#feel free to transition this into post event or whatever you prefer (;

[drvcxrys]

(¸.• ♛ → a small smile was on her lips, this feels nice and very good, she loves the idea to spend more time with zuko here, to finally being able to be together here. "and somehow i believe you are going to manage to top that." she says in a teasing tone as well but it was real because zuko always is very persistent, she knows that. "oh you did? alright, well, that's good. i couldn't care less either, i'm sure they really won't care either way." she comments.

"I like that idea. Our first date is quite something. Not sure i can top it on our second date." He joked lightly. He glanced around the decorations and the space they had just entered. "I've told Aang. But that's all. So I imagine we will get some comments. Let me be shocked and make their comments. As long as I'm with you. I couldn't care less what they thought." If he had his way he would have been with her back home and they would have ruled the fire nation together.

[lovebugs-and-snakecharmers]

LBSC Sprint Fic Challenge

Hey Lukanette lovers! LBSC is excited to bring you the LBSC Sprint Fic Challenge! We had so much fun with our little spur-of-the-moment fic challenge that we’ve decided to make it an official LBSC event and to invite all of you to join in! We hope this challenge will be a fun way to get the creative juices flowing even if you don’t have a lot of time. Give it a try to bust your writer’s block, take fun a break from your epic WIP, or just for fun!

Here’s how it works! We’ll post a beginning and end date to the challenge, and three prompts. If you choose to participate in the event, pick a prompt and write for that prompt in up to three 15 minute sprints. No writing outside the sprints until you have completed all three! After the 3 sprints are complete, you have 24 hours to edit (which can include some new writing to smooth transitions, etc). After those 24 hours, post what you’ve got. Tag your posts *lbsc sprint fic challenge* so we can reblog it to the LBSC blog. You’ll have approximately one week to complete the challenge, with the goal being for everyone’s work to be posted by the designated challenge end date. More details on the rules below the cut!

The first official challenge will open on Wednesday, September 9, and close on Wednesday, September 16. 

LBSC is hosting a discord server for the LBSC Sprint Fic Challenge events where participants can use the Sprinto bot to run the sprints (instructions will be provided), ask questions about the challenge, share WIPs, and chat with other participants about what you’re working on. We’ll also hold a few optional scheduled sprints for people who prefer the accountability of a set time or enjoy the energy of writing with a group, and participants who can’t make those scheduled times are welcome and encouraged to set up their own. 

If you don’t choose to participate in the server, you can still participate in the event, you’ll just have to time your sprints on your own using the tool of your choice.

Obviously, this has to run a bit on the honor system and we won’t be tracking your times, but please do your best to honor the spirit of the challenge! If your sprint fic becomes an Entire Thing (these things happen sometimes) and you want to continue it, feel free! However, please still post whatever you’ve got after your 3 sprints with the tag. No fair busting out a fully polished fic without showing us what it looked like at the challenge stage!

We want to keep this a positive space and event! This does NOT mean that you can’t write anything critical of a character or episode, but it isn’t the space for character bashing or hate either. Please keep the characters in character and save the more speculative work for another time. NSFW sprint fics are permitted but must be tagged appropriately (please use “NSFW LBSC sprint fic challenge” for easy filtering on the blog) and with appropriate warnings.The discord will have separate NSFW channels that will only be visible if you have requested and been granted access.

This is a Lukanette blog and a Lukanette event, so while Lukanette does not need to be the main ship, it needs to at least be included or referenced and considered endgame (in other words, they don’t have to be together by the end of your work, but the intent is that they’re headed in that direction). The decision about what qualifies for reblog rests solely with the LBSC moderators. If a piece hasn’t been reblogged within a couple of days, either the mods felt the piece didn’t meet the criteria or it was simply missed; you are welcome to reach out in the asks to inquire which. There are plenty of other spaces out there for other ships and OT3s, and people are welcome to use the challenge rules and prompts to write for their own ships! They just won’t be reblogged to the LBSC blog, and we ask that you please not use the event tag (a modified form is fine - “InsertAlternateShipName sprint fic challenge” instead of “LBSC sprint fic challenge,” for example). 

If you have any questions, come join the discord or hit up the ask box!

[maiacroft]

Hello everyone, we wanted to take a moment to update the members on a few things and keep you all in the light.

A MESSAGE FROM THE ADMINS

We wanted to address some points with nothing but honesty.

Point #1: Inclusiveness

The first thing we would like to address is the issue with admins and their inclusiveness. In the months leading up to the holidays, the admins have not interacted with as many people as they should have been. When we acknowledge that we haven’t had threads with as many people as we should, it isn’t for a lack of trying. Every one of the admins wants to participate like any other member and we do try to have threads with as many people as we can but with balancing our personal schedules, maintaining the main (which we are still never perfect with), answering questions, organizing the grand plot, and managing the rest of the behind the scenes for the RP, sometimes we do struggle to have as many threads as we would like and as many threads as we expect our members to have with one another.

When we started this RP, each one of the admins had more free time to spare on RP in general. Obviously, a lot occurs and changes in your personal lives over the course of a year and a half, and despite the fact that we do have more things to balance on top of running the RP, we still want to see the grand plot through, we still want to run this group for the members that have been developing their characters here for so long and while the number of threads we are able to maintain is affected, many of the other responsibilities we have are also affected. This includes being able to come online regularly. If we come online with the intention of doing replies, if there are questions or concerns that have been brought to our attention, if they are matters we can handle alone, we are usually prioritizing those over doing our replies. Although it may not always show on the dash, we do want to have threads with everyone, and every time we plot with people OOC, we have every intention of seeing that plot through on the dash.

We don’t want to use our busyness as an excuse to not engage with everyone, but we do want to be transparent in saying that sometimes, us trying our best to maintain everything: not neglect our personal lives and have threads with everyone, is a lot, and it doesn’t always allow us to have threads with everyone that we would like to. We claim full responsibility for not reaching out to our members and plotting with them as much as we should have, and we take responsibility for not having threads with as many people as we should, and if the admins have made you feel excluded IC or OOC, we are truly sorry for that and it is never our intention. With that being said, we will be making a conscious effort to reach out more to our members for plotting purposes and threading purposes as well. Please understand that if we can’t be on to reply regularly or if we can’t get our plots on the dash quickly, etc. that we are trying our best.

Point #2: Our Top Priority

We have put so much work into the RP and we want to keep running it for as long as we can. A great deal of time, thought and effort goes into the overall plot of the RP. We sit down as a group and plan out the progression of the story months before you guys see any of it, to make sure it all makes sense and goes smoothly. Everything that happens during a plot drop — be it big or small — is deliberate and serves a purpose that a lot of thought goes into. This includes the secret reveals along with everything else. There’s a lot of care behind the scenes to make the plot as interesting and interactive as we can make it. For a year and a half, the admins have scheduled time to be online all together to work on these things. We put so much care into it, and because of the effort and time that we actively put into it, because it is challenging and even stressful at times, even just to keep it up and running on a base level, we would never intentionally exclude anyone from this group, whether IC or OOC. We care so much about the health of this RP because we want it to last.

We would never intentionally upset any of our members. When resolving OOC matters, our number one concern is resolving whatever has arisen for the betterment of the RP. The admins are a team of three separate people. That allows us to communicate from three different perspectives and consider multiple angles before making a decision. When dealing with members or situations where someone has broken the rules, our number one priority is to resolve whatever has occurred. As we have mentioned in a previous post, of course, we are people with feelings and sometimes we are frustrated and stressed as we are sure many of you have been frustrated and stressed with RP matters before. But we want to make it clear that any negative feelings we may have never take priority over the health of the RP. We set those feelings aside when speaking with you and when resolving issues. Simply put, we care more about the wellbeing of this RP than whatever negative feelings arise in the process of running it because we put so much work into it. We want it to last, and above just generally sticking around the main to answer questions, accept apps and update the pages, we have to approach everything in a solution oriented way.

Point #3: Warnings and Strikes

The third thing we would like to address is our method of issuing warnings or strikes. When it is clear to us that one of our members has blatantly broken a rule, we issue a warning or strike right away, depending on how serious the rule break is. Otherwise, we usually open a door for discussions when we happen to give out warnings or strikes to hear out the other side. If there doesn’t seem to be a reason why the other side acted the way they did, then we issue the warning or strike as we see fit. We have reached out to multiple members in the same manner when an OOC problem occurs and we always have discussions with them about the event that occurred. It is always our mission to handle things delicately with care to ensure that things don’t blow out of proportion when issues arise.

It is always very discouraging to see the very thing you have put your heart in receiving such a treatment. We do firmly believe, as stated multiple times by the admins, that if someone is unhappy with how we handle things to the point of sending us rude anons, being unhappy in the group, or starting OOC drama as a result, then we prefer for these members to leave our group. We believe that this is beneficial for both the member as well as the RP as a whole. RPing is meant to be a fun activity, if it becomes something that has a negative effect on an individual, then the best course of action is to leave the group instead of remaining unhappy. We try our best to make sure that our members are heard, but if the issue is with the plot or with how the admins choose to run the RP, then maybe it’s not a good match.

OUR NEXT STEPS

After days of contemplating what our next step should be with the RP, the admins believe that moving the RP to Discord and having it be a closed RP is the best choice for us. If you are interested in remaining in the RP, please send us a message BY MONDAY to let us know so we can include you in our future plans. We will be explaining the process of how Discord RP works to our members to help with the smooth transition. If there are any concerns regarding this, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the admins.

We will be following up again after the weekend once we have a clear timeline of when things get back into motion again. We thank our members who have stuck around and we hope things can get back to normal soon. We also want to thank all of you for your patience. We greatly appreciate it.

NOTE: We are aware that some of our members don’t like the way live events are conducted, but we wanted to say that Discord RPing is not the same format as live events. In Discord RPing, each member will have their own category where they can have regular threads, much like how it’s done on a tumblr dash. The format of this can be seen below:

[drvcxrys]

(¸.• ♛ → "are you sure?" she wanted to make sure that marcus was going to be okay. the girl just took his hand. "we can leave at any time though, just hope you know that, you are not ruining anything." because she can get maybe that he might think that, she knows him after all. "you know i'm not much of a party person." she tries to joke a bit.

he didn't want to ruin the evening for her. ginny deserves to have a good evening, without his problems. he must deal with them. sooner or later he needs to face the world as it is. there's loss, sadness, but he must see the positive sides too. he walked over to her ❝ i'm good. sorry, we should probably go in now. i will be fine ❞ he held out his hand.

[bitchinparty]

BP 2020 Main Con Info Post

Here is the ginormous, one-stop-shopping con information post, including registration, hotel, con schedule, travel, tourist, and concomm contact information, to be updated as we go. Don't forget you can follow us on Twitter or Dreamwidth for quick links to updates! You can also reach the concomm at pacificwriterscon [at] gmail at any time. General Information: When is Pacificon 2020? April 4 and 5, 2020, with an optional movie night and other activities on the evening of April 3. Where will it take place? At the Issaquah Hilton Garden Inn near Seattle, Washington. How do I sign up? The registration post—including detailed registration and payment information—is here. Full membership is $85, and is limited to 100 attendees. You must be at least 18 years old to attend. The current list of attendees will be posted soon. If you need some help with the registration fee, check out the financial assistance post. "Bitchin' Party"? Seriously? "Bitchin' Party" became the unofficial name of the con after some of the concomm had the misfortune of watching a gloriously bad TV show called Dante's Cove. Don't worry, we're not using it unironically.* *except that some of us totally are Hotel Information: The hotel is the Issaquah Hilton Garden Inn, located at 1800 Gilman Blvd, Issaquah, WA (here on Google Maps). The front desk number is 1-425-837-3600, and the fax number is 1-425-837-3635. How much does it cost? The con rate $124/king and $144/two queens, plus tax. A small number of cots will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis upon check-in. How do I reserve a room? You must reserve your room by March 3, 2020 in order to receive the con rate and be in the room block with all the other cool kids con attendees. If you're looking for a roommate, we'll link that thread once we get closer to the con. To reserve a room online: 1. Go here. 2. Select your arrival/departure dates, your number of rooms/guests, your preferred bed configuration, and then provide your information. Our group code is PWC402. (Note that you can only add ONE additional person's name to your reservation, so give some thought to who is likely to arrive first. It can also be changed later if necessary.) A credit card is required to hold the reservation, but no deposit is required. (They do have a disclaimer that they can place a hold on your card for the full amount of your stay, but FWIW, we've never seen that happen.) NOTE: If you have ANY question or problem with the reservation process (for example, if you did not get the correct rate quoted to you, or it says it doesn't have your preferred bed configuration available), PLEASE call the toll-free number at 1-877-STAY-HGI and talk to a real person (tell them you're reserving for the Pacific Writers' Conference). If for some reason that still doesn't resolve things, contact us at pacificwriterscon [at] gmail [dot] com and we will contact the hotel. To reserve over the phone: Call the main reservation line at 1-877-STAY-HGI and tell them you're reserving for the Pacific Writers' Conference (that is our sekkrit spy codename to civilians!). Make sure you specify whether you'd like a king room or two queens. Again, if you have any trouble—if they tell you our block is full or that the con rate isn't available—contact pacificwriterscon [at] gmail and we will contact the hotel. Hotel Amenities Room amenities include: - mini fridge - microwave - 42-inch HDTV - FREE wireless high-speed internet throughout the hotel Hotel amenities include: - on-site restaurant (including a bar) - room service - pool and hot tub - fitness center - free parking - complimentary shuttle available for transport within a five-mile radius of the hotel Check-in starts at 3 p.m., check-out is at noon. The con will be providing hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar on Saturday night, a full breakfast on Saturday and Sunday morning, and some snacks and beverages throughout both days. We'll post a complete menu a couple of weeks prior to the con. NOTE: We are NOT allowed to bring our own outside snacks into the meeting room. You are, however, welcome to eat or drink whatever you like in your own room. Area Amenities Within walking distance of the hotel, you'll find several fast food options, a couple of restaurants, a grocery store, a Starbucks (of course), and a liquor store. Within easy driving distance and within the range of the complimentary hotel shuttle, you'll find practically anything else you might need, including lots of food options, Costco, drugstores, Target, various banks, an organic grocery store, etc. Maps will be included with your welcome packet when you arrive. If you want to check out the lay of the land before then, Google Maps is your friend (see the hotel link above). Con events The con will officially run from 9 a.m. on April 4th until 5 p.m. on April 5th, with an optional movie night and other activities to get the ball rolling on the evening of April 3rd, and post-con movie-watching on the evening of the 5th. Panels Panels are being organized by the ConComm, with help from you. Final list of panels will be linked here once they are available. Always check out the panels tag for the latest info! Vidshow There will be a vidshow on Saturday night, details TBD. Check out the vidshow tag for the latest info! Room parties Room parties are totally encouraged (as long as noise is kept to a respectful level that won't get us in trouble with other guests/the hotel)! Please note, however: NO alcohol is allowed in the main con ballroom (except via the cash bar on Saturday night). Feel free to drink/eat whatever you want in your sleeping rooms. A list of things we will not have, because we are all casual and stuff: No celebrity guests (y'all are rockstars enough for us) No art show No dealers No free meals besides hors d'oeuvres on Saturday and breakfast on Saturday & Sunday What we do have is LOVE, people. SO MUCH LOVE. And bacon! Getting to the con: By air Airport You'll probably want to fly into Seattle-Tacoma (Sea-Tac) International Airport. Getting from the airport to the hotel The hotel is about 20 miles from Sea-Tac. The most affordable option is to take the light rail and connect to a bus; the light rail will get you from the airport to downtown Seattle for $2.50, and from downtown, there are several buses to Issaquah (average $2.50 fare) that will drop you off at the Issaquah Transit Center on 17th Ave NW, less than half a mile from the hotel (see the Metro Online Site for more info). Otherwise: - Taxi (in the vicinity of $55-$65 plus tip), Uber, or Lyft - Shuttle service - When the con gets closer, we'll open up a thread for anyone who wants to try to coordinate cab/shuttle-sharing with other attendees. - Rent a car (see below for driving directions) Getting to the con: Not by air The thread for roadtrip coordination will be posted closer to the con and linked here. By train or bus Amtrak and Greyhound both have stations in downtown Seattle. From there, you're about a 20-minute drive away from Issaquah. See below for driving directions. Local bus service is, as I said, not all that comprehensive, but it is pretty easy from downtown--the Metro Online site is here if you'd like to check out your options. By car: driving directions - As long as you are not east of Issaquah (including from Sea-Tac airport), take (as applicable) I-5 N, I-5 S, I-405 N, or I-405 S to I-90 E (toward Spokane). If you're east of Issaquah, take I-90 W. - From I-90, take exit 15 (WA-900 / 17th Ave NW). - Turn right at the light onto 17th Ave NW. - About a block down, turn right onto Gilman Blvd (by the Burger King). - The hotel will be about a block ahead of you on your right, behind the John L. Scott building. The hotel is here on Google Maps. Getting to the con: Other Travel by War Rig, Bifrost, tour bus, dog sled, Goat Van, stargate, wormhole, battlestar, firefly, TARDIS, Leviathan, Chevy Impala, Mystery Machine, or similar to be arranged by individual attendees. Roommates, rideshares, and airport transportation coordination Roommate, rideshare, and cab/Lyft/shuttle-share threads will be posted closer to the con! Weather It does not, in fact, rain ALL the time in Seattle. However, in the springtime, it tends to rain quite a bit. Bring a waterproof jacket if you have one, and maybe an umbrella if you plan to be out and about (though the hotel also has a few umbrellas you can borrow). Temperatures will probably be in the 50s/low 60s, but given climate change shenanigans, we cannot safely predict the weather. Basically, layers are highly recommended—not only is Seattle weather changeable (it snowed at our first BP; WHAAAT), but so are hotel temperatures (especially in meeting spaces, where they tend to crank the air conditioning), so being able to take off/add clothes as necessary is your best bet. Tourist information Downtown Seattle is about a 20-minute drive from Issaquah (up to about 45 minutes with traffic). For information about tourist activities available in the area, you can visit this site. Who's flying this thing? The mod team is intransitive, jedusaur, & pi. General questions/concerns/etc. should go to the ConComm at pacificwriterscon [at] gmail   Questions about registration should go to the ConComm at pacificwriterscon [at] gmail as well. As we get closer, we'll update this post with panel, vidshow, and other contact info, but the entire ConComm has access to the above email, and the appropriate person will answer any questions that come up, so that email address is your best bet! We're trying to tag posts as much as possible for ease of navigation. To view all the tags for the community, go here. See you in April!

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[drvcxrys]

(��.• ♛ → "of course but the isle doesn't turn you into a thief. that's just who you are." and she wasn't like that, she used to do that only to make her mom proud and she thought it was the right thing to do but she wasn't really happy about it so now she does what she wants, what makes her happy. "honestly? i don't know but i would expect anything from you, including snitch on yourself."

"Oh come on, Mal. You can't tell me you've gone completely good? I mean, we may be in a whole new city but the isle is still in our blood." harry pointed out. "also, relax. i just said i should steal it, not that i was going to. why would i snitch on myself?"

[snapeloveposts]

Hey everyone, this June we’ll be hosting a LGBTQIAP+ Snape Month! The event will run for two weeks and will go from June 3rd to June 16th. The rest of the month can be used for late submissions.

What is LGBTQIAP+ Snape Month? LGBTQIAP+ Snape Month dedicated to all of the positive LGBT+ headcanons you have about Severus Snape! This includes all identities that fall under the LGBTQIAP+ spectrum. The event will take place over 14 days and each day will have a special prompt that you can choose to do. 

Keep in mind this month is for POSITIVE representation and any hateful posts will not be tolerated.

Some things to keep in mind when creating your content:

Don’t use slurs in your work unless you’re personally reclaiming that slur. And if you do use slurs, be sure to add content warnings to your posts as some people might find these slurs triggering. 

Avoid harmful stereotypes & tropes (for example: choosing to write a depressing fic that’s been over-done instead of choosing to write something more positive).

Do your research: if you’re trying to write about a particular identity but do not personally identify with it please be sure to do your research before posting content that may be triggering or offensive.

Click the read more to see the prompts & more info!

Prompts:

Day 1: Snape and the Trans/Lesbian/Gay/Ace/Bi/Pan/Poly/NB/ Etc colors

Day 2: Snape's Hair: Flattop or long

Day 3: Snape's favorite LGBT+ musician

Day 4: Snape: Can they drive or not?

Day 5: 'Guys is it gay if... (insert something snape does in canon that can be considered gay')

Day 6: Snape's favorite puns: eg 'i'm punsexual'

Day 7: Snape's favorite LGBT+ movie character

Day 8: Snape’s first kiss (and with who)

Day 9: Transitioning and/or coming out

Day 10: Snape's favorite LGBT+ book character

Day 11: Monogamy or polyamory

Day 12: Snape's favorite LGBT+ tv character

Day 13: Canon symbolism

Day 14: Self-discovery (when did they realize they were ___)

What kinds of content are we looking for? Anything! We’ll accept: Gifsets, moodboards, graphics, videos, playlists, fan fiction, drabbles, headcanons (serious or non serious), fan art, silly text posts, cosplay, etc. Whatever you come up with we would love to see, so try not to get hung up on whether it’s good or not, the point is to just show your appreciation for Severus Snape! 

*Be sure to use the tag #snapeloveposts in the first 5 tags of your post so people tracking the tag can see it and so we at snapeloveposts can reblog it. We also reccommend you put an @snapeloveposts in your caption just in case your post doesn’t appear in the tag. *

Check out our F.A.Q. page if you have any questions and if your question isn’t on there feel free to send us a message. You may also submit a post to us directly if you prefer. As always, have fun and we look forward to seeing what you all come up with! :)

And please reblog this post so others can see it and participate in the event, thanks!

[lotsofplanetshaveadeathstar]

Should’ve listened to Elphaba...

I need to write this down to work through it and having a backspace button works a lot better than a pen with no eraser right now, so...

In Wicked, there’s a song called “I’m Not That Girl” and while the reasons why I connect with that song could fill several posts on their own, it has a line that I’ve been thinking about for almost a week now - “Don’t wish, Don’t start, Wishing only wounds the heart.” It’s a little out of context here compared to the rest of the song, but the general message is the same -  don’t wish for what you can’t have, it’s just going to hurt.

Last weekend was *an event* and I had a great time, truly I did. But it sort of... awakened something in me, I guess you could say? There was a kind of sense of belonging and friends, for one part of it, and sense of, well, wanting, for lack of a better term here, for the other. 

I haven’t had a big friend group since high school, and while I wouldn’t have categorized most of them as close friends even then, I never realized how comforting and fun and “like home” it was to have so many people who knew the same places and people that I did and were in on the same jokes and backstories and were in the same geographic area and (relatively) same stage of life. Then in college I had a bunch of “temporary” friends, I guess you’d call them, with a few that stuck around, but still, it was the same relative age and location and shared knowledge. Now, most of my true friends are scattered throughout the country and I’m no longer in the same age bracket as most of my coworkers or classmates. Sure, I’m friendly with them, but my best work friends range in age and stage of life and our schedules don’t usually line up consistently, so it’s not the same. And until last weekend, I genuinely thought I was fine with that.

But I was wrong.

In my mind, up until that point, I had this idea that I was in a kind of transition phase and all I really needed to do was to get through it and there would be this bright new Technicolor world waiting for me on the other side and everything would just fall into place and be wonderful. I just needed to get through this degree, get a new (and much better) job, and I could finally become a Grown-Up ™ and start living my Grown-Up ™ dreams. The interim didn’t matter, or so I thought. 

Now I realize that as much as I genuinely enjoy being cozy at home most nights, watching whatever shows I want to watch or randomly deciding to deep-clean some area of my room, I want to have a person or group of persons that want to do things with me outside of my immediate family. I want friends who like at least some of the same nerdy things I do (not asking for interest clones here, that would be both freaky and probably not very fun) and don’t mind going places and not spending a bucketload on entertainment or drinks or whatever and who would participate in a kick-ass group costume for Halloween or an ugly sweater party or... you get the gist. But I don’t have that and I’m not even sure where to go about finding it. I know it’s out there though.

The other feeling though, the wanting...

Look, I know that that particular instance was not initiated by the all-fabled spark -  it was almost certainly 80% alcohol, and I have no regrets, about either the instance or the alcohol (Malibu and Sprite is delicious and tequila lemonade is heavenly). But I’ve never been in a situation even remotely like that before, and this is another place where the aforementioned song from Wicked comes into play - almost always, I’m not that girl.

Not being that girl has usually never bothered me too much. I’m typically having too much fun with my other friends to care, and most of the time I’ve been grateful to be on my own and free to do whatever I want when I want to do it. I have always been enough for me, which is truly a great thing in my opinion. But there’s a tiny but growing part of me that wants to be something for someone else and have something for them in return. Maybe I’ll forever prefer dancing with abandon in a circle with my friends, but I’d also really like to know what it’s like to be twirled around by someone who only has eyes for me, to be able to close my eyes and feel their arms around me as I lean back into their chest. 

In almost all of my visions of my future up to this point, it’s always been just me. I don’t mean that in an “I’m going to be alone forever” kind of way, but I picture myself being able to support myself by myself, to be able to go on vacations and stay at whatever level of hotel I want all on my own dime, to decorate my own living space exactly the way I like (although apparently that one could still be true regardless of if I’m on my own or not). There was never even a stick figure hanging around in the corner that I could factor into my plans, emotionally or financially - everything was me, myself, and I. (As a side note, I didn’t even picture kids, although I’m not sure if that’s because there wasn’t a partner in the picture or because I have a hard time even imagining having kids with my current income and the state of the world - time will tell on that one.) I still want to be able to completely support myself on my own income, that’s part of the reason I’m changing course and getting a whole new degree, after all. But to have someone there to share the load, bounce ideas off of, and take vacation pictures of me is becoming a part of the new future visions.

Now to loop back to “I’m Not That Girl” in the original context of this post - I wished, I started, and, thus, wounded my heart. I let my imagination run wild, even after reminding myself over and over that nothing was going to happen, that I did it because “why not?’, because you never know what will happen, “all you need is 20 seconds of bravery”, blah blah blah. I let my sappy romantic brain go too far and I only have myself to blame for this stupid pain and, yes, I’m beating myself up here a little to try and get myself to snap out of it. Even if I’m overreacting for the moment and things change, I know I’ll be right back in this spot fairly quickly after that, so this little eye-opener is coming from a well-intended place. I knew it was an almost impossibly long shot, but I told myself I should take this chance and see where it goes, and if this is where it went, then that’s that.

I don’t regret anything about last weekend, truly I don’t. I’m not ashamed and only the slightest bit embarrassed, but I wouldn’t change anything I did (except I’d figure out some way to get dessert since I missed out on the apple tartin and cake and I’m still salty about that). There’s not many things I truly regret in life, because everything I’ve done and every choice I’ve made has gotten me to where I am and I’ve gotten to do some amazing things and experience things that most people can only dream about. And I know that pain like this is unavoidable in any well-lived life. But sometimes I wonder if I’m strong enough to handle it when even minor blips like this seem so overwhelming to me, if I’ve waited too long and I’ve missed out on some key piece of development that would let me get through it all even a tiny bit easier. 

Maybe, for the meanwhile, focusing just on me isn’t a terrible idea. But maybe I can also work on ways to bring in more of those feelings of friendship and belonging while I get where I’m going. Jury’s still out on the wanting, though.

[spitestudies]

hello everyone!! as a high school junior taking 4 aps, 3 other classes, preparing for the act, trying to do college research, stage managing a musical, and trying not to lose my mind, here are some fun n handy tips for not Dying when ur schedule is hell!  

if you found this post helpful maybe give it a like/reblog and check out my other posts here!

01 | PLANNING AND PREPARING

so much of getting and staying organized has to do with organizing your time in advance.  there are a million ways to do this--google calendar, a bullet journal, a planner, some post-it notes.  my system involves three parts: a google calendar, a planner, and an online to-do list app.  

google calendar: this is mostly for events.  i can see when i have rehearsals, classes, doctor’s appointments, etc.  this helps me see how much available time i have and budgeting it properly.  

planner: i take this with me to school, and i use it to right down when i have assignments and tests.  i use the ban.do planner, but these are a bit pricey, and really anything will do.  just somewhere to put down tasks so you can keep track of them

getplan.co: this app is, honest to god, the only reason i am still alive and breathing.  it plugs into your google calendar and then allows you to create and schedule tasks around events.  @studycxlture has an amazing post about plan here that i def recommend checking out!

general tips about planning: 

plan out the events of your month at least two days before it starts

set aside a night (i like sunday evenings) to set up a system for the upcoming week and go over what you have planned so you don’t forget anything

you are NOT gonna remember that assignment that teacher told you about.  write it down.  

you do not need a fancy system.  it’s okay to try lots of different things until you find what works 

never spend more time planning out tasks than completing them.  unless you have that much free time, don’t dedicate two hours to making a lovely weekly bullet journal spread.  

color codes!!! are a life saver.  i have one with a color for each class (red for english, orange for spanish, yellow for history, green for science, blue for math, etc) as well as some for my extracurriculars (pink for the musical, teal for model un, etc).  

always have ur planner open when ur working, so that you can make sure u r actually completing all the tasks u said u were gonna complete

02 | STAYING ORGANIZED 

oh my god oh my god oh my god staying on top of your work is SO important when you’re busy.  being able to find your worksheets and keep track of your homework and your million responsibilities is essential to being successful.  to stay organized, i have an expandable file folder with tabs for each class.  because i take most of my notes in notebooks instead of binders, this is a good way to keep all of my handouts, worksheets, and syllabi centralized.  

also, make sure you have a way to keep your online materials organized.  create a folder for each school year, and within that folder, create more folders for each class.  from there, it’s up to you about how you’ll organize files. you can create even MORE folders (yeet) for things like homework, notes, study guides, etc, or folders for each unit you study.  the possibilities are endless!!!! isn’t technology exciting

here r some pieces of advice for staying organized: 

have a series of folders/binder/expandable file folder to hold your worksheets.  or one for each class, though i prefer to keep all my papers in one a) to save money and b) to save space.

label your notebooks/binders so that you know which ones to bring home with you

never just shove something into your backpack.  never.  i’m gonna manifest into ur classroom and FIGHT you if u do that.  it’s not good, it’ll end up getting lost or crushed under the weight of all ur textbooks, and you’ll end up panicking when u can’t find it 

have ur planner on u at all times

keep a good filing system of ur stuff at home.  u don’t need to carry around every single bio assignment you’ve gotten back, but by the time ur final rolls around ur gonna want 2 b able to look at all the materials you’ve gotten during the semester

that being said, throw stuff away when the year is over!  i, for one, know i’m never gonna think about calculus after this class is done, so i will be recycling all of my papers (save the earth) and moving tf on 

keep a recycling bin in your room!  even if it’s just a paper bag, it’ll make throwing paper in the trash way less tempting (save the earth)

u don’t need a ton of pens.  i’m being a giant hypocrite saying this but you really don’t need all that stuff.  if you want it and you can manage it, great, but if it’s just another thing to keep track of, leave ur staedtlers and ur mujis and ur fineliners and ur calligraphy pens at home, and just take the essentials with u to school

03 | MAKING THE MOST OF UR TIME

in order to succeed, it’s v important to make every second count.  this doesn’t mean studying 48 hours straight (pls don’t), but try not to waste time. whether this means you spend fifteen minutes napping, doing some reading for english, or having a quick snack, make sure u are being productive and healthy!  i, for one, sometimes have 1-2 hour breaks between school and rehearsal, and i like to use these to walk to the grocery store by my school and get some food and then study in the deli.  

some ideas for being productive! 

carry a clipboard around everywhere.  this way, u don’t need to spend as much time transitioning in and out of tasks, u can just put ur work onto the clipboard, and put it in ur backpack at the end of a break, and then the next chance u have to work on it, just take it back out.  easy peasy

work during commutes! nOT if ur the one driving the car though that’s VERY dangerous and distracted driving = bad.  but if ur on the bus, or ur mom is driving u to school, that might be a good time to go over some notes you took last night, or some reading you need to catch up on.  nothing too insane, please don’t do ur chem labs on the public bus but.  u know.  

read over the notes you took that day on the ride home.  this will help reinforce the information in ur brain, and it’s not super difficult. i go over my apush notes during the 40 minute drive home and sometimes talk about them w my mom, which gives me a much better grasp of the material

don’t waste time on social media.  either delete instagram altogether, or log off/mute notifications before u start work.  same with tumblr.  don’t start scrolling obsessively if u have three tests to study for. 

power naps!!!! napping for about 10-20 minutes, maybe on the way home or to practice/rehearsal/whatever u gotta do, can help u feel refreshed!  anything longer will make u more tired tho, so be sure to get up when u say ur gonna get up.  

study smarter: when ur going over material, u don’t need to handwrite 60 beautiful flashcards.  use quizlet instead.  don’t revise if it’s not gonna help u.  prioritize which assignments r gonna be most impactful over the little ones u can easily make up

take good breaks!! breaks r VERY important and should be utilized properly.  here r some good suggestions for things to do: 

throw in a load of laundry

empty the dishwasher

stretch/do some jumping jacks

drink some water!

go for a walk

talk to a family member 

get a snack!

read some fun novels n such

scream?

!! in case of emergency !! the following tips should only be employed when ur short on time.  don’t use these just bc u can, this is just when it’s about getting close enough to grasping material, not actually grasping it

do every other math problem assigned, and either star the ones u didn’t do, or get the answers from the back of the book.  this way, u get some practice but u also save time

sparknotes ur reading beforehand.  this way, u can recognize what’s going on.  it’s not v good for developing ur reading comprehension, but assignments will go by quicker

NEVER google translate ur language homework, but u can use word reference for helping u find the right word and proper conjugations

flagpole it: didn’t study enough for a test?  are u guessing on like 10 of the questions?  if it’s multiple choice, but the same answer for all the ones u have no clue about, unless that answer choice seems highly unlikely.  then pick a different one.  this way, ur statistically more likely to get some of the ones you guessed correct. 

when u have an online assignment due at midnight and it’s 11:53 and u haven’t started, find another assignment you’ve already completed that has a similar document name.  for example, “scarlet letter chapters 9-11″ instead of ur actual assignment “scarlet letter chapters 12-14″.  submit the other one, and then when u finish the other assignment (either that night or the next morning) email ur teacher and apologize, say u accidentally submitted the wrong document

if ur parents will let u (if ur in high school) or u can let urself (if ur in uni), it’s okay to skip a day to catch up.  just make sure u actually work, get the notes u missed, and talk to ur teachers/professors abt the material u missed.

04 | STAYING HEALTHY 

ur health comes before any assignment, test, or extracurricular.  i know lots of ppl r probably telling u that and it doesn’t seem like they mean it, but i mean it.  no exam is worth sacrificing ur mental, physical, or emotional health for.  yeet!  so here r some things to keep in mind

eat!  ur fuckin!  breakfast!  whether it’s a smoothie or oatmeal or a cup of orange juice or an apple or an elaborate french toast dish, u need some food in ur stomach so that u have the energy to start ur day

remember to take ur meds if u need to!

drink water!  drink! water!  have a glass when u wake up, and then at least one with every meal, and one before u go to bed.  hydration is v important.  if u can, invest in a water bottle and take it with u to class.  

pack a lunch!  and if ur staying later after school, pack snacks!  tech week for me is always hell because i get to school at 7:30 am and don’t usually leave until 11 that night.  it’s v important to stay nourished and hydrated so that u don’t get dizzy or faint.  

remember!  that u are beautiful, and ur body is beautiful, and it deserves 2 b loved! especially by u.  

get 6 hours of sleep.  aim for 8, but six at the very least.  if ur done with ur work, go to bed early!  don’t just stay up for no reason.  

shower everyday, or every other day at least.  give yourself those 15 minutes as a break from work or school or anything else that’s keeping you busy

write down ur thoughts in a journal?  

talk to a friend if ur feeling sad, or just feeling things very intensely.  share ur joy with other people!  vent ur sadness and anger so u aren’t carrying it around everywhere. 

make some time to have fun.  see a movie w ur friends or ur bf/gf/datefriend or ur family over the weekend.  go to a museum.  hang out at the mall.  sleepover at someone’s house.  taking breaks is healthy.  

make an effort to have dinner with ur family if u can (also if u like ur family.  i know some ppl have bad relationships w them so skip this step if that’s u).  it can be nice to reconnect w everyone, even when ur stressed or they’re annoying u, it can be nice.  

remember that it’s okay to be imperfect!  u don’t need to be good at a lot of things.  i got a b for the first time last semester, i just got a c on an apush test, i failed my driver’s test again yesterday.  but i also aced my math quiz, i celebrated six months of knowing my best friend, i walked my dog, i helped put a production together.  it’s okay to have rough days and bad days and bleh days, as long as you keep pushing through them and working for the days to get better.  

i love u!!! stay hydrated and nourished and get enough sleep.  put on some lotion if u have it available.  brush ur hair.  if u ever wanna ask a question, my ask box is always open!  <3

[drvcxrys]

(¸.• ♛ → "until everything stops and gets ruined." the girl commented, a small sigh escaped from her lips. "life is like this, very unpredictable after all." and most of the time it does suck, she knows that.

"I see." Xingchen can attempt to just sway and enjoy the music then without worrying about bumping into people. "Might take advantage of that then."

[bigherosixfeels]

so you want to make an amv?

Hello, everyone! As some of you may know, I make amvs or little video edits for BH6 from time to time. While video edits aren’t necessarily the most popular form of creating for this movie (or upcoming show…who knows??), there are still some people out there who might be interested in making videos. This tutorial is mainly for @princess-kidatheart17 but if anyone else is interested in this post, I hope it helped! 

The following tutorial are just the basics to Movie Studio Platinum (a form of Sony Vegas). 

So, you get the program loaded and ready and this is what it looks like. Again, MSP is pretty much the same thing is Sony Vegas or Vegas Pro. Most of the features are the same (although I have learned that my program cannot do photoshop styled masking…but that’s not a basic thing to learn lol). 

First things first, you have to get a video (or sound) file onto the timeline. In order to that, the first thing you have to do is go up to the top, click Project and then click Open…

Once you click that, you should get a video folder of something like this:

All you have to do is click on one of the video clips and then press Open 

And now you have the clip of your choice on a timeline! Now you can officially start editing your video! Now, splitting clips is a pretty simple task. See that little bar at the end of the movie? Move your mouse over to that and click it. You can drag it anywhere you want on the clip. 

As you can see, the bar is now about halfway onto the full movie. If you have that bar just where you want it, all you have to do now is press the letter S on your keyboard and the clip will split! 

Now the movie is split in two! 

Clearly, if you’re editing a video no matter the size, you’re not going to want the full thing on screen. So, to get rid of a clip, all you have to do is click on it (the clip will turn from gray to blue and be bordered with yellow) and press the delete button on your keyboard. 

Just like that, it’s gone! 

Now, as you can tell, I’ve trimmed the remaining file a little more. Another way to do that is by putting your mouse over the beginning or end of a clip. As the box says, just drag and adjust to where you want the end of the clip to be. 

You have your clip just the way you want it. Great! If this clip happens to be in the middle of the timeline, no worries! Just click on the file and drag it to the beginning of the timeline

Aaaaand now it’s where it needs to be! 

Effects/FX

Alright, now let’s get into the more fun parts. I think adding effects to the clips are my favorite parts and you can pretty much add them in at any time during the editing process, but I’m going to start with the effects here. I tend to make the mistake of adding effects after I have every clip trimmed and split which isn’t always a bad thing, but if the same effect is noticeably different, that can be a problem. 

The fun part is trying to figure out what effect(s) you want to use and it’s totally up to your own preference. Don’t be afraid to look around and mess with some different effects (if you don’t like it, just press Ctrl+Z to undo it). 

I personally like to use Color Curves. For most of my edits, I specifically use Cool Colors. Again, whatever effect(s) you want to use is completely up to you. Once you find the effect of your liking, click down on it and drag it onto the video file. 

Something like this should pop up. It won’t look the same for every effect, but most effects have ways to adjust them. This is what it looks like when you choose a color curve effect. 

Because the effect wasn’t to my liking, I adjusted the bottom of the red curve. There’s little gray lines with tiny boxes at the end of them. All I did was click on that box and dragged the line down to edge of the square.

The effect is officially to my personal liking! 

…but wait, I’m not done! I’ve decided that I want to add another effect! No problem! Like I said before, you can add more than one effect to a clip. Sometimes I like to mess around with Brightness and Contrast. Personally, I go for the Darker effect. 

Again, another box will pop up where you can adjust the settings. As I can see on screen, the effect is just a bit too dark for me, so I’ll mess around with the settings. 

It may not look like I’ve done much, but every little adjustment matters. The effect looks much more pleasing! 

And now I have it the way I like it! 

Transitions

In my opinion, transitions are just a little bit more tricky to manage. You have to pick which ones you like and sometimes, you have to trim them up. They might be going too slow, or you may trim them to the point where the clips transition so quickly, you don’t even notice you added a transition at all. But once you get the transition where you want it and the flow of it to the next clip looks pleasing, it’s all good! 

What’s cool is that there is more than one way to make a transition. I’m going to show you the first way right now which is pretty simple. First, you’re going to need to drag that little bar to a point on the clip where you want to split it. 

Now before I add the transition, I want to get rid of part of the clip that I have clicked on. Click the beginning of that clip and drag it until your satisfied with what you’ve gotten rid of. 

This is what it should look like while your trimming the clip. Your mouse will look like a double-ended arrow whenever you trim clips like this. 

Once you get the clip to the part where you like it, drag it back over so it’s touching the other clip. As you can see at the top, there is a blue triangle on the end of the first clip and beginning of the second. When those are connected, that means the clip will just go into the next which is what you want. Sometimes, I edit a clip that doesn’t touch another on purpose because it makes sense with the beat of a song. If you want those blue triangles to touch, make sure they are touching or else you’ll have a split second where the video is pitch black (and unfortunately, that is VERY noticeable). 

Even with the triangle gone with this added transition, it’s important to have them touch nonetheless. The way I made this happen was taking the beginning of the second clip and dragging in onto the first. It creates what you see in the picture above and shows the duration. Make sure you watch back the transition to see if you like it. If it’s going by too fast or slow for your liking, adjust it until you get results that you like. 

With this transition, it looks like this about midway. I actually like how that looks, but it may not be the transition you want. Gladly, there are many transitions you can choose from and you can experiment with those as well to see what you want to use. As simple as it may be, I use the Default Cross Effect transition ALL THE TIME. 

As you can see, the transition I made before is gone. In order to put a transition in, click the one you want, drag it, and put your mouse between the two clips (the split). When you get it between the clips, a little white and black static looking box will show up. When you see that, drop the transition in there. 

Like the effects, a box will pop up like this. Honestly, I just close these pop-ups when it comes to transitions. If you want to mess around with the settings, feel free to do so. But I just close out of this. 

Now the timeline is showing the transition! Whenever you drop in a transition from the transition folder, the default duration is always 1.00

Now, I personally didn’t have a problem with how the transition turned out at 1.00, but in the event that you want to trim down a transition, All you have to do is move your mouse over to the end of the transition. Another double-ended arrow will show up, but it will also have an arch on the side (I did my best to draw it, my apologies it doesn’t look great!). Once you have it where you want it, watch over the transition and see how it looks. 

This is how the video looks mid-transition. Again, you can use any transition you want. You just have to see if you like how it flows to the next clip. 

Another transition I love to use is Dissolve. I think it’s best used at the very beginning or end of a video. In my opinion, having a video fade in from a black screen is the most natural, so what I’m going to do is choose Fade Through Black and drag it to the beginning of the first clip. 

…again, a pop-up will happen. CLOSING THAT UP (ofc if you want to mess with it, do so!) 

As the video begins the play, the first clip slowing begins to fade in. I like how it’s fading in, but not where in the clip. Sooo I’m gonna adjust it a bit! 

I have clicked the end of the transition, dragged it slightly to the left and now I like where the transition is! The bar shows what’s currently on screen and the little line on the clip shows where the transition ends! 

Sound

If you’ve noticed, the movie has both video and audio. But unless you want the audio to stay while music is playing, there’s a simple way to get rid of it. Click on the clip where you want to remove the audio file and press the letting U on your keyboard. Now the video and audio are un-grouped. All you have to do now is click the audio and press delete. 

TADA! The audio from that clip is gone! 

Now, whatever type of edit you’re making (amv, crack edit with funny audio, etc). You’re gonna want to get your audio file in. You can do this anytime during the editing process. It actually tends to be one of the first things I do, but I wanted to show the basics on effects/transitions first. Remember at the beginning how you imported the video file in the timeline? You have to do that with your audio as well. 

You have to go back here, find your music folder (or w/e folder has the audio you’re looking for), click the file of your choosing and then click Open

The audio of your choosing will automatically go on the first timeline section for audio. Luckily, it will place itself at the end of the audio file you already have on that timeline. The problem is you don’t want the audio on the same timeline as the movie’s audio. Simple to fix though! Just click the file and drag it to the timeline below. 

Yay! Now it’s on it’s own separate section! All you have to do now is drag it so it’s under the other files. 

With the audio at the beginning of the timeline, feel free to trim it up if you feel that’s needed. You’ll get that double-ended arrow again. As you can see, audio files show when sound starts up and how it moves. The very beginning of the song I’ve chosen doesn’t start up right away, so I’ll trim it. 

Make sure you play the edit from the beginning to see if you like how everything is flowing together. (Oddly enough this is just a tutorial, and I’m satisfied with how it all is). 

If the sound happens to be too loud or too quiet, you can always change the volume by adjustng the volume slider on the side of the timeline. Make sure you adjust the one on top ONLY though. The bottom one will move where you hear the audio from (aka, if you move it to the left, you’ll only hear the audio in your left ear and to the right in your right ear). Keep that bottom slider where it is!

Text

I like using text! While it’s not something you do for every edit, it’s still nice to know. Every once in awhile, I’ll mess with Titles & Text, but I usually just use (Legacy) Text on edits. I mainly use text to add song lyrics or sometimes quotes from the movie. And when I decide to use text, I tend to pick Soft Shadow because it has a nice, simple shadow behind the letters. 

To get text on it’s own timeline, just click and drag the text of your choosing on the timeline above the video. When you import a video, the video automatically puts itself on the third timeline. You have two other timelines above it and those can be used for text! 

As always, you get a pop-up box, but this one is VERY IMPORTANT. Use that box and get the words Sample Text out of there! 

You can change the font and size of the text which is great! For this edit, I randomly chose the song Demons by Imagine Dragons, so I typed the first line of the song out to the font & size of my liking. 

If you look closely, there are four tabs you can click through when editing your text. I went from Edit to Placement to see if the text was in a good spot. For me, this looks great, but if you wanna move it around, click on the text that I circled and mess around a bit! 

Now I’m at Properties. This tab allows you to change the color of the text or the background of the video. The first section is Text Color, so if you want to change the color, change it to the color you want! Of course, I’d suggest adjusting the color so it’s visible, not too bright, and it doesn’t blend in too much with the video behind it.

Aaaaand you can trim text too! For song lyrics, it’s best to trim the text to where the last word is spoken. Same goes for quotes that characters are saying. 

And you can add transitions to text too! Text don’t have to necessarily transition at the same time as video transitions, but it’s nice to have things fade in at the same time. So, if there is text in the beginning of your video, try to have it fade in at the same time the video does. Remember; go to the transition of your choosing and drag it at the beginning of the text clip. Adjust/trim to where you want it to go. 

Adding text lyrics can be a bit strenuous, but it’s worth it once you get it to look the way you want. Video transitions are important because they should have a nice, fluid flow to the next clip and text should be treated the same. If you add another text clip next the first one, it should have a transition too (I think the first example I used for transitions works pretty well for text!) And that’s how it should look like mid-transition.

Something Extra 

 You see these little black bars? If they don’t bother you, that’s great! But sometimes, I don’t want them to be there in my edits. I didn’t think there was a way to get rid of them for YEARS, but a long time ago, I found a tutorial that showed me how to get rid of them and I’m so glad there’s a way! Luckily, I don’t think this will be a problem with the show, but if anyone wants to make a movie edit, feel free to read this part. 

Right beside the timeline, there’s this little box I have circled. Click on that! 

This will open up. Now you see that little blue circle on the top-left edge of this rectangle? You’re going to want to click the edge of that (actually, you can choose any edge of the rectangle, but I just use the top-left one). Drag the edge outwards and watch the video clip on the screen until it fills up the entire screen. 

look at that

IT’S ALL FILLED IN NOW (this makes me so much happier than it should)

Rendering

So, you’ve edited everything to the way you like it and your video is done now? Great! Let’s make sure of something real quick before you decide to render it. 

See those little yellow triangles I have circled. Yeah so if I were to render this video right now and leave those triangles where they are, everything everything between them would only end up getting rendered. THAT’S NOT GOOD. Click on the second triangle (the one at the 00:00:01:27 mark) and drag it to the end of your video! 

There! Now your entire video will be properly rendered! 

To begin your rendering process, go to Project and click Render As…

You’ll get a lot of different types of files to save it under as. You don’t want to make the mistake of rendering it as an audio file. When I make a video, I want to make sure the whole thing can end up on Tumblr. So, I use a Windows Media Video (or .wmv) file which manages to keep the finished product at a low enough number for me to upload the whole thing on here. You can choose anything within the WMV area to render it with, but the one I have highlighted is the one I use. 

don’t forget to name your file as well! 

Last, but not least, press that Render button! All you have to do now is wait for the rendering to complete and watch your video as a final product! Upload it to Tumblr, YouTube, etc and you’re done! 

And those are just the basics to know when editing a video in a Sony Vegas program! I might end up doing another one of these someday, but just in case, here are some links to some more tutorials that I have found to be very helpful! 

How to make audio echo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7264MXk_BeY How to use your green screen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKk7tJV934s&t=203s (i found the beginning to be most useful to learn how to edit out a green screen so I can overlay a clip on top of another) Phone audio effect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JixZ-IbueEs

Anyway, I hope my basic tutorial was good! I’m sorry it was so long, but those are just some basics to know if you’re interested in making videos! Hope this was helpful! :D

[dipulb3]

Three-ring binders and 14-point font: How Biden preps for a news conference

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/three-ring-binders-and-14-point-font-how-biden-preps-for-a-news-conference/

Three-ring binders and 14-point font: How Biden preps for a news conference

“What press conference?” he joked when asked Wednesday evening how he was preparing.

In reality, Biden has been getting ready for days to face the White House press corps, according to multiple people, who all conclude he recognizes the bright spotlight it will garner. Biden has talked his strategy through with several members of his inner circle and even held an informal practice session earlier this week.

The event, scheduled for early afternoon in the White House East Room, will be Biden’s most extended period of questioning since becoming president. For all his years in Washington, it’s a moment he hasn’t quite experienced for himself before; senators and vice presidents rarely hold their own solo televised news conferences.

He’s taking the step later in his presidency than his recent predecessors, who all convened formal news conferences within their first 40 days in office. The White House officially put Thursday’s event on the calendar in the middle of last week, giving reporters — and themselves — ample time to prepare.

For most of Biden’s formal events at the White House, he has spoken directly into a camera mounted with a teleprompter and read from a prepared speech. His encounters with reporters have been more ad-hoc, responding with one or two sentences when lobbed a question at the end of an event or on his way to his helicopter.

He has prepared extensively for some of those events, including his prime-time address to the nation earlier this month. He spent days line editing his remarks, ensuring he was striking the appropriate tone while using exactly the right words and phrases. Biden did not want to make a single mistake, he told others.

A news conference, however, is a different prospect. While Biden is expected to open with prepared remarks, the question-and-answer session won’t be scripted.

To help punctuate the event with agenda-driven news, Biden plans to announce a new vaccination target after reaching his initial 100 million shots goal well ahead of schedule. That fits within his desired messaging about the pandemic response.

But the remainder of the event will be dictated by reporters’ questions that are certain to veer from the White House’s preferred topic of confronting the pandemic.

To prepare for the event, aides have written sets of talking points for potential questions on a wide array of topics. White House officials expect a number of questions to arise on immigration, but have also been preparing for a number of other topics, from the state of bipartisanship to the future of the Senate filibuster to a decision on withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.

As he has before other major public appearances, Biden has taken home briefing books containing policy positions and framing for potential answers. Biden’s three-ring binders are typically organized by topic, with tabs separating the sections and the contents typed out in 14-point font. He has read them in the evenings and returned the next day with feedback for his team.

Temper?

So, too, have Biden’s advisers worked to avoid situations that would cause the President’s temper to flare, as it did a few times on the campaign trail when faced with questioning he didn’t like. Among former staffers and people who have worked closely with him, Biden’s penchant for defensiveness when challenged is well-known.

He once lashed out at a voter who questioned him about his son, Hunter, calling the 83-year-old Iowan a “damn liar.” Another time he called a younger voter in New Hampshire a “lying dog-faced pony soldier” when she asked a question about his electability.

He’s gotten into verbal spats with reporters as well when questioned about his family or, early in his administration, about his goal of administering 100 million vaccines within 100 days.

“Come on, gimme a break, man!” he said.

While advisers do not believe occasional flashes of anger are necessary a bad thing for Biden, they do not believe his news conference should be marked by open hostility in the same way President Donald Trump’s were.

Part of avoiding that is providing Biden as many potential questions as possible, aides say, in the hopes he feels prepared for whatever might come his way and not be caught off guard in a way that puts him on the defensive. How questions are phrased — which, during a presidential news conference, is often quite pointed — could also cause Biden’s temper to flare.

Asked by reporters this week how Biden was preparing, press secretary Jen Psaki joked he was “looking at your Twitters and seeing what’s on your mind.”

“He is, you know, thinking about it,” she said aboard Air Force One. “It’s an opportunity for him to speak to the American people, obviously directly through the coverage, directly through all of you. And so I think he’s thinking about what he wants to say, what he wants to convey, where he can provide updates, and, you know, looking forward to the opportunity to engage with a free press.”

Talking points

Like his predecessors, Biden has been provided succinct talking points that attempt to boil down complex issues in ways that would be easily communicated to a general audience.

That has not always been Biden’s strong suit. He sometimes meanders into the inner complexities of matters or uses confusing turns of phrase to describe a thought or idea. Since his presidential campaign last year, he has noticeably worked to curtail those kind of tangents, telling audiences that he doesn’t want to bore them.

“It’s gonna be, like, Sanskrit to people listening here,” he said when answering a question about last year’s delayed transition during an interview with ABC News last week.

“I’m going to get into trouble,” he said during a Appradab town hall in February. “I’m supposed to only talk two minutes in an answer.”

Indeed, keeping Biden succinct has been a perennial challenge of the people who work for him, and a press conference provides precisely the venue where brevity is viewed as an advantage — but where lengthy answers have befallen his predecessors.

In his recent memoir, former President Barack Obama said he “enjoyed the unscripted nature of live press conferences” but admitted to sometimes droning on about policy matters.

“I succumbed to an old pattern, giving exhaustive explanations of each facet of the issue under debate,” he wrote of a health care news conference in 2009 that became overshadowed by an answer he delivered about the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates at his home in Massachusetts.

For all presidents, news conferences present the unique challenge of facing questions that have little to do with that day’s preferred topic. Biden has taken extra pains to remain strictly on message during his first two months in office, rarely veering away from taking about his efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

News events

But events this week alone illustrate the difficulty in sticking to that message. Two mass shootings that have left 18 Americans dead, an influx of migrants on the Southern border and fresh provocation from North Korea all have little to do with the agenda priorities he has worked ardently to promote.

A news conference will only exacerbate the difficulty in remaining on message as Biden is forced to answer key questions on topics he hasn’t discussed at length since taking office.

Questioned on one such issue this week — diversity within his Cabinet, specifically focused on Asian Americans — Biden offered a flash of defensiveness.

“We have the most diverse Cabinet in history. We have a lot of Asian Americans who are in the Cabinet and sub-Cabinet level,” Biden told reporters in Ohio, before raising his hands to add, “Our Cabinet is formed.”

[segadores-y-soldados]

Personal and Fic Updates

Hey everyone!

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve done one of these personal update messages.  I’m trying to get my stuff in order but life continues to outpace me, it seems.

The quick and dirty: Fic Stuff:

Moira has been integrated into the overarching plot of “And Overwatch For All”

Because of this, I am currently rewriting major portions of Old Habits.  Yesterday, I finished a major rewrite of chapter 10 (the “evil council is introduce” chapter).  I have the majority of chapter 11′s rewrite done and hope to finish that today as well.  With luck, I will start working on a rewrite of Chapter 13.

Shockingly, I’m keeping a lot of the “present day” plot elements the same (aka, all the stuff leading up to Recall).  But several major “past events” have changed, including Reaper/Gabriel’s backstory.

More on this later.  I will also be writing a separate post JUST for fic stuff, if you prefer to read only that.

Personal Stuff:

Extra expenses have started showing up in my life.  Details are under the cut.

My job has not yet promoted me and a coworker the way they said they would in the timeframe they gave us (1 year).  Because of this, I am starting the job hunt again.

I have created a Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/U7U063ZJ)

More under the cut

Alright, so here’s the longer version of what my last like...three months have been like, with both personal/work stuff and fandom stuff.

Personal life/Work:

I have said this in a few places, but I currently work as an entry-level archaeologist for a state department in California.  Full disclosure: I and my fellow coworker are underpaid for our work, which is as variable as conducting documentation research through databases and organizing research on behalf of our higher-level archaeologist and historian supervisors to performing surveys and actual fieldwork digs in every type of weathers in California.  As an example, two weeks ago (the week of Thanksgiving here in the U.S.), myself and one of my supervisors did an 8 hour fieldwork day which consisted of 3-4 hours of surveying through waist-high grass in pouring rain at 55 degrees F/12 degrees C.  This upcoming week, I and (other underpaid) coworker will be doing two 12-hour days of construction monitoring.  Our work consists of traveling all over the state, with driving that can take a full day to get to a work destination (these are charged to work, don’t worry - I don’t have to pay for that, thank god).

The reason I’m explaining this is because this is a huge reason why some days (or even some weeks) my activity on tumblr, twitter, and AO3 will take a straight nosedive.  On Thursday of this past week, I spent 8-10 hours without checking my phone and came home to 4 missed calls, 8 “active chats” on messenger, 600 messages on discord, and basically a whole day of “social media-ing” missed out.  

If you’re rolling your eyes over this, I get it, I really do - it sounds like all the stuff that older people complain millennials “overvalue,” but (for example) one of those phone calls was from my dentist’s office saying that they will not serve me because (after three months of them NOT checking) they realized that I don’t have the right dental insurance for them.

Fun.

I don’t make enough money to switch to higher, “better services” health and dental insurance, but since I work a job that requires physical labor, I’m scared to cut them from my life.  Said coworker twisted his ankle earlier this year, and work only compensated him for 1 week of “missed” work, when in reality he was walking with a slight limp for 2-3 weeks.  Because of our low-level, we are not given access to benefits that many other state workers get.

Moreover, our sub-department has been promising that the two of us would get promoted “within the year.”  We reached a year working with them in mid-November, and that promise still hasn’t been reached.

So in terms of my personal life, I’m at a cross-roads: I will tell them that they need to promote us, even to the next “low-level position” because that will give us just a few more $/hour which will help A LOT when accumulated, or I’m going to tell them that I’ll have to search for something else.

On top of this, my parents have decided it’s time for me to “pay rent” to live at home with them - a discussion we, frankly, haven’t had on a serious level yet and one which blindsided me this morning.  I am looking into my options but without a better job, they’re not good.

This also doesn’t cover whatever it will take to help me start the legal and medical processes of transitioning, which are, frankly, the main things I’ve been saving money for.

What does this mean:

I’m looking for places to cut costs, but the combination of current expenses + what my parents want from me will take 1/3 to 1/2 of my current monthly paycheck.  I already spend next to nothing on personal stuff, so all my current expenses are “necessities” such as food, gas, and insurance.  I’m looking to cut down on gas costs but it may be awhile before my daily schedule gets adjusted.

The alternate is taking a second job that will permit me to only work my free three days a week.

Doing this means I will have zero time to write or produce content.

For now, I’m not jumping out to do that.  I’ve made a Ko-Fi account (https://ko-fi.com/U7U063ZJ) that I would greatly appreciate any spare money you’re willing to contribute.  Something as simple as a few dollars can go to me covering the cost of my health insurance per month, while I figure out the bigger problems of searching for a job.

The reason why I started with this is because:

Fic Stuff/Writing Stuff:

I do the equivalent of 3-4 full days of “writing” for fandom stuff per week: on my days off, I can write anywhere from 8 to 14 hours a day.  Using just Friday and yesterday as an example, I wrote 9k words, and with whatever I do today, I will likely push that to about 11-12k.

Yes, it is all voluntary, and I do not have to write at the pace that I do, nor the amount that I do.  I do it because I enjoy it, and because, honestly, writing for Overwatch has given me some of the biggest joys and happiness I have felt in like, a decade.  And that includes writing the long essays.  My last big R76 post (http://segadores-y-soldados.tumblr.com/post/167321630835/everything-you-want-to-know-about-reaper-and) spans a whopping 67 pages and 7.5k words in Google Docs (that includes pictures and sources/credits/links/references).

Again, this isn’t to brag, but just to put my writing into perspective, I guess.  This is the equivalent of doing a second part-time job, which was something I attempted last year but was unable to balance my current archaeology job + a part-time retail job + writing.  I dropped the second one because, at the time, I finally had the luxury to choose a job in my profession and writing on the side.  This is a luxury I was fortunate to enjoy for the first half of 2017, but it is steadily becoming undoable as my work increases my responsibilities without increasing my pay.

Fic Updates:

For those of your who have been waiting patiently for information on “And Overwatch for All” I do have some good news that I’m finally ready to share:

Moira has been integrated into the plot.

I got a number of comments here and on twitter that were really supportive of my current version of “AOFA” and I just want to say, thank you all so much.  It means a lot to me that you guys have liked the version of Overwatch I’ve built up and that you found all the characters, including my silly OCs, to be engaging and well-written.  It was soul-crushing to think I would have to lose some of them, but after some time and doing more research on Moira, I feel ready to talk more about her and how she’s going to factor into the updated plot.

To start off with:

None of the OCs will be cut, but some of their roles will change.

Lmao, this surprised me as well, but I’ve figured out a few different ways to make all of the OCs, especially the very obviously contrived “Death Agents,” stick around in the updated plot.

Only one OC (and you can probably guess who, if you’ve started “New Wars”) will change names: the character called “Reaper” in “New Wars Chapter 1″ (the “young Hanzo chapter”) will be called “Reaver.”  This is due to his updated role in the plot.  His background has changed only slightly.

If it wasn’t apparent, this “Reaper” was meant to act as a plot device to cause confusion over Gabriel/Reaper’s actions after the fall of Overwatch, but that has changed because:

I’m switching to Crisis-era and “undercover mercenary” Reaper.

If you’ve read some of my more recent posts on Moira, you’ll know that I’ve switched over to supporting the idea that “something went wrong with Gabriel Reyes during SEP/the Crisis.”  This is due to the fact that you can find a folder labeled “Soldier ID: 24″ in Moira’s Oasis lab, that Michael Chu said that Reyes was interested in getting her help on “matters of genetics,” and that this appears to mesh the “Reaper has existed for decades” concept in Reaper’s hero profile.

Truth be told, I’ve actually been a supporter of this idea of “Gabriel has been Reaper behind the scenes for decades” plot point for a long, long time, almost as long as I’ve been posting Old Habits.  “Reaper”/“Reaver” was semi-messy OC that attempted to bridge Reaper’s original hero profile with the “Old Soldiers” explanation that Gabriel/Reaper gave that “Jack and Overwatch ‘left [him] to suffer.’”  However, I also knew when writing Old Habits that the “Mercy is evil” theory was ALSO not true, so I was kinda stuck:

“If Gabriel = Reaper for decades, why did he appear to blame Jack and Overwatch for his current condition?”

My original solution was to make “Reaper” a different character and have him operating the situation in the background (like a mystery story), but over time this solution got trickier and trickier to work with.  With Moira, I have a chance to rework much of Old Habits/AOFA to better suit some of the details that have come out since drafting it.

This does mean, unfortunately, that all the “76+127″ content is going to become its own, standalone series.

To switch over to integrating “Soldier: 24,” the “76+127″ stories will have to become their own standalone series.  Don’t worry - I’m not deleting anything.  Old content from “Old Habits” will be moved to their own fics, so you can read the whole thing in chronological order.

A new version of my updated ideas on SEP has already started being drafted.  Writing it out is just a matter of time at this point, haha.

The conspiracy/Talon council “mysteries” will become more transparent almost immediately.

With Moira, I finally get the chance to explore some of my ideas in “full format” instead of the kinda awkward “Sombra hacking a chat log” parts yall originally got.  This DOES mean that written portions will suddenly be much, MUCH longer.  For example:

Old Habits original chapter 10 (Sombra hacks an SSO chat log): 17 pages

Old Habits revised chapter 10 (Moira discusses the Route 66 battle with council members + Sombra hacks a chat log): closer to 34 pages

The explosion fight has been changed.

Because of the changes to Gabriel’s plot, the nature of the explosion fight between him and Jack has changed significantly.  It does incorporate new information that Moira revealed.

If it wasn’t obvious, I’ve had a draft version of my ideas for the fight sitting in GDocs for about a year now, and I use that for all my flashback/memories, and also for when Reaper and Soldier: 76 are arguing in the present.  There was a major plot point in the explosion fight that I was extremely uncomfortable with, but found it to be “solid angst material.”  In retrospect, I dislike this plot point and have removed it for another plot point that sits better with me, and fits the overall story more comfortably (I think).

So yes, I DO have a new draft of the explosion fight - written completely from scratch, 100% different in tone and emotionality.  Parts of this should begin to show in updates to Chapter 13, when Soldier: 76/Jack reflects on some of the fight.

The Goal:

The goal for AOFA right now is to update Old Habits in “two big batches” - update the first half (Chapters 1 - 15) within 1 - 2 weeks, and then update the second half (Chapters 16 - 31) shortly after.  Optimistically, before January, but realistically, closer to late-January/early-February.

Thanks for sticking with me - both with this post, and with my life changes.  Things are incredibly and often overwhelmingly busy for me, and I don’t really know where many of these things (both personal stuff and fic stuff) will end up.  I really do appreciate any and all support, even if I’m not able to respond to comments.  You guys make it worthwhile to keep writing, and I apologize for how distant I’ve been with this stuff.

[eccacia]

wonderful you came by [part 15]

Summary: Caitlin’s a no-nonsense science major. Barry’s the quintessential charming star athlete. When they’re paired off and forced to interact in class, Caitlin’s determined to resist his charms, but Barry’s also pretty determined to get under her skin… It all boils down to a battle between head and heart, and Caitlin’s not one to give in to her heart so easily. [College AU]

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, or read on ff.net

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I don’t own The Flash. The article that Barry cites here is called “What Is Nothing?” by Fraser Cain from phys.org.

One of the most important things that Caitlin’s father had taught her was the discipline of getting rid of a bad habit. He’d taught her that it wasn’t enough to drop the habit cold turkey: if change was to be sustainable and permanent, the old habit had to be dropped and be immediately replaced by a better habit. For instance, if she wanted to stop watching TV, she couldn’t just spend the rest of the hour avoiding the TV—she had to do something else, like read the encyclopedia.

It was with this logic that Caitlin resolved to excise Barry Allen from her mental life. It did not do to merely stop thinking about him, because it was impossible to stop thinking about him by sheer willpower; so instead, she filled her day with work—with outlining and practicing for the orals, with summarizing journal articles for her thesis, with drafting the next post-lab report—which successfully crowded her mind, so that there was no room for Barry Allen at all.

She had come to this course of action the next morning, after a good night’s rest and after the alcohol had been flushed out of her system. She hadn’t been in a state of mind to think things through the night before—she was too confused and distraught, and her mind was muddled with emotion—but in the light of day, with some distance from Barry, she was finally able to evaluate the recent events with startling clarity.

It seemed that her null hypothesis regarding Barry Allen—that he did not harbor romantic feelings for her—was disproven by that kiss, as a kiss was the pinnacle of romantic feeling. But upon reevaluation of her hypothesis, she realized that a fatal error had occurred in her reasoning. She realized that it didn’t matter if her hypothesis was proven or disproven, because the underlying rationale of her investigation was faulty. It was similar to testing a hypothesis like “There is a significant positive relationship between the width of one’s hand span and the age of one’s maternal grandmother.” The numbers could indeed show that those with wider hand spans also had older maternal grandmothers, but the study itself was irrelevant. Similarly, her hypothesis assumed that it was important to be considered Barry Allen’s object of affection, which implied that romance was a worthwhile endeavor, when, in fact, it was not.

And the reason why it wasn’t worthwhile was simple: Love was temporary insanity. That was by far the most logical explanation for why she—she who was logical, clear-headed, intolerant of frivolity, unseduced by narratives of romantic love—had suddenly fallen for Barry in a span of two weeks, and why she’d found herself doing things that she would never have done, such as spending three hours on the phone, or singing onstage, or dancing with abandon in the midst of a sweaty throng, or leaning in to kiss someone that she barely knew.

In line with that, she realized that Saturday night contained all the necessary conditions to short-circuit reasoning. The context of a party simultaneously created an atmosphere of wild abandon and disabled the tools for rational thought: one is unable to see clearly when one’s vision is assaulted by the bright, blinking lights; one can hardly hear oneself think above the aggressive beat of the music; and, once inebriated, one is unable to wield logic at all.

And, during the party, when Barry had called her onstage to sing with him, she was placed in a context in which it was impossible for her to say no without dire social consequences—rather than to step off the stage, be booed by the crowd, and be labelled a killjoy, she was inclined to take the path of least resistance, which was to simply join him. Their dancing together had also been a function of context: after the sing-off, people were pulling friends and significant others onto the dance floor, and they, conforming to the crowd, had also moved to the dance floor. It was part of the script of a party to dance; it was not part of the script of a party to have a clear-headed discussion on the implications of him naming her as his partner for the sing-off.

That kiss was similarly manufactured by the demands of context. The open balcony under the starry night sky was a favorite setting of the romantic imagination, and with good reason: she suspected that standing under the vast night sky made people feel small and insignificant, and, faced with the overwhelming threat of their insignificance, they naturally gravitated to others, fiercely wanting the other to affirm their significance, wanting to be loved and known in order to save themselves from the reality that they were adrift and alone, a speck of dust on a piece of rock suspended in empty space. In fact, two of her most ill-informed decisions—deciding that she liked Barry, and leaning in to kiss him—were made under the night sky. Had they been around people in the light of day, in a sober setting like the library, such things would never have happened.

In any case, she would allow no more of this nonsense in her life. It was absurd to believe that this new self, this Caitlin-with-Barry self that had been forged in a mere two weeks, could overshadow the self she’d been for over twenty years; it then followed that the new self was a falsehood that had to be discarded, and the self she’d always been—the logical, clear-headed, impervious-to-romance self—was her true self, the self she had to maintain and protect. And, in order to do that, she had to cut Barry Allen off. It was regrettable, but it was necessary. Sometimes, to halt the progress of a disease, it wasn’t enough to scrape away the infected flesh; sometimes, it was necessary to amputate the entire limb.

She resolved to stand by her decision until his persistence waned and until he realized, as she had, that his energies were better directed elsewhere. She, for one, could focus on her career, as she had always intended, and he could focus on his transition into Forensic Science.

It was the most logical decision, and one that would benefit them both. It was, she truly believed, for the best.

Monday, 7:07 PM

Hi Caitlin, it’s me again. I don’t want to sound like a stalker or anything by spamming you with voicemail, so… just tell me to stop if you really want me to stop, okay? I swear I will. But if you won’t say anything, I’m just going to assume that your silence means, Yes, Barry, you can be as annoying as you possibly can. —Why, Caitlin, it’s my pleasure to serve up my specialty. In fact, this is your first daily dose of annoyingness, served fresh from the kissable mouth of CCU Cutie Barry Allen—ah, crap, Wally just heard me saying that. Crap. Now he’s laughing his butt off. Can you hear him? Here, I’ll move closer. He laughs like a hyena. It’s hideous. I don’t think you’ve ever met him, but I hope you will sometime… Anywaaay, uh, I called to let you know that I’m sorry, and I’m not giving up. That’s all for now. I’m going to dig myself a hole if I keep going while Wally’s listening, so call me if you want to talk, I guess. Bye.

Swipe. Delete.

. . .

Tuesday, 10:51 AM

Hi Caitlin. So, uh, welcome to day two of being annoyed by your local cutie. Heh, I can already imagine you wrinkling your brow and trying not to smile but failing not to smile, so you end up biting your lip instead, and you’d say, “Who’re the idiots that put you on the CCU Cutie list”—I’m number eight out of fifty, in case you’re wondering, not to toot my own horn—okay, fine, totally tooting it—“and don’t those idiots know that they’re just ratcheting up your insufferability index?!” Do you remember saying that, insufferability index? I know I should be insulted, but I usually end up flattered instead, knowing that you tailor your insults to me. I like to think of it as you showing your love. Although I’d still prefer compliments... ahem, ahem. Anyway, um… wow, I’ve spent half of this voicemail talking about what you might say. It’s… not as fun talking to imaginary Caitlin than it is talking to real Caitlin. So… give me a call? Or leave a message. Whenever you’re ready. Bye.

Swipe. Delete.

Tuesday, 8:23 PM

Hey, so I just got your e-mail. I’m… kind of bummed that you wanna study separately for the orals, but… if that’s what you want, I guess. Don’t worry, I’ll do my part. It’ll be harder to study without you slave-driving me, but I won’t let you down. I can’t believe I miss you slave-driving me, heh. Anyway, um… what else… Oh yeah, I’m free next Saturday for the make-up class and the STAR Labs tour. It’s so cool that we’re having our make-up class at STAR Labs. I’m almost glad he cancelled class on Monday. Dr. Wells is the best, isn’t he? …Anyway, uh, look, I know I could’ve just e-mailed you back, but… I don’t know, e-mail’s just not our thing, you know? If that makes any sense. Yeah… that’s all for now. You know the drill. See you Thursday for the orals.

Swipe. Delete.

. . .

Wednesday, 1:34 PM

Happy third-day-sary of being annoyed by me! Er, I wasn’t sure if it’s a cause for celebration, but I guess I’m feeling pretty optimistic. I mean, at least you haven’t told me to stop talking yet, right? …Anyway, awhile ago, just for kicks, I typed “Is nothing really nothing?” in Google. Not sure if you remember, but you told me the last time we talked that whatever happened between us was nothing, and nothing is nothing so it’s smart of me to pin my hopes on it. So I thought, Is nothing really nothing? and I figured it’d be fun to ask Google. Anyway, Google has this to say about nothing: “There are physicists like Lawrence Krauss that argue the ‘universe from nothing’, really means ‘the universe from a potentiality’. Which comes down to if you add all the mass and energy in the universe, all the gravitational curvature, everything… it looks like it all sums up to zero. So it is possible that the universe really did come from nothing. And if that’s the case, then ‘nothing’ is everything we see around us, and ‘everything’ is nothing.” Neat, huh? Nothing is everything. I know you super disapprove of me typing the whole question into the search bar instead of just typing the keywords, but I swear I didn’t get it from Yahoo Answers. It’s from a site called phys.org, which sounds pretty legit to me. Anyway, see you tomorrow for orals. I studied like hell for it, and you study enough for the both of us, so we should do great. I… I’m actually looking forward to it. Not the orals, but seeing you. So… see you tomorrow. Bye.

Swipe. Delete.

“Cait? Cait.”

Caitlin startled when she felt a hand on her wrist, gently lifting it from the keyboard of her laptop. She turned to see Felicity giving her a worried look.

“You’ve been pressing the spacebar,” she said.

“Oh.” Caitlin glanced at her screen. She had begun the post-lab document at page 1. She was now on page 15, and all the pages in between were blank.

“Are you okay?” Felicity ventured. “Did something happen between you and Barry?”

“No.” She highlighted the blank pages and pressed delete.

Felicity sighed. “Cait, you haven’t been talking to us since Sunday, so something obviously happened on Saturday night. Did he hurt you? Because if he did, I swear I’ll—”

“No.” She reread the paragraph she’d written so far. “We’re fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Felicity pursed her lips. “Cait, please. Talk to me. You’re overworking, you haven’t been sleeping, and you have lapses like this, when you don’t even realize that you’re spacing out.”

“I’m fine.”

“Cait—”

“Felicity! God, stop!” she snapped. “I’m fine, okay? I just, I have a lot of deadlines coming up, alright?”

Felicity recoiled.

“Okay,” she said, with barely concealed hurt. “Okay. Fine. Whatever.”

She turned away and slinked back to her desk.

Caitlin concentrated on her screen, trying to ignore the pain in her chest.

The next day Caitlin woke with a start. She blinked a few times at the light streaming in through her windows, peeled away a piece of paper that had stuck to her cheek, and shot out of her chair to get ready for the orals.

Or, rather, she stumbled out of her chair, felt around for the reviewers on her desk, and shuffled around the room to gather her other things—towel, clothes, shoes, backpack—as if blind, hitting the corners of tables and countertops as she went. Despite her astounding stamina for studying, Caitlin was not immune to the effects of sleep deprivation, and after totaling only six hours of sleep for the past three days, her mind was foggy, her eyes were dry, and her stomach (also owing to an overdose of caffeine and a diet of crackers and instant noodles) roiled with acid. She felt like either wanting to vomit or wanting to die.

But she was fine. This was fine. This was familiar. At the very least, her physical unease consumed such a significant portion of her attention that she was unable to obsessively rehearse all the worst-case scenarios in her mind, as she usually did.

She took the long route to the science and engineering complex, which ensured that she would meet less people along the way, and silently recited reagent names and reaction mechanisms as she went. Benedict’s Test. Positive results: orange to brick red. Indicates the presence of sugar. Negative results: no change in color. Indicates the absence of sugar. She paused at a vendo machine for some coffee and downed it in one gulp, grimacing when it scalded her tongue. Molisch’s Test. Positive results: purple appearing at the junction of the two layers of liquids. Indicates the presence of carbohydrates. Negative results: no purple at the junction of the liquids. Indicates the absence of carbohydrates. She took the stairs to the fourth floor, and then turned to the row of rooms that professors used for consultations and oral exams. They were usually occupied towards the end of the semester, but right now there was only one occupied room with the light on and the door ajar.

Caitlin crushed her coffee cup, tossed it into a nearby trash bin, and took a deep breath. Fifteen minutes, she told herself. She only had to endure fifteen minutes of this—and of Barry Allen—and she was free. She could do this.

When she entered the room, she immediately recognized the outline of Barry’s back, seated in front of Dr. Wells’s wide wooden desk, and Dr. Wells himself sat across him with his arms folded. They seemed to be in the middle of a conversation, but when she slipped inside, Barry turned around quickly and shot her a grin.

She ignored him. She put on her deadpan mask and hoped that it wouldn’t crack.

Dr. Wells smiled at her. “Ms. Snow, nice of you to join us,” he said, as she took a seat across him and beside Barry. “Well, since you’re both here now, why don’t we start?”

“Ready when you are, Dr. Wells,” Barry said.

Caitlin merely nodded. Her anxiety was building now; her palms were beginning to sweat and her throat felt dry. She absolutely hated oral exams and anything that resembled it—presentations, panel interviews, defenses, anything at all that required her to speak, to be judged for each word she spoke, and to witness the judgment passed on her through the facial expressions (or lack thereof) of the professor or the panel even as she was still speaking. It was an absolute nightmare. The only time when she didn’t feel that way was when she was drunk—her drunk alter ego enjoyed being the center of attention, for reasons she didn’t want to contemplate—but she couldn’t very well show up drunk during an oral exam or a panel interview. Of course, she’d gotten better at hiding her fear as she went through college, but the beginning was still the worst part.

“Alright, let’s start with something easy,” Dr. Wells said. “Ms. Snow, enumerate the tests for carbohydrates and their indicators for positive results.”

This was easy. She knew this. She’d rehearsed for it just a few moments ago, and she also distinctly remembered summarizing the tests in table format for their post-laboratory report. She remembered inputting each entry and polishing the format of the table—bolding the headings, alternating the row colors, affixing the caption—and the memory remained so vivid in her mind that she could recite the answer as if she were reading directly from that table. She had this. She had this.

But when she opened her mouth to speak, no sound came. She was paralyzed. The table was still etched in her mind’s eye, but fear constricted her throat and scrambled the words she’d intended to say. Oh God, she thought, her hands fisting in the fabric of her jeans, not now not now not now—

A second passed. Then two. When three seconds crawled by, the silence became tense, and Caitlin felt all the more the crushing pressure of having to say something, if only to fill the silence; but anxiety and humiliation collapsed her airways, bound her mouth in a steel trap. She felt like she literally could not speak.

Beside her, Barry cleared his throat.

“Mind if I go first, Dr. Wells?” he said, careful not to look at her. He continued lightly, “I’d like to volunteer to answer all the easy questions before they run out.”

Dr. Wells shifted his piercing blue gaze from her to Barry, and he leaned back against his chair with a slight smile. “I can’t guarantee you any more ‘easy questions,’ Mr. Allen, but go ahead.”

Barry grinned and launched into his answer, completely at ease as he talked—so much so, in fact, that he even made a joke while he was at it. When he finished, he pretended to bow to an imaginary audience, and Dr. Wells was shaking his head in barely disguised amusement.

He paused to write something on a sheaf of stapled papers, and then looked up at Caitlin again.

“Ms. Snow?” he said expectantly. “Ready for the next question?”

Her breath caught in her throat. No, she wasn’t. She felt like fading away from the scene. It was one of her defense mechanisms—during stress, she shut down. She disengaged. She was there-not-there. Each passing second with her fear felt like a knife-tip grating down the notched bones of her spine—

She was so caught up in her internal struggle that she startled when she felt something warm cover her hand.

What the—

Her eyes flickered down, and she saw that Barry was holding her hand.

During an oral exam.

In front of Dr. Wells.

She was so livid that she couldn’t move. What was he thinking? Scratch that—was he even thinking? She was going to kill him—

But, no, wait—he wasn’t really holding her hand, per se—he was only running his fingers over her clenched fists, cautiously coaxing them to open. She hadn’t realized she’d been clenching them so tightly that the muscles were strained from the tension. When she finally unclenched them, he quickly withdrew his hand, and continued rambling to Dr. Wells—he’d been managing a conversation this whole time—as if nothing had happened.  

She blinked and took a slow, deep breath. She felt like she was coming out of her stupor, as if unclenching her fists had also uncoiled the anxiety that had gripped her body.

“Mr. Allen,” she dimly registered Dr. Wells saying, “most people answer after they’ve been asked a question, not before.”

“Just wanna show off how much I studied,” Barry said, grinning.

Dr. Wells shook his head and turned to her. “I have to apologize for pairing you off with him, Ms. Snow.”

“Hey! I resent that,” Barry protested. “I’m a pretty decent lab partner.”

“Perhaps ‘highly distractible’ is more appropriate.”

“But I can’t help it, Dr. Wells,” he said. “It’s just how I am. I get really excited about anything science.”

“Ah, Mr. Allen,” Dr. Wells said, his eyes shifting briefly to her, “I don’t think science is the only thing you get excited about.”

Oh my God, does he mean—she didn’t even want to continue that train of thought, but when she saw that Barry, for once, had been struck speechless, she supposed the implication was clear. Oh, God. This was embarrassing. Had he seen Barry reach for her hand? But it was a wide, high desk—he couldn’t have seen it—and Barry had been so discreet that she hadn’t even seen him move—

“Dr. Wells,” she blurted out, just to end the humiliation, “I believe it’s my turn…”

“So it is.” His usually stern features softened into a reassuring look. “Don’t be nervous, Ms. Snow. This isn’t so different from reciting in class or conversing with the panel in open forums.”

Caitlin swallowed and nodded.

“Ms. Snow, can you tell me why Molisch’s test for carbohydrates yields a purple color? An explanation of the reaction mechanism will do.”

She took a discreet breath. She could do this. From the corner of her eye she could see Barry glancing at her out of concern, no doubt readying another excuse to answer for her if she blanked out, and somehow the thought that he had her back quelled the anxiety rising in her throat.

“Molisch’s test determines the presence of carbohydrates by dehydrating them in the presence of sulfuric acid,” she began. She spoke with some hesitance at first, but as she continued speaking, her confidence rose, and she forgot her fear.

When she finished, there was a faint smile on Dr. Wells’s face.

“Good,” he said. “Very thoroughly explained. Now, Mr. Allen, the third question…”

While he briefly consulted his notes, Barry turned to her and smiled with a mixture of pride and relief, but she quickly turned away. She turned away because guilt had crept into the void that anxiety had carved, and this guilt—the origin of which she could not yet name—made her unable to look at him for the rest of the exam.

. . .

The rest of the orals was a breeze. Caitlin told herself that she could have gotten over her fear without Barry’s help—she’d always managed (to her own surprise) to pull through those first few minutes—but there was another part of her that said that wasn’t exactly true. When before, anxiety seized her afresh each time a new question was asked, this time, right after that first question, she felt like she’d entered a state of flow, like the question-answer sequences had already been programmed in her mind and all she had to do was to produce the answer when prompted by the question. That thoughtful gesture of his had played no small part in helping her get over her fear.

She felt, then, that the situation obliged her to thank him—if not the situation, then common courtesy, at the very least, required her to reciprocate his act of kindness with gratitude. Yet, when he’d beamed at her after they’d stepped out of the room, she’d brushed past him as if he didn’t exist; and to add insult to injury, she’d even kept her eyes trained on a spot in the distance to avoid seeing the naked hurt on his face.

Caitlin knew, objectively, that a curt “thank you” would have been no big deal in any other scenario. But this scenario was not any other scenario, and in this case a “thank you” wouldn’t be a mere expression of gratitude: a “thank you” would also be the first crack in her silence, and if she allowed that crack, she would render herself helpless against his efforts to worm his way back into her affections. A “thank you” in this case was also thus an implicit “I’m sorry for ignoring you” and “I want to talk to you again”—both of which she could not allow herself to say, because if her campaign to dissuade Barry from ever speaking to her again her was to be successful, she could allow no exceptions.

But driving him away with silence wasn’t without its consequences—she felt guilty for repaying his kindness so coldly. Normally, one could assuage one’s guilt by approaching the wronged party to make amends, but she already established that she could not approach him, so she felt doubly worse—from being unable to thank him, and from being unable to apologize to him for not thanking him.

With this guilt, too, came shame at the person she had to be in order to reject him so completely. She’d been afraid of the person she was becoming when she was with him, but now she was appalled at who she was becoming in order to drive him away. It seemed that Barry’s kindness only magnified her heartlessness; his gentle persistence, her haste in cutting him off; his unwavering thoughtfulness, her ruthless excision of him from her mental life.

She sighed. Why did he have to be so nice, anyway? She would have welcomed his anger and his resentment, because those would have made sense; but instead he was kind, and she was completely disarmed by his kindness. It was a sincere, pure-hearted kindness at that, without any undercurrent of manipulating her into guilt. But then again, that wasn’t Barry’s style, and come to think of it, she couldn’t imagine him angry and resentful… If she were to become the cause such ugly, blistering emotions in someone as good-natured as he, she was going to feel like a monster.

The least she could hope for, she thought as she settled down in her next class, was for him to give up soon. That way she didn’t have to keep hurting him—or rather, she didn’t have to keep hurting them both.

. . .

Still, that night, as she lay alone in her dark room—Felicity had been avoiding her for the past few days, and she knew she deserved it but she was yet too ashamed to apologize—she placed her phone on her pillow, beside her head. As usual, he’d left a voicemail, half an hour after the orals.

She allowed it to play.

Hey. Are you okay? I knew you told me you didn’t like orals, but I didn’t know you were that terrified of them. I hope you’re okay now. Sorry for holding your hand, I know you’re still iffy with the whole touch thing, but I didn’t know how else to comfort you. I’m really glad you got over it, though. Actually, everything turned out great in the end, don’t you think? We made quite the pair, with me slaying all the easy questions and you slaying all the hard ones, heh. Well, anyway, that’s all for now, I have to meet up with Coach. He’s been really hard on all of us lately since tomorrow’s the finals. It’ll be great if you could come watch, or even if you could drop by to say hi. I really miss you. Call me or message me or something, you know the drill. Bye.

His voice dissolved into the silence.

Caitlin swiped left, and her finger hovered above the bright red Delete button. But, right before she pressed it, the memory of his hand over hers during the orals flitted through her mind, and she shut her eyes and took a shaky breath.

She was just… so tired of this. She was so tired of resisting him, of constructing all these elaborate denials and rationalizations and justifications. She knew that there were to be absolutely no exceptions, but…

She drew her phone close.

She played the voicemail again.

Hey. Are you okay? I knew you told me you didn’t like orals, but I didn’t know you were that terrified of them. I hope you’re okay now…

He lost by 0.91 seconds.

To make up for her momentary lapse in resolve the night before, she’d adamantly avoided his meet, but she might as well have been there with the way she obsessively refreshed her Twitter feed; and, when she saw the headline “KCU’s Hunter Zolomon Bags First Place, Dethrones CCU’s Reigning Champ Barry Allen” an hour or so after the meet, she could hardly believe it.

He lost, she repeated, the thought sinking in. She could only imagine what he was feeling right now. He’d told her, during one of their phone calls, that he wanted to finish this season strong before quitting. “My heart’s not in it anymore,” he’d said, “but my ego is. Does that make sense? I mean, everyone was so proud of me when I won my first national meet. It was unbelievable. My mom and dad couldn’t stop telling their friends about it. For the first time in decades the track team finally got support from the school. Stores wanted to sponsor us. People were flocking to our meets. My teammates were so psyched, and Coach hadn’t smiled so much since his wife gave birth. It was… a pretty great feeling, I guess.” “You just like the attention,” she’d said, and he’d laughed. “Not denying that. But it’s really nice, you know, having started all that, making people proud. It makes me feel like I matter.”

But, she wondered now, if winning made him feel like he mattered, what did losing make him feel?

Disturbed by her own question, she put her phone aside and stared at the articles open on her laptop, willing her focus to return, but she couldn’t bring herself to get back to work. Guilt nagged at her conscience even more insistently now. He’d held her hand when she’d frozen up in fear during the orals, and now that he was the one who needed comfort, she was refusing to be there for him.

She knew that she couldn’t afford to make any more exceptions, but…

She dug the heels of her hand into her eyes and sighed in frustration. Sure, she could ignore a happy, cheery Barry, the Barry who sent her all those chipper voicemails, but can she really just ignore a sad, hurting Barry…?

The thought of him like that had her rising from her desk. Vaguely, she cursed herself for making that first exception last night, because now she’d set herself on the slippery slope of exception-making; but that sentiment wasn’t strong enough to stop her from heading out her door. She didn’t even think to message him to ask him where he was—it seemed her feet moved on their own accord, following the invisible trail that led to him. She knew, without knowing how she knew, where he was going to be.

. . .

She did find him there, at the Observatory.

It was sunset, like the last time they were here, and the soft light cast a warm glow on his skin. He was sitting on the ground, leaning back on his hands, silent and unmoving as a statue.

She watched him from a distance. She watched the wind tug at his hair, watched him turn his face to the dying sun and stare blankly at the smattering of stores, at the specks of people moving mutely below.

Minutes passed. Still, she remained behind a copse of trees, standing on a patch of flat ground in the midst of gnarled roots, too afraid to approach. She didn’t know what to say. She’d never been good with words, and she’d never been good at filling silences, and she didn’t know what to offer as solace. Should she begin with the bland reassurance, as most people did, that everything was going to be okay? Should she ask him how he was feeling? Should she make him laugh, offer him a hug…?

Lost as she was in her thoughts, she only dimly registered the crunch of leaves underfoot. Barry looked to his right, and, more out of instinct than curiosity, she mimicked his movement and turned to look.

At first, Caitlin couldn’t make out the person’s features, as her profile was cast against the light; but as she neared, she caught sight of a head of blond hair and a flash of straight, white teeth.

“Hey,” she said. “Thought you’d be here.”

“Patty, hey,” Barry said, and Caitlin’s world stilled.

Patty. Patty, the girl with the dimpled smile who went to all his meets, the one everyone believed he was with. How did Patty know that he’d be here? Had he brought her here, too? But how could he bring her here? Wasn’t the Observatory their place—?

Wait—why did she even think of the Observatory as theirs? In the first place, there was no ‘they’ to speak of; they weren’t even together! And wasn’t this place Barry’s safe haven? Since he was the one who’d discovered it, didn’t he have the right to share it with whomever he chose?

Caitlin took a deep breath, trying to stamp down the unfamiliar burn of jealousy in her chest.

“Can I sit here?” Patty said.

He shrugged. “Sure.”

Patty folded into a sitting position, the movement supple and fluid. “So, how’re you feeling?”

The question echoed numbly in Caitlin’s mind. It was the same question she’d thought of asking him when she’d first seen the headline, the question she would have asked him had she approached him first.

“Pretty bummed, I guess,” Barry said after a lengthy pause. He exhaled. “I knew I was going to quit anyway, but I didn’t know how badly I wanted to quit a winner… Does that make sense?”

Caitlin swallowed the rising bitterness in her throat. Does that make sense—he’d always asked her that whenever he shared something serious and personal about himself, and it had always seemed an intimate phrase to Caitlin: in that question he was allowing himself to be vulnerable, to lay bare his need to be wholly understood. It had never occurred to her that he also used it while speaking to other people.

While speaking to Patty.

She felt doubly betrayed—Patty also knew about this place, and she was also privy to this more vulnerable side of him, as she was—but what, exactly, had been betrayed? Why was she the one who felt betrayed, when she’d cut him off first?

Patty nodded and touched his shoulder. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

Her eyes lingered on that touch. Another small intimacy.

Her fingers curled and scraped the bark of the tree, and she had the sudden, violent urge to tear it apart—and then she caught herself in horror. What was jealousy turning her into? She did not recognize herself in these feelings, these thoughts; jealousy was making her illogical, melodramatic, and it was extremely unlike her.

She closed her eyes and willed herself to calm down, and when she did she continued to watch them. She knew she shouldn’t be eavesdropping on this conversation—the second time it was happening, it seemed—but she found herself unable to leave. She just… had to know. She had to know what everyone else saw in them. She would leave, of course, when things became too private, and while she didn’t want to imagine how private things could get, a part of her also wanted to see whatever intimacy might unfold between them. It would hurt, of course, but at least the hurt would be allayed by the grim triumph of knowing that if he had such intimate moments with Patty, then he didn’t really like her, which rendered her decision to cut him off all the more justified.

“But you know,” Patty was saying, “I don’t think people will remember you as the guy who broke CCU’s winning streak. They’ll remember you for putting CCU on the map.”

He scoffed, but Patty insisted, “No, really. We’ve never been known for sports, but since you joined the track team, everyone’s suddenly crazy about track. School spirit’s the strongest during your meets. That’s really something to be proud of, you know?”

“…I guess.”

“Hey, cheer up,” she said, bumping shoulders with him. “Look, I’m not supposed to tell you this, but the whole block’s waiting for you at Jitters. We’re throwing you a party, and it’d be nice if you could show up, being the guest of honor and all.”

“I don’t know,” he said, reluctant. “I’m not really hungry.”

“No way. Is that really you, Mr. ‘I Never Say No to Food’ Allen?”

He cracked a smile, and she continued, “Come on. You can have a whole tray of lasagna to yourself.”

He was grinning now. “Are you bribing me to attend my own party, Spivot?”

“Bribing? Who said we were paying for your lasagna?”

He laughed, and Patty smiled and stood, mockingly offering him a hand after she did.

Caitlin felt faint. She couldn’t bear to watch this. It had been a mistake to assume that she would only be hurt by a dramatic show of intimacy, because watching them during those few ordinary moments hurt like hell, too. They just made so much sense together—they had the same sunny good-naturedness, and they carried themselves with the same ease around people. She could never be like that. She couldn’t have comforted him the way Patty had, and it would never have occurred to her that, for someone who loved people as much as he did, he would have been cheered by a party, by being with good friends…

She whirled around, hurt and confused and keen to leave; but she’d forgotten she was standing on the only patch of flat ground in the middle of thick, gnarled roots, so when her toe snagged under one, she tripped and fell with a barely contained yelp.

Barry and Patty fell silent.

“What was that?” Patty said.

“Don’t know,” Barry said. “Must’ve been the wind…”

Caitlin winced, hoping they wouldn’t see her. Great. Just great. Why did she have to be cursed with such terrible bodily coordination? And what was it with this bleeding tree root? Couldn’t it have at least allowed her to walk away with dignity? She knew it was wrong to take her frustration out on it, but she viciously tore it away from her foot anyway.

“No, really, I think there’s someone—”

Caitlin froze at how close their voices suddenly were. Shit, now she couldn’t move until they passed by. It was getting dark—she had that on her side, at least—and she just hoped to God that they wouldn’t look too closely between the trees.

“Nah,” Barry said, turning to face Patty, “no one else really knows about this pla—”

And then he froze, his gaze landing right on her.

Oh shit.

He quickly placed his hands on Patty’s shoulders, steering her so that her back was turned to Caitlin, and said, “Look, why don’t you go ahead to Jitters?”

“What? Why?” Patty said.

Caitlin quickly got to her feet—wincing slightly when she put weight on the foot that had caught in the root—and turned to the opposite direction. He’d already seen her, anyway, so it was best to get the hell out while he was still talking to Patty.

“…need a little more time alone before I face everyone…” he was saying, his voice growing faint. She moved as quietly as she could, like she did when she first made her way up, and she was thankful for the night breeze that rustled the leaves and disguised the sound of her footsteps.

She glanced back to assess her progress. She saw Patty heading down the more well-worn path, and Barry… heading right towards her.

She cursed inwardly, unable to believe her terrible luck. She had the urge to break into a run, but it was already dark and she didn’t want to trip again… And besides, if she broke into a run, he would, too, and he could catch up to her in no time.

Damn it. She was trapped.

“Cait,” he said, his voice a lot nearer now, “wait, don’t go—”

She exhaled and turned to face him. A maelstrom of emotions roiled inside her, more violently now that she’d come face to face with its cause; but she held them under tight rein, and she willed her face into a blank mask.

He slowed when she turned, looking windswept and bewildered. “It really is you,” he murmured. “What’re you doing here?”

For a brief moment, she considered telling a lie, but she knew how easily he would see through it; there was simply no other believable excuse for her being here. She had no choice, then, but to tell the truth, and an irrational resentment welled inside her at this choicelessness, one that flattened her tone and blunted her words.

“I saw the tweets,” she said. “I’m sorry you lost.”

“Oh,” he said. “Uh… thanks.”

“Look, I have to go—”

“What time did you get here?” he said. They had spoken at the same time, but he chose to ignore what she just said, looking determined to steer the conversation. “How long have you been standing there?”

Caitlin’s face burned with humiliation. So he’d realized that she was eavesdropping. Another lie waited on the tip of her tongue—Just now, actually—but she couldn’t bring herself to say it, not when he was looking at her like that. “Long enough,” she said. And then, before she could stop it: “I overheard some parts of your conversation. I’m sorry.”

She thought he would have been mad, or at the very least annoyed, but instead he softened and took a cautious step towards her.

“I never brought her here,” he said.

Her breath caught in her throat; the maelstrom inside her surged, strained from the leash of her composure. He wasn’t supposed to say that. He was supposed to be annoyed or angry; he was supposed to throw his hands up in frustration; he was supposed to give up and walk away. Those reactions she could deal with, could categorize. But this? This was leading her into unknown territory, and she was afraid that if she stepped into it, she would find no solid ground beneath.

He continued, “I did mention it to her, because she once asked what my favorite place in campus was, but I never—”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, willing her voice to remain even. “You’re free to bring whomever you want.”

“I know,” he said softly. “That’s why I brought you.”

The leash snapped. A flood of emotions assaulted her—first relief and hope, so strong that she wanted to move towards him, touch him, hold him and be held by him; but, only moments later, panic overpowered that—panic that she was no longer in control of the situation, that she was no longer in control of even herself; panic that she was standing on the precipice, on the verge of hurtling into something she would later regret. She could not allow herself this, she could not allow any emotional excess; she should not feel, else she could not think.

“Look,” she told him, gathering the remaining threads of her frayed resolve, “it was a mistake for me to come—”

“No, Cait, don’t do that—don’t shut me out again.” He sidestepped just as she turned away, so that she came face-to-face with him again, but she stubbornly refused to meet his gaze. “Please, can we talk?”

“We just did.”

“You know what I mean.”

“And you already know what I have to say,” she gritted out. “I’ve already said everything that needs to be said.”

“Then,” he said, “why are you here?”

Her airways constricted. Even if he’d said it so gently, she felt like she’d been disarmed and trapped. Because that was the real question, wasn’t it? Why, after all her efforts to push him away, did she still seek him out? Why did the idea of him hurting sadden her? Why was she so compelled to cheer him up, to be there for him? She knew she’d had an answer to that, one that contained unthreatening truths, but she couldn’t summon it to mind now. Instead the answer that flashed into her mind—that flashed and then branded itself there, so searing that she couldn’t unthink it—was the truth she was too afraid to face, let alone say aloud.

So instead she lashed out.

“I don’t know, okay?” she snapped. “I. Don’t. Know. I feel like I’m always fumbling around in the dark when it comes to you—I don’t have answers ninety percent of the time, and the ten percent of answers I do have, I’m not completely convinced of. So, please. Don’t. Ask.”

His gaze softened, and he drew closer to her, but she remained rigid, her spine cast in steel. “Is that so bad?” he said. “Not having all the answers?”

“Of course it is,” she said vehemently. “Nothing is ever complicated for you, so of course you wouldn’t understand—”

“I wouldn’t understand?” he said, incredulous. “Cait, I don’t have all the answers either, but you don’t see me running away—”

“I’m not running away,” she said, hands balling into fists, “I’m solving the problem once and for all!”

“How?” he said, raking his hair in frustration. “By completely ignoring me?”

“Yes!” she seethed. “But you don’t seem to be taking the hint—”

“No, you’re right, that part I don’t understand,” he said, his voice rising, his features contorting in confusion and anguish. “Tell me, Cait, what exactly does that solve?”

She opened her mouth, but suddenly all words fled her, withered under the fire in his eyes.

“Well? Enlighten me,” he said, the word twisting his mouth in bitter irony, and it was such an unfamiliar expression on him that her gut wrenched in horror. Had she really been the one to put that expression on his face? She thought she’d be able to handle his anger, but it seemed that it only weighed her down with the guilt of being its cause. But couldn’t dwell on that now—not when she had to take control of the situation, not when she had a fight to win. “Maybe then we can be on the same page.”

“I’d be wasting my breath,” she said tightly. “You wouldn’t understand.”

He stared at her in disbelief. “Then make me,” he said, his voice strained. “Make me understand your problem, Cait! I’m not a mind-reader!”

“My problem?” she bristled at the accusation in his tone; the blood rushed to her face, and the confusion, jealousy, and barely-leashed longing that she’d bottled and sealed finally burst and boiled over. “My problem is you! My problem is that you came along and threw my entire life off-course!” All rationality had fled her now, and she was running on the adrenaline of her anger. “Like I said, you wouldn’t understand. You’ve had crushes and girlfriends since middle school. I haven’t. It’s just not who I am. And I was perfectly fine with that.” Barry looked as if he were about to interject, but she couldn’t stop talking; the words rushed out of her in a raging torrent. “Actually, I was grateful for it, because it meant my work would never suffer from the unnecessary angst of romantic entanglements. My life was uncomplicated. All my efforts revolved around school and internships and scholarship programs, anything that could bring me closer to becoming a bioengineer. And for the most part, I was in control of everything in that world.”

She took a shaky breath. “But then you come along,” she accused with renewed vehemence, “and suddenly I’m not in control of anything. Everything’s incomprehensible. Every time you talk to me, it’s like you’re speaking in code. Every time a conundrum is solved, ten new ones appear.” The words burned like acid on her tongue. “My own feelings are incomprehensible to me. I’ve always been able to analyze them to death, but this time, the more I analyze, the more confused I get, and the stronger they become.”

His lips parted in surprise. “What do you—”

“So, Barry, tell me,” she said bitterly, her throat closing. “Tell me, how is it possible that in a span of two weeks, I’ve gone from being single-mindedly focused on building a career in bioengineering, to thinking of you every single moment of the day? How is it possible that I’ve gone from not being attracted to anyone, to liking you so much that I feel I’m going out of my mind?”

He stared at her, stunned.

The instant that last sentence fell from her lips, the invigorating haze of her anger cleared and left in its wake a cold dread that coiled in her stomach. Fuck, what did she just say? And why the hell did she have to go out and say it? She felt like she had just torn down her own defenses, and now she was standing in front of him, stripped of all her armor. Fuck, she hated this. She hated feeling so vulnerable.

“You like me,” he said in disbelief. And then, his lips stretched into a slow smile. “You like me.”

“Oh my God,” she breathed, wanting nothing more than to find a hole in the ground to bury her head in. If she could, she would have already raced back in time to take back everything she said, but instead she had to suffer the humiliating crush of the present. “That’s not the point—”

“No, Cait, I think that’s exactly the point,” he said. “Everything else is beside it.”

“You can’t call everything I’ve just said beside the point—”

“Okay, okay, you’re right, they’re not,” he quickly amended, holding both hands out in surrender to appease her. “What I meant was, can we start from this point?” He took a step closer, his eyes luminescent with hope. “Can we start from the fact that we both like each other and then figure out what happens from here?”

“I’ll tell you what happens from here,” she said through gritted teeth, trying to hold on to the last shreds of control that had so rapidly slipped from her hands. “We’ll go out on a few dates. You’ll find out that we’re not suited for each other. I’m too serious and uptight, and you’re too sunny and carefree. Everything that occurred over the past two weeks was exciting because of the novelty, but once the novelty wears off you’ll lose interest—”

“I’ll lose interest?” he said, drawing back in hurt. “Do you really think so little of me?”

“—and you’ll move on to someone else more suited to your personality.”

There was a beat of silence, and then comprehension dawned on his features.

“Like Patty, you mean?” he said.

“I’m not implying—”

His tone turned teasing. “Is that jealousy I’m hearing, Caitlin?”

She glared at him. “I’m just making a realistic assessment of the situation,” she said.

“Well, let me give you my realistic assessment of the situation,” he said. He was looking at her now with such tenderness that the steel in her spine had begun to melt; and before she could move away, he took her hands in his, just like he had during the orals; and he ran his fingers over hers, his touch warm and light and reassuring.

That was it, she was a goner. The last drop of resistance drained from her body. Deep down she knew that she had already lost—and she knew, even deeper down, that just maybe, she was glad to lose.

He slowly threaded his fingers through hers, his eyes trained on her, bright in the moonlight. “You have nothing to be jealous about,” he said, bringing up her hand and pressing a quick kiss onto her knuckles. The gesture struck her as so sweet and innocent that, even if she still had half her mind about her, she didn’t protest or pull away. He tugged on their joined hands to pull her even closer, and again she let him. She would never admit it to him—she would hardly even admit it to herself—but she was relieved to be so close to him again, after trying so hard to push him away.

His lips now ghosted the shell of her ear. “No one,” he said, with quiet resolution, “comes close to you.” He leaned his forehead against hers, and he was gazing at her through half-lidded eyes; his breath was warm on her skin, and it seemed that her world had narrowed to just him, in this moment, in the moonlit forest. “Look, I don’t have all the answers either,” he said softly. “Two weeks is a crazy-short amount time, but I’m already so in love with you I can barely breathe. I can’t explain it; all I know is that it is.”

A blush crept up her face. Her eyes fluttered close, and she swallowed, unable to speak; an unfamiliar happiness thrummed through her body, about to burst from her skin. She had never been schmaltzy or sentimental, but right now, she supposed she could make this exception for him.

“We don’t have to think about what’ll happen to us in a few months, or even after a few dates,” he said. “We can take it one day at a time, one moment at a time. At whatever pace you’d like.”

A few dates… She bit her lip, feeling her old apprehension return. There was a reason she avoided him so assiduously, and she’d disguised that reason in so many other layers of peripheral truths that she’d almost lost sight of it; but now that he’d brought it up, it emerged from the debris of her logic, demanding to be noticed.

Caitlin took a deep breath. If anything was to happen between them, she had to tell him this.

“I think—”

“Oh, that can’t be good,” he teased.

She wrinkled her nose at him and continued slowly, “I think I need some time alone to let this all sink in. No, wait, let me finish.” She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze to ease his alarm. “Barry, I’m terrified. That was the problem—I’m completely terrified of this. Of going out with you and being with you.” She swallowed. “I was avoiding you because I like you enough to know you could hurt me, and I don’t want to get hurt. I figured that if I cut you off first, you wouldn’t be able to hurt me.”

His expression mellowed. “I wish I could say something like ‘I’ll never hurt you,’” he said, “but that’d be a lie. I think the more you let someone in, the more power you give them to hurt you. So I get what you’re saying.” His grip on her hand tightened. “But I think it’ll all be worth it in the end.”

“You don’t know that,” she said.

“But we never know anything for sure, anyway,” he said. “Even the most thoroughly researched predictions turn out wrong, and even the most improbable events come to happen, against all odds.” He flashed her a boyish smile. “As for me, I’m willing to take a chance on this”—he gestured between them—“improbable event.”

She shook her head and huffed a laugh. “For once, I don’t think I can argue with that logic.” He beamed, but she continued, “But I still need to let this all sink in. I just came to terms with everything, and it’s still extremely confusing…”

“Okay,” he said softly. “Okay. I understand. But promise me you won’t shut me out again,” he pleaded. “I don’t think I can bear any more of that. And besides, I’m running out of ideas for voicemails…”

She smiled, amused. “Alright,” she said. “I promise I won’t.”

“So… when’ll you talk to me again?” he grinned.

She pursed her lips. “Maybe after a week?”

“A week?!” he said, and then he cleared his throat and amended, “I mean, alright, sure, a week. I think I can do a week.”

She rolled her eyes fondly. “Thank you,” she said, and, on impulse, she tilted her head to press a kiss on his jaw.

He looked surprised, but he recovered quickly with a mischievous smile. “Can I have more of those to get me through the week?” he said. “Like, one for each day—”

“Don’t push your luck,” she said, and he laughed.

“I’m kidding,” he said. “Really, take your time. Just, you know, not too much time. Okay, to be honest, I can’t wait for next week to come…”

“You really have no patience, do you?”

“Absolutely none,” he chirped. “But when it comes to you, I guess I have a little bit more than my baseline patience.”

“How romantic,” she said dryly, and he grinned.

“Now that I have a ton of,” he said.

“Well, I don’t have a romantic bone in my body,” she said, with a teasing smile, “but when it comes to you, I guess I have a bit more than a scaphoid to spare.”

He laughed. “I’ll take it,” he said, brushing his lips on the inside of her wrist, right where her scaphoid was. When he looked up at her again, his eyes were shining with mirth. “We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?”

“Yes we are,” she said quietly. “We definitely are.”

They fell into a comfortable silence, surrounded by the soft rustling of leaves, the glow of streetlamps along the well-worn path, and the smell of the earth.

After a few moments, Caitlin ventured to speak.

“By the way, how’re you feeling?” she asked. “After that meet…”

“Oh… I’m still upset about it,” he said. “But it was partly my fault—Hunter was a new contender so I might’ve underestimated him—but you win some, you lose some, I guess.” He pulled away briefly to give her a pout. “I’m really hurt you didn’t come, though.”

“You’ll get over it,” she said dryly.

“The least you could do is kiss the hurt better,” he said, and she swatted his arm. “Ow, ow—fine, fine, I’ll stop soliciting kisses… But can I at least have a hug?”

He grinned, and she sighed.

“Fine. One second.”

“…Are you seriously giving me a hug time limit?”

“No such thing as free lunch, as they say.”

“But hugs are supposed to be free!”

“Not in my currency,” she returned.

“Well, how about two seconds?” he wheedled, giving her the smile that she couldn’t resist. “I mean, I was second place and all…”

She pretended to consider it. “I suppose that’s fair.”

“Yesss!” he cheered, disentangling his hands from hers to spread his arms open for the hug, but she pushed him back lightly at the shoulders.

“Wait, don’t you have a party to go to?”

“A par—oh, that. That can wait,” he said. “Not fair. You’re doing that on purpose.”

She tilted her head to the side innocently. “Doing what on purpose?”

“Cait, seriously, this is the worst time to make me wait,” he said, petulant. “I would really like to avail of my hug now, please.”

She smiled. Oh, she missed him. She really missed him. “Well, since you asked so nicely…”

She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he quickly pulled her flush against him, his arms strong around her waist. He let out a contented sigh and buried his face in the crook of her neck, and she closed her eyes and melted into his embrace.

They stayed like that for far longer than two seconds, but neither of them were counting.

[drvcxrys]

(¸.• ♛ → "as much as i can." she repeated as well with a small smile now looking at the other one. "this is not really my scene but i was just trying something new here."

Charles was sort of on the sidelines watching people having fun and it did make him smile even if he couldn't join in. "Jean." It had been a little while since he's seen her. "As much as I can. Yourself?"