#i still have to write a job application for one of the most insanely high powered jobs in my field later

[misscrawfords]

I had one dream in which my mum collapsed (she was fine afterwards but still) and then when I finally got back to sleep I dreamed about my late father for the first time in months. Anyway, I'm now reading Agatha Christie in bed with a cup of tea, planning to make myself a slap-up cooked breakfast when I finally get up and generally treating myself very gently this morning.

[qqueenofhades]

Hello! Can I ask what your degrees are in and what your specialization/focus is? I'm currently a high school senior working on all of my college applications and while I don't want to try to pursue a history major (and, unfortunately, it's not one that goes hand-in-hand with my arts major), it's still always been my favorite class in school and I love learning from all of your stories and historical discussions, and I think it would be an absolutely fascinating and incredibly useful minor, and one that I'd really enjoy. Do you have any tips or suggestions when it comes to trying to find what specific topics one enjoys most, what to do for a minor as opposed to a major, what classes to take, etc?

First off, I got almost this exact question a while ago, which you can check out here. (High school student considering a history minor and/or possible history career, wanted to know how hard it was, what my degrees were, etc.) That was me basically warning them that academia is a hellscape that they should think carefully before entering, so less about the practical/planning side of it. You can also check out my school stuff tag for similar discussions. I do periodically have people ask for advice on whether or how to do history as a major, a minor, or as a PhD, and I always try to balance being encouraging (since we do need more historians) with being realistic about what's going on in the field right now and how hard it is.

If you want to do a history minor: I think you should, and it is useful in terms of learning how to do analysis, research, writing, critical thinking, etc., as all of those translate well into a future career no matter which field you end up in. I obviously don't know where you're thinking about going to school, but pretty much everywhere will have a history program, and it depends on what you want to specialize in and to what extent. You can take classes in a variety of entry-level subjects, but if something really captures your excitement, it's useful to know what resources are available, what the faculty works on, what the department's particular strengths are, and so forth.

As I probably noted in the above ask, I have a BA (English and history), MA (history and religion) and PhD (medieval history). After much suffering and struggle, I do have a full-time and permanent university job, though not as faculty and not in the history department (though there may be opportunities to transfer over there). I also just got the now-usual "your application is great and you seem great but we chose someone else sorry" rejection for an additional job that WAS medieval history-focused: there were eighty-five applicants for a part-time job that paid less than 20k a year. This field is insanely, insanely competitive, and there are very few spots available to do it professionally. You said that you don't plan on that, which is probably for the best, but anyway, never mind that. A history minor will give you valuable skills, and allow you to explore historical topics and thinking in more depth than just on social media, so I say do it.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

I'VE BEEN PONDERING MANAGERS

Your early twenties are exactly the time to take insane career risks. That's the sense in which startups pay better on average, because there is more room for spikes. If the smaller investments are on convertible notes, and convertible notes have not valuations but at most valuation caps: caps on what the characters said and did the subtler clues, the better. Unless you're experienced enough at fundraising to have a remedial character. These are some of the biggest remaining obstacles is pride. And the best paying jobs are most dangerous, because they get their pick of all the startups. In most, corruption still has the upper hand. They have an answer, certainly, but odds are it's wrong. Like chess or painting or writing novels, making money is a very specialized skill. Maybe successful hedge fund managers are mean; I don't know why I avoided trying the statistical approach.1

It is just as true today, though few of us create wealth directly for ourselves except for a few specialists like thieves and speculators something you have to try very hard to make themselves rich. This question makes founders feel they should be planning to raise. For the average user, all the online stores were built by hand, by web designers making individual HTML pages. Be nice. I'll talk about tricks for coming up with startup ideas on demand. They all say they love you, but they need you to come in for one meeting to meet some of the biggest remaining obstacles is pride.2 But Balzac lived in nineteenth-century France, where the Industrial Revolution was well advanced. Thanks to Jessica Livingston and Chris Steiner for reading drafts of this. That's an interesting idea.

What counts as a substantial offer depends on who it's from and how much it is. They may also make the biggest investment. 96. I have to admit it's one of those rare people who have x-ray vision for character. It may seem unlikely in principle that one individual could really generate so much more distracting that I had to add a new application to my list of known time sinks: Firefox. You can probably start a startup and make them buy it to get you? Tv are a good example of close friends who work for big companies. It's inconvenient to do something. So perhaps one reason schools work badly is that they're too much influenced by recipes for wisdom have an element of subjection. Yesterday one of the reasons they did was that it used a TV for a monitor, which seemed intolerably déclassé to a high-school kid. A fundraising, and decide they should raise money too, since that seems to be growing. They say that they didn't have the people yelling insults out of cars.

Maybe successful hedge fund managers are mean; I don't know enough to say. How much were you planning to spend? At YC we're excited when we meet startups working on things that could be taught better by itself. A greedy algorithm takes the best of the options in front of a computer that could only ever have appealed to Harvard students, it would be to make the headers look innocent, but my guess is that it lets you jump over obstacles.3 The big change that experience causes in your brain. Meet such investors last if at all. Better to let the wrong idea become the top one, rather than their words. This was easier to grasp when most people lived on farms, and made many of the things the internet has shown us is how mean people can be. The unsexy filter, because the advice I've given is essentially how to play hardball back. It's oddly nondeterministic. An early stage startup.4

Notes

This includes mere conventions, like a headset or router. If they want you to believing anything in particular made for other kinds of work into a de facto chosen by human editors. But I think this is so valuable that visitors should gladly register to read this to realize that species weren't, because even being deliberately misleading by focusing so much from day to day indeed, is this someone you want to save money, the light bulb, the higher the walls become. I'm not saying, incidentally, that suits took over during a critical period.

Economically, the space of careers does.

This just seems to be a niche. This is the proper test of success. In a typical fund, half the companies that tried to pay the bills so you could try telling him it's XML.

More precisely, the top and get data via the Internet, and in a time machine, how can I make the police treat people more equitably.

Thanks to Geoff Ralston, Garry Tan, Alexis Ohanian, Patrick Collison, Jessica Livingston, and Fred Wilson for sparking my interest in this topic.

[wildlyminiaturesandwich]

Why I left the EA Game Changer Program

Judging by the state of my inbox, a lot of you want to know what happened that lead to me leaving the Game Changer program and I was gonna write up a MASSIVE text post about it — I still might one day — but honestly... I’m not sure if I could be bothered right now. A lot of things happened, big things and small things, public things and things that took place in the Discord and DMs; all of it absolute bullshit but none of it is anything I want to continue to deal with, which is why I left.

This post still turned out to be quite long so I’m gonna put it under a cut, but if you’re expecting ALL the juicy details, this isn’t it. This is a couple of the major issues but it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

So let me just say, most of the issues can be boiled down to how the program was managed. The program has been slowly declining since SimGuruDrake left and the Community Manager role has kept changing. Say what you want about Drake and her attitude but she was damn good at her job and none of the crap that certain “high value” Game Changers have gotten away with in the past few years would have ever happened on her watch. But I can honestly say the newest Community Manager has been the worst so far.

(I mean, it’s been 5 days since I told him I was leaving the program and he hasn’t replied. I doubt he ever will. I am not surprised, I’m not even disappointed; I’m just annoyed that I was right because this isn’t the first time he’s ignored DMs and I wasn’t expecting any different this time)

Need some examples? We were told in no uncertain terms by the CM that only “High Value” creators (meaning a select group of Youtubers) would ever be given opportunities such as paid sponsorships, event invites and the like because they alone were worth the investment. He also told us that the Game Changer program has “nothing to do with the community”, which is a stark contrast to what most of us were told by the previous CMs and the reason some of us joined the program. And every single time myself and a few other Simblr Game Changers bought up concerns in the Discord about certain things (eg. racism within the program, favouritism, “high value” Game Changers bullying smaller ones, Game Changers acting inappropriately or taking advantage of their titles/power, the insane amount of stress put on us to produce content within such a tight timeframe for early access) we were either told “this isn’t the place to discuss this”, told to “calm down” when we were speaking politely, told to shut up and warned that if we kept going we’d be punished, or just flat out ignored and spoken over.

There were even several occasions where a certain group of GCs (some of whom were mods in the Discord) would provoke one particular Simblr because they knew she would only put up with so much before she would get angry and they hoped she would eventually say something to get herself kicked out. But every single time this happened, the Simblr was the one who was warned that if she kept being “aggressive” she’d be removed from the program. It’s gotten so bad that there are people who are actually scared to speak at all in the Discord because they’re afraid they’ll be removed from the program for having a difference of opinion or not agreeing with the “High Value” people. Honestly, if people knew even half of what was said within that Discord, if they knew how some of their faves behaved behind “closed doors”, they’d be even more disappoint than I am.

So, in conclusion, if you’re a Simblr and you are thinking about joining the program next time applications are open (if they ever are)... Don’t. They don’t care about us, they don’t view us as equals within the community even though Simblrs provide 90% of the CC and mods they use in their games; they never have and they never will. Simblrs have been part of the program for over 3 years and they still don’t even have a way for us to submit our early access content to EA (we have to DM it to the CM who no doubt just ignores it) or accurately measure our ROI, even though several of us have given the CM literal novels worth of information on how it could be done. The only way Simblr GCs have ever been acknowledged was if they started a Youtube channel or collaborated with one of the “high value” creators. Ever seen a single Simblr at an EA event, get a paid sponsorship or even simply get mentioned in a Sims official Twitter tweet? No. Why? They. Don’t. Care. About. Us. 

Honestly, if I knew back then what I know now, I never would have applied for the program in the first place. I could have saved myself years of stress, anxiety, sleepless nights, and tears.

But, if I keep going this is gonna turn into even more of a rant than it already has and that’s not what I want. I just want to wake up every morning not dreading what nonsense is happening in that Discord and how much trouble I’m going to get into for speaking up for those who are too scared. I want to enjoy my favourite game again. I want to enjoy making CC again. I want to feel like a part of THIS community again. Simblr is where I started and where I grew, and though it sometimes can be tough to be here, it’s my home.

Simblrs are just as valuable and important as any other part of the Sims community and no one can take that away from us, not even EA/Maxis.

Just a few things to add...

I have nothing against most of the “high value” people/Youtubers. They are just taking advantage of the opportunities given to them, as anyone in their position would. The issue I have is that it’s always them and no one else, but I don’t blame them for that because that’s not their fault.

I’m not going to name names. Sorry, I know some of you want to avoid supporting the people I mentioned being bullies but I left the program to get away from the bullshit and if I name names those people and their fans will come after me and I got enough of that in the GC Discord.

I will still be buying new packs. I love The Sims 4, no matter how much the management sucks, and I’m going to continue to play it because it helps me deal. Even before I became a Game Changer my FAQs page has always said “EA could literally announce a pack called something stupid like ‘Plant  Life’ with just a single ugly little pot plant in it and I would pay  whatever they ask”. If you choose not to support the game anymore that’s great and that’s your right to do so, but please don’t give out to me for wanting to continue to do one of the only things that makes me happy.

I will still be doing reviews of new packs. Just because I’m no longer part of the program doesn’t mean I won’t be giving my opinions of new packs, nor does it mean my reviews are going to change. My reviews have always been my 100% honest opinion and that won’t change. The only difference now will be I don’t get early access so my reviews won’t be up until after the pack releases, but on the plus side, I also won’t have to deprive myself of sleep and run myself into the ground to review an entire pack in less than 24 hours like I had to do many times with early access.

Saying “I told you so” is not helpful at all. I was aware from the start that Game Changers were free marketing, I’m not an idiot. I was just naive enough to think that they treated everyone the same within the program.

I stayed for as long as I did because I was stupid enough to think I could help change things. I thought adding my voice to the ones already trying to change things (who are still there trying now) that together we might be able to light a fire under the CM’s butt and get some changes happening to make the whole program more friendly towards creators from ALL platforms but it’s literally like banging your head against a brick wall. Nothing is ever going to change because they don’t want it to, but hats off to the few people still in there trying; they have way more patience and sanity than I do.

Not all the Gurus are bad. In fact most of them are really great, super friendly and treat everyone equally within the whole community; you only have to go to one of their live streams (on their personal Twitch channels, not the Sims official one) to see that. It’s mostly just the CM who I was referring to in this post.

It’s now been TWO MONTHS and SimGuruFrost never got back to me. I am no longer able to log into the Game Changer Network (the site we use to opt in to opportunities for upcoming games and DLC packs) so my credentials have officially been revoked but the CM hasn’t said a word to me. Even though I know for a fact when other people have asked to be removed from the program he practically begged them to “just take a break and then come back when you’re ready”. Just goes to show, standing up for people and fighting for what’s right will get you nowhere within the program; all they want are yes men.

[kbsd]

not sure if you’ve answered this before, but what’s your process look like when you make an amv? i’m just curious and in constant awe of ppl who can make videos like you do :)

hello all!!! i have answered this before and i have a vid help tag with other asks i’ve gotten about stuff like this! but i’ve gotten several more messages along these lines so i’m just going to answer a bunch of them together (under a cut since i love to ramble about editing lol). i do just wanna say i’m definitely not the authority on video editing and obv everyone has their own techniques!

edit: i just finished typing all this up and it’s SO long so sorry in advance LMAO god bless anyone who reads this entire thing

so i work in news tv and we have a very specific workflow for writing scripts, sourcing video, producing, and editing. i’ve just applied that to making amvs! for every video i make, i copy the song lyrics into a google doc and adjust them to match the song i’ve cut (i often will trim songs for time and/or content purposes). then i start planning! i’ll mark down what clip i want to use for each lyric next to that line, and any sound bites i want to use (with episode numbers!). i’ll color code between video and sound bites and lyrics, so my scripts end up looking something like this (for my honeybee amv):

doing the planning ahead of time makes everything much easier when it’s a video that spans the whole show or involves a lot of sourcing, like honeybee or sports analogies. that way when i get to the actual editing process, i already know what i’m going to do and have a game plan. for videos like happy ending or believe it or not, where i’m mainly just pulling from a few episodes, i can just plan it in my head as opposed to writing it all down, and produce as i edit. obviously i do make in-the-moment decisions while editing—sometimes a shot doesn’t work the way i thought it would, or i go where the video takes me—but planning ahead definitely helps. i know some people use spreadsheets as well, with columns for lyrics, video clips, and sound bites if applicable. once you find a system that works, it actually goes pretty quickly.

as for sourcing clips themselves/finding clips within episodes, i talked about that here and kind of here. the short version is that transcripts are a must, and the supernatural wiki is hugely helpful by cataloguing all the hugs, prayers, phone calls, etc. in the show. gifmakers that tag episode numbers on their posts are your friends. it gets easier the more video you make—that’s another huge reason i make the google docs for each video (even the ones i plan in my head, i end up going back and making a loose script with episode notes just for reference). if i can’t remember where something is but i know i used it in another video, i can easily reference past scripts!

i also cut all my videos in the same project in premiere pro, so i can flip between them easily. instead of checking a past script, i can just go to the video sequence itself and copy the clip i’m looking for! this was especially helpful when i match cut together the 5x18 and 4x22 wall slam shots for my bestie video, and then stole it from myself for honeybee hahaha. at any given time i have at least 8 sequences open:

because of the sheer volume of videos i make, it’s worth it for me to download the entire show—i have all 327 episodes in HD, plus deleted scenes. if you think you’re only going to make a few videos, i’d start with scene packs. you can usually just google “destiel [or whatever ship/character you’re looking for] scene packs” and there will be any number of ones you can download. if you need other specific scenes, you can always download/torrent individual episodes or screen record netflix (that’s what i did before i got HD download links). i’m happy to share my links if you DM, but be warned it’s a lot of disk space (about 500GB on my hard drive). someone also compiled every destiel scene, downloadable here.

having every episode already loaded in premiere for all my projects also makes it a lot easier to source clips. once i use a clip in a video, i’ll put a marker on the episode file, so that after a while i have most of the important scenes/lines marked to easily find them. to give you an idea, this is my episode file in premiere for 12x10 lily sunder has some regrets (markers at destiel scenes, the car fight, hot girl cas, etc.). markers are the green tabs along the bottom:

premiere also lets you color code and name markers, so ONE DAY i will go back and color code them all. the ones above are all the same color, but in a perfect world, i’d have a myraid—for destiel shots like hugs, touches, looks; for important pieces of dialogue; for action shots; etc. but for now this works ok for me, so that’s a project for another time!

between detailed scripts, one giant premiere project, markers, the wiki, and my own memory, i have so many points of reference that i can usually find any clip i need in about 2 minutes max. sound bites are often harder to start out, or tiny specific shots i haven’t used before, and that’s when i turn to tumblr gifsets or beloved mutuals to crowdsource. but if you’re as obsessive about marking/keeping neat scripts as i am, it gets easier and easier with every video you make. that’s part of why i’m able to cut videos together so quickly. (also i want to stress i do this for a living and have to produce/edit a new piece for my show every day so i’m used to it. and compared to constantly updating content/sources and news that changes every day, 327 highly documented episodes that never change are much easier to handle hahaha)

this is all great for me since i make so many videos and plan to continue doing so, but if you’re only making a few, this level of work isn’t worth it imo. really it’s all about developing a system that works for you. whatever you do with episodes/sourcing, though, i cannot recommend planning things out in a script ahead of time enough. 

everything i just mentioned is producing, though. for the editing process, i usually do it in this order:

music first. any parts i want to cut, i make sure it all sounds smooth

then soundbites. i usually try to weave them into the lyrics—i have characters talk in breaks between lines or instrumental sections as much as possible. i’ll sometimes go so far as looped/extending an intsrumental part to make room for the soundbite i want there lol. if i do have dialogue over a line, i do the sound mixing/levels at this point as well to make sure everything is audible/one doesn’t overpower the other. (also i always include the video that goes with these bites when i drop them in, and decide later if i want to show the character speaking or have other clips cover the dialogue)

once i have all the audio locked in, then i bring in all my other video clips. sometimes i edit completely chronologically, sometimes jumping from section to section—it depends on the song or how i’m feeling

double check sound mixing. i usually listen to my videos through a few times, with headphones and without to make sure it’ll sound good no matter how people watch it

once i have picture and audio lock, i go through and color correct my clips. i’m basic and just use lumetri color in premiere, and usually just play with brightness, saturation, temperature, and tint until i like it

render and export! :)

i always have several audio tracks, but i try to keep my video tracks condensed. i’ll drop clips on a V2 level, and edit a section there, and drop the whole chunk down to V1 so i know it’s finished. that way when i leave and come back i can know where i left off/what’s done/etc. to give you an idea, this is the timeline for my what the hell video:

i always render as H.264 with high bitrate, and make sure to check “render at maximum depth” and “use maximum render quality” for the best quality. i’m sorry, but i don’t know what the equivalent options are in final cut, imovie, kdenlive, etc. i post on youtube mostly so i don’t have to sacrifice quality, but usually just using a lower bitrate will get you under the tumblr file size limit and it’ll still look good.

as for the anon who asked about “polishing”: first of all, thank you!! second of all, it’s in the details. all of this is a matter of taste and my own insanity, but here are some little things i always try to do:

after i color correct, i blur out any credits from the starts of episodes. i use gaussian blur for this, but really any blur tool works

as much as possible, i avoid clips where we see a character’s mouth move but don’t hear the words. in tv/film we call it “lip flap” and i just think it looks messy. also i’m trained to avoid it at all costs at work hahaha. it’s more for serious videos that this matters a lot to me (e.g. i think i did a really good job eliminating lip flap in my happy ending amv)—for comedy videos i don’t sweat it as much

i put audio fades on the start and end of every single audio clip i use, even if i don’t think i need it, to make sure everything sounds smooth

i use markers for timing, especially in action-y videos like what the hell. i’ll put a marker on the clip i’m using at the exact moment a punch lands, and in the song on the beat. if i have the magnet/snap in timeline tool on i can just easily snap them together instead of having to spend time finagling it

this is such a small thing but i dip/cut to black for a tiny bit at the start and end of every video. this way if i post with tumblr video player, there’s black between the loops, and it gives you a beat before the video restarts. i do this even on videos i post on youtube, just because i think it looks nicer/more professional

this is 1,500 words so i’m going to stop myself before i pull something. if you have follow-up questions feel free to ask and i’ll continue to add them to the vid help tag, but any more questions about sourcing clips or my process in general i’ll just link this post going forward. anyone who made it this far, i am sending to a telepathic kiss. thank you for reading and happy editing!

[hotmesshapa]

Hold On • Bang Chan

pairing: bang chan x reader

genre: some angst, a whole lotta fluff

word count: 1.6k

warnings: some strong language, descriptions of an anxiety attack

a/n: I started writing this at like 2am one night when I was in my chan feels, then homeboy played Michael Bublé during his last vlive and I took that as my sign to finish it lol. I also highkey recommend the song mentioned in this it totally didn’t make me cry while I was editing this noooo not at all 🖤

You pace back and forth in front of your front door, chewing on your bottom lip, occasionally checking the time on your phone as you impatiently wait for the mail to come. You try to distract yourself by scrolling through instagram and literally every other app you have, but your brain is too focused on one thing: an acceptance letter.

It’s a sunny but chilly Friday of what normally would be a regular week. This week, however, is the week universities send out their acceptance letters, and the first four days were complete agony of not hearing anything back. You had applied to one of the most prestigious graduate schools in the country, one that’s been around for hundreds of years and for some reason didn’t think it needed to upgrade its acceptance announcements with the current century. Honestly, you didn’t know people still sent actual letters anymore, but there’s something a bit comforting in receiving a physical copy of something that could be so important and life-changing to you. You had worked your ass off the day you started your courses in college, ultimately graduating two years ago with high honors and glowing recommendations from a few of your professors. Since then, you managed to score two internships in the film industry, all while working a part-time job and somehow not going completely insane. You did everything you could for a spot in that university’s graduate program, but despite everyone telling you that your acceptance is a sure thing, you still were insanely nervous.

To be honest, you don’t need to go to graduate school. Your bachelor’s degree and internships qualify you for any job you wanted in the industry, let alone your work ethic and resume you’ve built over the past two years. But you love learning, and this is the change to to meet new people and gain new experiences that you could only get from a graduate program. And sure, you didn’t need to apply to such a distinguished school, but the perfectionist inside you wanted the best of the best, and nearly all of your professors and friends encouraged you to apply, so how could you not?

After a few minutes of constant pacing, you check your phone again and let out a shaky breath, your nerves nowhere near being calmed. You sit yourself down in from of the door’s little mail slot and just stare.

“Baby,” Chan chuckles, watching you from the couch as he works on his laptop. “The mail isn’t gonna get here any faster if you stare at the door.”

“I know, but who knows, maybe the mailman will be able to sense my intense gaze from wherever he is and speed over.”

You hear your boyfriend rise from the couch and walk to where you’re planted, sitting behind you and wrapping his arms around your waist. “You worked hard for this, Y/N, they’d be crazy not to accept you. I’m sure you got in.”

You hum in appreciation and lean back against chest, smiling as he tenderly kisses your temple. Chan, being the actual angel that he is, was one of the main reasons you had managed not to completely lose your shit throughout the entire application process and waiting period. You two know each other like the back of your hand; anytime one of you (mostly you) would get stressed out over something, the other would always be there to help. But for Chan, it’s like he has a sixth sense for knowing when you’re going through it, because he’d be by your side within an instant. He was, and still is, your voice of reason, your comfort, your everything.

He takes your hands in his, gently rubbing circles against your palms. “Don’t worry, I’m sure the letter will arrive any moment now.”

The two of you stare at the door for a few minutes, before you can’t help but check the time on your phone again, and you release a worried sigh, beginning to impatiently tap on the floor. As if he could read your mind, Chan pulls you tighter against his body and snuggles his face into the curve of your neck. “Just relax Y/N.”

Once you manage to calm your nerves down again, he slowly gets up, eliciting a small whimper from you from the loss of his warmth, which only gets you a chuckle in response. “I’m gonna make some hot chocolate, want any?”

“Yes please, with a lot-“

“Of marshmallows, I know,” he laughs as he makes his way to the kitchen.

You smile, resting your chin on your hand, and turn your attention back to the mail slot. You wait as patiently as you possibly can for another five minutes, before you hear a crash from the kitchen. “You okay?” you call out, not taking your eyes off the door.

“Yeah, I’m fine… Just wondering, where do you keep your broom?”

“Christopher Bang, what did you-“

At that exact moment, the mail slot opens and you’re greeted with piles of letters and papers falling into your lap. With shaky hands, you sort through the mail, tossing a couple bills, a magazine, and some weird catalog from a brand you’ve never even heard of aside before finally digging up the letter you’ve been waiting for. You can feel your heart beating out of your chest as you frantically try to rip it open without giving yourself a paper cut.

“Was that the mail? Did it come?” Chan calls out from the kitchen, but you’re too in your own head to put words together to form an answer. 

You finally manage to open up the envelope, your hands trembling as you pull out the letter and slowly unfold it. All the words just seem to blur together, except the ones that catch your attention:

not accepted

In a matter of seconds, you feel yourself spiral. Your breathing begins to become more shallow and quicken, while your mind begins to race a million miles per second, trying to make of what you just read. 

What are you gonna do now? 

All that work, for what, nothing? 

Did you do something wrong?

Is there something wrong with you?

Are you just not good enough? 

A tear falls on the paper you’re holding, smearing the ink stating your failure, but you didn’t even realize you were crying until then. You furiously wipe them away with the back of your hand, but no matter what you do, tears just keep falling, and you can feel yourself beginning to hyperventilate, you whole body trembling. You know this isn’t the end of the world, but then why did it feel like it is?

“Y/N? Did you hear-“

You turn to your boyfriend, and the look on your face must have said it all, because the next thing you know, Chan is engulfing you in a warm hug, stroking your hair as you start to sob into his chest. “Hey, everything’s going to be okay. Y/N, please listen to me. Everything’s going to be okay. We’ll figure something out.” He kisses the top of your head and continues to let you cry as he hugs you close.

It seems like eternity, but you manage to calm yourself down a bit, clinging to Chan’s hoodie while listening to his steady heartbeat, and you finally bring yourself to look up at him. “I just… I just really thought I was gonna get in,” you say quietly, your eyes welling up again.

He gingerly wipes away the tears from your cheeks and offers you a sympathetic smile. “I know, baby, I know. I’m so sorry.” He pulls you back into a hug, rubbing your back to help ease the knots that had build up there from the stress. “Fuck them,” he mumbles against your hair. “It’s their loss for not choosing one of the smartest and hardest working people on this planet.”

You let out a weak laugh in response, grateful for his attempt to crack some jokes to ease the tension. You nuzzle your face into the crook of his neck, closing you eyes to try to get rid of the stress that lingered in your head.

“I have an idea,” Chan suddenly says, breaking the comfortable silence that had fallen in the room. He gently pulls away from you, and you watch in confusion as he makes his way across the living room, taking his phone out from his pocket and placing it on the coffee table. 

The next thing you know, Michael Bublé’s “Hold On” fills the room, and a small smile forms on your lips as Chan turns to you, offering his hand. You take it, and he pulls up from where you’re seated and close to his strong body, putting his hands on your waist as your arms instinctively wrap around his neck. Slowly, the two of you begin to sway to the music, and you feel any remaining sadness and tension drain from your body as you dance with your boyfriend, and your smile begins to grow.

“So hold on to me tight, hold on, I promise it will be alright,” Chan’s smooth voice sings along with the music, and he’s looking at you with so much adoration, you can feel your heart swell. “Cause it’s you and me together, and baby all we’ve got is time. So hold on to me, hold on to me tonight,” he continues to serenade you, and you can’t help but giggle, causing him to start giggling as well.

You rest your head on his shoulder, releasing a sigh in content as he presses a soft kiss to your forehead. “I love you Chan.”

“I love you too.”

[that-house]

Hey so I hit 100 followers today!

Buckle up, this is gonna be a LOOOONG post.

I quite honestly expected it (while my ego is a little smaller than my jokes make it out to be it is definitely present), I didn’t expect it to happen so fast.

It’s not an insane milestone, plenty of people have 100 followers. A hefty portion of my followers are bigger than me. But it’s still important to me. Knowing that there’s 100 people out there who enjoy my shit makes me happy.

First and foremost the credit quite honestly has to go to ahegao George Washington. No, I’m not joking. Until I posted on r/tumblr about my desire to draw that, I had 0 followers. I jumped to like 10 overnight, which was awesome. And then those new followers helped me spread my posts and get more attention.

Secondly I’d like to shoutout @imaverysadgirl and @themeaninglessjumble. You two were my first real tumblr frens. You were the first of my followers to really interact with me. Ember, I’m super happy you’re alive to see me hit 100 followers. Jumble (I don’t know your name unless I forgot it), your art and creations are great and you deserve way more attention.

To all the rest of you, you guys are great, too. Every new follower makes me happy. I’d say I don’t deserve you all, but my colossal ego says I do. Regardless, being nemesi and getting called out for being horny on main and sending and receiving asks has made this last month or so great.

Finally, for all the shit it gets, and for all the shit it pulls, [tumblr] really is pretty dope. I got to meet you all, and it’s actively making me a better person by exposing me to groups of people I’d rarely interact with in real life.

Why does it feel like I’m saying goodbye? I’m not, don’t worry. I plan to stay, and neither death nor pain shall drive me from this hellsite. I’m just saying thanks.

Now with the thanks out of the way, I want to talk about myself a little. Just the stuff that I’ve always wanted to say and never quite gathered my thoughts and found the time to talk about.

You’re gonna get to know me so well! This is like a mini autobiography!

First off, my mental health. This is something I don’t talk about much on this blog, mostly because it doesn’t need much talking about. I’m doing pretty well, to be honest. I have a smattering of anxiety and I’m maybe a little too introverted for my own good, but I’m not suffering from depression and the only time I ever even remotely considered suicide was when I just really really didn’t want to go to French class. COVID has been great for me, since I don’t have to see people. I suppose I’m not a great person to talk to if you’re struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts, seeing as I can’t personally relate, but I’m still always here for you guys if you need me. Just because I haven’t lived through your experiences doesn’t mean I can’t try to help.

Next up I want to talk about my sexuality. This one’s a bit of a mystery. For the past 16 years of my life I’ve considered myself 100% straight. But lately (let’s be honest, following the release of Spirit Blossom Thresh) I’ve been wondering if I might be bi. How many times can I joke about wanting to smash sexy boys before it’s not really a joke anymore? And if I am, a lot of things would suddenly make a lot of sense. But every time I think I have it figured out it suddenly feels like I have no clue what’s going on. Regardless, my sexuality has honestly never been a massive part of my identity (though I’m definitely not asexual, my friends can attest I’m far too horny for that). I have no clue if I’m bi and for now it’s kind of a fun little adventure!

I guess I’ll talk about school and stuff now. Believe it or not, I’m kinda smart. I’m taking a shitton of AP courses this year. But I simultaneously feel like it’s too much and not enough. I’m smart, but I’m not a great student. Compared to my dad, who graduated college with a 3.98 GPA (and his only B being in History of Canada as an American) and now has a super well-paying government STEM job that he loves, I feel like even if I work my ass off I’ll never quite measure up. And my parents have had super high expectations of me, and it’s only recently that they’ve started to accept that I might get some B’s here and there. I’m worried about all the homework this year. I’m a year ahead in Math but I don’t feel good enough at math to be taking AP calculus junior year. I’m worried I’m going to get like a C. But for the most part school is alright, too. That’s sort of the trend in my life. Everything’s alright.

Time to talk about my love life! I have no love life! I’ve been single for 17 years and probably stand no chance of changing that until at least college! Haha I’m so alone! But I can live with it. Growing up an only child with a few friends means that I’m pretty good at functioning without a ton of social interaction, and, while I’d like a partner someday, I’m not desperate. I can wait until I find someone. Pretty much my goal is not to die alone.

Onto sports maybe? I played soccer for most of my life, and was always the worst player on the select team. I was too good for the normal team and not good enough for the select team (kinda like math). Soccer was really toxic, especially when you’re the worst player on a team of high school jock drug addict boys. So I quit, and started playing frisbee! It’s a lot better. The people are nicer! But my first season never happened because of COVID and now I’m in my Junior year and haven’t played much frisbee! So I kinda suck! But I’m physically fit and that’s good enough for me! On my own time I bike and run to stay in shape.

Are you still with me? Now I’m gonna talk about my hobbies and things!

I’ve been playing video games for a long time. I kinda suck at them to be totally honest. I probably have below-average reaction time, and my parents only let me play 15 minutes a day for most of my childhood, so I have a lot less practice than most of my friends. I’m pretty slick with Swain in LoL tho.

This next part is borderline shameless self-promotion, but since the Kickstarter isn’t live yet I guess it doesn’t count. I’m making a tabletop role playing game! I’ve been working on it for the past few years. My goal is to launch the Kickstarter prior to my college applications, because that’ll look sexy as fuck to potential colleges. It’s a post-apocalyptic sci-fi game where you play as supersoldiers trying to reconquer the wastelands of Earth for humanity. I’ll do a big post on it when I launch the Kickstarter, and I guess that’ll also be a full name reveal (kinda spooky since my full name is ENTIRELY unique and one-of-a-kind. More ego boost lmao).

And finally I want to talk about my art and writing. I’ll start with my drawing, and finish off with my writing, since that’s what I’d most like to be known for on here (but that’ll never happen because my caveman brain shitposts are too funny).

So I’ve been doodling for a long time. I briefly got formal art training but sacrificing my Saturday mornings to draw what someone else wanted me to make so that I could make better stuff in the future didn’t appeal to my 8-year-old brain. I draw in the margins of worksheets. I draw on random sheets of paper. Recently my parents bought me a drawing tablet, and I’ve been trying to improve at digital art. I’d say I’m getting better, but I don’t practice nearly enough. All in all my art serves its purpose. It makes people laugh and can sometimes creep people out. It’ll never go in a museum, and I’ll never make money off of it but whatever.

And finally, my writing.

How can I talk about writing without talking about reading? I’ve likely read more books than both my parents combined, and if not, it’s close (and my mom is a prolific reader too). I have three bookshelves in my room and books on every surface. You can’t follow me for long without seeing a post ranting about my latest read. I love to read and I read incredibly fast. Reading spurred my love of English class, which in turn helped me write.

And finally, we get to writing in and of itself. I’ve been writing stories since I was a little kid. I’d like to think I’ve improved a fair bit. I’m still no novelist, but I consider myself a fairly adept short story writer.

But I suppose where my writing really stems from is my bed. Every night while I’m lying in bed, I tell myself stories until I fall asleep. I work on a story until it’s done or until I get bored of it. Along the way, in the shower, on my bike, I build the world of the story, crafting the plot. Sometimes the stories are elaborate fanfictions of my latest reads. That’s probably how they started. Often, they’re unique worlds all of their own. My current writing posts are about the City of Mammon, but my current story in my head is about some vampires who hunt other vampires in Victorian England.

And now we get into the process of writing. It’s fun! I sit myself down with an idea in my head, and use all the fancy words I picked up from my books to convey the vibes I want. I honestly wouldn’t be a great writing teacher. It’s just a skill that comes naturally to me as a result of what I’ve been doing with my free time my whole life. And it’s beautiful. And every time someone compliments my writing or reblogs it, I love writing just a little bit more.

Well I guess this is it. The 100 follower special. I wonder how many of you guys will take the time out of your day to read this. Hopefully a lot!

James (or That House) signing off for the night!

<3 thanks guys

[chwrpg]

What's happenin', hot stuff? -- Duk Barnes

A NOTE FROM ADMIN R: Can I just say, you knocked this completely out of the park, Kayla !!! I am so, so, so, so ready to see what you’ll be doing with Duk given the groundwork you put down in this application. Not just that, but Duk was simply missed on this dash. I love, love, love him and thank you for taking him up once more.

OOC NAME/ALIAS, PREFERRED PRONOUNS, AGE & TIMEZONE:

Your fave Kayla, she/her, 26, EST

DESIRED CHARACTER:

Donald “Duk” Barnes

HOW ACTIVE WILL YOU BE?

Okay so like I am always trying to be better for you guys, so let’s be optimistic and say 6 out of 10.

SECONDARY CHOICE:

N/A

DESCRIBE THE CHARACTER:

One of the things I’ve always loved about Duk is his kind heart. Like, underneath that very attractive exterior, there’s really a heart of gold. When I have written him before, I’ve always enjoyed how much he loves his family. It’s something I connect to and part of what draws me to him. He especially loves and is close to his sister, Sage. He never has seen her as weird, she’s just Sage. His relationship with his two younger siblings is different, of course, but I know he loves them and would do anything for them. It’s the same principle that I see in him with his friends. He’s very much ride or die, as the kids say. He’s also respectful and so funny. I love him so much and I’m forever grateful to be part of giving more depth to a character that was originally just a stereotype.

SAMPLE WRITING:

Adjusting his AirPod in his ear, Duk Barnes reached for his phone, hitting play on his coming to America playlist he had curated specifically for this moment when the pilot announced they had reached America and would reach their destination shortly. 

In a second, he heard the familiar strains of his first track begin just before: “I hopped off the plane at LAX / With a dream and my cardigan / Welcome to the land of fame excess / Whoa, am I gonna fit in?” 

It was a surprisingly apt song for having been released over ten years ago in what felt like an entirely different world. He could remember Sage playing this song over and over until he broke her CD in a moment of anger. He smiled to himself, thinking about how she’d laugh about how he was willingly listening to it now. 

It had been over two months since he’d seen her in person. Or anyone in his big, loud, crazy American family. He’d talked to them through instant messaging, Skype, FaceTime. But that was it. For he had done something crazy on his own. 

He’d gone to Singapore. To meet his biological family for the first time. 

The thing was when Duk had turned 18, his mom had sat him down and presented him with a rather thick packet tucked inside a time-worn Manila envelope. 

“This,” She had said with a shaky breath “Is everything I have about your biological family. You’re an adult now and your dad and I think that it’s time for you to have it.” 

At the time, he didn’t know what to say. He’d taken the big envelope without a word, just nodding. 

“You don’t have to do anything with the information if you don’t want to, of course.” His mom said rather quickly, having taken his surprised silence for disinterest. “But it’s yours. You used to always want to know more about your… your roots. At the time, I didn’t think it was right for me to share. But in there,” She nodded then to the packet where Duk was touching the golden brad holding the envelope shut. “In there, I think you’ll find the answers.” 

In truth, he hadn’t opened it until a year later, He’d found it stashed in a neglected high school science textbook he had forgotten to return while preparing his things to return to college. Sitting at his desk, he finally pried it open. And his mom had been right, the answers to each question he could have wanted to ask were there. 

There was also a letter. In a perfect script, on a fine soft-feeling stationery, written in English. It was from his mother’s mother. She wrote about her disappointment that Duk was given up for adoption, how she wished to raise him herself in Singapore, and gave some background about their family, how they were proudly Chinese and Malaysian and had such history that could be traced back over centuries. She wrote about how his mother had come to Chicago to study and fell in love with a white man. They’d broken up before Duk was even born and it was clear that the man didn’t want to be involved in raising the child. But his mother gave him up because she wanted to focus on her career and how the whole family had prayed that this baby would find a good home and a good family to love him as much as they all did. 

However, most importantly, it said that Duk was, no matter what, part of the family and welcome to come to Singapore and meet them. 

Using some of the names mentioned in the letter, Duk cautiously typed them into Google. The results were mostly in Mandarin, which he knew very little of, so he used the translate function to see what could be made of the articles. It looked like his maternal grandfather was something of a mogul. He had created a hotel and resort empire that spanned not only Singapore, but other countries in Asia and, apparently, a few in development in Europe. It felt unreal, and sat heavy in his chest. So much so that he had abruptly shut his laptop so hard he thought he would break it. 

But it all had stirred up something in Duk. A yearning for something he couldn’t quite name. So, he took up learning Mandarin. He wanted to be able to communicate with his newfound biological family, on the off-chance that maybe some of them wouldn’t speak English. First with Duolingo, then borrowing Rosetta Stone from the local library. He wasn’t fluent, might not ever be so, but as he kept working on it, he realized he took to it almost naturally. The words felt right in his mouth. He saved money in a Tupperware container that he hid in the back of his sock drawer. He had given the adoption agency his information in the hopes that he would hear from his family and the first person to email him was his maternal grandmother. She was who he practiced writing Mandarin to, then, slowly, spoke to on Facetime. She was an adorable lady, with a big smile that reminded Duk of his own and the same shared love of the chaos and beauty of life. She encouraged him to come to Singapore and offered to help financially, but he told her it was okay. He could do it. He’d get there, he’d just need a place to stay. 

“Well,” she said, a determined but amused look on her face. “That much I can do.”

Singapore was… beyond words. He would never be able to put words to the beauty of the country of his biological family and the feeling that settled in his chest when he stepped off the plane for the first time. It took his breath away, looking out across the tarmac, toward the trees and then the city skyline just beyond. It looked like something out of a movie about the future. If he didn’t know better, he would have been anticipating to see flying cars in the sky. It was amazing - and insanely scary - to meet the family, some of whom were eagerly awaiting him as he walked out of customs. It was kind of freaky, too, to notice how he could see himself, for the first time in real life, in other people. Grandma had given him the biggest hug and kissed both his cheeks. He wouldn’t remember all their names and how they were connected to him at first, his head felt full with information and tired from long hours whiled away in the air. He was, however, mildly surprised to discover that his family all seemed to speak English better than he could and playfully teased him with smiles on their faces about his choppy Mandarin. 

Looking at his phone now, he flipped past photos of himself with cousins and various friends of the family, past the TikToks and other videos he had made of his travels (he had been surprised when his video of himself dancing in various airports on his way to Singapore to Billy Idol’s “Dancing with Myself” had begun raking in the likes). It made him smile and he knew already he couldn’t wait to go back. Grandma had begun hinting, toward the end of his time there, that he could try for dual citizenship and had outright offered him a job with the family company, even though Duk wasn’t sure if his uncle - the current CEO of the business - was certain of him. He stops on a video of himself doing one of the many TikTok dances with his cousins outside of a nightclub. They’d been the ones to show him the country’s nightlife, showed him what was what and brought him up to speed on the culture. They’d even managed to get him onto Weibo, the Chinese social media site, and looped him into their WhatsApp groupchat. 

They had encouraged him, too, to meet his mother. Which was… easier said than done, it would turn out. He didn’t meet her until his last few days in Singapore. They’d texted a little before that, mostly just to set up a time and place. And when he had seen her, sitting by the window at the tea shop, it was like looking in a mirror. They had the same eyes, same mouth. And she had smiled at him like he was an old friend. Their meeting had been a little awkward, with pockets of nervous silence on both sides. But when they said goodbye, they hugged and Duk held his composure until he was back in his room, where he broke down into tears. Not sad tears, but tears of relief, of joy. It was all so much more than anything he could have expected. 

The plane makes its final descent into O’Hare and Duk closes his eyes, uncomfortable still with the way the plane downshifts toward the ground, even though he knows it’s safe. He gets his things together once the plane settles on the tarmac, steering toward the gate. Turns off his AirPods, checks his phone for messages. He smiles at the notifications already popping up on his screen; friend requests on Facebook, new followers on Instagram, new likes on TikTok. Most are family, but he doesn’t recognize several of the new likes on TikTok or followers on Instagram. There’s also a text from his sister that just came through: Why is there a video of you dancing on TikTok????? 

He shrugs it off, blowing up on social media doesn’t mean much since he’s still on cloud nine about his trip and eager to just get the hell off this plane already. He’s tired, almost running on fumes, but he still has a bounce in his step that always seems to be with him. 

Then, once he makes his way through disembarking and through hectic customs, there’s the Barneses. Crowded right up to the metal barrier. They’re there to greet him, his mom waving her hands in the air as if he can’t see her in the crowd. His father is saying something to Michael, who is hoisting a big sign up into the air. Sara is picking at Mike, as usual and Sage is just looking around as though she would almost rather be anywhere else. But their eyes meet and she smiles. And he knows she is glad to see him, too. Duk tilts his head to one side, studying the simplified Hanzi type lettering on Michael’s sign. “You do know that the sign says ‘fried rice here’ right?” He asks the group. He didn’t expect this to be his first words to his family upon his prodigal return, but then again, normal to the Barnes family is always entirely subjective. Immediately, his mom shot a look at Mike, who is covering his face to hold back a burst of roaring laughter. “Michael!” She hisses and the boy finally lets loose peals of laughter. Sarah punches his shoulder and he grimaces as Sage rolls her eyes, turning her attention to her phone instead. It was the best welcome home he could have ever received.

ANYTHING ELSE?

Nothing! I love you all!!

[empty-dream]

Just watched 13 Reasons Why S4

Ended up making a full blown commentary per episode because this is finally the last season and I’ve been enjoying this mess since S1. I even forgot that it was released until a friend brought it up to me. So in short,

Ep1

OKAY WHO DIES AGAIN HUH??

Clay, narrating: *I'm good at hiding shits so my parents don't notice at all." His parents: *concernedly looking at him pale and mushing food on the dining table*

The concequences of investigating murder cases and creating conspiracies instead of studying your ass off because it's a damn school really caught up huh.

Charlie holy shit I love you he's so chill and good.

It's been years I still can't believe Justin is really adopted by the Jensens. Funny that now the table is reversed, with Justin finally actually doing better and taking care of the increasingly-ill Clay.

SCOTT!! OH MY GOD! SCOTT REED!! OH MY FUCKING GOD!! AAAAAAAAAAAAA HOLY SHIIITTTTTTTTT AAAAAAAAA!!!

Wow my headcanon is approved, he already graduated by S3. No reason he didn't hang out with the gang after all the shits in S2 if he was no longer around in the first place.

He's still so nice even in Clay's trippy nightmare. Is that what Clay remembers about him? Well not really surprising, considering Scott actually was worried about him in S2.

Good god finally Clay meets a therapist- Wait a minute that's the guy from CSI:NY?!?! Isn't Clay just gonna get clobbered instead.

Okay I knew they are really close and I do adore their relationship so much but HOLY SHIT THEY ACTUALLY GO AT IT WITH ALEX AND ZACH???

Alex: *panicking over the kiss* Zach: Ayy don't worry let's just continue perhaps-suicidally hanging out on dangerous rooftops that you were almost fall to your death from. Alex: ????

Ep2

That narration of Clay ranting about college applications. I'll drink to that bruh.

Ya I too make my applications and other supposedly important matters at 3AM instead of any other more sensible time.

Oh my fucking god that is the creepiest smile I've ever see.

I feel like as Justin gets better and better with his life, Clay goes worse.

Justin is so excited about going to college! You deserve the future man. 

The old-time stoners and drunkards are rehabbed or dead. Enter Zach.

Winston: *eyes and ears up to your shit 24/7*

Nobody likes Tyler in S1 but now everybody likes him.

Okay. Cops doing shit jobs at protecting. This feels too real with this situation right now.

Clay's adventure to put the trash into the trash bin.

Omg they got the paint to the lab this is going real CSI.

Idk about u but at this point I don't exactly want to pay attention to Jessica/Justin problems anymore.

I know Zach and Clay don't get along and that's why I need their adventure together.

Clay drunk-puking on Justin. Well well well how the turntables.

The return of Monet!!

"I have 2.8. If I work hard, I'll get 2.9" Winston omg same.

Tht held gaze between Alex and Winston.. Is this slow burn fanfiction???????

Yes Mr. CSI it will definitely get worse.

I know writing about your feelings can make you feel better but probably not in your college essay form.

Ep3

I'm starting to think Clay is the one who dies in the end? Idk tho.

I guess the toll of busting ass trying to save everyone by yourself is catastrophically high, huh, Clay? Funny that he now goes from 100 in S3 to 0 in here and that's actually realistic.

Alex and Winston are really pining each other with Zach in the background lmao.

"You don't wanna go on the Valentine Dance with me? Even as friends?" Well sometimes there are moments when you just don't go back to being friends. It's an actual normal thing.

And besides the last time Alex goes with Jess for something she wanna do, he ends up murdering somebody. So.

"Hey Zach. Hey punch me. Hey you pussy now? Hey hey. Bitch." *poke* *poke* *poke*

No Zach he's trying to save all of your asses. You can't just say that.

Charlie is really just there trying to do his best in this shitshow and like Justin I wanna laugh but also am proud.

Everyone: *being paranoid and unto each other* Alex and Winston: *having the date of their life*

I wish everyone doesn't have this level of trust issues but then again we won't have a shitstorm drama like this.

When did this become "what is love?" philosophy class?

"You know love but you love so fiercely and sometimes it hurts."Wow Mr. CSI you hit the mark.

How many parties can the Liberty High hold in a year?

"You go with Charlie to get back to Justin, right?" Wow Diego you HIT the mark.

I still have problems with Ani as a character, but I do like her casual banters with Clay.

You know, with all these trust issues, I'm surprised nobody actually tries to peek on other's phone. Like, I know that's low. But, you know, faster solution. And better than having mass hallucinations.

Oh God the football team really is a bunch of jerks. Good fucking thing Scott is outta here.

Alex and Winston almost die like couples in a cheap slasher movie.

"Fuck Love." Clay Jensen, 2019 (according to the movie timeline)

Ep4

Why is Charlie talking? Why is he wearing the football jersey? Who on earth dies?? Is it Zach? Justin? Somebody else from the football team? But the content of your speech man...

Ah yeah. Clay did survive a great big deal of many ugly shits. Single-handedly thanks to adrenaline, mostly.

Jess got a point tho. Ani could have followed Clay to stop him, by herself or with the gang. What did she do? She spied on Winston and Alex, and then went back to the dance. So much for handling anything themselves.

Or maybe, the gang shouldn't have let Ani and Clay take care of it themselves.

Does anybody in this show ever figure out Clay has dead people hallucinations?

Domestic Jensen family is my everything.

Charlie really out there bribing Zach with his homemade cookies I-

Ah yeah, I kinda forgot that in reality Alex and Winston have a really difficult situation. With Bryce and Monty stuff.

"Looking back on your time at Liberty, do you have any regrets?" Really? Isn't that all they have?

"Who do you trust most in your life and why?" Everybody: *immediately side-eyeing each other*

Clay c'mon wtf Justin is really just worried sick and trying to help you. Aaand he's gone.

Jess you don't put your hands into something without checking it first...

Why would you only send 2 adults to supervise 30-50 kids on a camping wildlife trip? They wouldn't be able to do shit.

"I thought you were a football player!" "I AM a football player! And so are YOU!" Gold.

Dream!Monty and Dream!Clay really sit like that and I almost laugh were it not for the fact that I do that too. It's strange to see that for once, they talk normally, heart-to-heart, without the usual snickering, chiding, all that venom.

Oh shit they really make Monty and Clay mirror each other like that. They both protect people they love but have tendencies to snap, one way or another.

Zach, dude, I know you've been a real good friend. But Alex almost died. Twice. Because of your drunken ways. And you laughed. Didn't you spend an entire season trying hard to not let him die again? What's wrong with you?

When did this become a horror movie?

The Standalls :((

CHARLIE MY MAN WITH HIS COOKIES. And incidentally, a wild Zach appears.

"So are we gonna fall apart or trust each other now!" Justin my man.

Clay dude that would have been an amazing entrance were it not for the fact you looked insane.

I can't fucking believe they just go normally at campfire like that. Two people almost died. Several got beaten. What the fuck.

Does it come from the bottom of your heart or it doubles as a threat, Clay?

Alex you had us at the first half not gonna lie.

GR A NO LA CA MP C O OKIES? ??

Wait. So who has been fucking around with the football team? Who moved Clay?? Huh??

Ep5

GUYS THERE IS A THING CALLED GPS ON THE PHONE?? What are you? 3?

Justin finally breaking down after 5 episodes being the most decent and healthy person around. Well Charlie is too but he's new, so.

Finally an obligatory meeting at Monet.

CYRUS AND THE PUNK GANG!!! God I love you guys where have you been. And you guys are computer geeks?!?!?! Perfect.

My question exactly, Clay. Good replies tho, Cy.

I'm still thinking how for a nerd, Clay knows A LOT of people and knows who to ask what.

"How am I even friends with you?" Ya Alex that's my question too. How are you suddenly bff with Zach? I don't remember you two being close in S1?

Hm. If you aren't holding his family at stake, there is no way Tony would even think to rat out.

Mr. CSI starts going CSI on Clay.

I almost forgot Charlie's last name is St. George. The cast goes by Charlie mostly so.

Justin really shows up at the party with the angry mom pose and disappointed look at Clay. The turntable, people. Flynn's voice got raspy.

Oh no no Clay you don't go there. Please don't split my Jensen-Foley brothers like that. Meanwhile the punk gang be like just watching there.

C O O KI E S??? Goddamn Charlie do you bring cookies everywhere you go??

Charlie my boy you T_T I was kinda suprised that the cookie baking actually had a sad backstory.

Clay-Zach bonding that I fucking wish for oh yeah. I definitely didn't expect it with piano and drunk singing tho.

While Clay is having the time of his life, Tony is seeing life flashes in his eyes.

Yassss he winssss!!!!

Caleb's expression when the sherrif hugs him lmfao

Nice try Sherrif but Tony knows your tricks.

"What of any of this is okay?" Wow things you'd never hear Justin says in S1.

Meanwhile, Charlie and Alex are high on weed cookies as fuck. Their conversation is the most interesting thing I've seen beside the Scott cameo till now.

The look on Justin's face when Clay pushes him :((

MY DUDES HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN ABOUT JEFF'S DEATH? WHAT HE WAS ACCUSED FOR?! You do not, under any circumstances, drive drunk.

Ep6

Clay be spitting truth.

They really be discussing Clay's chronic hero syndrome huh.

Okay. Operation Clay-Zach failed.

Weren't Zach all fuck it all yeah! kinda guy? Guess when you are the one who faces death it's not that fun anymore huh.

"One Clay Jensen is enough" Jess truth.

Do Alex and Charlie really study Spanish in front of Tony who is not helping at all? That would be embarrassing lmao.

Clay: Fuck off. Hallucination!Monty: *sits next to him*

Gotta hand it to Timothy Granaderos. He could go venomous to puppy eyed in 1 second. Amazing.

Man. School shootings are fucked up. There are many things I wonder about mankind and one of them is why is school shooting even possible?

Hallucination!Bryce: Hi I’m sorry I’m late. I hear this is time for Clay’s dead people hallucination party.

"Are you a hero or a martyr?" Wow they really throw the question.

And here is Clay sitting under the desk between his two most hated dead people hallucinations whispering moral dilemmas to him.

Meanwhile Winston and Zach got high.

Charlie helping Alex to breath.

The talk with Estella and Tyler.

"No offense, you are cool, but I don't wanna die with you." Zach chill lmao.

Are.. Are you sure outing that to Winston is a good call, Zach? For a guy who was super paranoid that his gang would narc him, he sure is loose mouthed himself.

I like how everyone from Tyler to Zach to Winston, admits that Alex is a really kind guy.

Wow Tony did you really expect anyone could do anything in that situation, in fucking Evergreen situation, for that matter?

Charlie is a great friend wow.

Cl-CLAY DON'T GO OUT that is EXACTLY what you are NOT supposed to do!!!

Goddamnit Clay. Holy shit Clay. 

Dylan Minnette really worked hard in this scene.

.......... WAIT A MINUTE IT'S NOW ACTUALLY CHARLIE ALEX????? Tony be just walking in.

Ep7

Clay really got into a psych ward. Talk about darkest hour. And it’s only ep 6?

Wow Ty that's some brave lines.

Which hallucination-induced person is Clay talking to before Ani gets there?

Ok that therapy session made me tear up.

These kids are having college interviews at the worst time possible. They are all fucking breaking down one way or another.

And Charlie just, really never gives up on Alex huh.

What's most important to Clay is his friends. Real quick to answer that question huh.

God Justin lashing out at the Jensens. It's the first time he does it and it hurts.

Zach holy fuck. I appreciate you didn't out it but holy fuck you didn't have to do that are you trying to die

Clay-Tony combo is back baby I miss them so much. Although perhaps Tony you would mind a bit about Clay's health because clearly he was out of it.

This is so short. I too really don't like application essays and interviews and the inevitable revisit of the sadder parts of my life because of them.

Ep8

When did this become sci-fi apocalyptic story?

God I miss the time when Clay's dreams are just Inception-styled trippy shit with Scott randomly says hello and gets him water.

Okay. Everyone's got their own way to cope with existential and moral crisis huh.

You know what, I would like one movie out of this sci-fi dream.

I knew it Tyler was a bait to smoke out illegal gun dealers. Is that... An okay thing to do for a high schooler? Sounds fucked up, all things considered.

Yaaay Justin's got the college! I'm super happy!

Wow Estella good question.

Wow Tyler good statement. If they trust each other a bit more, everything would have been a bit better.

Ah shit. Justin relapses again.

Does Tony need to be pummelled first before he finally goes all off to finish his opponent or what?

Is this going Big Brother Is Watching

What the fuck. That locker fight scene is disgusting.

Jess and Clay might throw shades at each other but together they share one brain cell.

"I think it's a walkout, Sir" Tyler lmao

Wow Zach and Alex heart-to-heart.

Cyrus really steps on some pedestal to make his point.

Aaand Zach and Alex really go all out on "doing it right" huh.

They really have students vs cops riot at this time. Talk about timing.

It's nice to see the punk gang enjoying the fighting again.

Dude what happens if you don't have anything on your bag tho.

Aaaah the punk gang with Tyler again!!

"Why are you with me and not with Charlie?" Zach ouch that hurts.

Zach no no no Zach get out of there too Zach pls

Clay really becomes 2nd in command to Jess huh.

Charlie tries to save Clay but gets whacked on the head instead. 

Tony you came back!! Oh so that college scout was.. Oh.

Oh shit Clay. Oh. Shit. I should have realized that. Goddamn.

Ep9

"I like sleep." Charlie me too. 

God Alex and Charlie literally sleep together jaldjwaownaljewoalsj that some cute shit.

Wow Clay really takes Mr. CSI's advice to round up the gang and confesses. That's a step.

Charlie sometimes has a good idea, huh.

The Jensens meeting is probably the reason why the idea of parenthood scares me.

Also Clay and Justin really put the practice of "tell the parents the less-harsh-but-still-harsh truth, then ask them to get prom back" by the book. And it's awkward.

Aww Charlie coming out to his dad and the response he gets... When you put the rich fams like Dempseys, Walkers and Saint Georges together, the last one is really the only healthy one huh.

Way to go Jess!

Ah I forgot Alex has an older brother.

Aaaahhh Charlie has dinner with the Standalls! Their reaction is so sweet!

"Does he make you happy?" "Yeah. A lot." AHDKWJWOAKDUWLAOEL I mean after everything that has happened to Alex, man I am so happy he can say that with a fond smile.

WHAT THE FUCK HAHAHAHHA CHARLIE WHAT THE FUCK HOLY SHIT LMFAO I THOUGHT THIS WAS JUST AN TRIPPY ANIMATED IMAGINATION THING and Alex is so done with his extra shit.

Wow Ani you do karaoke good, asking Jess out even better.

OH MY GOD IT ESCALATED. Also Alex is right that one is creepy Charlie.

I thought by special doughnut Caleb means some diet-related stuff fit to Tony's menu for fighting. Why didn't I expect a literal Will You Go To Prom doughnuts?

CHARLIE PLEASE STOP AHAHAHAHA you dumb rich kid where did you get all those lamps and prop candles.

"Would you love me any less?" Aww Clay knows Justin loves him.

"You three all look adorable" Ya Jess, same.

Tony really out there doing the "I'm here because he's here" to Caleb.

Clay, Alex, and Charlie be like judging Zach hard.

Oh right that one kid from Cyrus's gang is gay and he brought his boyfriend!

Zach: You two sitting here like it's a funeral. Also Zach: *proceeds to continue sitting as well*

"We deserve to live." Finally something from Zach's mouth that I can agree for this season.

I love that Tony and Caleb are such good friends to Clay.

And now it's Winston turn for dead people hallucination.

..... The door to the other side again.. :'''((

CHARLIE AND ALEX WON THE PROM KINGS AAAAAAHHHHHH I mean with all those extra efforts, it'd be hard to not to. And there goes Alex finally giving in to dance.

I don't like Luke the football guy when he's the enemy but I like him when he's a friend. He's a hype man lmao.

Alex I'm so happy for you man. I'm glad you are finally happy. My heart was tight at the dance part .

Everyone: *dances* Clay: *sits there, monologuing philosophically*

I like that Clay and Ani finally being honest that they don't fit each other romantically. As romance goes there is not much romantic tension between them. And they have way too many flawed traits that when paired, would turn the relationship sour and possibly toxic in the end.

Justin do u like to show up and make everyone step aside for you or what.

I like that Clay was just watching from a distance. Then at last minute decided to join the crowd with his mother, whom he had a few trust issues with in all seasons.

Charlie: "Foundry's gay?!" Alex: "Mind's blown" Me: Same.

There has been nothing wrong going on in one episode, aside from the Zach one that's timely stopped by Charlie and Alex. I'm suspicious.

Ah. Yes. Of course.

Oh my god Justin's the one dead huh?

Ep10

Oh thank God he hasn't died. Yet.

Oh God Justin no. No no no.

Get your shit together Zach. Even Charlie tells you that.

No no no not like this not after everything oh god.

Somebody would you actually please run after Clay too.

Oh my god Clay.

Oh my god Alex you. Even when he admits it to Winston, he still covers for Jess. I- oh god.

It's been only 15 minutes and it hurts.

Charlie and Alex, the moms of the group.

You know, for a guy who says he doesn't love Justin, Alex gives a lot of shit about him. I guess you can still be around people you don't like?

I know the kiss is huge news Charlie but that's not the issue here lmao.

Zach: *hugs Clay* Clay: ????? Alex and Charlie: ?????? Zach: *pats Tyler's head* *leans on Clay*

The Padillas :''')

Clay Jensen. Class speaker. Wow.

Yeah Mr. CSI's voice is really calm, rather chilling, actually.

"You've looked at death too many times for a young person." Damn right Mr. Jensen.

Ah so that's the reason why Zach stole that letter. Makes sense, emotionally.

You know, I did say Idc anymore about Justin/Jessica problems but when it gets to this point, I can't not care.

So many people come to the hospital...

Clay and Justin's talk. I'm sorry I can't hold it in anymore. I'm fucking sobbing at this moment.

He's dead. He's dead. He's dead just like his mom. But he died not in the same way. He died holding his bro's hand. He died surrounded by his family. He died with people who loved him around.

"After everything, this is how it ends." Fucck

DID HE HAVE TO DIE??? DID JUSTIN FOLEY-JENSEN HAVE TO DIE?? Did you really have to put yet another sucker punch in the last episode of the season?? Yeah I know real kids and people do die from AIDS but really? After a whole season of Clay screaming kids wants to live to the point he lost his mind???

I spent the entire funeral screen crying. I couldn't even scream again when Scott is present in the funeral. I know he'd be there but god I can't right now.

Mr. CSI sure knows super effective ways to make Clay react.

"If Justin's dead, the none of the rest of it matters. " Clay..

He opens up.

Oh yeah I forgot Charlie is a junior.

AAAA COURTNEY AND RYAN ARE HERE!!! I MISS YOU GUYS!!!!!

SCOTTTTT!!!!!! And CHLOE TOO!! It’s nice that they come together. But they aren’t like, together, right? I mean if he is her boyfriend she would say his name right away to Zach instead of a mere ‘would you like to meet him? He’s outside.’

These 4 are such good friends to attend their friends’ graduation ceremony.

The punk guys in toga are so... Refreshing to look. Such hype men.

"It's easy to hate. It's easy to fear. It's goddamn hard to love. But it's not optional. It's essential." Jessica Davis, everybody.

Jeff, Hannah and Justin really died in the span of 2 years. Add to that is Bryce and Monty, whose deaths left uncountable traumas on top of existing traumas. Yeah. It was hellish time.

Scott’s proud small smile when Clay gives his speech. Im love.

"Choose to live. Even on the worst day, life is a pretty spectacular thing." Clay Jensen, everybody.

Ma boi Zach really teared up at Clay's speech. 

Luke and one of the punk kids talking about some geek thing I am not familiar with I-

“No offense Luke. You’ve got great arm but you haven’t been known for your brain.” PETER That BURNS LMAO

Poor Winston just being alone. OH HELLO RYAN YOU ARE FAST.

Zach is gonna study music! Nice foreshadowing since he plays a lot of music this season.

Clay having a gratitude moment with his parents and Scott be like munching cupcakes in the background.

Oh god Hannah ...

Wow the old tape gang is here!! The nostalgia hurts.

They bury the tapes on the same hill again asdfwosaiofai.

Kinda salty Sheri and Scott aren’t here. But then again I guess back then Scott was just helping Clay and co when he could and mostly minding his own business. HOWEVER isn’t Sheri like in the tape and pretty prominent too :(( Like she was really cool with Clay (despite the whole guilt over Jeff), tried to make amends and really helped with the polaroid cases.

Also you can't just insert Scott in Clay's dream and then not have them interact in the end. The dream was such a perfect bait. Like we know at least they apparently get along well.

Everything in Jessica’s final conversation with her Bryce hallucination. Everything in it.

Ryan: “Gordon Lightfoot?” Ha Ryan you miss a whole lot of drama.

Fuck I'm tearing up again at Justin's essay. He deadass makes an entire essay about Clay and how he is his savior I- 

Oh my god they end it exactly like S1 with Tony and Clay riding away. They are really each other’s ride or die.

That’s it. It’s over. It’s been a long trainwreck. So the 2019 class graduates, so does Justin, they are doing uni right now and keeping in touch with everyone. Bye.

[hsiao-kang]

Fiona Shaw by David Yeo for The Telegraph, ‘Killing Eve's secret weapon Fiona Shaw on finding new fame, and falling in love at almost 60’ by Jessamy Calkin (full article under the cut)

Fiona Shaw has found a new audience thanks to her scene-stealing turns in Killing Eve  and Fleabag. The Shakespearean actor turned small-screen sensation talks spies, celebrity, tragedy, and getting married later in life.

You look great, I tell Fiona Shaw. Must be the pig’s placenta. Shaw, 60, pretty and angular in a soft grey shirt, smiles enigmatically from the sofa of her north London home. Pig’s placenta is her MI6 officer Carolyn Martens’ beauty secret in the second series of Killing Eve, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s dark, wildly successful thriller about a psychopathic female assassin called Villanelle and Eve Polastri, the agent hunting her down.

But pig’s placenta aside, Shaw puts her youthful appearance down to ‘not being in the theatre every single night’. Which is where she’s been for pretty much the past 30 years. Formerly known for a huge body of iconic stage roles, including Hedda Gabler, Medea, Electra and Richard II, as well as for playing Aunt Petunia in the Harry Potter films, Shaw’s fame is now more attributable to her transition to television.

In Killing Eve, Waller-Bridge has taken a genre that’s a little worn out – the international-assassin thriller – and given it a completely different slant. The show won five awards at the Baftas earlier this month – including Outstanding Drama Series and Best Supporting Actress for Shaw, who in her acceptance speech referred to the ‘glass-shattering genius’ of Waller-Bridge.

Carolyn Martens, head of Russia at MI6, is a perfect example of Waller-Bridge’s wayward approach. Carolyn is very still. Arch, deadpan, erudite, severe. But she has a tipsy flirtatious side, and a hidden messy streak. She’s oblique – and the viewer doesn’t know how much she knows, or whether or not to trust her. Nor does Eve (played superbly by Sandra Oh). ‘I once saw a rat drink from a can of Coke there,’ Carolyn says earnestly to a bemused Eve when they’re in a rubbish-strewn alley. ‘Both hands. Extraordinary…’

‘Carolyn’s a joy to write,’ says Emerald Fennell – best known as an actor for Call the Midwife, and The Crown’s new Camilla – who took over from Waller-Bridge as lead writer on the second series (Waller-Bridge remains an executive producer). ‘Her blood runs very cool. She’s like a freediver who has trained herself to hold her breath and slow down her heartbeat – she’s done it for so long it’s now a permanent state. Her ability to steer an awkward conversation into blithely surreal territory is unparalleled and somehow seems very British.’

The character is entirely dependent on Shaw, adds Fennell. ‘She is unbelievably brilliant, funny, and scarily clever. In one of the episodes, another character mentions [11th-century saint] Anselm’s ontological argument [for the existence of God], and during the read-through it transpired that Fiona had written a literal thesis on it. Quite embarrassing for those of us who only had the most passing Wikipedia acquaintance with Anselm (me). Fiona’s cleverness and wit are built into the fabric of who Carolyn is.’

Shaw compares playing the part to keeping a secret at the same time as delivering a line. ‘It’s not easy to do. I have to say I do lose sleep over it – I’m playing somebody very different to what I normally play. Normally I have to expose the truth. When I’m in the theatre, where I would be swimming with the tide, it’s my job to lasso the audience and to make sure they understand the moral dilemma of the piece – that’s what leading players do. You are sort of the MC for the night…

In Killing Eve, most of my work is about knowing more than everybody else in the scene and hiding it. And it’s a terribly lonely thing to do. It feels all wrong – like rubbing my tummy and patting my head at the same time. I want to smile, I want to make jokes – but you are left with an ambiguity. You don’t know whether I know I’ve made a joke or not. It’s very good exercise for me.’

Even though they are friends, stepping into Waller-Bridge’s shoes must have been tricky for Fennell. ‘I think of Killing Eve as a beautiful, haunted doll’s house that Phoebe built,’ she says. ‘She’s already made this incredible world full of insanely compelling people, so the pleasure of writing it is to get to play in there, to put in a few of your own trapdoors and secret passageways, to move those characters around and occasionally push some of them down the stairs.’

Earlier this year, Shaw appeared in the second series of Waller-Bridge’s other seminal television show, Fleabag. Initially she had to turn it down because she was directing Cendrillon at Glyndebourne (directing opera is another of her talents). Then Fleabag overran, and she was able to join in after all.

Waller-Bridge is the definitive young auteur of our times, and it seems she can do no wrong. The stage production of Fleabag – coming to the West End in August – sold out in an hour. ‘I feel she’s nearest to Oscar Wilde,’ says Shaw now, ‘which is to say she’s greater than the sum of her parts.’ Comedy, in some ways, is quite a conservative thing, Shaw thinks, although it may not seem that way. ‘But it always has a frame; it stays within that frame but it kicks against it, like a child in a playpen.

‘Phoebe develops people so they turn into bigger people, and bigger people, and I think that’s 
a confidence that’s come with her previous work. She’s mastered one form, and she’s been able to take the gate off and let the characters run out into the field – and yet they’re still intact, and the audience follow them. It’s superb.’

For actors, she says, that approach couldn’t be better, which is why so many of them, including herself, Andrew Scott and Kristin Scott Thomas, are desperate to work with Waller-Bridge.

‘I could have played the boss of MI6 and pretty well come up with the same “ker-chings” every week,’ says Shaw, who also played an MI6 officer in BBC One’s recent Mrs Wilson, ‘but that isn’t what happens in Killing Eve.’

Waller-Bridge was always on set during the making of the first series, constructing and reconstructing her work like a Rubik’s Cube. When Sandra Oh pointed out that the actor Sean Delaney, who plays Kenny Stowton (a young ex-hacker recruited by MI6), looked like Shaw, Waller-Bridge decided to make his character her son in the story, and wrote it in, just like that.

Killing Eve, though it seems so British, is a BBC America production, having been initially overlooked here, according to executive producer Sally Woodward Gentle (this was before Fleabag became a TV hit). Woodward Gentle had read the Codename Villanelle novellas by Luke Jennings, on which Killing Eve is based, and approached Waller-Bridge. She had seen her one-woman play in Edinburgh, and thought she would bring a different energy to the show.

Shaw is taken aback by its popularity, and 
particularly by the wide demographic to which 
it appeals. ‘Fathers and sons watch it, mothers 
 and daughters, husbands and wives. I don’t think it bears much analysis. I suppose it has no politics, it’s fantasy really and that’s why I think the violence is nearly allowable – it’s cartoonish.’

It’s also stylish – the music is great; the costumes are superb; the graphics are slick – and clearly a high-budget project, shot in London, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam. Shaw is often recognised for playing Carolyn. She was amazed when, on a New York street recently, someone reacted so wildly on seeing her that she appeared to be having a fit.

Fiona Shaw grew up in Montenotte, Cork, with three brothers. Her father was an ophthalmic surgeon and her mother was a physicist. She always wanted to be a tennis player, she says, but instead studied philosophy at University College Cork and then went to Rada in London. She still remembers the audition: the teacher told her later that she smelled of libraries.

That’s because it was as if she was born into the 19th century, she says now, compared to the other applicants. She was not cool. Everyone was instructed to wear a black dress. Shaw had made her own and it was a bit wonky. She was terrified. ‘I remember some American guys at the audition were doing press-ups, and people were talking about the Royal Shakespeare Company – and I thought, I haven’t a hope in hell.’

Hearing she’d got in was, she says, ‘one of the nicest moments in my life’. She is still an advisor at Rada. She worked hard and went straight into the cast of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s play The Rivals at the National Theatre, alongside Michael Hordern and Tim Curry (‘I couldn’t have been in better company’). Her father had his reservations, ‘but I think he thought I would come to my senses’. A year later she joined the RSC. Her parents would come and watch her, and her obvious success calmed her father’s fears. ‘He got much more interested when he could read about me in the paper – in the end he was incredibly supportive but I had to go through the firewall of his disapproval for a while.’

Then her brother Peter was killed in a car crash. Shaw was 28 at the time. ‘That was such a blow to my family. Neither of my parents could really function for about a year after that. It was very hard for them.’

Two years after her brother died, she was offered the role of Electra (for which she won the first of two Olivier Awards), and in some strange way found herself channelling her grief. ‘I loved comedy – but then I was asked to do Electra. Deborah Warner was directing and I thought, oh well, I’ll give it a go. But I didn’t see the point of a tragedy and I couldn’t do it at all. And slowly I realised that it’s much more about yourself. And I discovered a new world through tragedy.

‘Electra has a brother who she thinks is dead – and I knew something about having a brother who was dead. I wouldn’t say in any way that I was mainlining my brother, but I suddenly realised that plays are about life, and domestic tragedies are heightened in the theatre – but they are the same as all our tragedies – and that is what the theatre is for. I don’t know why I hadn’t worked that out before.’

It was the first of many collaborations with Warner (with whom Shaw also had a relationship), which went on to include Hedda Gabler, a controversial Richard II at the National in 1995, and Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children.

Shaw’s first major film role was in My Left Foot with Daniel Day-Lewis (1989). Soon after came Three Men and a Little Lady (1990), and later the Harry Potter series. It is the former, she says, for which she is most recognised by the public. She has just finished filming Ammonite, an historical drama directed by Francis Lee, in which she plays Elizabeth Philpot, a palaeontologist, opposite Saoirse Ronan, and Kate Winslet as fossil hunter Mary Anning.

Was there a moment when she felt she had made it on her own terms? ‘I think I was very lucky. I didn’t do film on my own terms – you’re either a film star or you are not – because I was so obsessed with the theatre when I was young. Probably I would have had to go and sit in Hollywood – but I wouldn’t do that.

‘But I have done a lot of things on my terms, just being allowed to do those shows: Electra, Hedda Gabler – and Richard II, which seemed quite nerve-racking at the time, but that was part of the thrill of it. So I’ve always tried to do things which are hard to do – maybe even to a fault.’ She has never, she says, been trapped in a long run of a West End show she didn’t want to do. ‘There always had to be an element of experiment.’

And she loves taking theatrical risks. Like her rendition of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which premiered at Epidaurus in Greece in 2012, then went to the Old Vic Tunnels in London in 2013, and on to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Or (with Warner) the dramatisation of TS Eliot’s The Waste Land she performed in locations including an old disco in Brussels and a former munitions factory in Dublin. Last month she revisited it in New York, reciting it against the backdrop of a sculpture exhibition in Madison Square Park – it wasn’t advertised but word spread and people came in their hundreds. ‘It was a huge pleasure, it happened almost by accident – “Will you turn this water into wine?” And I did. It was lovely.’

Shaw’s father, Denis, died in 2011, but her mother, Mary, is 93 and still lives in the house that Shaw grew up in. She drives, plays tennis. When Shaw goes back home she sleeps in her old bedroom. ‘Well, I try not to – it’s awful to sleep in the bedroom you had when you were 14. Some things are still exactly the same, the wardrobe and the poster of Narcissus – do you remember those terrible posters?’

Shaw lives between the house in north London and New York, where her wife Sonali Deraniyagala, a Sri Lankan economist, teaches at Columbia University. In 2004, Deraniyagala was on holiday in Sri Lanka with her family when they were caught in the tsunami. Her husband, parents and two young sons died. For years, Deraniyagala lived in a haze of madness and grief. In 2013, she wrote an extraordinary memoir, Wave, which won several awards and had some remarkable reviews.

Shaw was in New York performing in Colm Tóibín’s The Testament of Mary when somebody gave her Deraniyagala’s book. She read it in her dressing room. ‘I thought it was the best thing I’d read for a long time, on any level.’ She mentioned this in an interview. Then things came together in a felicitous way: Shaw was supposed to return home straight after the play closed, but she had a serious ear infection (due to having to disappear for several minutes in a plunge pool every night on stage), and was unable to fly. She stayed in New York and went to a Laurie Anderson concert, where she was invited to Anderson’s book club – they were reading Wave – to meet the writer.

‘I was so surprised that she was that person – not the person in the book. We spent half an hour chatting. When I left I thought, I have just met life.’

She pauses. ‘The play had been exhausting and so much about death, and I was feeling so miserable, and I thought, that person is life – even though she has had more death than you would wish on your worst enemy, there’s a force in her that is just life.’

When Deraniyagala came to London they met up again. ‘Very quickly I thought, I just want to live with this person, and it’s been one of the most marvellous things to happen – but it was also highly unlikely. But in my profound self, at my core, I thought, I want to live with this person. It was deeper than anything. And thankfully, she thought the same – it’s been a beautiful thing to happen at this stage of my life.’

They got married in Islington town hall in January of last year, and then had their wedding party on the day of the royal wedding. ‘It was fantastic. Half of Sri Lanka came and it was a very beautiful wedding – everyone was wearing saris and looking gorgeous. My mother played the piano and sang, which was quite hilarious, and we had a band and dancing, a very late party.’

Her mother sounds very enlightened, being 93 and coming from a small town in Ireland. Were there no raised eyebrows at the fact that Shaw was marrying a woman? (As well as Warner, she previously had a relationship with the actor Saffron Burrows.)

‘More than raised. But it’s fine – the world is changing fast. My mother was very good about it and also very impressed by who Sonali is.’

So she’s not religious? ‘Oh she is, but she’s also terribly funny about it. And she’s a sort of nouveau old person. I think being old is quite a shock for her – and a lot of friends are dead, and some of them have lost their minds. But she’s very well – and very happy for me.’

Deraniyagala and Shaw have been to Sri Lanka several times to visit Deraniyagala’s aunt, and love it there. Given what happened to Deraniyagala, recent events – the bombings at Easter – must have been completely destabilising. ‘Sri Lanka has been very much at peace for the last 10 years since the war, but the scale of what happened with those 250 people dead – it’s as big as 9/11 for them, because it’s such a small island. They were innocent people, and it’s the most depressing thing – and terribly hard for Sonali – because the mass funerals are very near to the mass funerals of her family; it’s terribly hard for her to revisit that time. It feels a bit like a natural disaster because it has no rhyme or reason. It’s a black hole of destruction.’

Shaw is about to start work on a film called Corvidae, a thriller co-written and directed by young film-maker Joe Marcantonio. Then Killing Eve series three is on the cards for next year. If she had to choose only one discipline to work in for the rest of her life – theatre, film, opera or television – which would she choose?

‘That’s a cruel question. I would find it very difficult, but I would probably say television because I’ve done 30 years of the theatre. I’ve worked morning, noon and night, sometimes rehearsing all day and performing every night for decades. That’s a lot. I don’t have any great need to do that again.

‘And I’m very interested in television now because one of the new pleasures it’s given me is the scope of the audience. We used to be thrilled when we had 500 people, or 1,000. Now we have millions and you think, oh God, this is so obvious. Especially when the material is of such great quality and so uncynical. A few years ago they were just churning television out, but they aren’t now – it has some of the best minds working in it. So I feel in a way like I’m in the same profession, it’s just the shape of the stage which has changed.’

In the end, she says, in any medium, it all comes down to the same things she has always aspired to, and which she is so excited about – that sense of infinite possibility in a role, and the thrill of making the heartbeat of the audience quicken.

Killing Eve returns to BBC One and iPlayer in June

[apprenticebard]

How can I make more money like you?

An important question!!

So to start with, I am not a person who has Figured Things Out. I got lucky last year - my friend recommended me for a job in a very high-wage area (specifically, San Francisco’s tech industry) that I happened to be a really good fit for, and that happened to be willing to hire people on a trial basis if they were promising, even if they didn’t have college degrees (’cause I still don’t have one). And that was really good for a while, until some stuff happened and I kinda got eaten. Now I’m unemployed and looking for another job; I think I’ll find something comparatively good again, but I dunno how long it’ll be, and right now I’m looking at both moderately high-paying content-writing jobs and jobs that pay around minimum wage (which is a lot here; nothing pays less than $15 because the bay is lowkey insane), in case getting another really good job takes longer than I’d like it to.

But anyway! Obviously there isn’t a super easy way to make lots of money that’s going to apply to every anon who could possibly have shown up in my inbox, but here are some general pointers:

1) Even if things are going really well for you, you’re gonna tend to make less than most people while you’re early in your career. This is difficult but how it is. It doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong, and you might be on track for a great career in a few more years, once you gain more experience. If this is where you’re at, I think the best way to make more money is to work on leveling up at your current job, or looking for a different job of the same kind that either pays better now or will probably allow you to level up faster. It’s good to take on extra responsibilities when you have the time and energy to do so, especially if they use a lot of skills you do have, but also a few skills that you’ll need to figure out as you go along. 

Note that I do think that this advice is less actionable outside of the bay (which is full of startups that are growing rapidly and trying new things). I do think there’s still something to it. If you gain skills and responsibilities as well as you can, I think that even if your current job doesn’t recognize that and reward it, you’ll be building up skills that’ll make you more desirable the next time you change jobs.

2) Say you think you’re in a really good industry, and you know that other people in your industry make decent money, but for some reason, you’re not. Or, alternatively, say that you have a lot of skills and some work experience in a decent industry, but you can’t get anyone to call you back, and you’re beginning to wonder if maybe you’re secretly terrible and have zero Good Employee Qualities.

Getting a new job is hard, and leaving an old job is scary. I know; I just left my old job, and I spend lots of time being scared that nobody’s gonna hire me and I’m gonna have to go back to working at Kroger again, where I only made it through cashiering shifts by imagining that my characters were being tortured and that I could only save them by making it to the end of the next hour. 

But it really does pay to look at what else is out there. You can get some ideas by very casually looking at job sites like Glassdoor or Indeed; there might be nothing, or a bunch of job postings that you don’t understand, but I’ve found that it’s often good to get the lay of the land and figure out what recruiters are looking for in your industry. If you want better odds, and you have some successful friends, it can pay to ask them whether their companies are hiring for a position you can fill, and whether any of them might like to recommend you for it.

If you don’t have an easy way to get your foot in the door, you’re gonna be filling out a lot of applications. This sucks, but it doesn’t mean that you suck. If you really feel like you’re qualified for the sort of job you want, get someone to help you put together a good resume that shows off your skills, put together a portfolio or similar if you’re in the relevant industries, and resign yourself to applying to dozens or maybe hundreds of things. Recruiters are super arbitrary and will totally disqualify you based on things that have nothing to do with your ability to do the job. (This isn’t even because they’re bad people, it’s because they have a stack of resumes on their desk and have only the faintest idea how to tell which of the associated candidates are gonna be good at things.) It’s a numbers game. If you’re not doing something really ridiculous, like applying to every job with a resume that only lists completely unrelated kinds of work experience, then someone’ll probably talk to you eventually. It’ll just probably take way more applications than you’d think.

(Oh, also, all of the requirements in job postings tend to be pretty silly; as long as you think you’re genuinely capable of doing the work, I think you should apply to jobs where you meet maybe 75% of the stated requirements if the job sounds OK, and maybe 50% if it’s something you’d be really excited to get to do.)

3) If you’re not in a career sort of job at all - if you’re stuck behind the counter at Wendy’s right now, in which case my heart goes out to you, anon friend - or you’ve found yourself in a career that pays very badly or makes you unhappy, and you don’t think your skills will translate to anything you like doing, then you might want to look at changing careers entirely. Most people will tell you to go to college, if you haven’t already. I’m gonna tell you that college is a great thing for lots of people, but not always a good idea financially, and not always the best way forward, especially if you’re not very academically inclined. 

Think about what you’re good at, and think about what your dealbreakers are. You’re approaching this from thinking about money, not about passion, but you still don’t want to end up in a job that you’re a terrible fit for; you’ll get fired or be miserable all the time, and that’s no good for anyone. 

As a first line, if you feel that you’re reasonably flexible and talented, here are some very different jobs that make good money; you might want to consider whether you’re a good fit for any of these, and do more research as appropriate. (This is largely an exercise to get you thinking, not to say that these specific jobs are the ones you should definitely be looking at.)- Nursing. There’s a perpetual shortage of nurses, they have to exist everywhere in the country, and they make at least decent pay no matter where they live. For an RN, you’re looking at an average of about $55k per year in the cheapest states, and about $90k per year in the most expensive ones (although remember that this isn’t what you’ll make at the beginning of your career). I don’t recommend it if you really dislike people, long hours, college classes, heavy lifting, or bodily fluids, but I do think it’s a career that a lot more people should be willing to consider. If you think you can hack the education part, but not so much the heavy lifting, the bodily fluids, or the being around people who might be dying, dental hygienists make about the same amount, and their patients hardly ever need to be carried anywhere while possibly dying. I think.

- Software engineering. The pay rate here is kind of insane; if you have the interest and aptitude, then doing a coding bootcamp and getting a programming job in either NYC or San Francisco is a relatively attainable way of making a genuinely six-figure salary within a few years of starting, even if you don’t have a college degree. It’s not for everyone - I’ve tried to learn, a little, but I’ve bounced off pretty hard so far - but it’s a great opportunity for people who can hack it, so to speak. Like nursing, there’s a shortage here, mostly because software is a rapidly expanding industry that has only existed for, like, forty years tops.

- The skilled trades. We’re talking about electricians, mechanics, plumbers, carpenters, and other people in this space. It’s hard in different ways than an office job, but there are a lot of people who these are a good fit for. While they’re not as highly paid as nurses or engineers, people in the skilled trades do OK; reaching $50k per year is totally feasible, and people who are both skilled and lucky can break $80k. These jobs tend to go by apprenticeship systems, so if you don’t have a family member or friend to vouch for you, it’s a good idea to look at trade schools in your area to get you started, and then expect to spend several years in a junior position until you know what’s what.

- Flight Attendants. Not all flight attendants are particularly well-paid, but many are, and things like waitressing can be counted as relevant experience. The first flight attendant job I found on Indeed just now is $18 an hour and doesn’t require any experience or a degree, though the requirements do have a lot to say about your appearance, height (gotta be able to get luggage out of the overhead compartments, after all), and willingness to work really weird hours. The BLS reports that the median flight attendant ultimately makes about $56k per year. 

- Police officers. Obviously there are a ton of very legit reasons not to want to be a police officer, but I am of the opinion that someone’s gotta do it, and it’s better if the people involved wanna do it right, right? (I guess I don’t know if you want to do it right. Please don’t become a police officer purely for the money and then shoot someone, anon.) The median police officer makes about $60k, and it doesn’t require a college education, which is honestly a pretty good deal even if you’re not as passionate as Judy Hopps. I don’t recommend it as a job unless you’re not scared of people, even the creepy ones, ‘cause scared people make mistakes, and when police officers make mistakes, sometimes people end up dead.

If you read that list and were like, “Bard, there’s a reason I’m at Wendy’s, can you lower your expectations here a little,” you might want to look into stuff like warehousing, groundskeeping, janitorial work, sales, garbage collection, or construction work. Job sites are your friends; it’s useful to browse them and see what sorts of jobs pay the kinds of salaries you’re looking for. I also think you might be well-served by considering whether you can move in with friends or family in a part of the country where wages are higher. The big cost of living difference in other places is rent, so if you have a housing situation figured out or can split that cost with a friend, you can make a lot more money just by doing the same thing somewhere else. For example, before I got super lucky and became a Real Content Writer, my plan was to hang out on my friend’s couch for six months rent-free, work at some supermarket in SF, and then take my wages back home to Indiana to pay for the rest of my degree. And honestly, if I hadn’t fallen in love with this ridiculous place and hadn’t immediately gotten a much better job, I think it very well might have worked.

There’s a lot more that I could say here, but this is already pretty long. The main things are to think about where you’re headed, to look around at all of the different possible lucrative directions to head in if you don’t like where you are, and to figure out what steps you’d have to take to get there. You’re welcome to come to my inbox with more questions about this - my last job was all about helping people find jobs themselves, so I guess I should know something about it by now - but you might need to be a little more specific if I didn’t hit on the thing you’re stuck on in this post.

[funkymbtifiction]

What is Ti like for an ENTP? How thorough are they when gathering information? Since their inferior is Si, I thought that might make them not as detail-oriented when it comes to knowing how things work. Also, how do Te and Ti differ when it comes to wanting things to be done efficiently?

ENTP Mod. - To answer your question, Introverted Thinking (Ti) is an auxiliary function for the ENTP. As such, it serves the dominant function. The dominant function, Extraverted Intuition (Ne) is how we process the world and abstractly take in information looking for patterns and make seamless associations between seemingly unconnected ideas. The job of Ti is to act as a filter and help the ENTP in the decision making process. Ti looks to what is logical, within the context of the internal frameworks the ENTP has created in their mind palace. Arguably the concept of the mind palace itself is very Ti. Ti amasses blocks of information, which fit together and creates interlinking structures to better remember and learn. When we pick up a subject, we learn it conceptually and then take it apart to examine it from all angles to see if it makes sense. With high Ti (such as in IxTPs and ExTPs), it gathers sufficient information to experiment and create criteria to critique for logical consistency of an idea, is able to rapidly discard and build their understanding anew while low Ti will try to find rationalization, and not know when to give up or how to redefine, refine those ideas. The problem with Ti however is that while it is logical and precise, it can be incongruent with external reality. So you could have an ENTP who is brilliant but struggles because they fail to grasp the Te criteria on which the world functions, especially in professional environments. This is why you will find most high Ti users getting comfortable in academia. There they can theorize, develop their ideas independently without succumbing to certain pressures like targets and bottom lines. The more an ENTP works on developing a sound internal logical system, the better it is for them because ultimately the internal logical frameworks arre subjective unlike Te which is objective and in adherence to certain external parameters. If you consider NeTi to be a funnel since its approach is convergent, then Ti is the narrow stem, through which ideas must pass and be examined critically, assessed for logical consistency and precision. For example, while writing a story I tend to take a big theme or an idea and then break it down into multiple points each of which has to have a precise and discernible logical connection between. Or while learning, I take in a bunch of information and create specialized blocks of knowledge which are then fused together to create Lego-like structures which are then labelled, sorted and put away into boxes. High Ti is adept at compartmentalizing. Ti wants everything to fit in a clean and precise way. As opposed to the example below, for us it is far more important to understand the why and how, rather than to just get it done. That is why it can be so bothersome when something is technically done, but there is a missing piece of information. Be it Sherlock stabbing envelopes in frustration while trying to work out the sequence of events or yours truly while struggling to find a missing Enneagram fix. It is not just essential that we know something, we must know WHY.

From what I understand of it, Ti spends a significant amount of time learning how something works and then figures out how to “hack” it – at least for high Ti types. An ISTP may spend a long time figuring out the components of a computer program but they then automatically know how one works and can make the program do whatever they want it to do. So it’s more important that the Ti “understand” the nuances to get things to work, whereas the Te cares less about understanding and more about application – if the program does what it’s supposed to do, who cares HOW it works, as long as it WORKS. And if it doesn’t work, and a little tinkering with it can’t fix it and/or fixing it would take longer than the time allotted for the project, it goes in the trash and the Te buys one that DOES work. Broken toaster? I looked it up, tried all the things people suggested, nothing worked. Into the dumpster it goes.

The other day, a friend had me over to help her format her book and deal with some online stuff she wanted done but was too intimidated to do herself. She was stressed and in over her head, and I could see why – she was trying to do too many things at once, she had no sense of organization for any of it, and had questions about 25 different (unrelated) things… so I brought her into an enforced calm by prioritizing her projects and forcing her to stick to just one thing all the way through to the end, and then moving on to the next chore.

She sometimes wanted to understand HOW that was working but I reminded her the end result is what matters most – she asked me to come over and do / fix these things for her, not explain how they work to her. If she wants to know that, she can Google it. The goal is to format her book for online publication. Each time she started asking me about book covers and text and how to upload something online, I reminded her that we were formatting her book. We would handle that later. She still sends me frantic text messages worrying about doing things down the line, and I remind her tactfully that “This is not something you need to think about right now. You have to do these three things FIRST, before you will reach that step. Thinking ahead like that is distracting you from what you are supposed to be doing right now, which is finishing editing the book.”

I’ll use my writing as an example of streamlining for efficiency. First, I set a deadline: I want this rough draft done in three months. Then, because later I will want to document my rewriting / redrafting process closely in order to hit my targeted word limit range (about 95,000 words and 16 chapters), and because I write chapters in sections from the POV of five different characters – each time I finish a chapter, I write down the POV characters in order – for later use and so I can refer to them when starting the next chapter (I don’t like to pick up with a character I just left off with or have the same “order” per chapter; good writing needs variations – not 6 paragraphs in a row that start with the same letter, and not 6 chapters in a row that have the same character order). When I get finished, I print out this list and as I edit, I mark off each chapter and update the polished end word count for each character’s section, as well as the total word count per chapter (to keep them roughly the same length and because I like to make lists ;). Marking them off each day, and seeing my progress, keeps me motivated to make my next deadline. I usually beat it by at least 4 weeks.

My father likes me to get involved in his building and improvement projects because my Te looks at something and figures out in what order it needs to be done. You can’t nail up that, until you’ve done this. This beam supports that, so we should do this first. Measuring and cutting all the boards at once saves time. Repetition is the fastest way to get things done. Use it.

For me, the goal is always to finish.

That’s why I don’t spend 8 or 16 years writing one novel. That would drive me insane, the lack of significant progress. That is why I do not work on 6 novels at once. Scattered focus does not yield quick results. There is nothing slow and steady about my process. It’s like a freight train. People do not always like that about me but they cannot deny the project gets DONE.

- ENFP Mod

[matrixaffiliate]

Patient

NEW STORY!

(This is the story I previewed here.)  I’m so excited for this story! I’m still in the middle of writing it, but don’t worry - I never abandon a story. I’ll try and get chapters done at least every other week. Enjoy!

FFN and AO3

Ginny never wanted to end up a wedding coordinator, especially when at 35 she hasn’t had her own wedding. But when she loses her big corporate event planning position, she’s more or less forced into the job. It’s not all bad though, Ginny gets to plan Victoire’s wedding, and she’s rather taken with the fiance’s godfather.

Patient

Ginny slid her keys into her bag as she walked into work. She’d just pulled off her biggest event yet, a conference of 5000 people and she had coordinated it all: the expo-center, the hotels, the food, the speakers, the free stuff, all of it. And it had gone off without a hitch. She was looking forward to simply writing up her final review and then getting started on the next event, a much smaller in-house event for the company management.

“Ms. Weasley,” a deadly sweet voice called out as she sat down at her desk. Ginny turned to find a squatted toad in a pink dress suit.

Dolores Umbridge stood directly to her left with what looked like excitement across her normally sour face. “I need a word, in my office.”

She looked at Ginny expectantly as Ginny cautiously stood from her chair; then the toad turned on her heels and practically marched down the hall.

Ginny knew this couldn’t be good, but she couldn’t figure out what it could be about. The conference had gone off perfectly, she’d even come in exactly on budget - no small feat. It hit her when she walked into Dolores’ office and saw the HR representative sitting at the desk.

“You’re firing me?” Ginny could feel her eyes bulging out of their sockets.

“Ginny, it’s nice to see you,” the HR rep that had hired her, Richard if she remembered correctly, stood and held out his hand. Ginny didn’t take it, she just stood, rooted to carpet.

“You’re firing me?” She turned to Dolores who smiled.

“Oh no, but we are dissolving the position of event coordinator. We’ll be moving all of your responsibilities to each department’s secretary.” Dolores practically beamed as she settled in her seat, “Please, sit down.”

Ginny wearily took the empty seat, “What about the corporate wide events?”

“The secretaries will work as a team and split the work,” Richard chimed in.

Ginny almost laughed. That was ridiculous. You couldn’t make these events happen without a main face, someone who all the vendors could come to and know they’d get a direct answer. Event planning wasn’t committee material.

“And,” Dolores pushed a small stack of papers across the desk to Ginny, “we’d like to offer you the opportunity to be the marketing department’s new secretary.”

Ginny glanced at the offer letter and this time she did laugh out loud. “That’s a 30% pay cut.”

“But it’s continued employment,” Richard added hastily.

Ginny took a deep breath and counted to ten, slowly, before speaking. “I’d like be considered a layoff and have my severance package instead.”

The look in Dolores’ eyes told Ginny she’d played right into their hand. Whatever. Fine. It didn’t matter.

“Richard has that paperwork,” Dolores turned to him. “After you sign it all he will escort you to your desk and then out of the building.”

Ginny wasn’t listening. She was focusing on not screaming. She wasn’t going to give the pink toad the satisfaction. She was going to walk out of this damn building with her head held high.

The next ten minutes felt like an out of body experience. Ginny went through the paperwork, signed everything, collected her belongings, and nodded politely to Richard as she handed over her badge. She slid into her car, shut the door, took a deep breath, and then screamed at the top of her lungs.

They’d fired her!

After pulling off the kind of events she was for this stupid company they fired her!

Ginny had been mad before, but this was a whole new level of furious. She needed to get home. She needed to call Luna. And she needed to scream a bit more.

Twenty minutes later, Ginny sat on her sofa, still in her power suit, a carton of ice cream in her hand and Luna offering some comfort on the other side of the sofa.

“I’m so sorry, Ginny.” Luna repeated for the millionth time.

“Thanks,” Ginny sighed and took another bite of ice cream before grabbing her laptop off the table. “I guess I should go update my resume and start applying for a new position.”

“Is event coordinator something most companies hire?” Luna asked as she moved closer to Ginny.

“Depends,” Ginny shrugged. “If they’re big enough and they do events outside the company then usually.”

Luna looked worried as she took in that information, but Ginny tried not to notice. She was going to believe that there was a job out there right now just for her.

It turned out that she should have shared Luna’s concern. Ginny had spent a full month applying and interviewing for corporate event coordinator positions to no avail.

“I don’t know what to do,” Ginny groaned as she sat across from her dad. He’d invited her out to lunch and she ignored how readily she’d agreed to a paid meal, along with the tinge of embarrassment she felt when he handed her two cooler bags full of food her mum had prepared.

“Maybe you need to broaden your search,” her dad furrowed his brow. “Be willing to relocate or switch fields.”

Ginny grimaced at the thought of switching fields. The only other thing that existed for event coordinators outside of corporate was wedding planning.

No, thank you.

Ginny didn’t have anything against weddings, aside from the fact that they were ridiculous and overdone and overpriced and she couldn’t put on the show that every bride was getting her happily ever after day in and day out. Nevermind that Ginny was convinced that she wasn’t going to be getting a wedding of her own. As her mother so frequently put it, “you’re nearly 36, don’t you think it’s time you settled down?” Which translated in Ginny’s mind as “you’re nearly past your prime, find someone before you expire.” But Ginny had no prospects, and no real desire to play the dating game again. She’d played it all through her twenties, and she was tired of it. So Ginny had accepted that she was probably just going to be single and put a lot of effort into being a good aunt and daughter and friend and person.

“I know you don’t like the idea of moving,” Arthur patted her hand, “but sometimes we have to roll with the punches. Life has a way of leading us in the right direction if we’re doing our best to be decent human beings.”

The conversation moved on from there but Ginny couldn’t keep from fretting. She was starting to dig into her savings. Her severance was one week of pay for every year she’d worked at the company. Her four years of working there gave her one month’s pay and even with cutting back on her expenses, she knew that her savings wouldn’t last forever.

Ginny walked to her car after bidding her dad goodbye and felt trapped in her situation. She was overqualified for any store attendant position and specialized enough that standard marketing positions preferred other applicants over her. She was running out of options almost as fast as she was running out of money. Ginny was pulled from her melancholy thoughts by her phone buzzing. It was an email from someone who found her on LinkedIn asking if she’d be willing to interview with Wedding Composition to be their newest wedding coordinator.

Ginny stared at the email. She really didn’t want to do this, but she couldn’t see an alternative. Her savings would run out, and that money had originally been for something entirely different than sustaining her through unemployment. She could always interview with them, take the job if offered, and then keep looking for something in corporate. It would at least pay the bills and make it so she wouldn’t need to scrimp after every penny. She would simply jump ship the minute something in corporate came along. Weddings would be easy. No one ever had weddings that compared to the scale of some of the corporate events she pulled off. She would have plenty of time to interview elsewhere. The more she thought about it, the more Ginny thought it was a great idea.

Ginny selected the contact number on her phone and hit the dial option.

Emily McCarthy was exactly what Ginny pictured when she thought of a wedding coordinator. She was bubbly and excited and exuded an optimism that bordered on insanity. But she loved Ginny and was positive that Ginny would love wedding planning so much she’d give up on finding a corporate event coordinator position and stay on forever with her and the rest of the team.

The rest of the team included Josh and Lyndi, both had years of experience in wedding planning. They also were in love with their work and thought they were creating dreams. They echoed Emily’s sentiments that Ginny would lose all desire to work anywhere else after she’d experienced wedding planning. But Ginny really didn’t care, she just was happy to have a job again and a paycheck coming in.

“Congratulations!” Molly beamed at her daughter that Sunday. Bill had complained that the family hadn’t gathered in a few months and Molly had risen to the occasion, inviting everyone home for a full family dinner. Ginny took note that Bill and his family had yet to show up.

“Thanks, Mum,” Ginny smiled, “it’s nice to have a job again.”

“You found a position?” Hermione gave Ginny a hug and shifted baby Rose to one side.

“I found something to get me by for now,” Ginny tickled Rose’s tummy before sighing. “I’m the newest wedding coordinator for Wedding Composition.”

Hermione’s face scrunched in confusion. She knew how much Ginny looked down on wedding planning. But Ginny was saved from having to explain by Bill and his brood filing through the door along with a young man with turquoise blue hair.

“Way to show up, slacker.”

“Be nice,” Molly chided Ginny as she ushered everyone in.

“Excuse me, everyone,” Bill raised his voice, “I’d like to introduce the man who wants to steal my daughter. Ted Lupin, meet the rest of your future family.”

Ginny’s mind quickly processed the words her brother spoke and looked down at her niece’s hand. Sure enough, an engagement ring sparkled in the light. Then the room erupted with cheers and questions and a lot of tears on Molly’s part.

Ginny knew her niece was old enough on paper to get married. She even knew Vic had been dating the same boy for the last three years. But Ginny couldn’t wrap her brain around it. Little Vicky was getting married at just 18? It felt absurd.

But then, it felt nauseating, because her little niece would be married, and Ginny was not. Ginny thought she had come to terms with the idea that she probably wouldn’t marry, but that was before the next generation started marrying. That was before 35 suddenly felt like 70. Ginny was about to excuse herself when her mother added to the anxiety.

“Oh this is perfect! Ginny just took a position as the newest wedding coordinator at Wedding Composition!” Molly turned to Ginny with an excitement in her eyes that Ginny was sure she’d only seen when weddings and babies were being discussed. “Ginny you have to plan Victoire and Ted’s wedding! It would be perfect!”

Ginny forced the panic down and put on a smile, hoping it didn’t look like a grimace. “I’d love to, you’ll be my first clients!”

Bill put his arm around Ginny, “Great, let’s talk budget before Vic gives you her wish list, and Ted can get you in touch with his godfather. He’s offered to help pay for the photographer and the flowers and suits.”

“Godfather?” Ginny repeated, surprised that it wasn’t his parents offering to help pay.

Ted shrugged, “He’s the only family I’ve got.”

The next day was Ginny’s official first day at work, but it really was just going to be a continuation of the previous evening. After laying out the budget with Bill she had spent the following three hours trying to go over wedding details with Vic. It was useless though because every female family member had to have her say about what would make the wedding perfect. Ginny had figured out pretty quick she wasn’t going to get very far and just let everyone talk at Vic and Ted. This morning she was going to be able to actually begin planning things out with her niece and soon to be nephew, along with the godfather who was coming to give her his budget figures.

She sighed as she opened her calendar on her tablet, so much for being able to jump ship the minute she found another job. Now she was stuck coordinating weddings until Vic was married. The next ten months were going to be very long months. Oh well. She pulled out the white binder with gold lace applique printed on it and Vic and Ted’s names printed on a sticker and placed on the binding. Emily had handed it to Ginny when she told Emily that her first client would be Vic. Emily had been ecstatic at the news and insisted that Ginny give Vic and Ted the family discount, something Bill was very happy about when Ginny called to tell him. Ginny flipped through the binder making sure she had filled in everything that she already knew the answers to. It wasn’t too different from her corporate event planning. Instead of branding it was wedding colors. Instead of the presentation it was the wedding ceremony. But the venue was still there and the catering and the lodging. There was just the addition of things like wedding dress shopping, and suits, and bridesmaid dresses, and flower bouquets, and photographers that she hadn’t done before.

“Aunt Ginny?”

Ginny looked up to find Vic and Ted standing at the entrance to her office.

“Thanks again for doing this, Ginny, Vic is so excited I think she’s going to explode.” Ted put a comfortable arm around Vic’s waist and kissed her temple. Ginny smiled, Vic had found a good one.

“Come on in and have a seat,” Ginny rose and gave Vic a hug. It still seemed surreal that little Vicky was old enough to be getting married. They were so young. Ginny was in her mid-thirties and she still felt clueless half the time. Yet here were these babies asking her to help them have the wedding of their dreams.

“I thought your godfather was going to be here,” Ginny turned to Ted as they all sat down.

“He’s on his way,” Ted nodded, “he got a little hung up.”

“No matter,” Ginny waved it away. “Let’s start with the important stuff, and contrary to what everyone at the Burrow told you, that is not the colors or the dress or any of that. I first need to know the number of people you’re going to have at the wedding ceremony and the reception.”

“Oh,” Vic’s cheeks blushed and she looked down at her hand intertwined with Ted’s. “I hadn’t thought about that part actually.”

Ginny sighed. Obviously brides weren’t nearly as organized as most of her previous managers.

“As practical as that is,” a voice sounded from the door, “doesn’t that take some of the fun out of the first meeting with your wedding coordinator?”

Ginny looked up at her door to see a very attractive man with dark hair that fell in every direction and green, green eyes behind a pair of dark framed glasses.

“Harry!” Ted jumped up and gave the man a hug.

“Sorry I’m late, Teddy,” Harry shook his head as he pulled away.

“It’s fine, really, we understand.” Ted turned to Ginny, “Harry, this is Vic’s aunt and our wedding coordinator, Ginny Weasley. Ginny, this is my godfather, Harry Potter.”

“Pleasure,” Harry shook her proffered hand, and Ginny had to pull every trick in the book to maintain her cool. Harry’s eyes bore into her and his smile was captivating. But she didn’t particularly like being called out on her growing pains when it came to transitioning from corporate events to weddings.

“We don’t want to take up too much of your time, Mr. Potter, so let’s go ahead and talk about what you would like to add to the couple’s budget and then you can head back to work.”

“Harry, please,” he pulled a chair up next to Ted. “And I’ve taken the rest of the day off to help with this and everything else Teddy has planned today.”

“Right,” Ginny took a deep breath. She had dealt with Umbridge every day for four years, surely she could handle a sassy, good looking man with minimal issue.

Harry gave her the number and as she wrote it down in the binder he cleared his throat.

“There’s one thing though, I’m sure Teddy would have brought it up when you came to it, but we want to make it clear that there will be no alcohol at the reception.”

Ginny looked up confused. “What?”

Harry looked at her intently. “There will be no alcohol served or available or smuggled in.”

Ginny turned to look at the couple who nodded at her solemnly.

“Er, alright,” she grabbed her red pen and made a note on the catering page. She wasn’t sure what the aversion to alcohol was all about, but obviously the couple agreed which was all that mattered really. “Any other unusual requests?”

Harry flashed her a grin, “Not at the moment.”

Ginny shook her head and tried to hide the smile that was pulling on her lips. This man was ridiculous.

With a little help from Harry and herself, they were able to nail down a good estimate for the number of people to be at the ceremony and the reception. Next Ginny brought up the venue and she watched as Vic heaved a sigh. Ginny felt bad, really she did, but this was the right way to plan out an event. They’d get to colors and dresses and cakes when the big priced items were taken care of and they knew how much money was left after that.

“You know,” Harry stretched, “I could really do with a tea or something. How about we move this little meeting to the cafe down the street?”

“We have a little reception room down the hall that has a kitchenette with tea and water and sodas.” Ginny shook her head. Emily had told her to use the formal reception room for Vic, but Ginny found the room to be over the top. She had decided her office was a much more practical place to meet with her clients.

“Lead on, Ms. Weasley,” Harry stood and gestured out the door.

Ginny grabbed her tablet and the binder and her pens and everything else she thought she’d need before leading her little group into the formal reception room.

The room had cream colored couches and chairs with antique white coffee and side tables. The counter for the kitchenette was white marble and the faucet and handles for the cabinets were gold colored and polished to shine. The walls had large blown up images of smiling brides in beautiful wedding dresses surrounded by flowers and delicate decor. Ginny felt like it was trying to hard. But as she led the little group into the room, she heard Vic gasp and turned to see her niece gripping Ted’s arm with the biggest smile she’d seen on her face since the big family dinner the night before.

“This is beautiful!”

Ginny stared at Vic. Apparently being a French woman’s daughter gave you a severe romantic streak? She turned when she heard water running as Harry filled the electric kettle. He winked at her before he began rummaging through the cabinets looking for tea. Then he opened the mini-fridge and scowled before shaking his head. He reached in and pulled out a Diet Coke.

“Here Teddy,” he handed it over to Ted who grinned and thanked him.

Ginny joined Harry in rummaging through the cabinets for cups and tea and biscuits. As the kettle clicked, Harry leaned closer to her to whisper.

“I’m not about to tell you how to do your job, but your poor niece is looking like you just took her childhood dream and made it a conference room training. So maybe let her have some of the fairytale back.” He poured the cream into Vic’s tea before turning to carry it to her.

Ginny stared at the space he’d just vacated. Who the hell did this guy think he was? She turned her head to glare at him, but she caught a glimpse of Vic and paused. Vic was smiling like the whole world was right. She looked excited and like she couldn’t wait for the day she’d become Mrs. Edward Lupin. Ginny sighed. She absolutely hated being wrong. But she loved Vic. Vic was the little girl who made her an aunt. Vic was the little girl that she took to parks and played tea party with. She was who Vic stayed with when Fleur went into labor with Dominique. Vic was something special and Ginny grudgingly admitted that Harry was right, she deserved the fairytale.

“Now then,” Ginny sat down across from Victoire, “why don’t you tell me what you want your wedding to look like?”

Vic’s eyes lit up like Ginny had just offered her chocolate cake. She proceeded into a monologue of everything she’d dreamed her wedding would be. She wanted the main color to be the same color turquoise as Ted’s hair, accented with silver and white and black. She wanted it to be elegant. She wanted a roses and orchids. She wanted a proper tea instead of a cocktail hour while photographs of the family were being taken after the ceremony. She went on about her dress and the bridesmaids dresses and the way she wanted the venue decorated, how the cake would look, what food they’d have, the music that would play.

And as Vic shared her dreams for her wedding, Ginny just sat and listened. She remembered being young and in love. She remembered what she’d imagined a wedding for herself would have been like. She remembered it had never included the logistics. And finally it hit her. A wedding coordinator existed to keep the magic of the wedding alive, while making sure the logistics went smoothly. An event coordinator had to prove that they had the logistics under control, keep them out in front for their manager to see it was going exactly how they expected it would and was within budget. Ginny realized she’d been trying to be an event coordinator with Vic’s wedding, and she’d been killing the magic.

Ginny glanced at Harry as Vic continued, and found him watching her intently. He nodded once when she caught his eye, and Ginny felt like he could see right through her. She didn’t particularly care for that feeling, but she pushed it away and turned back to Vic as the girl seemed to be winding down on her monologue.

“What do you think?” Vic looked at Ginny with hopeful eyes as she nervously pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.

Ginny moved quickly to wrap her niece in her arms. “It sounds perfect, Vicky.”

They spent the next half hour filling in exactly what the first page of the binder Emily gave Ginny said to decide: date, colors, aesthetic, theme if any, flowers, ceremony desires, location desires, and number of guests. The bottom of that page had a space for the next appointment to be filled in. Ginny stared at it a moment before deciding to trust it. She set up their next meeting and walked the trio back to the front of the little shop.

“Thank you, Aunt Ginny!” Vic hugged her tight. “I’m so excited!”

Ginny held this precious girl in her arms for a long moment and smiled at Ted and Harry. “I’m going to make sure this is as perfect as I can make it for you, Vic.”

Harry winked at her as he pulled the engaged couple out the door. “We’ll see you at the next meeting.”

It wasn’t until she stepped back into her office that Ginny realized what he’d said. Did Harry really think it necessary to come to every meeting? There must have been a miscommunication somewhere along the line because for the most part she would only need Vic and Ted. Wedding dress shopping would of course include more people, as would the selection of suits, but that was it. It wasn’t worth fretting over though, because Ginny had a lot of research to do. Vic wanted her dream wedding, and Ginny was going to make sure that all the money Bill and Harry were putting towards it would stretch as far as she could make it.

She was deep in her figuring of numbers to determine how much the kind of dress Vic wanted would cost in comparison to venues and flowers and cake and catering when Emily knocked on her door.

“Wow,” Emily looked at the spreadsheets across Ginny’s monitors and the number of browser tabs open both on her computer and the one she could see on the tablet. Ginny’s notebook was open as well, notes scribbled across both pages. “I knew you were good, but this is incredibly thorough, Ginny.”

Ginny smiled, “She is my niece after all.”

Emily slid into a chair on the other side of Ginny’s desk. “What exactly are you doing?”

“I’m making sure she can have everything she wants,” Ginny pasted another link into her spreadsheet and entered in another price point, watching the figures update.

“We have the vendors that we normally work with,” Emily reminded her.

“Of course,” Ginny nodded, “and I have all of their information in my spreadsheets as well, but I want to make sure that her budget stretches as far as I can make it. My brother and her fiance’s godfather are both putting money in but it’s still a limited budget.”

“His parents aren’t contributing?” Emily asked with a furrowed brow.

“He told me his godfather was the only family he had.”

Emily’s eyes immediately filled with tears. “Well thank goodness that he has someone!”

Ginny smiled. Harry Potter was a sassy and pretentious someone, but yes, he was someone.

“Well, I wanted to tell you that I have another couple that I’ll be assigning to you. I’ve scheduled their first meeting to be a week from today. We like to do those introductory meetings on Mondays here whenever possible.” Emily handed her another binder, just like the one she had for Vic and Ted. This time, however, Emily had filled in the names and phone numbers.

“Do they have a budget?” Ginny asked, noticing that space was left blank.

Emily chuckled. “Kathleen Hawthorne’s father is quite wealthy. He’s planning on simply selling off a property to pay for his daughter’s wedding.”

Ginny’s mouth dropped. “You’re giving me a rich client?”

“Of course, you’re my most thorough coordinator and I actually think that is going to make Mr. Hawthorne much more likely to broadcast around to his friends that Wedding Composition is the best place for even the aristocracy to bring their daughters.”

“That’s a pretty tall order,” Ginny smiled, “but I’ll do my best.”

“I know you will. Let me know if you need anything.” Emily stood up to leave before turning. “Oh, how did your niece like the reception room?”

Ginny smiled, “It took her breath away.”

“That’s the goal,” she chuckled, “before you leave today, remember to restock what you used. I noticed you already put the cups and saucers in the dishwasher, thank you for that.”

Ginny nodded as Emily walked out to prepare for her next meeting.

Ginny spent the entire day doing research for Vic’s wedding, determined to find the best prices on everything. It felt good to be working and it felt good to be doing the part of her job she liked best. Sorting through all her vendor options, pitting their best prices against each other and sweet talking her way into deals. She loved seeing an event go off perfectly, but she lived for putting it all together so that she could be confident that nothing could go so wrong at the event that it couldn’t be saved.

Before heading home for the day, Ginny pulled a Diet Coke from the stock room and walked it into the reception room. She slid it into the fridge but stopped a moment when she saw what was sitting next to the assortment of sodas. Bottles of champagne sat ready to open and serve to the clients. She’d need to remember that for when Kathleen Hawthorne and Travis Schultz came in next week. That would probably be exactly what big money like that would want. Ginny put a note in her phone to pick up some fruit and scones on her way in that day as well.

But before she could meet her expensive taste clients, she had to find Vic a venue to get married in.

“I have five places to look at today, but if you don’t feel like any of them are right we can look at a few more. These are just the ones I think you’ll fall in love with.” Ginny smiled at Vic who sat in the front seat of her car with her, nearly bouncing with excitement. Ted and Harry sat in the back. She’d have to remember to tell Harry that he didn’t need to keep taking work off for this, she’d let Ted know if he needed to be there or not. Ginny glanced back in the rearview mirror and accidentally caught Harry’s eye. He winked at her before looking back out his window.

Ginny tried to ignore the way the blood rushed to her ears.

Thankfully she was pulling up to the first reception hall.

The place was very modern. Clean lines everywhere and gold and silver finishes. The floors were polished black granite and every table had a white marble top. Ginny heard Vic’s breath catch as they walked in and she grinned. But as they went through the tour, Ginny could see that while this had the elegance Vic had wanted, it was a bit too much for her.

“We have the exact date of your wedding open as well,” the host spoke to Vic as she continued to tell her how they could make this facility into her dream.

“Vic,” Ginny stepped between the host and her niece, “remember I have four other facilities for you to look at. You don’t have to pick right now.”

Vic smiled in relief, “Let’s go look at the other places, I want to know what all my options are.” The poor girl grabbed Teddy’s hand and practically bolted for the door. Ginny chuckled before thanking the host and arranging to bring her next clients through as well. This hall looked like the kind of thing they might just eat up.

“Remember, Vic,” Ginny said as she drove the to the next hall, “you aren’t required to give them an answer at all. I can call them and get everything set up after you’re back at home. We’ll have meetings to make sure it’s exactly what you want, so don’t let them pressure you into making decisions before you’re ready.”

“It’s your day,” Harry added, “and we’re all just here to make sure you love it.”

Ginny looked at Harry in her rearview mirror and he winked at her again. Ginny immediately looked back at the road. Why did this man have to be so, so, so, whatever, it didn’t matter. She’d let him know he didn’t need to be around for these things and then she wouldn’t see him again aside from suits and the wedding day.

Vic went through the next two venues with a bit more confidence, but the fourth venue had her staring out the window while everyone else filed out of the car.

“It looks even better out of the car, love.” Ted opened her door and offered his hand. Vic took it and slowly stepped out.

“Oh my,” she breathed.

The venue was an old converted manor house that had a very French chateaux feel. The gardens were the definition of a fairytale, even with it being late August. Roses, lilies, and freesias of every color were slowly fading but covered the beds around the house with sweet peas intermixed throughout. Greenery and trees brought an elegant balance to the whimsical colors. The entire picture was everything that Vic had described and Ginny had been the beyond excited to show it to her.

“Wait till you see inside,” Ginny beckoned Vic forward.

Ted gave her a gentle tug and Vic walked slowly, looking for all the world like she’d just walked through the gateway into Narnia.

Sara, the owner of the manor house turned chateaux reception hall, met them at the door. She showed them around the hall then the gardens. Sara painted the picture of a garden ceremony as the sun began to set. She showed where the tea would be held in the smaller hall on one end of the home, and how the reception could be either out in the gardens or in the larger hall off the main entrance. Sara even knew where the perfect place to take photographs would be and offered to speak with the photographer before the wedding so Vic would have the perfect pictures of her amazing day.

Ginny let a smug smile touch her lips as she watched her niece. This was the place, and Sara had just sealed the deal by inviting Vic and Ted to take some time to walk around and picture it for themselves.

“Why did you save this one for last?”

Ginny jumped as she realized that Harry had snuck up next to her.

“It isn’t last,” Ginny chuckled, “there’s still one more. We hit them in the order of closest to the office first.”

“But you knew she’d pick this one,” Harry stepped closer to her and Ginny felt her heart rate increase.

“I suspected she would, but I didn’t know.”

Harry gave a quiet laugh that was more of a rumble in his chest and that did things to Ginny that she hadn’t experienced in ages. “What did you do before becoming a wedding coordinator?”

“How do you know I haven’t always been a wedding coordinator?” Ginny was suddenly weary of where he was pulling that kind of personal information on her.

Harry stared at her a moment before gesturing to the engaged couple walking the gardens hand in hand. “I’m Teddy’s godfather, amazingly enough, and I do tend to talk to him. Vic talks a lot about you too when she’s at ours.”

Ginny felt her neck grow hot and a tinge of embarrassment gripped her stomach. She kept forgetting that Harry was the equivalent of Bill. He certainly didn’t look much older than her, but some people just aged well, and Harry was probably one of them. Ted was a year older than Vic, and so Ginny assumed that Harry must be closer to Bill’s age.

“I suppose that puts us on uneven footing. I know nothing about you, and you already know that this is the first time I’ve coordinated a wedding.”

Harry took another step closer to her, leaving a breath’s distance between them. “I’d be happy to put us on even footing, if that would put you at ease.”

Ginny felt her breath stop. Was he…flirting with her?

It’d been so long since she’d put herself out there that she wasn’t even sure how to respond as Harry stared down at her with those green eyes and messy hair that her fingers itched to touch.

“Aunt Ginny,” Vic apparently decided Ginny didn’t need to respond, and for the briefest moment, Ginny wished her niece would go snog her fiance for the next two or three hours and leave her be.

“Aunt Ginny, this is it!” Vic exclaimed. “This is exactly what I want! I love it, and so does Ted! Can we get it reserved right now?”

Ginny gave herself a mental shake and smiled at Vic, “Absolutely! Let’s go get Sara and we’ll get everything reserved and set for your big day.”

She led them back into the manor house and tried to shake the feeling that Harry was watching her. Instead she discreetly texted Luna and asked if she could stop by after work. She really needed someone to put her head back on straight.

Luna, thankfully, was free and Ginny dropped her crew off at the office where they’d all met up before grabbing takeaway and heading to her best friend.

“I brought your favorite,” Ginny handed the bags over to Luna when she opened her door.

Luna chuckled as she ushered Ginny in, “So what’s the emergency?”

Ginny threw herself onto Luna’s sofa and sighed, “How did you know Rolf was interested in you before you started dating?”

Luna started unloading the food, “He told me he wanted to date me.”

Ginny sighed, why couldn’t everyone be just a bit eccentric like Luna and Rolf? They were relationship goals. So straightforward and to the point with each other, and even with Rolf and Luna going separate expeditions all the time they were probably the tightest couple Ginny had ever laid eyes on.

“Who are you hoping is interested?”

Ginny shook her head, “I don’t know if I even want him to be interested. I haven’t dated since Dean and that was nearly five years ago. I’m just…confused?”

“Confused,” Luna echoed her.

“I guess,” Ginny took a bite of food to buy her some time to think.

“He isn’t a groom, is he?”

Ginny stared at her friend, almost sure she was taking the Mickey.

“He’s Ted’s godfather.”

Luna smiled and Ginny was sure now that she was being teased. Luna loved to tease in her own quiet way, especially if it meant she could tease Ginny. They’d been friends for nearly there decades and the friendly teasing seemed to pull the rug out from Ginny’s anxiety.

“I’m being ridiculous, aren’t I?”

“Only mildly,” Luna assured her with a quiet laugh. Ginny couldn’t help but join in on the laughter, and pretty soon the two friends were in a right fit of giggles on the sofa. It took several minutes before either was able to gain control of themselves.

“Now then,” Luna chuckled as she took hold of her water glass, “why don’t you fill me in on what’s going on like a sane person.”

Ginny stuck her tongue out at Luna. “I told you about Ted’s godfather, Harry, remember? Well he showed up to the venue tours today and he offered to tell me as much about himself as Vic and Ted had told him about me.”

Luna wriggled her eyebrows, “Oooh that sounds so romantic.”

“Luna, please,” Ginny groaned, “I’m trying to figure out what to do!”

“Let the man,” Luna shrugged, “you could do with a night out.”

“He didn’t ask me out for a pint,” Ginny huffed. “I don’t know what he was implying.”

“Stop being thirteen,” Luna stood and started clearing her food. “If you’re interested in the man then let him know. If you’re not, then be professional and don’t pursue him.”

“That’s the problem, I don’t know if I’m interested,” Ginny joined her in clearing their takeaway.

“I can’t help you there,” Luna put a comforting hand on Ginny’s shoulder, “you’re going to need to figure that out for yourself.”

“And that’s the hard part,” Ginny sighed.

Ginny didn’t know what she wanted. She was happy with her life, wasn’t she? She was comfortable being single, at least she thought so. Things didn’t end well with Dean and Ginny had decided she was done playing the field. She didn’t want to try and convince some guy she was worth the time of day. But what did she want? Did she really want to keep coming home to an empty flat? Did she really want to spend the rest of her life single? Or did she really just want to avoid getting burned again?

When Ginny fell into bed that night, she still didn’t know.

After meeting with Kathleen and Travis that Monday, which seemed to go off without a hitch, Ginny decided to see if Vic had time to look at the photographers portfolios with her. They would need to get engagement pictures done just as quickly as possible so they could decide on the invitations.

Vic responded to her text with a phone call.

“Hi Vicky.”

“Hi Aunt Ginny, I got your text and I’m at Ted’s. What do you think of coming over and after we pick a photographer you can stay for dinner?”

Ginny sighed, little Vicky was old enough to be the hostess now, when did that happen?

“That sounds lovely, thank you! Send me the address and I’ll leave here in fifteen minutes.”

Ginny had expected a flat. Ted was nineteen, only a year older than Vic, and she expected him to be living like a nineteen year old, in a flat, in a cheap part of town, with little food on hand. So when the GPS led Ginny out to the suburbs and a small home with a lovely little wrought iron fence and a slightly overgrown front garden, Ginny immediately checked that the addresses were the same. Everything looked to be right, so with a bit of trepidation and a lot of confusion, Ginny approached the front door and rang the bell. Her heart almost stopped when the door opened.

Harry Potter stood looking at her with those stupid green eyes and a sassy grin on his face.

“Oh good, you found it,” He stepped off to the side and motioned for Ginny to come in.

“Er, yes, the GPS led me straight to it.” Ginny’s brain was quickly catching up with what was happening. Ted obviously lived with his godfather. Ginny was going to be having dinner with Vic and Ted…and Harry.

She was pulled from her musings by a soft hand on the small of her back as Harry led her down the hall. The spot on her back where his hand was touching seemed to burn and Ginny tried not to let her labored breathing show. The home was well kept and the smells coming from the kitchen were amazing. She was just about to ask Harry for clarification on what was going on when she heard her name.

“Aunt Ginny!” Vic jumped up from the sofa as Harry led them further into the house.

“You ready to pick out your photographer?” Ginny smiled as she wrapped Vic in a hug. Work, she needed to focus on the wedding and she would be fine. Ginny could have a professional work dinner with her clients. It would be fine.

“I’m so excited!” Vic pulled her down to the sofa.

Yes. Ginny was going to focus on work, and stop imagining that Harry was watching her, because he wasn’t, she was sure he wasn’t.

Ginny pulled her tablet out of her bag along with a couple printed portfolios from photographers that the shop kept on hand. “Ok, let’s start with looking at the photos and then we can talk about which package would be right for you. No sense in paying to have a photographer all day if the wedding and reception will only be a few hours.”

Vic picked up the first portfolio with excitement and put it across her lap and Ted’s. “Wow, do you think I’ll look like that?” Vic pointed to the first image of a bride surrounded by roses.

“You’ll look more beautiful than every single picture here,” Ted kissed her cheek and Ginny smiled as Vic’s cheeks tinged pink.

“You are a flatterer, Edward.”

“And you love it,” Ted chuckled, “besides, I never say anything that isn’t true.”

Ginny remembered a time when she would have scoffed at that sort of exchange between her brothers and their wives. Even as recently as Luna and Rolf had Ginny rolled her eyes at what she considered sappy attempts to be romantic. But something about it being the next generation was different. It was heartwarming to see Vic growing up, to see her find someone who looked at her like she was his whole world, and Ginny couldn’t bring herself to be cynical of any of it.

They sorted through photographers before deciding on the one that Vic liked best and had the best rate. Ginny excused herself to what Harry called his office in order to call and make the arrangements. She was just finishing up, consultation, engagement shoot, and wedding day booked and planned, when Harry stepped in the room.

“Just checking something,” he smiled at her as he slid into his computer chair and began clicking around on his computer.

She should have left; she was already standing, she was finished with the call, she had no reason to still be in his office. But for some reason, Ginny pulled out her tablet out and looked with unseeing eyes at her calendar, alone in a room with Harry Potter.

“Were you able to get the dates for Vic and Teddy?” He slid up next to her and looked over her shoulder at the calendar.

“Yeah,” Ginny bit her lip.

Harry was close, close like he had been when he offered to tell her as much about himself as he knew about her. She chanced to look up at him and found him smiling at her. Ginny felt like she needed to say something, she needed to break this spell he’d cast over her that had somehow rendered her trapped under his gaze. But she couldn’t seem to gain control over her voice or manage to look away. His green eyes held hers and Ginny was rooted to the floor staring up at him with no idea of how to escape, and if she was honest, she didn’t want to escape.

Suddenly, Ginny felt the nearly five years since she’d been this close to a man as keenly as she would have felt five years without ice cream. Had it really been almost five years since she’d kissed anyone? Had she really gone nearly sixty months since she’d been held? How had she managed these roughly seventeen hundred days without really touching another person? There was a part of Ginny’s mind that reminded her that she was happy. She lived a fulfilling life and had wonderful friends and a loving family. But that part of her brain was being drowned out by the part of her that had sprung to life like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the part of her that wanted this, that wanted Harry.

“Do,” Ginny whispered, “do you want to come to the consultation, with the photographer?”

Harry’s grin tilted just a bit higher and he glanced down at the screen, “I think I can be there for it, probably smart too, since I’m paying the man and all.”

Ginny felt the smile pulling on her lips and she gave into it. “Yeah, got to make sure this bloke isn’t going to take your money and run.”

Harry laughed and moved closer, placing his hand on the small of her back again, “As long as he isn’t also running off with the wedding coordinator.”

Ginny stopped breathing. She honest to goodness forgot how to make her lungs pull breath in and expel it out.

“Harry,” Ted’s voice sounded down the hall. “The stove timer is going off, which dish is it for?”

Ginny saw annoyance flash in Harry’s eyes as his hand fell from her back. The lack of contact brought her breath back, but Ginny would have almost rather passed out from lack of oxygen than have him not touching her. Harry moved toward the door and Ginny watched him in slow motion as Luna’s advice rang through her ears.

“Harry,” she barely heard her own voice but Harry stopped dead in his tracks and turned towards her.

“The,” she bit her lip and took a deep breath, “the wedding coordinator is more interested in the godfather than the photographer.”

Harry’s smile bloomed on his face like a morning flower, “That’s very good news.” He winked at her before disappearing down the hallway.

Ginny felt her breath leave with him.

[saturatedcoffee]

How to put Roleplaying on your resume

And other skills you’ve picked up along the way.

I’ve gotten so many discord messages since my last post, both from other rpers who include roleplaying on their resume and others who are hesitant to. So, for those of you who want to be able to use this as a marketable skill, or want to know how you can improve your current resume roleplay listing, I’m here to help.

Please note - I am not a professional resume writer, just a broke ass twenty-something who was written too many resumes. The examples used below are generalizations taken from my personal resumes that have resulted in me getting the job. Use your best judgement, but, if in doubt, feel free to shoot me a message!

Also, I am primarily a forum roleplayer. While this can be used for other forms of roleplaying, you may have to change more of these examples to better fit your experiences.

Tips for your basic roleplay writer

As your basic roleplay writer, you excel at mostly one thing - writing. Perhaps you’ve picked up other skills along the way, like graphics or coding, or you’ve become familiar with software like Google Docs. These are all important skills you use professionally, so be sure to include them in the Skills section of your resume. Employers often refer to these as “soft skills” and it’s extremely difficult to find employees that have those skills and actually demonstrate them, so these can really help you stand out.

But the most important thing is to be able to include some examples. Find your favorite roleplay post and include it in your portfolio. Gather together your best moodboards, signature graphics, or avatars. Link to your resource site galleries or your rp tumblr tag. Demonstrate that you actually have these skills and that they’re more than just words on paper.

Here’s an example of some of the things I list in the skills section of my resume.

Skills

Writing: website content, blog articles, social media, coding markup, collaborative articles, 

Software & Languages: Google Drive, Microsoft Office, WordPress, Invision Power Board, Tumblr, Photoshop, Gimp, Pinterest. CSS, Javascript, HTML, JQuery

I also include three of my favorite roleplay posts I’ve written, and I’m building up a coding tumblr to showcase the things I’ve coded for rp, which I will include on future resumes. While hobbies sections of a resume are very outdated, this is a subtle way you can include this particular hobby. And employers generally like you more for it!

Tips for your roleplay staffer

Staffing a roleplay is, or rather should be, a whole different ballgame from being just a roleplay writer. Because, if you’ve staffed your roleplay the right way, it has now become a well of marketable content you can actually show to your potential employer. You have actual proof of your management skills and abilities you can link a live version to, even if the site has since closed. Don’t take that for granted! That kind of content is very valuable to a potential employer.

And now, aside from listing your abilities in the skills section of your resume, you have the opportunity to list your staffing experience in the list of jobs you’ve had experience with. Because your web forum is, essentially, a brand, and staffing is your job.

Aside from listing basic rp duties, if you do social media for your rp, or even advertise for it, those are marketable skills. If you use particular software to make things for your rp, like maps or timelines, ads or trailers, include that. Each rp is different, and there are many different forms of roleplaying. So tailor the below example to your experiences and include achievements that are relevant to you.

Web Community Administrator - Site Name and link, 2017-Present

Wrote, edited, and maintained all web manuals across web pages

Moderated community engagement & content across platforms to enforce community rules and regulations

Consistently maintained brand voice across publications by creating style guidelines and consistent posting rules

Collaborated with community members on site content to create engaging SEO statistics

Built a successful user and readership base by building advertising strategies across multiple web platforms.

Tips for your roleplay coder

I am partial to the rp coder, specifically of forums, because I am one! Being able to code anything is such a skill these days, and employers like it a lot more if you tell them you do it for fun. Even if you’re not applying for a coding job, it’s another fun fact about you that makes you stand out.

If you’re a coder, I would suggest having a portfolio of your work somewhere. Either on a resource site they can access as a guest (codepen is great for this) or a blog, forum, or website they can see your work on. 

Here are some generic examples of things you can put on your resume, but tailor them to your specialties!

Web Forum Designer - Site or Portfolio name/link, Date-Present

Designed interactive web templates and mobile-first layouts to increase web accessibility

Maintained multiple web forums via back end control panel of Invision Power Board

Increased user engagement by ##% by designing intuitive interfaces

Built brand style guidelines to improve brand recognition, increasing website hits by ##%

Tips - and disclaimers - for everyone

The best tip I can give to anyone about writing a resume is to tailor each resume to the job you are applying for. Use keywords used in the job listing. Use terms like KPI or ROI where necessary. Use specific examples of the things you’ve done in concise sentences. Where you can, avoid being vague. Show your worth. Link examples!

The examples I used above are very generic and are meant to be used as a place to start from for everybody. I cannot stress it enough that you still need to tailor these examples to your experience and skills. For example, if you designed interactive web templates, link to your coding tumblr tag or resource gallery. If you wrote and maintained web manuals (see site rules, plot, member groups, etc.), link to that forum or those pages or put a (see below) and include them in the examples you send along with your resume. Use percentages where appropriate and include trackable data where you can to help illustrate your positive impact on that site.

However, when putting your resume into website instead of uploading it as a .pdf or .doc, this can be difficult. So use your best judgement.

How to tell a potential employer you roleplay while in an interview

So now that you’ve gotten through writing your resume, let’s assume you got the interview! Congratulations! You used your skills to stand out a little bit from the 800 other applicants that put in for the job. But you still have to make an impression out of the 20 other suits coming in for the interview. *Gulp*

I’ve found that the easiest way is to mention it when they ask you the infamous “Tell me about yourself” question. This question is your elevator pitch, so work it in in a way that’s quick and will make them want to ask you more about it later. Don’t make it the focus, just drop in a line and move on. For example:

“I’ve been working in media for the last five years, but I would like to focus on web media in particular. I’ve been writing for websites in my free time for the last decade, and found this is the area I’m most passionate about...” I’ll let you imagine how the rest of that elevator pitch goes.

Now my interviewer will probably ask me about all this experience I have writing for web that’s not exactly spelled out on my resume. But I’ll have those experiences, either listed in my skills section or as a job listing, to refer them back to.

So now you’re probably wondering, when they do ask you about it, how to not be weird about it. Because rp is...actually really weird I mean the amount of sex I write about is unreal, yo. But you really only need get into the basics. Tell them you enjoy writing, and that you enjoy writing collaboratively. And through that passion, you’ve learned how to effectively manage web communities or taught yourself CSS. When you talk about your passions in an interview and how they’ve lead you to pursue professional advancement, you really stand out. You become “that girl who loved writing so much she became this dope ass graphic designer” or “that guy who loved writing so much he became this insane web developer.” It shows not just passion, but a breadth of skills and curiosities and gives you much more potential to grow within a position than other candidates.

While talking about your roleplay experience, offer to send them examples of your work when you get home. The amount of times I’ve mentioned my creative passions in an interview and had the non-creative interviewer want to know more is too damn high. But not only does that give you the opportunity to send a thank you email, but gives them something to click on and remember you by. Which is a make it or break it part of most interviews.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk

That’s all the advice I’ve got for you, kids. I apologize for it being so vague, but I wanted this to be usable by the largest amount of roleplayers it could be. If you have questions, or want to know how it could be used to highlight your own skills more, feel free to drop me an ask or friend me on discord and shoot me a message! I’m always happy to offer some suggestions to you.

And if you’re already doing all of this, why don’t you share your own experiences? How has using rp on a resume helped you? What other tips do you have? And how can others make the most of their experiences to help them?

[douchebagbrainwaves]

IF LISP IS A CASUALTY OF

This is an extremely useful question. If someone went to Stanford and is not obviously insane, they're probably a safe bet. And yet a lot of lines have nothing on them but a delimiter or two. And that cures the other half of the thank-you notes from his wedding, four years ago. I now realize, is that there is now potentially an actual audience for our work. Here's a sign of how much programmers like to be good at hacking, is figure out what you truly like. It's practically the standard ending in blog entries—uh, what it the conclusion? Prep schools openly say this is inevitable—that high school students aren't capable of getting anything done yet. But you're not thinking that way about a class project and a real startup? Naive founders think that if they can just hire enough people it somehow will be. The whole language always available.

Part of the reason VCs are harsh when negotiating with startups is that big companies tend to have fewer bugs. The reason is that software plays an increasingly important role in companies, and the power of something is how well you can use this information in a way that is crabbed and incomprehensible? What makes it true is that it's more preposterous to claim about anywhere else. And yet, if they do let you down, will still seem to have been a prudent choice. The way to learn about physics didn't need to start by mastering Greek in order to read Aristotle. It's especially good if your application solves some new problem. After the first 10 or so we learned to treat deals as background processes that we should ignore till they terminated. They're the ones that actually work. Certainly. C: C is too low-level. So companies have evolved to fill that niche. He just cannot fail now.

But if you look at the employment agreement you sign when you get fouled is not to search for them—not to wander about thinking, what great discovery shall I make? In fact, the acquirer would have been capable, yet amenable to authority. Co-founders really should be people you already know. Back in the days when people might spend their whole career at one big company, which is the least of your problems, a low burn rate gives you more opportunity to recover from them. And the way these assumptions are going to get nothing. Well, therein lies half the work of essay writing. Only a few people really happy than to make a difference. I know many Lisp hackers that this has happened to. As long as you've made something that a few users love you, but that won't be the last idea you'll have.

As well as having precisely measurable results, we have to have in person. And aside from that, grad school is close to paradise. It sounds crazy, but there's a good chance that would work. Knuth pointed out long ago that speed only matters in a few critical bottlenecks. In practice this seems to work much as in LA. If a startup succeeds, you get to compare how they all perform on identical tasks; and everyone's life is pretty fluid. Sure, it can be launched. Most subjects are taught in such a boring way that it's only by discipline that you can test equality by comparing a pointer. Unfortunately the sort of AI I was trying to solve. Kerry lost. If they could even get here they'd presumably know a few things we don't.

On Lisp. Medieval alchemists were working on a hard problem, but their approach was so bogus that there was a university nearby. As in an essay about it. But I think I know the answer to that. Initially you have to think about more than just learning. Right now most of you feel your job in life is to be learned from whatever book on it happens to be intended for writing compilers. Above that threshold, software purchases generally had to be crammed into the form of an academic paper to yield one more quantum of publication. I think almost anything you can do anything if you really get it, you can contribute to open-source projects. And board votes are rarely split. Individual programs can certainly be the result of a presidential election, which makes it easy to believe it was the cause. And the cost of checks, you can do something that makes many different programs shorter, it is just as worthwhile to design a good language? I've paid close attention to any evidence I could get on the question, how do you get into a good one?

They were invented by McCarthy in the course of developing Lisp. Airbnb into the astonishingly successful organism it is now. But it seemed worth spoiling the atmosphere if I could only tell startups 10 things, this would be one of them you were at a disadvantage. The term dark ages is presently out of fashion as too judgemental the period wasn't dark; it was just different, but if you major in economics it will be easy to raise more money. Or the company that would be a distinct node if you drew a tree representing the source code. I had stopped believing that. What I'm looking for are programs that are short because delimiters can be omitted and everything has a one-character name. But in ambitious adults, instead of drying up, curiosity becomes narrow and deep. They're all terrible procrastinators and find it almost impossible to make themselves do anything they're not interested in. This turns out to be important, because a lot of time on work that interests you, and startups run on morale. In retrospect this was a smart move, but we couldn't figure out how to give them what they want to do research as a career.

Well, this seems a grim view of the world. PhD in computer science, and it could require interpretation in the case of contemporary authors. And when I used to think running was a better form of exercise than hiking because it took less time. One got extra credit for motives having to do with how abstract the language is spoken. Societies eventually develop antibodies to addictive new things. I hadn't deliberately tuned in to that wavelength to see if there was any signal left. Your second advantage, poverty, might not sound like an advantage, but it turned out I was 450 years too late. College is where faking stops working. Yes, of course. And make the topic so intellectually bogus that you could not, if asked, explain why one ought to write about these issues, as far as I know has a serious girlfriend, and everything they own will fit in one car or is crappy enough that they don't mind leaving it behind. Of course they do. Having gotten it down to 13 sentences, I asked myself which I'd choose if I could save some of the people on both sides who supply and check proofs of the supplier's solvency.

Startups rarely die in mid keystroke. Maybe this will change if enough startups choose SF. If they were just like us, then they had to make concessions. At this point he is committed to fight to the death. But really what work experience refers to is not some specific expertise, but the curiosity I mean has a different shape from kid curiosity. They have little discipline. So in addition to the usual clauses about owning your ideas, you also can't be a founder of a startup is to have a rigid, pre-ordained plan and then start a startup at 30. There is now a whole neighborhood of them in San Francisco. Wodehouse or Evelyn Waugh or Raymond Chandler is too obviously pleasing to seem like serious work, as reading Shakespeare would have been better off; not only wouldn't these guys have broken anything, they'd have gotten a lot more than you realized. If it is not all they're for, then what else are they for, and how important, relatively, are these other functions? Checks on purchases will always be expensive, because the center of gravity of Silicon Valley.

[memoirsofamessybitch]

In My Mind; Part 1

@lizgarxo​ this one is dedicated to you! and to anyone who has been looking forward to a continuation of this! 

the prologue can be found here: http://memoirsofamessybitch.tumblr.com/post/180457816968/in-my-mind-prologue

Joe X Fem Reader 

Sometimes it's hard to get settled into a new gig that's so different from the one before. I'd worked on a lot of T.V shows, a few stage productions but a film...it's a whole different ball-game. You're working even longer hours, getting treated even worse than any job before, and most of the time you're just touching up miserable featured extras. I spent the whole first week getting coffee, as my expertise wasn't needed to it's full extent. The second week I started doing make-up tests, the leads were still having wardrobe fittings to prep for initial shoots. I glanced at the main casting, I recognized a few names, but not all.. My crew dealt with prosthetic and make-up. Which meant a lot more time with actors in my chair and in my trailer, lots of touch ups and by the look of it lots of airbrushing and fake blood.

You could say I had very little job satisfaction, the dream had turned to complete dust after getting so much abuse and fetching about a million Starbucks orders. So much so I can't even stand walking past one. I must sound like the most cynical bitch on the planet, and you're fucking right.

It was by the third week when my interest began to peak however. Not only in my job but in fact my own personal life. 

When people tell you they've been unlucky in love, you're pretty sure they are just exaggerating. But me, I could write the book sweetheart. I'd grown pretty used to rejection and heartache, so I made sure I tried my best not to catch feelings. Meaningless sex with multiple hookups kept my appetite for human contact at bay, who had time for a significant other. So when I tell you, I met someone who makes my stomach ache with butterflies, who makes my skin tingle and burn with excitement at the very mention of his name. You can understand the severity of how much of an impact he has on me.  

By the third week, around 6 am an actor sat in my chair and completely changed my perspective on life forever. I didn't even realize at first I had my earphones in listening to  (favourite album) and sipping my drink unaware of what was going on at first. Movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention and with a loud sigh and got up from my leaning position and began my day.

I didn't see him, not right away if you know what I mean. It wasn't till he spoke to me, that’s when I really saw him. I noticed his kindness initially, then the rest followed of course.

“Morning! I'm Joe, nice to finally meet you” he had on this really kind and trusting smile, like he'd known me for years. I smiled back, not forcibly either. I could even feel my cheeks flush a little. Now that I wasn't expecting.

I eventually noticed he had his hand out so we could shake. I quickly snapped out of my smiling gaze and grabbed his hand.

“I'm y/n, so uh....it seems like we're doing some scarring and wounds on the face and neck” I picked up my photos for reference.

“Yeah I'm not muscular enough to have gaping scars on my tight bod” He pointed to his chest and grinned, followed by a soft chuckle. I wasn't expecting a genuine laugh to come out of me either that day, but it did. I covered my mouth and snickered “You've seen those studs in action films all bloody and dirty, yeah...bet you’ve airbrushed a few muscular men in your time I can tell” I kept laughing, more noticeably this time. “Sorry I'll stop” his chuckle died down. I was a little disappointed, I was enjoying it.

“NO....dude it's fine. It's been a while since I've had a laugh like that” I was preparing my brushes looking at him through the reflection in the mirror before us. I examined him bit by bit. Firstly; his dark auburn hair, it was thick and slightly wavy on top. Hair department obviously hadn't seen him yet. In fact it looked like he'd just woken up. His nose dimple was the second thing I noticed, and it was ridiculously adorable. I bit my lip briefly as I made very quick eye contact. Just had to check them out too. In the light they looked kinda olive coloured. I smirked at him as he continued.

“Why! make-up trailers are where you're supposed to have fun, or you go insane from boredom!” he crossed his arms and looked at me with intrigue.

“You're right with the last one, the last couple of jobs I've done have been so BORING, films are hard work though, I think I'm gonna be a shell of a person after this one” I picked up my prep spray and held it up. Joe closed his eyes and tilted his head back slightly.

“Ready?”

“As I'll ever be, just make sure it doesn't go up my nose” He pointed to his nostril and I rolled my eyes.

“Alright your highness” He chuckled softly again as I sprayed away. “You done a lot of acting then?” He scoffed at my question. Okay maybe it was dumb but actors come and go, I'd met so many, names and faces really escaped me.

“You could say I have, you ever seen Jurassic Park?” He looked up at me as I put some putty onto my fingers and began to massage it between them, my eyes widened.

“Oh my god you're Raptor number 3 aren't you! I love your work” I put on some dumb fan girl voice and stuck my tongue out. He threw his head back and laughed. “For real though...were you like the little boy or something?” He nodded sucking in his bottom lip. “Damn son that's pretty fucking cool”

“Okay okay...you ever seen the show The Pacific?” he was really testing me now. I shook my head pushing my tongue against the inside of my cheek.

“Nope, Sorry I'm shit at this game dude” I started to stroke the putty onto his cheek bone as gently as I could.I focused on his side profile for a moment. It certainly wasn’t the worst thing I’d seen in a while. I licked my lips and continued stroking carefully.

“Damn your hands are soft....” He whispered as his eyes closed slowly. I stopped for a moment and sucked in my bottom lip. His freshly shaved cheek felt pretty good too to be honest. I watched his body relax at my touch, it was oddly satisfying.

“Thanks?” I said with slight hesitation in my voice.

“Sorry was that....sorry I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable” the way he looked up at me made my chest feel odd, almost full of something. He was looking as if he was genuinely worried about what he had said to me. I put my hand on his shoulder and shook my head. 

“No...NO no no...I'm not....just” I hesitated for a moment before I continued.

 “I struggle taking compliments is all” I carried on applying. I could feel his eyes on me. “What, you're looking at me like I just said something ridiculous” He shook his head. I sat back on the desk facing him this time, and began swirling around the brush over the applicable make-up. I watched each fiber pick up the pigment, trying my best not to let the butterflies in my stomach distract me from my work.

“How long have you been working on sets then?” I sighed, leaned forward and started stippling the make-up on his face.

“Long enough” was all I replied with. Glancing into his eyes for a second then away again.

“Sounds like you're not a fan” He sounded intrigued for sure. But I wasn't sure how I felt delving too deep. I'd only just met him.

“It's a job, and of course I'm grateful for it I guess I'm just feeling....stagnant” I pulled back and added more to the brush. “This is getting a bit deep now man maybe we should tone it back” I laughed nervously, still unable to look at him longer than 5 seconds. Which was fucking hard because I was painting his face. But this guy was causing me to feel things I hadn’t felt since I was very young, dumb and naive. I felt excited to be near him. I felt a little foolish too, I barely knew him, and i knew he didn't really give a shit about if I liked this job or not, as long as I did it correctly. Right?

“Well regardless of how you feel y/n this looks incredible, you should be proud” I couldn't hold back my beaming smile, my cheeks ached slightly from the reaction.

“Thanks Joe, means a lot” was all I replied with as I carried on painting.