#this part of the book is like ALL underlined in my copy

[crymeariveronceagain]

We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen.

--- 1984, by George Orwell.

[harry-styles-obsessed]

Silent treatment

You all seem to love the smut sooo I decided why not get ✨extra✨ smutty and give you something else(; MINORS DNI

Synopsis: Harry’s a billionaire. He’s been working 24/7 not giving you any attention like you often experience with him… one day he comes home and expects you to be all lovey dovey only to learn that you’re ignoring him… one way or another he’ll have to get your attention and earn it.

Trigger warnings: dominant harry, slight aggression, oral fem receiving, fingering, spanking, p in v, C word, edging, denial, orgasm control, degrading, kinda mean! Harry just general smutty things

©️Please do not copy or translate my work

“I’m home” his voice was loud and clear as it echoed around the silent home, usually there would be music playing or the tv on but there was nothing… only silence… “baby?” He questioned looking around “sweetheart where are you?” He checked the living room, kitchen, bathroom before headed upstairs checking all of upstairs before finding you in your and his shared bedroom “there you are my love,” he spoke with a smile gazing at you. You laid on the bed wearing a silk robe that barely covered your nude body— he stared at you, watching you read the story, him watching as your fingertips began turning the pages little by little and soon he was noticing that you were blatantly ignoring him. His brows furrowed slightly “earth to y/n?” He wore a black button up shirt that was unbuttoned at the top and black trousers to match it, his hands soon resting on his hips “alright what’s going on?” He questioned watching as your eyes eventually moved to look at him, only earning an eye roll from you before you looked back at your book.

He slowly walked closer to you before stopping just beside the bed staring down at you “you know I can get you to talk… and when I make you talk… force you to talk to me I won’t stop.” His words were menacing, underlined with a certain dangerous tone but you still continued to ignore him. He was never aggressive with you, even in bed he was rarely aggressive or even vicious but that all changed rather suddenly. He perched on the edge of the bed as he stared at you, before slowly tracing his fingertip from your exposed thigh and up to the inner seam of the nightgown that barely covered you, before with his free hand he snatched the book from you making your lips part your brows furrowing as you grew slightly annoyed before trying to snatch the book back with a few huffs and grunts only for him to toss the book onto the floor, his hand then effortlessly grabbing onto both your wrists and pinning your wrists down above your head a small gasp coming from your mouth and he stared down at you with a small smirk

“Now will you tell me what’s earned me the treatment of being ignored?” He questioned raising his brows watching as you just stared at him silently yet some excitement lingered in your eyes showing you liked where this was going, but at the same time you had no clue what he was going to do to you. You felt his free hand trace shapes into your inner thigh a shaky breath coming from you as he kept his eyes on you, before his finger trailed to your aching heat that was gradually growing wetter and wetter just from the thoughts spiralling round your head. He slowly dipped his fingertip in between your pussy lips using his index finger and thumb to slowly part them as he gazed down at you watching as you wriggled slightly a small whine coming from your lips “oh… that’s what makes you weak?” He mused with a evident smirk before he hummed still keeping a hold of your wrists not allowing you to move as he soon thrusted his long slender finger into your tight cunt, the gruelling and punishing pace of his finger thrusting in and out of you constantly at such a perfect angle making his finger touch against your G-spot over and over again, watching your reactions— all of them— the way you threw your head back and panted struggling to stay quiet as moans and whines came from you.

Soon he slipped in a second finger as he curled both fingers deep within your tight heat, your hips jolting weakly as eventually you couldn’t help but cry out his name his thumb drawing slow circles against your clit forcing your hips to buck over and over, the pleasure forcing the sounds and cries from you as you moaned his name. “There we go… not so quiet after all hm? Told you, you couldn’t stay quiet. I know how to make you tick.” His lips curled upwards in a small grin as he continued to fuck you with his fingers. The pace of his fingers and the delicate curl of his fingers that drove you utterly insane had your walls clenching down around his fingers over and over again, and upon hearing your moans and whines grow louder and the way your walls massaged his fingers and twitched against them he didn’t stop- no- he continued going

“You want to cum, hm?” He cooed to you watching as you nodded “oh yeah? Yeah I’m sure you do darling… do you think you deserve to cum?” He continued thrusting his fingers in and out of you keeping up the quick pace watching as you nodded pathetically before he without much warning pulled his fingers from your drenched hole. “Well, I beg to differ sweetheart. Only good girls get to cum.” He spoke simply as you whined and whimpered, your thighs trembling ever so slightly.

“If you talk to me I’ll let you cum.” He spoke teasingly and you whimpered “why, were you giving me the silent treatment, hm?” He asked softly but he had a pretty good idea. “Is it because you’re a fucking slut in need of a good fucking?” His words made you whimper and you nodded your head over and over again “oh is that so you naughty girl” he chuckled softly “please- please need to cum.. need to feel good… please Harry… please..” he tutted slightly as he stared at you before he slowly let go of your hands but your wrists remained weakly laid against the pillow, before he slowly leaned in closer to you “no.” He spoke softly as he shook his head, denying you of it before he stood up from the bed analysing you- studying all of you before he smirked slightly

“Roll over. Onto your tummy.” He demanded, watching as you just remained still and he stared at you unimpressed “three, two–“ and finally you obeyed rolling onto your tummy. He then knelt down onto the bed his large hands slowly stroking over your ass cheeks slowly and gently “you want my attention…. Is that your issue? Needy for my attention and love?” He spoke watching you nod and he hummed “use your words.” He demanded. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” You cried out and he smiled “right…” he trailed off hands continuing to stroke against your ass cheeks gently, the silence deafening as he remained silent for a few moments before finally bringing his hand down against your ass cheek smacking your ass hard, the harshness of it leaving a very visible red handprint as you whimpered Harry doing the exact same thing again in the same exact place making you moan “oh my pretty girl likes being spanked does she? Oh of course you do. Such a dirty pathetic slut.”

You moaned heavily as he continued to slap your ass multiple times, before he aimed his hits from where your asscheek met your thigh- slapping against the little crease watching as you jumped, only for a moan and cry to leave your lips, Harry chuckling softly “oh such a good girl hm?” His light spanks continued raining down against your skin until your ass was almost bright red. He smoothed his hands against the marks against your ass and smiled listening to you whimper as he soothed the stinging skin, but that didn’t last long as without much warning he pulled you so your hips were dangling off of the edge of the bed, and he easily flipped you around so you were now looking at him “harry please I need to cum. Please.. I can’t take it anymore..” you moaned out desperately.

“Y/n… I want you to beg me… beg me and maybe I’ll let you cum this time.” He spoke and you nodded fervently “don’t stop begging.” He spoke simply before his lips and tongue attached to your clit, beginning to suck the bud in between his lips suckling against it as he flicked his tongue against the bundle of nerves watching as your hips twitched desperately a cry leaving your lips as you panted “please! Please! I want to cum! Please! I’ll be a good girl for you! Please!” You began begging over and over again, mindlessly, not thinking straight as the pleasure overwhelmed your head your breathing heavy as you squeezed your eyes shut your walls clenching around nothing as he continued to lather his tongue all over your hungry pussy. As his tongue continued teasing against your clit, he lifted his head stopping the pleasure making you cry out “shhh…. Y/n reach down. Fuck yourself with your fingers.” Harry demanded and as if a puppeteer was controlling your hand you dipped your hand down to your aching pussy. He watched as your fingers began thrusting deep within your cunt over and over again your hips jerking as your moans grew louder, he just watched as you toyed with yourself, his hand drawing circles into your clit as you continued moaning desperately. You were a mess for him and Harry loved it… he loved how messy you were for him and as your moans grew louder and he watched your pussy clenched around your fingers he quickly grabbed your wrist forcing it to halt, stopping your movement

“How badly do you need to cum?” He spoke teasingly, and you whimpered “so bad please… please… I’ll let you do anything… please!” Harry’s cock twitched in his pants and he clenched his jaw slightly before humming “good response.” He then pulled your hand from your pussy and instead replaced it with his own, his long fingers pumping in and out of you at a merciless pace as his tongue and lips began toying with your clit as screams of euphoria began leaving your lips, your sensitive clit even more sensitive from him toying with it his movement remaining fast as your body reacted to each feeling “c’mon.. c’mon… cum on my fingers… c’mon… cum right fucking now” he demanded watching you come undone right beneath him, your jaw slackening as you tilted your head back your breathing heavy as a sharp moan left your lips your hips bucking into his mouth as he fucked you through your orgasm a slight bead of sweat on your forehead as you panted your eyes rolled back into the back of your head your breathing fast as you tried to calm yourself down.

Harry’s fingers eventually halted but he didn’t pull them out only curling them slowly into you over and over again constantly playing with you “you want my cock?” He asked you knowing how fuzzy your hearing was, but still you nodded desperately and he chuckled “oh my pathetic sweet darling…” he hummed out “so needy for my cock. Want me to fucking overstimulate you hm? Until you’re screaming… until you’re messy? Yeah? Oh I’ll do that just for you.” He hummed out the lewd words only turning you on further, hearing the sound of material hitting the floor before feeling his hard cock press just between your thighs, the tip of his cock teasing against your pussy lips before he began edging himself in, letting out a low groan as he began slowly fucking into you, little by little until his hips were pressed against yours, rocking lightly against you as you moaned in pleasure his moans and groans soft as he lowered his head down taking your nipple between his lips as he swirled his tongue around it, nipping at it gently as your hips bucked into his. He was ravenous for you.

Soon he had kissed you deeply just as he picked up the pace, thrusting in and out of you at a merciless pace your lips parted against his as you groaned into his mouth, crying out in pleasure, Harry taking that as his chance as he slipped his tongue into your mouth— the both of you making out as he fucked you long and hard. Eventually he pulled back from the kiss, leaving a gentle but long line of saliva trailing from both your lips before it snapped and faded away as he leaned his head back, his thrusts grew harder and faster the sound of skin hitting against skin and lewd sounds echoing around the room being the only thing heard before eventually his hips jolted as you both orgasmed, his thrusts being slightly sloppy as he moaned before he kissed you again deeply keeping his lips pressed against yours as he breathed heavily, before finally pulling back “fuck… such a good girl… fucking hell… knows how to make me feel good hm…” he began trailing kisses against your neck, remaining inside of you as he just laid against your naked body, both of you nude and sweaty as he gripped onto you, his kissing soothing and loving his breathing slowly calming down before he let out a soft hum “I love you so much… but don’t ever ignore me again…” he chuckled out softly “or do… I quite liked this.” He spoke with a small smirk and you smiled lazily, leaning up to kiss his lips “I love you too…”

You both stayed in that position for a while, Harry allowing your tight pussy to massage his cock in the best ways. He could’ve stayed with you like this forever… in fact he intended to. When he fucked you like this he knew you weren’t just made for him but your body was made for him too.. maybe he was far too possessive but you were all his and he wouldn’t ever get bored of fucking you ruthlessly over and over.

[remusjohnslupin]

@elerrinacrownedwithstars: Your responses are very interesting, and responding to them under another post (with a character limit) is difficult, so I thought I would make a separate post about it to convey my thoughts more thoroughly. I hope you don't mind ❤️ Please don't feel like you have to answer or anything. Following up on your previous message:

Of course, it’s possible I’m wrong, as this is only the impression I’ve gathered from some posts. And yeah, the writers of this show are laughably bad at their job but it doesn’t dismiss the idea that this is their attempt of ‘nuance’. Tolkien is fairly clear about how orcs are his idea of “what if Satan made people”, but even so, it’s notable - and he seemed to realise this too - that it had some problems within his cosmogony. In my bubble, I see discourse about how describing an entire race evil is problematic and I can’t say that I don’t see where they come from. But on the other hand, you’re right to point out that Tolkien wasn’t writing an allegory, and fantasy worlds are allowed to work differently than real worlds. After all, Tolkien is also clear that his Elves and Men can be at the different points of the spectrum of good and evil, whether they are Valinorean or Númenorean etc.

If I can backtrack a little to our previous messages, everything you said earlier about J.R.R Tolkien's observations about war and human nature are 100% accurate. I hope it did not seem like I brushed off your point. However, I would like to underline that just because he uses the word 'orc' or 'orcish' to describe the horrors of war, does not mean that he is directly referencing Orcs™ in his books.

I genuinely think if people are insisting Orcs™ have to be nuanced, otherwise it's racist... that's WILD. Because the point is, orcs are, as you so creatively put in, 'What if Satan made people.' They are not of any particular race like we understand. Any differential groups they might have between them is based on who 'bred' them, so to speak, and where. Unlike humans, they have no cultural and historical differences as we understand it. To copy/paste my previous point directly:

"Tolkien famously HATED allegory and never assigned any of his races to real-life ones. I mean, if there are people out there who think portraying orcs as purely evil is racist, then THEY must have a real-life race/ethnicity in mind when they think of orcs. Which says a lot about THEM, not Tolkien himself or those of us who rightly point out the butchering of the lore and poor writing in the show."

So no, I will never, ever see or agree with the idea that the discourse about orcs and race have validity. Like, no. If I start writing my story and create this bright green, goo-like race of blobs who are all evil and their entire agenda is to latch on to humans and feed on them.... and someone just came out and said that was also problematic and racist... how does it make sense?

You know what, this is Tumblr, so someone actually WOULD say that. Nevermind.

But that's what Orcs™ are. They are an extension of the evil (Morgoth) that marred the world even when it was first formed. Nothing more, nothing less.

In your last point, I think you inadvertently addressed part of the problem. This whole discourse about how pure fantasy evil existing is somehow offensive stems from the strange need to make everything relatable. I sincerely believe that people who think this way (including the writers of the Rings of Power) actually have a disdain for the fantasy genre, whether they recognise it or not.

"What if orcs were misunderstood?" ... "What if Galadriel was a cut-out cliche warrior?" .... "What if elven rings were also actually evil because power corrupts anyway even if they are wielded by super wise beings and those Rings were untouched by Sauron?"

They think they are being sophisticated doing these things. And I have no doubt there is some unnecessary political pandering there, too. But instead of elevating the characters and the show, they are hollowing out all the meaning behind Tolkien's themes.

Making orcs misunderstood essentially destroys how Tolkien showed the Marring of the World was permanent and would not be Healed until Dagor Dagorath.

Making Galadriel a copy-paste generic warrior who goes on adventures cheapened her character so much, I can't even. Sauron (when he was Annatar) did not go near Galadriel's kingdom because he was 92837647289% sure that she would recognise him on sight. Because she is probably THE most perceptive elf. She is also described as one of the kindest people alive, sooner moved to pity than anger. But they made her a vengeful asshole on a quest to find Sauron when he was THREE FEET AWAY from her face. But that's empowering because sHE hAS A SworD nOW!

I could go on, and on, and on...

The whole 'sympathetic orcs' debacle, along with the entirety of the Rings of Power, is what you get when you put a few idiots together, have them read Tolkiengateway, and ask 'Okay, so how would YOU write the story?'

As opposed to:

"We made a promise to ourselves at the beginning of the process that we weren’t going to put any of our own politics, our own messages or our own themes into these movies. What we were trying to do was to analyze what was important to Tolkien and to try to honor that. In a way, we were trying to make these films for him, not for ourselves.” — Peter Jackson

[abiiors]

Book

So excited to do (write) anything that you want to! week with prompts from @imightgetbetter. Adding all of these to my Series Masterlist

Monday - early matty (pre-notes/bfiafl)

In a small corner of a dusty, second-hand bookstore, two hands reach for the same book at the same time. Fingers brush against each other, electricity zings, all the usual ingredients of a meet-cute, except the boy is on a mission. 

‘I’m going to sound like a twat here,’ he shuts his eyes tightly then opens them with a sigh, ‘but I need that book more than you.’

You feel a bit dumbfounded. At least, he has the decency to look embarrassed but the fact remains that he still hasn’t let go of the book. 

‘Oh?’ you ask, still gathering your bearings, ‘you don’t even know what I need it for?’

‘I knowww,’ he groans, ‘but please! I need it back.’

You look at the boy properly. He truly does look desperate for the book. His face is all pouty and his eyes big, his hair sits like a curly, poofy mop on his head. You wonder if this look is supposed to work on people, if it has worked on people in the past. 

Maybe, maybe not. And as much as you don’t want to admit it, it is working on you a little bit. Okay, maybe a lot!

‘You need it…back?’ you give him a quizzical look. 

‘I need it back,’ he confirms. 

‘You see,’ he continues like he’s about to start a soliloquy, ‘my roommate got really drunk or really high, it doesn’t matter, my roommate got fucked up and decided to sell my books for some extra cash. Yes, yes I know, messed up but now I’m here to try to get as many of them back as possible.’

You open your mouth, about to say something, but he’s not done speaking. 

‘Please, I’ll buy you a new copy of this but not this one. This one has some…annotations.’

His face turns pink. His eyes wander a bit, unable to meet yours. And you have to admit, he has almost won you over. 

‘What’s your name?’ You bite your lip, hold back a smile.

‘Matt,’ he says, clearing his throat, ‘Matty.’

‘I don’t need a new copy, Matty. I just needed to check a few passages, that’s all.’ 

‘Oh.’ It’s a soft sound like he’s contemplating. ‘Well, in that case…’ he trails off and holds the copy in front of you. 

His copy of On The Road by Jack Kerouac is old and a bit wrinkled. The pages are yellowing and the spine is cracked but you have to admit, it looks well read. Well loved, even. 

‘I just need to jot down a few things,’ you tell him and he nods. 

When you settle down on the floor, a notebook and pen in hand, he does the same. You wonder if this is to snatch the book away if you stumble upon any of his annotations. He could wander around the bookstore while you did your thing but he wraps his hands around his knees and rest his chin on them. He’s not exactly subtle when he lets his eyes roam over you with barely concealed interest. 

‘What’s this for?’ he tilts his head to one side, and then as an afterthought, adds, ‘if I may ask.’

‘A paper on road trip novels,’ you answer distractedly as you flip through the page to find what you need. 

There are a few pencil scribblings here and there, quotes that are underlined and circled over and over again. There are doodles—few and far in between—but they make you smile a bit. You so badly want to stop and read the annotations but not when he’s sitting right there, watching you like a hawk. 

While you note down the things you need to, Matty gets restless. He picks up a pen and twirls it between his fingers effortlessly, picks up a second one and bangs them on his shins like drumsticks. The boy truly can’t sit still even when he lets you work in peace…for the most part. 

But you’re surprised that you don’t find it annoying. If anything, his fidgety restlessness is amusing. The way he stops every time you turn pages, the way his fingers twitch at his sides, ready to hide anything embarrassing. You feel tempted to linger on one of his notes just to watch how he’d react but they seem to have petered out as the book slowly comes to an end. 

You want to imagine this boy, in his bedroom or in a cafe or in a park, reading the book. His hands clutching it tightly, his face scrunched in concentration. He would be so absorbed that he forgets to note down any more of his thoughts. But something catches your eye as you turn to the penultimate page. 

Black ink has bled through. Until now, everything was in pencil, smudged, messy script but with a touch of gentleness. But this is much harsher, written in pen. 

His eyes widen, his hands freeze in place. Quicker than expected, he drops the pens and flips the page. 

‘What…’ he grabs the book in confusion and you let him take it away from you. His face changes from confusion to irritation, to gloom, to, finally, curiosity. 

His eyes dart over the dark scribblings. A crease forms between his eyebrows as he tries to make sense of the words. 

‘Wow, these are mental,’ he mumbles to himself. ‘God, these make no sense.’

‘I thought they were yours,’ you raise an eyebrow. 

‘No, someone else must have... Mine are much tamer compared to these.'

The curiosity gets the better of you and you have to ask, ‘can I see?’

‘Mmm, sure.’ He extends the book in your direction still holding onto one half of it. 

So you scoot closer, hold onto the other side. Your thighs touch momentarily, your heads are bent over it as both of you try to decipher the script. 

‘1 June, The 1975,’ you read aloud, trace the words with your fingers. ‘That’s a bit of a weird way of writing it.’

‘It is, isn’t it!’ He taps the space under the words, then tips his head back onto the shelves behind him. 

‘The 1975…’ he repeats and his voice has gone all soft and full of awe. ‘Has a nice ring to it, wouldn’t you say?’

[sharoo]

Gotta say, used books cannot be beaten.

I understand the appeal of a new book but there's something so special in buying books which are yellowed, creased, beginning to tear or fall apart slightly.

There's something to beautifully sensory about the texture of old paper, or the smell of a book that's decades old. And that fact that they were loved once, and then given away for the chance of a second life. And you can own them. There's something so paradoxically alluring to how they're cheaper, yet feel like greater treasures, especially when many of them are older than you or even your parents.

They tell their own stories. The creases, the tears, the words underlined or marked with pencil or pen, little comments on the sides of the page, the stray pieces of paper used as bookmarks you find inside.

My absolute most beloved find and most cherished of these is a 1988 Polish copy of "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov. Not only is the book just one of my absolute favourites in all of literature I've had the privilege of reading, but also it has a faded dedication on the first page:

To my lovely wife On our 17th anniversary. Husband dated: April 11th 1988

I read around April. It felt special. I will never know these people. I will never know how this book ended up on sale - did they give it away while cleaning house? Did they part ways? Was it given away because someone passed away?

But the reasoning doesn't really matter. There's just something, in this fading handwriting in pen, written in a then freshly printed book, given to someone you loved and ether knew or hoped would like it, that conveys great love.

And that's the thing about old books that makes them so infinitely more appealing. The chance of finding such traces of love, or loving a book yourself because of its age.

Write notes in your books. Crease them, mark them, love them. So that when they're found in the future on a second hand store's shelves, someone may discover that love too.

[canon-in-too-deep]

A Tutorial On Typesetting In Affinity (With Template)

This is an semi-abbreviated guide to typesetting in Affinity Publisher, using the template I posted here.

While this is not a comprehensive tutorial, I tried to be as detailed as possible, and hope this help folks with their typesetting journeys! Note: there are different ways to to do this, these are just the ways I've used personally. (And by 'used', I mean all the features and functions I've bashed my head against till something readable came out). Second Note: these steps do apply specifically to the template I posted. This is the template I use to save time when typesetting, as it already has all the Paragraph and Character Styles and text boxes and margins I've made in previous works. Warning: wall of text below the break!

Part 1

Importing your text into Affinity. First things first, this step all depends on where you are getting your text from. If you are typesetting something from Project Gutenburg or a similar site, copy and paste the text into Google Docs. If you are typesetting from AO3 or a similar site, download an html file of the text, then copy and paste that into Google Docs. Once in Google Docs, download the file as Rich Text Format (.rtf). Open the .rtf, and copy and paste that into the Affinity Template. Just stick it into any of the body pages on page 9 or up. It'll 'flow' automatically to fill the pages. Whew. Okay. Now, you can actually work on your text in the template.

Document size (optional). So the template I made is for half letter (letter folio). Letter is the size of the page I would be printing on, and folio is the imposition (which means if I was making it into a physical book, I would fold that page in half. Folio = the page is in halves. Quatro = page is in quarters. Octavo = page is in eighths etc.). You want your document size to be the size of one single page in your book. - Now, again, the template I have is all set up for a single page size equal to half letter. If you want to change the size, you can go to File -> Document Setup -> Dimensions. If you change the size, you will have to go in and change the text boxes and margins I have left in the template to fit your new dimensions.

How to Auto Flow your text. You will notice that the template only has 50 pages. Chances are, you can't see all your text. To get it to automatically appear, just hold down Shift and click the red triangle on the right of one of the text boxes with your body text in it. It should automatically generate the pages you need with your text. - If you need to manually get your text to flow from one text box to another, just click the little triangle on the right of the text box your text starts in, and then click the text box you want it to flow into. Bonus: To make a text box, click the image of the T in the white square on the left, and draw it on the page. This is the Frame Text Tool, or the text box maker, To add a picture, click the rectangle with an X through it. This is the Picture Frame Rectangle. Draw a frame, then go to File -> Place, and add your image.

Your text is in the template. Time to get it dressed. Okay, now you need to set up your Text Styles. Text Styles should be located on the right hand tool bar. Text Styles are essentially how you tell Affinity how you want the different parts of text to look like. You can change your fonts, spacing, justification, etc, by playing around in the settings of a Text Style (to do so, just click the three lines next to the text style's name, or create a new one by clicking one of the + symbols at the bottom of the Text Style tool bar. Now, there are two types of Text Styles: Paragraph Styles (have the backwards 'P' looking symbol) and Character Styles (have the underlined 'a' symbol). Think of these like jackets and shirts for your text to where. The Paragraph Styles go on over the Character Styles, but you can still see the Character Styles underneath. - First thing to do is go to Find and Replace. It should be next to the left hand tool bar. - Click the cog to the right of 'Find'. Then click 'Format'. This should bring up the screen below. - Click the box next to Italics so it turns into a check mark. Now hit Ok. This will now allow you to find all Italics in your text. - When you find the Italics, you can now Replace them. Hit the cog next to 'Replace with'. Click Character Style. Click Emphasis. -Find and Replace all.

This will save all your Italics while you work on the text. Note, do NOT select all your text and use a Character Style on it. It will override and remove your Italics. You can only have one Character Style and one Paragraph Style applied to specific text. Because of this, I don't really use any Body Character Styles, and make all my changes usually in Paragraph Styles. Part 2

Chapter Headings. Find and Replace is one your best friends in Affinity. After I have Italics saved, I do the Chapter Headings in the text next. I Find and Replace the Chapter Headings if I can, or manually select them. Then I apply the Chapter Character Style to them. Now, if I ever want to change them en mass, I can just Find them using that Character Style to apply a new Paragraph Style or whatever I want to them.

Body Text. Now is the time to finally use a Paragraph Style. I select my text, and apply the Paragraph Style labeled Body to it. While I have it selected, I can change my font type, size, and leading to whatever I want. If I change leading, I do have to go in and edit the Paragraph Styles to have the same leading across all of them. The template is setup for 11 pt font and 140% leading. - To change leading in a Paragraph Style, click the three lines to the right of the Style -> Edit 'Name' -> Spacing -> Leading. - If you change font size/leading, you will need to change the Baseline Grid. Baseline Grid is the underlying grid that your text will snap to (you can disable this in a Paragraph Style, but I like to use Baseline Grid to make sure the Body Text is all lined up the same). To change Baseline Grid, click the button in the top middle of Affinity that looks like an A with blue lines behind it. Then go to Grid Spacing. I usually set it to whatever is my body text leading equal to.

Back to Chapter Headings. At this point, I usually use Find and Replace again, and Find the Chapter Headings with their Character Style. I use Replace to apply the Paragraph Style 'Chapter Heading' to them.

Other Styles. Okay, so Chapter Headings are set. Body text are set. But there's still text that need different formats, like where there's a body divider/dinkus, or the start of a chapter where there's no indent. From here, I manually go through the text, and start setting the little things that weren't covered by the Body or Chapter Heading styles. I use Body No Indent Drop Cap (Paragraph Style) for the first paragraph of each chapter. I use Body Divider (Paragraph Style) wherever there's a section break. I use Body No Ident (Paragraph Style) wherever there's a new paragraph after a section break. And I use Body Special as needed, if there's unique bits of text in the work, like letters, or poems, or songs, to make them stand out more. - This part of typesetting is a lot of me just going through manually, while scrolling through and checking the original text I am typesetting to see if there's any places that need special attention or different paragraph styles. Lot of side by side scrolling and comparing how the original author/publisher had the fic looking, and making sure my typeset matches in a way that I like.

More on Body Dividers. You can check out my book of dinkuses for potential fonts for section breaks/dividers. Once I find the dinkus I like, I copy and paste it into my text, or use find and replace. Just make sure that the Body Divider Paragraph Style is applied to whatever you put. - Now, you may need to adjust the dinkus because it's not centered or spaced how you like. To do this, click the three lines to the right of Body Divider under the Text Styles tab on right hand side of your screen. This brings up the Text Style Editor Box (see the picture below). - To get the divider looking how I want, I go to Paragraph and then adjust the Leading, Space Before, and Space After until the Body Divider looks how I want. Sometimes you might want a section break with a lot of space, sometimes you might want it narrower. This is the place to do it.

Part 3

Next step: Working in Master Pages. Master Pages are great. You can apply them to your text to make your text look uniform. Whatever the Master Page is, the other pages must follow. -To apply a Master Page, right click the page you want on the left sidebar under Pages. Then click apply Apply Master. Then choose what Master to apply. The body text pages all have the Master Body text applied to them already, but you may need to change one because it's the start of a new Chapter. -If you want different margins in your text, this is where to do it. I have mine set up for .8 outer and inner margins, and slightly narrower on the top and bottom margins to account for leading. If you want to change this, just drag the text box to whatever size you want to fit your margins.

Headers/Footers. In the Master Page titled Master Body, you can change the placements and formats of the headers/footers. I usually just have these all centered, but you can put them and size them however you like here, and it will apply to all the main body pages of your text. - The template is setup so you can just fill in your title name and author name in the header locations of the Master Body pages. Click the text boxes and type in whatever you want. If you don't want to use these, you can delete them on the Master Pages, and they won't show up at all.

Master Chapter Heading. The Master Chapter Heading pages are not applied to the text. In the template, you will see that page 9 does not have the Master Body applied to it. This is because I like to play around with different text box sizes and chapter heading designs here, then copy and paste them into the Master Chapter Heading when I have one I like. Then, I can just apply the Master Chapter Heading to wherever there is the start of a new chapter.

Part 4

How to add a Table of Contents. Okay, once all the Chapter Headings are formatted and everything is on the page they should be on, you can put in a table of contents. To add a table of contents, put a text box down wherever you'd like your table of contents to be located. This is usually on page 7 of the template for me, but it may be different for you based on your text or how you do your front matter. - Click in that text box. Then, click Text (on top of your Affinity Screen, towards the left). Go to Table of Contents. Then Insert Table of Contents. - See the picture below. Your screen should look similar to this. - On the left, you can see we are in the Table of Contents tab now. Under Style Name, check the one that says Chapter Heading. Now, everything that had the Paragraph Style Chapter Heading will be in our Table of Contents. - Click the three lines to the right of where we checked Chapter Heading. You can then check Include Page Numbers here.

Part 5

Alright! Now we have pretty much everything done. Almost. There's just the front matter to do now. These parts are pretty much just pasting/typing in your information. The front matter in the template I made is set up for Project Gutenburg public domain stuff. When I typeset things from AO3, I put the stats here instead.

Front matter. What is it exactly. The front matter included in the template is as follows: bastard title page (just the name of the book), blank page, full title page (title and author; you can include publication/imprint info here as well), copyright page, book bound by page (this is not an official thing, just something I decided to add to my templates since mine as free to use), blank page, table of contents. Sometimes a text has a preface or dedication. You can add these pages to the front matter, and if you need more pages to add them, just right click on the left hand side under Pages wherever you would like the new pages to go, then click Add Pages. I use Master A for front matter pages. These are just plain, blank pages with nothing on them.

Title Pages. Title pages. You can pretty much do whatever you want here. I've posted links before to places you get free to use images/art, but you don't need to include any images/art at all. It's all totally optional, I just like to have a bit of fun on my title pages and put in little extra bits.

Anyway, hope this helps and I didn't ramble tooooo much (this started as a short post to just talk about how to import text). If you're looking for more detailed help, I do recommend joining the Renegade Binder discord. I learned how to use Affinity Publisher from someone's tutorial there. I can also try to make more posts in the future further explaining things.

[witchersmistress]

Snooping and Library Sex 2.0

Hello my Darlings! Im in decisive af so i have here another version of Snooping, i changed the characters around and added some details but its basically the same.

Trigger Warnings: rough sex, orgasm denial, destruction of books, back sassying

Word count: 4K

as usual my darlings, you do not have my permission to copy, translate or use my work in anyway. if you do i will haunt you for the rest of your days k?

I can feel the angry energy roiling under my skin after my encounter with Napoleon, all the sated, relaxed feeling from the self induced orgasms is nothing but a distant memory already. I’m on edge and pissed off, and I hate it.

It’s like the ground is shifting out from beneath me, like I can’t find solid footing anywhere, and that unbalanced sensation makes me want to lash out. It would make the most sense to go up to my room and hide out until I feel better, but for some reason, I don’t want to do that. Being idle sounds shitty, so after depositing my shit upstairs, I stalk around the house instead, feeling defiant. So far, I haven’t poked around their space too much. I go from the room they gave me to the kitchen and sometimes to the living room, but not really beyond that. Now I don’t stop myself from doing what I want, striding from room to room as if the whole house is my personal domain.

 I yank open a door down a corridor off the main entryway and find a well-kept baby grand piano inside. I roll my eyes at the fucking luxury these assholes clearly live in and look the instrument over. One of them must play. Even though they have so much nice shit, it would be stupid to have a whole-ass piano in here if it didn’t get used. Which one is it, I wonder? Staring at it doesn’t yield any answers, so I march back out, closing the door behind me. Another couple of doors just lead to closets, and I bypass them, not caring enough to rifle through coats and boxes and shit. But the next door I try reveals a small library. That’s the only good word for the room full of books. There are shelves lining three of the walls, and an armchair with a small end table beside it tucked into a corner. It looks like the kind of place that gets a lot of use, which is surprising as hell since none of the guys seem like the intellectual types. Just the thought of Napoleon or Syverson sitting in that chair with a cup of tea and a thick book is almost enough to make me laugh. It’s a toss-up with Napoleon, and August could go either way too. There’s a set of encyclopedias on one of the shelves, and I roll my eyes because apparently we’re back in the dark ages or some shit.

 I move on from those and find a stretch of classic books. The titles stand out in gold on the spines, things like The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Prince, The Odyssey, and The Iliad. Books like they make you read in high school, full of shit you’ll never care about again. I take a couple off the shelves and check them out, running my hands over the smooth leather of the covers and the embossed letters of the titles. I flip through one, The Odyssey, and am surprised to see little notes in the margins. Whole passages have been underlined, and the handwriting is cramped off to the side, but I can just make some of it out. I don’t know anything about books, but reading the stuff in the margins feels like getting a peek into someone’s soul. Whoever wrote these notes had a soul full of rage and pain, and they were connected with the pain felt by the characters in the books. Each book I pull off the shelf to look through is like that, with little notes off to the side and underlined parts. Some words are circled, others crossed out. It’s like whoever did it dedicated themselves to reading each book and finding the parts that either pissed them off or resonated with them the most. I’m putting a few of them back and reaching for another one when someone steps into the room. “What the fuck are you doing?” a deep voice intones behind me. August. And he’s pissed. As usual. I turn around to look at him, and something in the way his face looks so guarded and angry makes me pretty damn sure these books are his. I’m still on edge, feeling exposed from what happened with Napoleon. I hate that 2these men have gotten under my skin. That was never supposed to be part of the plan. I was just supposed to fuck with them, not let them fuck with me back. “Just exploring,” I tell him, shrugging. “Seeing what there is to see in here. Found these books.” “You shouldn’t go poking around in other people’s shit,” he snaps, his broad frame looming in the doorway. I shrug. “It was all just here, so I figured, why not? They’re yours, aren’t they? Or at least, you’re the one who wrote these things in them.” His jade eyes flash with irritation, and I know I’m right. He wouldn’t care so much if they weren’t his and he wasn’t the one who’d gone through all the trouble to make these notes. “So what’s all this about, then?” I ask, flipping open one of the books to a random page. It’s got so many notes on it I can barely make them all out, and I lift an eyebrow. “There’s some heavy stuff in here. One of the characters is talking about… I don’t even know what. The suffering they’re going through. And then you wrote a whole tiny little paragraph about how they don’t even know what true suffering is.” “Stop it,” he grits out, a warning in each syllable. I don’t stop, though. Because this feels good. More addictive than any drug. I want to poke at him, want to get under his skin the way they’ve all gotten under mine. “This part right here about the ‘darkness that you can’t escape’ is pretty poetic,” I say with a little smirk. “Maybe you’re in the wrong business. You should stop abducting women from alleys and take up writing full time.

 It seems like you’d have a lot to pull from for inspiration, judging from what you wrote here.” That seems to be the last straw. August moves forward, marching up to me and yanking the book out of my hand. He crowds into my space, pressing me up against the shelf until the wooden ridges of it dig into my back. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he hisses. “So you should shut your mouth.” He’s so close, but I don’t back down. “Maybe I don’t want to. Maybe I want to know more. Maybe I want to figure out what makes you work, August. How you ended up the way you are.” “That wasn’t the deal,” he snaps. “Fuck the deal,” I reply. “I’m guessing you used to live in that shithole apartment building you took me to.” “What?” “I’m not an idiot. You knew it way too well for it to be somewhere new to you, or somewhere you only go when you need information. Plus, Meredith talked to you like she cared. That shit takes time. what's up with that?”

“None of your fucking business.” I can feel the rage pouring off him, but I don’t back down. He’s not going to hurt me—that wouldn’t be in his best interests, considering he needs me alive to kill Ivan—and if he did try to, I could just hurt him back. So all he can really do is stand there while I push his buttons, getting more and more pissed off with no real outlet for it. It feels good to be on the instigating end, finally, to be the one doing the pushing instead of getting pushed. And I keep riding the waves of that, leaning into August and not letting him get away with his non-answers. “What was it like?” I press. “Living there? How old were you? Young?” “Shut up.” His expression closes down some, fury blurring out any other emotion. He’s uncomfortable, but relying on anger to get through it is a tried-and-true method. I know that well myself. “Why don’t you want to talk about it? You took me there, so it’s not like I don’t know.” “That was for a purpose,” he spits. “Not for you to go digging around in my life.” “Oh, it sucks when the shoe’s on the other foot, huh?” I shoot back. “Maybe I don’t want to let you off the hook that easily.” “Maybe I don’t give a fuck what you want.” “Well, that’s obvious. If you did, I wouldn’t be here. You’re holding me hostage in your fucking house, and you won’t even give me anything entertaining to keep myself occupied. Tell me why these books.” “I’m not telling you anything!” The words rip out of him, and there’s pure rage behind them. His eyes are snapping with it, and he’s practically growling at me. “Just a little hint?” I ask, putting on a pleading face. “Small one? Were you some kind of nerd in school? You don’t seem like the type.” Before I can get out another taunt, he grabs my upper arms in a tight grip. I can feel the strength and anger in the press of his fingers, and I know I’ll have marks there later. I half expect him to shove me forcibly out of the room, but instead, he drops his head and crushes his mouth to mine, kissing me hard enough to bruise.

August kisses me hard, biting down on my lower lip and dragging it into his mouth to suck on it before releasing it with a loud pop. A little noise of frustrated pleasure spills from my mouth, and I grab his shirt, hauling him back in for more. He doesn’t resist, devouring my mouth with his, hot and slick and messy. It’s the same thing I did with Napoleon earlier, kissing him to get him to shut up and stop saying shit I didn’t want to hear. I know that’s what he’s doing right now. But somehow, I don’t care. His hands roam over my shoulders and down my arms, finding their way around to fit in between my back and the bookshelf I’m still pressed against. He manages to grab twin handfuls of my ass, groping me hard, and I moan into his mouth all over again. I can’t control my reaction to it, and I don’t even try that hard, really. It’s all happening too fast. All the anger and hate between us is coming out as this hot, intense sexual desire, and I feel like it would burn me up if I tried to ignore it. I can feel how hard August is as he presses forward, grinding into me. I press back against him, rubbing against the hardness of his body. With a little growl of desire, his mouth moves from mine down to my jaw, leaving biting, open-mouthed kisses as he blazes a trail to my neck.

 I gasp when he bites at just the right spot, arching against him and tipping my head back. That seems to give him an idea, and one hand releases my ass to fist in my hair, yanking it enough to one side that he has complete access to my neck. His mouth is hot and wet, and it feels like it’s everywhere as he kisses me, my body responding eagerly to his touch no matter what my mind might think about him. My nipples go hard and tight, and my pussy throbs with need. It still feels too empty from when Napoleon rejected me, and it’s almost like it can sense that there’s a chance to fix that right now. “Fuck,” I groan, pulling against August’s hold on my hair just to feel the sharp pain that comes from the resistance. He doesn’t say anything, releasing my hair after a moment and letting the silvery strands fall over my shoulders as his hands start roaming again. They find my nipples, and he pinches and tweaks them through my shirt at first before sliding his hands under the fabric and shoving my bra out of the way. His mouth trails down lower, and he presses those hot, feverish kisses along the skin of my chest and my tits, tugging down the neckline of my shirt until he finds one nipple and takes it between his teeth, biting down and none too gently.

 I cry out at the sharp sting of it, squirming against the shelves while he practically feasts on my tits, leaving even more biting kisses in his wake. Pinned in place, it’s all I can do to stay upright against the shelves, letting him run his mouth over my skin and my nipples. My pussy is wet again, so desperate to be touched or filled or something, and I grind even harder against him, searching for the friction to take the edge off. August finally looks up again, and his jade green eyes are dark now. There’s still anger there, but it’s being crowded out by the raw lust emanating from him. It’s a damn good look on him, and I reach up to grab ahold of the back of his neck, pulling him down so I can kiss him again. He grunts out something that might be a curse or might be my name, but I swallow the sound either way, shoving my tongue into his mouth and almost daring him to keep up with me. And he does. He kisses back with equal intensity, matching my pace until we’re both breathless. I’m the first one to pull back, needing to catch my breath while my head spins. August takes advantage of the moment and rips my shirt over my head, exposing my bare chest to the air of the room. He yanks my bra off, and I half expect him to go back to my tits, but instead, his hands go down lower, undoing the button and zipper on my jeans so he can drag them down. August’s already dark eyes turn almost black as he stares down at me. 

Without saying a thing, he drops to his knees in front of me and takes those kisses down to my pussy. He sucks and licks at it like it’s the best thing he’s tasted all year, his tongue working itself along my folds and circling my hole with precision. I can’t help the way I shiver at how it feels, the heat and pleasure of it shooting through me. I still feel sensitive from Napoleon making me fall apart so many times less than an hour ago, and August’s mouth on me feels amplified, as if every sensation is turned up to eleven. He’s messy with it, eating me out and making his face and my thighs slick with my arousal. I look down at him while he drags his tongue over me, breathing hard and still feeling spiteful. “You’re lapping up Napoleon’s cum, you know,” I taunt breathlessly. That’s enough to get him to jerk back, but he doesn’t seem disgusted or squeamish about it. Instead, his eyes are dark with anger again, and his face twists into a mask of fury. “You fucked Napoleon?” he demands. I can’t tell if he’s mad about me fucking Napoleon in general or me fucking Napoleon instead of him. I could easily lie and say that yeah, we fucked, but it bothers me for some reason that the answer is no. I was right there, mostly naked and still a mess from the rolling orgasms Napoleon gave me, and he didn’t want to finish what he fucking started. It sits sourly in my belly, the sting of rejection still present and irritating. So I refuse to answer August, just raising an eyebrow and shrugging one shoulder. Let him think whatever he wants about that.

 He narrows his eyes, a hard look coming over his face. Then he slaps my pussy hard with one hand. I jerk and moan in surprise, taken aback by the sudden harshness. When he does it again, harder, a flash of pain bursts through me before my clit starts to throb with need. “Fuck.” It’s basically the only thing I can think to say to express that it felt fucking good, but August doesn’t seem to need more than that. He dives back in, hands gripping my hips hard while he licks me with even more vicious determination than before. Even with the knowledge that he’s licking the remnants of Napoleon’s cum out of me, he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t seem like he’s put off at all. It’s more like he wants to lick me clean or something, to overtake what Napoleon did to me and wipe it out of my memory.

And he’s fucking good at it, too. I don’t know where August falls on the spectrum of Syverson to Napoleon in terms of how often he likes to fuck, but he knows what he’s doing. His tongue curls along my clit, teasing it and working me up. I thread my fingers into his hair, holding on tight and rolling my hips as the sensation builds and builds and builds. I can feel my orgasm rising, threatening to overtake me. And then, when I’m right there on the edge, about to tip over into a fucking amazing orgasm, August stops and pulls back. “What the shit?” I gasp out, sounding hoarse and breathless. “I was close.” He doesn’t say anything, just gets up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. My legs are shaky, and I’m ready to be pissed off as hell if he thinks he’s going to walk away without getting me off after all that. But then he grabs me again and turns me around so I’m facing the bookshelves. He grabs my hands and braces them against the wood, moving me where he wants me. I should be pissed off. I am pissed off. But that’s not the only reason my heart is racing. He grabs my pants where they’re pooled around my ankles and pulls them up just enough that they wedge my thighs together, keeping my legs tightly closed so I can’t open them. Just how he wants me. I’m about to turn around and tell him to get the fuck on with it, when he drives into me hard enough to leave me breathless. Like this, with my legs pressed together, I’m even tighter than usual, and it’s like I can feel him everywhere, pressing against my walls, filling me up.

 August isn’t gentle with it either. He grabs my hips hard, fingers digging into my flesh as he fucks me even harder. His cock drives into me with punishing force, the sound of our skin slapping together ringing out in the room. I don’t bother to hold back my sounds of pleasure. I probably couldn’t even if I wanted to. Not with the way he’s fucking me hard and dirty, making sure that each thrust sends the whole length of his cock slamming into me, hitting that spot inside me that makes me cry out almost every time. Heat and electric sensation curl through me, radiating out from my center to spread into my whole body. I was already on edge before, from his mouth on me, and this is just another step closer to throwing me into an orgasm headfirst. I move my hand, ready to rub at my clit until I come from it all, but August growls behind me. He grabs my wrist and puts my hand back where it was, holding it down with almost bruising force. “No,” he pants. “You don’t get to touch yourself.” It flashes through my mind to tell him where he can shove his bossy bullshit, but then he slams into me so hard that it’s all I can do to stay upright. My heart is pounding almost as forcefully as the way he’s fucking me, bashing against my ribs and making it hard to catch a full breath. Books fall from the shelves around us as my tight grip on the bookshelf makes the whole thing shake. My back is arched, my eyes half closed. My whole body is on fire. I’m so close, right there on the edge, ready to tip over into that well of pleasure that’s been building steadily, but August doesn’t let me. He doesn’t give me that last little push I need. Instead, he starts fucking me more shallowly, letting his cock dip in and out of my pussy without driving all the way in. A noise of helpless frustration spills out of my mouth, and I ball my hands into fists against the wood of the shelf. August doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even taunt me for being needy and desperate. He just keeps his hips moving, turning those shallow thrusts into long, slow ones that still don’t give me all that I need. He’s holding out for as long as he can, clearly, and it’s driving me fucking insane. I thrust my hips back, trying to take him to the hilt, trying to get more, and he just makes a low noise and digs his fingers in harder. 

Maybe it’s a warning, maybe it’s a reaction. I don’t know and I don’t fucking care. All I know is that if I don’t come, I’m going to go insane. My core throbs, spasming around his dick like it’s desperate to milk it dry once I’m allowed to come, and I whine low in my throat, feeling all that sensation keep building like it’s going to snap. Finally, he seems to be at the end of his tether. I can feel his hips stuttering, the stamina he’s been using to drive me nuts finally giving out. He reaches around and down and pinches my clit hard. The pain and stimulation are enough to set me off like a bomb, and I nearly scream, getting a hand up over my mouth in time to muffle it as I explode in pleasure. I can barely breathe, barely keep my body from shaking itself apart as I come, gushing on his cock and squeezing it hard. August follows me over the edge, letting out a low groan as he pumps me full of his release. I’m breathless, slumped against the shelves, trying to remember how to move or do anything. My body is still trembling from the force of my pleasure, and I nearly stagger when August pulls out and steps back. By the time I can turn around to look at him, he’s pulling his pants up and tucking his cock away. Even though I’m positive he was just as into that as I was, he looks more put together, since he’s dressed and not oozing cum the way I am. “Clean up the fucking books,” he says, back to that angry, flat tone. Then he turns and walks out, leaving me there with the mess. Whatever bliss I was feeling a second ago evaporates instantly on the heels of my anger, and I’m pissed off all over again. Not about fucking him, but about the fact that it feels like he’s won something. Like he’s the one who came out ahead and has the higher ground now, even though I’m the one who instigated the confrontation.

 He walked out like he was fine and nothing had changed, but I’m the one slumped against a shelf like I’ve lost my equilibrium. August definitely had the upper hand while we were fucking. I needed him at that moment, and I hate that more than anything. He practically had me begging, poised on the edge of an orgasm I could only get from him, and he knew it. “Fucking asshole,” I spit, even though there’s no one there to hear it. I don’t need anybody. Least of all August. Or any of these fucking guys. “I’ll pick up your stupid books,” I mutter under my breath. I gather up the ones that fell off the shelves and make sure to smear his cum on the pages before slapping them shut and putting them away. The pages will get stuck together, and it’ll serve him fucking right.

[murasaki-cha]

I finally got around annotating my copy of Assistant To The Villain (because I always annotate the books I love most with pagemarks and underline with colored pens) and it's honestly embarrassing how much I'm in love with this book

LIKE I'M NOT EVEN HALFWAY THROUGH THE BOOK!! AND LOOK AT ALL THESE MARKS!!

Don't even get me started on the underlined parts. My mom legit started yelling at my over why I was scribbling my books because that was how many parts I was underlining

I've been at this for 2 hours and I barely reached the middle of the book..... dear god

[misc-obeyme]

Do you think Satan annotates his books? On one hand I can kind of see it… yet I’ve heard multiple people talk about giving him bookmarks or him also having way too many of them which suggests that he doesn’t dog-ear the pages... which can lead to (in general) less ‘vandalism’ of books. There is also the fact that his books are probably cursed, ancient relics, one really really really rare copy for a certain reason which are going to be kept in as pristine condition as possible.

Ok—well, the real question here is whether Satan thinks that books are shrine that has to be preserved and or a shrine that is to be lived in. I honestly can’t make up my mind on this answer and I feel like it can go both ways.

Yet I feel like it can be really funny to mess around with both these head cannons. I would love to just mess around with a Satan that makes sure that not a bit of ink gets spilled on his pages, and then just opening one of my own books and then highlighting or underlining a passage while looking him straight in the eye and giggling maniacally just to annoy him.

Or if he is for annotation, I can just imagine MC and him both starting a book at the same time. They are both too busy/impatient to wait until the end/ have different reading paces so they don’t want to spoil. So instead they annotate their notes and ideas in the margins, highlight passages and leave little notes for each other. Then in the middle of the day or whenever they pass by each other they just swap books and look at the other’s annotations and add comments to those annotations while still continuing to read from the page where they left off. So that means that in each book there’s one conversation going on…

Soon enough there’s not enough space in the margins so post-it notes start appearing in the books, and by the end of it all both books would have gotten thicker from the amount of post-it notes, the sides of the pages would’ve also started to turn neon from the amount of highlights.

And can you imagine how this would look to other students at RAD or the brothers? Like it’s a really busy week for some reason yet they can’t help but watch whenever MC passes Satan. They don’t even need to stop to swap books, they just do it like a fly-by and no words are exchanged because they’re already in the book.

OH! IMAGINE IF EITHER INE OF THEM GOES A CERTAIN STREET OR HALLWAY JUST TO CROSS THE OTHER AGAIN BECAUSE THEY REALLY WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE OTHER THINKS OF A CERTAIN PART THEY JUST READ.

AND IF IT’S A SPICY BOOK????

THEN THEY START TEASING EACHOTHER AND LITERALLY FLIRTING IN THE MARGINS AND SOON THE TENSION RISES AND THEIR HANDS START BRUSHING WHENEVER THEY SWAP BOOKS AND THEY CANT EVEN LOOK EACH OTHER AT A TABLE WITHOUT BLUSHING LIKE AHAJAHAAHHAJAMSMDFJFJR. AND WHEN THEY FINALLY GET HOME AND HAVE TIME TO TALK ABOUT IT NORMALLY AGAIN!?

I SERIOUSLY CANNOT WAIT TO SEE WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THIS.

HAVE A NICE DAY.

-Anon (I am so tempted to have an anon name yet I’m still thinking about it lol)

Anon, you don't even need me. All of these ideas are perfection and I LOVE THEM. (Please feel free to choose a name if you like, but no pressure!)

Turns out I myself am a book person. I collect books to such a degree that I had to build a library in my house just to hold them all. And before I had the library, I kept them in stacks around the house, frighteningly similar to the stacks we see in the art for Satan's bedroom. Some of his stacks are taller and I certainly have never had any magical floating books, but man if it isn't reminiscent of my own book habits.

So I can tell you that I have opinions on annotation in general.

The thing about books is that most of them are worthless. Even really old books that you find at a used book store usually aren't worth anything, which is why they sell them for like five bucks. This means that their value exists solely in the writing they hold. It's the content that makes books special.

Now this isn't to say that expensive first editions or signed first copies or whatever don't exist. And certainly ancient books become more valuable due to their age and rarity. But that's like museum quality stuff. And since Satan likely does have magical books, that might change the value part as well. Since I would think magical books, especially rare ones, might be worth more.

However, considering how many books Satan has, I'm thinking the majority of them aren't super valuable. He probably has a different way of handling the books that are rare. He seems like the kind of demon who would preserve those types of books and I don't think he would annotate them. He might keep a separate notebook of notes, especially if they're like... scholarly tomes or something.

But novels? Or books that are pretty common that he could buy another copy of at any time?

I do think Satan could go either way with the annotation of those kinds of books. I think he would consider the content to be just as important as the monetary value, so he might see a book as a shrine to preserve, as you put it. (I love that, by the way.) However, I also think that Satan often has lots of thoughts about what he reads. He's also said in canon that he doesn't use bookmarks - not because he dog ears pages, but because he just remembers where he left off.

Solomon, on the other hand, strikes me entirely as the kind of guy who writes all over his books. And we know that Satan and Solomon have had discussions about books in the past.

So I kinda have a headcanon that Satan didn't annotate books before, but he does now because Solomon introduced him to it. Or somehow talked him into it. Convinced him of the benefits of doing it. Reminding him that these cheaper books don't need to be preserved, they're made to be lived in.

Now I love the idea of MC and Satan sharing books and writing back and forth to each other. I think a lot about the concept of people falling in love with each other through some form of writing and reading. Whether that's a letter exchange or a writer and their reader or through book annotations...

Even if you're dealing with a platonic relationship between Satan and MC, I think it's a fun idea. Like if they're reading a mystery together and MC writes something in the margins about who they think did it and Satan writes back with something like you're insane it's clearly this other character and the margins just devolve into argument.

Of course, the spicy book option is also a fantastic idea. Would they discuss it when they're finally alone? Or would they just pretend nothing was going on? Either way, the tension!

I kinda think if MC indicated that they wanted to discuss spicy stuff, Satan would be ready with a thorough analysis of it. Like if it was badly written, you can expect a scathing review lol. (I'm just imagining Satan's opinion of lines like "She breasted boobily down the stairs.") But if it was good well... that could very easily lead to a suggestion of attempting to recreate the scene, don't you think?

[wiltking]

Hello, this is probably a silly question but how did you get so good at writing? I've read you fics and they're amazing, even just a simple sentence you say sounds great. (I mean it sincerely) I want to improve my writing and my english along the line, what did you do? Or do you have any recommendations?

oh gosh i still feel like a baby writer with so much to learn. but i think the thing that helped me the most is learning how to read books from a writer's perspective. especially my favorite books. i mean really taking them apart piece by piece and figuring out why they come off as such good books to me. story structure, word choice, yes even something as simple as sentence. why do i think this book is so good? why is this character so memorable to me? in what way was this incredible line set up to have such a great impact? why do i continue to think about these books even years later?

these are the things I think about while I read. and its especially helpful during a reread when you already know the whole story of a book and can pay closer attention to things like setup and delivery.

this isn't reserved for 'objectively' well written or technically complex books, either. i've said many times that nora sakavic's all for the game series was the most formative to me when i was trying to seriously get into writing. and i always hear people expressing that the writing in those books isn't the greatest. respectfully i disagree, but even if people don't think they're well written there's a reason why those books are so beloved. the intense passion that radiates off the page even during some of the most insane ideas is just one of those things.

more recently i've been doing some research while i work on my horror writing by turning to some of my favorite fantasy / dark fiction writers. resuming my reread of the hexslinger series by gemma files is part of that, because those books were also extremely formative, and reading kissing carrion by the same author last year really made me think for the first time ok, maybe i can write flowery queer horror too. because those stories really resonated with me, and i think about the ending of the hexslinger series constantly. for years. it literally haunts me. but the reason why the ending is so impactful is all the build up that leads up to it. and the way the relationships are written. and the balance of love and horror and genuine connections and the deepest betrayals and... anyway i've kind of been going through her writing with a fine tooth comb to try and understand why she's inspired me for sooo many years.

elizabeth bear's edda of burdens; another formative piece of writing for me, despite me also having some issues with it. i'd love to reread it soon too but don't exactly have the time when i'm in full writing mode, so the other day i just took apart the intro to by the mountain bound in my reading journal. by copying down the first three paragraphs, underlining my favorite lines, and writing some notes about them. my notes aren't anything profound, i was just appreciating the wolfish way mingan is described in the littlest ways that are also so integral to him, and the pretty words chosen to describe the season. the way he's set up as different and 'other' from the very first page even with something as innocent as choosing to daydream. it's all stuff i try to appreciate and learn from.

i don't use my writing journal often (because its easier to type my thoughts here, tbh) but i generally use it to collect quotes i like (and always try to leave some notes about why i like each quote). the other day i also jotted down the opening sentences to some folk tales because its relevant to what i'm working on, and i wanted to study what important information they chose to lead with to set the tone of a story.

tldr; examine your favorite books from a writing perspective. try to understand the choices that were made on both a grand scale (story structure) and little details (word choice, descriptions, paragraph flow). and always try to write your passions even if its weird!! especially if it's weird. you've got this <3

[writingsfromhome]

Endgame III

A/N: Long awaited final part of Endgame!! Thanks to everyone who read it all and waited ages (oops). I really enjoyed going back to the characters for this final scene, hope you do too <3

Part 1 / 2 /

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There’s a pit of dread that sits in my stomach, it’s made a home of it there all of Sunday while I work on Angels, and into Monday. It’s 8:30am sharp and I’m sat in the meeting room, nervous as fuck about this meeting with Mr. O’Neil. I’m scared that he hates me because I reacted too emotionally on Friday sending the manuscript back to him. I’m worried he’s going to find my comments on his new chapters worthless. And most of all, because I know it won’t go well, I’m scared about the way he’s going to react to the cover designs.

I don’t expect him to look so…giddy when he arrives 15 minutes later. He looks sharp in a crisp black button up and black slacks. I check my watch again, Harry was officially late which was unusual of him. I guess this was going to be a one-woman show until then.

“Mr. O’Neil,” I shake his hand. “Thanks for swinging by today.”

“Thank you,” he grips my hand tight. “You’re a spark Ms. Y/L/N.”

“It’s just Y/N,” I sit down once he finally lets go of my hand. “Now, I’m hoping those files in your hand are the last chapters?”

“They are,” he says slowly. “I brought them myself so they wouldn’t be sent back.”

My smile drops, “Ahm yeah about that, I-“

“It was the punch I needed,” he grins. He plonks down in the chair and begins pulling out more files from his bag. “Miriam has always treated me delicately, stern woman but always so delicate. You were the spark I needed, those chapters showed back up at my flat and you wouldn’t believe I wanted to chuck them across the room first--well, I did chuck them. Then I picked them all up because I’m afraid of my girlfriend. Then I laughed for five minutes solid, because nobody has slapped me like that without touching my face in a long time.”

“I…” didn’t know what to say. I was expecting major conflict today but this version of him is pumped and creative as he shows me his last chapters, takes in my feedback, and disagrees with me here and there. We flow well, that is until about an hour later. We’d done the copy edits live on the last two chapters together and he was going to take it back to fix everything Miriam and I had circled and underlined. But now it was time to reveal the cover options.

I glance miserably outside the glass room, but Harry is nowhere in sight. Leave it up to him to leave me presenting his shite.

“So…these are some of the options we have so far,” I flip over the mock-ups like I’m reading his tarot. From the look on his face, he hates what the future has in store. “They’re just some-

“No. No. These are shite. Steaming pile of shite, Y/N what is this?”

“Well,” I rack my brain for something. Anything. “We were trying for a modern and trendy cover as an option-“

“I hate all of them, why the fuck is this neon? It’s gonna blind my reader before they can even read my book! Is my book that bad?”

“No of course-“

“So why do the covers make my book look like something I’d wipe my arse with?” He stands in his chair, quickly collecting all the mockups. “These are insulting.”

“Right, okay well we’ve still got time to work on more!”

“I know we do,” he looks me in the eye and it’s intimidating, any traces of the happy-go-lucky O’Neil is gone. “But even presenting these to me is a fucking insult. I know you’ve read my book cover to cover so what’s the meaning of this?”

Ugh, it would be so easy to throw Harry under the bus. Shift the blame, say I told you so. But that wasn’t how I worked, I never wanted to create that kind of dynamic in the workplace.

“Look, Mr. O’Neil…I do sincerely apologize. If I’m honest with you, I don’t think they’re right either. But you know the book business is also now a marketing business and readers do judge a book by its cover. Our department was just trying to make something trendy, but I see very clearly now we should stick to an authentic cover that will show someone the heart of the book.”

He nods along to what I’m saying, and when I’m done he give me a once-over. “I like you kid, you know how to kiss up too.”

“I’m good at my job,” I say before I realize the weight of those words-I was good at my job and a man like Harry Styles wasn’t going to undermine the hard work I do like this. “I meet with you next Friday with your finished edits right? I’ll have new mock-ups then.”

“That’s grand,” he calmy folds over the neon cover, reopens it and tears it in two. I watch with a removed shock. “This is awful, worst of the bunch. Eh, I don’t hate the direction…just tone down those fucking colours.”

“Will do Mr. O’Neil.”

“And I want to meet this Friday for the covers and this fancy marketing bullshite. This book is my baby, I want to make sure it looks beautiful.”

I agree, mentally making a note to make room in my schedule. I shake his hand again and walk him through the office to the lift. He tells me again we work well together, and I remind him that I’ll see him next week.

Then I walk back to the meeting room, kick my heels off, and melt into my seat. What a fucking morning.

“Y/N?” I don’t know if I dozed off but my name startles me out of position. I blink the tiredness away and see a nightmare: Harry in the flesh way after the meeting’s done. “How did the meeting go?”

“What?” I look at the time, almost 20 minutes since I saw O’Neil out. I feel the familiar rage flare up inside me. “Are you asking me how the meeting went? The meeting you were supposed to attend?”

“I was supposed to be there?” Harry steps into the room. Almost sensing my impending explosion, he closes the door behind him. “I wasn’t informed.”

I laugh but nothing is funny. “You weren’t informed? So let me get this straight: we work on this together, we’re told by our director we’re on this together. And our client comes in and you didn’t think to attend? Did I have to personally email you to attend? Send you an email, a notification, maybe even an RSVP?”

“Hold on,” Harry holds his hands out as I stalk closer to him. He glances outside and it catches my attention, a couple of our colleagues stare at the entertainment. I move to the centre console and black out the windows.

“I’m holding on, what genius excuse are you coming up with?”

“No Y/N, I honestly didn’t know. I rarely attend the editing meetings, unless I’m told directly. I attend marketing meetings and-“

“You knew we were presenting the stupid mockups in today’s meeting right? Isn’t that marketing?”

“Right,” he doesn’t meet my eye. “I guess I could have came-“

“Yeah you guess?” I’m back to cornering him, my rage rearing its ugly face. “You gave me the worst covers ever, even though I asked and begged you to change them! Because you were too fucking stubborn to read the damn book or listen to anyone but yourself! And you left me all alone to present the covers I knew he would hate! And guess what? He hated them! And if I was any worse at my job, he would have eaten me for breakfast! All because you wouldn’t bloody listen to me!”

“I listened,” he crosses his toned arms. “I read through your notes and I tried! And you hated what your own notes produced!”

“Oh my god the notes?” I walk away from him, I was shaking. I take hold of the cover ripped in half and throw it by his feet. “You clearly don’t read shit if you’re saying this hideous cover was from my notes! I do my job well, and whatever this thing is, isn’t a product of my notes! It’s a product of your shitty work! And that’s exactly how O’Neil felt about it!”

He stares at the two pieces in front of him. And I don’t know how he’s still so calm, but he looks back at me with a blank face. “I’ll make new ones if he didn’t like them. I can call him personally if you want. It’s not that big of a deal at this stage!”

“Oh my god,” I whisper to the table, balancing on my clenched fists. I had moved past rage, past frustration, and into ballistic. He just didn’t get it: he was undermining my work with a client while I was trying to make a good impression for upcoming promotions, even stripped back he was a man undermining my skills as a woman, making me look like a fool while I presented his shitty work. He just didn’t get it.

“Just leave,” I say to the table because I couldn’t even look at him. “I can’t even look at you Harry just get the fuck out.”

The door opens, he hesitates, and then leaves, the door slams behind him. Only then do I go back to my seat, slide down under the table, and let the tears run freely.

This meeting, the pressure of this client, dealing with Harry and his brick wall…it was a lot but nothing I couldn’t handle. But I think seeing my ex on Saturday, reliving my past and realizing Harry giving me a hard time was an outcome of my toxic relationship. That a relationship I ended five years ago was interfering with my career today. That all men were the same…It got to me, and it just broke me.

***

I don’t plan on seeing let alone talking to Harry for the rest of the day but as I leave the office after staying later than I needed to, the lift doors open to him and him alone. He makes nervous eye contact with me, and it takes me back a little. That he was nervous seeing me. Usually he didn’t give a fuck no matter what happened between us, even bordering on snobbish and cocky.

The silence is a large presence in the small space. Since seeing him this morning, I’d cried under the table and then reapplied my makeup in the bathroom. I downed another coffee and got started on another one of my manuscripts. I could work hard as much as I cried hard.

“Y/N I’m-“

The door opening interrupts Harry which makes it ten times more awkward when someone from the third floor gets on and stands in between us. They must notice the tension because they step forward away from us, ready to bolt as soon as the doors open.

When they do, I hustle off but Harry and his damn long legs catch up. “Wait, I need to apologize.”

I glare at him but lead him out the door to our building courtyard. “Fine. Talk.”

“I am genuinely sorry. I can’t believe I let all that happen, and I don’t know why I let it get that far for something I…”

“What are you apologizing for exactly?” I ask. He was rambling, and some part of me understood what he was apologizing for, knowing what I knew from Saturday. But I wanted him to say it.

He hangs his head, “A lot. I’m sorry I didn’t have your back. I let…other things cloud my professional opinions and I didn’t support you when I should have.”

For a guy who worked with pictures all day, he wasn’t too bad with his words. But I needed more. “What ‘other things’?”

He looks at me with puppy eyes, begging me not to go there. But I wanted to, I needed to. I raise an eyebrow, he could talk.

“The past.”

“You mean other people’s opinions?” I demand clarity.

“I-sure. Yeah, just holding onto what happened in the past and I know it shouldn’t even matter anymore. We’re both adults, well you’ve been acting like one. I’ve been clinging onto the past and I know I should let it go. Even though it was…painful, I know I should put it to rest now. You could have thrown me under the bus and called me to defend my own covers but you handled it. I…thank you. And if I haven’t already said it I’m sorry.”

I don’t exactly follow him but I let my guard down a little. He didn’t need to know my past was clinging onto me, but if he could let go, maybe it would shed itself slowly.

“You owe me so hard,” I say. “Like, the weight of what you owe me indebts you for life.”

“A bit harsh,” he begins to argue but one look at my face and he puts his hands up. “Whatever you say.”

“Great, glad we’ve sorted this.” I move to shake his hand in a silly gesture of good faith. “Apology accepted by the way; thank you.”

“Great, you drive a hard bargain but...nice doing business,” he clasps my hand in his and-oh.

A warm tingle moves through my body and when I make eye contact I can’t look away. I don’t know what was happening, but I was in zero gravity and the only thing keeping me moored was the strong hand that held mine.

He drops our hands first, like he was burned. He looks down, staring at it. I’m embarrassed, and confused, so I do what I do best-confront it head on. “What the hell was that?”

The only way to describe Harry’s expression is wistful. “That wasn’t just me.”

“I think we just like, altered time and space by getting along.” I laugh it off.

“Who knew we were so powerful together,” he grins and I’m fucking floored by how much I wanted to kiss the grin off his face. I take a shaky breath in.

“Fuck,” I take another breath. “We could run this place.”

“Oh that reminds me,” he digs into his pocket for his phone and taps away until he finds what he’s looking for. “I want to change the font but I have a design to show you.”

He turns the phone towards me and I immediately love it. A warm semi-circle goes from orange to golden towards its edges, emitting a transparent glow over most of the cover. A faint moon is present on the back, and the background is an off-white.

“And the shape will actually be raised, either that or the font will be…still workshopping it but,” he scratches his head. “I re-read your notes. You don’t have the neatest writing so I might have…missed a few words. The way you write moon looks kind of like neon?”

My jaw drops, “An apology, a re-read, admitting to being wrong, and a new design?”

“Don’t get used to it,” he nudges me with his shoulder and I ignore the inner waves crashing against my beating heart. “Anyway I gotta go, meeting some friends but I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow?”

I wave goodbye and walk towards my station. What the hell was happening.

***

The office is a lot calmer now that Harry and I have called a truce. And he surprises me with this new side of him. He can still be stubborn, and a bit stuck up. But he’s more agreeable and willing to collaborate with me. And when he turns his dimpled smile at me, I can’t help but beam back. We made a bloody good team.

I sit in the conference room 8:30 sharp on Friday. I put in some more effort this morning, feeling good about everything. Harry comes in just minutes before Mr. O’Neil but we settle down after getting him a tea.

“This is the ‘marketing department’ huh?” Mr. O’Neil winks at me when Harry hands him the new cover. His eyes roam over the whole thing and I hold my breath until I hear him say it: “It’s fucking fantastic.”

“There’s nothing you want to fix?” Harry asks for feedback as I grin from ear to ear.

“My name could be bigger, you know I wrote the book.” He taps at it. “But this is it, you two.”

We chat a bit more about the final version of the book, Harry pretends to know what’s going on since he’s never read the full thing. And finally, Mr. O’Neil calls an end to the meeting to continue working on his manuscript. I walk him to the lift. When I get back to the room, Harry’s organizing the papers that had traveled across the desk.

“We did it!” I shout after I close the door. I walk towards him with both hands raised high. “He loved the cover and the manuscript is on track!”

Harry returns my high-five, but instead of the quick touch, he slips his fingers in between mine and lowers them to our sides. The mood shifts from joyous to…dangerous.

“Who would have thought,” he says to me quietly. “We make a good team.”

I keep the eye contact otherwise I would be making eyes with his lips. And I didn’t want him to know how curious I was to how that would feel. “Who knew respect was a two way street.”

“It…” he looks down at my mouth. “It is. I’m glad I left our disrespect in the past.”

“Right,” I’m barely paying attention as he moves closer to me. But then his words hits, “wait, our disrespect in the past?”

I disentangle myself so quickly he has to balance himself on the table so he doesn’t pitch forward. He blinks away the desire, leaving a puzzled look. “I’m joking…kind of. I mean, it did feel a bit disrespected but we were kids so like I said the other day I’m glad I let it go.”

“I don’t get it,” I feel an oncoming storm, and it kicks my anxiety up a notch. “I don’t get what you just said.”

“I’m just talking about that party it’s-“ he chuckles. “It’s not a big deal Y/N. Anymore. We’re both different people now right?”

“What party?” I demand.

Realizing I had actually known Harry from my first day of uni was one thing, but I didn’t remember him anywhere else. If there was a party where something happened…something that caused him to misjudge me…I needed to know.

“Like, around the end of our second year? Spring. Jared and Dru had this huge year end party? And, this is embarrassing. I don’t care anymore seriously. But Dru was being my wingman, he came up to you to tell you that-jeez saying this is more embarrassing than I thought-“

“Just say it!” I urge, feeling sick. I knew this party. It was the night my whole life changed for the worse but I don’t remember this version of events. I needed to hear this.

“Okay, so I had this massive crush on you? From that first day. When…y’know behind the shed.” Harry chuckles. “Anyway I was too nervous to ever actually ask you out I’m sure you caught me staring at you a lot. All my friends knew how much I liked you and they were sick of hearing about it. So, well Dru was convinced you weren’t my type but he agreed to check you out and ask if you wanted to give me your number?”

I listen numbly as he tells me his version of events. That Dru asked me about his flatmate Harry who had a crush on me, if I would give him my number. How I’d looked at him sweetly and then kissed Dru. My jaw is on the floor but I can’t stop him from talking.

“And it’s whatever now but it felt cruel, I was so sure you were this one person and you ended up just making out with my best friend. And…dating him. And don’t get me wrong, it was your prerogative I didn’t own you or something just because I liked you first but…when you’re 20 everything is just more personal right? Hey, are you alright?”

I wasn’t alright. My head was spinning and yet it was cataloguing everything Harry said against my own memories. And when I think harder, I pin him down; he was the one staring at us when Dru came up to me. Of course he was staring so intensely, he wanted to know if I liked him and Dru manipulated both of us. He fucked us both up.

“That’s not what happened,” I croak. “Harry you have to know I-“

“It doesn’t matter,” he laughs it off but I see the hurt in his eyes. I unknowingly hurt him, left a deep scar, because Dru had manipulated us both. Fuck Dru.

“No Harry listen, Dru is a fucking liar-“

“Okay I don’t want to shit-talk Dru.” Harry interrupts. “He’s a friend, I know you ended up dating him and breaking up but he’s still my fri-“

“Would a friend date the girl you had a massive crush on? If you were in that position, doing that for Dru? Wouldn’t you have pushed me away and feel sorry for Dru that he had to see that?”

“Yeah but Dru and I are different-“

“No! No, Dru is different. He’s not decent. Harry I’m telling you that’s not what happened on my end at the party!”

“You were probably too drunk,” Harry denies my truth. “Anyway it’s not a big deal!”

“I wasn’t drunk. I remember everything!” I insist.

“So you remember seeing me there waiting, and still kissing Dru?” He pauses and this is how I know he was still not quite over it.

“Yes, no-just listen. Dru manipulated both of us-“

“Do you remember it or not?” Harry asks again, his eyes blazing with hurt.

I touch his arm, try to get him to calm down and understand even though feeling gaslit again was driving me crazy, “Harry, Dru isn’t who you think he is.”

Harry shuts down but I try again. “Dru used both of us,”

He grabs my arm so suddenly, jerking me away so my hand falls off. He keep it gripped as he says, “Dru’s my friend, just because you had a shitty relationship doesn’t mean you can turn me against him.”

“I’m not-” I begin to panic as his grip tightens. “Oh my god, Harry please just—let go. Harry let go of me!”

I don’t realize how loud I shout, but the moment makes me feel trapped and small like I had time traveled five years back. The silence echoes my frightened emotions in the spacious room and Harry steps back, almost shocked by his reaction. He looks at where he’d grabbed me, ashamed and scared.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, I just got…”

“Is everything okay here?” I hear our director say as the door opens. “I heard a shout…what’s going on?”

“Sorry, we got carried away.” Harry plasters on a quick smile. I arrange my face into one too, turning to face her. We lie about celebrating too loudly, she relaxes and congratulates us on the small success before closing the door behind her once more.

“Y/N,” he chokes. “I’m sorry.”

I’m shaking so hard I can’t look at him, I was so fucking weak like this. He comes closer but I shrink away.

We stand in our aftermath in silence, I don’t know what he looks like, I can’t take my eyes off the stray red thumbtack on the carpet. If I break my focus from it, I was going to fall apart. I couldn’t freak out, not here.

Finally, I get through breathing normally, and my eyes dry up. I feel okay enough to look up. Harry’s already looking at me, his jaw set and his hands curled into fists. For a second, I think it’s because of me but when our eyes meet his gaze softens, his fingers uncurl and flex at his side.

“Did he hurt you?” He asks. When I don’t answer he takes a tentative step towards me. “Y/N. Did he hurt you?”

I swallow, my throat suddenly feels parched. “My scars aren’t on the outside, he knew better than that.”

His throat bobs up and down, his face hardening into something fearsome. I always thought Harry gave me his worst side because he had some issues with me, but seeing him look like this, I’m glad I never had this directed towards me. “Dru is…”

“Dru is a fucking narcissist,” I finally say and it’s so freeing. Carrying this around was so heavy, finally saying my truth out loud even if it’s to his friend feel good.

“He fucks people up Harry, including you-wait let me finish.” I hold out my hand when he tries to interrupt. “I only remembered you last Saturday, when you helped me through…my attack. It triggered the memory from our first day--you have to know I used to get so confused and lethargic after an anxiety attack, so I never remembered who you were. I didn’t even see your face! I looked for you a few weeks later because I remembered your jersey number but it was someone else-“

“I was kicked off the team for showing up drunk…” Harry pauses, seeming to process something but he doesn’t voice it so I take it as my cue to continue.

“I actually didn’t remember you at all from uni. I guess because I didn’t remember you from that first day, you never made a first impression on me.” I take a breath. “And as for that party, that awful party. That’s not what happened. When Dru came up to me, he told me he had a bet with his mates-you guys, that a ‘girl like me’ wouldn’t kiss him. So I thought I was helping him by proving to his mates that a girl like me might.”

With the revelation, Harry folds into the chair behind him, processing everything I’m saying. And I continue, telling him what happened that night from my end. I don’t tell him how Dru slowly began to gaslight me, manipulate and isolate me, toy with my feelings. I don’t want to tell him how much he really broke me, I just tell him what he needs to know.

Nobody speaks for a moment, and then several moments pass. He gets up in a rush, running his fingers through his hair. It had grown in the two weeks since he’d cut it and it grows volume as he runs through it again.

“He tried to convince me you were-” he cuts off. “You were high maintenance, you just wanted attention. He told me I didn’t want someone-I didn’t want endgame at 18 but…” he looks at me, crushed. A million thoughts must flicker through his mind as he looks at me for a loaded minute. “I did.”

My words are caught in my throat as I understand how he had felt. How fucking different both our lives could have gone if he was the one to approach me that night at the party.

Before I can say anything he grabs his phone and checks it, he grabs all his things in a frenzy and pauses. “I’m going to fix this Y/N, I’m gonna make it right.”

“Wait what? Harry!” I try to call him back but he moves past me. I rush to move around him, stopping him with a hand to his chest. “Harry don’t do anything crazy. C’mon, let’s just talk.”

“Y/N, there are so many times......” his jaw flexes as he swallows his words.

His hand reaches out to me but they freeze in mid-air before they reach my face. He clenches them, dropping like dead weight to his side. I almost grab them, place them where they would have gone if he had the courage to carry the action out. But he just look at me, a painful faraway look on his face. “I’m sorry.”

His long legs carry him to the door before I can speak another word. I reach for the centre console that make the windows transparent, but he’s out of view by the time I do. I rush out of the room and see him in the doorway of our director’s office. Before I can call his name again, he’s shot off and our director walks out behind him. She notices me, “Y/N. Bring me your notes on Angels--if you’re free right now. Let’s go over it while we still have the momentum.”

God the last thing I can think of doing right now is work but I have nowhere to go, no excuse to give. I get back to the desk and pick up my notes and my laptop, I breathe in and think of all my fragmented pieces reigning back into my chest. I breathe out all the confusion, I put it to the side. Then I go two doors down and present my progress like everything was fucking okay.

***

Rowan’s shows up with wine on Saturday afternoon. I’d been ignoring her calls all of Friday and Saturday because I didn’t know how to break it to her. There was so much I had to hold back from her because I’d never told her the truth about Dru. And it scared me when I thought about coming clean.

“You’re screening my calls now?” She asks, her pup in hand. She lets him down and he shoots through my flat, familiar with it from all the times I dog-sit.

“I’ve just be-I’ve been-I-” I burst out crying before I can finish that sentence. She wraps herself around me and holds me tight and I hate myself for never telling her the whole truth. She holds me until my sobs turn into sniffles.

“Got it all out?” She asks when she pulls away.

“Probably not,” I say miserably. “But come in, sorry for being a shitty friend.”

“Shut up,” she makes herself at home. Unloading the tote from her shoulder that’s filled with food. “I’m going to make you lunch and you’re going to tell me everything about Dru and Harry.”

“What?” I sit on a stool at the bar. “How do you know this is about-“

“I’m with Jared now? I have an ear to the ground!” I look at her shocked. Her and Jared were together? She answers as if she could read my mind. “Yes! Can you believe it? He asked me the morning after, if I wanted to have a serious go at all this. I was like, it took you long enough! But…anyway this isn’t about me. Tell me what happened.”

“No you tell me,” I lean over the countertop. “Did Jared say something? What happened?”

“Okay,” she puts down her ingredients and I take the moment to pick her pup up before he scratches a hole in my jeans. “So I go over to Jared’s on Friday and the house looks like it went through the war. Not like, physically. Well there were things everywhere, but the atmosphere was so dead quiet. Jared takes me to the room and we pass by Harry in the hall. Jared’s like, where are you heading are you alright? And Harry’s all like, I need to get out of here-“

“Harry was there?”

“Yeah he lives in their spare attic bedroom?” She surprises me with the information like I should have already known that. “So I ask Jared what happened when we go and he said Harry came back from work early on Friday. And y’know Jared has odd hours so he was home. And he said Harry was just like a maniac. Jared tried to talk to him but it was like he was going to kill Dru and nobody could talk him out of it. And Jared knew it was serious, because even though they’ve drifted a lot since uni Harry still acted like Dru was his best mate. Jared said…”

Rowan trails off, looking at me curiously. She had this way of telling stories that jumped from one place to another but I couldn’t handle the suspense. I nearly shout, “What?”

“Well Jared said Dru has this way of getting underneath people. He knew how they ticked and he used that against people sometimes. Apparently they used to fight a lot because of that until Jared really put his foot down…Y/N, did he do that to you? Fuck you up like that? Jared said he tried to talk to Dru once when you two were dating but Dru like, got up in his face and nearly bit his head off. He always felt like that’s why Dru and you broke up because that was like the day before you two broke up. Anyway, you never said anything but…did he?”

I swallow. I guess this was it.

Through a brave face, and then a crumbling snotty one, I tell Rowan everything. Everything Dru did, and everything he didn’t technically do. At some point she comes around to sit beside me, holding my hand, my shoulder, and finally pulling me in to hold me while I blubber about how hard it had been.

“I’m so sorry,” Rowan says gently once I quiet down. “Y/N...why did you keep all this to yourself?”

“I just-” I wipe my nose with my sleeve, not caring at this point how disgusting that was. “He took everything away from me, even my identity. I thought if I didn’t tell anybody, nobody had to know how little he reduced me down to. If I didn’t say it aloud, maybe it was only in my head.”

“Oh love,” Rowan’s bottom lip quivers.

“Don’t you dare cry or I’m going to find a whole new waterfall of my own.”

“I won’t!” Rowan laughs but tears trail silently down her face. “That piece of shite. And I...oh god and I always told you to get over it. No wonder you...”

“I always thought it was curious,” Rowan stares off into space when I only shrug. “I only remember Harry from uni because I always found him looking at you, no matter what room we were in, how many people were in there I was always like, this bloke must really like my mate an awful lot because he’s always looking! That or he was a creep. But when you started dating he-who-must-not-be-named, I never looked into it.”

“I didn’t remember him,” I tell her. “He was actually the footballer that helped me my first day. I didn’t realize until that party last weekend.”

“Shut up!” Rowan looks shocked. “That’s so cute.”

“Is it?” I hesitate, realizing Rowan still hadn’t finished her story. “Finish your story, about Dru and Harry.”

“Oh yeah,” Rowan glances to the other side of the kitchen. “I should get back to lunch too.”

She heads around, chopping the vegetables and finishes telling me what happened.

Harry:

I feel fucking on fire, I can’t sit still and the more I move the more I want to punch the living shite out of Dru.

“Just, hold on!” Jared tries to stop me for the fifth time. “What’s this all about?”

“Dru’s fucking-he’s-he’s dead!” I roar. “How did I not see it earlier Jared? That little weasel got in between me and everything I ever loved!”

“What? Har, I know he’s a dick but what did he do?”

“Everything!” I shout. “He’s the reason I showed up drunk to football, he got me kicked off the team! So she never found me! And that internship in first year, he convinced me to be young and free and turn it down! He-Jared he lied to me about her! He knew how I felt and he took her, he fucked her up! He fucked her up!”

“Wait, who is this about-” Jared tries to dig deeper but I push past him when I hear the door open. Jared’s barely taken his jacket off when I have him pushed against the wall, my arm pressed against his throat.

“Harry, mate, what’s-”

“You’re sick, you’re fucking sick for what you’ve done.” I let him go, and he gets a moment to glance from me to his brother before my fist connects with his face.

“What the fuck!” He falls to the floor, clutching his face. “What the fuck’s wrong with you!”

“You lied!” I push him back up. “You lied through your fucking teeth about everything!”

He shoves me in the chest and the narrow hallway catches me on the opposite wall. That only pumps me, I shove him back and with no more words between us we’re a tornado of fists, one to my face, another to his abdomen, his head in a lock, Jared trying to break us apart and gets clipped in the face by his brother.

By the time I have him laying flat on his back, I deliver another fist to his face, but Dru spits blood up at me and laughs. He has the fucking nerve to laugh.

“It’s got to be about a girl,” his voice is hoarse, his breath comes out shaky. “It’s about her isn’t it?”

I lift him by his shirt and crash him back down onto the floor. I vaguely hear Jared, his hand catching my fist before it hits Dru again. I get one more punch with my other hand but Jared is pulling me away from Dru’s defeated form on the ground, sitting my ass on the staircase. But Dru’s sick enough to still have an amused smile on his face.

Everywhere hurts, but I can’t even focus on my own pain when I still want to cause Dru more. Jared holds me back like he knows. Dru props himself slowly on his elbows, shaking his head.

“Did you two talk? Did she finally give you that number Styles? What did she say about me? I’m a monster, I fucked her up? She’s a manipulative bitch-”

“Shut the fuck up-” I jump up but Jared pulls me back again and his hand presses a sore spot on my ribs, I crumple on the step.

“She really did a number on you didn’t she?” Dru sits up. “She knows how to get in your head. Did she tell you I lied? She was obsessed with me Harry, she was a clingy bitch and you don’t know her-”

“I know her,” I use the banister to stand up. “I’ve been working with her since I started my new job, I know her more than you ever did. You were wrong about her. About everything, you only ever gave me shitty advice.”

It gives me satisfaction, seeing the look on Dru’s face. I’d caught him by surprise, he really never knew. “So you’re keeping secrets from me now? You’re letting her come between us?”

“I don’t owe you shite. You’re nothing to me,” I walk over to him still sitting on the ground. “Don’t you ever put her name in your fucking mouth. And if I ever see you talking to her, looking at her, you won’t be able to tell your face from your arse. I know exactly what you are, I can’t believe I was so blind this whole time...you’re fucking dead to me Dru.”

It takes a moment for Dru to focus on me, “I’ll see what happens when she breaks your heart, you won’t have me around when that happens. And it will happen, she’s a slut who’s going to-”

I’m out of body when I swing my fist at his face and it makes a sickening crunch. Dru howls in pain and I stumble back, my fist throbbing in hot flashes.

“Enough!” Jared shouts, jumping in between us. When Dru goes to say something about me Jared blocks Dru from my view. “Enough you fucking dick! Enough! You’ve done enough!”

Dru shuts up; in all the years I’d known them, Jared never raised his voice at his younger brother. I’d heard them bicker plenty, arguing behind closed doors, but Jared never shouted at him like this. The shock is enough to push me out of the fog I was in.

The pain comes to me all at once, I was pretty sure my ribs were badly bruised, and blood gushes down my cheek. My hand feels useless, like the bones had turned to dust.

“Both of you are shutting the fuck up, and getting into the car. I’m driving you both to hospital because Harry’s taken a beating and Dru your nose is broken at the least.”

“I don’t-”

“No,” Jared says calmly to his brother. “In the car. Now. Not a word out of both of you.”

“Shotgun,” Andrew says weakly. Jared throws his jacket in his face and looks back at me. I follow him silently and get into the backseat. ***

Y/N:

I knock and knock but nobody answers the door. I stare at my phone, but I didn’t even have Harry’s number. I move the bottle from one hand to the other, knocking and I take a step back when a face I wasn’t expecting answers the door. It’s Dru, his face is massively discoloured, his nose is bruised and a gash on his cheek is stuck closed with steri-strips.

His grin sends cold dread through my body.

“Looking for your lover boy?” he asks me when I go silent. I stare at his face, at everything that Harry had done and he notices. “He’s good with his hands, but I’m sure you already know that.”

“Y/N,” Jared’s voice comes from behind Dru. “Sorry I was in the shower. Are you looking for Harry?”

It was unreal, how Jared walks up to the door like Dru wasn’t even there. He steps around his brother and in front of him, as if he’d been the one to open the door. I head Dru scoff, mutter something distasteful and move back up the steps.

“Yeah,” I clear my throat when the word gets stuck. “Yeah, uhm, is he here?”

“He moved, you haven’t got his number?” I shake my head no and he texts it to me along with his new address, I have no idea how Dru had my number. He look behind him before stepping towards me, closing the door behind him.

“Y/N, I just want to say I’m sorry. The way my brother treated you, it was wrong. And I should’ve said something to him earlier, but by the time I did it was too late. And then you two broke up and...I know Dru’s younger than me but growing up the way we did...it’s not always been the easiest to stand up to him.”

“Oh,” I wasn’t expecting such a confession.

“Too little, too late—I know. Rowan...she’s not happy with me. I would never hurt her—I’m not trying to get you on my side or anything but I just want to let you know. She said she needed space and it’s made me realize how stupid I’ve been not paying attention to her earlier and...” Jared trails off when he noticed my surprised face. Jared had never said this many words to me, and I also didn’t know Rowan had asked him for space. It was touching.

“I’m talking a lot aren’t I?” He laughs, ducking his head. “You’re probably itching to get to Harry but...I just want to make sure you know I’m sorry. Truly sorry.”

“Thank you,” I say stiffly, not quite sure what to do with his apology. This was the most we ever spoke and he got vulnerable very quickly. Maybe I would speak to Rowan about this break she’s on.

We depart awkwardly and I map out Harry’s new address, it’s less than a 20 minute walk so I go on foot.

My hands nearly drop the bottle in my hand twice, slick with sweat and distracted as I turn the last corner to Harry’s street. A housing complex with a staircase leading to the top level leaves me even more winded by the time I get to the top. I knock and wait a few minutes, just when I think I’m out of luck a movement behind the door stops me from going back down the horrible stairs.

“Y/N,” Harry says from behind the crack in the door he’s opened up.

“Hiya,” I say awkwardly, waiting for the door to open the rest of the way. When it doesn’t, I continue. “Jared gave me your new address...are you free?”

“I don’t know if it’s a good time,” Harry says.

“Right,” shite. “Right, of course sorry I should’ve called. I’ll go, talk to you later. Oh wait, this bottle’s for you and...” Harry still doesn’t open the door wider than a crack so I leave it on the doorstep and scurry down the steps.

What the fuck was that?

By the time I reach home, takeout in hand, my phone lights up with a notification:

Thanks for the wine, I can’t drink it right now with the pills I’m on but maybe I’ll wait to drink it with you.

I don’t know what to say to it, I had this whole speech planned to say in person and now it’s got nowhere to go. I simply heart the message and put my phone away, confused and a little heartbroken.

***

Harry doesn’t show up to work on Monday, apparently he’s out sick. He’s also not in a Tuesday meeting and I would’ve gotten worried but my manager tells me he was working from home. He’d had an injury.

“By the way,” she tells me as I head back after the meeting. “I’m liking the cooperation between you two. I don’t know what you two did to finally get over being enemies but I owe Miriam a big thank you.”

I choke out a laugh, “We realized we’re on the same team.” And even as I say it I realize it, we were on the same team now; he knew about Dru. But I still felt unsettled that he didn’t let me in on Sunday.

I get back to work, happy with the acknowledgement and hoping it gets me somewhere with a promotion. But work is slow moving without Harry, I realize I miss working closely with him. Or popping by his desk to bother him. I take out my phone to text him but upon rereading his strangely removed text he sent on Sunday, I decide against it.

I pour myself a glass of wine as soon as I get home, putting in a load of laundry and taking the work day off. As I’m going to heat dinner, there’s a knock at my door. Somehow, I think I know who it is.

Harry, bruises fading on his face and stitches on his cheek, leans on the doorframe with a massive bouquet in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he says as soon as I open the door.

“I…” I suddenly don’t know what to say. “Do you want to come in?”

He peeks behind me, into my safe space. His expression is unreadable but I don’t know if that’s because of how nervous I am. He looks at me for a solid minute.

“I can’t,” he sighs. “I just want to give you these. And say I’m sorry. About everything. And for shooing you away on Sunday—I looked fucking grisly, I was embarassed and…yeah. I’m sorry. For everything.”

“Okay,” I say tentatively. I take the flowers from his outstretched hand. He flashes me a smile, pushing away from the wall to leave. “Wait.” I stop him from going. “Why can’t you come in? It’s not my murder house.”

“No? Is that a few doors down?”

“It’s actually in the basement if you must know.” I grin. This felt okay.

But he sighs, “I can’t come in Y/N. Not right now, okay?” He brushes back a lock of my hair back and I realize I was no longer wearing any makeup, and my sweatpants definitely had a few questionable holes. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Okay,” I whisper. I watch him hobble off.

The bouquet goes in two vases of water because they’re too big for just one. I keep them on my coffee table and I can’t stop staring at them all night long.

***

“It makes you look rugged, just hit up a few pubs with that mug and you’ll have yourself a girlfriend in no time,” a few colleagues stand around Harry in the kitchen examining his fading bruises. Even though my own floor has a kitchen, I came to his for a tea in hopes of bumping into him. I don’t think he’s noticed me yet since his back’s to me.

“Who’s telling you I need a girlfriend?” Harry laughs.

“Mate,” a few people laugh too. “You’re oozing single bachelor. You never come out to drink with us either, you’re the resident mystery man.”

“Yeah he doesn’t ever come out with us does he?”

“Maybe he does have a missus at home.”

“Not with the way him and Y/N are always going at it, those two are like an old couple. Have you heard ‘em?”

“Yeah what is it between you two?”

“Harry’s a pain to be around,” I finally say. Everyone turns towards me, and when Harry’s eyes finally meet mine there’s an inside joke there.

“I’m in pain when you’re around,” he shoots back.

“That’s because someone finally did something about your face,” I motion to his bruises.

“Oh there they go,” someone grumbles and it doesn’t take long for them to disappear.

“Hello,” I say as Harry approaches the counter. “Was that last hit too fresh?”

“My doctors say it’s healing.”

“Mmm this team of doctors you seem to have.”

He smiles at the reference to an old joke and we stand in silence until I ask him.

“And you? You alright?” I busy myself with steeping my tea, not wanting to know if he wasn’t okay with me anymore.

“Yeah, it’s an oxymoron but I got most of my healing done with some violence. Don’t recommend it but it did feel good. You?”

“Oh,” I look up. “I’m…closer to alright than I was before.”

“Anything I can do to help?” Harry briefly touches his pinky to mine. I get we can’t do anything right now in the workplace, but my sudden urge to go around the counter and hug him tightly scares me.

“You’ve already done a lot,” I link my pinky with his instead when he doesn’t move it away. “It’s just…a me thing.”

“Y/N I am sorry I-“

“Harry,” I cut him off. “It’s okay.”

“But I should’ve-“

“Stop,” I tug his pinky. “It’s neither of our faults.”

“Imagine how different everything could’ve-“

“Don’t do that either,” I pick up my tea and finally walk around to his side. “Trust me, you won’t come up for air in time if you drown yourself in that.”

He sighs. “I think I have been.” We begin walking towards his desk in silence, thinking about this last week. Even though I’m left reeling with all the new information, with the what-ifs and could-haves, I also feel like I could finally close a chapter. I had read it aloud to people I trusted and they believed me. They had my back. I felt supported and I felt stronger in the face of my past than I had in a long time.

“This is me,” Harry says outside his department. When I notice none of his team was around I motion my head towards his desk. We walk in.

“You don’t have to punish yourself y’know that?”

Harry puts his mug down on his desk and stares at me with so much sadness it makes my heart hurt. I realize on the way to his desk that’s what he had been doing, that’s why he wouldn’t let me see him. I’d done enough self-punishing, I knew it wasn’t effective at all.

“I sort of feel like I deserve it.”

“Oh Harry,” I put my mug down and finally give in to that hug. And it nearly takes my breath away when he wraps his arms around my waist, rests his head on mine. It felt so right. Dru had fucked both of us over, but we had found each other even if it was just as friends.

“I’m sorry-“ Harry chokes out before his body shudders and I squeeze him even tighter. I pray nobody walks in because I needed this as much as he did. I keep my own tears locked up tight, not prepared to ruin this morning’s makeup. I just hold him for as long as he needs.

“I should be comforting you,” Harry says, his voice a bit stuffy.

“Nah, things are getting better,” I say as he sits down. Now I’m looking down at him. His eyes are pink but it only adds to his bruised look. He takes ahold of my hand, strokes my knuckles.

“You really squeezed my broken rib,” is not what I expect him to say but he always knew how to surprise me.

“I’m so sorry,” I take a step back. “Are you okay? Did I break it again?”

“As if you could break my ribs, you’re too weak for that.”

“Who are you calling weak?” I demand. “I could flip you over now if I wanted.”

“The only flipping you’re capable of is-“ Harry holds up both fingers and I can’t stop my mouth from falling open.

“Seriously you two?” Harry’s teammate walks in on the scene, Harry flipping me off. “It’s bloody 9am.”

I laugh, and so does he. I apologize for the early morning profanity and head towards the door.

“Y/N,” Harry takes two long strides to reach me, away from his colleague who’s settling into her desk. “You forgot your drink.”

“Right,” I take it from his hands, mischief twinkling in his eye. We had inside jokes now.

“I’m okay by the way,” he says to just me. “My ribs were only bruised. I’ll see you later okay?”

I don’t even hide my smile as I walk to the lift.

***

“Y/N,” my name snaps me out of the focused state I’d been in. “Have you finally lost your mind?”

“It’s perfectly intact thank you,” I roll my eyes at Harry, leaning over my desk. “Did you want something?”

“Ehm yeah, it’s end of the day?”

I look at the time: 5:10. When did that happen. “Lost track of time.”

“I’m following you home,” Harry says as I gather my things and start walking to the lifts.

“Did you just invite yourself over?” I raise an eyebrow.

“Sort of,” he has the decency to blush. “I just want to be around…” he trails off as a few of our colleagues join us in the wait for the lift. I want him to finish his sentence so bad but we file into the lift silently and listen to the chatter going on in front of us. Harry brushes his hand against mine but when I glance at him he stares ahead. I can tell he notices me looking when his lips twitch.

I pinch his hand and he yanks it back, “Ow!”

The group quiets and turn to him. He gives an awkward smile, “pinched my finger.”

As soon as the chatter resumes he glares at me but I smile sweetly and stare ahead.

“How did I ever think you were sweet?” Harry says as he follows me out of the building and towards the station.

“I am. You force me to forget my sweet nature,” I shrug.

He bumps into me, “I think I romanticized you too much in my head. You’re really a prickly cactus.”

“Me!? A prickly cactus??” I push him playfully, not entirely forgetting the rest of his words. We part as the crowd sheppards us into the station and onto the tube. We stand side by side close to the doors. “If I’m a prickly cactus, I’m just protecting myself from assholes.”

“That’s not me.” Harry wraps his arm around my shoulder in the close quarters of the tube and my insides go liquid. “Let me in little cactus. We can protect each other.”

I look up at him as the tube rushes to its next destination, and smile. Because even though we’re joking he’s still serious. And it’s seriously sweet.

He notices me looking and raises an eyebrow, “Well?”

“Fine,” I say with a smile on my face. It falls when he presses a kiss to my forehead, my body flushing with heat.

“Good,” he whispers to me. He pulls me closer into the ring of his arms and I have to say it’s the safest tube ride I’d ever had.

***

“Here’s home,” I say once we reach my flat. The 5 minute walk to my flat was pretty silent. Harry had grabbed ahold of my hand as soon as we left the station and with my insides buzzing I couldn’t think of a single thing to talk about. Harry seemed content in the silence.

“It’s very you,” Harry comments. “That’s a lot of books. And blankets.”

My sofa had half a dozen throws and behind my sofa were stacks of books growing up from the ground; impractical but I never got around to installing shelves. Eventually I liked the way they looked and kept them on the floor.

“I’m in publishing,” I shrug. “Books are my life!”

He flicks through the top few and suddenly I’m nervous that he’s here. So much has happened. He was twenty-one, my innocent saviour on a memorably bad day. He was a thorn in my side, and then he wasn’t. He saw me for who I was, not who people said I was. I think I loved him for it. The intensity of that last emotion sends me into my room, mumbling about changing into something more comfortable.

I sit on my bed, making sure my thoughts were actually my own. This was really something I thought.

But it comes to me so easily, it’s like the drawbridge had lifted and the ship carrying all my baggage was on it’s way out. It left behind so much space and I finally saw so much so clearly. Harry and I had a boatload of twisted history, we were always in each other’s peripheral. Now he was here. In front of me. It was scary and exhilerating.

“Do you want dinner?” I ask as I walk back out in a sweatshirt and leggings.

Harry’s standing by my gallery wall, my certificates and art, and photos of loved ones all gathered above my desk.

“I remember her,” he says sadly. He points at me in a photo from a Halloween party in my second semester. It was the first time I went a whole night with zero anxiety, I loved the new friends I made. It held a special place in my heart. “Look there’s me.”

“What?” I move closer, there’s no way I’ve had a photo hanging on my wall with Harry in it for the last 3 years.

But he’s right, in the background slightly cut off is Harry with Jared and someone else I don’t know. Him and Jared are dressed as what looks like Peaky Blinders characters, he’s smiling and when I take the frame off the wall and look closer I notice he’s smiling in the direction he’s looking in and that happens to be where I’m kneeling. He had been right there and I never even knew.

“Wow,” I say. “I never recognized you there.”

Harry takes the photo from me, he stares at it for a long time.

“Dru, he told me back then I wouldn’t have wanted Endgame at 18, 19 whatever. But I don’t think I would have minded.”

“What?” My mind slows down, trying to understand.

“When he was…manipulating me. He told me I wouldn’t want someone like you. I was young! I could be free and not tied down. I didn’t want endgame at that age. But I think I did. I was just too blinded, and scared, to go for it.”

“Are you scared now?” I ask him.

“What? No.”

“So go for it now,” I point to him in the photo. “He’d be proud.”

He looks at his younger self for a moment, lost in thought, and then slowly puts the frame down. He stares at me, a million thoughts behind his eyes. He was overthinking it, I realize. I link my fingers through his belt loops and tug him towards me and it snaps him out of it. His hand cups my face gently and he finally kisses me. It’s unlike any kiss I’d ever have, I feel every emotion he’s trying to say as he presses into me. I feel every heartbeat that ached for me in the way he holds me. It’s gentle, yet passionate, and I was drunk on it.

“Wow,” I breathe when he pulls away. From the dazed look on his face I can tell he feels the same.

“I think I lo-“

I shut him up by pressing another kiss to his lips and he reacts by pushing me into the wall. When we part again I brush his hair off his forehead.

“I love you,” I say even though it makes me want to shit myself.

He freezes for a moment before closing his eyes, a smile creeping onto his lips. “That’s not fair.”

“It is,” I grin. “I said it first.”

“You stopped me from saying it first!”

“I win,” I pull him back to me but he tilts his head to the side so my lips brush his cheek instead. “Sore loser!”

“That was not fair play,” he whines again.

“Who said I play fair?” I challenge him. “I love you! I even said it to you second.”

“No wait!” I slip away from his arms and saunter away. I hear him come up from behind and he pulls my waist back so my back is flush against his chest. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

With each time, he presses a kiss into my neck and I’m jelly in his hands.

“3-5 is me,” he says as he turns me around.

“I was still first,” I say but with less conviction as I come to face him this close.

“Cheater,” he mumbles into my neck.

“I’ll break your ribs again,” I threaten but it sounds like a joke the way it comes out of my mouth.

“As long as it’s not my heart,” he says and even though it’s a joke I can hear the doubt. The past seeping into the present.

“Hey,” I push him away so we’re looking at each other. “I never would have. And I never will.”

He nods but I hold his face in my hands. His hands come up to grip my arms. “Harry, I might be a prickly cactus but you know I’d never hurt you. That wasn’t me.”

He closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. “I know. And I’m not him. You’re the air in my lungs Y/N, if I can have you, I’ll never let you go.”

“You have me,” I swear.

This time the kiss is slower, a promise to each other, to stay tender. We move that way into the bedroom, under the covers. He’s perfect. His hands roam every inch, and then his lips. By the time his hands grasp mine in the sheets, I’m blissed out of my mind. But he takes his time and I savour it, even when he whispers about forever.

***

Harry:

“Something’s changed.” O’Neil states in the middle of our last meeting with him. “You two are calmer together. Have you finally slept together?”

Y/N’s cheeks burn with embarassment but before she can speak I laugh, “we finally figured things out.”

“Good.” He nods. “I like you two together. Even though you didn’t read my book.”

Now I turn red and Y/N barks a laugh. This makes O’Neil grin and Y/N kicks me under the table.

“He’s very good at reading notes,” she says, gloating that someone other than herself has finally called me out. “Unless you write moon, then it’s neon.”

“It’s all good,” O’Neil claps my shoulder as he stands. “You did my book justice. I know she’s the one that deserves the credit but you two are finally a team. Stay that way.”

“We plan to,” Y/N says. I stand with her as we see the author out of the final meeting. He shuts me up when I try to apologize and tells me privately to hold her close. I intend to.

“That was a success,” Y/N says as we tidy up the meeting room. “The book’s on shelves in four weeks and we made that happen.”

“We did,” I can’t help but lean over and plant a kiss on her cheek. I loved when she got flustered at work.

We thought nobody had noticed the change in us at work until last week when our manager asked if we had gone to HR yet. That was an awkward conversation but she didn’t seem too bothered so we’d made the trip to make our relationship work-official. Y/N and I had been spending a lot of time in her flat, wrapped in each other. Sometimes we went out with Jared and Rowan, and Rowan threatened me many times to be good to her. I told her to do the same with Jared.

After everything with Dru, Jared moved out as well because Rowan wouldn’t date him if she had to see Dru around every time she went over. I wasn’t sure what Dru was up to but I know Jared got lonely sometimes. I could never understand their relationship but I was happy to see him with Rowan, they were good for each other.

“What are you thinking about?” Y/N snaps me out of my thoughts.

“Stuff,” I say.

“Sounds juicy,” she teases.

“Might be,” I walk over to her, unable to keep my hands off of her. It was a problem at work since we tried to stay as professional as possible but here in the blacked out room I took the risk.

“Tell me more,” her eyes are glued to my lips as I lean into the table, towering over her.

I draw her into a deep kiss, her hands tangling in my hair which usually tips me over the edge. She knows it. She knows I know she knows it. So I step away instead and her sweet smile vanishes.

“Come back,” she reaches for me.

“I’ll see you at home,” I peck her on the lips and grab my laptop.

“Not fair!” She says after me.

“I’ve got a meeting and you,” I grin. “Have to learn to play fair.”

“You’ll regret this,” she crosses her arms, trying to look menacing.

“You look cute when you don’t get your way,” I say before opening the door and shifting into work mode again. “Great meeting!” I shout back as I leave the room. I wouldn’t see her until the end of the day and with her mounting frustration at me, I couldn’t wait for 5pm to come around.

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

When I first read The Hobbit (or, rather, its Italian translation) I was 12. Oddly enough, the copy was lent to me by someone I would grow to really despise (how he could be a fan of Tolkien's works and still harbor so much bigotry in his heart, I'll never know), but I still thank him for that singular act of kindness, because I loved it to bits. And how could I not? I was 12 - still in the prime age for proper adventure, and I was reading one of the best, most exciting adventures ever written.

I have no memory of my second time reading it - I know it must have happened, because I now own a copy in the original English and I must have read it when it was gifted to me, and I know it must have happened in the years around my twentieth birthday, because there is a pencil note in the margins of page 162 explaining the meaning of the word portcullis in the neat handwriting I developed during my first years in university. I'm not someone who normally writes in my books, not even to underline passages, so I can't help but wonder why I decided to note a meaning down - I think perhaps I felt the need to leave a mark, to really make the book my own, to prove to myself I was a real person with a real identity that actually existed and loved a wonderful novel like The Hobbit. Whatever I felt, I'm sure it was a sparkle of light in an otherwise dark time in my life.

I'm writing these verbose notes now, just after finishing my third re-read of The Hobbit, and I'm struck by the differences between this reading and the previous ones - and by how, as incredible as it seems, I loved it more this time around. From the very first word on the very first page I could picture Tolkien himself telling this story to his kids, drinking in their amusement and their wonder; and this feeling, the love that pours out from every single sentence, endeared it to me all the more. There's still a part of me that's excited by the adventure, that drinks in all the tales of bravery and cunning and dreams of blue skies and open plains - but there's also a part now that understands the danger, the suffering, the fear, and loves little brave Bilbo so much more for it. There's a part that understands why Bilbo came back irrevocably changed, that gets why at the end of his adventure he only longs to go back to his hobbit-hole, and why he can love his home and the good food and the comfort and his friends with a different depth after coming back. It's the part of me that read the final line, with Bilbo laughing among friends and passing Gandalf the tobacco-pipe, and closed the book with tears in her eyes and a full, warm heart.

I don't want any children, but if I ever have nephews and nieces, it will be my joyful pleasure to embark on this adventure with them once again, and I hope they'll come to understand why the little tobacco-pipe is the most important part of it, too.

[ladyhindsight]

Over the course of reading the books, it has become apparent that different editions have gone under several revisions. The original City of Bones, when reflected against the changes that have been made over the years to the manuscript, highlights how poor and haphazard the world-building in what would eventually become The Shadowhunter Chronicles was. 

I’ve compared two different e-book versions of City of Bones, one of which appears to be the original text and one that I frankly have no idea which exact edition it is since my physical 2015 repackaged copy also varies from its contents. The left one is the supposedly original and the right one is the newer edition. Tap/click for bigger images since the text is pretty small for being compared side by side. There’s quite a few.

Magnus’ skin color.

Revamping the rune business. The unnamed permanent rune placed on dominant hand that lends extra skill with weapons is turned into the Voyance rune that aids their Sight.

For which the part highlighted with blue is deleted completely. Additionally Jace explaining his hunch about Clary’s Sight has become more rational. This underlines how little the concept of the Sighted was developed in the beginning.

In the long run it wouldn’t have made sense that no mundane in a century was Sighted.

All the stories are true is added.

Added punctuation and Isabelle’s Voyance rune. The original did not make sense either not to highlight any unnamed permanent runes that Isabelle might have/has.

Clary asks Isabelle did Jace bring her to the Institute. In the original, Hodge comes off as furious over Clary messing up the carpet with ichor and blood. This is missing in the newer edition.

Don’t know what is wrong with the “hedge-witch.” Also additional explanation on differences between warlocks and witches.

In the 2007 version the Gray Book is mentioned when Magnus shows a copy of one to Clary in order to jog her memory. In the newer edition, the Covenant Marks are replaced by Marks from the Gray Book.

Corrected probably because the timeline did not originally match.

This is a pretty big one. The original thought was that some random warlock summoned the Angel. Jonathan Shadowhunter as a concept most likely didn’t exist yet.

Added explanation on the Clave.

Relying on my memory and a quick search of the document, Iron Sisters were also not mentioned in the original text. Also the seraph blades were already named, which later on wouldn’t make sense as they just call a random name to activate the blade anyway (though Jace does use Sanvi and Sansanvi later on in both editions).

Changes made to the drawing of runes.

Jace explains to Clary how the Forsaken are made by placing a lot powerful runes on people who don’t have Shadowhunter blood. He also tells that one rune will only burn, which will be later proven wrong since the Starkweather changeling dies from one rune in TID. Hence the change, that even one rune might end up killing an ordinary human.

Concept of the Forsaken revamped in the sense that why the hell would any Downworlder be able to even use Nephilim runes??

Part of Jace and Madame Dorothea’s conversation deleted.

The concept of a “Control” being trashed. Wards added.

We’ve gone over this before. Pangborn and Blackwell were never meant to be warlocks, but it is confusing that Blackwell is purple. This part of the description was deleted, though his later appearance (in the newer edition) still describes him becoming “darker purple” which would mean he was purple in the first place.

I don’t know why this was deleted. Shadowhunters don’t have dental so I guess they don’t sharpen their teeth either.

Myths/Stories

Earlier in the book Jace tells Alec: “When I found her, she was lying on the floor in a pool of blood with a dying demon practically on top of her. I watched as it vanished. If she didn’t kill it, who did?” The original includes this, so it is strange that there would even be “a dead Ravener” when they leave no bodies behind. 

Simon’s dislike of cats is deleted because he has a cat called Yossarian. Clary bumps into it in City of Ashes.

Basically this whole scene which didn’t make much sense to begin with. Mentioned earlier here and here.

The whole “Mortal Cup mostly working on children” angle is omitted and the concept of Ascension revamped. Also the concept of Ascension by that name did not exist.

Same continues here.

In the original text, Jace’s ring is first mentioned in the third chapter when Jace waves at Clary in Java Jones:

“She stared at Jace as she thought it, and he raised his left hand to wave at her. A ring glittered on a slim finger. He got to his feet and began walking, unhurriedly, toward the door. Clary’s lips parted in surprise. He was leaving, just like that.”

The next time it is mention in chapter 10:

“Jace looked down at his hands. They were slim and careful hands, the hands of an artist, not a warrior. The ring she had noticed earlier flashed on his finger. She would have thought there  would have  been  something feminine about  a  boy wearing a ring, but there wasn’t. The ring itself was solid and heavy-looking, made of a dark burned-looking silver with a pattern of stars around the band. The letter W was carved in to it.”

In the revised edition, the ring is first mentioned in the chapter 9, the part that is highlighted with blue. Unlike in the original text, Jace’s ring is not mentioned in the third chapter:

“She stared at Jace as she thought it, and he raised his left hand to wave at her. He got to his feet and began walking, unhurriedly, toward the door. Clary’s lips parted in surprise. He was leaving, just like that.”

Like. Why? The whole sentence is deleted.

Isabelle corrected to Alec because it was Alec who said it, so it was an error in the original version.

Vampire drinking habits revised. Yet human subjugates remain illegal, they only get to drink once and not keep them around.

Magnus’ description changed.

This part of the dialogue deleted.

Witches/Warlocks

My 2015 physical copy also includes Gregor’s ashes, but the e-book has changed this scene so that vampires do not have the habit of turning into bats and dust.

My copy also includes Clary’s musings about ugly vampires which are deleted from the revised version.

This part made me question which version the newer revision is because my 2015 physical copy has the same line as here the original one and lacks the added line of Alec looking horribly ashamed.

Probably changed because why would Clary be expected to travel in any other world than theirs? Especially since Jace has told her only demons are capable of interdimensional travel. Also added attraction to Clary.

Again the “Control” being trashed.

This part of Jace’s words deleted.

And so this as well.

Added greater demon poison so it’s not just any demon poison as the original text led you to believe.

The explanation about Jace’s Wayland/Morgenstern ring is completely changed to cover up the plot hole it created in the original version.

This has also been discussed already.

Rather reflective of the mindset at the time of writing this. Girls be gossiping, indeed.

These are the ones I noticed. I’m still pretty unsure how many revisions the writing has actually gone through and whether my e-book is the latest version of City of Bones. But quite a lot has been changed.

[sunvoids]

[Previous comic]

The Lovers | Suffocate | All I Have

Go Even Deeper Into The Void?

Here I'll be talking more about the elements in this comic, some meanings and references.

The first thing is that text that is underlined, is referring to songs. Already linked 5 of them, but I'll list them all in order.

Music is extremely important to me, and so it's bleeding through in this particular comic.

Less Than - Nine Inch Nails

Copy Of A - Nine Inch Nails

You Know Me Too Well - Nothing But Thieves

Even Deeper - Nine Inch Nails

Into The Void - Nine Inch Nails

The Lovers - Nine Inch Nails

Suffocate - Kayzo, Bad Omens

All I Have - NF

----

Your Blood - Nothing But Thieves

The Background World - Nine Inch Nails

Why is there a bunch of songs? it reflects myself in a multitude of ways that even this deep dive won't be able to explain accurately to make you understand everything just in this comic and how it paints a patchwork painting of myself.

I know that no matter how much I explain and share, nobody will see the nuance and depths of every little decision I make with my art and how it interconnects and intertwines to present what people see on the surface level. And that's fine.

It matters that I do it anyway.

Format Change

After the first two pages, the format becomes different as well as the font, and the brushes used the most are like graphite pencils.

As the pages progress, they become more square. This is because it is intended to be like an illustrative book you'd open up. Here's how the pages look like when not cut up for a scrolling format.

The change is very significant, being a different way of expression. A more vulnerable expression for this part, taking inspiration from story books I'd read as a kid.

Unlike some older comics and comics on my main blog, there are no hard frames - panels. These are not contained in boxes to tell you the story, it is more a smooth flow (though panels are not entirely excluded in general, they have their place at times.) The only frame would be the canvas. and the thornbush.

Colors 🌹

colors hold a lot of meaning and symbolism, and I see parts of me as different colors that mix or clash, blend and separate.

Beyond the black and white, there are a myriad of colors. Some faded, hidden, painted over, mixed too much until muddy. Some bright and vibrant, hot and cold, sharp and straining. And much more.

This comic is about a green part, though he tried to hide that away. Cover it up, be a patchwork of anything else but himself.

The sunflowers don't have vibrant green stems because this part hasn't come together with his other half yet after the events from the previous comic involving two parts merging. And other reasons

Points of Interest

I'll list a few things out in no particular order of elements in this comic

Wired Rose: it's based on a rose I had when I was younger. Put wire around it and the bud, so the petals would not fall when it began withering. The last panels is partly drawn over an image of that rose

The green hand around the neck in the second page is both referencing the green hand in the previous comic, and some lyrics from You Know Me Too Well

the overlapped text "what I am is a copy cat." is referencing the cover art of the album Not The Actual Events by Nine Inch Nails. The text itself is a nod to the song Copy Of A by Nine Inch Nails on the album Hesitation Marks

The pages when put beside each other as intended makes another impression. Perhaps showing something reminiscent of other art I've made on my main blog, or simply making the storytelling flow have a bit more than before

Second last page is paralleling the last page of this other comic I made

Anyway. That's it for now, thanks for reading

[tattooeddeadtreelover]

How I Annotate Books:

Here's a little tutorial that nobody asked for 🤭🤭 on how I annotate my books because it's fun and I'm obsessed!!

Firstly:

Get rid of that "books are sacred" mentality - or just learn to be okay with only the books you've annotated being a bit messy. (There are also other ways around this: like buying two copies of a book, but im too broke for that 😓.)

Annotating Materials:

You don't need an excessive amount of expensive materials to annotate: a pen or pencil would be perfectly fine!!

However, I usually use:

Black Pen - I would recommend a nice one but like I just use any shitty little pen I can find.

Highlighters - You could use any colours I would either match it to the cover art or to the different tabs I use. (ALSO USE A RULER PLEASE 🙏 🙏 IM BEGGING IT LOOKS SO MUCH BETTER)

Sticky Tab Things - Yk what I'm on about I match mine to the cover cos the neon ones make me violently ill 🤮🤮❌️❌️❌️. But anyways...I usually just use nice coloured ones to match my highlighters or the cover design.

Post It Notes - Again, I always colour match but I found this nice brown ones on amazon which like match the bookish vibe 🤭🤭 so I use them if I don't have any other option.

That's mainly what I use but you could also experiment with colourful pens and gel pens or pencils!! Do whatever you want, but I do advise that it looks best if there is some kind of colour coordination.

Annotating:

Tabbing System: I'll usually have tabs for characters and analysis (dependent on how rich the book's language is) and fave quotes🥰🥰. I know that some people like to tab emotional or romantic parts but I'm not really big on that.

What I Write: Usually dependent on the book, but most of the time its just my stupid little commentary on everything. Sometimes I may actually form an eloquent analysis but that's like once in a blue moon type shit. If I'm feeling smart ig...Anyways some more examples (from my beloved..)

Some of my more stupid notes: featuring me simping over Henry Marchbanks Winter (this is a judgement-free zone!!).

In contrast, more in-depth analysis, or waffle idk?? Depends on your perspective.

^^This is the paragraph for context. 🥰🥰

What I Highlight: Any pretty quotes or prose (Donna Tartt's writing>>>), key plot points or information about characters, or just anything I want to make a note about.

I circle, underline, and draw throughout my books, again, it all really depends on the book and it's genre (A romance is more likely to have doodles and less than intelligent remarks, whereas, literary fiction may have analysis and more detailed annotations).

In summary, you can write, draw and scribble whatever you want in your book: it doesn't have to be an amazing analysis on similes and metaphors (unless you want it to be). Just do what you feel is necessary or what you think suits the book!!! And make sure you're having fun!!🥰🥰 Annotating should be an enjoyable experience not ruining the reading in itself.

Annotating on the first read VS Rereads:

Most people don't like the idea of annotating the first time you read a book because it "ruins the flow of reading" or something along those lines. I personally don't believe that to be the case, but I understand why people feel that way 😁😁 . Like most things related to annotating: it's all based on your personal preference. I like to think that annotating on the first read almost captures and records your live reaction to the book, whereas annotating on a reread gives a chance for more in-depth analysis. They both have their benefits, and it usually depends on how I feel. Just do what you think is best 🥰🥰.

This is a really long post damn....and I think that's everything??? If you have any other questions, then please feel free to ask!!

And yeah,

Have fun annotating!!!

[graceshouldwrite]

How to Edit Your Novel (Pt. 1)

If you haven't finished writing your first draft yet, feel free to save this for future use :) If you HAVE finished first drafting (BIG CONGRATS! That's a massive accomplishment, and I hope you're super proud of yourself ❤️ ), I really hope this helps you!

There's a lot to get into regarding editing, so this post will focus on more macro edits while part 2 will focus on micro edits.

Reread

In my opinion, one of the MOST IMPORTANT parts of editing is rereading your own book.

I highly recommend printing out your book into a physical copy. Generally, you can print out hundreds of pages at the copy or stationery shop (e.g. Staples), and then put them in a 3-ring binder.

For presets, I highly recommend at least 12 pt. font and DOUBLE-SPACED!!! This is so you can annotate easily DIRECTLY between lines on the paper while you're rereading. For me, I annotate with a red pen. The biggest things to focus on for a first reread are:

Plot + subplots! Example questions:

What things don't make sense?

What things don't you like?

(Spec fiction specific, mostly) Any worldbuilding issues, like no introduction to the cool fantasy gadgets, lore not matching up, or no logistical possibilities (e.g. how do gladiators in your book use modern flush toilets when the world is based on Ancient Rome?)?

Is anything too confusing?

Unnecessary scenes?

Issues with important plot beats (e.g. inciting incident too late, climax too early, etc. depending on how you want your story to flow)?

Characters! Example questions:

Is the development clear?

Are their personalities, motivations, and backstories fleshed out?

Do they have distinct voices that can be relatively easily distinguished in dialogue?

Are their names/appearances/personalities too similar, causing confusion?

Do you have too many or too few characters?

Are the character/group dynamics organic, significant to the plot, and enjoyable to read?

Other things to get picky with include:

tone, mood, voices, general atmosphere

prose issues like dialogue, description, etc.

plot discontinuities (e.g. John has blue eyes in Chapter 4, but in Chapter 6, he has green eyes)

grammar

Go in with your red pen and do whatever you want, as long as you can clearly read what you scribble. Let yourself go wild with *circle* "GRAMMAR ERROR!" or *underline* "STRANGE CHARACTER INTERACTION" or *large bracket spanning paragraph* "BAD SCENE!" Don't worry about making it look "aesthetic," just go for it in whichever way is most efficient for you.

However, for your first reread, or just an earlier one, focusing on the big picture things should be your first priority! Imagine tweaking the prose in one chapter for it to read like the love child of Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens, but then you realize the chapter doesn't serve the plot at all and needs to be cut...

Revision

After rereading, it's time to revise. Revision is the BIG PICTURE, GENERAL edit! Remember those issues that you found? Now, you're actively brainstorming how to fix them. This is not the REWRITING stage yet—that comes after!

Refer back to the list of questions above, and find solutions. I like to do this in a systematic method where I make a table (in this case, using Notion):

You can make this in any spreadsheet software, or even just create columns in a doc or on paper. I sort it by the ISSUE, SOLUTION IDEAS, TYPE OF ISSUE (e.g. character development, worldbuilding), and STATUS (done?).

Of course, doing this in a linear fashion is also fine, where you directly go down the chronological plot order. However, I would suggest separately brainstorming for each issue before you begin this step.

For example:

ISSUE: Heist is too easy and underwhelming

IDEAS:

Increased number of trained security personnel + improved tech (e.g. city hired guards who were former thieves themselves, security cameras, classic laser beams protruding from walls, a door with more locks and a very hard constitution)

In the thief group, more tension between each other -> harder for them to all cooperate and coordinate, leading to some things going wrong

Decreased competence of certain thieves, or just careless mistakes (e.g. tripping, coughing because of dust and attracting attention, not scaling a wall properly, etc.)

After you comb through all the issues like this (or however much effort each issue warrants), you'll find yourself at the REWRITING step! We'll cover that next time :)

∘₊✧────── ☾☼☽ ──────✧₊∘

instagram: @ grace_should_write

I used to dread revising, especially after I'd finished the first draft of my first novel, but now, I quite like the process :) Yesterday, I just finished re-plotting an improved version of my story after LOTS of revising through 4 drafts! I can 100% say that no matter how difficult it is, a thorough revision is totally worth it!!!

OH! Also, goes without saying, but that spreadsheet revision example is NOT a real project hahaha

Hope this was helpful, and let me know if you have any questions by commenting, re-blogging, or DMing me on IG. Any and all engagement is appreciated :)

Happy writing, and have a great day!

- grace <3