a space he considered sacred, rather than feel uneasy.

She was correct in her assumption. He watches the way she looks perfectly placed in a room he previously hated anyone else entering, her energy already matching his own, but somehow adding an exuberant light into a space that, before her, had represented his despondency. 

Harry begins getting ready for bed, takes off his pants and shirt, left in only boxers. As the cotton of his top slides over his mass of curls, he catches Y/N staring, her mouth slightly parted, pupils dilated and cheeks pink. 

The cocky boy smirks slightly, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion ever so subtly, and a gust of wind passing through his nose as a form of laughter. “Would you prefer me to keep my pants on babe?” 

His cheeky tone works to bring Y/N from her stupor. She stumbles over her words, clearly embarrassed Harry had caught her ogling at his body, again. “Uh.. no, no whatever’s comfortable, I guess. Do you want to keep your pants on? You can, of course, I just…” 

“Teasing Y/N,” his smirk grows into a grin, his dimple flashing her once again, “I’m only teasing.” She visibly relaxes, her shoulders returning to the normal position, and her eyes closed, trying to shake the remaining embarrassment from her system. 

“You are the worst.” 

He only laughs, “and you take yourself too seriously. Now, do you want a shirt to sleep in?” 

While Y/N might usually be offended by him saying something like that, she knows he’s not wrong. In fact, he’s entirely correct. He just knew exactly how to wind her up, what buttons to push to make a flush rise to her cheeks and for her sentences to become stuttered. 

“That would be nice, thank you.” 

Harry only nods, walking over to the dresser in the corner and rummaging through, pulling out a white shirt with the phrase “enjoy health, eat your honey” on the front. He holds it up in front of his body, waiting for Y/N’s approval, which he quickly receives, throwing it over to her in response. 

She looks at him expectantly, waiting for him to give her the courtesy of changing in private. “Do y’ mind, you lecher?” 

He startles, “oh uh sorry.” Y/N watches as a blush spreads from his cheeks to his neck, a clear sign of his humiliation, and he quickly turns around. 

She changes, giving a soft cough when it’s safe for him to turn around. Harry can hardly believe his eyes, he knew she was beautiful, but fucking hell, it was like an angel had been sent to him from heaven. 

Her legs were soft, and Harry wanted nothing more than to trail kisses up her thighs, past the dotting of stretch marks, patches of missed hair, and the hem of the shirt that sat loosely against her. He could see her nipples poking through the fabric, firm, surrounded by supple flesh, that Harry had trouble to stop imagining. Her face was soft, a pleasant but embarrassed smile pulling along half her face, smoothed by the leftover makeup she hadn’t bothered to remove. 

She was fucking beautiful. 

“Stop looking at me like that you…” 

“Lecher. I know. It’s hard not to be when you look like that.” Her cheeks turn an even darker shade of crimson, and her eyebrows draw up in surprise. Harry didn’t know at what, she was his very own wet dream, and he had trouble imagining that she didn’t know that. 

Unsure of what to say she patters towards the bed, lifting the covers and lying beneath them, facing the side he usually slept on, waiting for Harry to lay in her line of sight. He does, his cheek getting gently squished against the silk pillow, his hair billowing out from his head, creating an unruly mess around his face. 

“I don’t…” she sighs, clearly struggling to string together whatever was going through her mind. Harry grabs the hand laying between them, and gives it a gentle squeeze of encouragement. He had been vulnerable in front of her weeks before they had even shown interest in each other, and he wanted to give her the same comfortable space to talk through what she was feeling. 

She lets out another breath and continues, “I like when you call me beautiful. I just don’t know how to respond, I’m not all that used to it.” She snorts despite herself, “isn’t that sad?” While she’s laughing, Harry can see the sadness set behind her eyes, and so he doesn’t laugh. Only squeezes her hand once more and replies as steadily as he can, “it’s not sad. I understand.” 

Her laugh turns more genuine, “oh so even the Greek god gets self-conscious? Thank god for that.” He quickly matches her jesting tone, “for sure, need to be humbled somehow.” He pulls her closer and rests his head in the crook of her neck, listening as the giggles she emits, vibrate through her body, and he can’t help but smile too. 

He was happy and at peace. And for the first time in a long time, both he and Y/N slept through the night, relief and giddiness seeping through their pores. 

——

Harry awoke in a daze. His arm was numb, his head slightly dizzy and body just a tad too hot. Then he sees Y/N asleep in front of him, head resting on his bicep, hair a mess, and her hand resting on his, placed on the pillow in front of her face, and all of a sudden none of it mattered.

She was beautiful. It makes Harry wonder about the last time they’d woken up together. He remembers feeling scared, denying any comfort he had found within her in his arms, and he wonders if his subconscious had always known she was right for him. 

They seemed to fit together so seamlessly, for a couple who couldn’t stand the sight of each other months prior. 

Harry uses his free hand to sweep her hair away from her neck, leaving a space for him to press his lips against. Her skin was warm, slightly tacky from sweat, and he breathed her in, dragging his nose up and down the nape of her neck. 

He hears her begin to wake, repositioning her legs under the covers and her breath beginning to quicken from the lull of sleep. A small hum of contentment leaves her lips as she feels Harry’s mouth kissing on her skin. 

“Mornin’ sunshine,” he whispers, his breath tickling her. She lets out a laugh, her voice heavy with drowsiness, “morning H.” 

The hand that was already resting loosely in his tightens as she loops their fingers together, “how’d you sleep?” 

He squeezes back, “better than I have in months. What ‘bout you?” 

She leans further back into him and exhales, “so good.” Harry hears the relief in her voice, and he feels it too. Was this all it took to stop his own self wallowing? Being pressed against her? It was like she brought her own kind of calmness to his unstable mind, and while he knew she would disagree with him in saying it, she was a source of purity, a way for him to feel carefree. 

He wanted to tell her, but something was stopping him. What if she wasn’t quite as committed to whatever they were as he was? Harry had never been good with his feelings, preferring to write his emotions into his music. Fuck, sometimes even selling his songs to others to avoid the message coming from his own mouth directly. 

But as Y/N turns around, her mouth inches from his, her eyes wide and doe-like, Harry thinks he’d never be able to live with himself if he didn’t tell her how he felt. The words creep up his throat, and he tastes them on his tongue, sweet and rich. “I... I really like you. I’m not sure how you feel about everything. I just know I haven’t felt like this since… well for a while, and that’s kind of scary.” 

Harry closes his eyes, not wanting to see Y/N laugh in his face, as well as hear it. Instead, he feels a soft hand on the side of his face, her thumb gently brushing against his temple, and then softly against his eyelid, coming to rest just below it. “Open your eyes, dummy.” 

He flutters his eyes open, met with Y/N’s gaze, revering and sweet, “I like you too, Harry. Thought I made it pretty obvious.” While Harry loved Y/N calling him ‘H,’ the slow drawl of ‘Harry’ made a shiver roll up his spine.  

He can hardly contain the smile that slips upon his mouth, leaning up slightly and kissing the thumb resting against his skin. Harry feels his heart beat a little harder in his chest, the relief freeing the worry from his lungs, his muscles finally relaxing, no longer having to uphold the weight of stress upon them. 

If he was candid, Harry had never had to fight for anyone’s affection before. As narcissistic as it sounded, people usually gravitated towards him, whether for the right or wrong intentions. But Y/N had stood her ground, immediately unimpressed by his blase and borderline rude attitude and had reverberated his energy right back at him. If Harry was honest, at first he hated that about her, but it had come to represent her honesty. It made the affection she showed him now that much more special. 

Harry felt as if he had earnt her respect and affection, because he deserved it, not the ‘Harry Styles’ found in the tabloids. He had found someone who made him feel like a real person, and a good one at that, someone who deserved the love she so readily gave him. Harry was lucky enough to be lying next to that someone. 

“You’re right… you did drool over me in the shower. Remember that?” And just like that, the moment of vulnerability is over. 

Y/N lightly slaps Harry’s arm and lets out a disgruntled sound, “aish, you really are a lecher.” He laughs and grabs the hand that just hit him, bringing it back up to his face and kisses her palm gently. He looks back at her face, all traces of aggravation wiped from it like cheap lipstick, replaced with contentment instead. She slips her hand back to the side of his neck, her fingertips trailing through the baby hairs laying against his skin and kisses him. Her lips feel slightly chapped but still so warm, and Harry let’s out a relieved exhale. 

He couldn’t explain why, but this kiss felt different from any other he’d experienced with Y/N, hell any other he’d shared with anyone. It had all the intensity and lust of their kiss in the kitchen, added with a sense of emotion that Harry couldn’t quite place. Each press of her mouth, each swipe of her tongue or gentle nibble of his lower lip felt like she was desperately trying to convey every feeling Harry previously doubted existed. 

Harry remembers the night of their first kiss, recalls thinking he had never felt lust like that before, never wanted to kiss someone so badly, but now laying in this bed with Y/N running her hand through his hair and her hips lightly bucking towards him, Harry feels as if he’s surpassed the way he had felt then. 

He feels pure unadulterated need flowing through his veins, can’t even begin to explain how much he wanted Y/N. She turned to fully face him, tangling their feet together and pressing herself further into the kiss. Harry wishes he could give her more, wants to bring every drop of pleasure to her he possibly could, wants to touch and kiss each part of her. It felt as if a spark had lit within his body, beginning at his chest, travelling all the way through to his fingertips, and straight to his groin. 

Harry brings his thigh between her legs, and she takes advantage of it instantly, rubbing against him. He groans as he feels her warmth pressed against his leg, and he can tell she is suppressing her moans of pleasure as she pushes down harder with each gyration of her hips. 

“Tha’s it baby, get what you need.” 

At this, she leans her head back, a mewl erupting from her throat. Harry kisses down her exposed neck, sucking and nipping a love bite into the skin below him. Bringing his hands to her waist lightly, he helps to guide her in grinding against the thick muscle of his leg. 

She grabs one of his hands grappling at her hip and brings it to her chest, where he feels her hard nipple poking through the thin material of her top. He squeezes and pinches gently, hearing her breath hitch directly in his ear, bringing goosebumps to the skin along his arms, her hands grabbing his broad shoulders and neck. 

With his other hand, he slowly slips his thumb past the hem of her sweatpants, running it along the soft skin there. The tickling sensation completely contradicts the harsh action of her hips rubbing against him, causing a shiver to trickle down her spine. Y/N whines into his ear so quietly, Harry wonders if he actually heard her at all. “Please.” 

“What do you need, hm? Tell me.” 

A bated breath parts her lips, “fuck…anything.” She knows it’s not enough, knows Harry wants to hear exactly what she wants from him, but she’s embarrassed. Isn’t quite used to anyone asking her what she wanted and needed, and Harry’s filthy tongue only brings her more unnecessary shame. 

“C’mon Y/N, use your words. I’ll give you whatever you want, just use your word’s for me.” 

Her hands dig into his shoulders, “fingers, please!”

He kisses her temple and murmurs a quick, “good girl,” before dipping his hand completely into the front of her pants, still only teasing along the line of her underwear. 

Y/N’s not sure how much she can take. Every move, every touch is goading and light, clearly trying to provoke her, and as much as she loves it, she needs relief. She grabs at his arm that is currently so close to the place she needs him to be and tries to force it closer to her, harder against her, anything other than what he’s doing now. “Harry… c’mon, please,” she all but cries. 

He chuckles before slipping into her underwear, feeling her wet heat against his fingertips, she was already dripping for him before he’d even touched her. He presses her clit gently while he kisses against her neck, flicking his tongue against the ghost of the hickey he had given her earlier, the pain mixing so deliciously with the pleasure. 

While he had stopped his teasing touches, it didn’t stop him from using his teasing words. 

“This the first time you’ve gotten so wet for me, pet?” She furrows her eyebrows, shaking her head side to side, attempting to hide her face into his neck. He feigns surprise, “no? Filthy girl. Ever touched yourself thinking about me?” She whines, picking up on his teasing, further burrowing her face away from him, trying to hide the very obvious flush that had risen to her cheeks. 

He laughs, nudging her head with his nose, trying to encourage her to show her face again. She mewls once more, the only indication she heard him was the bucking of her hips against his fingers, now inside of her and stroking against her g-spot. 

“Next time, just ask for my help instead,” he murmurs into her ear, biting at her earlobe. She hisses, attempting to press against him even harder, get even closer to him, although it was almost impossible, being pressed flush against each other with his fingers knuckle deep in her cunt. 

He licks against her jaw, feeling the strong bone under the tender flesh, the warmth of his breath blowing against the damp skin of her neck causes her to shiver, “can I taste you?” Y/N doesn’t think she’s ever nodded her head harder, her eyes rolling back into her head, merely thinking about Harry tonguing the sensitive skin between her legs. 

He continues to kiss down her neck, taking extra time to lick against the dip in her collarbones, revelling in the tangy taste of sweat invading his mouth. He sucks her nipples through her shirt, the material clearly wet and spit-soaked once he pulls away, the air surrounding them, making the outline of her areola obvious. 

He presses a few chaste kisses against the swell of her tummy, finally reaching where she needed him most. He slowly pulls her pants down her legs, trailing the hem with pecks against each inch of newly exposed skin. Grabbing each ankle, he pulls the cuffing over her feet, playfully biting at the bone on her ankle, causing a shriek and a giggle to erupt from her and a playful press against his cheek, imitating a kick to his jaw. 

He laughs, batting her foot away from his face. “Oi don’t damage the money-maker!” 

 Y/N bursts out laughing, shaking her head. He was an idiot, but she loved that they can switch between moods so quickly. While she’s still laughing, he’s pushing her legs apart, his hand nearly fitting over the whole surface of her inner thigh. “C’mon love, spread your legs fo’ me.” 

And with that, Y/N stops laughing. 

While continuing to push against her leg, he presses an open mouth kiss against the front of her underwear, already able to taste the heady flavour. Harry can’t help but let out a deep groan, every nerve ending set alight at his mouth finally around her cunt. The tip of Y/N’s tongue tingles with a beg for him to take off her underwear, but Harry acts on his own accord, almost ripping the garment off in his haste. 

If Harry thought the taste of her was mouthwatering through the cotton, the taste of her without it was even better. 

He had meant to tease her, he really had, but he can’t help but lick straight into her weeping hole, moaning at the taste and the smooth feeling of her smeared against his mouth. Spreading her lips with his pointer and ring finger, Harry continues to explore, flicking his tongue against the swollen bud underneath her pubic bone, causing a loud moan to erupt from her mouth. 

“Holy fuck Harry! Feels so good.” 

Harry tucks two of his fingers into her while sucking at her clit, Y/N tugging at his curls harshly in response. 

It feels so good, but Y/N needs more. The feeling of Harry’s fingers is making her skin tingle, and her legs shake, but she wants nothing more than to be stretched out by him. She wants him to give her everything, push into her slowly, stretch her pussy, and finally feel his cum spurting into her. 

So she pulls him up, one hand still intertwined in his hair and the other on his shoulder, scratching and pulling as a hint to bring his mouth to hers. At first, he’s hesitant, grumbling slightly in annoyance, not wanting to part from her, “Harry please, want to kiss you.” 

He gives her one more harsh suck, before sliding back up her body, where Y/N is waiting with her mouth open and her eyes on him. Harry smirks, slipping the two fingers that had just been inside of her against her tongue, feeling more blood rushing between his legs at the feeling of her licking and sucking them as if it were his cock. 

She bites gently, causing a hiss to escape from his mouth as he drags them back out slowly, quickly replacing his fingers with his lips, licking into her mouth.

The tangy taste of her own cum slips past her tastebuds again, and Y/N had never been one to find it hot, but with the salty flavour transferring from Harry’s fingers and tongue, she’d never been more attracted to her own taste. 

Y/N desperately wants to mix his cum with hers, wants to swallow around his cock and feel the intoxicating mixture slide down her throat, “I wanna taste you now.” 

He breathes through his nose heavily and shakes his head, “just want to feel you. ‘M not gonna last long if you suck me off as well.” Y/N whines, but by the longing look Harry gives her pouting lips, it seems he’s not entirely content with his decision either. 

He reaches over her shoulder, digging into the set of drawers next to the bed, giving Y/N the perfect view of his broad chest, littered with tattoos. He looks so tan, his muscles rippling under the smooth skin, and she wants nothing more than to litter it with love bites and scratches. She teasingly licks at his nipple, and he startles, an uncharacteristic giggle leaving his lips as he comes back to lie in front of her, in his hand a condom. 

Suddenly his eyes clear, the lust caused fog fading, “you still okay with this? We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.” 

Her heart swells, how was it possible that this Adonis-like man was also so sweet? There was nothing she wanted more than to be with Harry in every way and right now, she needed him inside of her, “yes Harry. Do you?” 

He scoffs some, “fuck yes,” he mumbles his next statement as he tucks his head under her jaw, putting the condom on at the same time, “feel like my dicks gonna fall off, I’m that hard.” 

She laughs, wrapping her arms around him, she’d never felt so happy and complete, so overwhelmed. Every positive emotion was combining within her, creating a whirlwind of passion and love, causing each feeling to increase tenfold. 

The head of Harry’s cock slips through her folds, sending a zap of pleasure through her each time it nudges her clit, and he smirks each time she twitches, unconsciously arching up towards him. “Y’ ready?” 

She nods, moving her hips closer, making her own attempt to be filled by him. 

Slowly, Harry enters her, each inch causing the delicious burn from him stretching her walls increasing. Y/N almost chokes on her own moans, can hardly stand how good he feels or the way her muscles spasm attempting to adjust to the intrusion. It feels as if each ridge and curve was being simulated, each nerve ending firing again and making her head feel dizzy. 

Harry almost looks like he’s in pain with his eyes shut so tightly, Y/N can see the wrinkles surrounding them. His mouth is parted with sharp breaths entering and leaving his mouth, his head hung back, and his jawline sharp enough to cut glass. 

“Holy fuck. You feel so fucking good.” 

At the sound of his voice, Y/N clenches, making Harry cry out. “Move H. Fuck me, please.” 

He begins slowly, pulling out before slamming back into her, reaching so far Y/N can feel him in her tummy. 

He intertwines their fingers and holds them against the pillow her head rests on. She squeezes them, and he leans his forehead against hers, the tender action contradicting the harsh snaps of his hips. “How do you feel so good?” He whimpers. She nudges his chin with her nose, pushing his lips closer to hers, each thrust smearing them closer together. 

“You’re so good to me H,” she whispers back as she wraps one of her hands behind his head, his neck in the crook of her elbow. Using leverage from her other hand against the bed, she pushes her hips upwards, creating double the amount of friction between them. The actions causing both of them to cry out, Harry seeming to be pushed impossibly further inside of her, the head of him nudging against her cervix. 

“Fuck that’s it. Look at you, usin’ me to get yourself off.”

While the new angle felt so good, it was quickly tiring. Harry could see Y/N fatiguing after a few minutes, knowing the burn in her legs would be almost unbearable at this point. So he tucks his arms under her outstretched ones, laying his torso against hers and tucking his head into her neck, kissing lightly as he completely slows down his movements. He stops the whine that leaves her throat with a quick, “shh, it’s okay. Just wanna take my time with you, never want this to end.” 

While running her hand through his curls and holding the back of his neck closer to her chest, she replies, “me either baby.” 

They spend some time like this, just enjoying each other’s company and the feel of being so close to one another. Y/N breathes deeply, the smell of sex in the room mixing with Harry’s cologne, making her relax and let out a contented sigh. She had never felt more full and so satisfied, with a hint of an orgasm sparking between her hip bones, the dull ember just waiting to be fully ignited by his movements. 

As if sensing this, he speeds up once again. The burn that stretches through her legs as Harry pulls them over his shoulders, mixes with the pleasure of his thrusts, the head of his cock nudging her g-spot with each deep drive of his hips. 

Y/N cries out, grabbing at his shoulders, her nails unintentionally digging into the skin, creating small red crescents along the tense muscles connecting his neck to his scapula. 

He just feels so good. Every movement of his hips, each inhale and exhale, each brush of their lips and dig of his fingers brings Y/N even closer to her orgasm. She can’t tell if Harry plans each of these things with her pleasure in regard or if it’s the chemistry between them that’s causing every sensation to be felt tenfold. All she knows is that she would happily lie under Harry for the rest of her life if it meant she always felt this weightless. 

Harry’s balls make a sharp ‘thwack’ against her ass each time he thrusts, the sound of her arousal echoing through the room, in such a crude fashion, Y/N almost has time to feel embarrassed. On the other hand, Harry revels in the sound, loves the fact he can see, hear, touch every part of her arousal, surrounding them in their own cocoon of sex and pleasure. 

“C’mon Y/N, please. Cum on my cock.” While Y/N had already been feeling the building pressure of her impending orgasm, Harry’s words only work to bring it faster. “Please Y/N,” she bucks up against him, chasing the feeling of his pubic bone rubbing against her already sensitive clit. “Good girl. Fuck, you’re my good fucking girl, aren’t you?” She whines a response, the noise high pitched and hoarse. Harry sees Y/N’s desperate search for her finish, and brings two fingers down, rubbing at her clit. 

“Fuck, yes, Harry!” Y/N can’t describe how overwhelmed she is with pleasure and feeling. Her face feels flushed and sticky with sweat, her legs are slightly cramped from her constant strain to get closer to Harry and his cock buried in her cunt, and when Harry brings one of his ring adorned hands to wrap comfortably around her neck, suddenly Y/N feels weightless. She feels the burst of pleasure from between her legs, a zip running up her spine, leaving her limbs with a tingle. 

Harry hears her cum before he sees it, the moans dripping from her mouth, her eyes widening before she’s squeezing them tightly together. Harry knew he would play that exact moment on replay for the rest of his fucking life. 

He watches as she brings her hand up to his that’s still spread around her neck, and Harry almost can’t stand it when he feels her squeezing it tighter, begging for Harry to give her more. If he wasn’t so close to cumming, Harry might’ve teased her, loosened his grip on purpose to watch her squirm and whine, whisper in her ear how hot it was to see how desperate she was for Harry to simply touch her, alas he’s too close. Can barely form a coherent thought, let alone tease her. So instead he appeases her, tightens his grips and begins to pound into her harder, searching for his own release.

Finally, it comes, Harry releasing a deep groan, grabbing onto the pillow next to her head, letting out a deep moan. Both of them can feel each rope of cum, as Y/N’s own orgasm works to milk each drop from him. 

His movements slowly come to a stop, leaving him tucked inside of her as his length softens. Wrapping his arms around her once again, he revels in the warmth and comfort she brings, his lips pressing against hers gently. “Fuckin’ hell.” 

Y/N giggles and nods in agreement. How had they spent so long fighting when this was the result of them getting along. She still feels Harry shifting above her, the aftershocks of her orgasm, creating an increase in sensitivity, each movement from the handsome boy above her sending a jolt through her whole body. 

“Fuck you’re still squeezin’ me pet.” She hugs into him tighter as yet another twitch is brought from his prick still buried deep within her, “mhm, still sensitive but you feel so good.” 

He kisses her soft temple, “lucky for you, in about fifteen minutes, we can go again.” Y/N scoffs, her head leaving the crook of his neck to give him a dirty look only to be met with his deep smirk. His famous dimples indented next to his smile, as he giggles and brushes his nose against the swell of her cheek. 

“You really are…” his giggle is joined by her own. 

“A lecher,” they finish together. 

[violettelueur]

ITADORI YUJI + FUSHIGURO MEGUMI + GOJO SATORU + RYŌMEN SUKUNA || WITH A CHUBBY S/O

| featuring : itadori yuji + fushiguro megumi + gojo satoru + ryomen sakuna from jujutsu kaisen

| warnings : grammar errors and a lot of my side comments

| form : headcanons

| published : 23 november

| request : Hello! I would like to order jujutsu kaisen headcanons? Can I please have a large “itadori, megumi, gojo, and sukuna with a chubby s/o”? Thank you!

| barista’s notes : hiya! it is now 2:15am in the uk and now the end of my night shift ʕ·ᴥ·˵　ʔ i wanted to remind you guys that all of you are beautiful in every way, no matter what body type you have and like i will say on one of the headcanons, i believe the only time we get to judge someone is by their character once we truly get to know them (if you disagree then please don’t bash me on this - i got a few comments once i said this out loud to someone ʕ￫ᴥ￩　ʔ) but i hope you enjoy this cup of classic black coffee and please come again soon! goodnight everyone, get some good rest all of you! ʕ •ᴥ•ʔゝ☆

ITADORI YUJI:

To be honest, I don’t think any of the boys will care that you are chubby - each and every one of us is beautiful physically, it’s our character that should be perceived in my opinion.

I don’t think Itadori would even mention about your chubbiness at all, but rather he would appreciate the little things that you do that intrigued him.

Like the way you write so neatly or the way, you would eat fish.

It’s the little things that he appreciates about you rather than your physical appearance.

However, if you were to comment about how you looked negatively, Itadori will immediately say the opposite because he genuinely knows that you are beautiful inside and out.

“Why am I so ugly? Ughh”

“Babe, stop, stop, stop, you are the most beautiful, caring and loving person I know. Please don’t put yourself down like that ever!”

Most likely, you would crush him into a hug because what he just said is the sweetest thing in the whole world - girl I would lowkey breakdown and cry, like….ʕ ꈍᴥꈍʔ

This boy will also feed you a lot of foods that had been introduced to him in Tokyo - this boy went on a food tour since he got to the capital.

Beef, sushi, burger, ramen, udon, you name it, he is taking you there to eat.

Of course, he would introduce you to them slowly because he knows that you have some likes and dislikes to food like any other person.

“Babe, this ramen is really good, the broth is so rich and the noodles are so chewy”

“Babe, you should try this waffle, it’s really good and sweet”

To be honest, he loves it when you wear his jumpers because no matter what you would look cute with whatever body type you have.

You just look so cuddly to him.

In conclusion; don’t worry how he thinks about you physically because to be completely honest, he really doesn’t care one single bit. 

FUSHIGURO MEGUMI:

Like I said before, he really doesn’t care what you look like physically if you have an unshakeable character, there is nothing more he could ask for remember?

To be honest, I think he really likes the fact that you are a bit on the chubby side - you’re basically the perfect pillow for him hehe~

He really likes to cuddle you and feel the warmth that is emitted from you, he just feels really safe in your arms and if you are in his arms, he feels like he is protecting you from the world.

At the end of missions, the team realises that he scrolls on his phone quite a bit more than he usually does, making them wonder what he was doing.

Basically, he texting you, asking if you have eaten or not making sure that you weren’t doing some stupid diet that you found on the internet.

If you haven’t eaten, he would order takeout when he would finish his own meal with his team and maybe add a few snacks here and there.

If you have eaten, Fushiguro will most likely ask for a photo of the meal that you have eaten or a picture of the dishes in the sink or on the drying rack.

Yes, man needs evidence - he really cares about you, you know, it’s really sweet.

There are also times where you would put on an outfit and just stare blankly at the mirror, leading to Fushiguro to quickly say something before you fill your mind with downgrading comments - girl if I slap that head of yours….

“You look really beautiful today,”

And he would look at you in the eye when he says this to you.

Those little comments he says to you really put you in a better mood even though he thinks they don’t make much of a difference.

He’s just saying what is on his mind - he really does find you beautiful. You are beautiful to him.

Overall, expect him to say little compliments every now and then as well as a lot of text messages - he’s just checking up on you, you better reply soon before he spams you.

 GOJO SATORU:

This man doesn't really give a damn on what you look like - no matter what he would still tease you to no end still.

He would come back with a lot of sweet souvenirs to share with you since he knows that sweets with a cup of tea really hits the both of you after an exhausting day.

He would always let you pick first on what you want to eat first and on the sidelines would comment on what he would recommend you trying if it’s the first time you tried one of the snacks he bought home.

He really likes to see you eat as you would always have that small smile once you take a bite on what you’re eating - if you are happy, he is happy.

If you comment on anything that you hate about your body, he would place a few cheeky kisses on the area that you have commented - it really doesn’t matter what area you are talking about mate.

“Are my hips too wide? Should I get a waist trainer?”

“Babe come here right now...”

And he would say that in a very stern tone - so you better go to him sweetheart before he drags you to him.

Expect a lot of cafe/dessert place dates with him, once again he would introduce you to his favourite flavours and he would buy your favourite flavours as well to try for himself.

You two seem like the couple that would share a milkshake - you know like the retro 90s theme cafe with the tall glass.

If anyone tries to say something about your appearance, I don’t think they would have the chance to even say what they would have said since they would feel knives being pointed at their heads or back - aka Gojo’s death stare with his shiny blue eyes.

In conclusion: he would kiss any part of your body that you hate and keep reminding you that you are beautiful in any way but feeding you sweets because why the hell not.

RYOMEN SUKUNA:

Sukuna, Sukuna, Sukuna, this man will be the death of me.

I think he would be a little aggressive when he tells you not to worry about his appearance.

Like if you say something that is completely negative about yourself, he would grab your chin and make you face him.

He would probably have an irritated tone as he reminds you that he isn’t with you because of how you look, but who you are as a person.

“Stop saying that you’re ugly, you are a sight to behold, anyone that what’s looks at you should ask for permission first before they are blessed with the sight of you”

Girlllllll, I’m blushingggggggg~

You interest him because you have an interesting and captivating personality and to be honest, I have an idea that he loves the fact that you are chubby.

Because that means he has more areas to mark you as his hehe~

You know that Sukuna’s love language is physical touch/affection, so he would just love to touch your body with no hesitation - probably roams his hands around as well

During a makeout, don’t be surprised when he would grip some part of your body - most likely your thigh, hip, neck, face, basically anywhere at this point.

He would probably leave a lot of open kisses upon your skin as a way to physically tell you that he loves all parts of you.

Sometimes, he would probably make you wear the other layer of his kimono because you would look so adorable and mostly like delicious to him - HAHAHA WHAT DID I JUST TYPE?!

If the both of you are cuddling, Sukuna will most likely caress any part of your body or trace his finger on your skin to feel every bump and trace every stretch marks before telling you that are you beautiful.

In conclusion; Sukuna will tell you physically on how much he loves your body and how much he really worships it (well...he won’t admit it but you can slowly tell over him)

[starlightrows]

In The Eye Of The Beholder

Chapter 1

Next →

Pairing: Commander Wolffe x reader

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: brief description and mildly graphic medical jargon about losing an eye and having a prosthetic implant placed

Summary: Shortly after the events of the Battle of Khorm, the Kaminoans don’t see the value in moving forward with treatment for Commander Wolffe... you, the GAR doctor on the Coruscant disagree

“I don’t remember asking for your goddamn opinion ambassador!” you shout up at the pale long necked Kaminoan, who’s been passively berating you in an attempt to get your patient taken off life support. Your communicator goes off loudly, and you feel no shame in looking at it instead of listening to the Kaminoan ambassadors retort.

“I’m sorry ambassador, but this discussion is over. The requisition for the cybernetic prosthesis has gone through and whether you like it or not, I am going to give that man a fighting chance. He didn’t lay down his life to be tossed out with the garbage. Now get out of my med bay,” your turn on your heel, and begin speaking into your comlink to arrange for the surgery to get underway immediately.

The procedure took nine grueling hours to fully clear out the wound, put in the prosthetic eye and reconstruct the damage to the soldier's facial structure. He stood a good chance of making a full recovery if the cybernetic innervations healed correctly. Now it was just a matter of letting him rest and wake up in his own time.

Most clone troopers in the GAR hospital didn’t get many visitors, most didn’t stay long enough to need visitors though the ones that lived through their ordeals usually recovered on transports back to the front line. But this trooper had a frequent visitor, a Jedi.

“He must be a very good commander for you to check in on him so often,” you comment one afternoon, standing by the door. The tall Kel Dor turned to face you.

“He is. A dutiful, loyal, hardworking commander. But that is not why I come to see him,” he says

“Why then? Certainly a Jedi Master and a General in the Grand Army of the Republic has many duties and responsibilities to see to,” you approach the bed with your tray of fresh wound dressings for his eye.

“The same reason you advocated for him when the Kaminoans wanted to let him die. He is a person. An individual. He is a good man. And he is a member of my team,” he explains while you work to remove the bandages that keep the stitches and cybernetics clean.

“You care for him,” you say with a smile, applying a layer of bacta gel to the stitches with a cotton bud.

“Indeed. I care for him, and all of his brothers that serve under my command. I am not the only one who worries after his health,” The jedi steps around you, trying not to be in the way.

“Well that makes two of us. I don’t even know him, but I want him to live. And not just to keep serving the republic,” you finish applying the bacta gel and begin rewrapping his head with clean bandages.

“You have a good heart doctor, and better view of the troopers than most. I think he’ll like you when he has the chance to formally meet you,” the jedi says

“I should hope so, he’ll have to come back fairly regularly for check ups and case study updates. He’s the first living being with this particular model of prosthesis. If he doesn’t like me, it’ll be a very unpleasant couple months until the study is complete,” you’ve finished wrapping his head, but find you can’t stop looking at his handsome face. True you’ve seen thousands exactly like his before, but right now it’s as if you’ve never seen anyone like him.

“I’ll be the first to admit, he’s stubborn and a bit gruff. But he’s not so bad once you get to know him, he’s fiercely protective and hates to feel weak. This will be a difficult recovery for him, but I have confidence in him. And in you doctor,” you tear your gaze away from the commander and smile at the jedi.

“Thank you master jedi,” you give him a small bow of your head out of respect.

“Plo,” he says “No need for such formalities,” you wonder briefly if he is smiling beneath his deoxygenator, it certainly sounds like it.

“And him? They don’t include their chosen names in their identification codes, just CC and CT numbers. I doubt he goes by his CC number day to day,” you pack away your equipment, unfortunately other patients are waiting, as much as you would love to stay and chat with the kind jedi master. Plo tracks your movements, he senses your rising anxieties about having to leave and attend to other matters in the hospital. Just as you’re about to leave without getting an answer, Plo speaks up.

“His name is Wolffe”

—

Much to your delight, Commander Wolffe does wake up within a few days. And he’s every bit the stubborn, defensive, and unwilling patient Master Plo promised he would be. He keeps getting up and trying to leave despite obviously being in immense physical pain, he’s already ripped his stitches once, and he’s down right refusing to let you get near him to check the wound and change the dressing.

“Commander Wolffe I am at my wits end here. I’m going to step out to allow you a visitor, and when I come back you will be laying on that bed, I am changing those dressings, you are taking your medication. Is that that clear?” You bark at him. He glares at you with his one amber eye but does not respond.

You push the door open and see Master Plo waiting on the other side.

“He’s all yours General, talk some sense into him if you can,” you toss the comment over your shoulder as you head down to the nurses station for a cup of water.

Master Plo enters the patient room, and finds Wolffe pacing against the far wall. His head snaps up, and he visibly struggles to bring the newcomer into his field of vision.

“General!” Wolffe says in surprise, straightening his posture

“Wolffe, your doctor tells me you’re refusing care,” Plo closes the door behind him.

“I should be out there,” Wolffe growls “Kriff… I shouldn’t even be alive right now. They’re keeping me alive to keep me in a box!”

Plo senses that there is something more, something he’s holding back, beyond wanting to be released from med bay.

“You know better than most that withholding the truth can be the determining factor between life and death,” Master Plo says carefully, approaching Wolffe with slow movements “but this truth is one that needs to be shared,”

Wolffe’s shoulders drop and what little color he’s managed to regain drains from his face. His knees give out and he sinks down onto the floor, tears stain both his good cheek and the bandage. Master Plo moves to join him on the floor.

“Good soldiers don’t lay around in hospital beds and weep over superficial pain,” Wolffe says weakly “Soldiers that don’t recover quickly… get decommissioned and sent back to Kamino in a box,”

“You are already recovering quickly, and your doctor can give you something for the pain so you can heal faster,” Plo says cooly “You are not being sent back to Kamino. Your doctor made sure of that,”

“What?” Wolffe was surprised to hear this, up to this point all of his conscious interactions with you had been rather gruff and none too friendly, he can’t imagine why you weren’t doing everything in your power to get him out of your hospital and out of your way.

“A Kaminoan ambassador came to assess treatment at this hospital and saw your condition, they incorrectly assumed that it would be more beneficial to cease all treatment. Your doctor, shall we say, violently disagreed,”

“Violently sir?”

“They were furious she went ahead with the surgery. Believe me, if someone had recorded it on a holo I would show it to you. It was quite the spectacle,” Master Plo laughs “She was adamant that you deserved a fighting chance,”

—

Later that evening after General Plo had left, you returned to Wolffe’s room with a tray of equipment to change his dressings, and medicine to help with the pain.

“Commander Wolffe if I come into this room and you throw something or scream at me, I will have you physically restrained,” you say sharply before fully entering the room. He’s sitting on the bed facing away from the door.

“I won’t yell,” he replies quietly without turning around, his tone is decidedly gentler than before. Whatever the General said to him must have done the trick. You approach him cautiously, rounding the end of his bed so you could get a good look at him. His face is set in a harsh grimace.

“Are you in pain?” You ask. He nods but doesn’t reply. “I am going to change those dressings and we’re gonna test out that new eye. I think with a good dose of anti inflammatory medication, and some intraocular movement you’ll feel better,”

He nods again, you drag a chair over and sit in front of him, he doesn’t bat your hand away when you move to unwrap his bandages. The silvery white cybernetic eye under the protective padding is downcast to match its whiskey gold twin. The stitches are finally healing up with the help of the bacta gel.

“Good news Commander I think you’re healed enough you won’t need a fresh bandage. Now let’s see how well this prosthesis works. Can you look at my nose?” You remove a penlight from your pocket and shine it in each of his eyes.

You run through a series of tests asking him to stare straight ahead at you, follow the light with his eyes, and tell you when he can or can’t see you moving the end of the pen out of his vision. Pressure and tightness on his left side subsides he continues moving his eye around.

“Your reactions look normal, how does it feel?” you click off your penlight and tuck it away.

“Hurts a bit less,” he quietly admits “I’m sorry about before,”

His change in demeanor is a surprise but a welcome one, far better than him trying to escape or aggressively get away from you. You give him a small cup with the anti inflammatory medicine in it, and second small cup with water. He takes the pills without complaint. You remain seated in front of him, to maintain this comfortable closeness.

“It’s okay. I know this isn’t easy,” you give him a sympathetic look.

“General Plo mentioned that you advocated for me, I would be dead if it wasn’t for you…” he falters “thank you,”

That familiar feeling you had before when he was still on life support crept back up on you. Heartbreak for how much he and his brothers have to sacrifice, longing to show him the appreciation he deserves, and something else, something you can’t place.

“This war won’t last forever. You deserve the chance to live in the freedom and peace you fight so hard to protect,”

He’s a bit stunned. Sure he’s heard a handful of politicians advocating for clone rights, but he’s never heard anyone say something like this. He can tell your words are genuine and heartfelt.

“Is there any way I can repay you, or thank you for sticking your neck out for me?” He asks “It takes guts to stand up to those soulless bastards,”

“Well ah… don’t thank me too fast. I know you didn’t exactly sign up for this but your prosthetic is a brand new top of the line prototype. By default you’re a participant in the longitudinal study of its effectiveness,” you admit sheepishly. He raises an eyebrow and peers at you. “On the positive side, you’ll get a bit more shore leave to come in for appointments,”

“Well that’s certainly nothing to complain about. My offer still stands, can I take you out as a thank you?”

You smile warmly and quirk up a brow to match him. “Take me out? Hm… I get off in a couple hours and you’re being discharged from med bay today, I’m game if you give me a chance to run home and ditch my scrubs,”

“It’s a deal,”

[gffa]

I know I've brought this up before, but how much of the fandom reception of the prequels do you think stemmed from the genre dissonance? That the prequels, genre-wise, are closer to high fantasy, while the OT is more an adventure/space western/underdog triumph story.

The prequels also have elements more reminiscent of a romantic period/court drama/Shakespearean tragedy, while if you consider the underdog angle of the OT, the OT also seems kinda similar to some of those inspirational movies about sports teams or something, or a shonen anime with the "Power of Friendship".

I'm just saying, these are rather disparate genres that tend to attract different demographics of people.

And not many people tend to be... great about understanding why they don't like something, much less putting it into words, or understanding that they can dislike something without that something being actually bad. (For example, instead of "I just don't really like [thing]," the usual statement is something along the lines of "[thing] absolutely sucks.")

So the usual response is trying to find (and gather) solidarity while putting down or being condescending towards any dissent, and trying to justify their own dislike. (*gestures vaguely towards pineapple on pizza*)

And historically, it's not uncommon for people to... react strongly towards things they find... different or abnormal, which they judge based on themselves, their emotional response to something, and what they're used to.

Looking at kids, this behavior is... fairly normal. "You're weird," "ew, why do you like that, that's gross," "that's stupid," and so on. A lot of kids/teens/young adults also get defensive really easily. And let's face it--adults are basically just older, taller kids who've had to deal with more of life.

(To be honest, I also get defensive really easily. A lot of people do, and it's... it's normal. The defensive reaction can be lashing out, denial, or just being passive-aggressive or staying silent and tuning it out or mentally rolling your eyes at it. But I'm trying to work on it, because just because it's normal doesn't mean it's a good reaction.)

So, what I'm wondering is whether some fans dislike the prequels simply because it's a different genre...

...but instead of realizing that, they try to defend and justify their dislike by pointing fingers and criticizing whatever stood out or looked different from the OT or cherry-picking details/taking things out of context or making negative conflations (that can be refuted).

Because it's not about logic, it's about how they feel. And people want to feel justified and validated, and we want to feel like we're right and we enjoy staying in our comfort zones. So... yeah. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

LOL, okay, this response is going to be really disjointed because I went off in like a dozen different tangents and even then it's not enough to cover everything, so just kind of read this in a Scattered Thoughts Nerd kind of tone, where I'm staring off into the distance because Navel Gazing Gets Me Going Sometimes. 😂 In my experience, it's sort of a mix. I don't hang around a lot of people who dislike the prequels (in the sense of dismissing them/not being fannish about them) because, well, that's the heart of my interest in Star Wars, so our areas of interest basically don't really overlap that much, so I don't have a chance to talk to a lot of people and find out their reasons or even how they dislike the prequels, in the bigger trends of fandom. I do think there's an element of what you're talking about, that sometimes people can't just dislike things because it's not their genre of choice, that's absolutely a part of it. Mostly because that's how a lot of people react to anything they don't like (and it's something I and literally everyone else has to work on), there has to be a reason for it that it's objectively bad and, like, I have experienced a lot of people getting mad because I like something in a different way than they do. And I don't mean just in Star Wars fandom, but in almost any given fandom--if someone likes something in a way someone else doesn't, if they talk loudly about it (even within their own space), then there's always a contingent of people who have to find a reason why that person is objectively wrong (or even try to make them morally wrong), rather than just shrugging and going, "We see things differently, my view on things doesn't overwrite theirs and their view on things doesn't overwrite mine." It gets more complicated in instances where fandom attitudes genuinely can be hurtful, especially when they're overlapping into the way real people are treated, likes/dislikes don't 100% exist in a bubble, especially when it comes to queer fans, fans of color, disabled fans, mentally ill fans, etc. But that there are a lot of instances where fandom culture has always been--and is increasingly so--contentious and it's hard to chill out when someone is always screaming at you, when the atmosphere of the fandom is always so intense. Further, there's also an element of how fandom has always been--and also is increasingly so--about personal resonance, personal emotional investment, interpretation, and meaning. That sometimes we identify with something so deeply that we feel attacked when someone else likes or dislikes something we feel so strongly about, something that we feel is a reflection of ourselves, and I see a lot of that as well. And this, too, often crosses over into lines of how the context of how we treat characters can be reflections of how we treat real world people, but that there's no monolith here as well. For example: I make fun of Anakin, this angers some people, because how dare I not take this fictional victim 100% seriously, despite that I have repeatedly said that Anakin is the character I most identify with, that things I make fun of him for are ones that I resonate with personally. I'm not disrespecting mentally ill people, especially considering that Anakin is not bound to a single interpretation on this front--he is not canonically mentally ill, no matter how easy it is for us in fandom to map much of that onto his character or, in my case, feel that so much of what I see in him are things I struggle with myself. By and large, the majority of the people I see (at least on tumblr) who make fun of Anakin are doing so within the same vein, that they're being silly about him on things that they personally relate to. (My experiences on this are not universal, I cannot speak for the whole of even any one part of fandom, only my own sphere of experience, but this is what I've seen.) As always, it's fine if someone doesn't vibe with my style or they find that it's not their thing because they do take him more seriously, but that preference does not make my jokes

suddenly not have the context that I relate a lot to what I see in Anakin. In contrast, the way some of the fandom treats Mace or Finn isn't just personal all the time. Not liking their characters isn't inherently racist, but the way they're consistently, consistently treated sure as hell speaks to a larger pattern of racism in fandom and doesn't come without that context. It's the same with Rey--is there a huge vein of misogyny when it comes to her character? Abso-fucking-lutely there is. Things Luke and Anakin get a pass on, Rey is raked over the coals for. Is everyone who dislikes Rey a misogynist? Not even close. Some don't like her because Finn was used as a prop for her story. Some people don't like her because she got sucked into Kylo Ren's story too much. Some just don't care for the way she was written for other reasons. Some just don't vibe with her. It's fine. Nothing is a monolith. And to circle this back around to what you're talking about--it's hard to judge, both because no part of fandom is a monolith in their reactions, but also because we're only hearing from a selection of the fans. How do you know how many people who aren't fans of the prequels, who just don't care for them because it's not their genre, but just go about their day? You don't hear from a lot of them because they moved on to things they do like, so it seems like they must not exist--except, they do, and they're just out there doing things they like more. We only hear from the people who feel the need to tell others they dislike the prequels for this reason or that reason, some valid, some less valid, etc. Ultimately, I do think there's probably a fair amount of genre dissonance for why people dislike the prequels and channel that into "they're objectively bad" and get defensive when people like them and say they were great, but only because that's true of anything anywhere. But that it's only one small slice of the bigger picture (and there's a lot of stuff that I had to eschew in the writing of this response as well because it can be a pretty sprawling topic), where there are tons of reasons and reactions that people have, as well as they're perfectly free to dislike the prequels for whatever reason they do or don't have, it doesn't really affect my opinions, unless they're trying to shove it in my face or are being a dick to those who disagree with them.

[radiantmists]

i feel like this is gonna be an unpopular opinion but i sometimes see people talk about grizzop as a sort of paragon of logic and morality and it always bugs me.

bc like. yes, i love grizzop. and i think it’s clear that he is very much trying to be good, and he’s very committed to doing what he sees as the right thing. 

but the same are true for azu and hamid and plenty of characters, and i don’t think he’s any better at moral reasoning than most of the rest of the party. i think the impression that he is comes from his unshakeable confidence and his mastery of what I’ve started to think of as catholic logic. 

(this is fairly stream of consciousness and i’m not gonna tag it bc it’s not gonna be entirely coherent or especially well argued, i’m just getting some thoughts down. but my understanding is that sometimes untagged stuff shows up in search, plus ig i have followers, so feel free to reply and discuss this, i’d actually love that. but not much i say here is stuff i’m super confident about so... please don’t get too offended by my wrongness. just tell me why you feel im wrong without aggression, or move on.)

the first bit is the confidence. we don’t ever see grizzop have a moral crisis in the way that most of the other characters do. I can’t think of a time that he’s appeared to look back on something he’s done and wonder if it was wrong; the closest that occurs to me is when he regretted shooting the guy’s legs off in the cairo bar, but tbh i think that was more of a judgement error where he expected to hurt the person much less than he did. we don’t see him question things like flooding the orc town near damascus or dragging sasha into the politics of ancient rome when she didn’t want to be, and honestly, i think this lack is mostly to do with how short a time he was with the party.

most of the arcs he were present for were focused on hamid and sasha’s growth. where he played respectively the accuser and the protector, both roles that made him look good because they cast him as the arbiter of who was right. 

i think hamid, especially, bought into this in the cairo arc, because i think hamid is very consciously in the process of recalibrating his moral compass at the time and he has a marked tendency to do so based on the people he admires-- and the loudest voice in the room. hamid really doesn’t like people he admires having a problem with him, and he already felt that he wasn’t necessarily a good person, so he was very open to seeing grizzop or azu as the authority on whether he could be good, and since grizzop pushed where azu prevaricated, grizzop was the one who got the final say.

but in the same arc, you can see sasha and azu starting to question grizzop’s moral compass; sasha notices how legalistic grizzop’s judgement is, and that it really ought to condemn her too, while azu takes issue with how brutal grizzop’s methods are (see punching wilde). but neither of them are willing to press the issue with him at that point, and so he’s never really confronted with something that contradicts him.

and notably, grizzop’s confidence comes from the obvious source: he believes that artemis is inviolably good, and he knows she approves of what he’s doing because his powers still work. but there’s an arrogance here, too, a very strong belief in his own moral superiority with the slightest confirmation; look at rome, where he refuses to listen to azu and ed’s assertions that there’s something wrong with the gods there, because he was able to bull through to artemis the one time he tried, so obviously he must just be a better paladin of a better god, right?

grizzop has very strong beliefs and opinions, and he takes whatever route works best to fulfill them-- both in terms of actions, and in terms of logic. take his decision to forgive/endorse hamid near the end of the cairo arc: by his own assertions, people should experience consequences for their actions, and we know he knows what manslaughter is because he brings it up when hamid first starts talking about accidental murder. but where saleh and carter belong in jail because they’re ~bad~, hamid is allowed to continue on because he’s ‘trying to be better’, never mind that that  was hamid’s whole argument about why saleh didn’t deserve to go to jail. plus, saleh’s one goal when he thought he’d killed someone was to resurrect them, which imo makes a lot more sense as a redemptive gesture than going around killing entirely unrelated people. the rules are different because grizzop likes hamid (and probably a bit because ben didn’t want to break the party, but shhh).

this twisting of the logic to fit what you’re trying to prove is what i mean by ‘catholic logic’ (i’m catholic dont @ me); it sounds really good if you don’t think about it too hard, but in fact it’s generally post-facto rationalizations for decisions that have already been made.

grizzop is very enthusiastic about poking holes in other people’s moral reasoning, as we see with apophis, but i think his issue is that he’s got a blind spot when he looks at himself and his own decisions. in grizzop’s world, grizzop is right as long as artemis is still with him and everything else comes after.

now i’m personally of  the opinion that alex doesn’t bother/want to engage with the idea that gods take away powers, post-poseidon nonsense, which if true i sympathize with; doing so is either going to lead to the sort of inscrutability zolf had a meltdown over, or put a player in the weird position of making their character do what alex has decided their god would require or having to entirely reinvent the character without those divine powers.

on another meta level, my understanding is that grizzop  was designed to be very resistant to doubt because of ben’s difficulties playing zolf, so i think he might have been nearly as resistant to growth on that front as bertie was in general, because believing unshakeably that he’s right is a core element of his character. 

but i think if grizzop had lived longer, alex absolutely would have done some hammering at that absolute conviction. that might have come in the form of vesseek and the fact that grizzop is apparently an absentee father; even if he is sending home money, i can’t imagine that not being something that gets mined for angst. 

i also think he would have eventually come into a similar sort of conflict with azu, sasha, or cel (whoever was there) that zolf is in right now, where he absolutely believes that whatever killing he’s committed/intending to commit is not only right but a moral imperative, and they disagree. 

now whatever side you fall on in the barrett debate, i think grizzop ought to be a lot less willing than zolf to say ‘i’m not gonna go through you lot to do it’, not because i’m convinced grizzop would be hugely more willing to physically fight the rest of the team over it, we know that despite his practicality he seems to overlook some ‘’’wobbles’’’ in people he already cares about,  but because zolf is capable of giving up on something in a way that grizzop just isn’t. i dont know how that would play out; chances are, it would get interrupted by a fight, but. who knows.

[lichfucker]

i would love to hear about why all of the ted lasso characters would fail survivor but especially rebecca

hhh ALL of them... okay the vast majority of the players can be explained away with just "physical prowess enough to make them a threat in individual challenges but dumb as bricks and would not be able to strategize themselves out of a bad spot"

this is abt to get long lmao so I'm putting individual ppl under the cut

nate is the most obvious first boot I honestly feel bad about it. bumbling, socially awkward, has NO idea how to assert himself without being an asshole about it (in the rare instances when he does assert himself at all), and even if he's smart enough to be a great strategist (which he absolutely IS), he can't convey it well enough to convince his tribe to overlook his (probable) lack of challenge ability. most of the time, people don't want to draw harsh lines in the sand on the very first vote so they can pretend everyone's getting along and still friends, so nate would be a sort of freebie vote that it'd be easy to agree on.

beard is too much of a follower. what ted says to dr sharon abt him is, "that man has had many lives, many masters." he's very comfortable being led by people with stronger personalities, and even when he disagrees with their calls he will still execute them like a perfect little lackey. the thing about beard is that I think he'd go VERY far in a season of survivor! I think he could EASILY make it all the way to the end! but I just don't think he can WIN. he's genius-level intelligent and SO strategically savvy, but more than that he is fiercely loyal. he'll attach himself to the right person (or the wrong person, as it were), and even if he is whispering in that person's ear all the way through, he would be TOO content to let them take all the credit, he wouldn't push back against them if they disagree with his plans and make a lesser move instead (the whole beginning of 'beard after hours' is him berating himself for not standing up and making the hard calls even when he knew they'd be better), he wouldn't turn around and slit that person's throat at the end to further his own game, and he would make himself socially impenetrable to everyone else. nobody could get close to him, nobody could like or understand him, he'd probably be seen as good collateral if the opposition couldn't strike directly at whomever beard works with, and if he DOES make it to final tribal, I think he'd have a very difficult time convincing the jury that he deserves the credit and the limelight. he wants to win, I just don't think he believes he deserves to.

ted and roy actually would have the exact same problem, which is "physically and strategically competent, but so FUCKING ANNOYING to live with that they get booted for the sake of tribal quality of life." roy would isolate himself socially with his aggression, and ted...

ted is the antithesis of what a "good survivor player" ought to be, which I actually think could work to his advantage in a number of ways? like I think more typical players would find him incredibly unpredictable because he's sharp enough to see what the best moves are, but generous and self-sacrificing enough not to make them. like, there's a reason he's a coach and not a player. there's a reason he says that he doesn't measure success in wins and losses. if he could survive the first few votes, his social game would be AMAZING-- the entire first season of the show is about him wearing rebecca down through the sheer magnitude of his friendship! lesser survivor players would be so endeared to him that they couldn't fathom voting him off, but they're the ones who are getting picked off in his stead. moderately savvy survivor players would not trust a single word out of ted lasso's mouth; there's no fucking way a man can be this kind and this sincere, not on survivor, it's just not possible, he must be plotting something MASSIVE, we have to strike first before he gets his chance. and the truly brilliant survivor players would realize that he IS genuine, he IS sincere, he IS loyal and giving to his core, and that's DANGEROUS. you can't let someone like that make it to the end or they'll take your million dollars. best to shut it down at the jump.

and above all that, I just think that ted... ted would thrive in the pre-merge, in the tribal portion of the game, he's SO team-oriented, but post-merge, in the individual game... perhaps if he had a solid alliance he could also feel that way about, then it might suit his temperament, but ultimately I think he just. wouldn't want it badly enough. I just think the significant majority of people would be vastly more self-interested than ted would be, so they'd take the shot first.

higgins is an interesting midpoint between all three of nate, beard, and ted, in that he's a henchman through and through even when he disagrees with his boss, he's a pushover who'd be seen as a liability in physical challenges in the early game, and he's off-puttingly friendly and polite to the point that nobody would trust that he's being sincere even though he absolutely is. early boot, maybe second or third.

maybe it's just because I've got cook islands on the brain, but jamie (esp season 1 jamie but like. season 2 as well lmao) would play A LOT like early ozzy. an arrogant wonder-boy who's good at everything (did you know there's literally a survivor casting archetype called the "amazing ace"?), with a heart-wrenching underdog story (playing for richmond, that is), an absolute beast in challenges, a huge threat but always immune, he'd win his way to the end but ultimately be beaten out in final tribal by someone smart enough to have dragged him along as their meat shield the whole game.

and as for rebecca... g-d. this one I think hurts me the most because she has everything going for her, she doesn't have a single one of the problems I've listed for anyone else, but I do genuinely believe that rebecca still loses. she's strong and she's smart and she's assertive and she's ruthless and she's sociable and she's a great liar and she's ambitious and she's ADAPTIBLE (she immediately bounces back after not getting the sun to run the photo of ted and keeley and comes up with an alternate plan that will still serve her own endgame, and by g-d being able to roll with the punches and change course is the single most important thing a survivor player can do), but rebecca still loses.

even if we set aside the fact that survivor on the whole is not particularly kind to women over 40... season 1 rebecca, especially early season 1 rebecca, is spite-motivated to the point of self-destruction. she will set her sights on one target and she will be relentless in her effort to get that person out and it'll make her so myopic that she won't see her own end coming immediately afterwards. nobody on that tribe wants to be her next victim-- better get rid of her once she's proven what she's capable of.

she's also dreadfully insecure in the wake of her divorce and when her polished veneer cracks enough to let it show (how many days of being rained on do we think it'll take for her to slip? my guess is five), some people will see it as the vulnerability that finally allows them to connect with her on a human level, while others will see it as a threatening endgame storyline and an exploitable weakness.

there are some juries, particularly old-school juries, that wouldn't vote for her in the end purely based on the fact that a million dollars is just a drop in the bucket to a woman like rebecca mannion welton. that would be a real shame, and a disservice to the game she would have had to play just to make it that far.

what's more likely than that, though, in my opinion, is that rebecca... loses the drive to win. I think that somewhere along the way survivor stops being a game that she is playing, stops being a competition, and instead becomes a journey of personal growth through adversity. I think she, like ted, stops measuring her success in wins and losses. I think she proves herself more capable and resilient than she ever thought she could be, and that is worth more to her than the money or the title of sole survivor, and she stops fighting for it. and maybe the jury admires that, and gives it to her anyway, rewards her transformation. or maybe they don't. maybe they view it as a concession, a forfeit. but I'm not certain that that moment of revelation happens at the final tribal council. I think it happens just before. I think it happens after the final immunity challenge, and she tearfully and valiantly allows herself to be voted out just inches from the finish line. I think rebecca is the fallen angel of the season, and she goes off to the jury with her head held high, which is nice, and so very noble of her, and the fans would be DYING to have her play again but she wouldn't, because she'll have gotten everything she could have wanted out of her survivor experience, and she doesn't need the crown on top of it.

I think rebecca COULD win. she just WON'T.

[imma-potatoo]

Hello! Do you have any more a n g s t headcanons? (any side but preferably janus if you dont mind) also have a great day/night!

Captain, I always have more angst!

I apologize for any spelling or grammar mistakes, I just woke up.

Janus had a stage when he was younger where he would try to rip out his scales

The first time that Janus met the light sides, Patton, Logan, and the King (at this point in time), Patton and King screamed at the very sight of the scales.

This put a deep set hatred for the scales. He hates them. He hates them more then anything. The amount of hours that Janus has spent staring in the bathroom mirror trying to shift them away is staggering

Virgil had to remove his bedroom door when they were younger because of the repeated ripping out of the scales

He has lots of texture issues with food, but he refuses to tell anyone because he doesn't want the others to view him as weak

All the mirrors in his room are either shattered or covered up

His bowler hat was the last gift he ever received (it was from Logan)

Janus has a massive sweet tooth, but rarely gets any sweet things

After DWIT Remus got accepted and his room moved to the light side, leaving Janus alone with the Orange side

I hc Orange as not necessarily evil or malicious (although you could view it that way) Orange is just very opinionated on how Thomas should navigate his life

And those views go directly against Janus'.

Every time that Janus expresses his opinion, Orange disagrees, and then they break into an argument. Their arguments are loud, rough, and often send the entire mindscape into disarray.

Orange will, and has, gaslit Janus into doing what he wanted

They're really more like very opinionated, aggressive roommates... But only if one of the roommates has a tendency to break the others favourite items when they get upset (which is Orange, not Janus)

The dark half of the mind runs on an obscure power structure that more (or less) dictates who gets to make the most decisions.

From the most powerful to the least it goes, Orange, (Virgil), Remus, and Janus.

The first time Janus heard Liar by the Arcadian Wilds, he cried

He can't help when he lies, often times it happens completely by accident. He doesn't speak in only lies exactly, but more like a 50/50 chance that he would tell the truth or a lie

For example. Lets say that it's raining. If you ask Janus the weather, there's a 50% chance that he would respond with "It's raining outside" and a 50% chance that he would say "It's sunny today and the clouds are green"

He's really annoyed by it

He loves going to the imagination to sunbathe, but he's terrified of Remus' side and after POF Roman refuses to let Janus in on his side

He hates his title being Deceit. He wants to be known as Self Preservation, but he knows that the others would never let him switch it

He knew Thomas was gay years before Thomas came out, and years before the other sides did. Thomas wasn't ready to admit that about himself, it tore Janus apart to keep it hidden, but he had to

The insult he hates the most is "snake-face"

He listens to Achilles Come Down regularly

He also listens to Lullaby (by nickelback) regularly

Same with My R

Janus listens to a lot of songs about suicide

The biggest hypocrite to ever walk the earth

He doesn't practice ANYTHING of what he preaches, overworking constantly, burning himself out, putting the other side's health before his own, he doesn't take care of himself

If you gave Janus a hug, he would cry

The scales are sensitive to touch and temperature. Anything that would feel normal on the human half in amplified with the scales

He disguises himself as the other sides to be listened to, even if it's only a minor improvement then normal

Janus is asexual, because of projection and you can fight me, and he does have some internalized aphobia. He feels like he's broken.

He also wears an ace ring under his gloves

He also loves the song That's What You Get by Paramore. He didn't stop playing it for weeks after SvS

After SvS he was a complete mess, he refused to eat anything for a week and didn't leave his room for months

Which sent Remus on his rampage for DWIT, Janus didn't send him, Remus wanted revenge

Thats all I got for now! Let me know if you want more :>

[dystopiandilfs]

I am never been so close to anti-stan then I am right now. Dreams Twitter fanbase started the biggest hate train on him because they themselves:

1. Took his inital tweet with the drugs comment as a race issue, like it was obvious that was not the intent or even the focus.

2. Got mad at his completely rational reply to a toxic Stan that used both white and adhd as an isult - the toxic Stan was saying his fanbase will dogpile them, well if you didn’t phrase your concerns in a toxic way in a public place maybe you wouldn’t be concerned about it. Like he empasised he had no intent to relate it to rap - and they see him say rap and fucking ran with it.

3. Got mad at him for disagreeing with someone generalizing his 23 million fans as anti-black, like even his stance on stans is entirely anti-generalizing, he literally denounced any that are in the same comment.

4. Bullied him into unprivating his account because they can’t share screenshots apparently.

5. Got mad a him for tweeting a fucking heart.

Then they turn around and blame the entire thing on the antis, like no. You blew it out of proportion and reacted like shit to everything he did. You are the problem. All the responses to his last tweet are “educate yourself and reflect” and “come back with a better apology” like no. He apologized when he shouldn’t have and you cyber bullied him. They are bloody proud of theirselves for “holding him accountable“ for something they misconstrued.

He needs to delete that stan video because they aren’t worth it.

First thing i want to say is that this post is going to be joint answered as evangeline is white so this is going to be answered by her and me as im half african half american. Normally evanageline would be voicing her opinions and adding ours in if we had any but as its a racism issue she didnt feel comfortable to voice only her opinions. However shes the one writing the post apart from this bit to keep up the consistentcy of the blog page. -Trinity (Basically Trin gave her thoughts using a voice note and I slightly edited it so the sentences were a bit more coherent and added both mine and the other admins opinions as Trin doesn't really use twitter unless it's through my priv account - Evangeline)

I will say that a lot of the fan drama that you see are a smaller group that is known to attack and harass Dream and anyone who disagrees with anything. Eventhough they are a small group they mass reply to everything and make themselves look bigger than they are. Not only that but the only thing they end up doing is overshadowing the original issue at hand which is fans harassing and being racist to eachother. So a lot of what I'm about to say is mainly what this group is doing and isn't at all a reflection of a lot of fans but it is something that needs to be talked about especially since a bunch of this groups members are either white or white passing but get mad on black people's behalf and is basically setting them up.

I don't mean to be rude or dismissive but a lot of people used this as an opportunity to trauma dump. Like I know going into horrible details about what you have to deal with is the only way to get the point across sometimes however harassing Dream and spamming him with stuff like "I was harassed because I'm gay" "I was doxxed because I was Asian" is lowkey weird. Like why are you telling this random guy on the internet that you were doxxed? What is he going to be able to do about it? Also not to defend Dream but how are you going to sit there and break one of his few boundaries whilst trying to educate him.

On top of that the issue was originally how racist some of the fandom are to black people but then other minority groups started talking about how they were also being stereotyped and attacked but all this is doing is talking over other minorities. For example a large group of fans started off talking about how they were being attacked by other stans because of their skin colour but then immediately started to harass and threaten others. Like some were clearly not being serious but dming people and update accounts to retweet and spread awareness isn't the move you think it is. Obviously a lot of them were genuinely trying to spread awareness and were trying to get the respect and treatment they deserve but all of that was being overshadowed by the few that were attacking and harassing creators and fans. Then a lot of it turned into minorites fighting each other over who was more oppressed which just makes the whole thing seem like petty drama.

I will say a lot of them were lovely. I am pretty uneducated on race based issues and how certain things effect people and can be racist so I was asking a lot of questions and most of them were nice. However I also got a lot of snarky ones like "google it" to questions that weren't general like "Is it mocking to call white people crackers and token white boy if you are a white person" or "is ______ considered micro aggressions"

However as usual it went from trying to educate your creators to who is the most oppressed and who can bring up more past drama that has already been addressed multiple times. I'm not being funny but the fact that some well known Dream antis were defending Dream and shitting on stans should really tell you how non productive this is. It went from "Hey Dream this comment is a bit weird can you delete it please" to "Dream you should stop being friends with this person and you should follow this person otherwise your racist" Like that's not helping anyone. The only thing that it's doing is breaking Dreams boundaries, setting Dream up and making stans look bad.

Like people were @ing Sapnap and George telling them to "collect the racist friend" like how is that spreading awareness. The whole thing went from being a good chance to educate to a big fucking joke that just made a lot of people upset and anxious.

Honestly the whole thing was pretty fucking hypocritical like you can't talk about being harassed whilst harassing people into hearing you out. A lot of the issues seemed really gatekeepy to me as well. One that I saw constantly get brought up was that the only people allowed to say dy*e were black lesbians as they created the word. Like a big topic was a misuse of aave but not a single person actual explained what it was or gave examples all I saw was "mcyttwt needs to stop using aave language it's offensive" like you can't claim to be educating people if you don't explain. Not everyone can access websites and caards that get linked because of regions or web rescrictions so they're not helpful either.

HOWEVER I will agree that a lot of their points were completely valid like the whole thing of "Feral Feb" over shadowing BHM and whenever Dream listens to rap people complain and call it bad music are two really good examples. I listened to a few twitter spaces to learn a bit more and things that were said in there was all good info that would be genuinely helpful to know and it really did help edcuate me however not a single tweet said any of it and that's why people don't understand what they're doing is wrong because nobody explains it.

A lot of the issues that people had with Dream were so weird as well like a lot of them were self oppression and turning normal things into racism. A lot of the issues had the same energy as the 404twt fans who were genuinely mad at Dream for having a colour that George couldn't see and they were harassing him and claiming that he was purposely excluding diasbilities.

Usually we would add more but Trinity got a bit upset and stressed so she had to stop answering various asks and the other admins are all white or white passing and don't feel like it's our place to put our own opinions. We will try to answer other asks with similar thoughts later - Evangeline

[astrowithkaro]

Hello, I think you made a mistake on your language of birthdays master list. The link you put next to September 30th actually shows a post for August 30th.

With that being said, if you’ve already made a post for Sept. 30th may you respond with the link please? If not yet, hopefully you’ll get around to doing it eventually 💖💖

Language Of Birthdays: September 30 - Libra

[You can find the rest of the series here; or check out my masterlist]

The Day Of The Glaring Truth

Those born on September 30 are adept at ferreting out the truth and bringing it to light. Their perfectionist nature is manifest in their work habits. These are people who really do their homework before opening their mouths, and although they can be impulsive, usually have some heavy ammunition to support their opinions. In bringing the truth to light some born on this day see themselves as representing a cause, and as such are idealists, no matter how negative the material they are revealing.September 30 people are highly attractive, if not physically then in their personality. Their appearance is important to them in public, as far as dress, speech and demeanor are concerned. Perhaps this is because they want to appear invulnerable—it is often true that September 30 people are concealing some truths about themselves that they do not wish to have revealed.

For the most part those born on this day are not schooled or scholarly trained individuals but rather people who have learned through the hard lessons of experience. September 30 people can also assume scholarly status through their own form of thorough study and in their field can come to be regarded as experts. It is usually very difficult to disagree with their arguments since they are able to amass such an impressive body of knowledge to back up what they say.Whether conventional or unconventional, September 30 people often use their appearance to attract attention; they can be masterful in presenting a public image and in holding the attention of family and friends. Highly attuned to the human condition, those born on this day understand people and their motives very well. They must beware of becoming manipulative in this respect and of using others to further their own ends.

There is certainly a good chance that September 30 people will grow overly accusatory, judgmental or fond of pointing a righteous finger at those they believe compromise the truth in some way. This tendency to be an accusing angel can really get out of hand, and can even make others adopt an instinctively defensive posture in their presence. September 30 people must thus work on being more accepting and less condemning.On the other hand, those born on this day are usually quite capable of defending themselves, and although sensitive, can shrug off many an attack (due to their innate self-confidence). Since they are largely self-taught at what they do, and have graduated from "The School of Hard Knocks," they have an essential toughness which will always protect them. September 30 people should try to remain sympathetic to others, however, by displaying this toughness in defence rather than offence, since they inevitably turn people off when they get too aggressive. Those born on September 30 are generally good with money, and can make shrewd investments which guarantee their financial stability.

Strengths:

Curious

Impressive

Knowledgeable

Weaknesses:

Judgemental

Accusatory

Self righteous

Advice

Since their physical appearance is important to them, September 30 people can usually be prevailed on to eat sensibly and exercise, though they may not be naturally inclined in this direction. In fact those born on this day must usually make a great effort to avoid alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking, coffee drinking or indulging a sweet tooth. September 30 people are encouraged to apply their love of investigation to ways of improving their own personal health. Those born on this day often show great talent for the kitchen, where they may learn first hand the value of fresh food both for enjoyment and health.

Despite your impressive knowledge and arguments you are not always right

Become aware of manipulative tendencies

Don't browbeat others; be more open and accepting in your thought

Put your house in order

Hello, yes you were right I did mess up lol but thank you for pointing it out!! <3

[anarmorofwords]

Hey I just wanted to ask don't you think you're being way too negative towards tlh as a whole right now? I mean sure everyone can and should want and expect better things as well as criticize what they don't like and I agree with a good chunk of what you're saying in most posts but others seem a bit too nit picky (for me).

Of course CC has messed up some things and didn't deliver for others but that's mostly because of fans expectation of what's about to happen and biases. When you expect that something is going to fail no matter how good it is its always gonna feel underwhelming and when you get too attached to theories it feels wrong when they aren't cannon.

Anyone can enjoy things as much as they like but when you expect things to fail and just be plain bad I feel like you're just lowering even your enjoyment. After all if you dig far enough you can find stuff you hate even about your favorite things in the world and make them unenjoyable.

And I'm not saying that you can't be disappointed or hold CC or tlh to a higher standard but at the same time when you think about all the things you hate/dislike you forget what you like/love.

Point is I feel like no matter what people should just read chot with an open mind because no one knows what's inside of CC's brain and it could be brilliant or a disaster. Either way there is no chance that EVERYONE will be happy.

Btw I dunno if it sounds aggressive or not and I wanna apologize if i offend you in any way this isn't hate or anything I really like you content I just wanted to share my opinion

hi dear!!!

I'm so sorry for taking so long to answer; I didn't mean to ignore this

I actually thought about this ask a lot, but wasn't sure how to formulate an answer

First of all - do not apologize!! You can always send me your thoughts if they're not straight up offensive or rude; worst case scenario, we'll agree to disagree. So, really, you're fine!

I think you actually did have a point, and at the point you sent this, I was quite overwhelmed with just,,,, frustration, at TLH in general, so I was being too negative - and even worse, fixating on the negative stuff, which honestly does no one any good.

Since then I've come to the conclusion that 1) just as I expect that from others, I need to chill a little when it comes to scrutinizing and judging the characters' behaviour, and you know, remember they're kids and everyone makes mistakes and all that really basic jazz. 2) there are really many things that bother me about TLH, and I won't stop thinking/talking about them, but in some moments I'm being a little too harsh and ruining the fun for myself.

You're definitely right about forgetting the good things - that's another thing I decided on lately, that I wanna remind myself those. I do plan a reread in the near future (I know I've been saying that for a while, but it's still true xdd) and hopefully then I'll remember the good things and appreciate them a little. That doesn't erase the bad things, but as you say, I need to draw a line at some point.

And finally - there's still hope for ChoT. Judging a piece of media halfway through is always a little stupid, because you can't tell how it's going to end and whether the things you didn't like weren't actually necessary. I still worry about Alastair, because I'm more than convinced CC's personal views of him are what we're actually seeing from the characters, and they're v questionable and I can bet they won't be addressed/mended in ChoT, and since he's one of my faves this just,,,,, ruins TLH for me, to a great extent. But let's have some hope, still. (Same with Kamala,,,, the way CC talks about her outside of books really doesn't bode well)

I guess getting attached to non-canon things and theories is part of the fandom experience, and while it's important to remember we're kinda spoiling the fun for ourselves, it also simply sucks when you see all that potential the og creator didn't use. So I guess that's not something one can escape.

Anyway, thank you so much for this ask - I hope I make sense and it's clear that I actually appreciate your input. To some degree, you're definitely right, and I truly kept that in mind ever since I first read this ask.

[the-light-finds-its-way]

Lazarus

Guardians name: Lazarus

Age: Infinite

Race: Jovian

Call signs/alias: The Gloomstalker

Pronouns: He/him

Class: Warlock

Preferred subclass(es): Void

Ghost’s name: Rasmodius

Their Vanguard: Zavala, Ikora, Cayde-6

Fireteam name: Fealty of Light

Fireteam teammates: None yet! He’s still searching for some people who’ll be his friends and join up with him!

Favorite legendary weapon: Twilight Oath

Favorite exotic weapon: Whisper of the Worm

Favorite exotic armor: Karnstein Armlets

Favorite ornament armor set: Steeplechase

Favorite weapon ornament: Eye of Osiris

What stats do they focus on: Recovery, Resilience, Mobility

Are they offense, defence, or support: Offense

Do they prefer being close, mid, or long range: Any and all of them

Do they lean more “Element of Surprise” or “Upfront and Aggressive”: Upfront and aggressive

Strikes, Gambit, or Crucible: Strikes

Who was their mentor(if they had one. If it is a character you created, tell us about them!): Asher Mir

Who are they mentoring(if they are. If it is a character you created, tell us about them!): Nobody at the moment

What ship do they have: A Thousand Wings

What is their Sparrow: Eon Drive

Favorite Ghost shell: Eris Morn shell

Favorite shader: Corrective // Protective

Favorite color: Black

Favorite food: Ramen

Favorite piece of Pre-Collapse tech(if they’ve seen any): The cell phone

Favorite Pre-Collapse music(if they’ve heard any): Amon Amarth

Favorite place in The Last City(if it’s a place you created, give a little description!): The 3rd District. It’s a place where many poor and homeless people live, and Lazarus likes to cook exotic meals and general food for them at every chance he gets. He likes helping give food to those without any.

Favorite NPC(s): Asher Mir, Ikora Rey, Zavala, Cayde-6

Favorite patrol location: Anywhere on the Tangled Shore

5 things your Guardian likes(can be anything): Stoicism, spontaneity, creativity, justice, cooking

Least favorite food: Hamburgers

Least favorite shader: Nailbiter (it’s too colorful for him)

Least favorite patrol location: Anywhere on Titan

Least favorite Pre-Collapse tech(if they’ve seen any): Landlines

Least favorite NPC(s): The Spider, Emperor Calus, Oryx, Savathun

Least favorite weapon ornament: Heretic Robe

Least favorite ornament armor set: Liminal Voyager

Least favorite legendary weapon: Avalanche

Least favorite exotic weapon: The Queenbreaker

Least favorite exotic armor: Transversive Steps

5 things your Guardian dislikes(this can be anything): Stupidity, mistreatment, evil, bad food, negligence

Your Guardian has to rest. What is their living space like: A humble little apartment with minimal things. The walls are painted a dark grey, almost black, and the carpeting is black but soft, and the lighting is low. There are Vex trinkets everywhere, and broken Vex parts scattered about.

Does your Guardian have any casual wear?(Y'all remember Polyvore? The website URSTYLE works very similar if that helps!):

What hobbies and/or skills does you Guardian have: Cooking is his main and only hobby. Specifically, making gourmet meals.

What would your Guardian’s lore book be called: Breadwinner of Stars

Where was your Guardian reborn?(If you created the location, give us a little description!): The Tangled Shore, near a Vex cave

What were they wearing when they were reborn: A button-down black shirt, khakis, black loafers, and a cheap watch

What was their reaction to being reborn: Confusion, loss, and disconnect

What was their reaction to their first rez: Awe. He felt invincible, and everlasting. Immortality comes with no price but the weight of defending the innocent, and he was glad to immediately take on that duty.

After being reborn, did they meet friendlies first or hostiles: Friendlies. Asher Mir found him, and rescued him.

Who was the first other Guardian they met?(Same thing! If you made them, give a little description!): Asher Mir

Did your Guardian get reborn with, or find, any indication of their past life? If so what do they have/found: Lazarus found no indication of his past life besides the clothes he wore. He assumed he came from wealth of some sort, perhaps a high society member of the Jovians, though he’s unsure. He has tried finding out more about his life, but no Jovian recognizes him before he was a Guardian.

How did your Guardian get their name(if they didn’t rez with past life momentos): The cave Lazarus woke up near was a labyrinth, and without knowing the word for it, Laz called the place “a lazarus” instead of labyrinth. Asher laughed, genuinely, and said he’d call the man Lazarus for such a comment. But eventually, both took pride in the name, and it became a strong name with lots of positive meaning to them both.

Going back to your Guardian’s lore book, what would be some some quotes or passages from their book: A lot of recipes, including one on cooking Ahamkara properly. Lots of exploration into the Vex, and adventures to figure out how to cure Asher Mir’s arm and save his teacher. Some quotes would be: “The Light hurt me at first, but eventually, it wasn’t so bad. I adapted it to suit my needs, and made a tool from a weapon against myself.” “Jovians wince at the Light, but me? I will embrace it forevermore. It is a gift unto me, and I will reach my tendrils into eternity to wield it if I must.”

Does your Guardian have a significant other: No

Did your Guardian go explore first before going to The Last City? If so, where to: Lazarus explored the Vex labyrinth, and learned its ins and outs. It took quite some time to get used to it, but his intelligence is high, and thus, Laz learned them faster than Asher could.

What was their reaction to first seeing The Last City: Awe and wonder. It was as beautiful and lively as he’d imagined it being.

Is your Guardian a part of a clan: Mithrax’s House Light

Does your Guardian’s clan have a back story? If so, what is it?(if you want to or able to share): N/A

If your Guardian would have a quote as a flavor text for a weapon and/or piece of armor, what would they be: “Light be with us all, for Darkness is but an inescapable dive into a jaded infinity.”

If your Guardian has had any interactions with any civilians (The Last City/The Farm), Eliksni, Cabal, Vex, Hive, Taken, Scorn, Rouge Lightbearers, or Iron Lords/War Lords(if your Guardian is an Old Light) tell us about it!: Lazarus disagrees heavily with the Iron Lords, and always has. He didn’t like them when they were warlords, and he still disagrees with them to this day. Laz gets along with other races, specifically Eliksni, as they are close neighbors to the Jovians, both living on the Tangled Shore. He saw their Collapse, when they lay siege to The Last City, and felt pity and sympathy for them rather than hating them. Laz has only ever fought Vex, and studied them, and sees them as a bane and plight, since they hurt his teacher. He struggles to trust the Cabal after what they did during the Red War, but he’s slowly trusting them. He doesn’t trust the Hive whatsoever, and disagrees with Darkness as a whole.

Does your Guardian have any unconventional allies or connections(By Vanguard standards): The Eliksni. Lazarus has befriended them long before House Light was a thing, and spent lots of time with them on the Shore.

How does your Guardian feel about themselves or others using Stasis: Horribly. Lazarus does not trust Stasis, as it’s Darkness, and he thinks it’ll corrupt everyone at some point. Some are more resistant to the corruption than others, but everyone who uses Darkness will succumb to it someday.

Did they run The Last Wish raid? How did they react to seeing a live Ahamkara a.k.a Riven: N/A

Did they run The Deep Stone Crypt raid? How did they react to the Crypt and seeing Exo Eliskni: N/A

Is your Guardian from D1? How did they react to seeing Taniks alive once again: Lazarus was shocked beyond measure, and was ready to kill him again to defend the innocent people.

Where did they go and what did they do during The Red War: Lazarus stayed on the sidelines, giving resources to the Lightless, Guardians, everyone, and mainly provided support and healing as necessary. He couldn’t put himself in danger, and advised others to do the same.

Here are some characters that are either polarizing or have created a strong enough mass emotion within the community. What opinion does your Guardian hold on each of them(These are only a handful of characters!)>>>

Osiris, First Warlock Vanguard, originally exiled: Lazarus struggles to trust Osiris, and believe him to be a better person today. He’s well aware of the old, self-centered Osiris with a whole cult, and is dismayed by this man’s sheer selfishness.

Eris Morn, Bane of the Swarm: Awe and amazement at her persistence. Laz admires her deeply.

Cayde-6, Sixth Hunter Vanguard: A young soul, and foolhardy, but a great person nonetheless.

Ikora Rey, Second Warlock Vanguard: Wise, trustworthy, a great friend.

Commander Zavala, Second Titan Vanguard: Someone Laz can confide in, and trust to have his back at all times.

Saint-14, legendary Titan, First Titan Vanguard: A great person, someone with conviction and will, with the best interest of others in mind. Lazarus loves Saint, and trusts him deeply.

Lord Saladin, Iron Banner handler, One of the last remaining Iron Lords: Distaste, hatred, loathing. Lazarus can’t forgive what Saladin did.

Lord Shaxx, Crucible handler, Hero of Twilight Gap, living megaphone: Admiration, aspiration to be like him, and he is proof that anyone can change for the better.

The Crow, New Light, Ex-Enforcer to The Spider: Wary, but willing to give aid and help however he can. Crow isn’t Uldren, and he’s better. Lazarus must constantly remind himself of this.

The Spider, The Shore’s Only Law, founder of “House” Spider: A con artist, and someone to sparingly trust only when absolutely necessary.

Uldren Sov, Prince of the Reef, Master of Crows: Never trust him, never believe him. The man only spews false promises.

Mara Sov, Queen of the Reef, Queen of the Awoken, Ex-Kell of Wolves: Never trusted her, never believed her, and never will. She is a con artist as much as Spider.

Variks, the Loyal, founder of House Judgement: Trusts him, and believes him to be a good person. Lazarus likes that he mistrusts Stasis as much as he does.

Mithrax, the Forsaken, Kell of Light, founder of House Light: Trusts him completely, and believes him to be a savior and the Light of Eliksni.

The Exo Stranger/Elizabeth “Elsie” Bray, Granddaughter of Clovis I and Sister to Ana Bray: Wary to trust her, and hesitant around her. Laz believes someday she’ll succumb to the Darkness, and fall victim to its influence. He pities this day.

Eramis, of House Salvation, Kell of Darkness: A fool, misguided, so desperate and damned. She dug her grave, and she now lays in it.

Empress Caiatl of the Cabal Imperial Empire: Struggles to trust her, but after what she did for Zavala, he’s willing to give her a chance.

Taniks the Scarred, the Perfected, the Abomination, the Shadow Thief: He’s a scourge on everyone, and a threat to be eliminated.

The Darkness is fast approaching. How is your Guardian handling it: Lazarus is ready to fight, and will go against it tooth and nail. He doesn’t hesitate to take things head on, and will do the same against the Darkness. Whatever must be done to protect the innocent, Laz will do it.

And finally, does your Guardian have any advice for any New Lights: Never give in to Darkness, and always walk with the Light.

[kuno-chan]

Sides of the Moon - Ch. 26, The Price of a Life

Summary: Runaan and his team of assassins discovers that Rayla has defied him. Again. But when they find her, she’s bleeding out in the woods with precious cargo under her arm and face to face with the princes of Katolis running away from their own castle. They find that, upon this meeting, the die has already been cast.

Rating: T

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Typically, he tried not to concern himself with the business of others.

Ram tried not to act too strange when he wandered toward Rayla’s general training space. What was he going to say? He should say nothing, but Skor put him up to this and Ram’s curiosity got the better of him, as usual.

Rayla wasn’t happy considering the way she was training and sulking.

Her brow furrowed from more than concentration. He treaded lightly.

“Your form is a little aggressive today,” he said. “Don’t you think you might want to rest?”

“Not really,” she grumbled. When the world irritated her that’s usually what she did.

Ram found something else to look at when she glanced at him. And he called himself an assassin. Fearsome and deadly.

That was definitely him.

“... where’s Callum?”

She threw her sword harder. “With Claudia.”

“The dark mage?”

Rayla made a less than friendly sound, but that was about as much affirmation as he would get. Ram let her be, winding his way back to his room with Skor.

Skor raised his brows. “Well?”

“Well, she’s mad and you’re right. He’s with the mage.” Ram shut the door behind him. “You don’t suppose Rayla’s upset he’s with the dark mage rather than he’s with the dark mage?”

Skor frowned. “There’s a difference?”

“Yes, of course. Well... maybe. The question is, who is she upset with? Is she upset that she’s with him or is she upset that he’s with her?”

“Make some focking sense, man. I have a headache.”

“My point,” Ram said, finding a chair. “Is that Rayla’s mad because of how she feels about Callum. Why else would she be angry?”

That much was obvious. More than obvious at this point. Those two were inseparable, and it surprised him that Runaan hadn’t noticed it. Ram pitied the boy when Runaan finally noticed. But Runaan was busy, his mind on the egg and, when not on the egg, his mind was on Anarr. His past and present issues with Anarr.

He doubted anyone would tolerate a human and an elf falling in love in such a precarious situation. Let alone Rayla falling for a human. Runaan’s opinion on humans wasn’t a secret. Nor was it a rare one. Far from it, in fact.

But Ram admitted that this human didn’t inspire any ire in his heart. The boy’s brother was also quite the opposite, and there was little doubt of Andromeda’s love for him. Runaan allowed it. Perhaps as a mercy or a crack in an assassin’s heart.

And Callum saved Callisto’s life. That hadn’t gone unnoticed by any of them.

Least of all by Callisto.

“Of course she’s angry that Callum is with the girl.”

Ram pursed his lips. “...do you think he likes the girl?”

“That’s not really our concern.”

“Isn’t it? I mean... it could impede the mission.”

Skor paused and searched Ram’s face. His nosy, curious face. Something shifted in his features to thoughtfulness. “It’s... possible. I can’t imagine why, but he grew up with the girl.”

“But you’ve seen the way he looks at Rayla.”

“And I’ve seen the way he holds her. I’ve been in love. I know what it looks like, even on young souls like them.”

“What are you two talking about?”

Raising their heads, Callisto was walking in, Andromeda trailing behind them.

“Nothing I’m sure you’re not aware of. You followed them in Meraxia. Am I supposed to believe they got lost on the way back?” Skor asked.

“I know what I saw. I want to make it home alive and chose not to mention it,” Callisto said.

“You hoped it would go away.”

Callisto had no reply. He had hoped, Ram realized. To spare them all the gracious experience of dealing with it.

And telling Runaan.

“You’ve seen the way they are with each other,” Ram said. “They have true feelings for one another.”

Andromeda crossed her arms. “Why are you encouraging this? It’s not as if they could be together once we’re in Xadia. It’s best if this passes by quietly.”

Skor scoffed. “Yes, ignore the growing feelings of two teenagers and hope it goes away. Every story that ever happened in went so well.”

“It would never be accepted in The Silvergrove.”

“You can’t wish away what they feel, Andromeda. Try it and tell me how it goes for you.”

Callisto raised a brow. “Since when were you such a romantic?”

“I’m not,” Skor shrugged. “I’m a realist. I don’t want us all to die because of their hormones.”

“Oh?” Andromeda said. “So, you will tell Runaan?”

One look between them all and they knew nobody would do anything of the sort without good cause. Too many problems on his shoulders and too little patience to deal with a situation so delicate.

Not that he’d ever dealt with feelings well, including his own.

It was no secret that Ethari had disagreed with Rayla’s placement on this mission. She had proven herself though. Ram wondered at what cost, but she had proven herself nonetheless. This life wasn’t for everyone.

Still, she was one of them.

“We keep quiet,” Callisto finally said. “We keep an eye out. We interfere when it might put us in danger. Nothing else concerns us.”

Skor just sat back, watching Callisto with unreadable eyes. “You keep telling yourself that.”

-:-:-:-

His hair.

His stupid hair.

Callum tried to keep it down with a bit of water, which only made him look dangerously close to a sopping idiot. If he could just keep some stray ends down, that would be enough.

But to no avail. He was going to lose this fight.

In the mirror, Callum saw a boy he maybe knew. Finally, a date with Claudia. A team of assassins as his travelling party. Xadia as his destination.

Three things he never expected.

At least, with Claudia he always hoped, and hope came through for him. This was a silver lining, at least.

Well, one of them anyway. Rayla had been the highlight of his days this past month. He thought about leaving her another letter.

Later, though. For now, he had to focus on the task at hand. Trying not to look like a complete idiot in front of Claudia might be a tall order in his experience, but he would do his best to just have a good time.

Tonight, he wanted a nice date.

Nevermind how different he felt from a month ago and how unlike himself he would probably feel in an hour. A shell of another life he wanted and still wants, but didn’t know how to have.

His mind raced with the possibilities.

“You know, Claudia probably wont’ care if your hair is nice or not.”

Callum jumped and twisted in Ezran’s direction.

“Ez!” Callum laughed nervously. “I thought you were with the egg?”

“I was, but I just needed a break. Lujanne’s doing a good job at keeping it alive. I’m talking to it too, and it’s responding, but... she says I should rest. She says I’m doing a pretty good job. Even Andromeda thinks so!”

“That’s great, Ez,” Callum said sincerely. “I’m proud of you. You’re really putting your all into this.”

Ezran sat on the bed, a small, maybe sad smile. “Thanks... I hope it helps. In the end, I just want to help. Maybe make a difference that feels real.”

Callum sat next to Ezran and pulled him into a hug. “I get what you mean. We finally have a chance to rest and all I can think about is what things were like before.”

“They’re never going to be the same, huh?” Ezran peered up at him. Callum’s face fell. Ezran smiled. “You don’t have to lie to me. I know it won’t. Sometimes, I just wish. Everything’s so different now. I kind of don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

“Are you afraid?”

Ezran nodded. “... what if they don’t make jelly tarts in Xadia?”

Callum laughed, even as Ezran blinked his tears away. His own eyes couldn’t help but sting. “It’s going to be okay, Ez. No matter what. We’re going to be okay. I promise.”

Ezran hugged him back. “Thanks, Callum... shouldn’t you get going for your date?”

“I will. You’re more important first. That hasn’t changed.”

After Ezran left, Callum looked at the rune book on the vanity. Maybe... maybe Claudia would know what this spell did. He hadn’t looked back at it lately, with everything going on the past day or two, but it drew him in. His instincts beckoned him to try performing it.

He grabbed the book on the way out, then changed his mind and returned it to the vanity. No, not the entire book. That would stay with him. He tore out a piece of paper from his sketchbook and wrote the spell down.

He could just tell her he heard about it on the way from Katolis.

There was a part of him against her knowing he took her father’s book. He hated lying to Claudia, but somehow found it necessary. Just this once.

Since when did he justify lying?

Things kept going back to that same sentiment. It was running through his mind and Ezran’s mind.

Everything was different now.

-:-:-:-

Runaan didn’t expect the elder prince to come see the egg.

He was no fool. He knew the boy avoided him.

Good.

Runaan had too many things on his mind to bear the weight of Callum’s conscious as well. It wasn’t as if Runaan wasn’t aware of Callum’s action. But he never turned an eye to them unless it required his attention.

That was why it piqued his interest when Prince Callum showed up. They were silent for a time. Runaan didn’t greet him. Callum didn’t either, but he broke the silence.

“I wanted to see the egg. Ezran said Lujanne’s doing her best.”

“Lujanne’s efforts have tired her. She can’t continue to keep the egg alive.”

Callum frowned. “But isn’t it helping?”

“Lujanne is no miracle worker. She can only do what she can do. The egg’s life depends on the strength of its will to live.”

Life.

“How does that make sense? It’s only an egg.”

Runaan didn’t look at him. “Lujanne has more things she can try. She is doing the best she can and the egg lives. For now. We’re running out of time and none of us know what else to do. Believe me, I would take any measure to save Xadia’s future, but I cannot create a miracle.”

The silence between them was deadening.

“... but you can take a life.”

Runaan still didn’t look at him.

He sighed. “How can you do it so easily?”

Runaan frowned. “If you believe that it’s easy to take a life, then you know nothing. You know nothing about my culture, my people. You know nothing about me.”

“You know nothing about me and I’m sure you have your assumptions.”

“I admit I had my misgivings about you because you’re human. Just as you had — have your assumptions about me. I’ve ceased to assume anything about you. It seems your assumptions reach beyond me.”

“What do you mean?”

This time, Runaan turned to him. “You believe it is easy for me to take a life. That you believe it is easy for any of us tells me enough of what you may or may not understand. Even years later, it is still not something I take lightly.” Runaan glowered at him. “Life is precious. Life is valuable. We take it, but we do not take it lightly.”

Callum opened his mouth to reply. He said nothing and closed it.

The boy knew what he knew. Runaan would not pretend that he was perfect and didn’t give the boy less credit than perhaps he should. He tried not to think about the human prince.

Runaan turned away from him. “Be sure your friends don’t make any trouble.”

-:-:-:-

The moon was shining bright and white on the stone. He could see Claudia dressed in dark robes, even from a distance. Her hair was up, an ivory flower tucked into her bun.

Callum saw her for what she was: living poetry. His heart thumped with impatience. Nervousness. Glee.

Making sure his hair was as neat as he could get it, he approached her, the spell in his pocket.

Claudia turned to him and smiled when she saw him.

“... beautiful...” The word left Callum’s mouth before he caught himself. “I-isn’t it? It’s a beautiful night.”

Claudia laughed. “It is. The moonlight is perfect.”

It was. For once, everything seemed perfect. More than perfect when Claudia took his hand and squeezed it. He had to remember to squeeze it back.

“As amazing as these ruins are,” she said, looking around. “Are you going to take me to the nexus or are we just going to stand here looking at each other?”

“O-oh! Right, of course—”

“Not that I would mind the other thing as well.”

Callum’s face was warm. “Let’s go. You really have to see this.”

Hand in hand, Callum kept Claudia’s in his since she seemed more than happy to let him take the lead. All this time, he’d always been the one to follow her. Where she went, he wanted to be. Now, it appeared to be mutual.

Hadn’t he waited his entire life for this?

His heartbeat and giddiness jumped from nerve to nerve. It was a fight to keep himself from fidgeting too much.

What would Rayla tell him?

She would tell him not to be so nervous, obviously. Everything seemed so obvious to her. Then, she might say his name.

Rayla would make him look at her and tell him it would be okay.

And he’d believe her.

She didn’t have to do anything to make him believe her.

Gathering some courage, Callum looked at Claudia and smiled. “So... you know a lot of spells, don’t you?”

This was as good a time as any to ask, right? He needed something to talk about. Anything.

“Oh, I know a ton. Fancy some dark magic while we’re out here? I always have a thing or two on me to—”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Callum laughed. She almost seemed disappointed, but kept listening. “I just have something I, uh— I found this spell while we were on our travels. I was wondering if you knew what it was.”

They were almost to the nexus, but Callum stopped them and pulled out the spell from his pocket. The rune was slightly complicated, but nothing he couldn’t remember and replicate. Still, it differed from the others.

Claudia raised her brows. “Oh, wow. Where did you find this?”

“Just, uh, in this town. I was in their library and—”

“This rune starts a storm. I’ve never used it. Don’t know how, even though I used to try as a kid. It’s a hefty bit of magic. My father told me about it and showed me once.”

He resisted the urge to gulp.

But Claudia gave it back to him without even so much as an odd look. If anything, she looked impressed. “I guess your travels haven’t been all bad, have they?”

“No,” he said, taking her hand again and bringing her up the stairs to the nexus. “Especially not when I can see things like this.”

They reached the top of the stairs, and Claudia gasped. Pooling moonlight filled the lake, reflecting the moon itself in the water and bringing the sky to them. It was the perfect scenery. The most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He used to look at the moon and see something in the sky that was pretty, but now he looked at it as something comforting.

When he saw the full moon, he felt safe. Not just from danger, but from everything that could take him away from himself.

The moon was his anchor.

Why, he didn’t know.

Maybe he did, but he tried not to think about it when he was trying to watch Claudia’s expression. Her face was flushed, her eyes sparkled with delight and wonder. She grew closer to the edge, resting her hands on the stone in front of her.

“I... I’m speechless.”

“I came here during the day, but never at night,” Callum said. He looked at the lake. “Incredible, isn’t it?”

“It’s beautiful, Callum.”

“...do you think all of Xadia is like this?”

Claudia turned to him. Her face wasn’t unpleasant, but... unreadable. Then, she smiled. “I’m sure there are similar places. There’s a lot of magic in Xadia. Sometimes, it makes me sad.”

Callum frowned. “Sad? Why?”

She shook her head. “Because humans can’t see any of it. We’re not allowed. Even now that Thunder is dead, Xadia would never share their magic with us.”

Callum laughed a bit. She gave him a questionable look. “No, I’m not laughing at you. It’s just... I understand now. I never did before, but elves don’t see magic as theirs to share or keep. Protect, maybe. But it’s not like money to them. Does that make sense? They are magic. It’s a part of them. Even to those who aren’t mages. It’s just... part of their identity.”

Claudia blinked. Her face broke into a smile. “Callum, the way you view the world... it’s so different.”

“Good different?”

She took his hand. “Yeah. I think so. You should share some of it with me. Imagine the things we could do.”

Callum’s mind paused. But he drew closer to Claudia. He didn’t smile. “I’ve... done some bad things.”

“What do you mean?”

His shoulders hunched. “I... Lady Eveline. She knew my mother. I knew her. We used to go to Meraxia when we were kids and... I killed her. I-I didn’t mean it. I didn’t want to. She was horrible. She was a monster. But she wasn’t always like that and I can’t stop hearing her die. I want it to stop.”

Her brows furrowed. “Callum... I’m so sorry. You’ve been through so much. That wasn’t your fault. You... I don’t like it, but I don’t blame you for trying to get out of there. You shouldn’t either.”

“But what I did to her... it breaks my heart.”

“She was going to kill you, Callum. Don’t let her hurt you like this. She’s gone and she can’t hurt you anymore.”

“Shouldn’t it though?”

“Shouldn’t it what?”

Callum looked at her. His eyes stung. “Break my heart.”

Claudia closed the gap between them. “I know that’s how it feels, but... I don’t think so.”

He wasn’t sure what to say. What to do. His stirrings inside didn’t... they didn’t feel right.

But looking into Claudia’s eyes that instinct quieted . They were beautiful. She was beautiful. And the way she looked at him made him draw closer to her. He didn’t know what that look was. Not in words, anyway, but he knew it meant something. That something had drawn him closer to her, Claudia’s eyes closed.

They were so close he could feel her breathing, her sweet breath tickling his nose.

He just about dipped in for a kiss—

Her lips. They were right there.

He’d waited for this moment almost his entire life.

Callum closed his eyes and leaned forward.

He stopped.

-:-:-:-

Rayla sat on a boulder under the tree near her room when Callum found her. His chest tightened, but the storm was quiet in there. It stilled when he saw her sitting just out of the moonlight. Not that he needed the light. He knew Rayla’s form no matter where she was.

She heard him as he approached her and sat on the twin rock beside her.

She didn’t look at him. “How was your date?”

“... fine,” he said, fixating on a spot in the grass. He glanced at her. “We were going to, uh... kiss.”

She shifted. “Oh.”

“I couldn’t do it.”

She looked at him sharply, a question on her face.

“I couldn’t do it,” he said again.

“You couldn’t?”

Callum shook his head. “I couldn’t bring myself to do it. When I closed my eyes I... I only saw your face.”

They locked eyes for a moment, the night and moon wrapped around them. The moments before he’d kissed Claudia were the most surreal in his life, and then it simply... didn’t happen.

And it didn’t upset him in the least.

Rayla’s face softened, a small, pleased smile on her face. “Good.”

Callum’s lips curved in a returning smile, but it dropped. He looked away. “Rayla, I’m sorry for calling you a liar and a murderer. I should have never said that to you.”

“You were right.”

“No, I wasn’t,” he insisted. “I was wrong. I-I wasn’t even really mad at you. I was mad at myself. I’ve felt so guilty for killing Lady Eveline that I just— I don’t know. It’s been tearing me up inside and I hate how I hear her death in my head sometimes. I keep hearing the moment she hit the ground. But she was going to hurt us. Hurt you. I didn’t feel like I had a choice.”

When Callum met her eyes again, they were bright with tears. “Callum... I am so sorry for what happened to you. I never wanted that for you to feel like it was something you had to do. For me or for anyone. I still think about the people I killed.”

“Runaan says it’s still hard. Even for him.”

“You talked to Runaan?”

“Kind of,” he said. “As much as I know how to talk to him, I suppose. I — You were going to get hurt. And I care about you a lot. Too much to just do nothing. All I know is that I wanted to protect you. Even if it’s not something I want to do, it’s a principle. I can’t just let you die. If I was put in the same situation, I would do it again because I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Rayla looked up at the sky. “Honestly? I don’t know what I’m doing either, and I’ve been training for this my entire life. The first night I really met you? I cried to Runaan about it. It bothers me. It still bothers me, and I know it bothers you, too. I think it’s supposed to. Runaan says as much.”

There was a comfortable pause between them.

He took a breath.

“I trust you, Rayla,” he said. “I trust your judgement. I understand now. At least, more than I used to. I can't imagine what it was like to be raised as an assassin, but it couldn’t have been easy. It's not easy for me to justify killing Eveline, but I know why I did it. If I could have found another way, I would have. But I didn't see another way out. I don't think you’re a murderer. I would never think that of you.”

Rayla looked at him with wide, teary eyes.

“I know you’re just trying to protect us. And I’m glad I have someone to talk to about this.”

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I���m still sorry you had to do it. You didn’t choose that.”

“I did. I just never thought I would.”

“I know.”

Callum took her by the hand. She squeezed it.

The tightness in his chest relieved, he said to her. “I have something I want to show you.”

–

Please consider reviewing on AO3

[pau-neko-chan]

Small details that make me ship karumana

Various fans have already contributed supplementary materials as fuel for the karumana ship but I’m here to talk about more minute details of their individual characters that make me believe in a supportive and refreshing relationship that can develop between these two. I plan to discuss details ranging from the start-up ship fuel from the main series to the supplementary material hints in order to  provide a more psychological perspective in their compatibility.

Anime: S1 Ep 8 - Karma expresses interest in Okuda when the boys in class asked him who he likes.

The foundations of this ship

Many may claim that their interactions in the series aren’t enough to support a ship but if you look into supplementary material and analyze their individual characters beyond the obvious spotlight ship in the series, you can see how much Matsui Yusei teases fans with karumana ship fuel. According to Okuda’s character profile, she’s someone that the ever-alert Karma has allowed to get close. While in Karma’s character profile, Okuda is said to be the girl he can talk to about anything and his cautious heart and distant nature faded away around her. They’re cited to be the most easy-going boy-girl relationship in the class. In a translated character relationship chart from the official fanbook, Matsui confirms that these two like each other for how comfortable they are with each other, Karma finds her to be the easiest person of the opposite sex to talk to, Okuda feels relaxed around Karma in general, and Karma thinks Okuda is cute.

With these foundational details in mind and by reading beyond what the series gives us, here are a few points that make me believe in Karma and Okuda’s chemistry.

Okuda is not spineless

While she appears to be helpless and shy, she can stand her ground on what she believes in. Much like others in 3-E, she is her own character and doesn’t exist to be that token straight ship for Karma. During the class civil war, she chose the “save” team because she believes that if science can destroy, it can also save.

Anime: S2 Ep 17; Manga: Ch 144 - Okuda chooses the Blue team to save Koro-sensei

They could have easily put her in Karma’s team because of friendship and loyalty but the choice to “kill” would simply be against Okuda’s caring and harmless nature, one of the main traits why Karma is so comfortable around her. Later into the game, Isogai and Maehara talk about who they think would win and Okuda yells out that she wants Karma to win, despite being in the “save” team. This shows her own resolve and ability to separate her personal principles from her relationship with Karma.

Manga: Ch 147 - Okuda states why she wants Karma to win

It’s not that she wants Koro-sensei to die, it's that she understood what killing Koro-sensei means for Karma. She, of all people, knew the hard work Karma put on behind the scenes. When others simply dismiss Karma’s achievements as “genius,” she (and Koro-sensei) knew that Karma works hard, no matter how much he tries to hide that side of him to the world. This comes with his resolve that he is not the best and he has to put in effort if he wants to be the most capable in reaching his goal. Okuda sees all that. Given the choice, Okuda would rather save Koro-sensei, yet if things don’t go her way, she trusts that Karma earned the chance to fulfill his goal. This duality illustrates that whether the class decides to save or kill, she can accept it wholeheartedly. She wouldn’t have regrets because she gave it her best shot from a decision she made herself.

Anime: S2 Ep 1 - Karma hides evidence of him studying hard on the last day of summer break

In relationships, it’s important to have set boundaries for what you share with your partner and the things that make you, you. Okuda’s character exemplifies this well as she is not shown to be a side character that follows Karma around, she’s a friend whom Karma can share his vulnerabilities with while being able to keep her individuality intact. While she is known to be lacking in the ability to communicate, in the end, she’s able to say what’s on her mind when it matters—without any filters. She is brave and strong in her own way and has the capability to provide a new perspective—a trait that can stimulate Karma’s intellect. I believe this would blend well in their relationship because Karma seems to be the type who would get bored hanging out with someone who can’t keep up with him. This shows that their relationship can be an equal exchange of support and trust rather than one being subservient or wary of the other.

Additionally, her pure honesty and lack of fear for Karma is a perfect example of how she can stand up on her own. Everyone is afraid of Karma to some extent which makes them avoid him, possibly right according to how Karma likes to push people away with his behavior. Having someone whose basic nature is to not get swept away by the norm, to be able to choose for herself in how she views Karma, and to be overall honest with her intents really paves the way for a mutual trusting relationship.

Anime: S1 Ep 8 - The girls in class find Karma attractive but scary but Okuda disagrees.

What I find interesting in Okuda’s lack of fear for Karma is that she says this even after seeing him directly start a fight with delinquents the day before. This is episode 8, 3 episodes after her debut in episode 5. Assuming that Karma only started approaching her after learning about her poison-making skills, that’s quite a short period to get to know Karma—a known violent delinquent and the most skilled fighter in class—and to claim that he is “not that scary.” This implies that by this time, they have started to get to know each other better, Karma probably treats her well, and that they’ve interacted enough off-screen to arrive at the conclusion that he is not scary. Much like how Karma’s interest in her comes from her chemistry skills rather than her looks, this girl knows Karma is more than his external features and she can speak her mind even though it’s contrary to the public opinion.

Karma’s character development

Manga: Ch 19 - The boys ask Karma who he’s interested in among the girls in class

From the key scene that fueled this ship, many may claim that Karma is just using her for personal gain. I personally believe this argument is made by people who stopped understanding character growth at season 1 or simply cannot grasp at all that humans change over time. As with a lot of relationships, the interest in other people has to start somewhere. For Karma, the interest starts here with the maturity level of a 15 year-old prankster. Being one of the main characters, Karma goes through character development in the way he views the world, himself, and the people surrounding him. He changes a lot in a span of one year so it wouldn’t be impossible to believe that his interest in Okuda grows beyond having a convenient drug dealer.

One common trait that makes Karma comfortable around people like Nagisa and Okuda is that they are seemingly harmless to him. The statement and intent sounds problematic as a standalone but it’s important to point out how Karma uses this information in his relationships. A typical toxic psychopath would prey on their harmlessness to bully them into taking advantage of them. Karma’s comfort hanging around harmless friends stems more from their inability to hurt him rather than his capability to hurt them. Although Karma is labeled as a violent delinquent, he isn’t a low-level scum-type delinquent that starts a fight for the sake of fighting. As far as I can remember, all cases of Karma’s problematic delinquent behavior is fighting with strangers who provoked him first or he was actually trying to defend someone weaker. His friendship with Nagisa started with a common interest and he was comfortable until he felt threatened by Nagisa’s dormant skill for assassination. Not once did he try to take advantage of Nagisa’s pacifist nature for his personal gains. The same applies for his friendship with Okuda—she piqued his interests with her chemistry skills, he learns that she is harmless and comfortable to be with, and a genuine friendship evolves from there. His interest in her skills may be mischievous but he never showed any aggression or intent to take advantage of Okuda. Neither did he force or threaten her to do those for her. She even wrote that she was able to experience challenging experiments because of his requests in her yearbook message to Karma, something that sounds like she actually enjoyed the fruit of his mischievous intents.

Anime: S1 Ep 8 - Karma tells why he’s interested in Okuda

For those who believe that this scene is a weak foundation for liking someone, well, at that point, Karma hasn’t really developed a romantic type of interest in her. As mentioned, this is how his interest in her begins, not the sole reason for him to be attracted to her. Playing around, making mischief happen, sharing fun times is something that develops friendships. A good friendship is the solid foundation for a comfortable romantic relationship later on. Character development is a real thing and these two won’t have the brain of mischievous middle-schoolers for the rest of their lives.

Anime: S2 Ep 6 - The Witch and The Knight used chloroform to save the day

Karma can feel at ease with Okuda

During the Test of Courage, Karma and Okuda were paired up which gave them time alone to talk about something that’s been bothering Karma. As we all know, Karma never shows his vulnerabilities to anyone at this point in time, not even around classmates who are known to get along with him. Koro-sensei had to earn it by looking out for him and it took time for him to warm up yet even then, he wouldn’t be caught casually sharing something as personal as his fear. The exception is Okuda. The series never explicitly shows how Okuda earned that trust but this scene paints something unusual in Karma’s well-guarded nature. It’s not impossible that they’ve shared enough moments off-screen—moments valuable enough for Okuda to earn Karma’s trust halfway through the school year. To note, it appears that Okuda never even initiated asking Karma what’s bothering him and yet, Karma simply shared what’s on his mind to her.

Anime: S2 Ep 1 - Karma talks about his fear to Okuda during the Test of Courage

We don’t actually see this kind of vulnerability display around friends that Karma spent a lot of fun times with on-screen such as Nakamura and Terasaka. During the civil war, Nakamura notices something unusual in Karma, as if something is bothering him but Karma immediately brushes it off and shows his usual face excusing it as having just woken up. Karma and Nakamura have been shown to get along well as fellow pranksters, possibly with more lines in scenes together than Okuda and Karma ever had in the entire series, yet for some reason, this friendship hasn’t reached the point where Karma can at least give a hint of what’s bothering him when he’s alone with Nakamura even after she asks him about his thoughts.

Manga: Ch 144 - Nakamura notices something unusual about Karma at the start of the class civil war

As for Terasaka, he seems to have earned a teasingly trusting friendship with Karma. Terasaka gives his trust in being manipulated by Karma’s wits and Karma seems to show acknowledgement for how this pseudo-Takaoka has grown. Yet the most Karma would show around him is a vague suggestion that he would like to see him in the real world again someday as colleagues. Perhaps this is simply how men communicate with each other but I guess with everything they’ve experienced, Karma acknowledges some sort of friendship with Terasaka, but not enough for him to expound or eloquently communicate why he would like to see Terasaka as a politician when he himself becomes a bureaucrat. Karma’s unsolicited suggestion for Terasaka hints at his vision for his future and how he sees someone like Terasaka in it but his language doesn’t scratch the surface of intimate vulnerability as it did around Okuda in the test of courage.

Anime: S2 Ep 9 - Karma tells Terasaka to become a politician after career counseling with Koro-sensei

Throughout the series, we see Karma come out of his small world and slowly connecting and caring for his classmates. He gets along quite well with them and appreciates their company and how this class allows him to be himself. All this is temporary as they will go their separate ways once they graduate. In addition, Karma also appears to be the type to value the quality friendships he has built. This would imply that in order to maintain a bond with him after graduation, Karma would have to actively show an interest in connecting with them. In the case of Okuda, he seems to be interested in her enough to look forward to spending more time with her after graduation, as shown in his yearbook message to her stating that his year was made more fun with her around and that he’s looking forward for more.

It seems in each relationship he has, there exists an aspect that makes one distinct from the others. The existence of shared interests and getting along, a sense of comfort and security without fear of being betrayed, the willingness to extend effort in seeing them again, and the extent of being able to express in detail his vulnerabilities and deeper musings seem to be some distinct factors that make up Karma’s quality relationships. While each notable friendship satisfies at least one or two categories, none of them have all four except Okuda. The presence of all these qualities in his relationship with Okuda makes her stand out and have the potential to grow from good mischievous friends to lifetime supportive partners.

In the case of battle compatibility, Okuda may be far from giving Karma direct assistance in the battlefield. However, there’s an angle I wish to discuss that makes me think of how it translates to their compatibility. One scene that oddly stood out for me was during their encounter with delinquents in their Kyoto trip. The delinquents attacked, leaving the boys unconscious, subsequently kidnapping Kayano and Kanzaki. Okuda managed to slip away and hide leaving her to check on the boys when the environment became safe.

Anime: S1 Ep 7 - Okuda reappears apologizing for hiding when the delinquents attacked.

What made this scene interesting is that Okuda could have been kidnapped along with Kayano and Kanzaki and the result would have been the same. The boys could have read the trip manual and called Koro-sensei. Sure enough, Koro-sensei could single-handedly save them once they got to the hideout. It didn’t matter whether one, two, or three unarmed girls got kidnapped. So why paint this scene with her being able to slip away without the delinquents getting a chance to grab her?

My interpretation for this small detail is that Karma doesn’t always have to worry about Okuda. Karma gets into a lot of fights. Even in his future career as a bureaucrat, he will surely get into dangerous situations involving politicians. He has always been the type to be on guard 24/7. Even back when he was comfortable around Nagisa who he believed to be harmless and a good friend, he couldn’t let his guard down. Imagine the stress that burdens his shoulders having to keep his guard up for himself and having to extend that to another person. Wouldn’t that be too much for him to sustain in the long run?

Anime: S2 Ep 18 - The feeling Karma got when Nagisa sneakily poked his back while looking for him in WcDonalds

Anime: S2 Ep 18 - Karma and Nagisa hanging out in the middle of their second year

For someone without exemplary combat abilities like Okuda, slipping away to safety is a smart move. Even at that moment, Karma acknowledged that she did the right thing. Of course we know this is not the type of running away in order to abandon a comrade. I believe it’s safe to claim that nobody in 3-E would truly go that route. What Okuda did was wise and if the scenario were a little different, slipping away could have given her the chance to send support, prepare weapons, and an overall better fighting chance than just standing there frozen or getting herself kidnapped. She slipped away using quick thinking and if you think about it, it takes skill to sneak away unnoticed when both ends of a narrow ally are surrounded by big, menacing delinquents. Her ability to act wisely by herself can definitely be a load off Karma’s chest knowing that the people he cares for can take care of themselves should he be rendered unable to protect them.

Additionally, Okuda’s nature is the type that Karma can trust to be capable enough to protect herself without feeling that she’s a threat to him, something rare among his relationships with other friends. This detail is small and subtle but it hints her potential supportive and reassuring dynamic with Karma wherein Okuda can safely lend background assistance without worrying a combat-ready Karma. As Karma mentions back at her later in the series, running away is also a battle strategy. Whether he learned this technique from Okuda or not is a mystery but I like to think that towards the end of the series and almost a year of trust and friendship, some of Okuda’s traits and mindsets have rubbed off on Karma enough for him to adopt it in his strategies.

Anime: S2 Ep 23 - Karma grabs Okuda’s wrist to get away from danger

For someone as cocky as Karma, being able to pull off a humble-yet-wise move is something noteworthy. This humility could be the mixed influence of Koro-sensei’s care and Okuda’s nature. Not only does Okuda provide a load off his shoulders, she is also capable of bringing new perspectives in solving problems for Karma.

In a long-term relationship, Karma deserves to feel at ease. Whether as a friend or a life partner, he deserves someone he can trust not just in opening up, but also at times when he’s vulnerable. For me, this is something that his dynamic with Okuda can provide. She may not be the best to fight alongside others in the frontline but she can provide background support so Karma can be guaranteed that he is not alone in a fight and he will not be coming home to a lonely place after a fight.

From being an approachable friend that he gets along with to a partner he can trust and be vulnerable around, all these seem to point at a special connection Karma feels around Okuda—enough for her to be just the right support he needs while being able to treat her right. Okuda may not talk or stand out much but Karma seems to see traits in her that make him gravitate towards her with ease. She doesn’t stand out in the general crowd but she stands out for Karma, where her traits are appreciated. 

____________________

Notes: I have the tendency to lean towards the less popular ships in Anime (such as Yukihira Souma x Tadakoro Megumi in Shokugeki no Souma) over the obvious ships in the spotlight. I believe it has something to do with my inclination to more mature and supportive relationships that appeal to people in their 20s rather than hormone-induced pairings that sound like high school flings targeted for 14 year old girls. To note, I was at that age once but once you hit your 20s, you realize that some ships are more problematic than you remember. This is my second time watching AC (first time was in 2016) and I honestly don’t recall shipping them back then. I don’t even recall picking up on karumana hints before. But now after rewatching it in my 20s, I find it quite intriguing how I find this couple so cute, while knowing that I’ve grown out of my shoujo manga days. These days, I don’t have tolerance for shoujo-esque ships that are practically “it’s not sexual harassment if he’s hot.” Looking back, a lot of shoujo mangas/anime were like that in my teenage years. While Karma started out with high Marty Stu potential like shoujo main boys, AC developed its characters well such that their characters and future career paths were more realistic—something you come to appreciate as someone who has already gone through their own 7-year timeskip.

[bigskydreaming]

Have you seen Linkara's review of The Dark Knight Returns? He goes into why the view of Robin as a soldier, popularized but by no means invented by Miller, is so dangerous.

I have not, but I need to refresh my memory before I go check it out because I’ll either agree with it or be infuriated by it and I can’t remember which just at the moment but would like to before I restart that argument ten years later.

LOL, so like, I knew Linkara yeeears and years ago. We were both regular posters on Gail Simone’s messageboard on CBR like fifteen years ago, maybe longer. Pretty sure we even met in person a couple times at Gail’s annual SDCC breakfast meetups, but not sure. I do know for sure though that he and I were both involved in a three way argument about this very topic with another guy.....I just can not remember if he was the one who agreed with me or the one we were both fighting with about it, LOL. I THINK we were in agreement as while I wasn’t like.....as pro-DC as most YABSers were given that it was Gail’s board and I mostly hung out at the X-boards and just swung by YABS once a week or so BECAUSE I couldn’t stand all the ass-kissing that went on at that board so that DC writers and artists would hang out and post regularly, LOL, like I’m pretty sure I remember Link as being one of the less....vehement of the pro-DC camp.

(Tbh, one of the biggest ways in which I disagreed with Gail on stuff is I UNDERSTOOD her feeling a need to be civil with other DC pros even if she didn’t like them personally, I just....couldn’t manage the same and didn’t feel any desire to try. Like for example, not sure how many people know who Ethan van Sciver is, but he’s a long time high profile DC artist, best known for his GL stuff.....but he used to hang around YABS pretty regularly. EvS is ALSO a haaaaaardcore conservative, Trumpian, and all around terrible person. And he always was.

Like he’d play it civil back then but his opinions were downright hateful on a variety of topics, particularly towards marginalized groups, but he was good at picking just the right moments to half-assedly walk something back the second he took something ‘too far’ - so like, the end result was he said it and everyone saw and remembered, but before anyone could react he’d drop the mea culpa card and be like oh I’m sorry I know that was out of line, I was just caught up in the moment and it’s all good cuz this is all friendly debate anyway right? We’re just talking here.

And he’d pull this crap all the time but because he was a DC pro, people would let him get away with it and warn people off coming down on him so he didn’t feel unwelcome at the board. Now the painfully ironic twist here is that shockingly, totally unexpectedly.....fast forward to about five or six years ago where good old Ethan burns a shit ton of bridges and decides well why not make things a dumpster fire for everyone in my vicinity....and he became the driving force behind a bunch of alt right comic book fans starting their own weak ass version of Gamergate, only called Comicsgate. It never was nearly as....big...as Gamergate was, but it was still ugly. And the thing is, Ethan sicced his sycophants on other industry pros he’d worked with over the years but always disagreed with on politics.....like really let the ugly fly....and most of these pros included Gail as well as a bunch of the other DC professionals from back in the YABS days.

Because thing was....that was literally WHY he’d hung out at YABS so much back then, despite being so far in disagreement with most of the progressive leaning board. He was always just interested in stirring shit up, he never actually had the slightest interest in debate or seeing the other side of anything....he just knew how to play the right cards to get the right people to come to his defense and cool things off rather than run him off, in the name of keeping things civil and such...all so he could start it all up again a couple weeks later.

And this is literally why that kind of thing doesn’t work for me at all. Because he wasn’t really that subtle even then, most people knew all along exactly what he was doing, and letting him get away with shit that would have gotten anyone else banned purely because he was a industry pro just meant that his opportunities to subject anyone in his vicinity to just vile, hateful shit ended up more protected than all the marginalized posters on that board who didn’t come to it to see his shit but had to constantly listen to it anyway because people were more interested in making excuses for him than making it comfortable for everyone else.

And in the end, he ended up turning on the very people who’d protected him from everyone else ripping into his hateful viewpoints with the directness they merited. Which just. Sigh. To me just smacks of a whole lot of unnecessary years spent putting up with his barely veiled bullshit until he didn’t bother even veiling it anymore....even though the reality is NOBODY was ever buying into his veil of it in the first place and we all knew what was right behind it all along. Anyway. Not that it matters LOL, but good old Eth, was one of the primary reasons I decided not to go into comics when I had a couple of opportunities come up, as I decided to focus my efforts on Hollywood at the time instead. Lmao, I figured if I was going to have to keep my mouth shut about coworkers whose opinions I vehemently disagreed with in the name of professionalism, I might as well focus on the profession that would pay me more money to keep that to myself. Look, at least capitalism is useful when ADHD and trying to pretend to be decisive about life choices.)

Long ramble nobody asked for aside, like I said, I can’t remember Link’s take on this particular topic but it’s likely the one I agreed with for the most part. My own take has always been that Miller sucks and if he said it chances are I said he was wrong because he is about everything and my religion is people saying so and by people I mean me. My religion’s also big on self-actualization. Not sure what else, I did just make it up and I think I’ll probably just stop there so I don’t accidentally make it a cult.

But yeah. I mean, maybe it’ll surprise people given how critical I am of the abusive elements of canon, but I’ve never applied the child endangerment/child soldier argument to sidekicks. It’s obviously not that they don’t get hurt in these stories and even traumatized, it’s not that they’re NOT in danger as kids....it’s just why I put such an emphasis on it being their choice to fight crime and be heroes and NOT something that Bruce or any other mentor or parent pushed them into.

Because this is one of the reasons why death of the author more often than not just doesn’t work for me. Authorial intent matters. Readers are always free to interpret a text however they want, regardless of authorial intent....but IF a writer has a specific intent behind a narrative choice, chances are most interpretations that refuse to align themselves with that viewpoint aren’t really all that RELEVANT to the story the writer was trying to tell in the first place.

Don’t get me wrong. Those other interpretations can still exist. They’re allowed to exist. People can abide by them all they want. But if someone’s takeaway from a story is a deliberate choice to read it entirely different from the story the writer intended it to be.....like, their interpretation is all well and good, but it’s not actually at all a RELEVANT commentary on or review of the story the writer was actually writing. They’re not actually saying the writer did a poor job of telling the story or was wrong in how they did it....because they’re not actually talking about the story the writer was actually telling.

Thus their commentary on it exists. But it’s just not that relevant. Because nothing in it even CAN offer an opinion on how else the writer could or should have written that story....because the story they ARE talking about isn’t the story the writer was even interested in writing.

Now, there are some times when authorial intent DOESNT matter. And when criticism of it is entirely fair and earned even if it’s of something the writer didn’t consciously or deliberately write into their story at all. But these things are almost ALWAYS unconscious. Unlike what I was just talking about, where the writer was very consciously writing the story a certain way for a reason, and thus people who aren’t interested in reading the story the way it was written to be read just can’t offer up a commentary that says anything useful or meaningful about the story that was actually written...the flip side of this is when the writer puts things they don’t intend into the text, but still are very much there all the same.

And this sort of thing applies to things like micro aggressions or racism, homophobia, sexism....things where a writer didn’t sit down intending to be offensive or alienate their readers but still put in things that they don’t think to view as offensive due to their own privilege and lack of experience EXPERIENCING the microaggressions that marginalized readers might be all TOO familiar with and thus can’t avoid reading into a passage where the writer might not have INTENDED harm or offense, but delivered it all the same. Because they didn’t think to put it into their story, they weren’t TRYING to....but they didn’t think to avoid putting it in there either, even if it’s because they didn’t know to until it’s pointed out to them that it’s there.

And this also applies to when the writer puts into their story, via whatever viewpoint they’re writing from, things that herald from their own viewpoints, how they view the world, even in terms of unconscious biases or expectations....but things that readers can still interpret as something they vehemently disagree with, even if the narrative seems to condone it. Because a lot of these viewpoints are things where the way they’re written....even just not coming out as clearly not condoning or agreeing it can effectively be read as tacitly condoning it.

So to apply all this to the idea of child sidekicks and child soldiers:

They’re not one and the same, and thus treating them as one and the same or interchangeable is IMO an inherently flawed perspective that doesn’t ever have anything USEFUL or RELEVANT to the stories that most people are trying to tell with child heroes and sidekicks.

With the notable exceptions of Miller, Ennis and certain other writers who by their own admission usually aren’t even trying to write about superheroes but rather deconstructions of the genre as a whole.....the vast majority of comic book writers, even the ones I dislike LOL, aren’t writing about child soldiers when they write characters like the Robins. Because CONSCIOUSLY, with INTENT, they’re already trying to write something completely different:

Child heroes and sidekicks are almost universally written to be child (although to be really fair, for the most part they’re largely teen) empowerment allegories. They’re youth power fantasies.

They’re stories about kids, about teens, getting to be the ones to save the world. About kids who don’t need adults to save them because they save themselves or their friends. Kids saving other people, other kids, grown adults. Stories about child HEROES are written as metaphors of hope for the future and the promise of the younger generations, or power fantasies where kids who feel helpless and powerless in their own lives can read these stories and vicariously imagine through the characters the idea of one day having the power to save themselves or other people, what that would be like, what they’d do with that.

But here’s the important part, and why people interpreting these teen and kid heroes as child soldiers doesn’t really offer relevant commentary to stories that are written to be allegorical youth power fantasies, regardless of authorial intent or death of the author....

And that’s because the key ingredient here, the thing that’s not really up for debate or open to interpretation....is that these stories can ONLY ever be allegorical.

Because like I said before, child heroes and child soldiers are not the same thing. There simply IS NO REAL WORLD EQUIVALENT for child and teen heroes as comic books style them.

And that’s why the fact that with most every child hero in comics, no adult makes them be a hero. They choose that for themselves, it’s almost universally characterized as a self-determination or empowerment moment rather than one of coercion like Miller likes to characterize it. His choice to characterize Bruce essentially drafting Dick as Robin to fight alongside him does nothing to provide commentary on any other superhero story, no matter what he’s told himself or his fans, because his story is the only one where Robin was drafted!

You can’t condemn narrative choices that nobody but you has actually written and then act like you’re saying something about any narrative other than your own fsjsjfshfzgzfhgs.

And you also can’t claim that you’re just seeing in the text something that’s inherently there and the other writers didn’t just see to avoid like I was talking about being a valid critique....because what’s being commented on there isn’t anything that was written unknowingly. Other writers consciously wrote the same things as Miller in terms of a child engaged in all that violence....but they deliberately wrote those moments to be metaphors of a kid that gets to save themselves and other people and CHOSE that, which is inherently opposed to the interpretation of a kid who is ONLY in harm’s way because he was forcibly drafted by a more powerful figure or force who cares neither what he wants or if he gets hurt.

These two ideas are mutually exclusive. They can not coexist in the same narrative because a character can not be powerless and self-empowering about the exact same specific choice. And thus anything that’s said about one of these narratives is inherently unable to say anything that’s relevant about the other....because the other is not written by its writer TO BE the kind of narrative that particular commentary is dissecting. It’s not TRYING to be that narrative, so no review of it can possibly say how flawed it’s execution is of an idea it’s not actually trying to execute.

And the differences between child heroes and child soldiers are not just limited to choosing that or being drafted and these other differences are equally key.

The biggest being that child heroes can not be seen as ‘basically’ the same thing as child soldiers.....UNLESS you are also perceiving adult heroes as basically the same thing as adult soldiers. And not even law enforcement or police or temporarily deputized or whatever else you want to spin it as....SOLDIERS, specifically. You don’t get to bring up something as charged as child soldiers and then get vague with your terminology when the close scrutiny that brings to your analogy stops working in your favor.

If sidekicks are child soldiers then you must in conjunction view adult superheroes as soldiers. And not in the abstract one man war on crime way Miller likes to consider Batman in his attempted deconstruction of superheroes. ACTUAL soldiers. If there’s no room in your comparison for child heroes to differentiate from real world child soldiers, there’s no wiggle room for the adults either.

And again, except for Miller, Ennis and specific others who by their own admissions are not TRYING to view superheroes the same way most other comic writers are, but fail to see that genre conventions are largely interpretive and thus seeing room for different interpretations of superheroes isn’t actually a commentary on how other people see and write those same heroes....like except for these select few, most writers are not writing superhero soldiers unless they’re Captain America or Captain Atom. Yes I know there are other superhero soldiers but let me be pithy. Even those aren’t really the same as their real world equivalents.

See, real soldiers don’t make distinctions about whether or not they’re willing to use guns. Their personal views on killing are not prioritized over whether they’ve been told to use lethal force to accomplish their objective. They have a chain of command. No matter the rationalization, they pledge their loyalty to singular nations and the aims and objectives of those specific nations over the abstract of acting in defense of the whole world.

Now again, maybe that applies to Captain Atom, but for the most part can you say the majority of comic book writers are TRYING to write Superman, Batman, Green Arrow, Wonder Woman etc through that lens? No. So while Miller really thinks he said something when he wrote his Batman with guns, fighting in the Middle East, killing people left and right, none of that actually ‘showed’ people that at the end of the day, Batman is no conceptually different from a real world soldier like. No all he actually did was write his own take on Batman, and said look, he’s a gun toting murderous asshole, huzzah I have deconstructed the modern superhero!

Like. Shut up Miller. Honestly.

But seriously. Superheroes do not have a real world equivalent and neither do child heroes. Even when it comes to nonpowered ones like the Batfam, they’re still deliberately written in a larger than life, four color perspective that requires a suspension of disbelief at the front door. We ALL know and understand that they aren’t a blue print for how to go out and be a real world vigilante. Even real world vigilantes exist. But they don’t look anything like the Batfam and it’s disingenuous to pretend they do for the sake of teh discourse. Nobody honestly believes that there is even the OPTION of going out one day and deciding to become a comic book style vigilante like one of the Batfam. It’s why even they’re termed superheroes despite the lack of superpowers. On a CONCEPTUAL level it’s understood that the stories being told about them require an extrahuman medium. You can not simultaneously write characters according to a mythic scale but then attempt to interpret that very writing on a real world one. It doesn’t work.

Which brings me to my final piece of this pie. Or puzzle. Idk I’ve been doing this response for awhile I forget what this is.

And that is again, the difference between interpreting a story in a way the author probably didn’t intend and understanding when a story isn’t meant to be interpreted in the way you’re trying to.

And this difference is how I can understand and reconcile the idea that it’s not inherently abusive for Bruce to allow his kids to fight crime at all, even though that would inherently be child endangerment in the real world, but at the same time, I can view him as abusive in other ways that don’t make allowances for the differences between real life and comics.

Basically it boils down to: CAN this specific element of a story be duplicated in real life or mirror a real life action or idea? Is there a direct parallel to a real world equivalent at all?

I can view Bruce fighting crime or saving the world alongside a child Robin without viewing that as child endangerment or inherently abusive, even when Robin gets hurt in the process....because there is no real world equivalent to those parts of a story. NO ONE, child or adult, is going out there and doing those things Batman and Robin style. Even the people who dress up in their own real life vigilante personas basically just do niche neighborhood things like walk people home from the bar. And even people doing real life vigilantism in terms of taking out criminals, like, that’s usually more of a personal revenge thing and not one where they’re trying to attract attention via a costumed persona. When you think real world Batman and Robin, nothing comes to mind for a reason.

And thus this says nothing inherently abusive about their dynamic, even according to real life parallels of child endangerment, because it’s not a real scenario. And thus it’s not TRYING to say anything about real life. It’s innately allegorical. It’s power fantasy emphasis on the fantasy.

In contrast, when you have something like Bruce hitting one of his kids.....no matter who the characters are, that specific interaction and the dynamic it presents DOES have a real world equivalent. That’s just parent/child abuse. And thus even if the writer didn’t intend for it to be interpreted that way, it’s still a valid interpretation. If it looks like a parent hitting their child, you can call it a parent hitting a child.

Batman and Robin fighting killer mind controlled plants together? Can’t happen. I’m not going to call it child endangerment when it’s not a realistic scenario and not meant to be, and I’ve already been presented with a valid alternative interpretation of this being a child empowered to help save people alongside his superhero father. There’s no point in condemning a dynamic that CANT be translated to a non allegory in real life.

But Bruce hitting his son? A father no matter how good hearted normally, being affected by extreme stress or grief or something else that makes his behavior take a turn for the worse and reach a point where he physically lashes out even if he never would have in the past? Nothing remotely allegorical about that. That story has too many real world equivalents to dismiss as having nothing to say about abuse in real life. Even if the writer didn’t intend for this to read as abusive because they were thinking of how much worse Dick has been hurt fighting alongside Bruce and never held that against him even though technically it was Bruce letting him get hurt....doesn’t matter. That interpretation still requires viewing through a lens that can’t exist in reality. No kid can ever excuse a parent hitting them by thinking of how much worse they got hurt taking down their local mob together and if he didn’t blame his dad for that cuz he wanted to do it to help people then how can he blame his dad for hurting him in a moment of anger? Umm. Doesn’t track see? They’re not the same thing at all.

Or another one that really bugs....I’ve heard people defend shipping a Robin while underage with an adult by saying if they’re old enough to make the choice to risk their life and have that choice respected, they’re old enough to choose who they want to be with. Umm. No. That’s not just apples and oranges that’s genetically modified grapes and seventeenth century cannonballs.

That logic doesn’t apply because neither of those things is the underage character choosing ANYTHING. They’re fictional. Everything they choose is just what their writer wrote them choosing. But again, one of those choices is one that an underage reader CANT choose in real life and have respected by every adult in their life, and thus will never have a bearing on their life as anything BUT an allegory they have to interpret and translate into something actionable they can apply to their life and choices. The other choice is them being written as presented with an option that’s actually a textbook real life grooming technique and something abusers use to justify the relationship they’re trying to cultivate with a minor by saying aren’t you mature for your age, aren’t you old enough to know what you want or to do this or that in which case you should be old enough to make this choice?

See the difference? Putting on a cape and going out to fight robots? Not directly applicable. Saying yes to the grown man saying he wants to have sex with you and thinks you’re old enough given this other choice you’ve made that highlights your maturity? That’s a choice that can be presented both to a Robin or a real life minor, but a writer justifying that choice for that Robin by saying well he’s already previously made this other choice that has no real life equivalent.....that creates a pretty misleading interpretation to people reading that story and not stopping to think through the distinctions between what KINDS of choices the writer is presenting these characters with and then justifying via their narrative.

And while I haven’t watched the video you’re referencing, anon, I would definitely agree that this is an example of how viewing child heroes as child soldiers is....not great. Aside from being cynical, misusing the idea of death of the author and helping to validate Miller’s choices and thus ego which is NEVER a good look LOL....it also intentionally or not paves the way for putting fictional types and MEANS of harm on an even playing field with real life ones and acting like it’s all one and the same with no distinctions to be drawn. And this doesn’t actually offer anything substantive or constructive about holding characters accountable for reasonable expectations of harm, when the sources of harm have no reasonable equivalent and thus only exist in the medium of being a youth power fantasy in which the child involved is fictional and can’t truly be harmed, with the harm done the second the scene ends and where the character can be back in fighting form the very next scene. Thus the only lingering element there IS the power fantasy.

Nope, all it actually does is muddy the waters in the REVERSE, and make it so it’s actually easier to justify or rationalize types and means of harm that DO have a real world equivalent, but by pointing to examples from a fictional medium and emphasizing the fictional character’s lack of being harmed while de-emphasizing the fact that the writer has full control over depicting this in a solely positive light that doesn’t ALLOW the fictional character any angle from which to voice that this CAN result in harm when not written for fictional characters according to a writer’s specific intent.

And that’s that about that. My opinion: you have it.