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Sherlock's not having it when anyone dares to say anything about his Molly.

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Sherlolly prompt: Molly and Sherlock's up until now secret relationship has become public and the tabloid press hasn't been kind to Molly. Sherlock hasn't seen or spoken to her all day and he's worried she's not handling it well, but her reaction surprises her. Bonus if Kitty Riley is involved, either in person or not!

Damn, I had fun with this. Thanks for the prompt, penaltywaltz

There was a reason why these things were kept silent.

Sherlock gnashed his teeth at the barrage of people crowdingaround Barts. It was solid wall of reporters, with their cameras, and theirabsolutely disgusting lack of morals. Sherlock decided that he hatedblackmailers, reporters, and serial killers in that order. At least serialkillers had a moral code of conduct.

“My God,” muttered John.

“Please don’t call out the name of the supposedly all-powerful,”sneered Sherlock. “It would be wasted on this rabble.”

“Sherlock,” said John. “Are you sure she’s taking it well?”

“I don’t know,” said Sherlock. “She hasn’t been answering herphone, she hasn’t been replying to texts, and she’s been in the morgue all thedamn day.”

“Well, we’ll fight through this lot,” said John. “Greg’s on hisway, too.”

“Tell Graham to get rid of the people at the back as well. She hasenough on her plate with Moriarty just defeated.”

“You go on,” said John, as if he hadn’t heard what Sherlock said.

Sherlock steeled his nerves, and strode forward, to be nearlyblinded by the flashlights.

“Mr. Holmes, does Miss Hooper know about Miss Matthews?”

“Mr. Holmes, do you tax Miss Hooper sexually?”

“Mr. Holmes, when did you two get together?”

“Mr. Holmes, was this a romance in dire circumstances?”

“Mr. Holmes, are you, Mr. Watson and Miss Hooper in it together?”

The last one almost got a scathing retort back.

Sherlock knew why he had been keeping his relationship with Mollya secret now. It wasn’t because of the dangerous criminals, the fact that Johncouldn’t stop staring at them like they were two very wild monkeys, or the factthat Mary had burst out laughing. It was because of the press.

Moriarty’s death had been carefully orchestrated. Molly was, onceagain, key in the plans. And this time, he had asked more from her than anyoneelse.

Careful in the kidnapping, extraordinarily skilful duringquestioning, Molly Hooper once again proved her superiority to the human racein general, and even to Sherlock Holmes. Molly’s part in the whole thing was socarefully questioned, that she might have given in, if not for their veryvoracious sexual appetites.

No one could blame Sherlock for kissing Molly soundly before sheleft to be kidnapped by Moriarty. It was inevitable, and almost a relief. Andas Molly said, the endorphins from their sex that time helped her make it throughthe ordeal.

But Molly’s expertise lay in fighting off crime-lords, inautopsies, and kissing Sherlock. They didn’t lie in facing the press.

A day of a silent Molly never boded well for Sherlock. He wasextremely used to prompt replies from her. He was used to her coffee, he wasused to her cooking, and he was even used to her cat. He was used to kissingher in the mornings, he was used to quick romps in the supply closets, and hewas used to talking, non-stop, about his cases, while she listened bemusedly.

And as he elbowed through the crowd, burst through the hospitaland headed for the morgue, he felt a very familiar grip of fear. He didn’t wantto loose Molly. She could stick with him through the Consulting Criminal andhis moods, she could live with him despite him never being worthy of her, butSherlock could never, ever, escape the nagging thought that she wouldleave and he won’t be able to find an adequate reason for her to stay.

“Molly!” said Sherlock, striding in.

The Morgue was empty, and Sherlock’s heart was in his throat.

The door of Molly’s office swung open, and a slightly absentminded Molly Hooper walked in, staring at chart.

“Oh, Sherlock!” she said, with a grin. “Hi! What brings you here? It’snot my lunch hour, and I’m too busy for anything else.”

“You haven’t replied to my texts,” said Sherlock, after a pause.

“Sorry, my phone’s been in my office,” she said. “I was not reallyconcentrating on it. Did you know, a guy came in with one of the strangestcases of frying? It’s brilliant. He was cooking something, and everything wentmad. I’ve spent all day with his samples.”

Sherlock was briefly stunned. This was followed by an immediateinterest in whatever Molly was speaking of.

“- and his brain looks like a large chicken nugget,” finishedMolly happily.

“Molly, what about the press?”

“What?” asked Molly, blinking.

“The press,” Sherlock’s fear was turning into amusement. Hesmiled. “You know. The one at your doorstep. Asking me whether or not you, me,and John are engaging in a bit of fun?”

“Oh, that one!” said Molly, blinking rapidly again. She grinned mischievously,and blushed. “I told them that you and I were star crossed lovers from anotherplanet, and it’s really weird that we met in this life, since we’d metapproximately four lives back.”

“Really?” asked Sherlock, his smile twitching.

“I told another one that I was actually an undercover spy and thatmy hair colour was originally red, like hers,” said Molly, being as affableabout it as possible.

“Like hers?” prodded Sherlock.

“This woman. Said she knew you. Some Kitty Riley – and I was like,‘well, you can’t have known him, either people know him as a figure on thestreet, or they are best friends.’ And She says to me, ‘yes, I knew him betterthan anybody else.’ This sort of made me laugh, and she’s just looking at me. Ilaunch into that spy story, and then I jump into the details of poor Mr. Frieshere. I even give her spy details of other missions, in Germany and Spain andall. I don’t know if she believed me or not. I certainly had her hooked. It wasreally fun.”

Sherlock did everything he could to restrain himself. Molly grinnedat him again, pushing her glasses up her nose, and Sherlock decided that Mr.Fries be damned, he really had to kiss her right now.

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I’m Declaring War Against “What If” Videos: Project Copy-Knight

What Are “What If” Videos?

These videos follow a common recipe: A narrator, given a fandom (usually anime ones like My Hero Academia and Naruto), explores an alternative timeline where something is different. Maybe the main character has extra powers, maybe a key plot point goes differently. They then go on and make up a whole new story, detailing the conflicts and romance between characters, much like an ordinary fanfic.

Except, they are fanfics. Actual fanfics, pulled off AO3, FFN and Wattpad, given a different title, with random thumbnail and background images added to them, narrated by computer text-to-speech synthesizers.

They are very easy to make: pick a fanfic, copy all the text into a text-to-speech generator, mix the resulting audio file with some generic art from the fandom as the background, give it a snappy title like “What if Deku had the Power of Ten Rings”, photoshop an attention-grabbing thumbnail, dump it onto YouTube and get thousands of views.

In fact, the process is so straightforward and requires so little effort, it’s pretty clear some of these channels have automated pipelines to pump these out en-masse. They don’t bother with asking the fic authors for permission. Sometimes they don’t even bother with putting the fic’s link in the description or crediting the author. These content-farms then monetise these videos, so they get a cut from YouTube’s ads.

In short, an industry has emerged from the systematic copyright theft of fanfiction, for profit.

Project Copy-Knight

Since the adversaries almost certainly have automated systems set up for this, the only realistic countermeasure is with another automated system. Identifying fanfics manually by listening to the videos and searching them up with tags is just too slow and impractical.

And so, I came up with a simple automated pipeline to identify the original authors of “What If” videos.

It would go download these videos, run speech recognition on it, search the text through a database full of AO3 fics, and identify which work it came from. After manual confirmation, the original authors will be notified that their works have been subject to copyright theft, and instructions provided on how to DMCA-strike the channel out of existence.

I built a prototype over the weekend, and it works surprisingly well:

On a randomly-selected YouTube channel (in this case Infinite Paradox Fanfic), the toolchain was able to identify the origin of half of the content. The raw output, after manual verification, turned out to be extremely accurate. The time taken to identify the source of a video was about 5 minutes, most of those were spent running Whisper, and the actual full-text-search query and Levenshtein analysis was less than 5 seconds.

The other videos probably came from fanfiction websites other than AO3, like fanfiction.net or Wattpad. As I do not have access to archives of those websites, I cannot identify the other ones, but they are almost certainly not original.

Armed with this fantastic proof-of-concept, I’m officially declaring war against “What If” videos. The mission statement of Project Copy-Knight will be the elimination of “What If” videos based on the theft of AO3 content on YouTube.

I Need Your Help

I am acutely aware that I cannot accomplish this on my own. There are many moving parts in this system that simply cannot be completely automated – like the selection of YouTube channels to feed into the toolchain, the manual verification step to prevent false-positives being sent to authors, the reaching-out to authors who have comments disabled, etc, etc.

So, if you are interested in helping to defend fanworks, or just want to have a chat or ask about the technical details of the toolchain, please consider joining my Discord server. I could really use your help.

------

See full blog article and acknowledgements here: https://echoekhi.com/2023/11/25/project-copy-knight/

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Based on chapter 25 of Blind Ambition ( https://archiveofourown.org/works/4538133/chapters/10328469 ) by @opalskylovedivine . I've been re-reading it and its so good

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I desperately wish people would start actually reading the AO3's TOS before confidently making 'user guides' to the AO3 that are just blatantly, flatly wrong.

Yes the AO3 has banned content. They do not allow anything that's illegal under US law - though US law, importantly, does not ban fictional depictions of things - and they do not allow any commercial content. That includes your ko-fi link, or mentions that you do fic commissions. If you do post fic commissions to AO3 and want to mention the commissioner, the fic is a 'request' from the commissioner. This protects the AO3 and you from copyright law.

No the AO3 is not 'a creative fanfiction archive'. It is a fandom archive. Your meta, insights, and theories are absolutely welcome and encouraged there. AO3 also encourages you to post other types of fanworks, like fan videos, podfics, and art, but unfortunately isn't able to natively host those like it does text, so fic has kind of become what it's known for. That absolutely does not mean that other types of fanwork aren't allowed, or are discouraged by the site culture! Anybody who tells you otherwise is just plain wrong!

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art tips

don't call what you create "content". regardless of what it is. that's the devil talking. call it art, call it writing, call it music, call it analysis, call it editing, literally just call it what it is

I was going to put other things but oh my god please just don't call yourself a "content creator". you are a person you are making art / writing / music / etc you are an artist an author a musician

you are not an Image Generator For Clicks And Views. please. allow yourself to connect with your work by naming it properly and acknowledging yourself in kind

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People feel like they have to... Justify their ships now? When the hell did that start? Ask me why I ship something and it's like, the characters were in a room together one time. The fuck more do you expect from me?

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Lately I've seen some posts that come fairly close to reading like hatred towards certain ships. I can't help but feel a little suspicius, because of the history the sherlock fandom has regarding, well, ship wars. I've come late into this fandom, and wasn't here at it's peak, but I've seen posts from back then so drenched in hatred that it hurt to read. Ship wars are pointless because ships don't need to be canon for anyone to enjoy them, and everyone enjoys a piece of media in their own way. I still see hatred for certain characters in their own tags. it sucks, searching for a ship or a character you like and running into post after post full of hatred for them. That is the sort of thing that makes a fandom experience turn sour, so I ask kindly, to everyone, to please keep thing civil. Please keep your hatred out of the tags, please change a letter or something so that those who do like those ships/characters don't have to scroll right into insults and badfaith arguments agains them.

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In the wake of the whole james somerton fiasco and inspired by this post, I wanted to share a few of my um, soft signs, like, orange flags to detect when someone is bullshitting you.

First of all, I am on the spectrum which means 1) I tend to take what people say at face value and 2) I have a strong sense of justice which makes me prone to biases, all of which combined means I am at perpetual risk of swallowing the bullshit.

So, what to do about it? You turn on the critical thinking and pay attention.

As one of my favorite youtubers, Hannah Alonzo, likes to say: "consider the source, remember the motive". Who is talking to you?? What do you know about them?? What biases might they have?? How do they interact with your own biases?? Where are they talking from?? Is it anger?? happinness? boredom?? Also, why are they talking to you? Are they trying to sell you something?? Are they trying to convince you and why?? How do they go about the finantial motivation, if present? If you have, in this case, a white cis gay man talking to you as it he has it the worst of the worst in the world, there's probably some exaggeration and you should start to wonder. There's a good chance he's bullshitting you.

How they talk about women and POC No, no, stay with me. There's a rule I had back when I was dating men: Always beware of how they treat their mother. With the exception of extremes like mama's boys and cases of abuse, how a man treats the woman with whom they have that familial bond is a good indicator of how they are going to treat you. Do they berate her? speak ill of her? are aggressive or controlling? do they dismiss her opinions? Same with creators, and by god I tell you, specially cis male creators, queer or otherwise, always always beware of how they speak of women, how they treat women, how they treat POC. Somerton had a weird vendetta against straight women. It went mostly unnoticed. Then, he was dismissive towards lesbians and other queer women and it was once again overlooked. Then he went ahead and made sinophobic content about genres and cultures he knows NOTHING about. Again, it went unchecked. What I am telling you is IT'S NOT NORMAL. Contempt about women and non white-western cultures is not normal and if someone has them as them as an enemy or a scapegoat, they're probably bullshitting you. Take what they say and fact check it, see for yourself.

If at any point in a video or an essay you find yourself thinking "wait, really??" then it's time to fact check. Is it a bit suspicious?? is your logic telling you that's not quite how this works?? Then take to google, my friend, they might be bullshitting you. At worst, you dodge a fake fact, at best, you learn way too much about a topic you were already interested in.

Beware of the lack of nuance. I can not stress this enough. We all love monochrome, but life and societal issues are never black and white. It's just impossible, there's too many factors to consider. If you are being presented situations or anecdotes as absolute truths, you're probably being bullshitted. If it's too good to be true, it is. If it sounds waaay too convenient, it probably is. A good researcher, a serious investigator, will always have some nuance because they have done the work and checked the sources. If someone provides you 1) no nuance and 2) no sources, THEY'RE BULLSHITTING YOU.

These are the ones I can come up with just of the top of my head, I'm sure there's more and please, add them. Remember that naivité isn't a crime, I'm fairly naive and that's made me distrustful, and these are some of the techniques I've found that help me navigate through a world of information without losing myself.

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rewatching sherlock

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Experimenting with my style. I was trying to make it look more webtoon-like. Fun fact: the episode in which they go out solving cases is the best. Objectively.

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I have to confess, one of the things that I love the most in sherlolly fics is when Sherlock realizes his feelings and tried to convince Molly of them, so then you get scenes that are like Molly: *holding a plushie with a giant card atached that says I LOVE YOU MOLLY HOOPER -SH* Molly:"..." Molly: "Okay, but what does it mean?"

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I was going to post this as a comment, but sharing this on my blog sounds better. Certainly there's a bit of oposites atract with them, but for me is the fact that Molly isn't fooled by Sherlock's façade. No matter how much he tried to pretend he was a sociopath, she noticed his heart, and I think that's because there's something about Sherlock's feeling that resonates with Molly's. Maybe it's that they're both awkward in social situations, or maybe that they both like crime, maybe it's how lonely they both seem at the start of the show. I think that while on the surface they seem very different, they both understand each other at a deeper level than most other characters realize.

Also you can apply so many tropes on them

Hello everyone.. good evening✨

Today I made a post about our beloved sherlolly couple 👩‍❤️‍👨

Because I Hope their shippers Can tell me why they love them?

For me, it was always the fact that they have completely opposite personalities.

I Never liked the "enemies to lovers" trope because of how unrealistic it is.

but I love the "opposites attract" trope..🔥

Much like the north and south poles on magnets..

Lovers of counteractive personalities are irresistibly drawn to each other..

As if the desire to consume the qualities which they Lack.. and which their love interest has keeps their bond strong for a lifetime..

Sherlock is this proud, distant, practical, cautious, discreet, self-preserving, commanding, controlling, and dominant figure..

While molly is loving, caring, patient and tolerant, self-sacrificial, accepting of flaws, and endlessly giving..

We watched them grow in the serie to become more like one another.. with Sherlock opening up and making close Friends.. learning to embrace emotional bonds and trusting certain people with his vulnerabilities.. even considering the possibility of a romantic entanglement some day..

And molly becoming more and more aware of her self-worth, preserving her dignity and

Keeping her distance even from the person that she loves most if it benefits her..

They both received the best character development in the serie.. i feel like this is included in almost every fanfiction i read about them 😄,

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C O L O R P A L E T T E ♡ ♡

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😄

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I wrote this in 2018! 2018!! Apparently someone gave me a prompt, and originally this was Christmas? I guess, I think. You'll see the vague setting of it, hah, somewhere, if you squint. Also, I've edited it, slightly, in the year 2023! Wild, have a read, I guess -

‘She’s not nervous.’ Molly told herself, foot jiggling, while her hand was firmly clenched around the stem of the wine glass. Yes, she was. Her brain wasn’t being helpful. Whatsoever. They’d had dinner. Her and Brian. A nice dinner at a lovely posh restaurant, with servers wearing gloves (always impressive), and he’d not pressed her to go to his flat either.

Though it wasn’t a flat, like she’d mentally prepared herself, but rather, a house, or a mansion. 

There was an echo. 

There’s not an echo where she lives, but there was an echo here. 

There was also loads of space from the floor to the ceiling, and loads of space elsewhere.

Hence, the echo. 

The interior design was - different - not unpleasant, but modern, eclectic, and kind of gaudy. Yes, gaudy, with its uncomfortable settee situated near the large fireplace which was currently not on (he had a remote to turn it on with, something he’d mentioned after he’d switched on music with said universal remote). “It’s a bit much, isn’t it?” he said, catching her staring at the massive painting on the wall of a man being shot (which was painted like a renaissance painting, but everyone was dressed modern). 

“Erm - - no,” she said, biting her lip. 

“Yeah, it is,” he said with a wry smile. 

“It’s a bit-,”

“Awful I know - your place is much better, it’s got stuff. I’ve never been good at keeping stuff at my place, if I’m honest.”

“Oh, why not?”

There was a loud gong sound, and Brian furrowed his brows. “Hm, that’s odd-,”

“Was that the doorbell?” Molly said, looking around, half-expecting to see a physical gong somewhere. 

“Hard to miss, yeah, but I’ll go check it out.”

Brian strode off, his footsteps loud until they weren’t. 

There was some walking distance to the front door after all.

Now, this was their fifth date. 

The four other dates had been nice, after all. 

They’d met at a coffee shop, and he’d not had his card on him, but she’d helped.

It was cute, but she hadn’t really expected much to come off it. 

Yet, there had. 

He was nice. 

But…

It was amidst these thoughts, where she was trying very hard not to judge Brian on his decor that she heard a cough. 

Molly blinked, looking around the otherwise empty room, and wondering whether the cough came from somewhere else. 

“Brian?” she said, and another sound followed, sounding like the shuffling of feet. 

The sound came from her right - - -  from the fireplace. 

And that’s when she saw a pair of legs. 

A pair of legs, and a pair of feet, with some fine footwear. 

She gaped. 

Was it art? 

She went to look closer, and that’s when the foot in question - -  moved. 

“It’s me,” a deep familiar voice said all of a sudden. 

“What?” she said, startled, backing away. “...Sherlock?!”

A beat past. 

“Yes?”

“What the hell are you doing in the chimney?” she hissed, bending down, looking up to see that he was wedged in there somehow. 

But she couldn’t see his face. 

She had no idea from what direction he came, whether he’d gone through the house or from the roof. She also had no idea why on earth he was there to begin with. How could she? Normal people didn’t do these things!

“No time to explain.”

“No time? What the hell-,” and that’s when she heard footsteps. Brian! He was returning. 

Molly leapt back to where she’d been sitting, trying to look less flustered than she was. Hoping she was blocking the feet from his line of sight. 

“There was nobody at the door-,” he stopped in his steps. “Are you cold?”

“Oh no,” she said quickly, trying to figure it out while he was stretching for the remote. 

“You sure, because-,” he said, remote in hand. 

“No!” she said. “No! No fire, thank you.”

“Um, alright?” he said, eyebrow raised. 

How was she going to explain this? How?! She had no explanation. Sherlock had given her none, though none would work either. There was no logical reason he’d hidden himself in Brian’s chimney, except if it was a case. Was there a case? Now she wasn’t certain. Maybe Brian’s decor should have tipped her off. White walls, bare to minimum furniture, and all of them uncomfortable, besides violent art - he could be a ruddy serial killer from the looks of it. “ - - Are you a serial killer?” 

She might not have thought that one through, and from Brian’s reaction, besides a low laugh behind her - she was probably wrong. 

“Is this a normal fifth date conversation for you?” Brian said while looking slightly put off. 

He’d clearly heard the laugh, eyes slightly narrowed. 

She was about to speak, about to hopefully say something clever and not at all accusatory. 

“It’s a valid question.”

It wasn’t her who said that - - -  nor was it Brian. 

Molly squeezed her eyes shut for a mere second, trying to regain herself, while Brian stood there clearly shaken. 

“What’s going on?” he asked, and she couldn’t really answer that. 

“Sherlock Holmes is the name.”

He answered it for her. Of course. 

Brian didn’t know where to look. 

“He’s - - in the chimney.”

He stared at her for a few seconds in disbelief, but she stepped aside as Brian stepped forward. 

“Hello - - umm  - - Mr Holmes?”

“Hi.”

“What - - are you doing in my chimney?”

“I’d rather answer that after I’ve gotten out.”

Brian stepped back, but Sherlock did not step out. 

“Except I can’t…”

--

“That could have been worse,” said Sherlock, a shock blanket enshrouding his shoulders while firemen were scattered about. 

She stood there with tightly crossed arms, her mouth in a frown, which it had been for the last couple of hours. It had taken the firemen ages to break Sherlock out of the fireplace, in that time Brian had asked a myriad of questions about their relationship. 

They didn’t have a relationship, or well, a functioning working relationship, and Brian being much more put together than she was feeling, despite his fireplace being disassembled, told her to question that relationship for a second. 

She’d avoided questioning it for months, letting that phone call slowly die out in her mind, or well, to the best of her ability. Molly, despite being one who seemed like she said I love you often, had not in fact ever been that sort of person. 

There were less than a handful of people she’d said that to, and one of those people was standing in front of her. 

It was also, hopefully, the last and first time she’d been forced to say it to someone as well. 

“It could have been better,” she returned grudgingly, eyeing Brian in the distance who was talking to one of the firemen, and who she suspected would not be asking for a sixth date. 

“You should get back-,”

She hated it when he did that, whatever it was, but she recognized it. She knew that look on his face, the sort of soft look, the sort of sad look... “He’s nice-,” he added in her silence. Sherlock was making a decision on her behalf again, and she hated when he did that. 

“Yeah, he is nice.”

“Then-,”

“Why am I still here?”

It sounded sharper than she meant, but he deserved it. 

“Why were you in the chimney?” she probed, again, he’d been avoiding the question. 

She was afraid he’d avoid it again. 

“I don’t know,” he said finally, though it was hardly an answer. 

“You don’t know?”

“I didn’t drop in.”

“No, you’re not Father Christmas.” 

He smiled, briefly, “John told me you were on a date, well, he told me you’d been on several-,”

“And?”

“I felt like being there.”

“In the chimney?” she said with a snort. 

“Obviously I didn’t intend to get stuck.”

“No, probably not, but you could have asked-,”

“Asked..?”

“Asked me out?” she said with a casual shrug, but it wasn’t at all casual. 

This was why she’d been nervous. She’d thought of turning Brian down already, of telling him they might just be friends, but nothing more. 

Sherlock looked completely caught off guard - the sort of doe-eyed look she expected from him - “Or you could just hide in my chimney next time,” she said grinning. 

“Not enough space for me-,”

“And your ego?” she questioned, still trying to keep the mood light. 

She had to. 

He still hadn’t asked. 

“Will you?”

“ - What?”

“Go out with me?”

“Yes?” she said with a laugh.