#i totally did not post this two hours ago then deleted it after like 11 seconds because i saw a random pixel i didn't like

[tagerrkix]

[jikookuntold]

Jungkook and His Cover Songs: Is “10000 Hours” about Jimin?

Disclaimer: The following post includes theories, lyric and numeric analysis, plus my personal opinions, so please don’t take anything seriously. I’m too lazy to upload photos and videos for the moments I mentioned here, but I’m sure you know about them all. Any Jikooker must know. And I’m not Korean or a Korean culture expert, I just know as much as any Stan Twitter ARMY knows about their culture.

Anyone?

Maybe one of the biggest Jikook moments of 2021 so far, is where Jimin jumped into Jungkook’s hug, in Lee Hyun’s Vlog. But the other moment on that Vlog was even more significant; Jungkook was singing “Anyone” from Justin Bieber’s new album, and Jimin was harmonizing with him while holding on his shirt. I don’t want to mention their interview moment singing “Peaches” because I know this song is super popular in South Korea right now and somehow it doesn’t count as a moment. But it’s safe to say that Jikook has something special with his songs, and JK in particular always was invested in him. 

JK & JB

The reason behind Jungkook’s devotion to Justin Bieber was always a big question for me, and I got my answer not long time ago. Jungkook’s playlist for Melon Radio Station included a song from JB’s new album named “Lonely”. This is one of the most personal songs any artist can ever make, and JK recommended it to his audience. Here are the lyrics of “Lonely” by Justin Bieber:

Everybody knows my name now

But somethin' 'bout it still feels strange

Like lookin' in a mirror, tryna steady yourself

And seein' somebody else

And everything is not the same now

It feels like all our lives have changed

Maybe when I'm older, it'll all calm down

But it's killin' me now

What if you had it all, but nobody to call?

Maybe then you'd know me

'Cause I've had everything

But no one's listening

And that's just lonely

I'm so lonely, lonely

Everybody knows my past now

Like my house was always made of glass

And maybe that's the price you pay

For the money and fame at an early age

And everybody saw me sick

And it felt like no one gave

They criticized the things I did as an idiot kid

What if you had it all, but nobody to call?

Maybe then you'd know me

'Cause I've had everything

But no one's listening

And that's just lonely

These lyrics made me think of one specific thing, the thing that JK and JB have in common: They started their careers at a very young age, and their lives have been under the scrutiny of so many people. These people judged and criticized them but never tried to understand them. The lyrics are straightforward and leave no place for interpretation. By recommending this song, JK showed that he had (and probably still has) the same experiences in his life, and I think the reason he recommends or covers JB’s songs more than any other artist is that he has many things in common with him, and feels connected to his songs. 

This can lead us to another theory: By covering a Justin Bieber song, Jungkook shares something about himself with us, something that he can’t express directly.

Jungkook is interested in JB’s songs, but he is not the only one. As I said earlier in this post, Jimin shares the same taste with Jungkook, and my receipt is not just that “Anyone” or “Peaches” harmonizing moments, but also Jimin’s Spotify playlists. Since 2017 (or earlier, I’m not sure about this part) he has added some JB songs to his official playlist, and even his current playlist (July 2021) has two JB songs. And also let’s not forget the fact that Jikook as a subunit started in 2014 with a JB cover. Yes, I’m talking about “Mistletoe” and as you may know, Jimin translated the lyrics of this song to Korean. 

10000 Hours

Nearly 700 words and I haven’t started yet! The subject of this post was supposed to be the connections between “10000 hours” cover and Jikook but this prelude was necessary to clarify all the aspects of the topic and we find out how JB is special for JK and Jimin and how they (especially Jungkook) feel connected to him. Anyways, back to 10000 hours:

Dan + Shay and Justin Bieber released this Grammy winner song in October 2019. Here are the lyrics: 

Do you love the rain, does it make you dance

When you're drunk with your friends at a party

What's your favorite song, does it make you smile

Do you think of me?

When you close your eyes, tell me, what are you dreamin'?

Everything, I wanna know it all

I'd spend ten thousand hours and ten thousand more

Oh, if that's what it takes to learn that sweet heart of yours

And I might never get there, but I'm gonna try

If it's ten thousand hours or the rest of my life

I'm gonna love you

Do you miss the road that you grew up on?

Did you get your middle name from your grandma?

When you think about your forever now, do you think of me?

When you close your eyes, tell me, what are you dreamin'?

Everything, I wanna know it all

I'd spend ten thousand hours and ten thousand more

Oh, if that's what it takes to learn that sweet heart of yours

And I might never get there, but I'm gonna try

If it's ten thousand hours or the rest of my life

I'm gonna love you

Ooh, want the good and the bad and everything in between

Ooh, gotta cure my curiosity

Ooh, yeah

I'd spend ten thousand hours and ten thousand more

Oh, if that's what it takes to learn that

Sweet heart of yours

And I might never get there, but I'm gonna try

If it's ten thousand hours or the rest of my life

I'm gonna love you

And I'm gonna love you

As you can see, the lyrics are 100% romantic, and the singers including JB, have dedicated this song to their lovers. Also, their girlfriends/wives have a cameo in the MV, which leaves no place for speculation for the context of the song: Even though the uncertainties always exist and no one knows about the future, our love is strong and will stay strong regardless of time. 

The Cover and the Theories

Nearly one year later, on July 28th, 2020, Jungkook surprised ARMYs with a short video he tweeted at 11:56 AM. That video was a 49 seconds cover of 10000 hours. A few minutes later, he deleted the tweet (apparently with the advertisement excuses, because it was tweeted from an iPhone and they have a contract with Samsung). Later that night, Jungkook released the full version on Sound Cloud and tweeted the link at 11:47 PM. 

Jikookers discovered numerous theories that day about the times of both tweets; if you add the digits of the time, the result is “13” for both tweets 1+1+4+7=13, 1+1+5+6=13, and as you already know “13” is Jikook’s magic number. Also, the first video he tweeted was 49 seconds and 4+9=13. But in my opinion, this theory is not strong. I know that numerology is very popular in Korean culture but still, all of this can be coincidences, but the other things I’m going to bring up are most likely not. 

28th July 2020 was the 7th anniversary of the first Jikook selca posted after debut. This also might be a coincidence and to be honest, it cannot be a strong link to make a connection with Jikook, but worths sharing. 

The next thing that many Jikookers also pointed out, was related to the title of the song. The lyrics say “10000 hours and 10000 more” and 20000 hours after the 28th of July is 8th November 2022. As you may know. Jikookers believe November 8th is a significant date for Jikook. I believe this can be a coincidence either, and it’s very unlikely of Jungkook to do such calculations (Koreans are interested in numbers when it comes to days and dates, but counting hours is not usual in any culture. Other than that, I’m still doubtful about the origins of the November 8th theory because we have nothing other than two tweets and G.C.F Tokyo release date and their hotel room in Tokyo which still can be coincidental). But I don’t deny these theories because even as a coincidence, it’s still very interesting. 

And the next theory is connected to the “Red Moon”. On 27th July 2018, a total lunar eclipse happened all over the world, which became known as the red moon. At that time, BTS were in Malta, and on the same night, Jikook were watching the red moon on a boat. They shared plenty of photos and videos of that moment and I’m sure as a Jikooker you have seen them all and you know that night had a very romantic mood (BigHit words, not mine) for Jikook. So, a second anniversary for that night and the day after that night can be a significant date to release a very romantic cover. Is this a coincidence too? I think we had many of them already.

And last but not least is something connected to Korean culture. You probably know that 1000 days anniversaries are very important for Koreans and they celebrate them along with real anniversaries of the important dates in their lives. And guess what? 27th July 2020 is 1000 days after 31 October 2017. This day is the day Jikook’s travel to Tokyo ended and they posted their couply mirror selca on Twitter with flower bouquet emoji. Despite the one-day difference (the same case for the red moon anniversary), this is not a minor event or small coincidence. I believe Jungkook posted “10000 hour” cover for this reason and based on this, the other theories I mentioned earlier can be true either. 

The lyrics hit different if you read them again, after knowing this fact. Right? I don’t want to make this post much longer but before wrapping up, I want to talk about the lyrics of “Anyone” by JB (the song Jikook were harmonizing in Lee Hyun’s Vlog):

Dance with me under the diamonds

See me like breath in the cold

Sleep with me here in the silence

Come kiss me, silver and gold

You say that I won't lose you

But you can't predict the future

So, just hold on like you will never let go

Yeah, if you ever move on without me

I need to make sure you know that

You are the only one I'll ever love

(I gotta tell ya, gotta tell ya)

Yeah, you, if it's not you, it's not anyone

(I gotta tell ya, gotta tell ya)

Looking back on my life

You're the only good I've ever done (ever done)

Yeah, you, if it's not you, it's not anyone (anyone)

Not anyone

Forever's not enough time to (oh)

Love you the way that I want (love you the way that I want)

'Cause every morning I find you (oh)

I fear the day that I don't

You say that I won't lose you

But you can't predict the future

'Cause certain things are out of our control

Yeah, if you ever move on without me

I need to make sure you know that

You are the only one I'll ever love

Only one (I gotta tell ya, gotta tell ya)

Yeah, you, if it's not you it's not anyone

(I gotta tell ya, gotta tell ya)

Looking back on my life

You're the only good I've ever done (I've ever done)

Yeah, you, if it's not you, it's not anyone

It's not anyone, not anyone

Oh, oh, oh, oh

If it's not you, it's not anyone

Oh, oh, oh, yeah, whoa

Yeah, you are the only one I'll ever love

(I gotta tell ya, gotta tell ya)

Yeah, you, if it's not you, it's not anyone

(I gotta tell ya, gotta tell ya) gotta tell ya

Looking back on my life

You're the only good I've ever done (ever done, oh, yeah)

Yeah, you, if it's not you, it's not anyone

If you read the lyrics, you will notice that the context is very similar to “10000 hours”. It talks about the uncertainties of a beautiful love or in other words: No matter what the future brings to us, this love will last forever. 

This context of uncertainty and unknown future for a romance is a common concept in many of the songs Jungkook has covered and it’s not limited to the Justin Bieber covers he has done and maybe this concept can be the topic for my next analysis. 

[gesternchen]

Just randomly reviewing scenes from the movies no one remembers now. This week: Avatar (2009).

It’s not like everyone forgot James Cameron’s Avatar. Since we’re still getting some footage from behind the scenes of the sequel and news about the cast, at least someone takes pains to remind themselves of this cinematic experience from the year of 2009. It’s already been 84 (just kidding, 11) years and I’m still looking forward to at least watching the teaser (fun fact: I was 11 when Avatar came out, I’m 22 now). I even bought the Darkhorse comic book on Tsu’Tey’s backstory to, you know, investigate one of my favorite characters a little bit better (spoiler: the backstory wasn’t very much eventful but I noticed a nice detail there which I may talk about briefly a bit later).

Throughout the years Avatar has received a lot of backlash and more or less justified criticism, mainly for the plot and its problematic packaging. I believe, it depends on the perspective one watches a movie from. Of course, I wouldn’t call it an absolute gem of exciting storytelling, even though I truly enjoy it, as in majority its twists are undeniably predictable. However, I always disagreed with people saying relations in Avatar aren’t deep at all. Well, romance between Jake and Neytiri, which, let’s be honest, except for the scene of telling the truth, went too smoothly, and this is why I strongly believe clash of interests is inevitable in sequels. Their interaction remained the key one for the whole movie, and nothing is bad about that, people enjoy a nice lovestory, so do I. But 11 years after I’d like to focus on the disturbing conflict everyone prefers to ignore for some reason when recalling Avatar. For me it’s always been Jake versus Colonel Quaritch.

You guys may have already guessed which scenes I wanna talk about. Those really important ones that I consider climactic to the pace of narration. And what is more about them, they give us crucial details in character development and actors’ play to think through. The main message: Quaritch knew it was coming.

Let me firstly touch upon the scene of short conversation between Jake and Quaritch prior to Sully presumably leaving Pandora. While Jake is awating Quaritch in a large empty hall, he hardly seems to be calm about the talk, every nerve in his body is trembling, but why?

The way Jake’s drumming his fingers on the table makes me wonder if he’s okay.

Then Colonel enters the hall, grabs a chair and reminds that it had been more than two weeks since he got the latest report on how the misson was going. He knows, Sully is questioning reality, and no, he’s not ‘doubting his resolve’. He knows, the right moment to ‘terminate the mission’ is missed. He knows, he lost Jake. He knows, he’s talking to the deserter. Yet Quaritch speaks indifferent. He praises Jake’s effort and rewards him for that. With real legs he promised to him when they first talked. Quaritch hoped they’d trigger the realization in Jake. Which doesn’t happen. How sad he looks when Jake openly refuses to accept the reward.

In just one sequence Stephen’s face demonstrates the shift of all four feelings Quaritch goes through: dissatisfaction, melancholy, shame, disgust.

Quaritch sensed the moment when Jake expressed superiority to the mankind. Jake grasped that Quaritch knew everything, he played with fire, and that’s why he felt anxiety. And it lasted all the way until Quaritch stepped back for leaving the hall. But did Colonel really surrender? I doubt that.

The tension between them both feels electric, so it’s explainable why Jake’s transient smile is so awkward. Sam then heavily staring straight at Colonel's back suggests that up until now Jake regarded Quaritch as his enemy. The enemy he knew he would not be able to defeat.

I remember when watching this scene, I couldn’t get myself the answer to one question. The question was: which report did Quaritch refer to? ‘That report from two weeks ago’, but such information wasn’t satisfactory for me. To be honest, this small discovery became the actual reason why I decided to type this study. Let’s assume that this particular report which Quaritch mentioned was the videolog where Jake confessed that Omaticaya wouldn’t leave the Hometree. Here’s why.

The general audience is used to perceiving Quaritch as a cruel short-tempered military man who just waits for the starting pistol’s shot to destroy everything in sight. Again, nothing is wrong about this, the fact that his character was simply meant to be a generic personification of such type doesn’t leave us with any alternative impression of him. Let’s say, if he was given the order to ignite the operation of the Hometree’s destruction to screw the tribe out of the site, he would absolutely go for it (and so he does). He’s a man of his word after all. Let’s also say, if he was pissed off by Jake’s betrayal, he would transport himself to the mountain site in a blink of an eye, turn off the link and put Jake in jail right after the talk in the hall. Instead, Quaritch decided to wait and give Jake the last chance. Jake preffered unearthly wings to those more tangible, so Quaritch chose not to cut them so abruptly.

We’re moving to the next scene, taking place right before a toned down fight between Tsu’Tey and Jake (I’m saying so, because it’s actually one of the deleted scenes that got edited out of the final cut, and believe me, the pressure between two rivals there is way too intense). Quaritch is watching the record of Jake destroying bulldozer’s lenses with a stone. After that Jake’s face is zoomed and we watch Selfridge get frustrated, Quaritch looks pretty annoyed as well but doesn’t seem to be much surprised. What he’s feeling, is bitter disappointment in himself and knowing that he totally failed to persuade Jake to change his mind.

Just observe Stephen Lang’s performance here. He absolutely nails cold-eyed look, the fire burning slow inside of him is so palpable, and guess what, in a flash he flies off the handle.

Now, shall we check the ultimate scene, preceding the destruction of the Hometree. Though Grace versus Parker juxtaposition is central to this scene, the last time Quaritch confronting Jake face to face in his human body is essential to consider for making things clear.

When it comes to revealing to Selfridge the vainness of further negotiations with Omaticaya, isn’t it just interesting how fast Quaritch manages to find the correct videolog? It literally takes him not more than a couple of swipes to produce the proof. Here is why: he’s already watched the record and is completely aware of the Jake’s values having deteriorated.

You can tell, Jake knew he was under control, but he would rather like to ingnore this fact. His pathetic glance at Quaritch, who’s almost impending above his head, causes to think Jake would guess that Colonel could have watched this videolog. Rather, it was a mutual secret between the two of them until a turning point. But the moment of truth came, and Jake didn’t change his mind. Quaritch made sure of that and finally it was his time to triumph.

So how was it even possible to assume Quaritch may have watched the videolog I’ve been talking about for so long? Well, my explanation may be too easy to believe, but still: we can tell by Jake’s appearance and the date of the record that it is the vlog we need.

This telltale videolog was recorded 16 minutes after the another one, when Jake says that he’s uncertain, who he is anymore (LST abbreviation stands for Local Standard Time). Jake might have suddenly felt depressed and hopeless and got back to the camera while being too emotionally instable, and so must have forgotten to delete the final record.

I have one more note for you. If you check the videolog library Quaritch is swiping through, you’ll see that the latest important record, which he actually needs, is made in the interior of the mountain site block and dates back to August, 13. Other recent vlogs’ covers look nothing like Site 26 sequence. Jake may not have done any of these records at the mountain site. I still wonder though where those three or four ensuing videologs were recorded, the location seems to be red lighted, which means it isn’t blue lighting at Site 26. I may even assume he recorded some pieces at Hell’s Gate. Why would I think so? Probably because in those two scenes (dialog with Quaritch and confession at Parker’s office) Jake looks ten times better than before, he gained some weight at least and doesn’t resemble a living sceleton.

Selfridge gave Jake an hour to relocate the tribe, while gunships led by Colonel’s Dragon were already on full alert. Quaritch had no doubt that Jake’s peacekeeping mission would fail. He knew it from the beginning. Hence he sounds so sarcastic seeing Sully’s avatar tied.

Now Quaritch sipping his villain’s morning coffee tasting like fresh genocide doesn’t feel so cringy: he’s celebrating his victory over Jake (still I should agree with critisism on this point, it really is a stupid cliche and wasn’t intended to carry a deep meaning).

Now I should admit, it’s been a long journey to run this investigation and bring it to light by finally posting it. It took me around a day to collect my thoughts and express them by means of more or less readable English. Just would like to make a little side note: English is not my native, so I promise I did my best! Thanks to James Cameron for making a movie, which woke me up in the middle of the night to start reflecting, and to all the fans out there who still exist and remember this movie and so can read this essay. @avatarmovies I found your blog not so long ago and you guys say you enjoy headcanons (and movie reviews probably?..), so it would be nice if you reblogged this but I’m not insisting!!

[snickiebear]

yo nadia <3333 i'm bored in my online classes and u reblogged the questions thingy at the right time lmao, so get ready: 1, 4, 5, 9, 10, 17, 23, 24, 28, 30!!!, 34, 38, 39, 40 (the intimacy of being understood) (imma stop here lol) (also i'm sorry u're not feeling well, ily and hope u'll feel better soon!! <33333)

ELE ILY. (and thank you, i’m stayin home today cause,,, yeah. i appreciate you sm.) you’re the literal best, i adore you. 

1. How long ago did you start reading fanfiction? Writing fanfiction?

The first fanfiction i read was for The Lunar Chronicles when I was like 11?? and it was 100% on accident and it scarred me because it was a hardcore porn one with a period kink and i was like WHAT IS THIS??? OH MY GOD???? LMAOOOOO i didn’t pick it back up until i was 13-14 and really got into the Fairy Tail fandom. I still reread my favorites on ff.net cause i love them. 

As for writing, I wrote a horrible, terrible x-men fanfiction when I was twelve. (my friend still brings it up and REFUSES to delete it so it still gets comments and views, that shit HAUNTS ME ELE.) then tried again for Fairy Tail, posted like two chapters before taking it down cause i wasn’t really feeling it. And then I posted The Intimacy Of Being Understood and here we are. 

4. Link your three favorite fics right now.

OMGG okok 

@murd3rm1ttens ‘s The Problem How Time Works IF YOU HAVENT READ THIS YOU GUYS NEED TO HOP ON IT ASAP. MITTEN’S WRITING SO SO SO SO GOOD. SAKURA AND INO ARE TOTAL BADASSES. KAKASHI IS A SIMPPPP. ITS SO FUCKING GOOD. 

@mouseymightymarvellous ‘s We Were Screaming In Color (Only A Possibility) yes, yes I KNOW. i always point into mousey’s direction but i WILL always advocate that everyone reads her fics, they’re literally so beautiful???? i just happen to be rereading WWSIN rn 

@safelycapricious ‘s Shaking Up And Breaking Down series. I found this like?? idfk but i’ve been raving about it ever since. ALSO CHECK OUT THEIR FICS IN GENERAL. 

fuck i have more than three but also check out @ambivalens999 ‘s Masks

i do wanna make a fic rec thing where i just rav about my favs,,, might do that later or sum

5. What are your fanfic pet peeves? Do they have a huge effect on whether or not you decide to read something?

Omniscient third person. I don’t like it. Like I can understand that it can be a little hard to stay in one person’s perspective but, in my opinion, if you can, it shows how disciplined you are as a writer. Plus, i just get so confused when I go from A’s thoughts to suddenly what B is thinking about A. 

When writers use ‘ ‘ instead of “ “. When writers put thoughts in ‘ ‘ instead of just italicizing them. It’s small things but like they just bother me sO MUCH. most of the time i can ignore it and try to enjoy but other times i just dip. 

9. Tag 3 fic writers you think are underrated/unknown in the fandom/fanfiction community.

@espoir-et-reves !!!!! THEIR SHISAKU FICS ARE SO SO SO SO SO GOOD. And they have a warring states one going on THAT I AM SO OBSESSED WITH. 

@writer168 idk if they’re really “underrated” but THEY HAVE SUCH GREAT FICS ON AO3. Like theres an AU with sakura, kiba, and shino that i reread constantly because it just. is. so. fucking. GOOD. and they posted a new one that i’m YELLING about. 

@eggtoasties okay they only have 2 in the naruto fandom (one shisaku which is still ongoing) BUT THEIR WRITING STYLE IS SO NICE?? I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. I still go back and reread their shikasaku one cause UGH i can’t get enough. I love it. 

10. What’s your favorite fandom, pairing, or character to read fic for?

Fandoms: Naruto, Soul Eater, The Old Guard, ATLA

Parings: KakaSaku/ShikaSaku/ShiSaku/MultiSaku, SoMa, Joe X Nicky, Zukka

Character: SAKURA. I will read anything with Sakura as the main character and her being a fuckin badass or becoming a badass. I love her.

17. How obsessively do you sit and stare at your fic after you’ve just posted and wait for feedback?

aha.. haha.. well. I check my email like three times an hour. its the first thing i check in the mornings too. I’m literally a whore for praise and literally eat up feedback like its going out of style. I also reread a lot of my stuff because i make so many mistakes and spelling errors, or the spacing is weird oR SOMETHING. plus, literally any and all comments make my day, i go back and reread them cause they just make me feel so tingly and warm like “wow. this person enjoyed the fic/my writing enough to tell me. thats HUGE!”

23. What’s your absolute favorite trope to write?

Angry, feral, bloodied, morally gray women. They aren’t bad guys, they’re probably the good guy, but that doesn’t mean they cant be fucking raging at the world with raw knuckles and blood on their teeth. I just love an angry woman who struggles with her emotions and just has so much inner conflict but that doesn’t take away from her character or badassery, it adds to it. 

24. What’s a trope that you’d like to never hear about as long as you live, let alone write?

The fake dating or miscommunication troupe. LIKE GUYS JUST TALK. AND TELL EACH OTHER OMFG. the entire like obliviousness of “nah they dont like me” while the They holds their hand and kisses their cheek. MOFO WHAT. it makes me so impatient and like mad HAAHHAHA. its probably because i’m a pretty confrontational person so seeing stuff like that just “cmon bro, USE YO HEAD.”

28. How do you deal with writing pressure (ie: pressure to update, negative comments, deadlines, etc)?

I have yet to receive a negative comment! Which i was really surprised about tbh. As for deadlines or pressure to update, i just kind of do whatever. I do set goals, but i set them flexible enough that hey, if i can’t do it, that’s okay. 

I have a lot of mini goals, like “i want to write this chapter and get it done this week” and then the large goal is “FINISH BY END OF MAY” so i have time. 

Actually, now that I think on it, the entire pressure to update thing is probably why i’m waiting until I have all of OL&W written to post it weekly,, cause well. I wouldn’t wanna leave you guys waiting as I tried to write and work out the next chapters and stuff, you know?

30. Post a snippet from your current WIP without context - no more than 300 words.

AAAAAA YOU KNOW I LOVE THESE AHAHAHAH

Have you seen the way the dead dance, World Breaker? They roar, half mad and starving. Do you not wish, do you not hope to see them twist and bend and dance to your will?

Shikamaru snarls, looking behind his shoulders to where his Shadows lay. “Patience.” He spits. “Is of the essence, Things of Ancient. Know your place as the dark you are.”

34. How much of yourself and your life experiences do you put into your writing? What do you think your readers’ image of you is?

None of my experiences match up to anything I write tbh,,, probably the only thing that is me in my writing is maybe the emotional turmoil? I’m pretty emotionally and mentally mature because from a pretty young age i started forming my own opinions, started looking into the world around us and being like “dude what the fuck this is not what disney advertised”. Then i started talking (read: arguing and debating) with my dad about a lot of it. So, like emotions are kind of hard for me. Like i’m pretty good at controlling them or understanding them, but still. idk its hard to explain ig.

Like the weight of stress, the anger, the sadness. It’s kind of therapeutic to write. Cause i don’t know how to put those feelings to verbal words so writing them really helps. 

As for my readers’ image? Probably like some kind of hunched over figure typing away in the dark with a maniacal grin on their face. I honestly don’t know AHHAHAHA but it is fun to think about. I think they’d see me as someone with potential but a lot of room to grow and someone who is imperfect but in a charming way LMAOOOO

38. What does your writing process look like? How chaotic is it on a scale of 1 (very tame) to 10 (you can’t handle this kind of chaos)?

I’m gonna be real honest. Its probably like a 2. I’m a bit of a control freak so I almost always go in chronological order, my writing is pretty linear. Unless, i get bored and jump to one of my fav parts. It's pretty much i sit down, i open the doc, read over my notes and just start writing. 

It’s a little boring to explain AHAHAHA but once i get into the groove of things its really fucking great, I can like feel myself in the world, I can feel what i want the characters to, i love it. I catch myself mouthing the words as i type too, which i find hilarious.

39. What’s something about your writing that you pride yourself on?

I rather like how raw my writing is sometimes. Which might sound really vain, but i do like the way i word things or describe things. I love juxtaposition and repetition, or making a good ole circle back to some minute detail that wouldn’t stand out until i repeat it at the end and you’re like “omg” AHAHAHAHA.

Like those little poetic snippets or certain wording i just sit back and go “damn thats kinda good nadia! go you!’ HAHAHA  

40. How did you come up with the idea for The Intimacy Of Being Understood?

AAAAA this fic is like my first child, my pride and joy LMAO

so the idea initially came when i was reading some fic, idk if it was even naruto, but i was like “i don't like this, but i do like the rain symbolism.” And I knew i wanted to write something kind of slow paced, something a little sad and angsty, but would show KakaSaku slowly but surely falling in love.

Idk if you’ve noticed but a lot of my fics, the pairings don’t change each other dramatically. They accept each other as they are and then they grow with together. Like that acceptance is something i just love writing, its so subtle, it isn’t something you declare. Its simply “I am going to love you. I am going to love you despite your flaws and faults. I am going to love you unconditionally because I know you, I understand you, and there is nothing you could do to drive me away.” 

The fic kind of wrote itself after that first scene. I kept going back to the rain, go being ghosts, and resurrection, and the small epiphanies one gets. I wanted to focus on each character’s growth with each other. They didn’t find light in life because of each other, but with each other. And i think that’s my favorite thing about that fic. 

I wanted something raw and real and just something beautiful. I’m actually really proud of it tbh. Would i go back and rewrite/edit it? Oh of course! I’d do that with every single one of my fics, but i’m not gonna cause i think its in its rawest form right now. :))))

ask me shit plz

[bdafic]

Inspired by @mithrilwren's fascinating series of posts about her process after she finished her longfic, here's some random fun facts about "Roses Where Thorns Grow", writing, process, and the like. (This contains major spoilers through the end of the story so it's under a cut...) If you have more questions, ask away!

- I only started playing Dragon Age because I overheard my partner playing Origins and recognized Claudia Black’s voice as Morrigan. I am a big Farscape and Stargate fan, I even have her autograph, and genuinely did not care about the plot of the games. I just wanted to listen her talk for ten hours. Now look at me. This fic is almost 300’000 words and she doesn't even appear in it.

- Originally Roses was going to go up as a single smut scene. Then I had to write something leading up to it to “make it make sense”. Around chapter 5 I decided to make it a relationship study. Then, it was intended to go up as two separate stories but later merged into one. I had an outline that spanned twenty chapters total, with part one in 1-10 and part two in 11-20. As you can see, that did not work out either.

- This is pointed out in the intro note of Chapter 10, but is easy to miss: the title, "Roses Where Thorns Grow", is a reference to one of my favourite poems, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" by William Blake. The opening lines reminded me of Solas, and the metaphor worked well for their relationship. "Once meek, and in a perilous path The just man kept his course along The Vale of Death Roses are planted where thorns grow, And on the barren heath Sing the honey bees."

- Nothing existed under that title when I started, but around half-way through writing it someone published a romance novel under the same name: "Roses Where Thorns Grow". I am quite curious at it.

- Chapters 1, 2, 3 and part of the 4th - as well as almost all of chapter 8 - were written before I finished Trespasser.

- The scenes that sat around pre-written the longest were: sex at the palace (18), the fight after the tower falls (24), Bull and Sera’s “card game” (26), the birth (28), and Solas’ use of power in the epilogue (30).

- I have never been able to create my canon Ellana in the game because the POC hair options are bullshit. I used Dollmakers and various aesthetic posts to keep her in mind, but they fell pretty short too. She has light-to-medium brown skin, dark freckles across her cheeks and forehead, full lips and a crooked front tooth, green eyes, and prior to chapter 20 had dark wavy/curly (3A) hair past her shoulders. In later chapters it’s choppy, uneven, chin-length. She’s also 35ish, which puts her at the older end of the Lavellan spectrum.

- 3/4 of the story was posted before I learned that the common tongue in Thedas isn’t actually called “Common”, but “Trade”.

- I wrote 90% of this between the hours of 11pm and 3am.

- I have so many deleted/extra scenes, but have felt too shy to post them in the “deleted scenes” thing because I'm worried they seem dumb and pointless. Which is sort of why they got removed and would be better in a deleted scenes collection, I guess. I am working up to it.

- Initially, all chapters were titled after a specific tarot card/orientation and included an intro note about their meaning. I was big into tarot a very long time ago. But when I got around to it that felt unbelievably pretentious so I decided against it for everything except, “The Tower”.

- My partner, who I have been with for over 20 years and has a minimum of 175 tabs open to AO3 on their phone at any given time, did not know I was writing this until last year. They have not read it and know almost nothing about it. One because I do not want them to and they respect that, and two because our tastes in fic are so wildly different they'd probably not enjoy it anyway. If you've ever wondered who is out there reading all those fluffy coffee shop AUs about hand-holding and meet-cutes in every single fandom: it's them. They are. Every goddamn one. I am literally married to Cassandra.

- The entire “transference” plot point was completely different in the first draft and involved Flemmythal. When I got to it I realized it was actually hot, flaming, garbage, scrapped the whole thing, and started over with the spirit.

- The chapter that went through the most rewrites was #22, “Life After Death” - the Fade nightmare/memory one where Solas guides her in protecting herself from demons. I’d have 3-5k done, hate it, delete it, start over, write another 6k, trash half of it and start over… In the end I’m really proud of it - but that chapter was work.

- Vivienne had several scenes that I ended up cutting because the flow didn’t work. There are lots of things I cut for this reason, and lots of other character scenes included, but the ones with Vivienne were the only ones I felt really bad about because I really like her character and want to see her more.

- Varric was supposed to be the other person in the “Cassandra finds out” and “campfire magic” scenes in chapters 19/20. I even had those bits almost entirely written out with him in them. Then I straight up forgot to take him with the party in the previous chapter and didn’t notice until several days after it went up. In the end it worked better with Bull, but I worried that it would make his presence in later chapters seem gratuitous somehow.

- Solas was always intended to miss it. That part of the story needed to be about Ellana finding strength in herself and facing the fears she had about motherhood and belonging.

- There was originally a much more aggressive confrontation between Leliana and Solas, and it took place much earlier in the story. This was scrapped for reasons that may become apparent if I write a continuation. :)

- I have had a list of Elvish baby names kicking around for four years. I go in every so often and try a few out, use them in some writing, let it sit for a bit, then go back and delete it all. I have yet to be completely satisfied with any of the choices, so Solas and Ellana’s inability to come to a decision reflected my own. I ended up calling them Vex and Vax in my notes the entire time. Bidet to anyone who understands that reference.

[tenglows]

in the name of the old days

summary: it’s the last day of the year and you’re feeling nostalgic. you come across the twitter of the boy who used to be your best friend a few years ago, and decide to message him.

category: fluff, a bit of angst? maybe??, internet friend!mark

it was currently december 31, at half past one am, and you were scrolling on twitter

some chuckles here and there while reading your friend’s posts about timothee chalamet

you were about to close the app to go brush your teeth and prepare for bed

when your eyes wandered off and focused on another tweet

“almost 2020 and still no flying cars” read the tweet

from @/markly_

this made you sit straight in your mattress

you clicked on his profile

you two still followed each other

there weren’t a lot of recents tweets, so that’s why you figured you hadn’t come across the boy’s twitter sooner

plus; lately you weren’t the type to be so active on social media either

you mentally counted the years since you first met mark lee

it was 2019 (almost 2020) now and you guys had met in 2015

you had gotten involved in a drama with a one direction stan, you being part of 5sos stan twitter

and mark, little mix stan, had defended you

it was in the middle of the zayn and perrie scandal, so he assured both of your teams had to stick together to defeat one direction’s fans

you became mutuals after that

and you soon realized that mark had the tendency to initiate lots of twitter fights

often with the people that would bash perrie and her group

your friendship rose as the two of you took turns defending the other one on those enfrentations

you don’t know how but all of the sudden there was no day you wouldn’t talk to mark

you were both 16 at the time, you being older just by a few months

you guys would talk about everything and anything

and basically grew up together

you were there for him when school got hard and future scared him

he was there for you when you faced a pretty bad relationship

and you honestly considered him your best friend

sleepless nights with him on facetime were one of the things you looked forward to the most

hearing him talk about his day

him showing you a new song he learned on the guitar, or him playing some melodies and lyrics he composed himself every now and then

watching the same movie or show at the same time on your respective screens

struggling to press play together to match the exact second

“i totally knew he was gonna die”

“shut up you’re way ahead!!!!”

you had other friends at school, too

but mark was just mark

and you two had such a loving bond, you were so close you took him with you to everywhere you went

you just wished you had him closer

at least you were both from canada

him being from vancouver and you from quebec

you had made lots of plans about meeting in real life, and you genuinely believed they would come about

but it is true that time passes and people drift apart

you were about to begin college and made new friends

mark moved out to toronto

and gradually, the responses took longer

and the calls had kinda been left aside

until one of you just stopped replying

you honestly don’t remember who it was

but there isn’t really a reason, either

you just parted ways

and it’s fine, it’s human and natural and normal

but now looking at his profile picture: a polaroid of him hugging another boy

you felt as if a bucket of cold and frostbound nostalgia had been dumped over your head

you recognized his moles, and how he had the same smile

his header picture was a guitar

and it wasn’t the same he used to have, but something about him still liking music made you feel warm

it’s always astonishing to see how the life of a person who is no longer in yours just,,,

goes on

and you aren’t aware of a thing about their existence

or even think about them

so it’s almost as they don’t exist

but now you know mark still exists

and it’s so weird to think about how your lives had been so overlapped, so united

and now you didn’t know anything about him

the mix of reminiscence about this and the year ending

resulted in your impulsive fingers pressing the envelope icon in mark’s profile

you stayed like that for a few minutes, writing and deleting messages. the sentences you thought about never feeling enough

you sighed as you told yourself this would be the last attempt

“hi mark, i’m not sure if you remember me but i saw you on my tl and it made me want to check on you! maybe this message will disappear into thin air but i just wanted to try. i hope you’re doing well <3”

you stared at the blue bubble of text almost without blinking for a moment

maybe he didn’t want to talk to you, and it was okay. you stopped talking in 2017, almost three years had passed

you thought looking at yourself in the mirror while you brushed your teeth

you came back to your room and turned off your lights, ready to go to sleep

but when you grabbed your phone with the intention to charge it, you saw you had a twitter notification

“y/n! how could i forget about you? haha it’s been so long two years without talking. how are you? how’s life? tell me something”

an instant smile started growing upon your face

the way he texted was the same as before

and you missed his haha

two and a half hours into the night you felt as if you were stuck in 2015 all over again

you had always had this fluidity at the time of talking with mark

the conversation just,, bloomed

he told you he still lived in new york, but he was actually gonna move back to toronto in a couple of months

he was majoring in music and owned a soundcloud rap account, and he had gotten quite popular as well

you mentioned how you had changed majors

what started as you being a marketing management major ended up on you leaning towards philosophy

something that no one had seen coming

so you expected the same reaction from mark

“i can totally see it, you always liked to think and question everything a little too much”

and that comment made you feel thrilled in your stomach, to say the least

even after all these years

mark was probably the person who knew you the most

days passed

weeks, even

and what you thought was just a conversation remembering the old days and filling the other in on your life

just,,, never stopped

mark and you went back to talking every day

everything felt the same as it did before

because after all, it was the same mark. it was always mark

still, the day you had agreed on facetiming for the first time again you felt kinda nervous

what if you ran out of what to talk about? what if it was suddenly weird?

and when you picked up the call and found yourself face to face with a flustered mark you knew he felt the same

you both hesitated as to who would speak first

him being the one to break the ice

“hey y/n” he giggled

“wow, your voice has gotten deeper”

he laughed loudly at your honesty, making you laugh back

“your hair is shorter”

“i know right? it was so long, i just got fed up of it reaching my waist”

“i like it, it looks pretty” he paused “you look pretty”

and in that moment you wondered how your heart could be beating this hard at a blurry screen with poor connection

comments like that kept making an appearance as time went by, sometimes from mark and eventually from your part

and that was the only thing that differed from the relationship you used to have with the one you had now

was it flirting? you didn’t know

but you had never thought of mark the way you think about him now

“so? what do you think?”

you set the phone on your desk as you walked away and showed mark your white dress. you were on your way to a costume party one of your friend’s brother was throwing, and even though it was cliché, you couldn’t be bothered to think of a more ingenious costume than a traditional angel

mark took his time fixing his gaze on you, his eyes getting closer to concentrate on what the vague wifi let him

“i can’t recognize the costume”

“what do you mean? i’m literally wearing wings and a halo”

“could it be because you always look like an angel?”

“ayee mark that was cheesy”

“i know, i’m sorry” you both laughed

“but really, you look amazing. go and have fun babe”

then pet names came into play

you weren’t sure what you were doing, but flirting with mark was sweet and fun and innocent

you always found yourself wanting for more

you were yearning for mark, you wanted to see him, listen to him, touch him

and you didn’t know what to do with yourself

until one day he called you out of the blue, which startled you, since he always asked before calling

“hey! were you busy?”

“no no i’m just doing the dishes, what’s up?”

“okay, so you know how i’m moving to toronto in two weeks, right?” you nodded “well, i just managed to change my flight so i would go to quebec for some days before properly settling in toronto, you know since it’s not that far”

“you’re kidding”

“i’m going to visit you!!!!!!!”

he squealed in your ear and you squealed back, scaring your poor cat who was sleeping soundly

after some more yelling, the excitement died out a bit and you stayed in silence for just a few seconds

“i don’t really have a place to stay though” he snorted, embarrassed

“you can always stay with me, mark”

after some long and never-ending hours and days (you had seriously convinced yourself some wrinkles had appeared on your forehead from all the waiting)

it was finally the day you would see mark

it was currently 11 am, mark’s flight was at 1 pm and he would arrive at quebec at approximately a bit less than 3 pm

now, he was at new york’s airport taking care of all the travelling procedures

and you were cleaning up the same spots in your aparment for the fourth time in a row

to say you were nervous was an understanding

you felt like you were going insane

you barely had gotten any sleep the night before, not being able to defeat the crowding thoughts about finally meeting your long-time friend

(who now you wanted to be more than a friend and seeing him physically could totally help with that)

you arranged some lunch for you and your cat (magnus) and sat in front of the tv, wanting to find literally anything that would keep your mind occupied

luckily, it worked, and you let yourself lose track of time

until your phone beeped, indicating you had received a text

“i’m boarding now!! i’ll text you when i get there, can’t wait to see you”

“have a safe flight love”

you sighed dramatically and rested your arm against your forehead

magnus stared at you in confusion and boredom

“magnus, i think i’m going to die”

as promised, mark texted you as soon as the plane landed

you offered to go pick him up at the airport, but he denied, saying he had already scheduled a taxi

so now you were ready and dressed, going all over your apartment non stop

mark was texting you through all the taxi drive and updating you on his location, you growing more and more anxious as you knew he was getting closer

you went to the bathroom and as soon as you stepped out, a knock was heard on your door

it was soft and steady, and you opened your eyes widely when the realization of who the owner of the hand was hit you

you panicked, one last time

you even eyed your room window to check if you had any chance of jumping out and running away

but you took a deep breath and walked decidedly towards your door

you just had to remind yourself it was the same mark as always, and nothing could go wrong if there was him

thus, you opened the door

and the facetime pixels and instagram pictures could have never prepared you for how dreamy mark looked

you two stayed like that for a bit

just watching the other with shy eyes and smiles

you eventually snapped out of your trance and helped mark get his luggage inside

"it's a bit small but i hope you can make yourself comfortable"

"oh please it's perfect, don't worry" he gave you a reassuring smile before getting totally distracted by the fluffy ball of hair in your couch

"oh my god is that magnus!!!!"

after letting mark get comfortable and installed, you guys decided to take a walk and go over your apartment zone, showing mark all your favorite places and memories you had there

it was a bit cold and you were both tightened around your coats

eventually, it was getting late and more chilly

so you opted for going back to your place

as you walked there in a bit of silence, you could feel mark's body getting more close in proximity

you looked at him, his gaze fixed upon the path with a small grin on his lips

you got closer too

and you liked it

it was cold outside but when mark brushed against your body

canada has never felt more like summer

you guys were really close now

as you took step after step, your jackets made static sounds, rubbing against the other

you looked at mark and delicately touched one of his fingers with your pinky, as if asking for permission

he finally looked up from the way and focused on your eyes instead, breaking into a smile once again

he took a peek at your close hands and softly intertwined your fingers

both of your faces reddening, from the low temperature and the feelings that were growing in your stomach

when you got to your apartment you guys were still holding hands, but you realized you had to open the door with that one, and couldn't find the keys in your pocket

"y/n, you will have to let go of my hand to get the keys"

"that's the point. i don't want to"

"y/n, i'm freezing. please open the door i can still hold your hand when we're inside"

and yeah,,

he did

you changed into comfortable and warm clothes and prepared some hot chocolate while mark chose a movie in your laptop

when you entered the room, two mugs in hand

mark was lying on his stomach on your bed, his hand on his chin with his mouth a bit open while concentrating on the variation of movies netflix offered

you felt a shiver down your spine

he really was here

after taking a while to decide on a movie, or at least its genre, you just selected a random title

you turned off the lights and went back to your bed, getting under the covers

and you just felt warm

and whole

maybe more because of mark than the actual sheets that were meant to keep you heated

(he also held your hand the entire time, rubbing his thumb against your palm and drawing invisible figures on it)

your head rested on his shoulder and you went up as the same time his chest did with every breath he took

in some moment you stopped paying attention to the movie

your mind wandered off to thoughts about the boy, about how you have never felt this close to him. you felt like you were really inside his ribcage

still from his shoulder, you moved a bit so you could look at him

his face was glowing

yeah, the images and lights of the computer were reflecting on him

but you meant this boy glowed in the dark

he just had something in him

it was either rays of sunshine or neon paint

but he, in this frosty and amusing night within your bedroom walls, glowed on his own

he turned his gaze towards you too, and tightened the grip on your hand

you felt mark’s arm on your waist and he rearranged the position so you would be on his chest

hearing his heartbeat, it was music

mark always did music. and he himself was music too, his heart creating your new favorite beat

“markie”

“hm?”

“i’m falling asleep” you confessed with a drowsy voice, making him laugh

“let’s turn off the movie, shall we? we can continue it tomorrow”

he shut the laptop closed and placed it on your desk, quickly making his way back to the bed so he would hold you

you had prepared him another bed next to you, a mattress already covered

but he was showing no intentions of moving a muscle

“are you going to sleep here?”

“that was the plan, yeah” he giggled on your neck. you shuddered

“i made the bed just in case”

“i can go there if you prefer”

“no” pause “i want you here”

and he smiled proudly as he hid his face in the crook of your neck

you smelled nice, like coconut and vainilla and all his sweetest dreams combined

and with his arms around your waist he felt strong, like he could defeat anything that the world aimed at him

“do you think it was meant to be that we’re here after all this years? would you consider it destiny?” he thought out loud, gazing at you

“i can’t give you an answer right now”

“fine, philosophy major” he mocked, making you both laugh

“as a philosophy major, i don’t know. destiny is always a tricky thing to discuss”

“but as y/n, yeah, i believe it was meant to be”

he stared at you in awe

“i really want to kiss you right now”

[theastrophilearchitect]

Reworking the plot & getting my hands dirty.

Writing journey #2.

Sat 06/03/2021 - Word Count: 28,150 19.38 So, a month ago, today, actually, I started writing a book. For context, I've sorted out scenes and planned my plot; I'm now simultaneously writing my first draft and outlining scenes in more detail - I'm just into act two of my draft and just into act three of the outline.

I included today in my first writing post, which you can find here, but, while outlining, I realised something that will result in a major plot change (even though I probably should wait until revisions, it sorts out the climax I'm currently incredibly vague on, and will help me actually be able to complete the draft), and felt it was time to start a different post, because the other one was long, and already had its own focus.

Previously, I've been setting mildly insane word count goals, and even though I'm sticking to vague targets, I'm going to drop that, because I need to do a major plot change, and that'll mean the word count isn't going up that much for a while.

So, I have my first and second acts good, but while outlining act three, I've realised the event at the start of act three would work better as a climax than the vague battle idea I have. It just seems more original, more effective, but it means I need to shift events around and re-figure the first block of act three. I'll begin tonight, but it's already 8pm, so I'll probably do most of it tomorrow.

Sun 07/03/2021 - Word Count: 28,365 08.24 I'm reworking act three, and I think I may just drop drafting for the moment and focus on incorporating the edits I have in mind, then start drafting over. I know all the advice says not to go back and edit, but this is a big change I can't wait to do, so it seems opportune to just make the others, too.

08.31 I've now finished reworking act three, and I'm much more satisfied with it than I was before. I do now need to go through the scenes again, however.

13.57 Still re-scening. This is frustrating, but I've decided when I'm back to drafting, I'm going to drop my daily minimum to just 500 words - even though I'll make very little progress at that pace, it's more realistic considering I'm about to be plunged back into the world of homework and commuting, and it's something I'll always be able to meet to help me keep in the habit of daily writing. Word count isn't applicable when I'm doing re-scening like today, though.

Something else I've noticed, when I'm writing literally anything, I'm just scribing the words I'm literally hearing in my head, which is a little bit of a problem because where I wrote 'meet' just now, I meant 'meet' but heard 'eat' in my head and wrote 'eat'.

17.07 I feel like I'm finally making some progress - I've been writing on-and-off all day. My word count has actually decreased a couple hundred words since yesterday, but Scrivener is convinced I've written 42,000 words today, which I obviously haven't. I've typed a lot of words, but not that many, not all of which added to that since deleting words takes words off that number. It thinks I've written so many, however, because I duplicated my act one folder twice (then deleted it, obviously, because I don't need three copies of the same act) but Scrivener doesn't take off the words when you delete the file, only when you literally hit backspace.

17.50 Sorting out my climax, I'm realising how bad it was before. Which I guess is good, because it shows internal criticism and growth...? Or something...?

21.04 I've totally planned out the majority of act three, but I haven't finished it because where I'm up to ends with my characters essentially making a game plan, and since I'm not yet sure what that game plan is, I can't outline the bit where they carry out the plan, but I'll do that later. I've incorporated some of the edits I wanted to make, though I've left a couple out because they're less drastic and I'm not sure whether or not to include them, so I'm going to sort that either during or after my first draft.

Since I've made quite a few changes that will affect the parts I've already drafted, I'm going to start my draft over, and reset my word count, but I'll do that tomorrow. For now, Scrivener thinks I've written 42,385 words today, which I absolutely have not, and my word count is currently 28,365, but I'm going to remove every outline and drafted piece I've done so I can start from zero for what I'm going to call draft #1.4, because I already wrote a version of about 40% of it.

God, my word count has gone back to 0 of my minimum 50,000. That hurts. It really hurts. My actual goal is more 70-90K, but 50K is my minimum, so that's what I'm going with for now.

Anyway, goodnight, and good luck me.

Mon 08/03/2021 - Word Count: 820 So, I wrote 820 words before school, then got home, attempted to do some homework and lost all motivation and will to do... anything. Which means I'm very glad I did over my 500 words this morning.

Tue 09/03/2021 - Word Count: 1,367 15.07 I called this a #1.4 draft, but it's more like a #1.3. Anyway, writing is so much less stressful when I'm working from something I've already written - with the first section, so far, at least, I'm basically just editing the writing itself rather than the events because I'm pretty happy, at least at the moment, with my first couple chapters. Very little thinking required.

Also, it's been over 30 hours since I've written because I did my writing before school yesterday, but haven't written yet today because I've got so much work to get done for school. It feels like it's been forever.

16.17 I've finished rewriting chapter one, and still have a lot of fuel in my tank (that's a hideous metaphor) but I think I'm going to cut off today at 547 words, just because I have quite a lot on my plate this week, and I'd like to invest some time in actually reading the book I started eight days ago, and am only 200 pages of the way through.

Wed 10/03/2021 - Word Count: 2,082 I could write significantly more than 500 words most days, but it really is easier to set a minimum that doesn't feel like a strain, so that's what I'm sticking with for now.

Thu 11/03/2021 - Word Count: 2,801

Fri 12/03/2021 - Word Count: 3,405

Sat 13/03/2021 - Word Count: 32,211 07.40 I've just had nothing extra to say the last couple days, which is ironic considering how much I wrote each day of the last post, which went up yesterday! Anyway, it's finally Saturday, and even though I have exactly zero motivation to do anything this morning, I've been awake for two hours already (I recently discovered I like mornings??) and I think it's time to get going. Still sticking to my 500 word minimum, but since it's Saturday, I'm going to invest most of the day in writing, so I should surpass that.

08.20 I don't think I've mentioned yet that I dubbed this WIP Bay Tree in this post. Sorry if I have, but I skimmed this post and can't find it. So, this is about to get messy. I'm basically just cleaning up my prose, but there's so little point doing that when I'm not certain each scene will stay. There's no point editing a chapter unless I know it's sticking around.

So we're reverting, and this is about to get messy. I didn't quite finish my initial draft of chapter seven, because I wasn't sure how exactly the event at the end of it would happen, but I think I'm just going to delve into it. I'm going to add everything, including outlines, back to my word count, finish writing chapter seven, then pick up where I left off in chapter nine. Okay. That's why my word count is jumping around.

And, just like that, I've gone from 4,074 to 28,864. Well, 500 words accomplished. Surpassed, in fact, by just 24,290.

I'm going to aim to just hit 30K by the end of this weekend. I can easily do 1,136 words in two days.

As I've mentioned before, I haven't outlined all the way to the end and through the climax--I have a fairly clear idea of how I want it to do go down, but I'm not sure what I want the characters' plan to actually be, so I currently have 21 chapters, but I'm projecting 23-26, which, at about 3,000 words each, is pretty damn good, especially when it'll just get longer as I redraft (she says optimistically).

Already feeling more motivated now my word count's higher.

09.54 Oh! Also, I logged onto Tumblr today to find someone reblogged my last writing post with a really positive, encouraging comment. It's nice to think I'm bringing someone else a little joy with this.

11.13 And we hit 30K! I'm not quite done for the day, but I do need to go pack. Also, I've been operating under the impression the minimum word count for a novel is 50K, but it's actually 40K, which, though I'm only about 40% of the way to my projected total word count, I'm officially 75% of the way to being able to say I've written a novel.

I'm so glad I've gotten as far as I have, and I just hope I can keep myself going to the end.

12.27 This post is going to look really strange to read - if you're only looking at the word counts, it looks like I've written nearly 27K words today. That makes sense.

Oh, and I finished chapter seven. Like an hour ago.

13.52 At this point, I have literally no idea what continuity things I've already established, so I'm just going by a let-my-future-self-suffer philosophy.

14.36 That's chapter nine done. That leaves chapters 10 to nobody-knows. I'm going to stop writing now, but I wrote nearly 4,000 words today (plus recounting about 20K) so I don't exactly think this cut-off will be detrimental.

Sun 14/03/2021 - Word Count: 35,548 07.58 I’ve written over a thousand words already, and it isn’t even 8am yet. Being a morning person is genuinely the best thing ever as an introvert--I’m asleep when people want to socialise, and awake when no-one else is. That makes me sound like a hermit. I love it anyway, and feel like I’m stacking up for a good writing day. 35K is probably a little overambitious, but what’s life without aspiration?

09.04 As I’m going, I’m realising my plot is actually coherent, and being surprised that I can actually make a story without plot holes (as of yet.)

09.21 And that makes the first eleven chapters drafted! 

...And, Houston, we have a problem. Dammit. Eleven chapters, and I haven’t established one of the most important world-building points. Which is especially irritating because it needs to be established by chapter twelve. Unless I can establish it at the start of chapter twelve? We’ll go with that, so I don’t have to go back, then I’ll sort it out in edits or draft two or something.

I’ve just started writing chapter twelve, but I think, having written 2,600 words today already, I need a break. I have less than 500 words until I hit 35K, but I’m going to leave it for now, and come back this evening. I should be able to hit 40K this week.

18.19 And that makes 35K. Chapter twelve is only two scenes, and I’ve written one, but having written 3,000 words so far today, I’m going to leave it until tomorrow.

Mon 15/03/2021 - Word Count: 36,337 17.19 So there’s a crucial plot point just after my midpoint, and I’m not completely sure what to do. I mean, I know what I’m doing--I just wasn’t sure exactly how I wanted it to go, but now I know. The issue is other stuff needs to be pre-established, and I’ve worked out where it needs to go, but I don’t know whether or not I want to go back and write those bits now, or just make note of it and add it in draft two.

I think I’m just going to make note, plough ahead, and deal with it in draft two. I’m trying to figure out exactly how I’m going to operate after this draft: things generally say put it down for a few weeks, come back for edits, then go into your next draft, but I feel like I’m already going to have so many edits gathered by the time I reach the end of this draft, I should just go back into it, but time will probably be beneficial. Not that it actually matters now. I’m only just halfway through an under-draft (by that I mean it’s going to get a lot longer). I’m going to add new scenes in my next draft and generally fiddle with plot aspects, but as quite a linear writer, I think I’m more naturally inclined to just incorporate aspects in a draft rather than as edits. I’m not sure. Does that even make any sense? 

Depending on when I finish this draft, I think I’ll plan to pick it back up May 1st, and just see how I’m feeling. But, again, this all depends on when I finish the draft, and how I’m feeling when that time comes.

Tue 16/03/2021 - Word Count: 37,025 I bought my Scrivener license today! Yay!

Wed 17/03/2021 - Word Count: 38,408 08.04 This is mostly irrelevant to my project, but I just wanted to mention the odd fact that I’m definitely a plotter when it comes to longer pieces, but when I do shorter pieces, creative or essays, for school, I hate planning, and just start immediately, then go back and edit. Huh.

Thu 18/03/2021 - Word Count: 38,950 I’m going to edit this, but writing the date just now I noticed I’ve put 2019 for the last three days. It’s absolutely not, and I know why I did that, but still.

14.31 Also, Oxford commas? Found out what they were. Granted, that was actually a few days ago.

Fri 19/03/2021 - Word Count: 40,139 06.55 Even though I wrote 500 words yesterday, I didn’t quite reach my goal of 39K, just because I had to stop writing 50 words off, and by the time I had the opportunity to go back, I just wanted to go to bed. So, today, my goal is to hit 40K words, and officially be able to say I’ve hit the minimum word count for a novel.

Honestly, I’m starting to lose my love for this project. I’m still enjoying working on it, don’t get me wrong, but I’m anticipating finishing it because I know exactly what I want to write next. I feel like I’m mostly still working on it as a lesson, and I know it’s not what I ultimately want to write--mostly because it’s not super high-concept, and high-concept stuff is what I want to be writing. I am still enjoying working on it, I’m just not sure I’ll get to the ‘final line-edits’ stage. But who knows?

10.19 And that marks 40K. We’re in novel terriority, people. And, yes, I could correct that spelling, but I’d like to draw attention to how bad I am at spelling when typing. I’m excellent at spelling in writing, and wrong spellings bother me, but when I’m typing, my fingers are just trying to keep up with my mind, which means I try to type a letter and the one after it at the same time, and often end up with letters in the wrong order and punctuation in the wrong place. Or I just hit halfway between two keys instead of the key I’m going for, and type a wrong letter. Anyway, that was meant to say territory. See? I can spel..

Or I just double the punctuation instead of the last letter.

So I’m definitely not meeting my old goal of 80K words or a finished draft by the end of the month--that’d be another 40K words in just 12 days--but I’m definitely on track to finish by the end of April.

Sat 20/03/2021 - Word Count: 40,692 15.30 God, second acts are hard. I hate being in the middle. At the start, you have novelty, and at the end (not that I would know from experience) you have the knowledge you’re near the end, that you’ve already written most of it.

I’m currently operating the reminder, ‘You’ve written an act before, why not again?’, in hopes that’ll eventually extend to, ‘You’ve finished a draft before, why not again?’ and ‘You’ve written an entire book before, why not again?’

I’ve literally written 243 words so far today, and I just don’t want to. Normally, I sit down, I slog through the first hundred or so words, then pick up momentum. Maybe it’s just because chapter 13 is a boring part to write. Ha. 13. Just my luck.

I’m being nice to myself because a lot has happened in my life over the last few days, but I still want to write a minimum of 500 words, even though most Saturdays I can write more like 3,000.

21.41 I’d like to be asleep. That sounds like fun. Today slipped through my grasp, and I haven’t even written 300 words, but I am going to try to at least hit 500. And then maybe write thousands and thousands tomorrow, but I’m also going to bake a cake, and I’m notorious for being able to make cooking and baking take at least three times as long as is necessary.

21.57 So I got just past 500. Relatively speaking, that’s not that impressive for me, but it’s more words than most people in the world added to their manuscripts today, so I have to give myself some credit. (I’m working on crediting myself for productivity rather than degrading myself for not being productive--I could go on for hours about how much it pisses me off that capitalism teaches us productivity=worth in everything, not just business, but I’m going off on a tangent.)

Sun 21/03/2021 - Word Count: 41,466 08.08 Cakes baked! And I’ve come to a conclusion about how irritating I am to myself--I didn’t fully outline the latter half of act two (by which I mean I have each scene and a purpose of each scene, but virtually no detail) which I can absolutely cope with, but it does slow me down. Anyway, I’m waiting for my cakes to cool, then I can ice them.

14.28 I wanted to write up to 42K this weekend, which I don’t think is going to happen. I’ve written 774 words, so passed my 500-word minimum, but haven’t yet reached 42K, and don’t think I’m going to this weekend. I just don’t have much motivation, which may just be because of the part I’m on, but I’d rather work through this part really slowly then pick up the pace when I get to the part I want to be writing, than force myself to write this section quickly and poorly, then not want to continue into act three. So, sticking to 500 words a day; I may do more later, but I’m leaving it for now.

Mon 22/03/2021 - Word Count: 42,006 17.56 God, I don’t want to write today. I’m going to anyway, because I haven’t yet failed 500 words. They can be a shitty 500 words, but they have to be 500 words. Also, the scene I wrote yesterday? Absolutely getting deleted. But I’m leaving it for now because I refuse to lose those 800 words.

I really enjoy putting edits at the bottom of scenes in brackets and making them unnecessarily wordy so Scrivener thinks I’ve written significantly more words than I actually have.

18.31 Yay, did it. I’m really hoping I can just work through this low spot and don’t have to take a break. I’m on the penultimate chapter of act two, and the first few chapters of act three are really exciting, so I’ll know if I need to take a break based on whether I get motivated when I get to that part.

Tue 23/03/2021 - Word Count: 42,124 16.37 GOD, I need a break. I don’t have motivation, even for 500 words. You know what? I’m just going to make a note of the scene idea I had earlier, and I’m going to take a week’s break. Unless I get antsy, in which case I may end it earlier, but, I’m not going to write again until Tuesday the 30th. Unless I get antsy. FUCK.

I’m just reminding myself breaks are good and important, but I still hate that I’m taking one without finishing my first draft. Tue 30/03/2021, I will be back! Though my word count may increase between now and then as I note down any ideas I have, which I will update with. Okay. Just leave it.

Sun 28/03/2021 - Word Count: 42,150 10.47 Since Tuesday, I’ve made some notes on my phone of little things I want to change, but haven’t added them to my project file, so the word count hasn’t gone up.

Last night, I was just thinking about how badly I wanted to get back to this project, but this morning, I just... don’t. I’ve been thinking it through, and I’m not ready to drop this project yet, but I’m just not happy with what I have at the moment. So, I’m going to add my notes to the file, and then leave it for a few weeks, so I can return with edits in mind, apply them, and then start what I guess will be like a 1.7 draft, because I didn’t finish this draft.

In the meantime, however, I do want to keep writing, so I’m going to start another project in the meantime, which I can work on a lot in the next few weeks because, in a few days, I get a couple weeks off, which won’t be completely free of work, but will give me a lot more time to dedicate to this.

I think I’m going to say I’ll return to Bay Tree (or at least review, if, say, I just want to dedicate a little more time to whatever phase of the new project before I move on) on May 10th, because that’s basically when I get to relax after my exams finish.

So I’ll add the notes I have so far, keep making notes on my phone, and return on May 10th.

Which wraps up this writing update--a new one will come with my new project!

[ewankoseyo]

my person || mark imagine

A/N: This request has been sitting in my inbox for about two weeks, so apologies to the anon who sent this and I hope you enjoy this one! Prequel/sequel to the “your song” drabble I did, so check it out if you haven’t yet! Also the reasoning behind “Build Me Up Buttercup” being “your song” may also be loosely based off of real life (if you really want the story behind that, lmk lol)

“I’m so in love with your Mark “your song” story, could you do a continuation? Like, the reader goes on a drive with him and then they start talking about their relationship and what happened within the months of not talking to each other? And pls make it fluffy I love fluffy Mark. If not, it’s totally fine! Thank you!!”

“You staying up tonight?”

That text is how it always starts. Before you know it, you’re pulling up in Mark’s car to the nearby mart to buy snacks and energy drinks for another all-nighter.

“You know, if you started sooner, you wouldn’t have to cram a whole semester’s worth of material into one night,” Mark teased as he held the door open for you.

“Hey, it’s not might fault I got the professor from hell who expects us to live, breath, and eat o-chem,” you jabbed back. “You’re the one who decided to study for his final at the last minute.”

“Because I had no choice. I had two other projects due this week and I had to handle logistics for the club’s fundraising event,” Mark gave you an unamused look. “You can walk home if you want.”

“Touché, Mr. I’m-in-a-competitive-major-AND-the-backbone-of-this-club,” you resigned, giving him a light shove. Whenever you’d make fun of him, Mark had to have the last word by reminding you that you were always mooching off of him for rides. “Stop messing around and get some snacks. I have a paper to submit before 11:59.”

“You’re lucky I don’t charge you for gas.” He stuck his tongue out at you before walking off to the nearest aisle of unhealthy goods.

Mark already had some chips, a couple packs of ramen, and three cans of coffee in his basket when he heard a familiar tune play in the overhead speakers. Right on cue, he heard rushed footsteps coming from behind him.

“It’s like they know we’re here!” You tossed some snacks into his basket before dancing in place to the song.

“This song is haunting us,” he joked, bopping his head along as he scanned the shelves for more food. You sidled up next to Mark and held out your hand.

“Dance with me.”

He rolled your eyes and gently shoved you away. “You’re wasting time! I thought you had a paper due?”

“You’re no fun,” you frowned before continuing to sing. “Why do you build me up, buttercup baby...”

“No, I’m just more responsible,” he bantered. “Is this everything?” You nodded, taking the basket from him as you sang along.

It seemed like many students had the same idea of staying up late to study, as there was a bit of a line at the only checkout stand open. Ever since coursework in your respective majors had picked up in the middle of the semester, this became a regular occurrence for you and your best friend. You would text Mark asking if he was planning to stay up late to get work done. After picking you up to grab snacks with him, Mark would take you back to his studio for a busy night. You had stayed over at his place so many times, you kept extra toiletries and clothes there. Tonight was no different.

Mark softly sang along to the tune as he walked over to join the queue, following your animated form.

“I need you, more than anyone darling, you know that I have from the start...”

Mark, deciding to play along just once, pretended to hold up a microphone to your lips and looked at you expectantly for you to sing. You shot him a grin as you happily obliged.

“So build me up, buttercup, don’t break my heart...”

You giggled at the silliness of the situation as you finished your part, averting your attention to the line shortening in front of you. As you quietly waited for your turn, you couldn’t help but feel a pair of eyes on you. You glanced back at Mark, who stared back down at you shamelessly, a small smile playing on his lips. 

“What?” You asked, narrowing your eyes at him suspiciously. Mark was usually one to shy away from any kind of attention, but at that moment, it was as if he was subtly begging you for it.

“Nothing,” he shook his head, his smile casually turning into a smirk. “I was just thinking about something.”

“About what?”

“About how I’d be nothing without you,” Mark replied simply before glancing in front of you. “Oh, there’s space now.” Disregarding your stunned expression, he moved in front of you and began loading out contents from your basket onto the conveyor belt. 

“Wha...” You silently stood there dumbfounded as Mark paid for the snacks. He took the bags from the cashier and was about to start leaving when he noticed you weren’t following him. 

“Hurry up, fool,” he playfully scolded, smirking at your frozen form. “Didn’t you say you had a paper due before midnight?” You shook yourself out of your thoughts and gave him another shove in response, not quite trusting your voice at that moment. You rushed out of the store before him, giving yourself some time for the winter air to bring your inflamed cheeks back to normal body temperature. 

“Nothing without you?” What on earth was he talking about?

Mark never brought those words up again the rest of that night. They plagued you, distracting you from your word document and forcing your attention back to the boy splayed out on his bed and reading in front of you. He’d look up and respond to your gaze with a smile, teasingly pointing to your laptop as if silently scolding you to keep working, before returning to his textbook. 

He never brought those words up ever again.

——

You found him leaning against the front of his car with his hands in his pockets, staring off into the distance. With the way his hair was done up and his outfit was a far cry from his usual hoodies and soccer pants, you wondered where he could have come from at this hour. 

“Mark?” The boy immediately shot up from his relaxed position when he heard his name, hurriedly straightening himself out before looking at you. As you walked closer to him and got a better look at Mark’s face, you found his expression unreadable. 

He couldn’t read yours either.

“H-hi.”

“Hi.” You both stood there a few feet apart, silently staring at one another and waiting for the other to say something. Awkwardly clearing his throat, Mark took the initiative. 

“Oh, uh, you should get in, it’s kind of cold,” he rushed over to the passenger side and opened the door for you. You nodded a silent thanks before getting into the car. The two of you remained quiet as Mark slid into the driver’s seat, the ignition starting up being the only sound permeating the air. He hummed softly as he drove through the neighborhood. You stared at the buildings passing by, shooting furtive glances at the boy next to you. 

“How have you been?” You asked hesitantly. It had almost come out as a whisper.

“Okay,” Mark replied, his tone as undecipherable as his expression. He kept his attention on the road before him. “How are you? Did you finish your research paper?”

“Yeah, got it done under an hour. Like I said I would.” 

“I see.” Resume silence. Mark made a left turn out of the neighborhood. As he drove along the waterfront, you knew exactly where he was going. Night drives with Mark usually took you to a mountain overlooking the city. Whenever school and your impending futures became too much to bear, you two would end up there to clear your heads.  

“Saw that y—” 

“Haven’t—” 

“No, you,” you both said simultaneously. You laughed awkwardly. Perhaps you made a mistake in replying to his text?

You shook your head. “I was just going to say that it’s been awhile since I ventured out of the city, is all. What were you going to say?” 

Mark glanced over at you. “Oh, I was going to say...I saw, uh, that you were listening to some music.” He mentally slapped himself for making this situation weirder than it already was. “You were listening to the song.” 

 “You were listening to it too...” you mentioned quietly, staring out the window. “Is that why...?”

“Yes,” Mark nodded solemnly. “It came up in the playlist, and I, um, I guess I just thought of you.”

“Oh.” After pulling into the familiar destination, Mark parked the car and switched the engine off. It was now completely silent as you both gazed out the window at the city lights below. Could he hear how rapidly your heart was beating in your chest? 

Because Mark was pretty sure you could hear his. 

“I was thinking about you too.”

Mark unbuckled his seat belt and turned in his seat to look at you properly. “You were?”

You nodded, shifting yourself to face him. As your eyes scanned over him, you almost wanted to cry. Mark was real. He wasn’t just a a tagged guest feature in a mutual friend’s Instagram post or a memory that Snapchat used to remind you of how happy you were a year ago. Your old best friend, your person, was sitting right in front of you, giving you the softest look—just as he used to do.

But for some reason, it felt like he was lightyears away. 

“Was that the first time you’ve thought of me? Ever since—”

“Why did you leave me?” Mark cuts you off suddenly. 

“I’m sorry?” Did you hear that correctly?

His hands fumbled around in his lap. “You think I didn’t notice how you blocked me on every social media platform? I’m surprised you didn’t block my number. I only knew you didn’t delete your accounts because I once saw Jackson tagging you in a picture he was posting.” He shook his head and sighed at the thought. “You disappeared, I only heard about you when a friend mentioned you. So...why’d you basically delete me from your life?”

You looked at him in disbelief. “I deleted you from my life?” Mark nearly jumped from the sudden volume increase in your voice. It was sharp as a knife, cutting through him with every word. “You think I wanted to ignore you?”

“W-why else wou—”

“Do you know how much it hurt me to see you happy with all of our friends and still be doing well after we stopped talking?” Tears welled up in your eyes and you began to feel yourself choking up on your words, but you continued. You didn’t realize until then how much the hurt had been eating away inside of you for so long. Once you were started, you couldn’t stop. “I was dying on the inside every single day because I couldn’t talk to you, but you seemed perfectly fine with everything. It was as if...you weren’t affected at all.” You quickly wiped the tears away with your sleeve. “So that’s why I blocked you. It hurt too much to see you doing fine when I was already hurting.”

Mark stared back at you cluelessly. “I’m sorry, but I’m a bit confused,” he scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. “Why couldn’t you talk to me in the first place? I mean, it was like one day we were the best of friends and then the next, you became a ghost.”

You stared at him in bewilderment. Did he really not understand where you were coming from? Had you been experiencing this whole situation differently than him?

"Do you even realize how this all started?” He slowly shook his head and you sighed before continuing. “Everything was going fine until I felt like you were starting to act weird with me.”

Realization began to dawn on him. “I wasn’t being weird, but you were just—”

“Just listen to me, you’re doing it again!” You cried out, pointing at him accusingly. “Suddenly, I felt like things were different between us. You didn’t approach me like you would and whenever I’d try to talk to you, you’d give me short answers and brush me off. I would ask if you wanted to grab food and you’d say you had work to do, but then I would see you eating with another friend. When I’d text asking you if you were mad at me or if we were okay, you would just say you weren’t mad and that there was nothing going on. 

So I took your word for it and thought things were fine. I tried to approach and talk to you whenever I’d see you, but I noticed you were still kind of standoffish with me. I couldn’t exactly ask you about it in person because you were always surrounded by everyone.”

“You texted asking to meet with me,” Mark recalled aloud, nodding slowly.

“Yeah, and I told you in person how I felt. I told you that I noticed things were different. I told you that I felt too intimidated to reach out and talk to you first in person because I was afraid of you brushing me off in front of everyone. I even apologized if I did anything to hurt you and begged to for us to talk it out. And then do you remember what you said back?” You asked bitterly, continuing before he could try to answer. “You told me that you didn’t understand where this was all coming from. You were so certain that you weren’t acting any different and that you didn’t have a problem with me. You said that this was just my problem, not yours. That you were just living your life, and that if I was going to keep making a big deal out of something that shouldn’t be, you were going to leave because you didn’t need to put up with anymore of my BS.” 

Mark stared at his lap and shook his head regretfully. “Yes, I remember.” 

“I was really trying to talk to you in a way that didn’t made it sound like I was blaming you, because you had voiced to me before how you hated feeling attacked. I stressed to you that this was all how I felt,” you explained shakily. “Then all you had to say was that it was just my problem. Do you have any idea how awful that was for me? You made me feel guilty for feeling. You made me feel like my emotions were invalid. You made me feel like I was going crazy.”

“I-I’m sorry I made you feel that way.”

You rolled your eyes amid the tears at the lame apology. “I couldn’t pretend everything was fine and talk to you normally after that without feeling afraid of your response, and you obviously weren’t going to approach me first, so that’s how we stopped talking.”

He cleared his throat awkwardly at your realization. “It sounds like you had a lot of time to think about this.”

“Yeah, well, thinking is all you can do when you don’t have anyone to talk to about this,” you sighed dejectedly, sniffling a bit. “Everyone worships you, Mark—how smart you are, how talented you are, how quietly snarky you are. You never ask for attention, but they’re more than happy to give it to you. You’ve got them all in the palm of your hand without even trying. If I were to explain to anyone else how I felt, they would think I was crazy too.”

Silence filled the air once again, besides your attempt to suppress your hiccups, as you both let your words simmer. You had been over all of this before, only this time it seemed like Mark was actually listening to you rather than passing off your words as nonsense. Whatever happened next, the ball was in Mark’s court. 

"I freaked out,” Mark finally admitted.

“What?”

“Did you ever hear what everyone was saying? About us?” He looked almost embarrassed as he asked. 

You had an idea of what he was getting at but decided to press on. “What were they saying..?”

Mark sighed, anxiously running a hand through his neat hair. “How...they thought I liked you. Like liked you. How they thought we were already together. How they all apparently shipped us together. Freshmen from the club who I barely talked to kept coming up to me asking when we were going to be a thing. One even told me that they all secretly called us mom and dad.”

“Oh.” You stared out at the city lights wistfully, suddenly feeling small under Mark’s gaze. You had heard it all before. Even when you two would just be sitting next to each other, people would shoot you a knowing look without Mark noticing. You had secretly enjoyed all the talk, believing that if everyone else saw the chemistry between you guys, maybe Mark soon would too. You should have known better, Mark was talking about these rumors as if they were a bad thing to believe. “But you never cared what people said about you, truth or rumor. Why were you so stressed over that rumor?” 

“Because it wasn’t a rumor,” he replied effortlessly. Just like you, once started, Mark couldn’t be stopped. Without a word, he gently took one of your hands from your lap and laced your fingers through his. You had forced Mark to hold your hand before—“That guy just can’t take the hint that I’m not into him. Mark, hold my hand and pretend we’re together!”—but he had never initiated. Actually, he rarely initiated skinship with you, but you were also the only one he let cling onto him like a leech. “You know me, I’m not one to talk about my feelings. If everyone else catches onto them, it becomes a whole ordeal.” His other hand came up to your face and he gently caressed the tears away with his thumb. You made no move to shy away from his touch. “I’m supposed to be the guy who just focuses on doing well in his major and on leading our club. Whoever I liked, if there was anyone I liked, would just be a mystery for everyone to gossip about behind my back and I was fine with that.”

“Mark, why couldn’t you just tell me how you felt?” You asked, disappointment laced in your voice. “We’re best friends, we tell each other everything.”

“Exactly, you’re my best friend.” Mark drew his hands away from you and looked back down at them in his lap shamefully. You instantly missed his hand holding yours. “I thought I was really good at hiding my feelings. If everyone else was able to see them, that probably meant that you did too. And I,” He sighed, sparing you a glance. “I was afraid of what would happen if you did, so I tried not to be so obvious.”

“So that’s why you became distant with me?”

He nodded. “I figured that if I was, no one would suspect a thing. You wouldn’t suspect a thing. How was I going to risk our friendship by you knowing how I really felt?”

“Well you pretty much destroyed our friendship when you stopped talking to me, so you really had nothing to lose,” you pointed out almost bitterly.

“I deserve that,” he replied sadly, pursing his lips as he looked at you. “And more. You think I’ve been doing okay all this time? The truth is that I’ve been a mess. I didn’t know what was going on with you. If I didn’t see you in Jackson’s photo or Bambam’s story, you could have been dead for all I knew. I couldn’t ask anyone about you without them being suspicious of how I felt or asking me why we weren’t together as much as before, so I kept quiet.” 

“But I saw you hanging out with everyone else, you seemed so happy,” you shook your head in disbelief, widening your eyes at that boy before you. “And you were always so busy with your classes and the club, I really thought that I was getting in your way.”

Mark gave you a sad smile, his eyes softening as he gazed into yours. “When have you ever listened to me when I was being distant and stubborn? When I was being me? You were always the persistent in our friendship.”

“With the way you were acting strange and not approaching me, I thought you needed space from me.”

“No, I realized I was being stupid. I needed my person. I needed you,” he said softly. “I’ve been nothing without you.”

“Mark...” He gently cupped your face as he noticed your tears beginning to resurface. He kissed your forehead before placing his against yours. 

“I’m so sorry for hurting you,” Mark whispered, his voice heavy with regret. “You didn’t deserve to suffer just because I was being immature and didn’t know how to handle my feelings. I didn’t reach out to you tonight expecting anything from you, I just had to see you again if even for only a second.”

“Did you suffer without me?” 

“Every single day.”

“Then we’re even,” you replied softly before pressing your lips against his. You clung onto his blazer to pull him closer to you, subconsciously afraid he would vanish into thin air if you weren’t holding onto him for dear life. He cradled your neck with one hand and caressed your cheek with the other, gently taking your bottom lip between his lips.

Your lips were soft and sweet. You tasted like vanilla and sunshine amid pockets of pain and sadness and regret. You tasted like home.

Mark tasted like he'd been longing to go home.

Pulling away for air, you gazed into each others’ eyes, tears of happiness respectfully making their appearance as you both laughed at one another. Gently, albeit clumsily, Mark picked you up over the middle console and placed you on his lap, earning a giggle from you. You buried yourself in his chest and inhaled the scent you had missed for too long as Mark held you tight.

“Don’t leave me ever again.”

“Then don’t send me way ever again,” you shot back, looking up at him and grinning. 

He kissed your forehead once again before placing his chin on top your head and holding you tighter. As you updated him on what you’ve been up to in the last couple of months, Mark silently promised himself to not let you go, because he was truly nothing without you.

——

[batik96]

Writing ...

I wrote a few words to end 2017. I wrote a few words to start 2018. I found that, if I were to write 43 words each day in 2018, that would be 15,695 words written by year’s end. That would please me.

Much of February was a wash, writing-wise. Now I’m trying to salvage March.

When last we left off, I had written 3,116 words in 2018, for a then-89-word daily average. Even now, if my calculator is to be believed, I have a 44.5-word daily average, which still surpasses my goal of 43 words a day. (Not sure how I managed that, but I won’t complain.) Going forward ...

March 11, 2018: Today, I have written 140 words, for a total of 3,256 words for the year -- and a 46.5-word daily average.

March 24, 2018: I wrote 1,055 words today. That makes 4,311 words for the year -- and a 51.9-word daily average. (It did nothing to help my nearly 2-year-old WIP, but I have written something postable -- soon, I promise -- for the first time in months. It feels good.

April 8, 2018: I wrote yesterday. It’s hard to quantify, because I really was rewriting a small section for which I found a better (I think) take. If I check just that section, I wrote 253 words. But it replaces a section of 247 words and is largely similar, except with a few key word changes. So the 6-word increase could well be accurate. So, I guess that puts me up to 4,317 words for the year. Or a 44.5-word daily average. Which is still above my 43-word goal, so I guess I’m managing. Though I really hope to get some other projects out of the way soon so I can focus more easily on the words.

May 6, 2018: I wrote 444 words today. I’m not sure any of it is any good. Or if it’s all really boring. (It seems pretty mundane.) But I wrote. (Which is a good thing, since I’m signed up for an exchange. Yikes!) So that’s 4,761 words for the year, or 37.785 words a day. I’ve officially fallen below my daily goal. Time remains my biggest constraint. (I feel as if I’m lacking ideas, but I also feel I’d have more ideas if I had more time.) But I expect the exchange-fic deadline to help resolve that, since it pretty well guarantees I have to write at least 600 more words -- and soon. (Plus, that’s 444 words of “they haven’t even met yet”. I still need words for “they met and it was amazing”.) Onward!

May 7, 2018: I added another 276 words today. For a year-to-date total of 5,037 and a daily average of 39.66. Still not back to my 43-word-a-day goal, but I’m seeing progress, so that’s something.

May 10, 2018: Another 174 words added. For a year-to-date total of 5,211 words and a daily average of 39.778. It’s a very minor increase from my previous daily average, and it’s not 43 words. But it’s not nothing. (I think this confirmed for me, though, that I write better when no one is around. Or, at least, when my husband isn’t around. He doesn’t really like it when my attention is elsewhere, especially if he doesn’t know where. That makes it really hard for me to relax enough to write. I apparently can write more in 10 minutes with him out of the house than I can in an hour when he’s around.)

May 12: I have written 647 words today. (In addition to tweaking some of the words I’d already written.) Still a long way to go, but ... progress. That makes 5,858 words for the year and a daily average of 44.37 words -- officially back above my 43-words-a-day goal.

May 19: Over the past few days, I’ve written 1,643 words, for a year-to-date total of 7,501 words. That’s a 53.96-word daily average. And I believe it’s actually something completed. Not the now 2-year-old WIP, or the thing I was writing on May 12 (which has stalled), but still a viable, whole thing that I hope to post soon. (When I started this on Jan. 1, I noted that 43 words a day would give me 15,695 words by year’s end. I’m almost to my halfway-point goal of 7,847.5 words with 42 days before the halfway point in the year. Considering how little writing I managed in 2017 and much of 2016, I’m pretty happy with that. I hope I can keep it up!)

May 25: I decided to rewrite a chunk of a fic, to see if I end up liking the way it goes any better. (It’s not that I don’t like it, but it was supposed to include smut and now it may not and I’m not sure the initial take was enough to keep it from being mind-numbingly dull without the smut. I’m hoping the rewrite helps with that -- and also maybe inspires me to decide I can manage the smut after all.) Anyway. In the course of the rewrite, I’ve added 571 words this morning. That gives me a year-to-date total of 8,072 words and a daily average of 55.6689 words.

May 26: I’ve written 589 words this morning, part of a 945-word doc that I’m not sure I ever recognized as words written because it is more head canon/fic idea/fic outline than actual fic. But its 900+ words. And it feels good. So I’m going to claim them. Those 945 words bring my yearly total up to 9,017. That’s a daily average of 61.76 words. (If I were to maintain that pace, I could write 22,500+ words this year.) Considering how scarce words have been for me over the past two years, actually having ideas feels great, even if I do still need to work on making the ideas into actual fic. And even if writing actual fic still is like pulling teeth (without proper dental equipment).

June 3: Tracking my words at the moment is complicated. I had 2,100 words written. I added more, deleted some, reworked a bit. So I’m not absolutely certain how many actual new words I’ve written in the past week. But, the doc started at 2,100 counted words and now has 6,158 words, so I know I can claim at least 4,058 words since May 26. That gives me a year-to-date total of 13,075 words -- more than I had in 2016 and 2017 combined -- and a daily average of 84.9 words. 

June 10: I’m losing track of my word count, simply because, well, I’m writing. I’m working on one thing, in particular, and I am kind of in the editing phase, the phase where I change this chunk of words to a different chunk of words. Sometimes it’s a bigger chunk, sometimes smaller. But that 6,100-word doc is now more than 6,800 words, so that’s at least 700 words in the past week. That brings my year-to-date total somewhere around 13,775, for a daily average of 85.5 words. I also posted something (that made it into a previous word count) this past week, which felt really good. 

Aug. 25: It’s been a while, but I wrote 633 words last night. I’ve managed today to add 339 words. I think I’m a bit behind on my 43-words-a-day bid, so I’m just going to go with “972 words in two days is not a bad word count” and leave it at that. 

Aug. 27: I wrote a few more words yesterday -- 49, to be precise. And, thanks to a bit of as-I-was-falling-asleep inspiration/texting-myself-so-I-wouldn’t-forget, I have written 135 words this morning. Neither is much, especially considering the 49 words are the result of a 4-hour time period during which I could have been writing and simply couldn’t find the words. But 184 words is more than I had two days ago, and 1,156 is more than I had four days ago. Baby steps. 

That’s also a year-to-date word total of around 14,931 and a daily average of 62.47 words. Which is stunning. It’s been so long since I wrote that I assumed I was far, far behind on my 43-words-a-day goal. And I’m not -- by a lot. In fact, when I started this at the beginning of the year, I did the math and figured that 43 words a day, by year’s end, would mean I had written 15,695 words. Now? With 126 days left in the year? I only need to write another 764 words to meet my goal for the year. Granted, there’s still time for me to be hit by a total lack of inspiration and miss my goal. but 764 words seems do-able in the next four months, especially since I’ve written more than that in the past four days.

Aug. 29: Another 155 words added. For a year-to-date total of 15,086 or 62.6 words a day. Slowly. (Not surely, just slowly.)

Aug. 30: I’ve written 267 words, and it’s not yet 8 a.m. That makes 15,353 for the year, or 63.44 words a day during 242 days. That leaves 121 days in the year to reach my 15,695 goal. That’s 342 words I need to reach my goal. Still not going to call it a done deal. But I’m thrilled that it seems attainable. That’s less than 3 words a day needed between now and year’s end.

Sept. 3: I’ve managed 236 words written this morning, in not that much time. So I’ll take it. That’s 15,589 words for the year, or 106 words shy of my goal for the year. That’s a 63.39-word average over 246 days. I now have 119 days in which to write 106 words. If I don’t meet my goal, I’m going to be bummed!

Oct. 9: It’s been a while. And I may have managed a word or two -- a literal word or two, not an actual few paragraphs being passed off as “a word or two” -- since last I updated this post. But they truly were to few to even bother attempting to count. Today? I have written 468 words. During the past week or so, in single sentences or -- sometimes -- phrases, I have written more. Combine today’s count with that and I’m up to 744 words in the past couple of weeks. Which brings my word count for the year to 16,333 words in 282 -- a 57.9-word daily average. I’ve now broken my writing goal for the year with more than two months to go. I’m very happy with that! Now the goal is to finish my current endeavor. (I’m not going to say “finish the WIP,” because there’s no way the one I consider my WIP is going to be done by the end of the year. At least not without me finding someone to subsidize it for the next two months while I take a leave of absence from my job and move to a remote cabin with an excellent internet connection but far away from my family.) (The current “endeavor” is more realistically attainable!)

Oct. 15: Since last I updated, I have written 549 words. I’m not going to vouch for its quality -- I’m so busy trying to take things one step at a time, just get me from Point A to Point B and I’ll worry about Point C later, that I’m not sure if the words are actually decent or just merely functional. But they are words, and I trust my betas to tell me if they suck. Meanwhile, that brings my word count up to 16,882 words in 288 days, for a 58.6-word daily average.

Oct. 20: I added another 103 words today. It’s not much, but it was the 103 words that allowed me to finish that particular scene, so it feels like a lot. And, technically, it’s more than double my 43-words-a-day goal! That brings me up to 16,985 in 293 days, or a 57.9-word daily average.  

Dec. 2: Good grief. I went the entire month of November without writing a word. (Well, I wrote 183 words outlining what I needed to write, but I didn’t actually write those words, so the 183 words don’t count for the purpose of this specific count.) Happily, December is off to a better start. I just added 106 words to my current writing effort. There’s still a long way to go and I’m not sure I’ll manage to finish it by year’s end. But every little bit helps. That brings my year-to-date total up to 17,091 words in 336 days. That’s a 50.866-word daily average.

Dec. 7: Another 130 words. So, 17,221 words in 341 days, for a daily average of 50.5 words. 

Dec. 16: Another 550 words. So, 17,771 words in 350 days, for a daily average of 50.77 words. Still not close to finishing this particular piece, but closer than I was 550 words ago!

Dec. 22: Another 709 words, for a 356-day total of 18,480 and a daily average of 51.9 words. This one is both going exactly as I intended/expected and surprising me at every turn.

[youremyonlyhope]

Children of Earth: Day One

AKA Torchwood takes the “creepy child in a horror movie” trope to a global level.

Apparently I hate myself since I’m rewatching this season for the first time. Even though it’s so painful I haven’t ever watched it since the first time back in 2013.

Kids walking willingly (or so it seems at this point) into a bright light. Ok. Totally normal and not a creepy way to start the episode. I just know that at some point in this post I’m gonna start saying “I hate this why am I doing this to myself all over again?” in every other line. Not yet. But it will happen. Maybe not in Day One. But definitely by Day Two. CAPALDI! MY LOVE! The first time I’d ever seen him. Oh. Oh I’m already in pain. Why am I doing this???? Wow look at that it only took one more scene to get me started on that. OH GOD STEVEN. I ALWAYS BLOCK THIS OUT AND THEN REMEMBER IT AND THEN BLOCK IT OUT ALL OVER AGAIN. I’m glad that Gwen has an eye for weird stuff though and noticed the kids. Oh the Hub. For the last time. OH GOD WHY IS IT NOW HITTING ME THAT THIS IS ALL JUST 5 DAYS WHAT THE HELL. The first time I watched this, I finished Exit Wounds just before. I remember having to clean part of the living room that day, and I know I cleaned it either just before starting Exit Wounds or just after finishing it, so maybe I had a half hour break between this and Exit Wounds if that’s when I cleaned. But either way, I had just watched Exit Wounds before this and Gwen saying good morning to the picture of Owen and Tosh hit me way too hard in the feels. OH RUPESH. I LIKED HIM. I WANTED HIM TO STICK AROUND AND NOT BETRAY THEM. RUPESH. I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU. Remind me to use that Tyra gif when the betrayal happens. You boys need to get better at faking sadness. Now I’m remembering that this season, while not as bad as Countrycide, was a little gorey... I mean, if only that laser knife could be real.

Rupesh: *Sees “Torchwood” written on the van* You’re Torchwood! Jack: *Getting into the Torchwood van* Never heard of them.

I laughed out loud. I love this show. Most well-known secret organization ever. And Jack barely even tries to hide it. “This whole city talks about you.” I LAUGHED OUT LOUD AGAIN. I LOVE TORCHWOOD. Rupesh is smart. He thought of a interesting case. Ugh he had so much potential and used it for the wrong side. Hey it’s my girl Lois! Sad Martha couldn’t be here, but Lois, girl, you stole my heart. I love you. She’s arriving at the same time as Frobisher. Oh my god watching this when he becomes the Doctor later on is so trippy. Oh my god. Asking for easy alien stuff. Wow. “No, you get killed, not me. You die like a dog. Like an ugly dog.” OK Jack you’re gonna regret that foreshadowing in a few episodes. “What’s his uniform? That’s not British Army, is it?” MY GIRL LOIS. SHE HAS A GOOD EYE. “So far we’re the only ones with software clever enough to piece this all together” HA. “Well, us and Torchwood.” Oh ok. Martha’s on her honeymoon. With Mickey but they don’t say it. God. If only they could have developed Martha and Mickey even the tiniest bit. Literally just Jack saying “I don’t know, she only met Mickey a year ago. I think they’re moving too fast.” and Gwen responding “Well I like him more than Tom, I’m glad that ended.” and then the show moves on with its life. Sure, that’d be the easy way out, but I prefer the easy way over what we got which was them barely even trying. I WANT to ship Martha and Mickey, JUST GIVE ME REASON TO. “Ask about Torchwood and most people point towards the bay.” You guys really have to get better at being a secret organization. I was about to say that I did not know Torchwood’s paid by the Crown, but then my brain was like “Queen Victoria founded it, you idiot.” But now I’m imagining Queen Elizabeth signing checks for Torchwood. God Rupesh. I remember thinking “Oh I’m gonna love him on the team” during his little speech about the suicides. I FORGOT THE SCREAMING. I LEGIT GASPED AND THREW MYSELF BACKWARDS OH MY GOD I FORGOT THE STUPID SCREAMING WHY AM I DOING THIS TO MYSELF THIS IS THE WORST. OH MY GOD. This screaming made me realize my right earbud might be dying. Either that or my hearing’s worse in that ear. I FORGOT THE ‘WE ARE COMING’S. I THOUGHT THEY WERE AT THE END OF THE EPISODE. Remember when the Not-British-Army dude was like “We’re not sure if it’s extraterrestrial yet” YEAH WELL THESE CHILDREN ARE SCREAMING “WE ARE COMING” SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO IT’S PROBABLY EXTRATERRESTRIAL.  Oh yeah and the old dude’s doing it too. “What’s in there?” “Big, science fiction superbase. Honestly. See ya.” See this is why Torchwood isn’t a secret. You just tell everyone your business. Oh god oh poor Lois. First day on the job. And there’s an international crisis. That isn’t even me making a joke, I immediately thought of Janice in Come From Away, her first day at the news station and she has to cover 7000 people arriving in Gander after 9/11. Aaaaand now I’m gonna cry. Oh Bridget will regret giving Lois that password. But also, it ends up helping save the world to an extent so it works out. Thanks Bridget. LOL literal red flag next to Jack’s name. Love it. Honestly I agree with this Dekker (Dekkler?) guy, all this is just more reason to not have kids. “So every single child in the whole wide world is speaking English.” Oh the British. Thinking they’re the center of the universe. Though, I really should not be speaking since I’m an American. “We can adopt a Filipino and get her to clean the chimneys” Woah wait what kind of line was that?!?!?!? What? Awww look at Rhys being useful, noticing patterns. “I’m going into England. Farewell forever.” Knowing that the Welsh hate England makes me happy. Wow Jack, you literally had to think to remember that you have a grandson. “What do you recommend that we do?” “You tell me.” See, look at that. Already pushing all the blame and responsibility onto Frobisher. At this point, Frobisher’s basically nothing so why would the Prime Minister say “You tell me.”??? He already plans to make him deal with it all. Ok but also Frobisher’s the one suggesting wiping the record so yeah you suck too. I love Capaldi with all my heart, but at this point I hate Frobisher. So yeah, wiping the records and pretending it didn’t happen, blame Frobisher. Everything else so far? Eh. Up in the air for now. I’ve blocked out everything about this entire season besides Ianto’s death, that scene about the Doctor (though I WISH I could forget that), and “John Frobisher is a good man.” “I’m not having my name on this.” Have some integrity Prime Minister. Now you’re officially to blame too because you agreed to it but knew it was wrong so you didn’t want to be connected. At least Frobisher was never planning on acting like he wasn’t a part of this. Rhiannon has the right idea about the group hysteria thing. She’s wrong, but it’s a great theory. “I just can’t stand it, Dad.” AND HERE’S 2013 ME GOING “WHAAAATTTTT” God this whole conversation about Steven just hurts. I’m glad Rhiannon’s supportive. Rhiannon’s husband coming in to ruin a nice moment. 52 in 2009, he would have only been 8 in 1965... HONESTLY TORCHWOOD, YOU’D THINK YOU PEOPLE WOULD BE BEYOND USING PHONES THAT CAN BE INTERCEPTED. TOSH, GIRL, YOU HAD TIME TO CREATE A TIME LOCK BUT NOT A SECURE PHONE LINE?? No but Tosh, girl, you are perfect I’m not mad I’m kidding I love you you’re the best. And Bridget in her mind is like “Oh great. I’m a part of a government coverup.” Yeah I’d have to get up and run away from my computer too. That’s how I feel after writing papers (Also! I just graduated college on Saturday! No more papers unless for some reason I decide to go to grad school!) and I can’t imagine how much worse the feeling is after deleting government records. My girl Lois. Snooping. I love her. But like, is killing the people involved really necessary? Like, can’t you just maybe lock them up in a jail until this all blows over? Jack. Where in the world did you get that car? You live at the Hub. Where do you park it? And did you pick TARDIS blue on purpose? RUPESH.

STILL NOT OVER THIS BETRAYAL. WATCHING THIS THE FIRST TIME I WAS LIKE “OH YES. GOOD. RUPESH JOINS THE TEAM AS A NEW MEDICAL OFFICER. I LIKE HIM.” AND THEN HE BETRAYS US. HOW COULD YOU, RUPESH!? Now here’s the thing: I’d love this lady if she wasn’t evil. And the government picked the worst person to be a part of a secret deal with aliens when they picked Jack. Yes, he seems like the best because he’s in Torchwood, but he’s the worst pick. If they have the option in the future of an Order to Kill, they should always think ahead “Hey, we’re doing this shady deal. It’s supposed to be a one time thing, but there’s the off chance it might come back to bite us. Let’s make sure everyone involved can be killed later on.” and not hire the one person who can never die. They could have avoided having to literally blow him up and collect the pieces. Or, you know, not have an order to kill option in the first place and lock them up until it blows over. Just a suggestion. “Who killed the Chinese man?” “I did. I had to, he just fitted the story.” “Then get off your high horse, then.” Girl has a point. Wow I wish I could love her. I love Jack. I love that his resurrections are always perfectly timed. “Do you think it’s true, what they say about him?” *Jack dramatically comes back to life.* Even in death, Jack lives for the drama. His immortality ability was like “...just... give it... 2 more seconds... ok they’re talking about Jack TIME TO WAKE UP.” And I LOVE that she was so ready to shoot him again. Girl was ready. I love it. It’s terrifying that the soldiers are like “Oh she’s shooting someone as they run away again.” and know to go off to the sides. You know, the theory of Jack’s immortality being connected to the rift isn’t a bad one either. It’s wrong, but the logic is there. All these people thinking of great theories, unfortunately they don’t take aliens into account. “They kill you?” “Yeah.” *Ianto gives Jack a comforting hug.* I LOVE TORCHWOOD. And everything’s falling apart at once. Gwen’s having a baby, Jack’s having a bomb, and all the kids are speaking with demon voices again. “We are coming... back.” Now that’s how you end an episode.

Yeah so Day One is not as painful as the rest of the days. But it’s still VERY dramatic.

Ok. Gotta find time to watch Day Two over the next week. Maybe tomorrow. We’ll see.

RIP Torchwood Three Hub. 1885-2009. (Also while looking up the year Torchwood Three started, I found out that it was founded by a woman name Agnes Havisham. So, good for her.) But seriously, the Hub’s gone, and my heart died with it.

UPDATE 2 days later: WHAT HAPPENED TO MYFANWY AND JANET!!?!?!?!?!?! All of season 1 and 2 I kept bringing up how I wonder what happened to them after the explosion, but then once I get up to the episode with the explosion I forget about them. ARE THEY OK!? Please tell me Janet escaped to the sewers somehow and that Myfanwy flew away and is off being happy and safe.

[stone-man-warrior]

February 20, 2021: 10:02 am:

===================================================

https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/1363118708755947521

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iypUpv9xelg

The Bergoglio Tweet  is about a takeover attack at a hospital.

I was at Fred Meyer store the day when one group of terror army cells rushed the store, and took over the store, which was being operated by a different opposing group of terror cells at the time of the take over.

At the Fred Meyer in Grants Pass Oregon, the place had been operated by a religious cult, the Cannibal SDA up to around 1998. That day I was there, a different, but similar group of people came in the front door waving their arms around, about fifty people rushed the store, small groups branched off in all directions. I heard one woman say: “I’m taking pharmacy”, another man said: “I’m taking the gun counter”, someone else said: “I’m taking the toy department” as they all ran past me in what looked like a feeding frenzy of activity.

That blonde woman later became known as “Pharmacy Blonde” and remained working in the pharmacy for about fifteen years, maybe more. She is no longer there, as she is one of the assassins that have come to my house to kill me over the course of time, and was killed here at my home in defense. Most of that Fred Meyer Pharmacy take over group has been killed at my home in defense. One of them, a woman by the name of “Pharmacy Tech Debbie” attacked and took possession of the property at 315 Jackpine about one year after that home was built. It gets too complicated and personal from there, so, back to the Pope Tweet:

That Tweet is describing that a group of people are to rush a hospital, to take over the hospital.

Maybe a whole bunch of hospitals, all of the Tweets on Twitter are old, so, that one could be among the original Vatican orders to take over hospitals.

Don‘t forget that in Oregon, the Corona Virus on Beta Twitter already happened in 2008. The entire Oregon population was killed and replaced with Canadians as a result.

One of the results of the aftermath of the Beta Twitter role out of Corona Virus in Oregon, in Grants Pass, is that the local hospital on Washington Ave, had been serving the area for a long time, was also hijacked, and the result of that, is that the new Asante Three Rivers Medical Center at 500 SW Ramsey Ave was constructed. The place was built by terrorists, for terrorists to use as needed, in 2001.

There is an old hospital on Dimmick Ave. That place turned into some kind of wicked trap, where if a patient was told to go there, it was said to be a “Biblical Experience” at the Dimmick Hospital. I don‘t know exactly what that means, but there is a county services office building next to the Dimmick Hospital where people in need can go for some particular county offered aid of some kind, and there came a time when I went there for the help that was said to have been offered. All I remember about my visit to that county aid building visit is there were people on the front steps, killing everyone who went in there with swords.

I did not go in, just observed from the sidewalk and left after seeing that. I went back on a different day, watched from my car, to see if it was safe to go inside. I did go inside that day, but the killing had just moved indoors, so I left in a hurry and didn‘t go back there any more.

The Pope Tweet is bad news.

Other cities in other states will be attacked by innocent looking church goer army’s as a result of the Pope, Twitter and Google.

Google is The Vatican‘s Clerk.

==============

10:53 am:

Why is this happening?

Why is there a green block-out of information?

First impression: When Twitter suspends a persons Twitter account, the very first thing they do, within the first hour of suspension, is remove all of the photos that were posted in all of the tweets at the suspended account. The result of the deleted photos leaves a green, or blue, or red, or orange, or other color of a blank place holder where the photo once was presented. Looks the same as those green place holders I am seeing at POTUS and at that one BBC video. I don’t have a conclusion, just the observation relationship between what I see there and what happens when an account is suspended on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/BBCNews

https://twitter.com/POTUS

See, this is what my account looks like. It was suspended a long time ago. I can still read the “news”, but am longer permitted to make any new tweets, been suspended a long time, on three accounts in the past couple of years, and others when it was Beta Twitter, when they suspended me for trying to get help to stop terror mass murders in Oregon back in around 2008. They did  the same thing back then too, removed the photos, and preserved the written text parts of the tweets I had made.

About thirteen or fourteen-thousand Tweets were suspended on two different accounts for a total of somewhere around thirty-thousand suspended and partially deleted documentations of terrorism, photos all dismantled from the tweets. All of the tweets are there to say something about the terrorism, to say eye-witness information, and to teach others how to read the coded information that is hidden within the news stories presented on Twitter from “Verified Accounts”.

There is nothing real about any of the news stories presented on Twitter by major media network and media personalities from so called “Verified Accounts”, all of them are fake, each one is either marching orders, or update for terror soldiers made to inform them, or are for distraction, detour, road block confusion services for making the terror difficult to detect, and to steer federal investigators into traps where they are killed and replaced with terror operatives.

My suspended accounts are as real as if gets.

Twitter kicked me out when I requested that they help to contact US national security and US Military, and just direct those people to my account is all asked them to do.

Twitter is covering up all of the videos with green place holders. Today, they are leaving the photos stay visible from tweets made by media news and government, but covering the videos. This has happened before, is not the first time, it’s some kind of major announcement made to Twitter based terror operatives globally in the form of a “Green-Out”.

I smell problems at Green Jello HQ at Universal Studios.

nbc/comcast terror HQ is having a “Bad Day at Black Rock”.

https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1363202030500794372

==================

11:17 am:

Ok, the video’s all work after a restart and a scan with Hijacked Norton security software.

The YouTube videos worked without any problems, only videos presented on Twitter were affected by the glitch. I suspect it’s a controlled environment sort of special glitch.

If so, it’s beyond my skill set to know what is going on with that.

See, now they work:

https://twitter.com/POTUS

=====================

11:50 am:

Other:

Tennessee is Trending on Twitter.

That cannot be good.

This story comes up. A story about a man found in Tennessee by virtue of a post card found on a sunken ship and was sent back to Germany from Tennessee to continue to receive his pension at age 95.

First impression is to see a similar story that was presented twice, once on Beta Twitter in around 2008 and again on current Twitter about two years ago when a nazi guard was said to have been living on a “compound” in new york.

My suggestion to nsa is to do a English/German translation on the word “Walmart” and see where that leads to.

Then:

95 + 5 = 100

The “5″ is $5.

$5 is the price paid at a Walmart service counter to SDA terror soldiers who bring a human head of a US Citizen to the service counter. A shopping cart filled with heads is worth about $200 at the service counter at Walmart.

The shopping carts were lined up, filled with human heads at the Walmart service counter in the early parts of the 2000′s after the turn of the century.

A “concentration camp” is mentioned in the tweet, that is more Walmart terror. The “concentration” is the remainder of he US Citizens killed at the Walmart after their heads are removed, the body. The “Concentration” is the same stuff I have already explained enough about, is called “V-8″. The people are put into a giant blender and turned into a liquid, ground into pulp, water is added, seeds are added. After that, the product is called “Red Hydroseed” after water and seeds are added to the V-8, and is sprayed onto roadsides as “Erosion Abatement” by Oregon Department of Transportation Contractors. The state pays the contractors to spray the hillsides with seeded remains of US Citizens, to help to make sure that the roads won‘t wash away in the rainy season.

Is there something that is not clear about that explanation?

“Concentration” = “Red Hydroseed” = “V-8″ + water + seeds = Erosion Abatement = Dead Murdered US Citizen Walmart Shoppers = Profit

Each of the $5 heads is matched with the identification of the victim. The heads and drivers licenses are matched, so that a look-a-like can be summoned from Canada to take the individual’s place of each murdered US Citizen at the Walmart and everywhere, this is not limited to Walmart, is state wide at all stores, all recreational destinations, all county offices where people need to go, all hospitals, and every other place where people gather, including their own homes. The head is removed, taken to Walmart, exchanged for $5, along with the victims Identification drivers license, and the Birth Certificates are highly sought after, could be worth extra. With the birth certificate, other terror ID processing can be done at the DMV, and remain all legitimate in appearance as time goes on, and are valuable that way.

Once the heads are matched to the drivers license, then Nancy Sinatra as President of Screen Actor Guild, is able to arrange “Casting” services. There is a DMV data base that contains all of the necessary information about the height, weight, age, gender, eye & hair color and more of each victim, and is the reason that the victims head is worth $5 at the Walmart service counter. That data base at US DMV is matched and cross-referenced to the same kind of data base in Canada, and makes Nancy Sinatra’s job a simple one for finding suitable replacement citizens.

The Canadian replacements are summoned to take residence in the homes of the victims.

Nancy Sinatra instructs each replacement about which candidate they are to vote for on the voting ballots.

The outcome of all of the elections is known ahead of time. The candidates are all shills put there on the ballots by Nancy Sinatra at SAG HQ.

The winner of the elections is known in advance of the printing of the ballots. All of the contested offices from City Water Master, to Parks & Recreation Director, to City Mayor, to County Sheriff, to State Governor, to State Representatives, to Senators, to US President, is all worked out ahead of the printing of the ballots they are candidate selections on.

The outcome is arranged many years ahead of time at Nancy Sinatra SAG HQ.

All they need to do, is make sure that the Canadian replacement citizens vote the way they are told to vote. That way, when anyone questions why everything is so fucked up in USA, those people who ask questions about having been fucked too many times, are directed into the controlled environment at “Hanging Chad HQ” where everyone points at the vote count, and endless hours are spent recounting the ballots.

Each ballot is correct every time, unless they need a distractive measure to make confusion service. Such instances help to make sure that the planned winner of an election, who may not have been placed as planned, will ultimately be the winner after a recount is done. Every once in while, the voting has to show that some degree of corruption took place, otherwise investigative people will see that the system is rigged, so, the bastards even pre-plan that there will be very rare instances of corrupted vote discrepancy, and in doing so, they manage to get the SAG shill into office that way when the usual route is not working as planned.

The usual route almost always works as planned.

There is almost never a problem with the vote count.

The problem is that all of the voters are fake, but no one has ever questioned the integrity of the voting base, they only question the number of votes cast.

============

One more time:

“The problem is that all of the voters are fake, but no one has ever questioned the integrity of the voting base, they only question the number of votes cast.”

============

https://twitter.com/DefenseBaron/status/1363127341791199233

100 = One US Citizen Voter

5 = One Head of One US Voter

95 = the Body of One US Voter

100 - 5 = One Head Removed from One US Voting Citizen Over Age 18 = The Victims Body = Evidence = 95

V-8 = Destruction of Evidence

Bonus Extra Credit Math Problem:

18 - n = One US Citizen who is not old enough to Vote = One kidnapped US Citizen Child = One Trained Disposable Terror Soldier = One Captive Victim Child

n = a real number range between 18 and 1.

================================

12:57 pm:

One of the problems I have faced with reporting this kind of real terrorism, is that when the report is received by the authority figures who have the resources and training required for the kind of response needed to stop the terrorism, they don‘t see that this kind of terrorism has been underway, undetected for more than fifty years in USA.

They see the “Emergency”.

They respond in knee jerk fashion.

no one reads the details.

They think they know everything there is to know about terrorism, and fail to see that the terror has been already happening under their noses for fifty years.

They are unable to process the reality, that what is being reported has been going on under their watchful eyes as national Security personnel.

That is a recipe for more failure.

neglect of the details will ultimately lead to the demise of USA.

The dismantling of USA is going to lead to the loss of Freedom on a global level. Only select people will be free, while everyone else will be slaves, surgically altered and raised in slave schools where the victims are born into slavery, physically changed and taught that they are not human beings, but are a different species of animal, one that “God put on earth to serve the Master Race”. That is the ultimate use of the “British Still Education Tactic”.

The “Master Race” is Screen Actor Guild Members, and what I described is real, is the ultimate goal of “Global Domination Under The Cross”.

I had a seat at the table where these plans were developed. The Windsor Family had a seat also, so did Ann & Nancy Wilson and the members of Pink Floyd.

Many others had a seat. You can read this account to learn more about that.

Global population in total will be reduced to 500,000 SAG Members.

Everyone else will be exterminated like bugs in a jar sprayed with Raid, but they prefer Black Flag.

Look around at the condition the world is in with regard to the quality of the leadership we are experiencing in the visible arena. Those people are all puppets. The real leaders are enjoying the coral sands on the Island of Kauai, calling the shots from the safety of the island, where they are safe from unexpected surprise visitors, and their celebrity status provides excuse for them to be there in event surprises do show up on their RADAR.

============================================

1:45 pm:

Same Guy?

This is Greg Koch of Wildwood Guitars, he is the man I purchased my Gibson Flying V from online at Wildwood Guitars in Colorado.

Wildwood Guitars sells premium grade musical instruments only. They are a premier Gibson Dealership.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GCWk9SSU3s&feature=youtu.be

This is Micheal Robinson of Eastwood Guitars:

Eastwood Guitars is a Canadian Front for terrorism, has a base at Hugo Hitching Post General Store in Hugo Oregon, and some of those people are the same people who held me and my family captive in 1998 - 2002 or so, and are the people who forced me to make the designs that were put onto that Seagate hard-drive I mentioned earlier today and yesterday.

Eastwood and Dean Zelinsky of Zelinsky Guitars, Zakk Wylde of Zakk Wylde Guitars, people from Grants Pass Daily Courier newspaper, people who represented Ann Wilson, and Ron Howard of Hollywood Director fame were among the people who held my family captive. If this information is followed up to stop terrorism, Ron Howard will be forever famous as the man who directed the 9/11 terror attack at World Trade Center, not a movie, the actual attack in new york.

I could go on about what people were here at my home with machine guns forcing me to make graphic design work for them, but for now I want to point out that this man Robertson and that other man Koch, I have long suspected to be the same guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP2g4BZ2Bvc&utm_campaign=Eastwood+Weekly+Digest+20th+FEB+2021+%28TARUpq%29&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Master+Segment+of+ALL+Lists+Combined+%28Auto-Updating%29&_ke=eyJrbF9jb21wYW55X2lkIjogIk1UYlE5RSIsICJrbF9lbWFpbCI6ICJzdG9uZS5tYW4ud2FycmlvckBnbWFpbC5jb20ifQ%3D%3D

A small airplane is circling over my house as I write this information at 2:04 pm.

Of note, when I spoke to Mr. Koch at Wildwood about the Flying V I bought, he thought my name was “Strong” and wondered why I wanted my guitar sent to my home address rather than to Strong’s at 3747 Russell Road.

“Are you Strong?” he asked on the phone call.

“no stronger than I need to be” was my response

I remember that and a little more about that phone conversation, which included that the Flying V had some “Sun Damage” from being in the show room window for too long.

The guitar arrived with a hidden thing inside of it. The thing was a small metal canister, looked exactly like a CO² pressurized canister, the kind that is used for a BB Gun and other things, except this one was a micro canister, was only about one inch long, and was inside if the pick-guard cover where the pick-ups are in the guitar. I found it in there a short time after receiving the guitar. I took it out and set it on a table. Later the next day or so, someone had come into my home and I found that person taking the guitar apart in my house. There was a fight.

I looked for that little canister at some point after that fight, and it was gone, not on the table anymore.

Then another time, the Flying V was leaning against the amplifier, and the front door came open, some asshole ran into my house, grabbed the guitar and ran back out the door, while the cord was still plugged into the amp. I gave chase. I grabbed the cord as it was yanked from the amp when the asshole ran out the door with the guitar, the guy had a nitrous oxide tank, it ignited, he launched into the air over by that other house I showed that I was trying to build. He was clinging to the guitar, as I was holding the cord that was still attached to the guitar, and for a moment, I was flying a human kite. The guitar fell, and I caught if before it hit the ground, as the terrorist bastard took off like a rocket.

That is one of the stories I can tell about my Gibson Flying V Guitar, one that actually took flight for a little while.

now, I can’t play guitar. I cannot do any other thing except watch my front door and windows while trying to reach help, and I learned again that the US President does not do US national security or defense work, he is a terror operative, and works for Great Britain.

=============================

2:32 pm:

“Green‘s of Olde Three Ply” is the name of the Ann Wilson/Dean Zelinsky/Zakk Wild/Eastwood Guitars/Jorgio Bergoglio/Grants Pass Daily Courier, etc. terror cell.

They are the people who are running the White House currently from Kauai Ranch in the state of Hawaii for the British and House of Lords.

The name is based on the three ply plastic pick guard of a 1958 Gibson Flying V guitar, is also a nod to the British made Marshall Plexi amplifier.

“Green’s of Olde Three Ply” are the leading terror cell of the “Green Jello” family of terror cells. “Green Jello” is headed by Jay Leno on west coast USA, “Green Gelatin” on the east coast is headed by David Letterman.

“Green‘s of Olde Three Ply” are Vatican Choir High Command. The entertainment on board the Flying V Pirate Ship captained by The Jim Dunlop.

It’s all symbolic, but is as real as it gets when they bring down big fucking sky scrapers and don’t get caught.

They are the same book.

The 9/11 commission report, all 500 that were “printed”, are really G.W. Grainger Catalogs re-fitted with new “9/11″ covers so they could show that some catalogs were “printed“.

There is no “9/11 Commission Report” and never was.

=========================================

3:25 pm:

Twitter terror teams rolled out a special set of personal threats where they are planning to attack me at my next Driver’s License Renewal at the local Grants Pass DMV on Beacon Ave, across from the Fred Meyer store, and above the secret hole/torture center/secret terror call center under there, where tunnels lead to from under the Cartwright’s Sandwich Shop in the same strip mall, from the Walmart and the Sheriff’s Office, tunnels built by Elon Musk’s Boring Company Machine’s, lead all under the city of Grants Pass from the Sheriff Office to the Fair Grounds, to the Asante Hospital, to the Cartwright’s Butcher shop on Union Ave, to the secret torture/surgery center beneath the JD’s Sports Bar, and from there to the Southern Oregon Dental Office of Dr. Arrigati, where small children are snatched through a hole in the wall as they wait for their parents in the kiddie play area where the Highlight’s Magazines are neatly arranged for them on the bookshelf, then back to the hospital goes the tunnels.

The threats are scattered, inside of Tweets and advertising in the “Trending On Twitter for Jim Henson and Woody Allen”. Today’s Twitter Death Threats are sponsored by the Ron Howard Memorial Foundation at his Master Class Production Studio at Universal Theme Park.

So, I’ll do a reminder that Donald Trump exploded in a bus along with Mark or Jeff Kiesel of Kiesel Guitars, and some other people, when Donny opened the guitar case that had the C-4 Explosives in it that were provided by Micheal Moore of SuperSize Me fame. That happened out front of the Grants Pass DMV and no one has noticed that Jeff or Mark Kiesel is dead yet.

Ron Howard is the person who decided what angle all of those fake airplanes where to be said to have come from when they were said to have crashed into the World Trade Center, and he was onboard that helicopter that morning, the one that took the only live broadcast shot of video that day. That shot was interrupted with a “key mask filter”, where a series of other fake frames of video were inserted to show the fake airplane hitting the building.

In the month’s preceding the controlled demolition of the WTC, Ron Howard made hundreds of helicopter flights in order to determine the best, most convincing angle from which all of the other fake airplane video was derived from, to make it easy to produce, and get the most terror bang for Ron‘s Buck’s from Starbuck’s Terror HQ (AKA: The One Hour Martinizer)

Opie is a terrorist, write it down so you don‘t forget when they bring the nitrous/medazolam mixture to your home or office.

Asshole... I got your master class hangin’, you candy ass pansy.

================================================

4:02 pm:

In other news:

It’s Trending on Twitter, so, that automatically means it’s a terror marching order, or update, or is a confusion service for detour, distraction, or road block to happen for advancing the Christian/British/SAG pirate ship.

This here says: “30 percent more”

That is one part, there may be more to it, but there is a “Surgeon General Sized Dark Matter In Your Face Sale Item” somewhere.

My guess is that all of the tobacco products are poisoned, and the nsa may have figured that out, made some low level arrests somewhere, and are wasting their time and resources when they should be rounding up SAG Members, congressional members, US State Governors, and musicians to take them all on a one way trip to Easter Island, and drop them all off there to fend for themselves.

By the way, I am already aware that the tobacco is all poisoned. Why wouldn’t the tobacco be poisoned when the terror uses a primary weapon that is also rocket fuel, nitrous oxide? They need to kill off the people who smoke tobacco without getting close to them, so, the tobacco is all poisoned with the same stuff the (that) makes a symptom of swollen leg and rash.

Look at the reflection of the coffee cups on the table, see that it resembles a Sale Packaging of “30 Percent More” like it says on the American Club Brand of tobacco products sold at places where pipe tobacco is sold, such as “News & Smoke’s”, AM/PM Convenience stores, and Sixth Street Market.

Remember when the cigarette packaging was mandated not to say “Light” anymore, and by congressional measures they mandated that it all had to change to “My Little Pony Rainbow Warrior Color Code Packaging”?

That is the time when Phillip Morris was hijacked by the Canadian/SAG/British terror army, and since that time all of the tobacco has been poisoned with stuff that causes rash, leg swelling, circulatory problems.

The same terror comm is presented with today’s news of Philip Mountbaten “Prince Philip in the Hospital”. Maybe there is good news, maybe nsa are people who smoke cigarettes and are tired of being poisoned, and found the poisoned tobacco put there by Screen Actor Guild in Congress.

https://twitter.com/i/events/1362833086833184769

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

In other news:

(mixed bag of Twitter terror marching orders today)

This Twitter trend is about Owen Wilson’s Birthday.

The Trend seems to be a confusion somewhere took place, where Owen Wilson has been confused with Kurt KaBlam (sorry Kurt, I know it was the 27 Club, and so does every one else)

So, that means the Twitter Trend is about:

Birthday = “Death Day” in SAG terror comm, and in real life when you go to the pharmacy and they always ask “When is Your Birthday?”, means you are marked for take-out when anyone asks for your birthday during a business transaction.

O = “a hole”

Ow + en = “Hole in” (is graphic and phonetic)

Ow = it hurt, rhymes with Kurt, so, “it’s a Wrap” (means One Hour Martinizer is also part of the Trending on Twitter. One Hour Martinizer is “SAG’s Hit Squad”. Nancy Sinatra’s Personal Goonz Squad of Gangsters. Could be USPS involvement based on what I can read in the terror commands in the Twitter Trend about Owen Wilson)

Add some Wilson: “Hole in Wilson“

Ann Wilson must have burst, has a leak.

The Twitter Trend about Owen Wilson is that Ann Wilson popped, and is leaking.

https://twitter.com/valuekid/status/1363257150785662978

==========================

5:00 pm:

More Twitter Trends:

This one is elementary:

The money WAS used differently than going Mars.

It was used to fund an enormous army of Canadian terror soldiers from the astronomical amount of funding that nasa gets from the Alpha Breasts, US Treasury & Reserve.

The Woody Allen Trend today is the same as the Mars Trend, because in the movie “All you ever really wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask” there is a giant size breast that is chasing people around in a park while squirting them with Mother’s Milk.

That, and an “Orgasmatron“ is featured in the movie, also is automated squirting terror comm. “ATM at the Alpha Breasts” that long ago.

There is no one watching the baby. The baby is on fire.

Even if SAG spent a million dollars to make the fake Mars video at Pixar Studios (part of the Disney Family of Brands) they still pocket other billions of dollars that the fake nasa is funded with, while making even more profits from the advertising and products that are generated as a result of the fakery, all of the toys with “Mars Rover Barbie” and other products make them tons of money. Then, when Elon Musk and Richard Branson shows up to rent the launch pad, that makes even more advertising money profit when the “Live nasa Podcast” happens. (a Pod, is a group of whales, such as Elon Musk and Richard Branson are) My guess, is that when advertising is sold for a “nasa launch” event, those advertisers (whales) might want some front row box seats sometimes to watch the fake launch, are invited to the event, where there is no rocket. The terror bastards make sure Dolly Parton is available at the event, and the advertiser is hijacked right there at the launch pad, belongings and wealth all carted away on hand trucks to part the advertisers from their wealth, family, and other assets. What sort of “whales” do you suppose might like to see a launch of a rocket from nasa? Maybe video game designers, makers of high tech materials and products, people in the airplane and car manufacturing industry ... high tech engineers of all kinds would like to see a full size rocket launched up close.

nasa is also a take out center, where pirate whaling ships are moored, waiting for Moby Dick with every fake launch.

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23InsteadOfGoingToMars&src=trend_click&vertical=trends

In Arizona on Silver Creek Road in Bullhead City there is a hospital.

Inside the hospital are fake patients in real hospital beds, fake doctors are there looking at real MRI Imaging, fake nurses are in the halls pushing around real wheel chairs with fake patients in them and the prettiest girls in the world work the reception counter.

In the back there used to be a cafeteria, but that is no longer there, instead, there is a fully equipped recording studio inside of the hospital complete with gold records framed and hanging on the walls.

When I was there, a band was playing very loud out on the floor where the cafeteria seating used to be and the music could be heard all the way to the crematorium across the street and down the road.

That is true right now. Metallica records music there, well, they used to, rest their souls.

The thing I am trying to say is that the packaging does not always reflect what is inside of the package. So, at nasa, I suspect there is a fully equipped rock music recording studio, where the rock stars who are really assassins and always have been can use as a place to hide while recording their music.

There is a secret Metalica studio in the middle of a Riverside California neighborhood, where they killed everyone who lived in the neighborhood, and replaced those houses with occupants that form a private Metallica army of soldiers.

I love music, and I hate that I have learned all of this about the musicians who make the music I enjoy. The truth also includes that the musicians hardly ever write the lyrics to their own songs, the people the kidnap do the lyric writing for the “Insult to injury” part of the terrorism. Real terrorism is complicated like that.

Round them all up, take them to Easter Island, drop them off to fend for themselves.

=========

6:07 pm:

More Twitter Trends:

I don’t know what to say about this one.

Seems like if a gun is going to shoot, it could happen at the store where the guns are supposed to be.

The obvious thing though, is “But I thought they said the whole place was covered up in a snow blizzard and the President sent a ton of money and supplies there to get the frozen people some food and warmth in addition to the alternating mandatory power outages. That officer there could maybe use a fresh short sleeve shirt I suppose. He already has some gloves looks like.

They are preying for the people of the south somewhere.

I’ll just advise to use a Bic Lighter, and don‘t call on the President to stop the killing, that only makes it worse.

https://twitter.com/i/events/1363259956716138497

===========================

6:35 pm:

More Twitter Trends:

It says the airplane turned around and went back to Denver.

There are Two airports in Denver.

That thing they are showing looks like an engine cowl, seems awfully big to me.

At the new Denver Airport where the horse statue is at, there is a horrible built in killing machine. It’s a place where airline passengers are told to wait for their flights down in a lower, recessed area inside of the main terminal building. When enough people get down in there, a loud horn is sounded, and a wall of water comes rushing out of the walls that surround that recessed area. The victims are flushed away with their luggage.

It’s built in to the airport for killing large numbers of people intentionally, and no one has noticed that it exists. I already wrote a lot about that contraption here on this account, and, that there are some cruise ships the have the same kind of thing built in to them, where people swimming in a top deck pool are flushed out to sea. My understanding is the people who put that thing in at the airport in Denver, got the idea from the ones they had already installed on the cruise ships and were working real good for terrorism.

Royal Flush Ride at On-High Airport.

There are two escalators that lead down into that circular shaped area, there is a attendant there at the top of the escalators who asks everyone if they are a SAG member if they begin to go down into the recessed area. When I was there, I answered “Yes, every chance I can get” and was advised not to go down there. I had to run backwards up the escalator to get back up to the top once I realized that the attendant had asked me a very important question.

Later, the horn sounded, I looked over the railing to see that enormous wall of water as it swept everyone down there away, down a drain. There is a couple of places down there where the floor is low, and another level of a ledge is slightly higher. The people all begin to try to climb up onto that ledge, and everyone at the railings looking down there begin to cheer, as if to have been entertained by watching those people try to save their own lives by seeking out the higher ground as the water comes through. It’s not a high enough ledge, and they get swept away in the airport hole where the water comes out of the wall.

There is no one watching the baby, the baby is on fire. USA is the baby.

We are blatantly being slaughtered, and there are no more authorities who will stop the madness.

You have to consider how many people were involved with that installation to appreciate the point of mass murder we have reached in USA. Planners, builders, engineers, tradesmen, county and city officials, product manufacturers. and many more people... thousands of people were necessary to install that contraption that was made for two purposes. One is to support “Kill & Replace” terror, the other is as an entertainment venue for SAG members to watch the killing happen.

https://twitter.com/i/events/1363248024084877312

The airport with this hideous blue horse out front is the one with the Royal Flush built in.

Stay away! Go to the other airport.

There is probably some other killing contraption at the other airport, but I have never been to that older one.

My visit was in 2006. I don’t see how they could have removed that without a major remodel, maybe could be covered up though to hide it.

That statue reminds me of other statues that have similar characteristics located on the Colorado River in Bullhead City near Laughin Nevada.

There are a series of very large “Flying Monkey” statues on the river banks, each side, are south or east of the casinos, not far from them.

The “Flying Monkey” statues are also big like that horse is, and there are about ten of them as I recall, five on each side of the river, spaced at about one-half mile apart from each opposing pair. The are arranged that one statue faces another identical one on the other side of the river. They are not available to see online anywhere, and don‘t show up on Google Maps.

Rumor is that they were put there by Mormons in the movie industry. There is at least one pair of them where a person can go into the statue, and take a tunnel that goes under the river to the other statue on the other side of the river.

They are protected by armed terror soldiers who shoot at people who try to drive to where they are at.

I saw them from my boat as I motored by. Then went by car to get shot at. That was a long time ago, I don‘t remember how long, maybe 28 years.

===================

8:00 pm:

Other news:

In classic Reality TV Format:

The Donald Trump Airplane Documentary:

At the 12:15 minute mark and throughout the documentary, the case of the Engine Cowl Replacement SAGA begins.

There, we see the source of where those engine parts came from when they fell off of that airplane today 2-20-2021.

But this video was made a long time ago, so, it can’t be the source, right?

Maybe it’s a “Where’s Waldo?” and they finally found Waldo, Donald Trump, after he exploded in that bus out front of the Grants Pass DMV by the Fred Meyer store.

If they found parts of Donald Trump, the most likely place where he could be found like that is at the Juseph Myers terror cell at 560 Jackpine. The second most likely place is at the Kyle Myers residence who works as a grocery checker at Fred Meyer store, but I don‘t know where Kyle Myers lives.

The third most likely place where bits and pieces of Donald Trump could have been taken to is at Ellis Taxidermy on Merlin/Galice Road near the corner of Hugo Road, next door to the Iron Ore Bar & Grill and across the street from where a Pacific Power Truck is often parked.

After that, it’s hit or miss, could be anywhere in Josephine County.

This video is loaded with juicy bits & pieces of terror communications.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3kM7kCWl4U

I always built my model airplane with balsa wood and tissue paper. Those materials tend to stay aloft far better than does a bus load of gold.

===

8:25 pm:

The Donald Trump Presidency can be summed up in a round about way with this video clip from the movie Shrek. His airplane and the secret communication about it’s use, can be summed up the the words from the three little pigs in the video clip, in strangely abstract ways.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj-I0nUJMRY

================

8:41 pm:

Here, Washington Post is trying to make contact with someone from the local Li’l Pantry terror cell.

It’s the photo that makes the communication, but is too complicated to explane and no one cares enough to do preventative counter terror work enough to TAKE TWITTER OFFLINE to preserve USA.

Li’l Pantry has members that live on the same street as I do. The Sparacino terror cell. The Sparacino’s have killed more than one-hundred-thousand US citizens on their own over the past 18 years or so, and there are only five of them.

I suspect most or all of the Sparacino’s are dead, however, the Li’l Pantry terror cell is very big, and they would send people to replace the Sparacino’s. I can’t get close enough to them to see any recent news about them as they are well equipped and experienced hardest of the hard core murderers around here, and are protected by the fake law enforcement and court systems.

The Li’l Pantry is a convenience store chain in southern Oregon. The amount od citizens that have been killed at Li’l Pantry stores over the past thirty years is measured in the tens of millions, as they prey on tourists on vacation who are drawn to the Rogue River for it’s beautiful camping and white water rafting.

no one cares about US Citizens on vacation though, so it makes no difference that I mention any of this, it just puts me at greater risk, with fewer than zero amount of interested people. no one will send any help for me, or for the people who are already dead, that’s for sure.

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1363330773949030405

[quarantinebreakup412081121]

Questions

Unanswered questions that I wish I would have asked him and gotten straightforward answers to...  Most of these are things I’m struggling with or have struggled with in the past but didn’t approach him about, and I may include the explanations I’ve come up with for them since I don’t have his input on any of it.

(This blog may have been a bit brutal, but I don’t think you can argue with me being justified in the way I felt about things.)

1.  Why did you insist on continuing to go out on dates with me and push for me to say yes when you asked me to be your girlfriend?  You knew you didn’t want to stay in the area you were living in when we went out for the first time, and I was 100% me and you saw what my personality and attitude were like and must have known that it wasn’t what you really wanted...

2.  Why didn’t you say “I love you” when you felt it the first time?  And then afterward, when I said it first, why didn’t you say it back?

3.  When you flew me out to see you, why didn’t you just take the last day off work as well?  I knew we wouldn’t have had 24 hours together but 6-8 hours together at home relaxing and enjoying each other before I had to leave would have been worth taking a day off, right?

4.  When I wanted to fly myself back out to see you again after that, why didn’t you want me to?

5.  Was the breakup text intended to try and hurt me?  And why couldn’t you preface it with literally any type of explanation or attempt at some type of discourse before you jumped right into the “we need to move on”

6.  I know you know what racial slur I’m talking about in the post below- why did you use it that time?  Do you still use it?

7.  Why did you handle that parking lot situation with the two older ladies the way that you did?  Why did you speak to them the way that you did? You honestly scared me when you behaved like that and I’d never seen that side of you... You’re not exactly very personable with other people, but you were never downright ugly and aggressive toward them like you were that day.

8.  Did you ever intend to settle down in one place and have the type of job that wouldn’t involve constant travel and being away?

9.  Why didn’t you just wait until January to tell me that you’re seeing someone else?  I suppose no time is a good time to do what you did, the way you did it... but anyone who knows me knows that I celebrate Christmas for days after.  But then again, maybe you don’t really know me.

10.  When you apologized last month and gave that whole “you’re an amazing person” spiel, were you already seeing this new person?  Was any of that truly, honestly for me?

11.  After our recent conversations and opening up more, did you have any intention of actually trying to fix things between us to maintain some type of relationship?

12.  When your parents visited you and I was there for the weekend- did they know I was going to be there?  When you left me in the apartment and ran out to talk to them, I got the feeling that you were springing me on them... and it was a little awkward at first before we started talking, but initially I got the vibe that they were not expecting to see anyone but you.

13.  I was a bridesmaid in a friend’s wedding and I invited you to go with me but you said you had to work (you had told me that the work thing you had was the following weekend) did you really have to work that weekend or were you just trying to get out of going to the wedding?  I thought you just didn’t want to go and I since I was only going because I had to, I didn’t push to ask.  I just figured you’d mixed up the dates or didn’t and it wasn’t worth pursuing, so I didn’t.

14.  During our first year together, when I was at your place, I took some stupid video of me trying to hide in the closet and scare you, it wasn’t anything of real consequence, but I left my phone and when I got out of the shower the video was deleted from my phone. We were the only people in the apartment. Did you delete it?

15.  Why did you behave the way you did over the Hulu account?  To be honest, that was my breaking point.  For you to insult me and throw in my face that I was inconsiderate, and then to treat me like an ignorant child- that was totally uncalled for.  My mistake for assuming that since you’re using my streaming service, I could let my brother use the one you’d given me the password to (I mistook that login as a “gift” years ago when you sent it to me and told me it was so I could watch Mindy Project.)  You and I had been together for 5 years and I gave it to one of the people I’m closest to in the world and I wasn’t handing it out to strangers willy nilly.  And then it apparently wasn’t even an issue that he was using it- you’d just wanted me to ask your permission first- which is totally fine.   BUT you could have easily said, “hey is ----- using my hulu?” “yeah” “oh, well that’s fine, but do you mind checking in with me first from now on because some of these accounts have passwords I don’t want shared with anyone but you” or “i actually hadn’t planned to share it with anyone but you, could you just give him a heads up and I’ll update the password” and it would have accomplished the EXACT SAME THING without being super condescending and offensive.  Granted that may have been what you were trying to do- and it really, really feels like that’s what you were trying to do.  All of my responses to you that night were intended to be sarcastic and facetious - as was my apology- but you took it literally and thought I was apologizing like that? And when I said I was sorry for future screw ups and you said “that’s alright because it won’t happen again, right” and you threw a winky face in there or something.  Holy fuck, like- did you seriously think I was metaphorically lying on the ground groveling at your feet begging for forgiveness because of MY screw ups?  I mean, I guess that’s what you thought of me as a person- just a pushover- and you thought you were better than me.  My mistake was doing things the way other people in long term relationships do things- share information, talk about important things, share personal details.  I think I held your phone a handful of times when you handed it to me to pick music while we were driving, and even then I was scared to touch anything that may exit into another screen that you wouldn’t want me to see or something.  I didn’t need to know all of your deep dark secrets and every detail about your life- but I see couples hand each other phones to answer a call or reply to a text or find something for them, or just to use and I can’t imagine that ever having been you and me.  You were just too closed off in that area- and others- and I didn’t see that wall breaking down for me... ever.  It was so hard being with someone and feeling that way, ------.  Also- when I did get upset and go off about it, you just shut down and didn’t respond.  The one time I actually vocalize what I’m feeling and you shut down and shut it out.  All of the times I mention that I didn’t tell you something or I didn’t bother saying anything-- THIS is the response you confirmed I would have received if I tried to touch on any of those topics with you.  Fight back, argue it out with me, fucking do something!  That’s all a part of the communication we needed to experience that we never did.  It was just a lot of holding things in.  And then expecting me to know what you were feeling.

16.  If I told you I wanted to wait until we were in love to do anything physically intimate- would you have stayed in a relationship with  me?  Like based on an emotional connection, my personality, me as a person?  I never would have done what I did as early on as I did if I didn’t think you were someone who would respect me and who I’d be able to trust and let myself be vulnerable with.  And you were, for a few months.

17.  I broke one of my rules about “off the table” stuff- something you had wanted- and after it didn’t pan out ideally, I found myself apologizing to you (why the hell did I apologize??) and you didn’t say ANYTHING.  You didn’t say it was okay or that I shouldn’t apologize or anything!  In the moment I wasn’t thinking about it, but looking back on it- what???  My question in this is- do you think I should have apologized? Do you think you deserved the apology I gave you for that?

18.  You never apologized to me for anything during our relationship unless you were saying “I’m sorry” in response to me saying something like “I’m having a bad day” (this is just an example- but it was legit trivial stuff- so that wasn’t an actual apology- just like an “I’m sorry you aren’t feeling well” type of sorry.)  You know there were times when we needed to apologize to each other- probably quite a few over the course of 5 years.  I was always willing to do that- why weren’t you?  Did you think I didn’t deserve any apology ever?

19.  You thought I was inconsiderate in sharing a streaming service password and you were clearly not okay with it.  Essentially I did something with a thing that was linked to you without asking you first or talking to you about it.  Okay, well, this is one thing that I never got to talk to you about because after it happened, there was really no ideal time to bring it up, and I was new to it and didn’t want to seem, for lack of a better term, immature and inexperienced, so I just kind of went with the flow of things and was too scared (that you’d get annoyed or make me feel like it was ridiculous that I was asking) to ask you to do things differently from that point on- so here it is.  Our first time.  I asked you if you had protection, you did, you were putting it on and then... did you simply decide not to?  You did not say anything.  I figured it out, obviously, after it had already been done, but why would you think that was okay?  I was not okay with it, but what do I do?  Finish up my first time with an argument and storm out and drive home because the guy I finally let in completely just betrayed my trust right from the jump?  It’s my fault for just going along with it and letting you think that was acceptable and then just going along with it every time after that as if it was fine. (And after a certain point it was, but for the first bit, it was all new and not as comfortable as it was later as we got deeper into the relationship.)  I’ll just, embarrassingly, attribute that to my naivety and desire to please my new boyfriend.  The times after are on me, but the first time is on you.  I just don’t even have anything else to go along with this one.  But I’d like to point out that I was the only one using BC and I was the only one who had to suffer through multiple scares- to which you just texted, it’ll be fine we’ll figure it out, like I was being over dramatic about it.

20.  When we talked recently, about a toy. You asked if I noticed.  I did not notice.  Now that I know, I’m feel super embarrassed about it and really insecure in myself.  No question here.

  21.  You said that part of the reason things fell apart was that you didn’t see us being physically together in the same place- which makes total sense- but why weren’t you more eager about trying to plan visits?  In the later bit of it, you were coming here- but I stopped trying to come visit you because it always seemed like you were working, or you were on call, or if I drove there to see you and you got called in, you’d have to go and then I would have just wasted a lot of time and effort to sit in your empty apartment alone.  And if you’d taken time off and were still called in, I knew you’d pick going into work (even if you didn’t have to) over spending time with me there.  So I knew if you drove here- you’d be physically unable to make it into work and I’d actually have the entire time with you.  The last time you came, I remember stopping by to pick up an order from Kohl’s and then to check for my post office package on the way to the hotel.  You jokingly teased me about taking forever and said “why are you like this” and it’s something I’ve thought about.  When you would come into town, you’d check in, let me know, I’d meet you, we may take a brief nap, do stuff, shower, dinner, then back for TV and sleep.  That’s pretty much the rundown of our first night, yes?  BUT, I know that once we’ve been apart for a while (which was basically every time lately) you would be excited to see me, I’d feel loved and wanted, but as the hours passed, that would kind of taper off and we’d just be two people in a room until we were doing things.  When you came in the last time, I knew I had to do those things and knew you wouldn’t want to come with me to do them- when we do go to stores, you’ll be there, but you’ll walk off as if you want nothing to do with what’s going on and then I’ll do my stuff and have to track you down.  It’s not a fun feeling to have that dynamic instead of the “cute bf and gf shopping together and making a mundane activity a fun one” dynamic.  (I honestly just wanted to do basic and simple shit like that with you- running errands, doing grocery shopping, doing things that every couple does.) It was really half and half with that- like half of the time I felt like you didn’t want to be seen with me, but then the other half of the time- you’d hold my hand to walk and it would be fine.  I never went in first to try and hold your hand because of this.  I didn’t know which of the two situations I’d be going in on and didn’t want to be embarrassed if you weren’t feeling the hand holding.  Same with sex- same with any type of intimacy- same with any type of physical affection.  I didn’t know if you’d want any of it, so I let you determine when things were going to happen.  That meant not as many hugs or kisses as I wanted, but hey.  When you’d ask me where I wanted to eat, I always wanted you to choose because I knew that my choices would most likely not be your preference and that you’d not be happy about it if you weren’t enjoying your food and it was easier to just let you choose and then you could go somewhere you actually wanted to be.  I was fine with basically anywhere as long as it was with you.  And I stopped off at Kohl’s first because I’d just ordered a couple new outfits that I was excited about wearing out with you- for you.  I just wanted to feel pretty when I was going out with you and I wanted you to think I was pretty.  I figured that if I got in a little bit later, then the excitement wouldn’t wear off as quickly when we were finally together.

[eccacia]

wonderful you came by [part 15]

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

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

Rating: T

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monday, 7:07 PM

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

Swipe. Delete.

. . .

Tuesday, 10:51 AM

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

Swipe. Delete.

Tuesday, 8:23 PM

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

Swipe. Delete.

. . .

Wednesday, 1:34 PM

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

Swipe. Delete.

“Cait? Cait.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

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

“I’m fine.”

“Cait—”

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

Felicity recoiled.

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

She turned away and slinked back to her desk.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beside her, Barry cleared his throat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What the—

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

During an oral exam.

In front of Dr. Wells.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Perhaps ‘highly distractible’ is more appropriate.”

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

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

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

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

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

Caitlin swallowed and nodded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . .

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

She allowed it to play.

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

His voice dissolved into the silence.

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

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

She drew her phone close.

She played the voicemail again.

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

He lost by 0.91 seconds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . .

She did find him there, at the Observatory.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Can I sit here?” Patty said.

He shrugged. “Sure.”

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

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

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

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

While speaking to Patty.

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

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

Her eyes lingered on that touch. Another small intimacy.

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

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

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

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

“…I guess.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Barry and Patty fell silent.

“What was that?” Patty said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh shit.

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

“What? Why?” Patty said.

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

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

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

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

Damn it. She was trapped.

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh,” he said. “Uh… thanks.”

“Look, I have to go—”

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

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

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

“I never brought her here,” he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We just did.”

“You know what I mean.”

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

“Then,” he said, “why are you here?”

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

So instead she lashed out.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He stared at her, stunned.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Like Patty, you mean?” he said.

“I’m not implying—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I think—”

“Oh, that can’t be good,” he teased.

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

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

“You don’t know that,” she said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You really have no patience, do you?”

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

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

“Now that I have a ton of,” he said.

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

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

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

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

After a few moments, Caitlin ventured to speak.

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

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

“You’ll get over it,” she said dryly.

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

He grinned, and she sighed.

“Fine. One second.”

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

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

“But hugs are supposed to be free!”

“Not in my currency,” she returned.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[littledonkeyburrito]

So Unclean

1. Quick! Chinese or Mexican? Both!

2. How many significant others have you had in your WHOLE life? I don’t think any of them would count as “significant”

3. I have to ask: What does the last message you received say? “I saw the corpse touching party photo again”

4. How about the last message you sent? *laughing face emoji*

5. Have you shared any kisses today? No.

6. Did the last person you kissed have soft lips, or were they kind of crusty? Soft. Can I just say that “crusty” is like the worst possible adjective you could have used.

7. Do you think your life will be any different a year from now? Yeah because I’ll probably be in Australia and working and stuff

8. What is in your wallet? My licence, bank card, health insurance card, metro ticket and I think about 30 euro 

9. Have you ever been in a fist fight? 11 years of martial arts will do that to you

10. When was the last time you went to the doctor? Back when I got my yellow fever shot in august

11. Are you going out of town anytime soon? I'm going back to australia in 2 weeks. There was talk of a family friend maybe paying for me to visit her in london next week but idk what’s happening with that.

12. Do you hate your ex? There is one I dislike, the rest are fine.

13. When are you going to get a haircut? When I’m back in Australia

14. Can you fit your hand around your wrist? Yes

15. When was the last time you applied chapstick? A couple of hours ago. Need to put more on though. Winter is a bitch for cracked lips. I swear I have to drink like 10 litres of water to stop them drying out

16. Are you a coffee person or a tea person? Neither, but if I have to choose, then tea.

17. When’s the last time you had a phone conversation for more than ten minutes? Does a voice call on google hangout count? If yes, then today with Maggie and Patrick while we played The Elder Scrolls

18. All the people you’ve kissed, what did their names start with? God, I’ll just list the letters in alphabetical I guess: A, B, C, D, E, I, J, M, N, R, Z Most of those letters are multiple people though. Surprisingly there are two Z’s and neither of them are a name you expect.

19. What did you and your ex fight about most? I have never had anything last long enough for fights.

20. Don’t you love long hugs? Generally, no. But if they’re from certain people, yes.

21. And long kisses? Sure, why not

22. Have you ever purchased condoms? Yes

23. Do you have a dirty mind? My mind is So Unclean.

24. Do you check the mail everyday, or somebody else? Nah I never get post here so I only check like once a week.

25. Did you think braces were cool when you were little? I don’t recall ever having an opinion

26. Put your iTunes on shuffle RIGHT NOW and tell me the first song it plays. I can’t be bothered waiting for itunes to open but I can tell you that I currently have “La Raza Es La Pura Raza” by Molotov currently playing youtube.

27. What is the last song you added to your iTunes library? That would have been an album by Alvaro Soler. But I’m going to put a bunch of new songs on there soon before my flight back to aus

28. Are you embarrassed by any of the songs in your iTunes? Not really. I have no shame.

29. When was the last time you were sick? No idea but I’ll probably get a cold from the 26 hours of flying I’ll be doing soon.

30. Who was your Valentine this year? Nobody

31. When did you first kiss the last person you kissed? September

32. And when did you last kiss the last person you kissed? October

33. Did you borrow that shirt from somebody? No

34. What was the last thing you put in your mouth? Dark chocolate with almonds

35. Do you like to swim? I used to hate it because long hair took forever to dry. Now I don’t mind but I don’t actively try to go swimming often.

36. How many vacations have you been on in the past year? Oh My God so many this year has been awesome. And since I’ve been living in spain the whole time I guess it’s basically been a year long vacation.

37. Have you ever gone on vacation with your boyfriend/girlfriend? No

38. Do you have to wake up early tomorrow? No but I might anyway because I barely slept last night and I’m going to bed after I finish this quiz.

39. When you put an album into your iTunes, do you delete all of the songs that you dislike, or do you prefer to keep the complete album in your library, and why? I keep the whole album. But I have playlists of my favourite songs.

40. How often do you get confused about someone’s tone through the internet or texting? (For example, taking something serious that was intended to be taken sarcastically?) Not often. My friends and I get each other pretty well and if we can’t understand the tone we just ask.

41. What was your most awkward sexual experience? (If you don’t have one/are too embarrassed to share, what is the funniest sex story you’ve heard?) I don’t think I really have any funny or awkward stories. The most amusing one for me was fooling around in the back of his car and ducking every time another car drove past and him saying that if anyone looked in they’d only see me because I’m so pasty I pretty much glow in the dark.

42. Have you ever called in and won a radio contest, and, if so, what was it, and what’d you win? No but this reminds me that when I was a kid I won an easter colouring competition and my prize was a 3kg chocolate bunny which my dad smashed up with a hammer and put all the pieces in a cooler and then most of it was eaten by him and my brother. Although in fairness to my brother he did trade me a stuffed monkey toy for half the chocolate.

43. If you’ve used pads, do you prefer them with or without wings and why? What kind of sadistic fuck uses pads without wings? Fun fact: pads are the reason I know the spanish word for “wing”

44. Who was the last person you had actual sex with in a dream? I think I had a sex dream about my ex recently

45. If you went to a bookstore, what section would you most likely end up at? The exit, tbh. I’m not a big reader.

46. What is in your left pocket? There is nothing in any of my pockets

45. How much alcohol did you have this weekend? I think I had 2 beers on Friday night

46. Do you eat gas station food? Pies.

47. What color underwear do you have on? White and blue speckled

48. Do you sit or stand in the shower? Stand, unless I’m particularly tired or I’m feeling sick. Sitting under the shower is a really effective method of stopping nausea for me.

49. Where were you born? UK

50. Where do you work? Or go to school? Or are you a bum? Currently a total bum but soon will be back working in security

51. What do you want to be when you grow up? Who the fuck even knows. I’m open to suggestions if you wanna throw some at me

52. When did you join Facebook? Why? 2008 because all my friends had facebook. I think I got myspace then too.

53. Do you like to cuddle? Only with sexual partners.

54. Do you believe that the last person that you kissed cares for you? Don’t know. Maybe a little?

55. How long does it take you to fall asleep at night? Lately, so fucking long. Like, 4 hours.

56. Do you prefer to take your showers at night or in the morning? Morning because I’m a sweaty sleeper.

57. Is there a night you would like to repeat and allow it to live on forever? Yeah, there is one night that comes to mind

58. Name a person whose name starts with the letter M. Me, Maddie

59. Do you eat ranch with your pizza? I am but a simple australian and I’m not even entirely sure what ranch dressing is

60. Is there a place that you wish you could visit? So many

61. Do you believe that this weekend will be a good one for you? Depends if I do actually end up going to London

62. Is there anyone that is jealous of you or anything that you have? I hope so. People’s jealousy of my travel kinda fuels me tbh

63. Have you told anyone that you missed them lately? Yeah I told my mama I miss her

64. Why will/won’t you and your ex get back together? We probably will when I’m back in australia. We’ve already agreed to catch up once I’m back.

65. Have you ever kissed anyone while driving? No, that sounds dangerous

66. Think of the last person you kissed. Have you ever kissed them on a bed or a couch? Yes and no I don’t think we ever kissed on a couch. It was mostly in hotel rooms so I don’t think there were any couches

67. Is your best friend single? Yeah

68. What are you going to be doing later? Sleeping hopefully. I’m so tired

69. The last kind of lotion you used, what does it smell like? Probably like lotion with argon oil. Y’know because that’s what it was.

70. Have you hung out with any guys recently? I have not physically hung out with anyone for a long time. 

71. Can you go a whole day without drinking any pop or eating any sweets? Yeah, that’s not uncommon. I’ve kinda surprised myself by how unintentionally healthy my diet has gotten this past year. Like, I eat a ton of vegetables every day and drink mostly water, milk and orange juice. And I started eating eggs for some protein too.

72. Who’s the weirdest teacher at your school? There was a teacher at my highschool called (I think) Mr. Moore. He was always powerwalking and/or spilling his coffee. He was just.. hell I don’t even know how to describe him but I guess he was like a human version of a hyperactive vibration. I’m sure that makes absolutely no sense but that’s all I think to say

73. How old were you when you learned how to ride a bike? 5 or 6

74. Who do you talk to first when you’re upset? Mum or Maggie

75. Do you have nightmares often? Not proper nightmares but my dreams are often quite anxious

76. Do you think you could be with someone for over four years? No idea.

77. Were you happy when you woke up today? No, I just wanted to go back to sleep. I only got like 3 or 4 hours sleep.

78. What are you thinking about right now? Which surburbs in Brisbane I should look for apartments in

79. Are you wearing jeans, shorts, or sweats? Jeans

80. Would you live with someone without marrying them? Yes. I wouldn’t marry someone if I hadn’t lived with them for a while first

81. When is the last time you really laughed? When I read that story about communion with the life size bread jesus earlier

82. Have you ever skipped school because you were tired? Not school but I skipped uni lectures a lot

83. What was the last thing you had to drink? Water.

84. Your most recent ex needs you at 3 AM, do you go? Depends what he needs me for, but probably 85. Would you rather kiss someone 5 years older or 5 year younger? 5 years older. Five younger is like 18 and hell nah I’m not going to kiss an 18yo kid.

86. Do you like your parents? Yeah they're pretty awesome as far as parents go. My Ma especially is just a fucking awesome lady, I know it sounds cliche but she is genuinely one of my best friends.

87. Do you make smart decisions? Usually but I have been known to fuck it up every now and then, usually with money stuff.

88. Would you consider yourself tall? No. I can’t use the top 2 shelves of my fridge.

89. Have you answered all of these questions honestly so far? why would I lie?

90. Have you ever lived in a house with a basement? I don’t think so

91. What woke you up this morning? My alarm

92. How many hours of sleep did you get last night? 3 or 4

93. Anybody tell you they miss you lately? When I told Ma I miss her she said she misses me too

94. Have you ever kissed someone who was high? Yeah

95. What were you doing at 4am this morning? I’ll tell what I wasn’t fucking doing was sleeping even though I’d already been in bed for 3 hours.

96. Would it be hard to kiss the last person you kissed? Well he’s in Costa Rica so the physical distance would make it a little more difficult.

97. What time is it right now? 10:23pm

98. Have you ever been led on? I wouldn’t even notice, I am so oblivious to that stuff

99. Do you know a secret about your ex and if he/she pisses you off, will you tell? No

100. Are you excited about anything today? I’m getting kinda pumped to start looking at apartments back in Brisbane. I really like looking at rental apartments. That’s why I always offer to help my friends find a place.

101. Do people ever call you by your last name? Actually yeah there’s one guy at work that calls me by my last name but he’s gonna get confused once I’m back because my brother works there too now.

102. Have you ever gone camping? I used to spend a couple of nights with my aunt and uncle every year when they went camping over the christmas break

103. Would you sleep with the last person who Facebook messaged you? Probs not

104. When’s the next time you will consume alcohol? Whenever I buy beer next, probably within the next week

[tirsden]

Fallout 4 character stat roundup

I worked up some stats on my main Fallout 4 characters for giggles. As of this posting I have 1,178 hours in the damned game, and calculating in these character levels plus lowbies I didn't list, I have an efficiency rating of 0.3 levels per hour. I don't actually care about levelling with any real sort of timeframe, but I found it amusing that I'm doing worse than most of my characters individually.

So what have I learned?

Mei Ling is currently my most efficient character when it comes to levelling. Not real surprising, considering I've taken better advantage of the Well Rested buff as well as crafting/combining things like food and drugs for XP. She's also found the most bobbleheads somehow, even though I feel like I haven't explored with her as much as some other characters.

Karl has been to the most locations with both expansions included, but Tirsden is close behind without even stepping foot in expansion territory. Karl has completed the most quests even though he has roughly two-thirds Tirsden's playtime.

Karl has the most active settlements (including 8 raider outposts), which means his is the game with the most settlements being attacked. It used to be Tirsden's when she had every pre-expansion settlement active, but I cleared out some of hers a while ago.

Tirsden has issues holding onto money. So does Riddick, but he's not listed here. Tirsden got the Benevolent Leader achievement so a lot of her dough was sunk into stores to make settlers happy, but I'm still surprised at her lack of penny-pinching.

Tirsden has spent over a year in-game. I kind of wish there were seasons.

I really need to stop picking up the Perception bobblehead before I max out a character's perception. (If you pick up a stat bobblehead after the stat is maxed at 10, you get a grand total of 11 points in that stat. It doesn't work the other way around.)

Right, so, on with the stats, for anyone else who likes to slog through this stuff.

Note: I'm fairly sure these characters are listed in order of oldest-to-newest. Efficiency calculations include decimal points I didn't bother listing here.

TIRSDEN

Level: 68 Hours Played: 300 Efficiency: 0.23 levels per hour In-game Date: 2.9.2289 (474 days passed) SPECIAL: 9 4 6 11 9 5 2 Race, Gender: Black, Female Build: Sneaky sniper turned heavy gunner Weapon(s): Final Judgement gatling laser (132 dmg), "Ashen" sniper rifle (110 dmg, ignore 30% target dmg/energy resist) Armor: Combat armor Companion: Cait

Main Faction: Railroad Far Harbor Faction: Unplayed (planned Arcadia) Raider Factions: Unplayed (planned kill 'em all)

Home Base: Sunshine Tidings Co-op Power Armor Stash: Covenant Active Settlements: 17 Total Settlements: 29 Supply Lines: Yes Route Hub: No main hub

Locations Discovered: 223 Quests Completed: 97 Caps: 38K Total Caps Found: 103K Stat Bobbles Found: C Total Bobbles Found: 2 Best Power Armor: T-60f Power Armor Frames: 9

Notes: My "first" character, although by this point I'd already deleted one. She's my most played character by far and yet somehow hasn't managed to step foot in Far Harbor or Nuka World yet.

ASTER

Level: 58 Hours Played: 166 Efficiency: 0.35 levels per hour In-game Date: 9.2.2088 (314 days passed) SPECIAL: 4 5 5 9 8 10 2 Race, Gender: White, Female Build: Sneaky sniper Weapon(s): "Ashen" sniper rifle (115 dmg, +25 bleed dmg) Armor: Leather Companion: Hancock

Main Faction: Minutemen Far Harbor Faction: Children of Atom (peaceful) Raider Factions: Unplayed (planned kill 'em all)

Home Base: Sanctuary Power Armor Stash: Red Rocket Truck stop Active Settlements: 18 Total Settlements: 27 Supply Lines: Yes Route Hub: Starlight Drive-In

Locations Discovered: 180 Quests Completed: 91 Caps: 19K Total Caps Found: 36.5K Stat Bobbles Found: P,L Total Bobbles Found: 5 Best Power Armor: X-01 Mk. VI Power Armor Frames: 8

Note: A genderbent character (because pretty guys are hard to make), created pretty much entirely for the purpose of seducing Hancock. Mission very accomplished!

KARL

Level: 71 Hours Played: 212 Efficiency: 0.34 levels per hour In-game Date: 9.14.2288 (326 days passed) SPECIAL: 10 4 10 8 10 1 2 Race, Gender: White, Male Build: Melee tank Weapon(s): "Wasserfall" rocket bat (323+49 dmg, ignore 30% target dmg/energy resist) Armor: Combat armor, occasional use of power armor Companion: Sora (custom melee assaultron)

Main Faction: Institute Far Harbor Faction: In progress (going Children of Atom non-peaceful) Raider Factions: Pack, Disciples

Home Base: Hangman's Alley Power Armor Stash: Red Rocket Truck Stop Active Settlements: 24 Total Settlements: 27 Supply Lines: Yes Route Hub: n/a

Locations Discovered: 231 Quests Completed: 111 Caps: 71K Total Caps Found: 82K Stat Bobbles Found: P,L Total Bobbles Found: 5 Best Power Armor: X-01 Mk. VI Power Armor Frames: 12

Notes: Has 8 raider outposts and 8 slave camp settlements, the latter of which are not included in settlement stats as they can no longer be managed or modified.

MORRIGAN

Level: 55 Hours Played: 165 Efficiency: 0.45 levels per hour In-game Date: 4.27.2288 (186 days passed) SPECIAL: 5 4 5 9 10 1 10 Race, Gender: White, Female Build: Rifles, very power-armor dependant Weapon(s): "Kurisu" laser rifle (125 dmg), "Boomstick" combat shotgun (182 dmg, no reloading) Armor: Marine armor and power armor Companion: Paladin Danse

Main Faction: Brotherhood of Steel Far Harbor Faction: Far Harbor (killed Children of Atom and Arcadia) Raider Factions: Killed 'em all

Home Base: Sanctuary Power Armor Stash: Hangman's Alley Active Settlements: 11 Total Settlements: 13 Supply Lines: Yes Route Hub: Boston Airport

Locations Discovered: 179 Quests Completed: 76 Caps: 19K Total Caps Found: 30K Stat Bobbles Found: P Total Bobbles Found: 4 Best Power Armor: T-60f Power Armor Frames: 7

Notes: Another genderbent character, who managed to perma-bug the lumber mill settlement in Far Harbor (along with a couple other townsfolk quests) thanks to Bugthesda not planning out how major choices in the main plot can affect other quests. I hadn't actually played Morri for quite a while until recently (and then mostly to try a last-ditch attempt at fixing the bugged settlement), and am honestly surprised she got as far as she did with the build she has and the fact that she's kinda crap on damage and has ammo issues. When next she gets some real playtime, I'm gonna sink some points into natural armor class and try to figure out something better for pew-pewing the bad guys.

MEI LING

Level: 67 Hours Played: 139 Efficiency: 0.48 levels per hour In-game Date: 6.27.2288 (248 days passed) SPECIAL: 8 4 7 6 10 1 4 Race, Gender: Asian, Female Build: Unarmed tank Weapon(s): "Oleifr" power fist (113+63 dmg, incrementally increased damage when hitting the same target repeatedly), “Ashen” Gauss rifle (291 dmg, +15 exploding dmg) Armor: "Bloodborne" armored Feathered Dress, armored fedora Companion: Alasdair (custom laser ranged robobrain)

Main Faction: Undecided Far Harbor Faction: In progress, undecided Raider Factions: Operators, Pack

Home Base: Vault 88 Power Armor Stash: Hangman's Alley Active Settlements: 17 Total Settlements: 26 Supply Lines: Yes Route Hub: Taffington Boathouse

Locations Discovered: 209 Quests Completed: 81 Caps: 22K Total Caps Found: 29K Stat Bobbles Found: P Total Bobbles Found: 6 Best Power Armor: Mix of X-01 Mk. VI and T-60f Power Armor Frames: 7

Notes: Holds the record for "longest wait to put any points in lockpick" as she finally started that at level 58. She has yet to put anything into hacking. Unlike other characters who tend to pick up loot that breaks up into components they're looking for, Mei Ling picks up evvverything. I expected her to be a niche character with not much playtime and instead she's taken over my playtime at this point. I named her dress after a reference to a quote in Monster Factory's Fallout 4 Let's Play starring The Final Pam, and it was actually that LP that inspired Mei Ling’s creation... solely to get the dress. Which took way damned longer than it should have.

[kiss-my-freckle]

End of S2 timeline: Part Three

We’re still on ten days, but we’re about to skip on over to eleven. Bear with me as I try to explain this because from what I’m looking at right now, I see four - maybe five timeline cue reminders. 

Timeline cue one: The 2x20 double-up 

Masik: He recorded a conversation for us last night. (2x20)

Aram: The conversation was recorded last night, so we pulled all the receipts and found a late dinner for two paid for by a Leo Andropov.

Timeline cue two: The wardrobe change

Kimberly: Hmm. Interesting look. Purposeful, but still feminine. You should try a darker shade of lipstick. I bet you could get away with a gloss. Red: Lauren, we’re going to have to forgo the makeover today. We’re in a bit of a pinch.

Pinch me, make sure I’m not dreaming. That word stuck out to me. Straight from this dialogue about Liz’s look, to the car with Red. Between the car to the memorial, an entire night passed. Two timeline cues here. First, that wardrobe change cue from Dr. Kimberly. Even Karakurt pulls a wardrobe change and gives himself a makeover. 

Eleven days. 

Now I’m gonna add Aram’s timeline regarding the college student. 

Aram: Bethesda General sent tissue samples to the CDC a few days ago. A suspicious death of a college student. The Center’s just starting an investigation.

Since 2x20, two days have passed, so this was three days ago. A few days can be as low as two. This was three. 

The morning of 2x20, the student was infected.

The morning of 2x21, Tom and Liz at the diner. 

The morning of 2x21, the Orea memorial. 

Timeline cue three: Tom’s dinner reservation

Second tell, what you see after Liz infects the senator. Back to Tom’s voicemail, now leading us to Tom being at the the diner, waiting on Liz to join him. 

Tom: So I wanted to see if you would join me for dinner tomorrow. Uh, I made a reservation at 7:00 at this great little place on the corner of 32nd and M.

By the way, I consider this dialogue and Red’s 24 hour reminder after Liz’s escape as a double-up dialogue. Both proving only one day/one night had passed.

A focus on this reservation, and I focus on this for a reason. It’s the timing. How you view this is how you view this, but perhaps you’ll share your opinions with me. The reservation was made for 7:00, and Tom didn’t call Liz back to warn her of a time change. To me, 7:00 am is breakfast. 7:00 pm is dinner. So here, I expect this to be 7:00 pm. Tom made dinner reservations. 

There isn’t much left. Red meets with Anton Velov. They continue blood testing everyone who attended the memorial, and a lot of people attended, so I expect that to take time. Then we’re given Red’s dialogue when he realizes Liz was set up. 

Eleven days.

2x22 -

Liz: I’m being framed. Red: Yes, and by the end of the day, they’ll identify you by name. Liz: Anyone could have infected Hawkins. He must have shaken dozens of hands at that memorial. Red: [[Within hours]], they will all have tested negative for the virus.

I don't know whether or not I add Red’s estimation on how long it will take for the tests to come back negative. “Within hours.” Even two hours would then take us to 9:00 pm. And we tack on more time with the next section of scene, Liz being blood tested and interrogated. 

Interrogator: You left the Orea building minutes before it was bombed. Liz: Yes, and so did my partner! At no point was I ever anywhere near that truck! Interrogator: Maybe not that morning, but your partial prints were on the device.

Maybe not THAT morning. Yet another timeline cue: That’s four. Those three mornings: The college student in 2x20, the diner in 2x21, the memorial in 2x21. Back to 2x21 when they first meet the Orea agents. They show Karakurt setting up the truck bomb, inserting a phone in the car charger. The bomb would’ve been placed the morning of Liz and Tom at the diner, so it was the second morning. 

Their interrogation is longer, but I don’t feel like adding the dialogue. How long would it have taken, Liz’s blood test and interrogation? Because we’re digging into 9:00 pm. Her escape from the Post Office takes 60 seconds, so that’s not a problem. Your opinions on this section of timeline. Because if we take it to 9:00 pm and so much as add an hour for it, we’re then at 10:00 pm. 

I’m not sold on these interrogators being in the Cabal, but rather seeing what the Cabal wants them to. What I don’t understand, is how they can explain a print surviving that bomb blast. Perhaps part of the phone or the car charger, idk. And maybe the Cabal actually planted Liz’s prints to better sell it.

Timeline cue five: Back to Liz being infected

Liz escapes the post office, and we get that final timeline dialogue. Red basically confirming that only one day/one night had passed since the Orea bombing. You can see daylight through the windows. There’s no way that’s 9:00 pm, but perhaps I’m wrong? Anyway. Cooper, Red, and Liz trying to figure out how they infected her with the virus. 

Liz: How could I possibly be carrying the virus that killed Hawkins? Red: Infecting you is not something they’d leave to chance. They want you alone, isolated. In the last 24 hours, what was out of the ordinary? When did you change your plans, make a diversion? Cooper: Union Station. Liz: Coming out of the tunnel, I was chasing Karakurt. He blindsided me. Cooper: To infect you. Liz: We need to pull the security tapes at Union Station. If we can find footage of Karakurt, maybe we can prove they infected me.

"In the last 24 hours ..."

Liz and Cooper just placed her attack at Union Station as being a diversion they made in the last 24 hours. We are at eleven days. Her attack at Union Station was ten days. Now, depending on the deal with the dinner reservation, we’re fine. The issue I have with it is this: If the dinner reservation was for 7:00 pm, and a night actually passed, then this conversation just deleted an entire night. And if it’s 7:00 am, why on earth would Tom call it dinner? Then I consider mirror scenes in The Blacklist lately. Alternate views. Because when we’re in this conversation with Red, Cooper, and Liz ... that’s when Tom decides to call her. 

Dembe: He’s insisting. Red: Yes? Tom: Where’s Liz? I can’t reach her. Red: I can’t help you with that. Tom: I can keep her safe. I can help her disappear. Red: Your assistance is not necessary.  Liz: Who was that? Red: Tom. Tom is calling to take you away, start a new life with a new identity. But if you run now before clearing your name, there is no place you can go where they won’t find you. Face this - now, fight it, and you’ll be free to make any choice you want.

Tom’s wardrobe change comes off normal to me. If the dinner reservation was at 7:00 and we dipped into 9:00, there’s no reason for Tom to wait on Liz for two hours. What I don’t get, is the amount of daylight for 9:00 pm. And here’s where it gets even more messed up. Let’s say Tom was referring to 7:00 am. His breakfast is dinner. Okay, fine. We dip into 9:00 am with all of those blood tests coming back negative. We even have Liz interrogated. Add so much as five hours if you want. That would dip us into 2:00 pm. Liz heads to Union Station to grab the tapes. That would’ve been quick, she was a wanted fugitive on the run. She has a short conversation with Cooper about his medical condition. From there, she went to Anton Velov. Answers about her mother. And Andropov’s location. Anton was quick since he wasn’t all that helpful. From there, back to Red, upset that he silenced Anton. Liz and Red wouldn’t have taken long, she told him she could do this on her own. From there, to Tom’s boat looking for help, which didn’t take much convincing. Then off to Andropov’s safehouse. That was quick because they had to chase him. Off to Andopov’s shooting. Now that wouldn’t take long, Tom had a fast blue car. Then back to Tom’s boat. Now it’s supposedly night time, but it’s actually not. Whether am or pm I choose, there’s far too much daylight. So here’s where I land. One additional timeline to show you where I place THAT night. 

What "evening" on the boat? 

Breakfast has to be dinner. There’s no way Liz is talking to Cooper outside Union Station in broad daylight at 9:00 pm, and that’s not including her blood test and interrogation. They run it from 7:00 am, have her making all these stops, and who cares whether it’s daylight when they’re back on Tom’s boat. 

After all, Tom did speak of making crappy pancakes -

Tom: I know you’re going through a bad breakup. But from what I heard, the guy’s a total loser. Couldn’t cook, made crappy pancakes.

I know this may seem like a strange side-by-side, but bear with me. Notice Liz waking on Tom’s boat, what the tv reporter states. They’re not specific to hour. 

Reporter: At [[this hour]], police continue their search for FBI Agent Elizabeth Keen, who authorities have named a person of interest in the death of Senator Clifford Hawk.

No worries. Connolly’s gonna do that for us. She leaves Tom’s boat and heads to see him once she learns Cooper’s doctor is on Andropov’s flashdrive. 

Connolly: Look around. [Yes, look around.] Why do you think I’m here? There’s a banquet [[tonight]], fraternal order of police. I’m the keynote speaker. [[Four hours from now]], I’m going to be on that stage, announcing that my office has secured an indictment against the members of a rogue task force. 

What I’m not going to believe, is that Liz woke up in the morning on Tom’s boat after a night of sex, then four hours from that moment of wake-up, it was night again - according to Connolly’s dialogue. In the opposite of that, I’m not going to believe Tom made dinner reservations at 7:00 pm, and four hours later, Connolly would be announcing a rogue task force at a banquet. That dips them into 11:00 pm lol. Four hours added to 2 pm would be 6 pm. That’s if Liz’s blood test and interrogation took five hours. Add hours however you like. There were a lot of people at that memorial to be tested. I only chose to add two because Red handed me a plural noun. So let me explain my theory on this side-by-side. 

After Andropov gets shot, Liz gets knocked out and taken for her memory wipe session with Krilov. She didn’t sleep on Tom’s boat, she was made to believe she did. When she wakes, it’s because Krilov’s nurse injects her and leaves. Again, Ressler’s dialogue. “Damn it, Liz, wake up.” Wake up? She never slept. Still high on Krilov drugs just as Ressler was for his, she heads to see Connolly. There was to be a banquet that night. That’s THE night. They never hit those “four hours from now” because Liz shot him. So basically, Liz went from having her memory wiped, to shooting Connolly while still doped up on Krilov drugs, then spent the night asleep on Red’s shoulder - where she actually felt safe.