#sure u could say whY NOT JUST WRITE WHITNEY

[sunsetsover]

"I swear half this fandom don't actually like Ben" lmao true! Thing is though he's not likeable all the time and he can be a right old dick. But personally even if I don't like him or his actions at certain times, I feel like the broader picture is still there and I root for him because I get why he's like he is? And I can see and appreciate the softer sides of him even if they're fairly well hidden at times.

I also think some people in the fandom intellectually understand that he's traumatised and a survivor of various abuses, and when that shows in certain ways e.g. like if Callum or Lola is comforting while he's crying. But when it comes to situations like this week with Jags and Whitney, I personally think some people have struggled to understand how his trauma connects to it because it's not as obvious as e.g. Whitney's fiance dies, Gray manipulates her, bish bash bosh hit and run. Even more broadly I think it's easy for the audience to underestimate how Ben's experiences have shaped him because there's a distance created by time, his criminal actions, his (un)likeability factor, not viewing Phil as an abusive parent etc.

I don't wanna say everyone criticising him is like that btw! I'm sure there's a few reasons but I think this plays a part tbh.

i get what you're saying but to me it's like.... why would you even waste so much time invested into someone you don't like most of the time. i genuinely don't get it. ppl tend to ship ballum but hate ben AND hate the majority of the sls lately and it's like.... it's 2021 bro it's not like gay couples are THAT rare anymore there is so much media out there if you're not enjoying what ee are doing then you literally do not have to watch. in fact im BEGGING you for your sake not to. literally just do not engage with media that you aren't enjoying. do not sit in your own negativity writing 20 posts a day abt 'why are they doing this? why don't they do that? if they did this i would enjoy it more' bc you're only making yourself miserable. like this goes for any type of media but literally just stop engaging w it if you're not enjoying it anymore. the think pieces don't help anyone. your opinions aren't universal and they aren't gospel. we all need to stop confusing our opinions w facts. just bc i'm not enjoying smth doesn't mean other ppl aren't and vice versa. just bc i'm not enjoying smth doesn't mean that the thing needs to change. eg i hate the fact that callum is a copper and pray every day that something will force him out of it BUT it doesn't really affect my overall enjoyment of him as a character and it doesn't mean that the show has to make him quit just bc i don't like it. you (the royal you not u specifically anon lmao) might hate the fact that ben still does illegal stuff but that doesn't mean the show has to make him stop just bc you don't like it. if it affects how much you enjoy him as a character/ben and callum as a couple then maybe consider stopping watching. festering in the energy of 'i hate this, i hate what they're doing and here's 1200 words why' is unhealthy! i learned this the hard way !

i know this seems like an irrelevant ramble but i think i've realized that this is what my issue is. ppl not understanding trauma is frustrating and damaging and still pisses me off, but i feel like what actually pisses me off more are the ppl who just don't even attempt to be understanding bc underneath it all they're angry/frustrated at the show/sls and that's how it manifests itself. ppl don't like the direction ben and/or callum are going in and so the minute they (and it's usually ben lbr) step out of line they JUMP on that as an excuse to vent their frustrations and often end up saying shit that is ignorant or damaging or mean or just straight up cruel abt things that are so often symptoms of mental illness or trauma. so they're out here posting so many things and making these cruel little comments bc they can't just acknowledge that they don't actually like ballum anymore meanwhile ppl who are actually disabled/mentally ill/traumatised are sitting there reading all of these things and seeing all the people agreeing w them and it's doing real life damage to people.

is it on purpose? probably not. but that doesn't make the damage any less real. i have never forgotten or forgiven the way ppl reacted after ben went deaf. it was vile. as a disabled person who reacted very badly to being disabled just like ben did, it genuinely fucked me in the head seeing what ppl said abt him during that time. now i understand that it was partially ignorance but also a big chunk of it was ppl being unhappy bc they thought they wouldn't be able to enjoy their ship anymore bc ben was disabled (not that he hadn't been disabled before, but now it wasn't ignorable anymore).

idk there's more i could say but i feel like it's pointless. ppl don't care lmao all they care abt is their ship. which, ok fine whatever, but stop letting ur mentally ill/traumatised/disabled followers get caught in the crossfire bc you can't just admit you're not enjoying it anymore and feel the need to tear the thing down and rant about how it's 'bad writing' or 'out of character' etc etc. it's frustrating to read (which is why im never on here anymore) and speaking from experience it hurts YOU in the long run. negativity breeds more negativity.

you don't need to make excuses! just let it go! find something that does make you happy! you deserve that! and we deserve to be able to enjoy something without seeing ppl tearing it (or worse - us) down every 5 minutes !!

(edit - to clarify anon none of this was aimed at you i just sort of started ranting and didn't even really answer ur question im sorry !! i get what ur saying tho lmao 💞💞💞)

[idkthisisjustforfanfic]

two years too late, chapter f o u r t e e n 

You’d pulled your hat low over your face, sunglasses pressed up to your cheeks to ensure some level of privacy. You’d been recognized three times already--which was definitely a new record for the same 24 time span. 

“Jesus,” Jake laughed when the third girl walked away. “Used to think we’d only have to deal with one famous friend.”

You pushed away from him, skates gliding on the clean ice in Central Park. It’d been a hike and a half up to the Northeast corner in the first place, and now all you wanted was to skate in peace. 

“M’sorry--I wish I could make it not happen.” A beat of silence when none of them responded. “Yknow, that’s why I didn’t want to tell anyone at work about me and Harry being friends. I work in a field where it’s my job to talk about celebrities. I didn’t want to have to do it on my lunch break, too.”

You wouldn’t have been so straightforward with them if Harry had tagged along. He blamed his absence on a last minute meeting, but it offered a breath of fresh air and some space to actually breathe it. 

“I get it,” Bryn said, skating to catch up with you in front of the others. Jessie clung to the wall with Adam, Jake tried his best to not skate circles around all of you. 

“You do?”

“I do,” she nodded, linking her arm in yours. “Some of my coworkers know and they’ve been all over me trying to get tickets for the tour. I don’t tell Harry that, though--he’d feel obligated to hand ‘em over.”

“Exactly. I just didn’t want to deal with it.”

“It can be kind of cool, you know. I told my boss about it and he let me take a day off from work once without even using PTO cause Harry was in town,” Adam’s mouth was stretched into a silly smile. 

“Your boss is a wanker,” Jessie said. “And apparently he’s a pushover too.”

“He is both of those things, yes,” Adam laughed. 

Jake slowed down to fall back into the group. “So Smalls, what are you going to do about the interview?”

Another groan from your lips, two little boys skated past you, pushing against each other’s big winter coats to beat the other to the exit. “Nothing. Maybe just not do it.”

“Oh shut up,” Jessie said. “You have to.”

“I know,” you sighed. “S’the biggest story I’ve gotten. And it’s not that I totally don’t want people to know I knew him--it’s more that my boss will be livid when she finds out I’ve lied to her all this time.”

“You can’t give it to someone else?” Bryn’s head tilted to the side, Jake’s eyebrows went north. 

“S’an idea. Have a coworker who could take it on? You could fake pneumonia. Be out of commission for a week or two.”

“Might as well,” you laughed.

“Y’know, Smalls,” Adam offered a sympathetic look. “He was pretty upset last night.”

“He was? About what?”

“That you downplayed everything so much.”

“Alright, maybe s’not the time,” Jessie tried to defuse the situation, as if Adam’s words didn’t strike up curiosity in your bones. 

“What do you mean?”

“He really likes you,” Adam said. “I think he’s sad it didn’t work.”

“Okay,” you spun around to face him, stopping dead in your icy tracks. “He was dating someone else at first--and he didn’t tell me. I had to see photos of them online and confront him!”

“He should have told you,” Jake said, now skating backwards around Bryn. “But he really only saw her to end it. He told me.”

Bryn let out a short laugh. “And you believe him?” 

“You don’t?” Adam shot back.

“I dunno,” she said. “I mean, why wouldn’t he have just told her if he ended it? S’not a big deal that he was seeing someone. It happens!”

You held up a hand, hoping to silence them without having to get loud. “S’between me and him, alright? I appreciate the concern for both of us,” you shot Adam a pointed look, “but s’fine.”

“We’ve been trying to trust the two of you to figure it out for a decade, Y/N,” Jessie let out a breath as if she’d been keeping it in for ages. “Feels like you could both use a little help.”

“We don’t need help. I just--I need space,” you said. 

And it was true--at first you were sure you’d never want to speak to him again. When the gang first showed up you were convinced that you’d have a miserable time in his presence and be counting down the days until they left, freeing you from any obligation to interact with him. 

But now, after museum glimpses of normalcy before Jessie’s outburst, you were wondering if maybe you should have coffee--just the two of you--after they left. 

And maybe you’d get something close. The next morning when you were sat on Harry’s leather sofa for the last time as a group of six, he made some joke about how you never could seem to remember where the wine glasses were. It felt almost like he was testing the water--seeing where things stood as two people who were about to be set free into a busy city with no real reason now to see each other. Unless you wanted to. 

And when you hugged them all goodbye in the lobby, watching as Roger rebuilt the mountain of luggage in his car, you felt like maybe now was the time to say something. But he said it first. 

The last door was shut, Jake’s outline barely visible through the tinted glass as Roger put the car in drive.

“D’ya want a cup of tea?”

You looked up at him, a swell in your chest and an answer from your lips before he could take it back. “Sure.” Up the lift and into his flat, the kettle on the stove while you sat at the counter. 

“Thanks for having them come,” you said, shoulders up to your ears. “Even though things were weird, for a minute.”

“Course,” he said, arms crossed over his chest. A long pause, enough quiet to hear the heating kick on and a siren outside the thick windows. “You know, Y/N, I want to be friends with you.”

You looked up at him, your heart in your stomach at his words--a true sign that you wanted more, as if you hadn’t known until he offered words that fell short. “Oh,” you said. “Okay.”

He shifted on his feet, his eyes bringing heat to your face when you finally looked back up at him. “Okay?” He laughed a little, leaning forward on the counter. “S’all you have to say?”

“I don’t know what to say, Harry--fine, we can be friends.”

His eyes narrowed in your face, he licked his lips before parting them to speak. “Are you even curious about my side of it?”

“You already tried to explain your way out of it, Harry. What else do you have t’say?”

“I just want you to listen to me!” His voice was more emotional than usual, as if the tightrope you’d both been walking on had suddenly wrapped around his heart. 

“I already did listen!”

“No, Smalls, you didn’t, really.”

“So--okay, then. You want me to agree with you, forgive you really, not listen,” you corrected. He rolled his eyes at that. 

A text from Jessie lit up your phone, his did the same thing only a few inches away. You sighed, thumbing back a reply, making them promise to keep you updated on their travel home. 

He waited--patiently watching as you replied and set it back on the granite counter. When you looked up at him, he searched your face. “I should have told you.”

“I know,” you said. 

“I was too afraid to tell you because everything was going well. For the first time ever, really. Felt too good to be true and I was afraid I’d fuck it up if I admitted that I had seen her.”

“I get it.”

“You do?”

A nod. 

“Are you still mad?”

“I don’t know, Harry--I’m exhausted, is what I am.” He didn’t say anything, his eyes begged you to continue. “I can’t do the back and forth anymore. The friends, not friends, talking, not talking. S’been an exhausting eight years since you left home. Maybe not for you, but it has been for me.”

The kettle whistled, he pulled it off before it could scream and flipped off the burner. His voice was quiet. “I know.”

“I never knew if I was going to see you or hear from you and I don’t want to have some weird type of relationship with you that isn’t,” a pause, searching for the word when he slid a teacup across the counter. “Stable.”

“I want it to be stable.”

“I think the only way for us to have that is just,” you trailed off when he nodded, set his tea on the counter and traced a pattern on the counter with just one finger. 

“To be friends.”

“Yeah.”

You only stayed for another ten minutes, finished the tea and laughed at a picture of his sister’s new cat. He paused awkwardly at the door when you said goodbye, a hand shoved into his pocket before he could let it wrap around you.

**

Carly brushed at her hair with her fingers--desperate to go out into the sunny weather for lunch. She stood over your cube, watching as you finished typing a list on the best memes from last week’s episode of the Bachelor. 

“S’that the Harry story?” She whispered as if it was still a secret, as if you didn’t give the same nervous update in staff meeting every week._ S’going well_, you’d say. Making good progress. 

No one needed to know you were lying, that is, except for Carly. 

“No,” you rolled your eyes, clicking out of your story so it’d be queued up for Gabrielle to edit and proof. “S’taking forever, honestly. I haven’t got the slightest clue how to do it. I was planning on actually taking some time tonight to give it another go.”

You grabbed for your wallet, tugging your coat on before you followed her out of your space. 

“How’ve things been with him? Still, y’know, fighting over wine?” She offered a smirk, one that threatened to be challenging, but you weren’t in the mood to divulge more. 

“S’fine, we’re over it.”

She pressed the button for the lift, looked up to see the bright green numbers start to descend above the doors. “Having everyone in town was good, right?”

“Yeah, a lot of fun, turned twenty-four. You know, a real wild week out of the office.” 

You stepped inside and rode it down, shifting aside for other people to cram on for the lunch time rush. When you found your way down the block, she pressed harder. “Any idea what you’re going to do about Whitney?”

You shook your head, thankful for the oversized sunglasses that shielded from the winter sun. 

“D’you think you could just lie? Just write as if you don’t know him and hope for the best?”

“If only I’d be so lucky,” you laughed. “Just doesn’t seem realistic. M’still surprised that people haven’t put it together. I made all of my friends delete photos or go private or whatever on social media.”

“Right,” she nodded, a pause at the intersection. “Any more obnoxious tweets?” 

“Only one that I saw that made it seem like they’ll figure it out eventually.” She raised her brows with intrigue. “Someone said a picture of me looked a lot like a different picture of me from a few years ago.”

She let out a noise of concern, shoving past someone who moved too slow through the crosswalk. “What do you think you’ll do, then?”

“I’ve got to tell her at some point. The question is how.”

“D’you think she’ll fire you?”

“Don’t know,” you said, voice lower now. “Wouldn’t be surprised. So, I dunno. Maybe I should look for other jobs.”

She let her mouth pull to one side of her face, sympathy clouding her eyes. She let it go, though, changing the topic to a new bar she’d tried over the weekend and a partially successful date she’s had on Saturday. He at least split the check with me, she laughed, which is better than the last one who made me pay. 

You ate on the plush red sofas on the twenty-second floor, pretended like the dread of telling Whitney didn’t crop up inside of you every time she popped her pretty head out of her pretty office. 

“You know,” Carly’s voice was low when you tossed your take out in the bin. “If you really don’t want to write it, see if she’ll let you transfer it to someone. M’super busy, but, I would obviously jump at that opportunity,” she stifled a grin that tried to break loose on her cheeks. 

“Tried that,” you said, defeated. “I asked Whitney why she didn’t give it to you in the first place seeing as you’ve always been a fan.”

“What? You did?” Carly stopped in her tracks, her face a different shade of winter pale than it had been. “What did she say?”

“I dunno, Carly, something dumb. It was a while ago, I don’t remember,” it was a lie, but you weren’t about to tell her that. 

“Oh come on, she must have given a reason why she wanted you to do it.” She fell back into step with you now, her eyes still trained on your face with purpose.

You let out a sigh, wishing you could crawl into the safe reprieve of warm sheets--specifically ones that still had a lingering smell of a certain someone. “I dunno, something about wanting it to come from someone less biased, or a more professional outlook, it wasn’t a big deal.”

“What?” She seemed to whisper-hiss in your ear, her fingers wrapping around your elbow to slow you down. “She thought I’d be unprofessional?”

“No, no--that’s not what she said. I told you I don’t even remember! She just wanted me to do it since she thought I wasn’t a fan.”

Her face fell, you couldn’t tell which emotion had taken hold of her. Her eyebrows dipped together and she pursed her lips. “That’s shitty of her--I wouldn’t have been unprofessional!”

“Carly,” you stopped now, turning to face her and ready to backtrack. You knew that Whitney hadn’t been the nicest about her reasoning, but you weren’t about to get into it. “Relax--she was just trying to throw me a bone, remember? She knew I was pissed about being stuck on lists and she was trying to do something nice.”

She let out a sigh, reaching up to fix her pony tail that fell over her shoulder. “If she’d given it to me you wouldn’t be in this mess. She wouldn’t be in this mess with you. Our entire company wouldn’t be in this mess.” 

“S’not a mess,” you defended, head pulled away from her in offense. “M’sorting it out, I told you.”

“Right, Y/N, the blurred lines in your friendship with a subject aren’t problematic at all.” She put air quotes around the platonic label, immediately pulling a scoff from your mouth. 

“What’s that--” you let your fingers bend like hers had, “--supposed to mean?” 

She pulled you into her own cube, small enough to offer privacy but big enough to fit the two of you. “You really haven’t slept with him? You’ve never even kissed? Find it hard to believe with the way he looks at you!”

You inhaled and held it, eyes on her as you contemplated just blowing it all. Her lips curled up at the corners a bit, a laugh from her lips and a softened expression. “Y/N--just admit it. Aside from the fact that you’re writing about him it’s not a big deal. I can handle the fact that him and I will never work out,” she teased. 

“I can’t tell you all about it here,” you said, voice quiet as you scanned the room to make sure no one else had heard. 

“Fine,” she nodded. “Then let’s do dinner tomorrow night.”

So when you were alone on your own sofa that night, you begged your brain to try to come up with something good enough to publish. You’d lit a candle, put on some music, and drew the curtains. Only a few steps short of a satanic ritual after Alyssa left to meet Owen’s friends. She’d offered to bring you along, but you said you needed the space. 

What you didn’t tell her was that you needed the space to cry or freak out or experience whatever would come pouring out of you when you finally had a minute to process the last few months. 

You’d never been much of a crier--save for a good shower sob or drunken outburst--and now wasn’t much different. You sat at first and stared at your computer screen, bullet points scattered a blank white page that mocked you. 

Friends. You and Harry were friends. He’d been one for a long time, really. Someone who knew you better than most people and someone who knew exactly how to piss you off and make up for it in the same moment. 

You’d been walking a tightrope for the last decade, pushing and pulling and wondering when or if it would give. Separated by oceans or continents and still dreaming that one day your lives would align again. 

And they have, you know that now. But they’ve aligned in a way that felt messier than before--which you didn’t know was possible. 

The version of Harry that Whitney wanted you to write about was someone you didn’t know--one with perfectly coiffed hair and a personal assistant. So you decided that if you didn’t know how to tell the story of that Harry, the one who had celebrities on speed dial and didn’t hesitate to order top shelf liquor, you wouldn’t. You’d tell the story of your Harry. 

And when you did that, the words fell onto the keyboard and jumped onto paper, promising that the truth was better than any fiction you could craft. 

**

A text from Alyssa the next morning made your stomach sink to your feet. 

Alyssa (8:43am): Okay, not to ruin your day so early, but I just saw these.

Pictured from LA. Ones that you could easily explain. You could find them on instagram and defend your case in the comments. See that bag? It’s got a laptop and tape recorder inside. For professional purposes only.

You let a sigh escape your lips, fine, it was fine. It wasn’t like people didn’t know that you knew Harry at all--it was really just a secret now that you’d known him for so long. Or, at least, it was a secret until you could tell Whitney yourself. 

You’d decided--after staring at the blinking cursor on your screen for a good three hours the night before--that you wanted to at least give her the story before you really came out with it. That way, in case you somehow managed to catch her on a day where she was willing to overlook unprofessionalism, unethical behavior, and an altogether shitty situation, she at least had the chance to realize how skillful of a writer you were. 

You hoped that after an eventful and exhausting few months the universe had some kind of good karma coming your way. But then the guilt of lying set in and you were back to planning an exit strategy and a plan B for what would happen if Whitney didn’t see the good in you. 

You thumbed out a response to Alyssa right after you got off the subway. 

Y/N L/N (8:47am): ugggghhhh

Y/N L/N (8:47am): at least no one has put it all together yet

Which was true. You only had to deal with the mess you’d made for a few more days. Your story was due on Friday, Harry left for tour a few days after, and hopefully, things could return to some semblance of normal. Though you couldn’t quite imagine what normal would look like now. 

You climbed the steps up to street level, thankful that the sun had decided to fight its way through the late February cloud cover. When you were upstairs and at your desk, another message came through that you weren’t quite expecting. 

Pat Martin (9:01am): Would love to grab dinner or a drink one night this week if you’re free!

You stared at it for a second, reading over the words a few times before you were able to make any sense of them. A date--this time you were sure of it. 

But did you want that? Did you want to blur the lines between professionalism and romance for the second time in six weeks?

You put your phone face down on your desk, booted up your computer and then checked email. Whitney strolled by you with a bagel in hand, a smile on her face, and a pep in her step. 

“How’s the big story coming?”

“Good,” you said, a solemn nod before you blinked twice, a small smile on your face. “Worked on it last night.”

It was probably the first honest response you’d given her about it. She adjusted the bagel in her grasp, crinkling the wax paper that kept her hands clean. “Can’t wait to read it. You’ll give it to me by Friday?”

“Uh huh,” you nodded again, praying she couldn’t smell the fear in you. 

When she left you alone at your paper-cluttered desk, you typed out a response to Pat before you could overthink it. 

Y/N L/N (9:06am): Sure! Any chance you’re free tonight? 

He was quick to type back--you wondered if he was somewhere in LIC late to work, rushing from the subway or already situated at his desk. 

Pat Martin (9:07am): I can be in the city by 6:30? Wanna meet somewhere near you?

You stared at the message and got lost in thought. It’d been a while since you’d been on a date--at least, one that really felt like one. 

There was a kid at uni after Charlie--a boy from class who always wore these horrific shoes. He was sweet and nice but nothing about him sent a spark through you. In fact, you felt altogether quite unimpressed with his presence after 45 minutes so you cut the date short and headed back to your dorm. 

You hoped that this would be different--that Pat wouldn’t want to talk about work the entire time and that maybe he’d walk you home. 

More than anything, though, you hoped he’d numb the ache in your chest for Harry. 

“Morning,” Carly’s blonde hair was blonder than the day before, loose curls falling around her shoulders. “Care to brainstorm with me for new topics in twenty?”

“Sure,” you said, straightening your posture as if you hadn’t just been pulled away into a daydream of men. “Yeah, wanna grab the conference room downstairs?”

She agreed and laughed hysterically when you told her about your set up the night before. Only needed a candle and a picture of him! She teased, if you chanted loud enough you probably could have summoned him. The afternoon slipped out of your hands, quick and busy, and when the sun was seeping between the cracks of tall buildings, you headed for the bar down the street where you’d agreed to meet Pat. 

When your arm was outstretched for the door, your phone started buzzing in your pocket. You pulled it out, unsure of who needed you or who would skip straight to a phone call rather than a text. 

But of course, Harry’s name and a stupid selfie he’d taken only a few weeks back lit up your screen. Your finger hovered over the decline button. Three rings, four, then your thumb hit the green button, feet frozen on the sidewalk. 

“Hello?”

“Hey, Smalls--s’me. What--uh, what are you up to?”

“Just got out of work,” you said, true. “Grabbing a drink with Carly.”

“Oh, nice,” he paused for a second but then got right to it. “Listen--I have a thing on Thursday night. A dinner thing. I was wondering if you’d want to tag along?”

You were quiet, teeth tugging at your bottom lip when a gust of winter air blew. “As, like, a date?”

“N--no. Not as a date if you don’t want it to be as a date.”

“I thought we were just friends.”

“We are.”

“Okay.”

“Okay you’ll come?”

“Okay I’ll think about it,” you told him, a firmness in your voice that you didn’t think you’d ever used with him before. A firmness that hindered any hope in his response. 

“Oh--yeah. Alright. I’ll uh, I’ll talk to you later, then.”

“Okay,” you hung up without a farewell, shoving the phone back in your pocket before taking another deep breath. An event? You had no idea what that would entail or what you were supposed to wear or say or do. It felt too vague to commit to and yet too interesting and intriguing to decline. So you tucked the decision away in your mind, saving it for a conversation with Alyssa and maybe even a glass of wine over FaceTime with Jessie and Bryn.

You pushed the door open and stepped inside from the stinging cold. Pat was already there--a stool at the bar with his jacket still on. He offered a side hug when you walked up beside him, a somewhat sheepish grin sat lazily on his face. 

“How was your day?” He asked in greeting, settling back into his seat.

You let out a sigh and nodded. “Good, fine. Starving though.”

“Best nachos in the city, here, so that’s good.”

The bartender materialized in front of you, eyebrows raised to take your order. 

“I’ll do a Blue Moon,” Pat leaned forward a little when he ordered, his eyes fleeting over to you. “And the nachos.”

“I will also do a Blue Moon,” you nodded, a smile in his direction once you were alone again.

“Why the sigh about work?” He folded his hands together on the dark wooden counter, scratched and dents told the stories of customers past. 

“Just busy, is all. Big story coming up.”

“Yeah? What about?”

“Harry Styles, actually. An interview.”

His eyes went wide, the glow of neon wall decor lit up his irises in the dim room. “S’a big deal.”

“Yeah, so the stress level is a bit higher than usual.”

“Understandable. Interviewing one of the biggest celebrities in the world would certainly leave me with a lot of sleepless nights.”

You nodded, biting your lip to keep from telling him the truth. It was harder than that, really, seeing as you had to fight the feelings in your heart and all the while deal with a level of confusion--both professionally and personally--that you’d never known before. 

You returned the pleasantry. “How was your day? Anything new and exciting at Digitize?”

“Not really--mostly spent the day looking forward to this,” he offered you a cheeky smirk, pulling his eyes back down to his hands when the bartender delivered two glasses--foam reaching up to the rims. He picked his up and held it in the air, waiting for you to let yours clink against his.

“Cheers,” you said, the drink jumped over the edged and trickled its way down to your hand. “To a Tuesday night.”

He was nice--he told you about his brother and his favorite band. He talked about New York and wanted to hear all about England._ Is it true that everyone has to curtsey or bow to the Queen?_ He asked. 

Only if you’re lucky enough to meet her, you told him. 

He was intrigued by your desire to move west--to find some solace in the States and give up the opportunities that surely would have been afforded to you if you moved to London. A fair question, absolutely, but you weren’t quite at the point to give him the truth. 

Staying in London meant a higher likelihood of having to deal with Harry, bumping into him at work events or covering different things he did--or at least, so you thought. 

So you didn’t tell him everything he probably would have liked to know. You left out pieces of your life--details like the LA trip or your recent birthday celebrations didn’t seem like they were appropriate topics of conversation for only one drink and a plate of nachos in. 

And you wondered when he walked you back to the subway if you’d ever get to that point with him, because the moment his lips touched yours, quick and chaste and extremely politely, your cellphone started to feel like it was burning a hole in your pocket.

The N train pulled up and you hugged him goodbye, promising to see each other again soon. But when the doors shut between you and the rest of the world, your fingers typed out a message and pressed send before you could think better of it. 

Y/N L/N (7:15pm): What do I have to wear if I come?

come talk to me about tytl

read the other parts here

AN: on the shorter side but you best all be gearing up for a wild FINAL FEW CHAPTERS. Yes, that’s right. Either chap 15 or 16 will be the end...still writing and editing all that so stay tuned! so much love to all of you who’ve tagged along on this wild ride!!! 

tag list:  @clorenafila @ainsleesolareclipse @castawaycths @harryspirate @wanderlustiing @ursamajor603 @thurhomish @omgsharry  @stepping-into-the-light @rachkon @jdcharliewhiskey  @shawnsblue  @gendryia @g0bl1nqueen  @laula843  @flooome  @a-woman-without-a-plan@awomanindeniall  @shaw-nm @staceystoleyourheart @ohprettylittlemind-deactivated2 @anssu-amry @my-fandomful-life2 @stylesfantasy @bookingbee  @mleestiles  @haute-romance-quotidienne  @craic-head-horan @talk-british-2-me-britbritharry @at-least-im-1 @paigemck00 @rawmeharry @pinkpolaroidgirl @blackxxmagicc @sksspotkitty @nearbyou @kalesouffle @sunnflowerchild @lmk12310 @sing-me-a-song-harry @afterstylesmadeit @myhat @caritocp @liquor-and-intellect @harryinsweatersandbandanas @daydreamsofh

[daybreak-delusion]

Chapter 9

Introduction: Whitney Goodwinson was planning on inheriting one of her deceased grandmother's properties, but not a little house off the coast of North Carolina.  As she struggles to meet new people, fix up her new property, deal with troublemaker JJ Maybank, and perfect her grandmother's infamous lemonade, she might just find that the Outer Banks has more to offer than it seems.

Series Masterlist

Previous chapter 

I want to say that on Sunday I was totally independent and was totally not missing the presence of a certain golden boy at all, but I’d be lying to myself. It wasn't a complete waste of the day though. I did manage to drive the Bee (my new nickname for the Volkswagen) to the hardware store that I saw yesterday and picked up some essentials for fixing up the house. Blue tape, a bunch of paintbrushes and rollers, a couple of gallons of primer and white paint, drop cloths, this anti-rust spray for the garage, about a million trash bags, and some other items that I had to pre-order. The store had limited options for paint so I had to order some from a manual and it would be coming later this week. I figured I would stick to the yellow/lemon theme that she had going on and picked a shade of light yellow. Since the paint should be arriving in a week I had time to get everything situated. Somehow I managed to shove everything into the Bee and make it home. I mean back to the Lemon House. Back at the house, I placed all of my new equipment on the back porch and then headed to the garage. My task for today was going to be cleaning out the garage. I parked the Bee closer to the house so I could have more space and started to realize the trouble I was in. There was just so much junk and the last thing I wanted to do was find the pests that had made a mess of the place. I decided to change into a more suitable outfit for the deep cleaning I was about to do. After switching my sandals for some sneakers and putting on some leggings I made my way back to the garage with a trash can, recycling bin, and a box of trash bags. It was gonna be a long day. 

The boxes were filled with all kinds of things. There were old suitcases filled with clothes, rusty pans with ancient stains on them, old fashioned jewelry, and a bunch of old photographs that were in good shape. I was really conflicted about what to get rid of and what to keep. I decided to ditch the pans and pots seeing that they were out of shape. I kept the clothes in case there was a thrift store I could donate them too. Most of the stuff could also be given to thrift stores or antique shops, but there was one box underneath this ancient-looking blanket that seemed different from the others. First of all, it was an actual wooden box, not like the cardboard boxes that had held all of the other items. Unfortunately, there was a lock on the box and it wouldn't open. I didn’t want to break it in case I broke something in the box. Then I remembered the bulletin board where I found the car keys. Walking over to it there were a bunch of different labels for different keys, but one of them didn’t have a label. I figured it was my best bet. Thankfully it was a pretty good bet. When I opened it, a disgusting spider the size of one of Grandmother's lemons crawled out and I bolted out of the garage screaming, knocking over a few boxes in the process. It took me a couple of minutes to calm down and I reluctantly walked back into the garage with a baseball bat I found in my hands. I was shaking as I started to open the box again until I was sure the spider had disappeared. In the box were a bunch of misshapen things covered in old linen cloth and unfortunately spiderwebs. Not wanting to be in the pest infested room anymore I decided to take a break and bring the chest on to the porch. It was a lot lighter than I expected and stained my gray shirt with dust. I placed it on the porch and went inside to grab a damp cloth to clean off the dust. Sitting on the porch I cleaned the box and opened it again. The first misshapen item was a gold locket in good condition, I was excited to see what was in the compartment only to find it empty. The next item was a silver ring with a crop of wheat engraved on it. It was a bit bulky for my taste and definitely had belonged to a man at one point. I slipped it onto my thumb and thought it looked nice with the rest of the rings that I had on. Then at the bottom of the box was an old cracked leather journal with yellow pages. On the bottom right-hand corner the name Elenora Stanton was engraved in gold letters. I instantly knew this stuff belonged in a museum or something the date on the first page was from April 1843. 

“Holy shit,” I whispered to myself stroking my hand across the faded ink. The writing was in a small cursive that I could barely make out. It would be easier to read with a magnifying glass. I carefully wrapped the leather-bound book in the white cloth and placed it back into the box. Walking inside I cleared a space for it on the table and set the box down. Thankfully from my knife search when I was making lemonade I got an idea of where everything was in the kitchen and I remembered seeing a magnifying glass in a drawer with a bunch of other random items. I brought it over to the table and opened the old book again. Thank god Mother made me practice writing in cursive or this would have been a nightmare. 

23 April 1843

Dear friend as of today, I am eighteen years of age and now get to embark on the responsibilities of an adult. I had received many good wishes of health and good tidings for my birthday and my dearest younger sister Juliana gifted me my most favored gift, this diary. I was also gifted a new church dress from Mother and Father and Aunt Alice promised to take me into town to buy a new corset. She said that all adult women should own a suitable corset and if I am to live with her and Uncle Harry this summer it would be an absolute necessity for me to own one. Mother wishes I would stay home and help care for my younger siblings, but I find it absurd that she puts the task of looking after them on me. If Mother feels too overwhelmed with her offspring then she should simply just hire a nanny. I pray that whoever she hires will be able to keep her sanity after a week of working with my siblings or perhaps Juliana will have to bear my burdens. No matter I mustn’t worry about my family anymore. I am an adult as of today and now am able to focus on the wishes of my own heart. In all truthfulness, my wishes are few in number, but this summer I hope to make more. Aunt Alice says that Outer Banks is a marvelous island and I count the days until we depart. Nonetheless, I still have time to prepare for my departure, till next time dear friend! 

30 April 1843

Dear friend this week has been excruciating. Father is beginning to go back on his promise to let me live with Aunt Alice this upcoming summer. He is skeptical of the owner of the island being a colored man and all, but Aunt Alice says that to be truly Christian we must see and treat all people as the children of God and that my father is little-minded. I would never speak to Father with such forwardness so to help my case I have been taking on extra tasks and duties around our home. Juliana has been accompanying me in my tasks as she will be taking over my responsibilities as I predicted. She is quite a quick learner and I’m sure she will be able to manage all of my duties when I leave for the summer. Today we- 

The rest of this entry was just explaining all of the chores that Elenora and Juliana had to do on a daily basis. I was incredibly fascinated with the diary and was confused as to why it was in Grandmother's garage? I am interrupted from my thoughts by a buzz coming from my phone on the table. I placed a stray piece of paper where I left off and reached for my phone. Checking my phone I noticed a text from an unknown number. 

U/N: Hey Whitney it’s Sarah! My friends and I are going to the beach tomorrow afternoon! I remember you said your board was coming in tomorrow, but if you don’t have it yet John B has an extra one you could borrow! BTW this is nonnegotiable you are coming! We’ll be by at 1. See ya then!

Oh thank god, I was so scared it was going to be Rose Cameron inviting me over for brunch or something. 

Also, my mom wants to know if you can do brunch sometime.

Great. Oh well, I guess there could be worse things than free food. 

Me: Tell your mother that brunch this Saturday will be fine and I would love to go to the beach with you guys! About the board, I’ll be sure to let you know if I need it or not. 

Sarah: Sounds like a plan and be by your dock at 1

Me: Got it see you then! 

I was excited to finally have plans that didn't involve me having to wear a dress. I just hope that my board would get in before the afternoon, I’d hate to have to be a bother. I eyed the journal and decided to continue reading. What else did I have to do? 

The next few entries were about Elenora’s daily life. Taking care of her siblings, washing the laundry, having tea with her mother’s sewing group, and walking through town with her friends. It was starting to become boring until an entry from June 3rd. 

3 June 1843

Dear friend today is the day! I am finally leaving this simple town and am leaving with Aunt Alice and Uncle Harry to The Outer Banks of North Carolina. My soul has reached happiness beyond my comprehension. All of those days of labor around the house finally served a purpose in my measly life. Now I will be embarking to a new place where hopefully anything can happen. Nonetheless, I will not be staying there without a purpose, I am to work in Uncle Harry’s tailor shop mending minor rips and sewing on buttons and such. Mother and father are still reluctant for me to leave our household, but Aunt Alice is most persuasive especially when her favorite niece is involved. We will leave today at noon and then will stay in a tavern closer to the ferry we will take tomorrow. I am just jittery with excitement, this will be a new area for me to explore and I cannot wait to see where it takes me!  Till next time dear friend!

It was so strange that this lady, Elenora, was so excited to come to Outer Banks, and just two days ago this was the last place I wanted to be. Maybe I was being a bit ungrateful, maybe this place had more to offer than it seemed. I was absolutely fascinated with the diary, but for real why did Grandmother have it? Maybe she bought it in an auction or it was a gift or something. Looking at my phone for the time I realize it’s a quarter past 1 and I still need to clean out the rest of the garage. Sighing, I closed the diary with a makeshift bookmark and left the house. Bagging up the clothes took the longest, but with the music playing, I didn’t really mind it that much. I had also gotten used to the heat, kind of, so it wasn't completely unbearable. After cleaning everything out and dusting some of the hard to reach corners I decided to power wash the garage. It was disgusting, but it had to be done. The garage was still wet so I decided to bring the remaining boxes to the porch. I was definitely done cleaning for the night and needed some relaxation time. So I cooked up some pasta and steamed vegetables and sat down for dinner. As I was eating my lonely feelings were coming back to me. I was craving company and turned to the diary for something to do. 

10 June 1843 

Dear friend, I have been staying with Aunt Alice and Uncle Harry for a week now and it has been a thrilling experience. On the ferry ride to the island Uncle Harry let us sit on the top deck and it was exhilarating leaning over the edge to see the water. The shop that Uncle Harry owns is the only tailor shop on the island so they are always busy. We stay in the apartment space above the shop and one of the windows in the parlor gives the most breathtaking view of the ocean. It is so vast and wide that I feel as if I am a small button on a white collared shirt. The apartment is quaint, but I have my very own quarters! There is so much space that I felt quite foolish when I only had my small bag to fill up the drawers. However, Aunt Alice says that if customers are satisfied with their work they sometimes pay extra and that I can keep the excess money for myself! Me owning my own money! It will truly be thrilling I know it. I pray that my skills will be adequate for the shop and that I will exceed my skills. There is still more work to be done, so until next time dear friend! 

19 June 1843

Dear friend, I  thought that my experiences here on this island could not have been better, but I was proven wrong! This week has been most eventful. It all began on Monday the 13th in the tailor shop. Denmark Tanny, the owner of practically the whole island, came into the shop. He was accompanied by his eldest son Robert Tanny and as they were discussing business with Uncle they mentioned the expertise work on the stitching of a new suit and it was my own work! Thankfully Uncle gave me the credit and I had the pleasure to make their acquaintances. They were truly delightful people and invited us to tea that coming Wednesday at their residence at Tannyhill. Their home was the most gorgeous sight I have ever seen in my existence. It was a mansion. I felt so quaint in my three-year-old Easter dress compared to the lavish home. The Tanny family was most welcoming and tea went by too fast. The conversation was most interesting, although I did not speak much. They talked of the economy and politics and I was too mature on the subject. However what was most interesting was during the conversation I prayed my mind was not presuming it, but Robert kept looking in my direction. Looking back on the occasion I should not be assuming such things, but one cannot help themselves when the presence of an attractive male is in the room. When he smiles I feel nothing, but sunshine and complete bliss. The feeling magnifies when he smiles in my direction. I was anticipating our next meeting, however, Mr. Tanny did not come into Uncle’s shop for the rest of the week. Not all hope was lost however because today after our church services Robert Tanny asked to accompany me on my walk home. I almost fainted with excitement, however, I kept up my studious facade and accepted. On the pathway home, we talked of nature and the ocean. To my disappointment we arrived at the shop rather quickly however, Robert promised to take me to the beach to search for shells so that I may decorate my quarters. I am counting the second until this Thursday comes along. Until next time dear friend! 

I wanted to keep reading, but I noticed it was past midnight and I still had a lot to do tomorrow. JJ would be by and I had a list of things for him to get done. I also needed to get enough rest if I was going to go surfing and I didn’t want to be the one lagging behind. Elenora’s diary was just gonna have to wait. As I fell asleep I tried to imagine myself in Elenoras place, wonderstruck about Outer Banks, and starting a relationship with a true gentleman. Oh, how things have changed. Still, the name Tanny sounded really familiar to me, especially their house, Tannyhill. This all did take place on Outer Banks, so maybe some of the places Elenora was talking about still exist. I would have to save it for another day because for now, I needed as much beauty sleep as I could get.

a/n: Hey guys sorry I haven’t updated in a while I am on vacation and have been going through a bit of writers block. But I am revived and am so excited to finish this story. Also like PLOT TWIST can’t wait for you guys to read what’s next! I’m still on vacation so I’ll try to update when I can.

[madebycoffee]

if nobody has asked for all of them yet i am here to do that with 1 brain cell (also sorry if this is a lot of work i am genuinely curious skdjfbd)

Oh hey let me finally answer this 💀💀I had written half and then i exited out of the window and gave up. ily paige. answering for gianlerette and the simblr lol

1. Do you hide any secrets in your stories that only a few people will find?  G: In the Behind the Scenes posts I do hint at things. Most of the time it’s just vague dialogue that I throw everywhere. I love being vague af. S: And same with the Simblr. Vague dialogue everywhere. but in general I figure no one is paying attention close enough to notice anything huehuehehue

2. Sims writing has a visual component. How do you utilize color/objects and settings in your stories? G: I don’t do that too much as far as color. I mean, there are specific cc creators that I use for specific contestants (sentate cc is Val and Savnannah thru and thru lol) (oh and darte for gian but more so keith) Mostly I just use what looks ~aesthetic~ to me lol. S: I use photo filters in editing more for a visual aspect! Cool toned things for things that either are set at night, or when things get Sad(tm) Usually I always use a magenta one for Whitney. That’s really the most that I do. (For those interested, the Gianlerette also uses a magenta photo filter for all posts and the Behind the Scenes posts don’t have a filter.)

3. Which process do you dedicate more time to, editing visuals or editing your writing? Why?   G: I take a lot more time editing the photos with the writing on them. It takes me so long and it makes me hella understand why on my simblr I put the text in the tumblr post lol.  S: And for the Simblr I spend more time writing as well. Editing visuals are p simple if I’m not putting text on them lul.

4. What scenes do you find hardest to write? G: R O M A N C E. It’s really hard for me to feel like I’m actually writing a believable budding romance. It always takes me the longest, and I always write and re write. It’s a struggle. I often feel like I’m just writing some nonsense from a romcom.... The longer this goes on the longer it’s gonna take me lmao. S: Same as above, but also anything that gets close to technical. Medical stuff, technical stuff. I do my best to research but I still struggle with it. 

5. Are there any scenes in your story that you enjoy re-reading?   G: So far I haven’t gone back and read anything, I’m sure that when this is all over I’ll love to go back and read through all of the beginning surrounding the winning ladee. S: I love going back to the very beginning, and then I also love re-reading from the beginning on any character I’m really vibing with. Currently it’s Whitney. She’s my fave on my leggo, and the other night I scrolled back to the beginning of her tag and reminisced. 

6. Are there any scenes you wish you could go back and re-write? G: So far no! My original plan for the fitness challenge in posts, would have been dodgeball (and Trina def would have taken a dodgeball to the tit lmaoOOOO) But rn everything looks good to me. S: YE, it’s from a long time ago but my Gen 2 heir finally ~getting together~ with her man I wanted to have it set up on the beach in Willow Creek over in the area where the two big lots are. Those lots were where they grew up and such. At the time I didn’t know how to pose couples off lots so I ended up staging the scene at a nightclub. But that’s oki. 

7. Do you have any characters you believe might be misunderstood by your readers?     For both: IDK I don’t think so. 

9. Are you writing with a deadline in mind to complete the story?   G: Oh yiss, there’s an end in sight. Granted It probably won’t be for a year from watching how long it’s taken other people to run these kind of challenges, but still. After the GIanlerette is wrapped, IDK how much I’ll post concerning him after that yknow? We’ll see tho!! S: Hooooo on my first post on my simblr it says “10 generations” I’m currently on 3 after 3 years.... so we’ll see on that one too lmao.

10. If you could choose to be one of your characters for a day, which one would it be? G: Let me be Rochelle pulling all the strings and knowing e v e r y t h i n g about everyone. I mean that’s essentially what I’m doing but I’d like to do it in a nice pantsuit. S: I think I would opt to be one of the kids that are not yet born in my leggo lmao. Give me some truly ignorant bliss lololo. 

11. What are some elements you think are becoming cliché in the genre you’re writing? G: OOF. Going on vacation to Sulani with the final contestants lmao. For the record that’s not where any of the top ladies will be traveling. What with Snowy Escape coming out soon AND the fact that I wrote it into the story that Gian wants to go to Selvadorada. There’s probably others but :shrug: S: Unknowing Pregnant Person Throws Up and Then Realizes What’s Up. Am I about to run that cliché again in my legacy soon??? You’re DAMN RIGHT I AM. I love me a good cliché tbh. 

14. What is something that you think most of your readers might miss? G: I think people probs miss the dynamic trio of Noor, Magnus, & Gian. And sometimes I feel like I’m not writing Gian as good as Cam did lmaoooo. There is something magical about how you wrote my boi. S: So far no one BIG BIG has died yet, so there isn’t much to miss. But also i now no one is as invested as I am lol so it’s not a big deal.

if u got through all of that congratulations 

[weregonnaneedmorewhiskey]

It’s trendy to hate

Ok, so this is kind of a follow up from a previous post from my blog post on cancel culture. Something that I have observed in the last two years on social media is that there is a trend in hyping people up to great success and then once they’ve reached that level, we then see hate start to increase. The first person I saw this happen to was Taylor Swift. After the massive success of the 1989 era, her transition into pop music, we started to see a lot of hate towards Taylor. Part of this I do believe was from the whole Kanye West/Famous situation where Kim had released a recording of Taylor and Kanye’s performance in which we hear Taylor hear the lyric “I think me and Taylor might still have sex”.

We hear Taylor respond to this lyric citing no problems with it. HOWEVER we do not hear that in that recording that Taylor know about the following lyric of making her “famous”, so I’m definitely think to this day Taylor didn’t know about that lyric until The Life of Pablo was released. After this episode of KUWTK aired, the hate for Taylor was immense. Her Instagram comments were filled with snake emoji and a hate train had arrived. Thankfully Taylor was able to take this snake narrative and turn it on it’s head in the Reputation era. Something that I love.

Another example. After Cardi’s Grammy win, she received major backlash from it to the point where she temporarily deactivated her Instagram account. Since Cardi’s Grammy win, I’ve seen a lot of people overnight start to hate Cardi and it begs to question of why do people just start to hate things that are popular. Ella Mai got a fair share of hate the other day when made reference to Jacquees singing trip at Drake’s Assassination Vacation tour where Tory Lanez brought him out as a guest (by the way, you’re in front of 20,000 + people and you sing a cover instead of your original music. That’s the perfect moment to plug your music you idiot). Once Ella, who has had little to say on the situation spoke on how she felt in that moment and yet jacquees did a whole press tour on it, people said she should “get over it” and that’s she’s jealous...a Grammy award winner with two platinum songs and probably another platinum song, a platinum album, a feature with Meek Mill and a sold out tour is jealous of Jacquees’ mediocre cover. Ok go off.

Ariana Grande is another person that received a mass amount of hate after the release of Thank U, Next accusing her of appropriating black culture when Ariana has been heavily influenced by black music from the beginning of her career. Her debut album is a throwback 90’s R&B album heavily inspired by Mariah and Whitney. I could get into the whole culture vulture argument because there is valid point to made about how people roast others for appropriation but let Bhad Bhabie become a thing (this still angers me to this day because she is a joke and a walking caricature)

It’s like it’s cool to hate what’s trendy but is this jumping on the hate train because everyone is? I strongly believe so and this is very dangerous. Kevin Hart in a recent interview spoke on this and I could not agree more on what he said. We need to all have our individual opinions, not collective ones. Why do we build people up only to want bring them down? I just don’t understand this at all. My inspiration for this post was from numerous viral hate tweets about Jennifer Lopez. Recently I keep seeing tweets undermining Jennifer’s career in music and it’s frankly quite annoying and hypocritical and shows that a lot people don’t know the ins and outs of the music industry. The claim that Jennifer has stolen songs is a narrative that has been falsely spread and a couple YouTube video which I will not share the name of because I do not want to hear this narrative at all. For those of you that don’t know, back in 2001-2 the singles I’m Real and Ain’t it Funny remix were co-written by Ashanti. Ashanti’s vocals are also featured as background. Ashanti herself had admitted that she not the so called “ghost voice” of Jennifer Lopez. Also since you lot love Ashanti, I have a crazy suggestion. SUPPORT HER MUSIC AND HER CONCERTS! If you love her so much then why is cancelling concerts because of low ticket sales and not charting. Just saying. Don’t @ me. Period. Slagging off Jennifer does nothing for either one of them when Jennifer minds her, makes money and takes care of her kids and is engaged and you’re making viral tweets like that’s gonna bother her day and brighten Ashanti’s. I’m sure Ashanti would be grateful if you supported her music instead of tweeting.

Ashanti and Jennifer are cool to this day, she’s in the Ain’t it Funny music video and Ashanti is still to this day proud of how successful the songs were. This is a very common practice, there are many examples of this in music. Joe Jonas’ See No More, Lighthouse and Justin Bieber’s Christmas Eve were all written by Chris Brown and Chris’ vocals can be clearly heard in the background and yet no one thinks that Joe and Chris are ghost singing or stole from Chris. Huh. A lot of songs originally intended for other artists get passed on and sometimes their vocals are still on the track. This is a COMMON music industry practice. Some artists write songs from other artists and aren’t even credited for their contribution. An example of this is Jason Derulo’s Want You to Want Me. Want You to Want Me was actually ghostwritten by Chris Brown for his sixth studio album X but the track was abandoned because he felt that it wasn’t cohesive with the album as a whole which I agree with. His demo can be found on YouTube which I will link but unless you go on to Wikipedia, you wouldn’t know this fact. Tracks can be stolen and that has happened but 95% of the time, it is the producer that is responsible for this or a label executive. A sample of the song Firecracker was orginally meant for Mariah Carey’s Loverboy but ended up on Jennifer Lopez’s I’m Real. It was revealed that Tommy Mottola was responsible for this happening. For those of you that don’t know who Tommy Mottola is, he was the head of Sony music all through the 1990’s and early 2000’s. Tommy Mottola is responsible for many artists careers in particular Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez. Tommy Mottola was also Mariah Carey’s first husband who she was with until 1997. Mariah has been candid about the mental and emotional abuse she dealt with in the marriage and how she practically a prisoner in her own home as Tommy controlled everything in her life. After their split, Tommy seemingly attempted to sabotage her career and the stealing of the sample was one of this many attempts. A lot of the time when events like this happen, the artist is unaware of this. Yeah 3x uses the melody of Calvin Harris’ I’m Not Alone, something that Chris Brown was not aware of until he met with Calvin Harris and he played I’m Not Alone to him. Calvin knew the producer DJ Frank E and he had uses his melody with Calvin knowing. Thankfully Calvin was then credited as a featured writer on the song and the situation was resolved. I believe to this day and it’s pretty damn obvious that Tommy Mottola used Jennifer as a pawn in his plan to ruin Mariah’s career as revenge. He put Jennifer out there as his new golden girl replacing Mariah and this helped the false narrative of feud between Mariah and Jennifer when neither artist has ever said anything negative about each other and Jennifer has said in interviews that she loves Mariah as an artist.

This became very long winded but I had to discuss this because I’ve had enough but I will say this. Have you notice a theme in the trendy to hate? Because I have. They’re all women. Women are trend to hate and men get all the glory huh? Below is all the songs I mentioned and chicagojlover on Twitter did a thread in regards all the ghost singing rumours that needs to go viral.

https://youtu.be/yy5nkChQ2E0

https://youtu.be/6kXIC_6wQgM

https://youtu.be/3mC2ixOAivA

https://youtu.be/JeTE5cnkhGc

https://youtu.be/g8MyX_ewXfM

https://youtu.be/lbh7RFWS4Ro

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https://twitter.com/chicagojlover/status/1114197870519967749?s=21

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[urscottsdale]

1-92

1. Would you have sex with the last person you text messaged? no
2. You talked to an ex today, correct? nope i havent
3. Have you taken someones virginity? not that i am aware of
4. Is trust a big issue for you? yes
5. Did you hang out with the person you like recently? nope havent talked to them in weeks
6. What are you excited for? tennessee whiskey
7. What happened tonight? idk tonight hasnt happened yet
8. Do you think it’s disgusting when girls get really wasted? depends on what they do when they get really wasted, but just them drinking a lot no idc do u boo just stay safe
9. Is confidence cute? it can be
10. What is the last beverage you had? dr. pepper
11. How many people of the opposite sex do you fully trust? not very many
12. Do you own a pair of skinny jeans? yes
13. What are you gonna do Saturday night? im not sure yet but hopefully go get some good food
14. What are you going to spend money on next? probably food
15. Are you going out with the last person you kissed? no
16. Do you think you’ll change in the next 3 months? i hope so
17. Who do you feel most comfortable talking to about anything? n, a, m and whitney
18. The last time you felt broken? right now
19. Have you had sex today? nope unfortunately
20. Are you starting to realize anything? many things
21. Are you in a good mood? surprisingly yes im content
22. Would you ever want to swim with sharks? yes that would be awesome
23. Are your eyes the same color as your dad’s? yup
24. What do you want right this second? m
25. What would you say if the person you love/like kissed another girl/boy? id be upset but i cant control them. i just want them happy.
26. Is your current hair color your natural hair color? nope
27. Would you be able to date someone who doesn’t make you laugh? its pretty hard to find someone who cant make me laugh
28. What was the last thing that made you laugh? my dog
29. Do you really, truly miss someone right now? yup
30. Does everyone deserve a second chance? depends but usually yes, not third and fourth chances tho
31. Honestly, do you hate the last boy you were talking to? my dog? never
32. Does the person you have feelings for right now, know you do? i would assume they do since i told them i did idk if they remember or care tho
33. Are you one of those people who never drinks soda? lol
34. Listening to? scar tissue by camila cabello
35. Do you ever write in pencil anymore? i rarely write anymore tho
36. Do you know where the last person you kissed is? nope
37. Do you believe in love at first sight? nah love at first words38. Who did you last call? my mom
39. Who was the last person you danced with? cant remember tho
40. Why did you kiss the last person you kissed? sex is fun
41. When was the last time you ate a cupcake?
 cant remember42. Did you hug/kiss one of your parents today? not today
43. Ever embarrass yourself in front of a crush? always
44. Do you tan in the nude? nope
45. If you could, would you take back your last kiss? probably not
46. Did you talk to someone until you fell asleep last night? yup @susceptibly
47. Who was the last person to call you? my doctor and also my grandpa
48. Do you sing in the shower? sometimes
49. Do you dance in the car? no just sing
50. Ever used a bow and arrow? yup a few times
51. Last time you got a portrait taken by a photographer? family pictures at the old football stadium a few years ago
52. Do you think musicals are cheesy? most of the time yeah
53. Is Christmas stressful? more stressful than it was when i was a kid yes
54. Ever eat a pierogi? i dont think so
55. Favorite type of fruit pie? apple pie
56. Occupations you wanted to be when you were a kid? architect, astronaut and an actor 😂
57. Do you believe in ghosts? im not sure
58. Ever have a Deja-vu feeling? all the time
59. Take a vitamin daily? i need to but havent in awhile
60. Wear slippers? yup just got some for christmas!
61. Wear a bath robe? nope
62. What do you wear to bed? shorts and a t-shirt
63. First concert? trace adkins and kenny chesney i believe
64. Wal-Mart, Target or Kmart? walmart
65. Nike or Adidas? both
66. Cheetos Or Fritos? cheetos
67. Peanuts or Sunflower seeds? seeds
68. Favorite Taylor Swift song? back to december, white horse and fifteen
69. Ever take dance lessons? kinda
70. Is there a profession you picture your future spouse doing? whatever makes them happy
71. Can you curl your tongue? yes
72. Ever won a spelling bee? nope
73. Have you ever cried because you were so happy? a few times
74. What is your favorite book? harry potter and to kill a mockingbird
75. Do you study better with or without music? with music
76. Regularly burn incense? no
77. Ever been in love? yes
78. Who would you like to see in concert? demi and selena
79. What was the last concert you saw? cody johnson, sabrina carpenter and nick jonas/demi lovato
80. Hot tea or cold tea? ice cold sweet tea
81. Tea or coffee? both
82. Favorite type of cookie? chocolate chip
83. Can you swim well? yes
84. Can you hold your breath without holding your nose? yes
85. Are you patient? sometimes but not usually no
86. DJ or band, at a wedding? both
87. Ever won a contest? i have
88. Ever have plastic surgery? nope
89. Which are better black or green olives? both
90. Opinions on sex before marriage? used to be against it but idc tbh. everyone has needs and as long as its a mutually desired experience between the two then its fine to me.
91. Best room for a fireplace? living room
92. Do you want to get married? yes

[maudlinbear]

In My Feelings . . . Don’t @ Me!

For real though, what am I thinking?  Even before I start writing, I am already feeling the pressure with just the thought of even mentioning this song.  But I suppose I want to be driven forward by creativity and inspiration, and not driven away by fear.  For whomever is reading, just know that I am always coming from a place of humility and love.  And so we begin!  I Will Always Love You, performed by Whitney Houston, this, one of the greatest songs of all time, performed by one of the greatest voices of all time, will be "often imitated, never duplicated".  There is everything and nothing to write about this piece.  We could set up a whole weekend seminar to break everything down: the voice, the emotion, the lyrics, the power, the RUNS, that saxophone solo, the moment in the music video at the pause followed by the most dramatic eye opening and full throat climax in our lifetime, the falsetto, the BELT, the vibrato, and let's not forget the cultural impact, I mean seriously a masterclass in vocal performance.  At the same time though, I feel like everyone already knows how amazing this song is, so what more could I say?  Much smarter and more cultured scholars could provide more detailed analyses or nuanced arguments.  But alas, I wanted to use this blog to express how I feel, not offer a thesis, so that's what I'm going to do.  

The Bodyguard came out when I was six years old.  I grew up hearing this song on the radio, and learned all the words before I knew what the words meant.  To me, the song had always just existed.  Later in life, after watching the movie, I started to understand how the words fit into the plot of the story, but still they were just pretty lyrics sung by an incomparable artist.  Since I've never been in love or experienced that heartbreak, I didn't really understand the emotions in the song.  I think I've always appreciated Whitney's voice and technique, but back then I only pretended to know about those feelings because everyone else's reactions to the song were so powerful.  Only recently did I go through an experience where the lyrics of the song took on a whole new meaning.  I discovered a nuance and maturity that was more about growing up than being heartbroken.  I fell in love with the song even more because I'm learning a non-romantic love-related life lesson right now.  To find a song that I relate to is always a big deal, but when it is coupled with the vocals of the legendary Whitney Houston, it changes my whole perspective.  You know those songs where you've listened to them so many times that you've memorized every note and every run and every instrumental beat that it just becomes rote?  But then all of a sudden, something new reveals itself and blows your mind?  That's what I'm excited about today.  

So here's my story.  I recently went to two Sam Smith The Thrill Of It All tour stops.  I'm a long time Little Sailor, and I love seeing Sam perform live.  I will never stop, ever.  I was at his first show in DC in 2014 at the 500 person capacity U Street Music Hall.  I waited in lines for hours and flew on planes to get to four other shows during the In The Lonely Hour era.  It was a glorious time of excitement, inspiration, and self-discovery.  Unfortunately, this recent experience paled in comparison for a couple reasons.  First, the subject matter of The Thrill Of It All record is less relatable for me than In The Lonely Hour.  I still enjoy the songs and the sounds, and I love that four of the tracks still hit me really hard.  However, Sam and I are obviously experiencing much different things this time around with different priorities and perspectives.  If I'm honest, I might still be in that lonely hour.  So not surprisingly, I found myself slightly less invested in experiencing the new show compared to my unhinged level of excitement at previous shows.  And that frankly made me feel a little guilty that I didn't love the music more.  Second, Sam Smith, the star, has grown in popularity with higher demand and expectations surrounding him.  His shows are bigger, and he isn't able to come out to meet fans like he once did.  At previous shows, I had been able to give him some flowers or give him a hug and thank him in person.  Unfortunately, he wasn't able to do that at the recent shows that I attended, and that, coupled with the bigger audiences, made me miss that sense of connection.  Now this is no shade to Sam at all.  I'm sure I can't comprehend the breadth of the immense pressures on him from everywhere, the awkwardness of meeting complete strangers, and the logistical challenge for his security team.  I also do not expect him to meet fans outside every show.  I just had hope that the stars would have aligned, and he could come out at the shows I attended.  Yes, I recognize the ludicrousness in that statement.  In any case, I am genuinely happy that his tour is massive and that so many people get a chance to experience his gorgeous voice.  But a part of me also misses those old times when it was less of a production, and I felt a stronger bond with a simple guy singing songs that were about my life.

Don't get me wrong, I had a great time at the shows.  There were beautiful silhouettes, dramatic moments, and incredible vocals.  I even splurged on a front row ticket at one show and had a nice VIP lounge experience.  The other time I purchased a floor seat in front of the stage which really allowed me to experience the breathtaking production and drama of the show.  However, when I got home, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed that Sam had felt so far away even with my front row ticket.  He also couldn't come out before or after the show to meet us fans.  When that didn't happen, I had to accept that things were different now.  And that's when I Will Always Love You popped into my head.  Each of the three verses was teaching me a lesson in letting go because the disappointment was really putting me in a negative space.  I didn't want to be resentful of Sam and tarnish the beauty he had created.  I also didn't want to be so melancholy after such a wonderful concert experience.  And this song helped me process my feelings.  The first line, "If I should stay, I would only be in [my] way" is my inner monologue.  I realized that my expectations were too high, and that I was just setting myself up for a letdown.  Yes, I paid for a fantastic concert and that's what I received, but I also was unfairly craving that interaction where I could make sure Sam understood my appreciation for his work.  In the second verse, "bittersweet memories" is the perfect description for the thoughts swirling around my mind.  That term helped validate my sad thoughts and make me more accepting of them without scolding myself for being sad.  The line, "So goodbye, please don't cry," taught me that sometimes, it's okay to move on when something isn't right anymore.  I learned that holding on to the hope that the new music and the new shows would give me the same euphoria as the the first run was useless, and that it was okay that things are not what they used to be.  The third verse is the final resolution.  It teaches me that I don't need to be disappointed or mad that things didn't work out.  Life is never perfect, and dwelling on negativity is not healthy.  I can cherish the good times, and just pass along my good energy for the future.  There are so many good things in those lyrics: kindness, dreams, joy, happiness, and of course love!  I wish everything in that verse for Sam.  The sentiment in the chorus rings true.  I will always love Sam Smith.  I believed that we had familiar mindsets and energies during the first album and tour, and that's why it was such a transformative time for me.  Now we've both grown in different directions, and it's okay that synergy is no longer there.  Sam will always hold a special place in my heart.  I am choosing to appreciate the past and the present for what they are, and just keep it moving.  I can be sad, but I won't let that hold me back from doing what I need to do to fulfill my own dreams. 

Now I know this whole blog may seem a bit ridiculous.  I am all up in my feelings right now.  Sam Smith came along at a pivotal time in my life and helped me get through a lot of stuff just by being kind to me in those precious moments when I met him.  He once saw me and that helped me see myself, which changed my life forever.  He is very important to me.  I had hoped I could recreate those moments on this tour, but alas, it was not meant to be.  And that's okay.  I have my memories, and how fitting is it that today is Whitney's birthday and she is one of Sam's favorite singers.  This song will forever remind me of the life lessons from two of my favorite artists.  Happy Birthday, Whitney!  Rest in peace.  

[idkthisisjustforfanfic]

two years too late, chapter f o u r t e e n 

You’d pulled your hat low over your face, sunglasses pressed up to your cheeks to ensure some level of privacy. You’d been recognized three times already--which was definitely a new record for the same 24 time span. 

“Jesus,” Jake laughed when the third girl walked away. “Used to think we’d only have to deal with one famous friend.”

You pushed away from him, skates gliding on the clean ice in Central Park. It’d been a hike and a half up to the Northeast corner in the first place, and now all you wanted was to skate in peace. 

“M’sorry--I wish I could make it not happen.” A beat of silence when none of them responded. “Yknow, that’s why I didn’t want to tell anyone at work about me and Harry being friends. I work in a field where it’s my job to talk about celebrities. I didn’t want to have to do it on my lunch break, too.”

You wouldn’t have been so straightforward with them if Harry had tagged along. He blamed his absence on a last minute meeting, but it offered a breath of fresh air and some space to actually breathe it. 

“I get it,” Bryn said, skating to catch up with you in front of the others. Jessie clung to the wall with Adam, Jake tried his best to not skate circles around all of you. 

“You do?”

“I do,” she nodded, linking her arm in yours. “Some of my coworkers know and they’ve been all over me trying to get tickets for the tour. I don’t tell Harry that, though--he’d feel obligated to hand ‘em over.”

“Exactly. I just didn’t want to deal with it.”

“It can be kind of cool, you know. I told my boss about it and he let me take a day off from work once without even using PTO cause Harry was in town,” Adam’s mouth was stretched into a silly smile. 

“Your boss is a wanker,” Jessie said. “And apparently he’s a pushover too.”

“He is both of those things, yes,” Adam laughed. 

Jake slowed down to fall back into the group. “So Smalls, what are you going to do about the interview?”

Another groan from your lips, two little boys skated past you, pushing against each other’s big winter coats to beat the other to the exit. “Nothing. Maybe just not do it.”

“Oh shut up,” Jessie said. “You have to.”

“I know,” you sighed. “S’the biggest story I’ve gotten. And it’s not that I totally don’t want people to know I knew him--it’s more that my boss will be livid when she finds out I’ve lied to her all this time.”

“You can’t give it to someone else?” Bryn’s head tilted to the side, Jake’s eyebrows went north. 

“S’an idea. Have a coworker who could take it on? You could fake pneumonia. Be out of commission for a week or two.”

“Might as well,” you laughed.

“Y’know, Smalls,” Adam offered a sympathetic look. “He was pretty upset last night.”

“He was? About what?”

“That you downplayed everything so much.”

“Alright, maybe s’not the time,” Jessie tried to defuse the situation, as if Adam’s words didn’t strike up curiosity in your bones. 

“What do you mean?”

“He really likes you,” Adam said. “I think he’s sad it didn’t work.”

“Okay,” you spun around to face him, stopping dead in your icy tracks. “He was dating someone else at first--and he didn’t tell me. I had to see photos of them online and confront him!”

“He should have told you,” Jake said, now skating backwards around Bryn. “But he really only saw her to end it. He told me.”

Bryn let out a short laugh. “And you believe him?” 

“You don’t?” Adam shot back.

“I dunno,” she said. “I mean, why wouldn’t he have just told her if he ended it? S’not a big deal that he was seeing someone. It happens!”

You held up a hand, hoping to silence them without having to get loud. “S’between me and him, alright? I appreciate the concern for both of us,” you shot Adam a pointed look, “but s’fine.”

“We’ve been trying to trust the two of you to figure it out for a decade, Y/N,” Jessie let out a breath as if she’d been keeping it in for ages. “Feels like you could both use a little help.”

“We don’t need help. I just--I need space,” you said. 

And it was true--at first you were sure you’d never want to speak to him again. When the gang first showed up you were convinced that you’d have a miserable time in his presence and be counting down the days until they left, freeing you from any obligation to interact with him. 

But now, after museum glimpses of normalcy before Jessie’s outburst, you were wondering if maybe you should have coffee--just the two of you--after they left. 

And maybe you’d get something close. The next morning when you were sat on Harry’s leather sofa for the last time as a group of six, he made some joke about how you never could seem to remember where the wine glasses were. It felt almost like he was testing the water--seeing where things stood as two people who were about to be set free into a busy city with no real reason now to see each other. Unless you wanted to. 

And when you hugged them all goodbye in the lobby, watching as Roger rebuilt the mountain of luggage in his car, you felt like maybe now was the time to say something. But he said it first. 

The last door was shut, Jake’s outline barely visible through the tinted glass as Roger put the car in drive.

“D’ya want a cup of tea?”

You looked up at him, a swell in your chest and an answer from your lips before he could take it back. “Sure.” Up the lift and into his flat, the kettle on the stove while you sat at the counter. 

“Thanks for having them come,” you said, shoulders up to your ears. “Even though things were weird, for a minute.”

“Course,” he said, arms crossed over his chest. A long pause, enough quiet to hear the heating kick on and a siren outside the thick windows. “You know, Y/N, I want to be friends with you.”

You looked up at him, your heart in your stomach at his words--a true sign that you wanted more, as if you hadn’t known until he offered words that fell short. “Oh,” you said. “Okay.”

He shifted on his feet, his eyes bringing heat to your face when you finally looked back up at him. “Okay?” He laughed a little, leaning forward on the counter. “S’all you have to say?”

“I don’t know what to say, Harry--fine, we can be friends.”

His eyes narrowed in your face, he licked his lips before parting them to speak. “Are you even curious about my side of it?”

“You already tried to explain your way out of it, Harry. What else do you have t’say?”

“I just want you to listen to me!” His voice was more emotional than usual, as if the tightrope you’d both been walking on had suddenly wrapped around his heart. 

“I already did listen!”

“No, Smalls, you didn’t, really.”

“So--okay, then. You want me to agree with you, forgive you really, not listen,” you corrected. He rolled his eyes at that. 

A text from Jessie lit up your phone, his did the same thing only a few inches away. You sighed, thumbing back a reply, making them promise to keep you updated on their travel home. 

He waited--patiently watching as you replied and set it back on the granite counter. When you looked up at him, he searched your face. “I should have told you.”

“I know,” you said. 

“I was too afraid to tell you because everything was going well. For the first time ever, really. Felt too good to be true and I was afraid I’d fuck it up if I admitted that I had seen her.”

“I get it.”

“You do?”

A nod. 

“Are you still mad?”

“I don’t know, Harry--I’m exhausted, is what I am.” He didn’t say anything, his eyes begged you to continue. “I can’t do the back and forth anymore. The friends, not friends, talking, not talking. S’been an exhausting eight years since you left home. Maybe not for you, but it has been for me.”

The kettle whistled, he pulled it off before it could scream and flipped off the burner. His voice was quiet. “I know.”

“I never knew if I was going to see you or hear from you and I don’t want to have some weird type of relationship with you that isn’t,” a pause, searching for the word when he slid a teacup across the counter. “Stable.”

“I want it to be stable.”

“I think the only way for us to have that is just,” you trailed off when he nodded, set his tea on the counter and traced a pattern on the counter with just one finger. 

“To be friends.”

“Yeah.”

You only stayed for another ten minutes, finished the tea and laughed at a picture of his sister’s new cat. He paused awkwardly at the door when you said goodbye, a hand shoved into his pocket before he could let it wrap around you.

**

Carly brushed at her hair with her fingers--desperate to go out into the sunny weather for lunch. She stood over your cube, watching as you finished typing a list on the best memes from last week’s episode of the Bachelor. 

“S’that the Harry story?” She whispered as if it was still a secret, as if you didn’t give the same nervous update in staff meeting every week. S’going well, you’d say. Making good progress. 

No one needed to know you were lying, that is, except for Carly. 

“No,” you rolled your eyes, clicking out of your story so it’d be queued up for Gabrielle to edit and proof. “S’taking forever, honestly. I haven’t got the slightest clue how to do it. I was planning on actually taking some time tonight to give it another go.”

You grabbed for your wallet, tugging your coat on before you followed her out of your space. 

“How’ve things been with him? Still, y’know, fighting over wine?” She offered a smirk, one that threatened to be challenging, but you weren’t in the mood to divulge more. 

“S’fine, we’re over it.”

She pressed the button for the lift, looked up to see the bright green numbers start to descend above the doors. “Having everyone in town was good, right?”

“Yeah, a lot of fun, turned twenty-four. You know, a real wild week out of the office.” 

You stepped inside and rode it down, shifting aside for other people to cram on for the lunch time rush. When you found your way down the block, she pressed harder. “Any idea what you’re going to do about Whitney?”

You shook your head, thankful for the oversized sunglasses that shielded from the winter sun. 

“D’you think you could just lie? Just write as if you don’t know him and hope for the best?”

“If only I’d be so lucky,” you laughed. “Just doesn’t seem realistic. M’still surprised that people haven’t put it together. I made all of my friends delete photos or go private or whatever on social media.”

“Right,” she nodded, a pause at the intersection. “Any more obnoxious tweets?” 

“Only one that I saw that made it seem like they’ll figure it out eventually.” She raised her brows with intrigue. “Someone said a picture of me looked a lot like a different picture of me from a few years ago.”

She let out a noise of concern, shoving past someone who moved too slow through the crosswalk. “What do you think you’ll do, then?”

“I’ve got to tell her at some point. The question is how.”

“D’you think she’ll fire you?”

“Don’t know,” you said, voice lower now. “Wouldn’t be surprised. So, I dunno. Maybe I should look for other jobs.”

She let her mouth pull to one side of her face, sympathy clouding her eyes. She let it go, though, changing the topic to a new bar she’d tried over the weekend and a partially successful date she’s had on Saturday. He at least split the check with me, she laughed, which is better than the last one who made me pay. 

You ate on the plush red sofas on the twenty-second floor, pretended like the dread of telling Whitney didn’t crop up inside of you every time she popped her pretty head out of her pretty office. 

“You know,” Carly’s voice was low when you tossed your take out in the bin. “If you really don’t want to write it, see if she’ll let you transfer it to someone. M’super busy, but, I would obviously jump at that opportunity,” she stifled a grin that tried to break loose on her cheeks. 

“Tried that,” you said, defeated. “I asked Whitney why she didn’t give it to you in the first place seeing as you’ve always been a fan.”

“What? You did?” Carly stopped in her tracks, her face a different shade of winter pale than it had been. “What did she say?”

“I dunno, Carly, something dumb. It was a while ago, I don’t remember,” it was a lie, but you weren’t about to tell her that. 

“Oh come on, she must have given a reason why she wanted you to do it.” She fell back into step with you now, her eyes still trained on your face with purpose.

You let out a sigh, wishing you could crawl into the safe reprieve of warm sheets--specifically ones that still had a lingering smell of a certain someone. “I dunno, something about wanting it to come from someone less biased, or a more professional outlook, it wasn’t a big deal.”

“What?” She seemed to whisper-hiss in your ear, her fingers wrapping around your elbow to slow you down. “She thought I’d be unprofessional?”

“No, no--that’s not what she said. I told you I don’t even remember! She just wanted me to do it since she thought I wasn’t a fan.”

Her face fell, you couldn’t tell which emotion had taken hold of her. Her eyebrows dipped together and she pursed her lips. “That’s shitty of her--I wouldn’t have been unprofessional!”

“Carly,” you stopped now, turning to face her and ready to backtrack. You knew that Whitney hadn’t been the nicest about her reasoning, but you weren’t about to get into it. “Relax--she was just trying to throw me a bone, remember? She knew I was pissed about being stuck on lists and she was trying to do something nice.”

She let out a sigh, reaching up to fix her pony tail that fell over her shoulder. “If she’d given it to me you wouldn’t be in this mess. She wouldn’t be in this mess with you. Our entire company wouldn’t be in this mess.” 

“S’not a mess,” you defended, head pulled away from her in offense. “M’sorting it out, I told you.”

“Right, Y/N, the blurred lines in your friendship with a subject aren’t problematic at all.” She put air quotes around the platonic label, immediately pulling a scoff from your mouth. 

“What’s that--” you let your fingers bend like hers had, “--supposed to mean?” 

She pulled you into her own cube, small enough to offer privacy but big enough to fit the two of you. “You really haven’t slept with him? You’ve never even kissed? Find it hard to believe with the way he looks at you!”

You inhaled and held it, eyes on her as you contemplated just blowing it all. Her lips curled up at the corners a bit, a laugh from her lips and a softened expression. “Y/N--just admit it. Aside from the fact that you’re writing about him it’s not a big deal. I can handle the fact that him and I will never work out,” she teased. 

“I can’t tell you all about it here,” you said, voice quiet as you scanned the room to make sure no one else had heard. 

“Fine,” she nodded. “Then let’s do dinner tomorrow night.”

So when you were alone on your own sofa that night, you begged your brain to try to come up with something good enough to publish. You’d lit a candle, put on some music, and drew the curtains. Only a few steps short of a satanic ritual after Alyssa left to meet Owen’s friends. She’d offered to bring you along, but you said you needed the space. 

What you didn’t tell her was that you needed the space to cry or freak out or experience whatever would come pouring out of you when you finally had a minute to process the last few months. 

You’d never been much of a crier--save for a good shower sob or drunken outburst--and now wasn’t much different. You sat at first and stared at your computer screen, bullet points scattered a blank white page that mocked you. 

Friends. You and Harry were friends. He’d been one for a long time, really. Someone who knew you better than most people and someone who knew exactly how to piss you off and make up for it in the same moment. 

You’d been walking a tightrope for the last decade, pushing and pulling and wondering when or if it would give. Separated by oceans or continents and still dreaming that one day your lives would align again. 

And they have, you know that now. But they’ve aligned in a way that felt messier than before--which you didn’t know was possible. 

The version of Harry that Whitney wanted you to write about was someone you didn’t know--one with perfectly coiffed hair and a personal assistant. So you decided that if you didn’t know how to tell the story of that Harry, the one who had celebrities on speed dial and didn’t hesitate to order top shelf liquor, you wouldn’t. You’d tell the story of your Harry. 

And when you did that, the words fell onto the keyboard and jumped onto paper, promising that the truth was better than any fiction you could craft. 

**

A text from Alyssa the next morning made your stomach sink to your feet. 

Alyssa (8:43am): Okay, not to ruin your day so early, but I just saw these.

Pictures from the weekend in LA--nothing too telling, just obviously a clear shot of _you _and a clear shot of him and clear shots of the two of you in the same place at the same time obviously spending time together. For the story, though, you’d argue. You could find the photos on instagram and plead your case. See that bad? There’s a laptop in there! And a tape recorder, for strictly professional purposes. 

You let a sigh escape your lips, fine, it was fine. It wasn’t like people didn’t know that you knew Harry at all--it was really just a secret now that you’d known him for so long. Or, at least, it was a secret until you could tell Whitney yourself. 

You’d decided--after staring at the blinking cursor on your screen for a good three hours the night before--that you wanted to at least give her the story before you really came out with it. That way, in case you somehow managed to catch her on a day where she was willing to overlook unprofessionalism, unethical behavior, and an altogether shitty situation, she at least had the chance to realize how skillful of a writer you were. 

You hoped that after an eventful and exhausting few months the universe had some kind of good karma coming your way. But then the guilt of lying set in and you were back to planning an exit strategy and a plan B for what would happen if Whitney didn’t see the good in you. 

You thumbed out a response to Alyssa right after you got off the subway. 

Y/N L/N (8:47am): ugggghhhh

Y/N L/N (8:47am): at least no one has put it all together yet

Which was true. You only had to deal with the mess you’d made for a few more days. Your story was due on Friday, Harry left for tour a few days after, and hopefully, things could return to some semblance of normal. Though you couldn’t quite imagine what normal would look like now. 

You climbed the steps up to street level, thankful that the sun had decided to fight its way through the late February cloud cover. When you were upstairs and at your desk, another message came through that you weren’t quite expecting. 

Pat Martin (9:01am): Would love to grab dinner or a drink one night this week if you’re free!

You stared at it for a second, reading over the words a few times before you were able to make any sense of them. A date--this time you were sure of it. 

But did you want that? Did you want to blur the lines between professionalism and romance for the second time in six weeks?

You put your phone face down on your desk, booted up your computer and then checked email. Whitney strolled by you with a bagel in hand, a smile on her face, and a pep in her step. 

“How’s the big story coming?”

“Good,” you said, a solemn nod before you blinked twice, a small smile on your face. “Worked on it last night.”

It was probably the first honest response you’d given her about it. She adjusted the bagel in her grasp, crinkling the wax paper that kept her hands clean. “Can’t wait to read it. You’ll give it to me by Friday?”

“Uh huh,” you nodded again, praying she couldn’t smell the fear in you. 

When she left you alone at your paper-cluttered desk, you typed out a response to Pat before you could overthink it. 

Y/N L/N (9:06am): Sure! Any chance you’re free tonight? 

He was quick to type back--you wondered if he was somewhere in LIC late to work, rushing from the subway or already situated at his desk. 

Pat Martin (9:07am): I can be in the city by 6:30? Wanna meet somewhere near you?

You stared at the message and got lost in thought. It’d been a while since you’d been on a date--at least, one that really felt like one. 

There was a kid at uni after Charlie--a boy from class who always wore these horrific shoes. He was sweet and nice but nothing about him sent a spark through you. In fact, you felt altogether quite unimpressed with his presence after 45 minutes so you cut the date short and headed back to your dorm. 

You hoped that this would be different--that Pat wouldn’t want to talk about work the entire time and that maybe he’d walk you home. 

More than anything, though, you hoped he’d numb the ache in your chest for Harry. 

“Morning,” Carly’s blonde hair was blonder than the day before, loose curls falling around her shoulders. “Care to brainstorm with me for new topics in twenty?”

“Sure,” you said, straightening your posture as if you hadn’t just been pulled away into a daydream of men. “Yeah, wanna grab the conference room downstairs?”

She agreed and laughed hysterically when you told her about your set up the night before. Only needed a candle and a picture of him! She teased, if you chanted loud enough you probably could have summoned him. The afternoon slipped out of your hands, quick and busy, and when the sun was seeping between the cracks of tall buildings, you headed for the bar down the street where you’d agreed to meet Pat. 

When your arm was outstretched for the door, your phone started buzzing in your pocket. You pulled it out, unsure of who needed you or who would skip straight to a phone call rather than a text. 

But of course, Harry’s name and a stupid selfie he’d taken only a few weeks back lit up your screen. Your finger hovered over the decline button. Three rings, four, then your thumb hit the green button, feet frozen on the sidewalk. 

“Hello?”

“Hey, Smalls--s’me. What--uh, what are you up to?”

“Just got out of work,” you said, true. “Grabbing a drink with Carly.”

“Oh, nice,” he paused for a second but then got right to it. “Listen--I have a thing on Thursday night. A dinner thing. I was wondering if you’d want to tag along?”

You were quiet, teeth tugging at your bottom lip when a gust of winter air blew. “As, like, a date?”

“N--no. Not as a date if you don’t want it to be as a date.”

“I thought we were just friends.”

“We are.”

“Okay.”

“Okay you’ll come?”

“Okay I’ll think about it,” you told him, a firmness in your voice that you didn’t think you’d ever used with him before. A firmness that hindered any hope in his response. 

“Oh--yeah. Alright. I’ll uh, I’ll talk to you later, then.”

“Okay,” you hung up without a farewell, shoving the phone back in your pocket before taking another deep breath. An event? You had no idea what that would entail or what you were supposed to wear or say or do. It felt too vague to commit to and yet too interesting and intriguing to decline. So you tucked the decision away in your mind, saving it for a conversation with Alyssa and maybe even a glass of wine over FaceTime with Jessie and Bryn.

You pushed the door open and stepped inside from the stinging cold. Pat was already there--a stool at the bar with his jacket still on. He offered a side hug when you walked up beside him, a somewhat sheepish grin sat lazily on his face. 

“How was your day?” He asked in greeting, settling back into his seat.

You let out a sigh and nodded. “Good, fine. Starving though.”

“Best nachos in the city, here, so that’s good.”

The bartender materialized in front of you, eyebrows raised to take your order. 

“I’ll do a Blue Moon,” Pat leaned forward a little when he ordered, his eyes fleeting over to you. “And the nachos.”

“I will also do a Blue Moon,” you nodded, a smile in his direction once you were alone again.

“Why the sigh about work?” He folded his hands together on the dark wooden counter, scratched and dents told the stories of customers past. 

“Just busy, is all. Big story coming up.”

“Yeah? What about?”

“Harry Styles, actually. An interview.”

His eyes went wide, the glow of neon wall decor lit up his irises in the dim room. “S’a big deal.”

“Yeah, so the stress level is a bit higher than usual.”

“Understandable. Interviewing one of the biggest celebrities in the world would certainly leave me with a lot of sleepless nights.”

You nodded, biting your lip to keep from telling him the truth. It was harder than that, really, seeing as you had to fight the feelings in your heart and all the while deal with a level of confusion--both professionally and personally--that you’d never known before. 

You returned the pleasantry. “How was your day? Anything new and exciting at Digitize?”

“Not really--mostly spent the day looking forward to this,” he offered you a cheeky smirk, pulling his eyes back down to his hands when the bartender delivered two glasses--foam reaching up to the rims. He picked his up and held it in the air, waiting for you to let yours clink against his.

“Cheers,” you said, the drink jumped over the edged and trickled its way down to your hand. “To a Tuesday night.”

It was certainly a pleasant time--he told you about his brother and his favorite band. He talked about New York and wanted to hear all about England. Is it true that everyone has to curtsey or bow to the Queen? He asked. 

_Only if you’re lucky enough to meet her, _you told him. 

He was intrigued by your desire to move west--to find some solace in the States and give up the opportunities that surely would have been afforded to you if you moved to London. A fair question, absolutely, but you weren’t quite at the point to give him the truth. 

Staying in London meant a higher likelihood of having to deal with Harry, bumping into him at work events or covering different things he did--or at least, so you thought. 

So you didn’t tell him everything he probably would have liked to know. You left out pieces of your life--details like the LA trip or your recent birthday celebrations didn’t seem like they were appropriate topics of conversation for only one drink and a plate of nachos in. 

And you wondered when he walked you back to the subway if you’d ever get to that point with him, because the moment his lips touched yours, quick and chaste and extremely politely, your cellphone started to feel like it was burning a hole in your pocket.

The N train pulled up and you hugged him goodbye, promising to see each other again soon. But when the doors shut between you and the rest of the world, your fingers typed out a message and pressed send before you could think better of it. 

Y/N L/N (7:15pm): What do I have to wear if I come?

come talk to me about tytl

AN: a shorter chapter for your lovely sunday evening. just a heads up to those of you who have been so wonderfully committed--this is coming to a close!! there will likely be only one or two more chapters!!! so 15 or 16 total! Still undecided about a sequel. but thank you all for being lovely and reading and joining along!!! stay tunedddddd!

tag list:  @clorenafila @ainsleesolareclipse @castawaycths @harryspirate @wanderlustiing @ursamajor603 @thurhomish @omgsharry  @stepping-into-the-light @rachkon @jdcharliewhiskey  @shawnsblue  @gendryia @g0bl1nqueen  @laula843  @flooome  @a-woman-without-a-plan@awomanindeniall  @shaw-nm @staceystoleyourheart @ohprettylittlemind-deactivated2 @anssu-amry @my-fandomful-life2 @stylesfantasy @bookingbee  @mleestiles  @haute-romance-quotidienne  @craic-head-horan @talk-british-2-me-britbritharry @at-least-im-1 @paigemck00 @rawmeharry @pinkpolaroidgirl @blackxxmagicc @sksspotkitty @nearbyou @kalesouffle @sunnflowerchild @lmk12310 @sing-me-a-song-harry @afterstylesmadeit @myhat @caritocp @liquor-and-intellect @harryinsweatersandbandanas @daydreamsofh

[sunsetsover]

Thoughts on some of the asks you've had recently!!

1. I think outside of Stan Tumblr and Twitter where there is anti-Whitney sentiment from some corners, Callum is likely being viewed with a lot of sympathy right now. Part of this is because he's nice and likeable, showing sympathetic symptoms etc. And part bc he's a former soldier w named PTSD... like I don't think I need to elaborate on why people accept that particular narrative more easily!!

2. Like anon I also appreciate that you shared your thoughts on Ben having BPD and how we can view his character through that. I also know someone on Twitter has put forward a good case for Ben having cPTSD which I think fits too (and it's not like he can't have just one lol)

3. Having said that if the EE writers so much as touch on Ben having cPTSD I predict Stan Twitter might just implode w rage bc it's "Callum's Thing" and "Ben shouldn't have an excuse for his actions" 🥴 And again tying into making it a competition, but also Callum being a recognisable face of PTSD as a soldier/police who can be sympathised w vs Ben who... isn't that lmao. I doubt it'll ever happen bc I'm not sure the writers/audience are ready to confront PTSD caused by childhood trauma and an unsympathetic person living w it, especially when it implicates Phil whose like the face of the show lmao

4. I'm looking at a lot of this rn w interest because it really does epitomise the acceptable vs unacceptable mental illness, what trauma is recognised and amed and what isn't, which actions are viewed as forgivable vs which actions label you a Bad Person.

5. I think this discourse (lol) is a bit different to Isaac's story bc the Callum/Ben conversations are more about reactions to two characters and how their mh is received and treated by fans and the writers and how the very fact Callum has named PTSD says a lot abt certain sterotypes/attitudes. Whereas Isaac's story is ongoing and will deliberately seek to challenge similar stereotypes by using other characters as mouthpieces for different stereotyped views of his illness. Idk does that make sense? The Ballum stuff is a discussion that sits v much outside of the canon writing as a critique if how and why characters get certain labels and stories, while Isaac's is a canon issue led story??

6. I could write an Essay about how reactions to Ben tie into attitudes toward offenders and the criminal justice system, rehabilitation etc but... maybe another day lmao

bro how u send me all this i swear they have a character limit on asks 😭 i love it tho lemme go thru it point by point like u did

1. idk how it didn't dawn on me that the sympathy for callum coming from the gp would be bc he's a soldier... like idk how that didn't occur to me.... even when that other anon talked abt the acceptable face of ptsd i thought yeah people know ptsd mainly bc of soldiers but like... idk i just Forgot how a certain demographic of ppl who consider soliders and police the Pinnacle of humanity so ofc they'd be sympathetic and understanding..... idk HOW i didn't think of that but thank you for bringing that up to me omg

2. it's actually crazy that u bring that up bc me and vikki @permetstu were just talking abt this the other day bc i was surprised at how many overlapping symptoms there are between bpd and ptsd and so i googled it and found that actually bpd and cptsd are pretty commonly confused as each other BECAUSE of the overlap in symptoms !!!! but you're dead on, they can and often do co-occur bc both ptsd and bpd are rooted in trauma. i personally still would lean towards bpd for ben over cptsd bc of his abandonment issues which seem (from a quick google tbf so it's not like im an expert lmao) to occur in bpd but not in cptsd. but like i said im not an expert and they can co-exist !! i just think it's very interesting how other ppl are spotting the same things and talking abt a diagnosis that is so commonly misdiagnosed as bpd and vice versa. like at least i know im not imagining it lmao !!!

3 + 4. sadly i think you're right lmao that's exactly what i meant when i was talking abt there being an outcry if there was ever to be a bpd diagnosis for ben bc he's 'bad rep' bc of the things he's done. in that post i was talking abt bpd exclusively but you could apply that to any mental illness and you'd get ppl saying that they're excusing his behaviour instead of explaining it. ppl don't want explanations for someone's 'bad' i.e. outward behaviour/actions, not in characters and not in real life. ppl are more sympathetic to ppl who internalize their symptoms and/or have symptoms that don't really affect others, and i think that's another reason why ppl sympathise w callum more. i think it just comes down to ppl not wanting to understand the complexities of mental illness bc it's just easier to pass those behaviours off as personal issues/failure, someone's personality, someone being 'bad' etc etc u know? whereas something like ptsd fits a lot nicer into a box. for an outsider, it's less complicated, esp in someone like callum. callum saw/experienced bad things in the army, now he has this trigger that makes him act out a little bit. if you look at it in it's barest terms, it's a very defined cause and effect that is easy to understand. obviously it's not that simple, but that's how ppl view it. most mental illnesses don't have that very clear cause and effect, and therefore it's, for some reason, incredibly hard for ppl to wrap their head around. even if you were to say ben had ptsd too, it'd still be difficult for ppl bc what he's been thru 'isn't as bad' as what callum has, so what do you mean he's traumatised ?? like honestly there is a problem with how we all collectively view trauma. even when i first started having counselling and ppl were tellind me 'this thing traumatised u' i'm like ??? that's not Trauma tho. but trauma doesn't have to mean something horrific or violent. there is no threshold for trauma and it hurts all of us to have one. if smth fuck u up, it fucked u up. just bc u weren't in a warzone or physically abused in some way doesn't mean you can't still be traumatised, and i think that's a difficult pill for ppl to swallow.

5. when i said that i didn't mean to compare their storylines, i just kind of meant look at the reactions (both on screen and off) to callum's symptoms vs ben's vs isaac's. they're all mentally ill (as far as i'm concerned lmao) but you've got someone who's very easily sympathised with vs someone who is unsympathetic bc of his behaviour vs someone who is unsympathetic bc they're 'scary' or 'crazy'. it comes back the same issues of how obvious is the cause and effect and how sympathetic are their symptoms. but yeah, i agree isaac's sl is completely different for all the reasons you said but also the conversation of (mis)diagnosis in poc for these types of things and also medicating these types of illnesses but that's a whole other conversation but yh lmao i was purely just comparing different reactions to different illnesses and presentations of those illnesses, that's all !

6. i do not know enough abt this particular topic to have an Opinion but i do know enough to know you're right and that you for bringing this up to me bc it will def be smth for me to consider moving forward !!!

💞💞💞