#so when our schedules align and we both get home around 4 i’m excited to hang out but by the time we do chores andeat dinner and everything

[figuerockfaeth]

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[mc-lukanette]

Grade for Each Other (Part 8)

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7]

Luka’d never had any sort of "fancy dinner experience," so seeing Tom and Sabine run around excitedly to prepare one was very new to him. His mother wasn't the type to follow any sort of schedule or pattern, which inevitably rubbed off on him and Juleka (for better or worse). Eating was something they just did, not something they planned for, often leading to any of them grabbing anything at any time so long as they were hungry.

It made him feel weirdly spoiled to have anything close to a "normal" family dinner. Having Marinette be part of the equation didn't help him feel otherwise, nor the way Tom and Sabine stared at him from across the table like they were his biggest fans.

He'd barely taken his first bite before Tom dropped his forearm casually onto the table and asked, "So, Luka, how's having our daughter in your class?"

"Papa!" Marinette rushed to scold him, mouth half-full as she pouted at Tom from across the table.

Luka chuckled, swallowing his bite of food before answering. He'd honestly expected something like this; after all, he was a boy spending a lot of one-on-one time with a girl, so suspicion - or excitement apparently, in Tom's case - was to be expected.

"It's alright," he assured Marinette. She gave him a confused look, but he merely turned his focus to Tom. "Marinette sits next to me in class. It's great."

"She sits next to you?" Sabine inquired, seemingly intrigued.

Marinette piped up, "Luka's a very good student and he doesn't get into trouble. The teacher thought it'd be best if I sit next to someone like him, and he was right."

She almost looked proud of that and Luka hid his smile behind his hand.

Tom picked up one of the rolls off to the side, offering it to Luka as he asked, "And you're in a band? You were here before Marinette skipped grades, weren't you?"

Luka nodded, taking the roll gratefully. "I play guitar for Kitty Section."

"He's really talented, Papa," Marinette cut in tersely. "He's going places, even if the rest of the band decides to quit."

Tom let out a laugh, waving at her dismissively. "I know, I know. We trust you."

Luka looked back and forth between the two, needing a moment to understand exactly what had just transpired. He'd spent so much of his life around his music-enthused mother that it hadn't occurred to him that people would question the life of a musician.

...Well, not to mention that Tom's wording made it seem largely like Luka himself was already dating Marinette, which had briefly thrown him off. Actually, Marinette's wording kind of implied that too and—

Luka nearly shoved the roll into his mouth to force himself not to think about it, only to then be blindsided by how good the bread was. He let out a pleased hum and Tom and Sabine's grins assured him that they got the message.

Sabine took a bite of her food, looking Luka up and down before asking, "You're passionate, right?"

"Yes, very," Luka assured. A moment then passed, with him trying not to let the realization show on his face that Sabine had meant music and not his relationship with Marinette when he'd been thinking about the latter just a few seconds ago.

At least his answer would've been the same regardless.

"See? That's the kind of spirit we like!" Tom exclaimed, throwing his hands up. When they enthusiastically slammed back down on the table, Luka saw his plate shake from the force. "Us Dupain and Chengs are all passionate about what we do! Why, the very start of our bakery was built on it, and—"

Luka welcomed the change in topic, nodding along as Tom rambled. It was clear who Marinette had gotten it from and Luka liked seeing how strongly people felt about the things they enjoyed. He supposed it was because the people he grew up with felt strongly about things in general, even if Juleka felt those things more internally.

The rest of dinner was spent in idle conversation, Luka answering the occasional probing question from either of Marinette's parents. He had nothing to hide and felt it important for them to know and trust him regardless of how close he was to Marinette. He'd already expected the food itself to be beyond what he was used to, given that he was dealing with bakers, but he was more thankful that the atmosphere they gave off - as weirdly overwhelming as it was - didn't make him feel judged or unwelcome.

All four of them were in the middle of cleaning up the plates, glasses, and cutlery when a sudden crack of thunder startled them. Luka glanced over at the window, seeing the raindrops that had gone unnoticed until now. He was surprised that such a storm would—

...Oh. He hadn't thought that his mother had meant it literally when she was talking about a storm. Or—maybe she didn't and it was just coincidence?

He was jarred out of his thoughts as Sabine took everything in his hands, stacking it on top of what she was already carrying. She frowned at the window, observing, "That would be dreadful to walk home in."

Luka managed a reassuring smile. "Don't worry about me. I’ve done it before, and rain isn't—"

"You can't do that!" Tom protested. "You're going to make these two meddlers feel guilty if you go running out in the middle of a storm!"

Huh. So they were at least admitting to their meddling.

Sabine sighed, turning away to head to the sink. "We're sorry about this, Luka. Will you stay for the night?"

"Maman," Marinette interrupted, passing over the dishes she was carrying to Tom, "please don't pressure Luka into staying if he doesn't want to."

"We wouldn't want to pressure him into anything!" Tom insisted.

Marinette gave him a flat look and vaguely gestured to the plates. He proceeded to ignore her.

"We're worried about him catching a cold out there! Who will sit next to you in class if he's not there?" he asked with dramatic flair.

"Papa—!" Marinette cut herself off with a huff, apparently resigning herself on the matter.

Luka chuckled. "I'd love to stay. It wouldn't be any trouble?"

"Not at all!" Sabine replied. "You'll just need a place to sleep!"

Once she'd gotten everything into the sink, she turned to Tom with an urgent look, the two seeming to communicate wordlessly before racing off together. Marinette must've noticed Luka’s confusion at it, what with how she abruptly explained, "We have spare pillows and blankets for stuff like this. They're probably going to get them."

Then, with a sigh, she added, "I really am sorry about them."

"It just means that they like me," he replied, "so I'm happy."

"Really? Wait—" She squinted. "Did you think you'd say something that'd make them not like you?"

He shook his head, though amused at how shocked she seemed by the concept. "They're really open, like my mom is, and they trust you and who you pick out for friends, right?"

"Yeah. Well, a lot more now, especially." She paused, thoughtful. "Are you really okay with staying? I-I know you have your hood that could’ve protected you in the rain."

"Why would I mind being here with you?" he asked in reply, enjoying the way her cheeks tinted pink. "And I wouldn't want your parents to feel bad. They were the ones who asked me to stay for dinner in the first place."

The talk of family reminded him of Juleka. Pulling his phone out, he went straight for his contacts so he could text her to let her know that he wouldn't be coming home that day, remaining short on the details as she probably didn't want to hear anything extensive about Marinette at the moment.

Just as he'd slipped his phone back into his pocket, Tom and Sabine came barreling through the door like a pair of superheroes, arms full of pillows and blankets. Had Luka not been so skilled with sounds, he might've mistaken the slamming of the door for another crack of thunder.

"Marinette!" Tom shouted urgently. "The couch!"

Marinette jerked up, pointing to herself. "Wha—the couch? ...Oh!"

Luka had to step back as she rushed past him, the family of three seeming to be in sync as they began sorting various blankets and pillows onto the couch. He almost felt overwhelmed trying to watch all of their movements; Tom was unfolding and laying out the blankets, Sabine was efficiently fluffing out the pillows, and Marinette apparently had a problem with the appearance, insisting that one color had to go above the other and that any level of comfort worked better that way anyway.

"Luka," Sabine called out, stopping mid-fluff to glance up at him, "how do you like to sleep?"

He blinked at her cluelessly, having never thought of alternative sleeping positions in his life.

Seeing that she wasn’t getting an answer, Sabine turned her gaze to Marinette instead. "He said he plays guitar, right?"

Marinette nodded.

"...Back support then," Sabine concluded, Luka feeling somewhat called out as she adjusted the pillows accordingly.

He was left awkwardly standing there, simply observing as the three finished what they'd defined as "the perfect bed." He couldn't lie, it did look really perfect, and now he was left feeling spoiled again.

"Alright!" Marinette shouted the second they were done, making gestures at her parents. "Now, both of you, shoo!"

Even though it wasn't late enough to exactly sleep, the two relented, probably still feeling bad about making Luka stay longer even if they couldn't have known about the weather. They both gave Marinette a simultaneous cheek kiss on opposite sides of her face, then patted Luka on the back on their way out.

It was strange how they'd patted him with the exact same pressure despite their height difference. Luka supposed that they were just that in sync.

When he looked back at Marinette, she was still making tiny adjustments to his bed, her inner organizer somehow not satisfied until everything was perfectly aligned. He approached and admired her, particularly how adorable her focused face was. Though he knew it'd be pointless to try and tell her, he nonetheless insisted, "You don't have to go through all this effort for me."

"What if I want to?" she challenged with a smile, not looking at him due to being preoccupied with the bed.

He feigned a sigh. "Then I guess I have no choice but to take it."

She hummed smugly, in the process of smoothing out the blankets as she asked, "So, Luka, what do you want for breakfast in the morning?"

He wasn’t expecting the question. "What?"

"I'm sure Maman's going to ask me about it, or she'll just ask you if I tell her that I don't know," she explained. "What do you like?"

"Oh, I’m not picky," he assured, "and I don't need anything anyway. I don't usually have breakfast."

Marinette stopped mid-smoothing, her head darting up and staring at nothing. Finally, she made eye contact, even gaping at him. "You don't? B-but it's important!"

He grew apologetic under the intensity of her gaze, resorting to looking at the wall. "I used to make it for Jule when we were younger, but we stopped once she started feeling like I was playing too many of her notes for her." He shrugged, showing that he wasn't bothered by Juleka’s choice. "Besides, I like taking my time walking to school."

"...Oh."

Her tone worried him. He looked back, confirming that she seemed discouraged. "Marinette—"

"That's okay!" she cut in, standing and holding her hands up. She clearly realized that she'd been showing too much emotion and he’d caught onto it. "I'm just so used to it here but it's fine if that's not what you're used to! I know my parents can be a lot and I don't really help and I wasn't thinking of you at all—"

He reached up, grabbing her hands and gently saying, "Marinette, stop."

She halted mid-sentence, her mouth still hanging open as she stared at him.

"It's... you're right, it is a lot, but not in a way that's distorting my sound," he corrected.

She tilted her head in response, not understanding what he meant.

He struggled to find the words. "Things are so much different on the Liberty. We all love each other but I'm the most physical one there. My mom's okay with whatever we want to do and Jule doesn't think of me as someone to worry about - neither do my friends - so I'm not used to people checking on me."

"Y-you mean fretting over you," Marinette gently cut in with a pout.

He squeezed her hands. "There's nothing wrong with that."

"But..." She sighed, staring at the floor. "s-still, you shouldn't have to worry about what I said. I was just... fantasizing about having breakfast with you without thinking about what you'd want. I know that your lifestyle doesn't match up with mine."

He smiled softly, bending over to be more level with her. "If it's you, I'd like to get used to it."

She looked at him questioningly, but he could see the glimmer of hope in her eyes now.

"It's how you show that you care, and I want to get used to being fretted over, especially if it's you doing it."

Her brows rose in surprise. She looked away sheepishly, but he gave her however much time she needed to respond, noting that she wasn't feeling anything negative.

"...How—" She peeked up at him, though not turning her head fully to face him. "How about a compromise?"

"Hm?"

"I can make something for you—for us?" She pulled her hands out of his just so she could grab his hands in return, rotating them so his palms were facing upwards. "Something portable? And then we can walk to school together and eat at the same time. We can still take our time but you get to eat too."

He considered telling her that the Liberty was farther away than the bakery from their school, but he imagined that she already knew that. Plus, his heart was focused on something else.

"You'd make breakfast for me?"

"Of course!" she exclaimed, as if it were obvious. "I can't let my parents outdo me all the time!"

He tried to contain it, but the laughter was too hard to hold in. He hunched over in his giggling fit, only glancing up at her to ensure that she wasn't taking it the wrong way.

Thankfully, she was smiling at him, thoroughly amused.

Even after he'd managed to compose himself, the warm, bubbly feeling wouldn't leave him. "You're an extraordinary girl, Marinette."

Her smile widened. She pulled his hands to her chest, clasping them in her own. "Clear as a music note, sincere as a melody?"

His gaze softened, his heart skipping a beat that she'd remembered what he’d said so exactly. "The song that's been stuck in my head since the day that we met."

The blush that had started small bloomed further to that happy red color he loved so dearly. She took a breath, dropping his hands and fiddling with the corners of her jacket.

"And...if the breakfast thing works out," she began, "if you wouldn't mind stopping by the bakery on your way to school—"

"I wouldn't," he immediately reassured.

"—then we could do it all the time?" she asked hopefully. "Walking to school together and eating breakfast?"

He chuckled. "You call it a compromise, Marinette, but I just feel spoiled right now."

She stared at the floor, shrugging shyly. "B-but it's still even at least?"

He let out a confused hum, sure that she heard it by the way her gaze flicked up to him.

She raised her head back up, actually daring to wink at him. "Because I feel spoiled with you too!"

He opened his mouth to respond, but his words left him. It apparently wouldn't have mattered if he’d had anything to say anyway, as Marinette suddenly got even redder than before.

"A-AH, ANYWAY, I need to get ready for bed, it's late!"

It was absolutely not late, but Luka didn't stop her from rushing past him to head up the stairs. He knew very well that they were both probably feeling too much to have a proper conversation.

After she'd shut the trapdoor, he could vaguely hear her shouting - panicked but happy - to her kwami about how she "couldn't believe she just did that."

As for himself, he was already taking off his hoodie and jacket combo, the room spontaneously feeling too warm. He threw it to the side of the couch that was devoid of blankets, then sunk down onto his bed.

That was definitely flirting; it was the most blatant she'd ever flirted with him. Her wink wasn't even perfect but—

He buried his face in his hands, feeling the heat of his own blush against his palms. He needed to rethink his approach with her before she caught him off-guard again.

Not that he technically minded, but still.

[Part 9] [Part 10]

[veronicamarsconfessions]

When Hulu announced it was reviving the cult favorite Veronica Mars for an eight-episode fourth season, the new episodes were initially referred to as a limited series. But in the year 2019, the phrase "limited series" also holds no meaning. If a show is successful enough, a network or streaming service will find a way to bring it back. Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas has been vocal about his desire to continue Veronica's story beyond this new season, which Hulu refers to as Season 4, while series star Kristen Bell would be happy to play the show's eponymous sleuth until "until everyone in Neptune is dead." And for most of Season 4, that felt like a real possibility.

Although the show may never again reach the exciting highs of that first season, for a little while, simply being in Veronica's orbit again was enough to keep viewers happy and entertained. However, in the wake of the shocking, and frankly unnecessary, death of Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring), whom Veronica married in the finale and who was a key part of the show's enduring legacy, it's difficult to see how the show can continue with the same level of fan support that twice brought it back from the dead. And yet, Thomas is still hoping it will.

"The hope we have going into these eight episodes is that we get to do more of them. And my belief is that those will be better with Veronica Mars as the lead of a noir detective series who does not have a boyfriend or a husband," Thomas explained to TV Guide. "In order for us to keep doing these, I think it needs to become a detective show — a noir, mystery, detective show — and those elements of teenage soap need to be behind us. I sort of viewed these eight episodes as a bridge to what Veronica Mars might be moving forward."

Thomas said he wants to continue Veronica Mars as a Sherlock-esque series, one that can hopefully return with new seasons whenever Thomas and Bell can make their schedules align. This hypothetical version of the series would find Veronica solving different cases around the country, and a significant other for the show's heroine apparently doesn't fit into that plan. But the power of the Logan-Veronica relationship and what it meant to fans of the show should not be underestimated. To assume that viewers would even be interested in a Logan-less Veronica Mars almost feels like a fundamental misreading of the fandom.

Of course, this isn't meant to suggest that Veronica Mars cannot exist without Logan — that would be to belittle Veronica and her many achievements; although Logan clearly left an indelible mark on her, Veronica has accomplished plenty on her own without him, and she will no doubt find similar success in the future, especially if she stays in therapy and learns healthy methods of coping with her trauma. But at the same time, Logan is still a major character who was both deeply loved by Veronica and greatly beloved by a number of the show's fans. His sudden death and the reasoning behind it feels like a betrayal that becomes even more painful when you consider Logan's secretive military career would have been an easy way of writing him out of future installments without piercing the hearts of fans everywhere.

Further explaining the difficult decision to kill off Logan, Thomas revealed he worries that whenever a show reaches a romantic conclusion — like, say, a wedding — it also reaches a finale of sorts, and he's not ready for Veronica Mars to be over. This argument not only feels a bit dated, but it also feels a little misguided when a show like Friday Night Lights has already proven that a happy couple in a lasting, loving relationship can make for compelling television, or when series like Bones, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Parks and Recreation have shown us that will-they, won't-they couples can get together without signaling the end of the road.

Knowing this, Logan's death feels needlessly cruel like it was a narrative decision seemingly meant only to further torment Veronica and leave her cold and isolated. While you can argue it serves to once again show just how resilient Veronica is in the face of adversity, how she always gets back up after the world has knocked her down, how much pain and heartache does Veronica have to go through before saying enough is enough? It's honestly exhausting. So, if fans are tired of seeing Veronica constantly having to endure a painful existence to somehow prove she's a great heroine and they choose to no longer watch the show because of this latest development, it's perfectly reasonable. And if fans are angry that Logan is dead and choose to no longer watch Veronica Mars because of this, it is pretty understandable too. However, even if fans can somehow stomach the idea of a Veronica Mars without Logan Echolls, Thomas' vision for the show's future raises more issues. Mainly, new seasons would find Veronica alone, separated from the town she knows and the people who call it home, and this would mean erasing yet another fundamental part of the show.

For four seasons (and a movie), Neptune and its inhabitants have added depth to its rich and rewarding story. Creators love to describe the location of a series as if it's a character in the story, and this is most often a frustrating sentiment that has lost all meaning through overuse, but Neptune is truly an example of a location that has played a major role in shaping not only the show's characters but also its ongoing narrative. Although the town is no longer the same as it once was — the class war and accompanying social commentary that dominated the series from the start is over after these eight episodes, as the town's wealthy elite have succeeded in pushing the working class out — that doesn't necessarily mean the best course of action is for Veronica to skip town and solve cases around the country. Like many shows before it, Veronica Mars is the story of a specific place, and if the show is to continue beyond these eight new episodes, it probably should remain committed to telling the stories of Neptune — at the very least Southern California — if for no other reason than the fact the show owes a lot to the exceptional supporting cast that calls it home and has brought its story to life since 2004.

After all, if Veronica leaves Neptune, where does that leave her father, Keith (Enrico Colantoni)? Thomas said the character may not make an appearance in hypothetical future seasons of the show, and that almost feels incomprehensible. Veronica's relationship with her father is the bedrock upon which the series has rested since the pilot. Even when the show was at its most uneven you could count on Veronica and Keith's powerful family dynamic to ground the story emotionally. And although Veronica is now an adult in her 30s, their relationship is the single most important relationship in her life in the wake of Logan's untimely death. To remove him from the equation entirely threatens to disrupt far more than the status quo, which is what Thomas's intention is by taking Veronica on the road. A Veronica Mars without Keith's stabilizing presence would make for a shell of a series, one that would only be further harmed if Veronica's chosen family — Wallace (Percy Daggs III), Mac (Tina Majorino), and Weevil (Francis Capra) — were to suddenly disappear from her life as well.

Now, the show hopes to minimize this instability by essentially skipping over Veronica's grieving period. As Thomas said, one of the reasons the season includes a flash-forward is so the series doesn't have to spend time actually depicting Veronica's grief. "Our bread and butter is being quick and funny, and I'm not sure it'd be to our benefit to living a year in Veronica's grief on our show," Thomas said, noting that by the end of the season Veronica is actually getting her feet back under her.

But even if Veronica has recovered from her latest trauma, Logan's death is still raw for viewers, and it's painful enough without having to consider that every familiar source of comfort could be ripped away at once in the potential next season. Even beyond the show's core supporting cast, Veronica Mars is home to a memorable motley crew who have brought Neptune to life, and their presence in future installments, no matter how small, would be a cool balm on fresh wounds. Plus, what does the show look like without them? Ryan Hansen's self-centered party king Dick Casablancas, Max Greenfield's charming Leo D'Amato, Ken Marino's skeezy private detective Vinnie Van Lowe, and Daran Norris' reliable public defender Cliff McCormack have all become fan favorites. They each play a necessary role in the show's ecosystem, much like the Fighting Fitzpatricks or the PCHers have done over the years.

Veronica Mars has excelled at building out its little corner of the world by populating it with unique but believable characters, and it's not to suggest that a version of the show that exists outside the world of Neptune won't be able to successfully reach the same depths or recreate that magic in the same way, but it will have to work a lot harder to do it, especially if future seasons once again have a limited episode count. Furthermore, even if new seasons turn out to be good, the truth is that a Veronica Mars outside of Neptune, one without any familiar faces in sight, would feel like a very different show, one that threatens to not feel like Veronica Mars at all.

Veronica Mars helped to usher in the tidal wave of revivals and reboots that is still washing over Hollywood some five years after the fan-funded feature film hit theaters, and when this second revival was first announced last year, I wrote that the show should also be the series that puts an end to that trend too. It was a plea in favor of originality at a time when original ideas felt about as impossible as a unicorn. I still believe this should be the end of the revival trend, but now it's because this is a classic case of the writers thinking so much about whether or not they could do something that they didn't stop to consider if they should. In the end, we got eight more episodes of Veronica Mars, but it came at a deadly cost, and now we live in a world where Logan Echolls is dead and Veronica Mars is leaving Neptune. Was it really worth it?

[starryviolentine]

Color Me Blue (That’s Me Without You): A Pre-Apocalypse Story

Part 1 (here)     Part 2 (here)     Part 3 (here) Part 4 (here)     Part 5 (here)     Part 6 (here) Part 7 (here)     Part 8 (here)     Part 9 (here)

Part 10/10: Special Delivery

Another school week has come and gone, and the students of Ericson Academy have finally reached the weekly checkpoint that everyone looks forward to the most—the weekend. After five straight days of lessons, homework and responsibilities, the one day per week when there’s no schedule, nowhere to be, and nothing but unstructured fun and relaxation is here at last. The sun is shining, the air is crisp, and, according to the weather forecast, later in the day it should be warm enough to play outside without a jacket. What a beautiful Saturday morning indeed. 

Sundays are different. There are mandatory chores in the morning and extracurriculars scheduled all throughout the afternoon. Students aren’t allowed to use the gym or the outdoor fields unless they have sports practice, nor can they set foot inside the creative arts building unless they have an art or music lesson.

But that’s a worry for tomorrow.

Today is still Saturday. For Therissa, this means snoozing until noon, then lazing around in bed with only her phone and CD player to keep her company until she feels like getting up. As for Brody and Violet, the two younger girls have been out and about all morning and are now on their way back to their bedroom to drag their teenage roommate out to lunch. After some complaining and a bit of colorful language on Therissa’s end, the three of them head down to the dining hall to grab a bite to eat, and then, when they’re done, return to their room to hang out. 

Separately, usually. Therissa likes to do her own thing, and most of the time it’s just Brody and Violet doing stuff together. Once in a blue moon, though—if all the stars and the planets align just right and Therissa is in a good mood—Brody can convince her to join them. And today, much to the twin-tailed tween’s delight, is one of those days.

Tonight, they’re going to have a campout. Or, rather, a camp “in” due to the lack of a tent, a campfire, s’mores, and the whole outdoors element that are all fundamental to a typical night of camping. Nonetheless, Brody and Violet move their mattresses to the middle of the bedroom floor and pitch a little blanket fort above them using their chairs and desks. Therissa plops herself right in the center of the mattresses and stretches out comfortably while her roomies circle the room like busy bees, collecting all of the pillows and blankets to use for extra cushioning.  

“Let’s play a game!” Brody suggests as she flops belly-first onto a mountain of blankets. “Truth or dare.” She frowns when Violet and Therissa let out a collective groan. “Come on, it’ll be fun. This is our first campout together, so we should get to know each other better.”

“You do realize we’ve all been sleeping in the same room for, like, a year, right?” Therissa points out.

“Oh, hush, you know what I mean.”

“So, basically, you want to ask me a bunch of questions and make me talk about myself,” Therissa says, catching on to Brody’s ulterior motive right away. Propping her head up with her elbow, she turns to Violet and screws up her face into one of exaggerated distaste, causing the blonde to slap her hands over her mouth to prevent herself from laughing out loud. Violet crouches down and crawls into their fort, taking a seat next to Therissa, who winks at her. 

“It’s for all of us,” Brody insists. “You get to ask me and Vi stuff, too.”

“Can’t we just, like, play cards or something?” Violet doesn’t particularly feel like talking about herself today, either. Truth or dare is one of those risky games with the potential to get uncomfortably personal. A feeling deep in her gut is telling her that playing something like that with Therissa around might not make for the most enjoyable of times. The teen seems like the type who would ask weird questions and come up with mortifying dares. 

“I second that,” says Therissa, holding up a hand with her index finger extended. “But no baby games like Go Fish or Old Maid. You guys know how to play poker?”

“Isn’t that the one where you have to… you know... take off your clothes?”

The eldest girl snorts, nearly choking, and cackles loudly. “No, V, that’s strip poker.” 

A disappointed pout appears on Brody’s face as she allows herself a moment to mourn the loss of the truth or dare game that never was. With Therissa and Violet being so similar, she comes to the realization that she very well might have to get used to being outnumbered again. It was the same way at home with her two older brothers. Now that she and her siblings are all a bit older, wiser, and have learned to compromise every now and then, it’s not so bad, but Brody remembers that when she was really little, Dawson and Hunter hardly ever wanted to do what she wanted to do. It was always two against one, and never in her favor.  

Brody doesn’t dwell on it for long, though. The most important thing is that she’s getting to spend time with Violet and Therissa. Together. At the same time! And card games can be fun, too. Brody’s never played poker in her life, but she’d love to learn. Therissa leaves their fort just to grab a slightly worn deck of cards from her desk drawer, but then Brody and Violet scoot in close, listening intently as the teen starts to explain the rules.  

Therissa only gets as far as explaining the object of the game when there’s a knock at the door. Brody excitedly hops up to see who it is. “I’ll get it!”  

It’s Marlon, this week’s mail boy, wearing khaki shorts, white knee-high socks, and a deep red polo shirt embroidered with the Ericson emblem. The matching red newsie cap atop his head is just as prominent as the scowl on his face. Each week, a different student is selected to help sort student mail and then deliver it to the correct dorm rooms. Unlike Brody, who sports the uniform with pride every time her turn to be mail girl comes along, the blonde boy is clearly one of the many kids at the school who finds the whole thing kind of humiliating. 

Reaching into the large, brown satchel hanging from his shoulder, Marlon pulls out a padded envelope and practically shoves it into Brody’s hands. “Special delivery. See ya!”

“Thanks,” says Brody, but her classmate has already taken off running down the hall. Shutting the door, Brody comes back to the center of the room and takes a closer look at the small, lumpy package. “Oh, Therissa, it’s for you!” She glances at the name and address in the upper left corner and grins. “It’s from Mel!” 

“Oh, that.” Therissa already knows what’s inside the package without having to look, and she’s already starting to feel embarrassed at the thought of what’s about to go down. Keeping a straight face, she does her best to play it cool. “Wanna open it for me?”

“Sure,” replies Brody, returning to her previous spot in the fort and shaking the envelope ever so slightly. Violet moves closer, just as curious, watching as her friend tears open one end of the package. Before Brody can reach inside, the envelope’s contents start rolling and something colorful falls out onto the mattress below. The girl blinks, speechless, and stares down at the two tiny glass bottles in awe. “It’s… nail polish. But they’re—”

“They’re yours.”

Brody takes in a sharp breath and her hands go to cover her mouth. “What?”

Therissa reaches out and takes the nail polish, holding each color in front of her face to get a look at them before they go to their new owner. There’s a shockingly hot pink and a bright sky blue, and the thought of wearing either of these colors on her own fingernails sort of makes the teenager want to puke, but they’re disgustingly, disturbingly perfect. “Yeah, I mean, if I ever wake up one day wanting to look like a bubblegum fairy princess, I’ll let you know, but until then”—Therissa removes her roommate’s hands from her face and drops the bottles into her palms—“I think you should hold onto them.”

“Oh, these colors are so cute! Are they really for me?” Brody can’t believe what’s happening. She pinches herself to make sure she’s not dreaming. Ouch. She’s not. Breaking into the biggest smile, Brody hugs the bottles to her chest.    

“It’s just, I know how much you wanted to be there when me and Violet did ours, so…” Therissa’s face is getting too warm for her to finish her sentence, so she cuts herself off. “Anyway, if I’m gonna do your nails, I had to make sure we had the right colors. You’re way too… you for any of mine. No offense.”

Squealing, Brody launches herself at the teen and hugs her tighter than ever before. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Violet snickers. “Can you imagine Brody with, like, black nails?”

“And black eyeliner and maybe a little mascara?” Therissa pictures their auburn-haired roomie wearing her makeup and shakes her head, starting to laugh as well. “Oh my god, she’d be like an emo Elmo.” With one final pat onto the younger girl’s back, Therissa pulls away gently. She looks at Brody, grinning in amusement. “What do you think? Wanna try it out? I could give you a couple piercings to match.” 

Brody gasps, face contorting into one of absolute horror as she imagines Therissa coming at her ears with a needle. She fervently shakes her head and shudders. “No!”

Therissa and Violet turn to look at each other, but as soon as they make eye contact, they both explode into hysterics. It isn’t long before Brody realizes that the teen was just kidding around, and she soon finds herself giggling, too. Whether it’s joy, sadness, excitement or even fear, Brody tends to absorb the emotions of those around her. They penetrate her down to the bone and she feels them as though they’re her own. Brody can tell what sort of mood Therissa’s in before the teenager even opens her mouth. If Violet has a bad dream and wakes up sad or scared, Brody cries right along with her. When her friends are happy, so is she.

Brody’s always been a little bit like that. 

Occasionally her mind wanders. Sometimes Brody thinks about what her life would be like if her parents never sent her to Ericson’s. Would she still be as frightened and anxious as she was before meeting Dr. Larson? Would she have found a best friend whom she loves as much as she loves Violet? Like everything else in the world, life at a boarding school has its ups and downs. Some days are tougher than others, and being away from her family is rough sometimes, but Brody is forever grateful that she ended up here.

Here, as in Ericson Academy, of course. But also here, as in right here in her bedroom, sitting in between her best friend, Violet and her newest friend, Therissa, in the cozy comfort of their blanket fort. 

And here, on this particular Saturday afternoon, Brody knows one thing for certain—she wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

[auburnfamilynews]

Chuck Cook-USA TODAY Sports

Time to Barn Hard

Here we go... With under 24 hours until the kickoff of Auburn’s 2020 season, the luminaries here at College & Magnolia offer their sage opinions on what Tiger fans will see tomorrow afternoon. Most of us see a close contest destined to give us that all too familiar fall Saturday heartburn but there are a few brave souls who are prepared to barn hard no matter what.

Auburn (-7.5) vs Kentucky (O/U 49.5)

2019 Auburn fans won’t recognize 2020 Auburn. Bo Nix is going to take a huge leap forward. His receivers are healthy for game one. Our fearless leader has finally found someone he trusts enough to manage playcalling duties. The defense will reload with All-Conference (and maybe All-American) talent. A talented (and deep!) group of hard-hitting running backs. Pre-season optimism has overwhelmed pre-game jitters for me. Look for Chad Morris to show off all his weapons Saturday. He has a tendency to put up a lot of points in his first game at a new school. Brace yourselves, Wildcats. Let’s barn hard, yall.

Auburn 48

Kentucky 14

-Josh Dub

I was talking with a friend of my wife’s the other day and she asked how I thought Auburn would do. I was raised by an old school Auburn fan who taught me to sandbag and say that we were just hoping that everyone buckled their chin straps correctly and that they just had fun out there. That was met with my wife telling her, I always do this. I responded by saying that I just lower the bar so that, when they win by 40 in a game I don’t expect, I get the rush of being a kid again and genuinely happy when Auburn wins.

That said! HERE WE GO!

Auburn has got stars everywhere on the outside and in the backfield but a bunch of green horns on the starting line on offense, so IF Chad Morris (or Gus if he is still calling the plays) can use quick screens and....this route called a slant...to hide the fact that the Auburn offensive line will look a lot like the French army circa 1938, then they might buy a few chances for Anders to kick some field goals.

On defense, you don’t lose D Brown and Marlon and get better. You probably don’t maintain the production you had last year on the D-Line. You can get back there, but that takes time and experience. That said, I am a bit more bullish on the defense as a whole. There is a ton of talent to go around on the line and the secondary and the Linebackers may be the best in the conference. Once again, the defense will keep Auburn in every game for the most part. And that new line will be tested against a really well coached, running offense that Kentucky brings to the Plains.

I love what Mark Stoops has been able to build in Lexington, and sort of done what Matt Campbell has done at Iowa State, that team you just don’t want to see cause they are scrappy and will take advantage of your mistakes. On the betting lines, I am staying away from this one with spendy cashy monies but with fakey non-existant moneies, I love the Cats getting a touchdown and a hook because I see this one being in the 3-4 range with Auburn probably winning, just based on history and going with my heart, but I could totally see Kentucky pulling this off as well.

Gimme Auburn over Kentucky 27-24 and the defense had to get a late stop to seal this one away. Nothing like a late missed FG to start that stomach ulcer.

(betting pick: UK and the points, Over at 51)

-Drew Mac

Auburn *should* win this game. Auburn *should* have the talent advantage. But hey, this is 2020. Who knows what havoc Covid will have wrought on install for any given team.

That being said, I trust Bo Nix’s development as a true sophomore. I think this Auburn team, while still going through some growing pains, will finally start to hit on explosive plays with a veteran WR corps. This Kentucky defense is not the one that one 10 games two years ago.

The only way things go sideways is if the retooled defensive line can’t stop the Kentucky ground game, which is an extremely valid concern. The Wildcats have three returning backs who combined for 1,900 yards and 18 TDs while sharing the spotlight with Lynn Bowden Jr last year, and Terry Wilson is no slouch. I think the Auburn linebackers are going to have to earn their keep as best LB group in the SEC here in week 1.

Auburn takes this one with some big plays through the air and a defense that bucks up in the second half. 27-13 Auburn.

-Ryan Sterritt

I’m a huge proponent of playing a patsy in week 1. In a normal season fall camp doesn’t really give a complete picture of how an offensive line communicates in real time, how well the quarterback has his timing down with his receivers, if the tailback has fumbling problems, mike linebacker being able to switch the defensive alignment based on tendencies, etc. etc. But if you can’t play a patsy I’m a huge proponent of playing a top 10 team who will keep you engaged without distractions leading up to kickoff and will tell you so much about where you can go from here. What you don’t want is a trap game in week 1.

Folks what we have here is a trap game in week 1.

We’re 14 points better than Kentucky. I genuinely believe that. Talent wise and coaching we’re at least 2 scores better than this football team at home. And it does not matter one bit thanks to COVID.

I am so concerned over what we’re going to look like out there considering how many guys were held out at various points of our extended fall camp thanks to COVID. Which wouldn’t be as big of a deal in a normal year, even though it would still be a big deal, but OH YEAH WE HAD NO SPRING PRACTICE. So in keeping with my tradition of being absolutely God awful at Barnin’ Hard, this tiger ain’t changing his stripes for this one.

Keys to victory:

- Stop a Kentucky ground attack with a defensive line that is fully capable of plugging the gaps and have your linebackers make plays in space. This will only work if our corners, who will be in a lot of one on one situations, make plays. Jaylin Simpson is the guy that will get picked on, and this is a fine opportunity for the redshirt freshman to get thrown into the deep end to see if he’ll sink or swim in his first meaningful snaps. If he can hold his own, we’re in good shape.

- Establish an intermediate passing attack early in this game. Keep their defense off balance early on the offensive script and allow Bo Nix and an offensive line that will struggle but has a higher ceiling than that of the last 2 seasons gain some confidence early.

- Get the fastest player in all of college football 10 touches/targets for the day. This one may appear in all 10 entries of “Keys to Victory” for our schedule this year. Scheme to get Anthony Schwartz the ball in multiple ways. And then scheme off of it to get other players in positions to be in favorable coverages.

- Rotate your running backs in a way that makes sense instead of giving the “guy with the hot hand” 25 carries. This running back room is deeper and more talented than it has been since the healthy parts of 2016/2017 for Pettway and KJ. Give these guys a chance to punish Kentucky’s defense with fresh legs for 4 quarters. Make them hate playing us.

- Oh, and finally, get some sound sleep and show up alert for an 11 AM kickoff. I don’t need to explain to any of you why this is obviously something we should all worry over.

All in all I think being at home does matter, despite 20,000 people in the stands. Traveling in these uncertain times has to account for something, right?

Auburn 27 Kentucky 21

-Josh Black

If the first few weeks of football are any indication, I’m expecting some low scoring sloppy games on Saturday. And while Auburn’s rivals have essentially “warmup games” to start their season, Auburn will play another ranked opponent in Week 1. That’s JABA right?

Anyways, I’m really excited to see this group of Running Backs led by Captain Shaun Shivers this season. I’m really excited to see Shaun get the opportunity to start and it’ll be interesting to see how many carries he and the rest of the RBs get on Saturday. This is an experienced receiving corps too led by Seth Williams, “Flash” Anthony Schwartz and veteran Eli Stove.

The biggest question to me (other than the offensive line) will be the defensive line as it’s hard replacing Derrick Brown and Marlon Davidson. And we can all hope for better O-Line play this season and a more mature Bo Nix as he enters Year 2 as the starting QB.

As I said earlier, I’m thinking this is a low-scoring game and I’m a bit concerned about this one, with the 11AM kick and all but I’ll take Auburn in a close one.

Auburn 17 Kentucky 14

-Will McLaughlin

I firmly believe Auburn has a significant talent advantage at the skill positions in this matchup. Yes the Cats have an athletic QB, a strong stable of backs, intriguing WRs and a surprisingly good secondary but across the board I’ll take Auburn. However, it won’t matter if the Tigers lose the line of scrimmage battle which is way more likely than any of us wanna imagine.

As you have probably read, heard, seen by now, Kentucky has one of the best offensive lines in the country. This isn’t a group made up of 3-star kids with heart. Left tackle Landon Young was a 5-star recruit. Center Drake Jackson was a 4-star ranked as a top 150 player. Future NFLer Darian Kinnard was a 4-star recruit as well. This is both an experienced AND talented front who enjoy physically beating the hell out of their opponents. Everyone in the world knew that a run play was likely coming last fall and it rarely mattered. While I trust Rodney Garner & Kevin Steele to rebuild this front 4 for the Tigers, I am concerned about them being ready to go week 1. Even with Derrick Brown and Marlon Davidson last year, Oregon pushed around the Tigers for one half. This UK OL is of the same calibre and it wouldn’t shock me if they came out the gate with similar success.

Then there’s the other side of the ball where the UK return plenty of experience of a solid front 7. However, they were actually pretty porous against the run last fall allowing over 5 yards a carry against SEC competition. The problem is I am not sure if Auburn is ready to take advantage. In most years, when I see a defense susceptible to the run, I expect an AU victory that borders on dominant. I just don’t know if the Tigers though will be ready to go on Saturday.

That’s why Anders Carlson will be the x-factor. I think Auburn’s offense will look disjointed but generate enough explosive plays to get into UK territory consistently. They don’t put the ball in the end zone as much as we would like but Anders knocks through 4 big kicks. The defense rebounds from a rough first quarter to limit the UK offense to only 2 touchdowns on the day. Auburn recovers a late onside kick to escape with a hard won victory.

Auburn 26 Kentucky 20

-AU Nerd

Auburn at 11am.

Auburn in season openers.

Auburn as favorites vs hungry teams.

Yuck. I am finding it hard to Barn as hard...—��record scratch—-

(The boys are back in town starts playing)

Just kidding!

The Boys are back!

Guys we are gonna kill em.

Auburn 34- Kats 24

-Son of Crow

Most of the time I have some idea of what to expect. There’s a gut feeling, an inkling, an intuition. Even days when I publicly avow a big win, and we end up losing, I realize that I knew it deep in my soul. This time, I have nothing. I guess that’s what 2020 will do to a man. I can’t pick this game with my heart or my gut, so I have to go with the limited knowledge that we’ve been able to glean from the practice fields. Somehow, Gus has kept it tighter than usual this season. He’s keeping spies, leaks, and COVID out of the fold.

It’s not a big secret that Auburn’s level of talent is superior across the board, but Kentucky might have the mix of experience to go along with its skill to make this a very scary opening contest. We’ve heard that the Wildcats’ lines are both going to be solid, and that gives us a flashback of what the Oregon offense was able to do for about a half last year in Arlington. Auburn can’t afford a slow start on Saturday, because we’ll be breaking in a new offensive line. Now, that might not be the worst thing in the world — our line last year was nothing much to write home about — but they started to get better down the stretch. That said, this year’s group might be more maulers than linemen. Sometimes you just need some dudes being guys up front to push people around. We might have that, thus the run game could come to life with a much more talented group in the backfield. Not to mention, Bo Nix’s sophomore development with a true quarterback coach could be something unparalleled.

Kentucky will give us a fight, but there’s no way I’m picking us to lose this game. It’ll probably be close, and uncomfortably so for a while I’d wager. Still, the home “crowd” and the overall talent win out in the end. I think someone else mentioned Anders Carlson being a weapon in this one, and I agree. I think he hits 3 kicks and Auburn scores 3 touchdowns. Tigers 30-21.

-Jack Condon

In our preseason predictions I pegged this as one of the three games that Auburn could lose, and had it at the top of my list as the one I’m most worried about. That may seem weird, but we really just have no clue how any team, including our own is going to look on Saturday. We’ve all seen how bad some of these other teams already playing have looked, and I guess people think that there’s no way their own team could look that bad, but I’m not so sure. That said, I believe this Auburn team has all the components necessary to be better than last season and thus easily handle a Kentucky team that is, well they’re Kentucky. The new look offense should give an older, more seasoned Bo Nix a chance to throw some higher percentage passes, we have an SEC caliber stable of running backs for the first time in a couple of seasons, and presumably a fully healthy group of receivers. The new-look offensive line doesn’t concern me at all, because, well, I’ve lived through the last two seasons. At this point Kevin Steele and co. have earned my utmost confidence that the defense will pick up right where they left off.

Tigers 37 - Cats 12

-AU Chief

Man alive I wish I wasn’t so worried about this. Kentucky is well coached. They know what they are, and they don’t try to do things outside their comfort zone. Their strengths could cause problems for us. And yet, Auburn has more talent. 2020 is going to be a weird year, but I think having better athletes is going to win out more often than not, because teams are going to have to keep things simple. I like everything I’m hearing out of fall camp. I still don’t know about that line though. I could see a backdoor cover for UK where Auburn has to recover an onside kick to clinch things. I could see a front door cover for Auburn putting the game away late. I’ll stay on the safe side.

Auburn 24

Kentucky 17

(Auburn wins, UK covers; under)

-James Jones

from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2020/9/25/21456468/staff-picks-8-auburn-vs-23-kentucky

[artificialqueens]

Bring It On: In It to Win It pt 4 (Branjie) - Ashley

A/N: Brooke struggles to lie to Jovan about cheering and please Vanessa at the same time whilst her anxiety flares up about their upcoming pep rally. Thanks for the reassuring comments everyone, they mean so much! I find it ironic that I haven’t wrote fanfic properly for ⅔ years and have decided to take it up again when I have a month left to revise for my a levels..oops..what can I say, Branjie has just got me back in that zone. Hope you like xoxo Ashley..

“Your brother’s not home is he?” Brooke’s eyes whipped around the room as she entered.

“I’ve never met someone who wanted to hide the fact they’re an Amazon,” Vanessa rolled her eyes at Brooke before adhering to her paranoia; “No. He’s not.”

“Where are the others?” Brooke asked. This was the first time she’d seen Vanessa since the week before. Since they kissed. Naturally, she assumed the whole squad were practising here, not just herself. With a pep rally scheduled in the following week, Brooke had spent most of her free time learning their routines and avoiding both of the siblings in order to be perfect for her first appearance with the Amazons. With fears she’d threw herself in too far at the deep end, parts of her old performance anxiety had begun to recur, just cracking the surface of her exterior - she had always strived to be the best at everything and the thought of disappointing the squad, Vanessa, and even herself were starting to eat away at her. Every possible image of failure had been running through her head - what if Jovan didn’t want to speak to her over this and she turned out to be terrible anyway. In summary, Brooke was scared. Scared of being a failure. Scared of losing her friendship. Scared that she couldn’t handle being close to Vanessa. After the events of Tuesday night, she had forced herself away from the girl, knowing full well that in the right place and time she may not be able to stop herself from kissing her again. Full well that her feelings, temptations, desires were all unrequited. Yet here she was, back with her, just the two of them. That longing that had crept its way to the front of Brooke’s mind speeding up til it was sprinting there in a marathon.

“I thought I ought to pull you aside and give you a low down. I know I was over hasty with you in your first practice. I just wanted you to get a real taste for it, you know?”

“Yeah,” Brooke nodded, wanting to add something intellectual into the conversation yet struggling to even to form words longer than one syllable in Vanessa’s presence. At this point, she figured she’d never get over the nervous jitters she got around the girl and might as well start to embrace them instead of fighting them as they didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

Pulling out a binder from inside the footstool, it was as if a switch had been flicked in Vanessa, she was focused.

“Welcome to Cheer 101.”

***

Although Brooke had scoured the internet for clips of the Amazons competing before her tryout, it was only now that the full-scale operation behind the squad was being deployed to her.

“Here’s the Vixens. Three-fold reigning champions, they’re our biggest competition when it comes to nationals.�� Vanessa showed Brooke a newspaper clipping recording the events of the previous year’s national championships, “We don’t have long left till we face them again. Now that I’m captain, maybe this time we’ll stand a chance.”

“There’s nothing I love more than a competition,” Brooke grinned at the girl next to her and they both started the laugh.

Alas, she was no longer in plain-Janesville and was suddenly the starring role of her own personal teen romance flick - the way things were going in Tampa, Brooke had started to see everything as a cliche waiting to happen to her. Which is why she knew it would be Jovan walking through the door the second she heard the turning of the handle. Pretty soon Alanis Morissette would be writing about her life, she figured as she failed to come up with any sort of excuse as to why she was there with his sister.

Opening up the door, Jovan did a double take when he saw Brooke sat in his living room - his eyes quickly scanning over his sister before actualising who was sat with her and giving her one of his synonymous expressions.

“Hey,” Brooke tried to act cool, “Vanessa was just keeping me company while I waited for you. I’m sorry I didn’t text.”

Although not usually someone who condemned lying, Brooke’s fear of rejection was spiralling out of control at this point, every imaginary scenario in her head blowing further and further out of proportion till she saw no other option, taking the easier route rather than facing the potential consequences in the short-term. She was stuck in a triangle, left to choose between her best friend and her crush, trying as hard as humanly possible to choose both.

“For a second there I thought you’d actually fell for her bullshit and became a cheerleader,” Jovan laughed in his usual brutally honest manner, barely acknowledging his sister’s presence nevermind not caring what she thought.

Letting out an awkward laugh, Brooke glanced at Vanessa apologetically before standing up and making her way over to her brother.

“Hilarious,” Vanessa muttered, “I’ll leave you two in peace.” Giving her brother a sarcastic smile, Brooke could feel the anger radiating out of the girl’s small body as she made her way to her ground-floor bedroom - stopping to give Brooke one last dirty look before shutting her door.

“You should be easier on her,” Brooke looked at her friend, feeling a stab of instant regret, Vanessa’s face toying with her.

“I am,” Jovan said, “As I said before, I’m the only one being real to that girl.”

Yet here Brooke was, being the utter antithesis of real to him. Talk about rain on her wedding day.

***

“I really didn’t think you liked Demi Lovato,” Brooke laughed at her friend as they danced playfully in his bedroom.

“I’m an edgy gay kid in high school, of course, I have a secret love for ex-Disney Channel pop shite,” he laughed, voguing his way across the room towards Brooke.  “If you tell anyone though, you’re toast.”

Although they were just messing around, she felt the most relaxed she’d been the past week. All of her fears and anxieties, her battles with perfection and delaying of the inevitable all floating away as she swayed her hips to the music. Something about the comfort of dancing bringing her back to reality, the familiar friend guiding her through the stress.

“You’re literally my only friend,” she responded - Vanessa’s words from the week before running through her mind. “Friends like me. “They were friends. But Vanessa knew the score about the way her brother felt, and despite the flaw in his opinions, Brooke didn’t want to lose the person who was there for her when Vanessa blew her to an all-time low at the tryouts. Although they hadn’t known each other for that long, Jovan was different from her friends at home and although he said it a lot she couldn’t deny that the main reason was for how real he was. He was the refreshment Brooke needed to keep hydrated, and she figured what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him - at least for now. Or maybe that’s just what she told herself to stop the guilt of lying eating away at herself, the way people who over-justified their wrongdoings were really trying to deter themselves from realisations rather than others.

“Jovan,” a distinctly thick Puerto Rican accent singsonged as his door opened.

“Your dinner is ready. No wonder you can’t hear with all this music!”

Her eyes dark and wide and her hair slicked back to her head, Brooke soon realised that this was Vanessa’s mom.

“Sorry,” he responded, quickly turning off the music they had been dancing to.

“Ahh, this must be Brooke. I’ve heard so much about you I was starting to think you were made up!” She threw a motherly smile of genuine excitement in Brooke’s direction. “Stay for dinner, I always make way more than needed anyway.”

And that was what lead Brooke to the most awkward dinner of her life.

***

Without sounding cocky, Brooke had never been phased by spending time with people’s parents back home. Her constant need to impress and desire to be perfect both aligned well with her forward planning and ability to answer questions with confidence - turning her into a parent’s wet dream. It was about time this was going to come back to haunt her as she sat at the table with Vanessa, Jovan and their respective parents.

With Vanessa’s mom being the clear talker in the relationship, Jovan’s dad appeared more quiet and demure, simply nodding or throwing the odd smile into the conversation as they made general small talk.

Clearly aware of her extroverted daughters’ reserved manner, her mom, who Brooke now knew as Alexis, set a trap at her for a conversation with Brooke as the bait.

“Vanessa, do you know Brooke too, from school?”

There went the hook.

“We don’t really run in the same circles,” she responded pointedly, a clear ounce of wrath in her tone as she looked at Brooke across the table. There it was again, that gut-wrenching look that left Brooke at a loss for words.

“Vanjie is too good for the riff-raff like us, Alexis.” Jovan threw a line, using his sister’s nickname to mock her popular status in front of their parents.

“Jo,” his father piped up, glaring sternly at his son.

“I can’t do this,” Vanessa snapped before getting up and walking away from the table - Brooke once again hearing the slam of the front door. She dropped down like a sinker.

“I am so sorry, Brooke,” Alexis looked embarrassed of her daughter’s abrupt exit, “I don’t know what’s gotten into her these past few weeks - she’s been so feisty!”

“She’s isn’t always like that?” Jovan rolled his eyes.

Guilt pumped through Brooke with each breath. In, then out. Only amplifying and getting heavier each time. A positive feedback loop of the lies she’d told and the truths she’d hidden growing as she was sitting in front of Vanessa and Jovan’s parents whilst they apologised for Vanessa’s behaviour. Too caught up in her idyllic world of being friends with Jovan and a member of the Amazons at the same time, a harsh reality came crashing down on Brooke. She had started to become everything Jovan had made Vanessa out to be - she was fake. For the first time since meeting Vanessa - she longed for Toronto where she went with the flow, didn’t lie, didn’t lust, didn’t envy, didn’t indulge in her own fantasy and forget about the feelings of her friends. Just as things were starting to go well she fucked them up. Just like she knew she always would. The bitter pill she’d played with and hidden under her tongue all week had just been swallowed. And it was anything but sweet. Brooke knew it was time to swallow her pride along with it.

“Jovan, can we talk for a minute?” Brooke asked as they helped Alexis clear the plates for dinner.

“Oh my god, you’re breaking up with me. I knew it. Who is he?” he pulled a pretend shocked face at his friend, before taking in her sombre disposition: “What’s up?”

“I kind of lied to you,” she said, “And I know it’s shitty because you’re such an honest person and I really admire you for it. I know we haven’t known each other for that long but you really are my best friend. You’re the only person who welcomed me here and I just didn’t want you to think badly of me but I took your sister’s offer to join her squad. Since moving here, I can’t describe it but it’s like having the rush of nerves I get before a performance all the time. I haven’t had a physical outlet to drain away my anxieties and it’s been driving me nuts inside. I know I can seem confident but I overthink things so much and the thought of being anything less than perfect grates at me constantly - I need something to distract me from it. It was like my best friend and worst enemy combined when I did ballet; if I could reign it in, channel it and thrive off it through practice and competing then I was amazing, but sometimes it would just teeter over that edge and break me. And as much as I would like to say that’s all, this is me being honest - I like spending time with your sister. I know you think she’s using me but I think she’s a genuine friend, Jovan.”

Looking up at her friend for the first time in her monologue, Brooke waited for the fireworks. The storm she’d seen in her first week. The result of betrayal.

But it didn’t come.

She should be relieved, right?

She wasn’t.

In the end, the bang of the firework is never actually as bad as the lead up to it - the anxiety in the simmering flicker. And when they don’t go off at all? Then you’re left with the sour taste of dissatisfaction. The moment you waited for, all the tension that had built, all gone. Sometimes that calamitous roar was better than the uneasy tiptoe that came with no explosion.

Just silence.

Not the silence from the library when everyone was focused and thinking.

Not the silence after the first hum of the music, when the audience realised the show was about the begin and fell low awaiting the arrival of the ballerinas.

A loud silence.

A deafening silence.

***

A wave of relief washed over Brooke when she realised Vanessa was just where she hoped she would be.

“Hey,” she sat down on the park bench, the memories of their night spent talking all coming back to her in flashes of gold. “I know you’re pissed at me for lying, but I told Jovan that I’m on the team.”

“I’m not pissed at you,” Vanessa responded abruptly, making a point of staring ahead instead of making eye-contact with Brooke.

“You seem pissed,” Brooke reached out to touch the girl’s arm for Vanessa to flinch away.

Although she knew she deserved the cold shoulder - it still stung all the same.

“I’m upset. I’m sick of everyone acting like cheerleader’s are just a waste of space, Brooke. And you pretty much affirmed that you think that way too. Too embarrassed to let anyone know you’re on the squad. You’re supposed to rep with pride for god sake,”

Taking in the girl’s words, Brooke was surprised at her feeling this way. She had wanted nothing more than to be up there performing with Vanessa and the Amazons the second she’d laid eyes on them.

“Vanessa, everyone at school worships the ground you walk on - including me, no one thinks you guys are a waste of space,”

“I don’t mean at school,” she snapped at Brooke, her repressed emotions seeping through every pore.

“You can talk about it,” Brooke said, and not in the superficial way you do when you want to know the gossip or simply want to seem like a good friend, she was the most genuine she’d ever been in her life. She figured Vanessa knew this too, as low and behold she began to open up to Brooke, releasing the dam to let all the water gush past.

“We used to be friends, me and Jovan. We were just becoming teenagers and our parents got married so quickly, it was hard. But we quickly realised that we were both going through the same shit and could lean on each other. Yeah, he was a bit weird, but I didn’t care - we were like this,” Vanessa crossed her fingers together and met Brooke’s gaze. “Sometimes we fought but we loved each other, like Drake and Josh - but less white.” She laughed - one of those laughs where if you didn’t just embrace it you’d start to cry. “We used to do gymnastics in our garden, he was always better more flexible, I used to wish I could be like him. I wanted to be as carefree as he was, I still do. And then high school came. We tried out for the Amazons together, I didn’t really want to because I knew he was better than me and got scared he’d make it on and I wouldn’t. It broke him, Brooke. It really did, he did a full 180 and stopped loving life. It was a double-edged sword. I’d go to school and everyone loved me but I’d go home after a long day of practising, trying to keep my grades up and cheer at the same time with no acknowledgement from my family because they only saw cheer as the bitchy girls who didn’t let Jovan on the squad, and then started to see me in the same light. I tried so hard to impress them, invited them to every pep rally, every tournament, but it was just a silly game to them. And I guess I just stopped trying. If everyone at home was gonna act like I’m this bitchy airhead cheerleader then I might as well embrace it because I finally had a thing that was mine and I didn’t want anyone to take it away from me. He was right,” she paused to look at Brooke, a mascara-stained tear rolling down her cheek, her voice hoarse from talking, “I am intimidated by you. You’re an amazing dancer, you’re beautiful, you could be doing my job in a heartbeat.”

Brooke’s pulse pounded through her chest. Her tell-tale was heart bursting at the seams - wanting nothing more than to lean over to the girl and kiss her, just kiss her and tell everything’s going to be alright.

“I’m not surprised you don’t want to be seen with me,” Vanessa murmured, remembering why she was sat there with Brooke, reigning back from the issues with her family that shaped the way she acted, that explained away her response to the way Brooke acted when Jovan arrived home and at the dinner table. Right there in front of those who dismissed her hard work on the Amazons, Brooke had scoffed away the idea of being a cheerleader like Vanessa. She wished she was good with words the way she used to be in Toronto so she could tell Vanessa how astounding she really was, but something about the girl made English seem like a second language to Brooke.

“Vanessa,” Brooke looked at the girl next to her, shaking her head at the words she spoke, “In the words of someone I think we both admire, I’m not gonna bullshit with you. I’m sorry I made you feel like cheer was below me - I assure you it isn’t. There is nothing I want more at the minute than to be up there with you when we beat those Vixens at Nationals and make everyone so proud of you.”

Brooke watched as something in Vanessa’s eyes lit up.  

“Bring it on,” she looked at Brooke, a sort of unspoken commitment formulating between them - they would do whatever it took to win.

Brooke didn’t know whether it was because Vanessa had shown a vulnerability to her, another one of those layers that just made her seem so genuine or because of how close they were sitting, the way she had thought about her since the kiss, but whatever it was it drove her to grab the other girls hand and squeeze.

Immediate panic and regret ensured. Expecting to get a weird look from the girl, Brooke was about to pull away when she felt it, a squeeze back. Her nerves evaporated. A harmonious silence lingered rather than one of awkwardness or dead air - for the first time all week Brooke felt at peace, tranquil, with not a fear in her mind. Like when they kissed, her head was fully invested right there in the moment and that desire to hold back the sun returned. Just her hand grasped around Vanessa’s forever.

***

With Jovan still mad and not speaking to her, it was safe to say that Brooke had had ample time to throw herself into practising for her first pep rally - and throw herself she did. Every lunchtime she would have spent on their own little table in the cafeteria bitching about other students and sharing portions of gravy doused chips she now spent practising Friday’s routine - running over and over her yell until her voice would ache. Every night she arrived home and tumbled in the garden till she was dizzy and the sky was dark. Each free minute was spent researching about her new craft, watching videos with every tip and trick she planned to utilise. She crammed and crammed until nothing else could fit.

“It had all lead to this moment,” she thought to herself as she analysed herself in the hallway mirror before the game, having left the squad and their pretalks in the changing rooms to try and escape her overwhelming need to breathe. Darning the Amazon’s uniform for the first time out of the house, Vanessa was right, it fit like a glove. Her hair ice blonde hair tied up and curled in the signature blue scrunchie, only then did she realise how much the blue of her eyes stood out with the colours. Her long legs visibly pale, fear about standing out too much from the group began to sink in. She looked at her reflection and saw a fraud. What if people clocked that she wasn’t as good, what if she embarrassed herself. Her levels of anxiety rising, she began to contemplate why she’d even tried something new, something so different, so much more assertive and in-your-face than ballet when she would only fail it in the end anyway. All she wanted was to be good but the fear of letting her team down and letting herself down that she had felt early was starting to return.

Before she knew it she had crouched down on the floor with her knees to her chest. The walls were spinning like something out of a book - if she had been herself she’d have been thinking about how once again she was a teen cliche of angst yet the only thought she could conjure was that she was fucking scared.

She was fucking scared and the walls were not helping. Nor was the distant hum of people waiting for the game outside, people waiting to watch the Amazons, waiting to watch her.

She closed her eyes to try and make it stop but it was no use. The tips of her toes going numb inside her trainers, her body just stayed frozen listing to the noises from outside - willing herself to focus on something else, anything else, when she heard a voice next to her.

“Ssshhhh, it’s okay,” a bony yet comforting hand ran along her back.

Jovan. She opened her eyes, remembering where she was.

“I can’t see you perform like this, can I?” he asked her in a joking manner, only however making more tears stream down her face.

She wanted to respond but she couldn’t. Not just yet.

“I realised last week that I was a bad friend,” he said to her, “I tried to stop you from doing something you enjoyed for my own selfish reasons. And it went against everything I stood for. When you talked to me about it in the kitchen Brooke, you seemed so excited, so genuinely happy to be cheering and I was stopping you. I thought I’d best leave you alone, you didn’t need me dragging you down. Where’s that Brooke now? The one who was gonna give her friendship up to be out there performing,” he asked her, Brooke surprised that he wasn’t ignoring her because he was mad all along - he was guilty, just like she’d been about his sister.

“Remember what you were telling me, Brooke. Reign it in, thrive off it. Don’t let it take over. Just be you. Cause when you’re yourself you don’t care what other people think - you’re good at being you, Brooke.”

Although it took her a few minutes to recover, as it never just happened straight away like in the movies, something inside her snapped into gear. Never a loud person, sometimes performing was Brooke’s voice. She knew Jovan was right - she was only ever herself on stage, and so long as she was being herself then she would kill it.

“C’mon,” he gave her a hand, “Let’s take some deep breaths and get you cleaned up. I did not come to a non-mandatory school event to see any of those other bitches perform. Just my best friend.”

“I’m sorry I lied to you,” Brooke looked at him as she gulped down some water, her voice returning.

“Don’t be. I’m sorry I even put you in that situation. I put myself in a bit of a rut over what I did but I’m here for you, first and foremost. Now go get ‘em, tiger,” he laughed, giving Brooke a playful smack on the ass.

Grinning to herself, the need to slay that she’d felt when she told Vanessa she wanted to be up there performing with her returned, Brooke was more ready than she’d ever been.

***

Her pulse thumping along with the beat, Brooke looked across at Vanessa as they stood facing the bleachers, ready to perform.

“Bring it, Brooke Lynn,” the girl mouthed to her - she did not need to be told twice.

Every move was precise, every yell was on point. Standing on her hands, the roar from the crowd pushed her to new limits. She had never felt so much energy. So alive. She was used to waiting till the end with ballet - that dreaded silence when the music stopped and you feared that no clapping would come - but with hollers all the way through, Brooke thrived off the chants, she knew this is what she was born to do. By the time she made it to her roll call, she shouted louder and clearer than she had in all of her practices - she was ecstatic. Really fucking ecstatic

“My name’s Brooke,” the girls shouted their “yeah” in response, Vanessa’s tone standing out from the group, her teeth gleaming as she grinned from ear to ear, clearly proud of her new prodigy. “Put down that book,” she pointed to the ground - a new type of confident. A new type of sexy. “Cause when I shake it, you can’t help but look.”

Any fear she had was now long dissipated - a sense of belonging filling her insides as she pushed Vanessa to the air and watched her fly. By the end of the routine, her face hurt from smiling but she just couldn’t stop.

Once all of their choreographed steps were completed, she looked out into the crowd to see Jovan front and centre, cheering for them: “Go Vanjie, Go Brooke!” The excited boy who danced to Demi Lovato in his room once again taking over the sullen kid who rolled his eyes so much they may as well be permanently lasered into a resting bitch face.

Running forward, the squad all bounced off of each other, throwing their arms in the air and screaming for the school team.

Before she could even comprehend what was happening, she felt Vanessa’s small body bury itself into hers, those chocolate button eyes gleaming up at her.

“You killed it, mama,” Vanessa beamed at Brooke - sending her body into all sorts of shocks as she wrapped her arms around the other girl in excitement.

“So did you,” Brooke responded, “And I’m not the only one who thinks so,” she pointed to Jovan in the audience - his mouth collecting flies at their performance.

After their talk the week before, Brooke felt a little part of Vanessa’s glass walls start to melt as she saw her reaction to Jovan’s presence and watched her run over to him. He was taken back at first when she threw her arms around his awkwardly lean body, but soon he started to laugh and nuzzle his hand against her hair. Watching made Brooke long for a sibling of her own, their bond clearly unbroken despite the years of arguments and silences. But most of all the sight just made her feel content. Happy.

She knew that out of every adjective known to man, happy was the least exciting. But she could think of no other way to describe her inner thoughts than as happy. A big, fat, flaming happy.

[markoberposts]

More Fun Movies Seen

     Well, I did yesterday as I’d forecast within my prior posts.  I went out and saw another large group of movies all at once...this time FOUR of them one after the other all at the same theater...this occurring once again at Tempe Marketplace as I’d done the day before as well.  In fact, I’ve just set what I’m sure are 2 separate new records for myself thanks to all of the great new Summer movies that have come out all at once.  As I’d talked about yesterday, I had just seen on Thursday all of the 3 movies: Child’s Play, Annabelle Comes Home, and The Secret Life of Pets 2.  And then on Friday--yesterday--I followed this up by further seeing the 4 movies: Men in Black: International, Anna, Toy Story 4, and then lastly, The Dead Don't Die.  So seeing yesterday’s 4 movies both sets a record for me for the most theater movies seen all in the same day as well as the most--as in 7--theater movies seen all within a short time period...that of a 2 day period.  So I think that the movie-makers have been making up for last year, being that I don’t recall there having really been very many movies at the start of Summer that had attracted my attention in 2018.  But wow...this was a lot of movies for having seen all at the same visit, with my having scheduled them intentionally so that I’d have about a half an hour between each movie if for no other reason but to go outside the theater and get warmed up again!  And I say that with this even being in Phoenix and with it having been 110 degrees at the time!  Yes indeed, they keep our theaters cool by comparison, especially when you are wearing shorts and a thin T-shirt.

     Anyway, to start with, the movie Men in Black: International was a very fun and cool movie, with both of the lead actors of course being great within it and with my particularly enjoying watching Tessa Thompson, even with my not having become a fan of hers before this movie.  And of course all of the cool aliens really make it interesting and fun to watch...it being right up there with Star Wars in this regard and probably even much more elaborately designed within these movies compared to Star Wars or most other Sci-Fi movies.  Anyway, the story was exciting and fun, and the special effects were as great as ever.

     And next I saw the movie Anna.  And although it was a bit different than I’d expected, it was nevertheless interesting and fairly exciting.  I admit that what had attracted me to it the most was the previews where it had showed her literally destroying guys around her with hardly lifting a finger, being such a precise and skilled fighter.  I hadn’t read about it in advance, however, so I was surprised by it being a story about growing up in Russia and working for the KGB.  But that was still by itself somewhat interesting, although I admittedly enjoyed the action scenes quite a lot more.  I was, however, sympathizing with her all along, hoping that she would eventually find freedom.  And even though I’ve always been strongly against killing any life forms (and no I’m not a Democrat...I’m actually an Independent simply because I don’t align with ANY political parties...not even whatever being an ‘Independent’ represents simply beyond being literally independent from all party ideals, my feeling repulsed by ALL political parties), I nevertheless find it odd that I’m able to--for movies such as this--feel completely okay watching her slaughter people left and right, perhaps simply because they’re supposedly the bad guys...or at least they’re agents who align themselves more with loyalties to bad people rather than to upholding what’s good and right on a moral level.  And of course I also really enjoyed the movie because the actress is simply beautiful.  In fact, I had to look her up after the movie for this very reason, finding that she is actually a true Russian actress, and that this film was a French film, even with it also focused on the American C.I.A.  And when I looked her up in Wikipedia and then in IMDb, I was at least happy to see her smiling and happy most of the time, being that she did a great job of appearing so depressed and sad most of the time in the movie, with the couple of sex scenes not really detracting much from this overall dark mood.  But in the end, it actually finished rather nicely.  So I’d say that it was a pretty good movie overall.

     And then I saw the movie Toy Story 4, which I really found to be very pleasant and entertaining, with it actually being just as much a love story as it was a movie about helping “Forky” to get back to its little human female creator kid who was really missing it quite a bit.  And aside from the movie also being a love story involving Bo Peep and Woody, it was also the tiniest bit about it kind of resembling the Transformer movies, at least as far as how a human might be able to cause their toys to “come to life” as happens within the Toy Story movies.  But this movie was really fun and exciting, and the dummies in it were really rather scary.  In fact, I’d always wondered exactly why the ventriloquists had designed dummies to look like that...with their always looking so spooky-like!  We never find out within this movie...but it does work well to make it rather scary.  And I love all of the carnival scenes, being that they reminded me of another recent animation movie that I’d seen of a similar nature called Wonder Park, which I’d enjoyed because of the fantasy aspect of finding a hidden giant place such as Disneyland tucked away in some remote hidden forest.  Anyway, this movie, Toy Story 4, was great and exciting and fun and was well worth seeing.

     And finally, I then saw as my last movie for the night the movie, The Dead Don’t Die, which was a very, very slow-paced but nevertheless campy type of amusing movie about the end of the world zombie apocalypse.  It has a lot of appealing parts to it, although it certainly didn’t follow the typical Hollywood type format of a small group of people--especially the heroes--surviving in the end.  Nope!  We all die in the end...and that is that!  LOL.  It really was a bit sad in this respect, however, because I really wanted the always-attractive Selena Gomez--normally known for her songs--to actually survive in the end.  But SORRY!  She’s a goner just like everyone else is...except perhaps the man in the woods...oh, and the alien-lady, who was VERY interesting to watch because of her always looking...well...kind of like an alien!  But she was really great in this movie with her abilities to strike zombies down with her sword!  Too bad she couldn’t rescue them all in the end.  But perhaps some of the funniest and oddest things were the tendencies of Adam Driver--the bad guy in the latest Star Wars movies who KILLS his father Han Solo (DARN HIM!)--to step outside of character and talk about the script of the very movie itself.  And this is part of what makes it so funny, being that from the beginning, Bill Murray asks him about what’s going on and Adam Driver always responds that he has a feeling that things will end badly.  Eventually, in fact, Bill Murray finally asks him why he always acts like he knows that it’s going to end badly, and that’s when Adam reveals that it’s because he’d read the script!  In response, Bill Murray finally then admits that he’d read the script as well, of course, but that he hadn’t read that it would end badly.  Anyway, there are plenty of other fun jokes within it as well, with the key to the humor being of course the deadpan reactions by most people, especially Bill Murray and Adam Driver, to all of the various events that happen around them, even as they work to both figure out things and at least attempt to see if there’s anyway to help people out.  But of course there isn’t in the end, because when the Moon develops a purple edge to it, and the Earth changes its rotation, then we are all DOOMED for sure!  So we’d best take a lesson from this movie, with that lesson apparently being for us to simply give up!  I mean, if there ever really is a zombie apocalypse to come of this nature, then there wouldn’t seem too awfully much that we could do about it.  But who knows, perhaps a small group of survivors might be able to board one of the rockets from either Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos and somehow make it outside the scope of influence of such a badly-resurrecting type of force!  Or then again, perhaps instead someday a resurrection might occur where the people aren’t really zombies, but actually become once again like normal people, although perhaps with bodies that no longer age nor feel pain.  Wouldn’t that be great?!  One can always hope...   :)

[evocatrice]

Survey

1. What made you pick up the last book you started reading? I’m reading two books right now! The first one, Empire of Storms, I picked up because it’s the next book in the series I’m loving and I was already halfway done, but then I moved and had to return it. The second book, Blood of Olympus, I picked back up because I realized I never finished the series once college started. 

2. Have you received any bad or troubling news lately? I’ve had to go to the BMV three times without being able to get my car titled, so that’s been fun. 

3. When was the last time you were relieved about something? Yesterday when we made it to the fireworks show on time! 2017 was not as organized. 

4. What about your life concerns you the most? Um... I guess where I’ll be living in October. 

5. Is there a common thing most people seem to do without trouble, but it scares you (talking on the phone, driving, interviews, etc)? When was the last time you had to do one of these kinds of things? Driving. Especially on the interstate. I’m terrified of it. I’ve never been pulled over, never gotten myself in an accident, never gotten a ticket, I even use my turn signal in parking lots haha. Still, after the accident I was in in high school, it’s terrifying to think that no matter how skilled of a driver I am, I can still die in an instant because of someone else’s mistake. 

6. Is a pen pal something you would enjoy? If so, what kinds of little things would you send your pen friends? I always wanted one growing up, but then my old friends would write me letters and I am the actual worst at responding to people. I don’t think it would last very long. 

7. Describe a time when you were there for a friend? I usually like to take the distraction approach. I’ll get them to talk about what’s bothering them, help them come up with a plan if it’s something solvable, and then do something fun to cheer them up or keep their minds off of it, like taking them out for lunch or ice cream or disc golfing. 

8. When was the last time you went somewhere for the first time? Yesterday, I went to a fireworks display at a Fort I’d never been to. 

9. What is a situation that makes you feel especially confident? Whenever I’m doing something secretarial, aka editing someone’s paper, showing off my typing speed, writing a marketing blurb, updating someone’s resume, or being anywhere relating to books. 

10. What was the subject of your most recent conversation? Michael and Noah telling me the hot dogs were done grilling and telling me to come watch a movie with them. 

11. Hypothetically and generally speaking, how would you go about breaking up with someone? Is there anything you would make sure to say, or perhaps not say? W o w. I hate hurting people’s feelings, so I’m incredibly bad at it. I try never to place blame on the other person and just speak of things in a broad and futuristic manner like “ It’s just not feasible when I’m leaving for school” “We’re just not in the same place in our lives” “ I just feel like we’re going down different paths”. I always like to try to add something about how I wish them happiness and point out some of their good relationship traits or say how I enjoyed my time with them. I honestly probably sound like a talk show host. I also almost always add the “I hope we can still be friends” line (except once) but I surprisingly am only friends with the only ex who ever broke up with me. 

12. Are you more of a night person or a day person? What is it about the night/day that you favor? I like the night because I am more creative and fireflies, but I also like the day because I love soaking up the sun and swimming. 

13. What do you find particularly offensive? Would you say you’re easy or difficult to offend? People making any sort of comment that is degrading of my intelligence or purposefully hurtful toward another person. Thankfully, it hasn’t happened in a long time. I would say I’m on the sensitive end of being offended when it comes to rude remarks. 

14. Is there a belief you have that most others around you don’t have? Do you share this belief with others, or do you tend to keep it to yourself? Have you ever offended anyone with this belief? Yeah. I’m a Christian and have been involved in various Republican and pro-life campaigns and events over the years, which seems an uncommon alignment to have on Tumblr. I'm rather opinionated about politics since it’s related to my career goals, but I don’t usually bring it up outside of those events unless asked. If people are offended by my blog, they don’t have to follow. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

15. Do you consider internet friendships as important as offline friendships, or do you view them differently?

I think offline friendships take priority when I schedule my week, but that both are extremely important. Moving so much has me communicating with most of my friends via the Internet anyway. 

16. When was the last time you visited relatives or friends of the family? Is visiting family something you enjoy? I visited with plenty of them at my wedding, and will be going to visit with them next weekend for the annual hog roast. I really enjoy it, but it always makes me so tired. 

17. What did you do for the last holiday or event you celebrated? Fourth of July! We went to a fireworks display last night, are watching classic “Fourth of July” movies, grilling out and baking, and hopefully launching off some of our own fireworks with our sparklers. 

18. If you’ve moved out from home, what was the scariest thing about it? What was/is your favorite thing about it? The scariest thing about moving out originally was really just moving somewhere where I didn’t know anyone. My favorite thing was having freedom to become my own person.

19. Are there any fictional characters you like even though they’re “bad” or “evil?” What qualities draw you to a character? Bellamy Blake s1. Lorcan from TOG. The antagonist in my own story. Eugene Fitzherbert. I’m a sucker for the reluctant hero trope. 

20. What are your thoughts on “forgiving” murderers, rapists, attackers, etc? Do you think it’s even possible to forgive these people? If they are truly sorry and actively trying to spend the rest of their life showing they have changed, then yes. However, forgiveness absolutely does not mean they should not be brought to justice and pay for their actions. 

21. What was the last series you finished watching? Do you have any plans to begin another? Everwood. I just started watching Freaks and Geeks, Harlots, and Handmaid’s Tale, but I’m only liking Freaks and Geeks so far. 

22. What is one way in which you are different from a year ago? What is one way in which you are still the same? I feel like I’ve learned to be more comfortable in my own skin, and the importance of fitness and eating right and being organized and showing initiative. I’m still the same in that I still get just as excited about fireflies and I still fall a little bit in love with everyone I meet. 

23. When was the last time you had to walk somewhere in the rain? How about the snow? Last week at a Pokemon Go event in the rain and.... wow, maybe to my car on my way to work in the snow back in February?

24. Are there any types of survey questions you dread or don’t like answering for whatever reason? What kinds of questions do you like best? I don’t like the same questions over and over, usually like “ Who was the last person you kissed? Do you miss them? Do you wish you could be with them?”. I love the ones that are unique and make you stop and think. 

25. If you could learn about anything without the stress of grades or cost, what kind of classes would you take? Italian in a classroom setting would be great. Also painting. 

26. What was the last item of clothing you purchased? Do you wear it often? A blue lingerie set. I wore it once and it feels like wearing a cloud.

27. Has anything made you feel nostalgic lately? Reading the posts I made on Tumblr today all the way back to 2014. 

28. What was the last chore you completed? Putting the dishes away. 

29. Name a song you’ve listened to today? The Rocky theme song. 

30. Is there anything you’ve promised yourself you’ll never do again? Drinking alcohol or eating processed meat on a regular basis. 

[rebeccalartfoundation]

Textiles 4- Freehand embroidery  and module reflection

Drawing with freehand embroidery - Process

Inspired by Veronica Cay’s ‘I Hesitate’, I wanted to try out freehand embroidery using my sketches based on my unit 2 concept around plants and mental health. 

Veronica Cay, I hesitate, 2012. 

Sketches from developing my Unit 2 concept based on plants and mental health. I based my design for the samples on these sketches.

Painting of design with disperse dye on cartridge paper. Printed on polycotton fabric through heat press. 

Ready to do the freehand embroidery. I didn’t have an embroidery hoop but luckily Hosannah was kind enough to lend me one! It was important to have the hoop as it created tension for the fabric and in turn would make it easier to sew. An embroidery foot was used to achieve free flowing lines and allows easy movement. A design is achieved by moving the fabric, not the foot. 

Mistake! Accidently sewn fabric onto the hoop as I hadn’t made sure it was lying flat and accidently sewed the excess fabric together. Had to unpick...

Freehand embroidery done! I had used the lines from the disperse dye as a guide. 

For my second sample I based the design on my textile performance piece. I originally wanted to design the hand with medication packets and plants but decided to omit the packets due to time constraints. 

Adding colour

Use of disperse dye on cartridge paper and placed on top of fabric. I had to repaint a few times as I painted the hand the wrong way round and the colours wouldn’t have aligned with the design. 

Reverse side of fabric. I had printed the reverse afterwards as I wanted the colours to appear more faint through the fabric right side up.

Final result- happy with how it came out! I had printed the cartridge paper on some scrap fabric beforehand so the colour would be softer and also printing the reverse for it to be subtle. 

For the face I went for the same colour scheme but kept the vivid colour by printing the cartridge paper onto the fabric. 

Final outcome

I’m very happy with how these samples came out. I think they look cohesive as a pair and a great development from my sketches. I achieved my goal of creating painterly and illustrative lines through freehand embroidery, drawing inspiration from Veronica Cay. I also love how the colours work with the piece- I wanted to create it like a wash of colour had gone on the fabric and feel I’ve achieved that. While I wasn’t able to add the medication packet to the hand due to lack of time, I’m still really happy with the pieces, especially as it was my first attempt. 

Heat press and medication packet experiment

I also wanted to experiment using the medication packets in the heat press and dye paper and see if that would create a stencil. It created an interesting result- one of the packets was completely fused to the fabric and the other I was able to peel away to leave a stencil. Both packets picked the dye nicely and could be interesting to dye more packets this way, if it is safe to do so.

***Health and safety- Plastic of medication packet could release toxic fumes. Was done in a well ventilated area and with tutor present***

Reflection of textiles module

What I wanted to do- I was excited to start the textiles module as I love print and textiles in general. The overall goal was to explore ways and create a piece in relation to my concept of plants and mental health. Through artist research I was inspired to create samples pieces with a painterly/illustrative print and in turn was heavily inspired by Veronica Cay’s I hesitate. I also wanted to translate my sketches onto fabric via print. I feel I had successful achieved my goals but also learnt some new techniques along the way.

I had experimented throughout the textile module and learnt new techniques. I had learnt macramé and while I found it difficult to start off with, I enjoyed learning different knots. I also experimented with stitch by creating Boro/Sashiko samples and Kanta. I had also done freehand embroidery for the first time, which went very well and experimented with disperse dye and dye paper. In addition I expanded my creativity by creating textile performances, showing textile process as a performance and also a conceptual piece. The conceptual performance was inspired by Raisa Kabir - Warping the borders, fringes; fractured… performance piece. 

What went well- I was extremely happy with how the freehand embroidery samples went and the use of colour. I was able to achieve to draw lines with stitch, creating an illustrative look. This illustrative look was inspired by artists Kaethe Butcher and Audrey Beardsley. I also experimented with materials- using my empty medication packets through the textiles module. Stemming from conceptual performance piece, I then began to incorporate medication packets with textile pieces. This happened when we were tasked to transform some of our least favourite prints into something new. I had tried sewing medication packets with fabric (to somewhat a success), creating casing and attaching a label and sewing a medication leaflet to a longer piece of fabric. I was interested in trying to create 3D forms with fabrics and feel it was quite successful with the box case and leaflet. I also found that exercise to be very useful in challenging myself to add or expand to existing pieces and transforming them into something new. 

What didn’t go well- I had struggled with the stitch exercises mainly because I didn’t give myself enough time to create them. I also found it a bit cumbersome trying to film the process of making them. I kept forgetting to check my hands were in the frame and found the process of filming slowed me down. I had struggled a bit with the macramé and needed a bit of time to get that right. I also wasn’t happy with my first set of prints when printing at home as I felt limited by the colour palette of my primary research. 

Problem solving- However from the things that didn’t go well I was able to problem solve or learnt from it. As I wasn’t happy with my first set of prints when printing at home, I decided to do another batch using my empty medication packets- which I ended up using throughout this module. I learnt that some activities needed more time, my sewing was definitely worse when rushed, so will need to factor time if I do decided to include sewing for my final project.  The fact we couldn’t go in the studio for half the sessions due to lockdown was also a problem. I had factored in studio/workshop time for my timetable in my proposal, but had to adapt by changing my ideas so it would fit working at home. This includes printing with objects at home instead and focussing on the disperse dye when we had a chance to get back into the studio. 

What I’ve learnt- That I feel really comfortable working with textiles and printing.  I had always intended to work with textiles for Unit 2 and feel confident going forward with it for Unit 4. I plan to use some of the techniques I’ve learnt from this module for the final project- I’m particularly keen to use the disperse dye and free hand embroidery again. I’ve also drawn inspiration from more places for this module, from textiles artists to illustrators and my previous work. I’ve learnt that to adapt when I was unable to do parts of my schedule and when resources weren’t available. My sketches or sketching roughly before printing in the studio was also invaluable in what I wanted to create.

What would I do differently- I would’ve liked to explore scale more- working on bigger pieces of fabric and perhaps created a wall hanging like I had originally mentioned in my proposal. I also would’ve like to try colour more medication packets with dye transfer/heat press and created a kind of sculpture with them- although that would have to be cleared with a tutor for health and safety reasons. It would also be interesting to try layer sketches together as a repeat pattern- whether through traditional printing or digitally on the Ipad and get it sent off to be printed.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this module and can’t wait to try out more textiles techniques. I would love to try screen printing again if I had the chance. I also believe I have successful created pieces that represents my concepts of plants, the human body and mental health. I definitely plan to incorporate textiles for my final project in some way, most likely printing on fabric. 

[scifigeneration]

From rocket launches to a crashing space station, we're in for a huge year in space

by Brad E Tucker

A Blood Moon, a trip to the Moon and back for two explorers, a space station crashing to Earth and the launch of a new mission to find planets around other stars: these are just some of the exciting things to watch in space in 2018.

Elon Musk’s Space X also plans to launch one of the new Falcon Heavy rockets, the largest since the manned Moon landings.

The Blood Moon comes from the lunar eclipse on Wednesday night, which is also being claimed as a Blue Super Full Moon (or is it?)

A Blood Moon - when the Moon turns red during a total lunar eclipse. The red comes from the sunrise and sunset here on Earth, continuing out into space and lighting up the Moon. NASA

All of Australia, plus most of Asia and the Pacific region, will be treated to this spectacular lunar event on January 31. If you miss it, don’t worry, you’ll get another total lunar eclipse on the night of July 27 and early morning hours of July 28.

Unlike a Solar eclipse, you do not need any special equipment to see a lunar eclipse and it is safe to look at with your eyes.

Speaking of solar eclipses, Tasmania and southern parts of Victoria and South Australia will be treated to a partial Solar Eclipse on July 13.

Goodbye Kepler, thanks for the Exoplanets!

The Kepler Space telescope was launched nearly nine years ago and has changed our view of the cosmos and our place in it, but its mission is coming to an end this year.

Kepler has confirmed around 2,500 exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars), with thousands more potential planets. It discovered the first Earth-like planet in a habitable zone , an area where water could exist as a liquid.

An artistic impression of NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler space telescope. NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T Pyle

Kepler also showed that rocky, potentially Earth-like and/or habitable planets are common with potentially tens of billions (yes, billions with a b) existing in our galaxy alone.

After a failure of two reaction wheels (the things that help it point) in 2013, a new mission, K2, was conceived. It was able to keep stable by using a combination of short thruster firings and using the Sun to steer it like a sail.

Kepler continued its exoplanet-finding quest, along with discoveries such as shockwaves from exploding stars and even picking up sound waves deep in the heart of stars (a technique called asteroseismology).

But this extra thruster firing is causing Kepler to use up its fuel, and it is due to run out sometime this year, which will cause NASA to put it into hibernation.

Where one missions ends, a new one begins. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), is set to be launched between March and June, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. If the stars align, we might even have overlap between these two exoplanet-discovering machines.

A conceptual image of TESS in space and its targets - planets orbiting other stars. NASA

Rockets, rockets and more rockets

The privatisation of space continued this year with the US-based Rocket Labs having its first successful launch, from a site across the Tasman in New Zealand.

SpaceX also had its first static test of the new Falcon 9 Heavy, the largest rocket since the Saturn V that took US astronauts to the Moon.

The Falcon 9 Heavy is scheduled for a first launch in early February where it will carry one of Musk’s Tesla Roadsters. We may even see an appearance of the company’s Dragon 2 that will carry humans into space this year. SpaceX has already announced that two people have paid to go on a tour around the Moon.

It’s not just private companies exploring space, with China aiming for 40 launches in 2018 alone.

Exploring the small things in our Solar System

The Moon is on the radar for both India and China. India’s Chandrayaan-2 is set to land on the Moon in March, while China’s Chang’e 4 will be its second lunar rover, set to land on the far side of the Moon at the end of 2018. First it will have to launch a special communication satellite, slated for June, to a position called L2, or a special point related to the Earth-Moon system that will allow for communications with Earth and the far side of the Moon.

While it is a bit early for New Year’s Eve 2018, NASA already has big plans. New Horizons, the probe that flew by Pluto in 2015 is set to swing past its second icy world, 2014 MU 69, on December 31. Little is known about 2014 MU 69, which is around 6.5 billion km from the Sun, other than the fact that it might be two objects instead of one and that it needs a better name.

Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 discovery images of 2014 MU69. Positions are shown by the green circles. NASA, ESA, SwRI, JHU/APL, and the New Horizons KBO Search Team

Asteroids are not forgotten in all of this space exploration. Japan’s Hayabusa-2 is set to arrive at asteroid 162173 Ryugu. It’s a new version of Hayabusa, which surveyed the asteroid 25143 Itokawa and took samples before returning back to Earth, landing near Woomera, South Australia in 2010.

Likewise, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx will arrive at the asteroid Bennu where it will extend an arm to drill down into the asteroid, and return with samples, in what is the next step towards an asteroid mining future.

An artist impression of OSIRIS-REx extending its arm down to the asteroid Bennu. NASA

A falling space station

If you were around in 1979 and happened to be in Western Australia, you might have a unique souvenir – part of the US space station Skylab, which re-entered and crashed outside Esperance, WA.

If you’ve seen the 2013 movie Gravity (and a spoiler alert for those who haven’t!) you might remember the final scene in which Sandra Bullock’s character returns home by hijacking Tiangong-1, the Chinese space station. She returns safely, but the same can’t be said for Tiangong-1.

Well in March, we are set for a clash of sci-fi against reality when Tiangong-1 comes back down to Earth.

You can track its progress but in short, somewhere between +43 and -43 latitude (or half the Earth), it will re-enter and break apart. Currently, the likely potential (land) areas are around Central and South America, Northern Africa and the Mediterranean, and indeed Western Australia.

Like Skylab, there are likely to be large pieces that survive re-entry. Hopefully you are lucky to be in a position to see it with your eyes, but not so close that it lands on your house, as it’s unlikely to be covered by your insurance policy.

So that’s a summary of some of the things we’re expecting to happen this year. But as with all science, I’m just as excited for those discoveries that we do not know about that will happen in 2018.

Brad E Tucker is an Astronomer and outreach officer at Australian National University

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

[ericvick]

AE Jobs; LOS, Correspondent Products; Approaching Webinars; Federal Reserve's Recent Actions

AE Jobs; LOS, Correspondent Products; Approaching Webinars; Federal Reserve’s Recent Actions

Another stimulus package is in the headlines but no one is talking about inflation being a concern with near-term oil futures prices actually below zero. Oil producers are in a tight spot. And when in a tight spot it is important to panic. Uh, I mean, not panic. It is nice to talk about exit strategies, and returning to normal. But heck, when this is over, what meeting do I attend first: Weight Watchers or AA? Lenders and vendors will have some major decisions to make when it comes to continuing to rent office space versus the costs incurred in the last six weeks moving everyone to a WFH (work from home) environment. Can everyone please just follow the government instructions so we can knock out this coronavirus and be done?! I feel like a kindergartner who keeps losing more recess time because one or two kids can’t follow directions. Lots of lenders are following directions, fortunately. Good luck following the directions of this video from “Kay” on how to make a facemask. “Go for protection, not perfection!”, start by cutting two squares 9 inches by 6 inches, and finish with some Burgundy.

Lender Services and Products

In January, I shared numbers from LBA Ware’s 2019 LO Compensation Report. It received such an enthusiastic response that I’m passing along the newly released Q1 2020 LO Compensation Report while it’s still hot off the presses. Data from LBA Ware’s CompenSafe incentive management platform shows that after unit and volume gains across Q1, March saw LOs take home an average of $18,907 in commissions, likely their highest payday in six months or more. Here’s the full report. If reading this makes you realize you don’t have your arms around LO comp, LBA Ware invites you to schedule a demo.

As a reminder, don’t’ forget to leverage your partnership with Citibank, N.A. during this period of immense volatility. Citibank has a variety of tools to help manage your risk while also ensuring you a competitive execution. For example, Assignment of Trades (AOTs) are an excellent way to manage margin call risk and avoid bid/ask spreads. Combined with Citibank’s 2-Way Pair Off feature, you will accomplish both while also maintaining your hedge! Citi will allow full transfer of assigned trade on day 1, regardless of loan allocation. Leverage this offering today via Citibank’s Bid Tape-AOT or traditional AOT. Learn more about this and other programs Citi has to offer by contacting our National Client Services Team at 800-967-2205 or for new seller consideration complete our Prospective Mortgage Correspondent Questionnaire.

As entire organizations have moved to home offices, mortgage technology has been tested like never before. Calyx Path, the cloud-based, configurable, enterprise-level LOS has made the transition seamless for its customers. With its multi-channel design, anytime accessibility, pre-configured or fully configurable options and intuitive compliance platform, Path provides the flexibility lenders need during these unprecedented times and into the future. For more information, contact Michele Warren. 

Because business closures are making employment verification increasingly difficult, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the VA and the FHA have all relaxed their employment verification requirements. For now, all you need to verify a borrower’s employment is a recent year-to-date paystub or bank statement data showing a recent payroll deposit. For lenders who work with FormFree, meeting the new standard is as straightforward as refreshing the Passport 3-n-1 Report before loan closing. Passport also makes it easy for lenders to meet Fannie Mae’s new, tighter window for documenting borrower income and assets. For mortgages with application dates on or after April 14, income and asset documentation must be dated no more than 60 days from the date of the mortgage note. FormFree customers can again simply refresh the Passport 3-n-1 Report (even after the loan closes) to ensure data is current. Talk to Gregg Palmer for more info.

Webinars and Training

Join Blend for a digital summit geared toward Blend customers and mortgage executives on May 19. Forward: Thriving in today’s mortgage climate, is focused on navigating today’s challenges in mortgage lending. Blend executives and product leaders will share the latest solutions and product features designed to help you increase efficiency and set you up for success in any market conditions. Sign up here.

You don’t want to miss this special live event hosted by XINNIX! Register now for “Elevating Relationships in a Digital Era”, a free webinar on Thursday, April 23 from 2:00 – 3:00 PM ET. In this webinar, you’ll learn the 4 secrets to mastering video outreach, how to maximize your prospecting time with a highly effective weekly plan, over 20 ways to bring value to your referral sources while we are sheltering in place and so much more! “Our industry is crazy busy, and our partners have sought our advice on the best ways to adjust their sales and communications strategy to gain, maintain and enhance valuable relationships. We are eager and excited to share all that we’ve learned with you, the mortgage industry at large – at no cost!” said XINNIX Founder and CEO, Casey Cunningham. Seating is limited, register today!

The Clear to Close podcast is hosting a special LIVE episode and industry happy hour this Thursday, 04/23 at 5PM EST/2PM PST. They’ll be covering the topic ‘Leading a Remote Salesforce’ with experts from inside and outside of the industry. Bring your favorite drink and get some relevant guidance and insights about the new status quo for most mortgage leaders. Whether you’re a new fan or frequent listener, it should be a great experience. Click here to sign up today!

The market continues being very volatile and its impact on the mortgage industry is apparent with some lenders still hurting with margin calls, others without a place to sell their loans, and some that are setting records. I will be doing a special podcast and live webinar with Josh Friend CEO of Insellerateon Friday April 24th at 10am PST to discuss the current market conditions, what to expect and how lender should be looking at this and preparing for the rest of the year. We will have a Q&A session to answer questions from our mortgage community. Tune in and find out how you can be pre-pared for this market and how to navigate it. Register here to join us in discussing our current market, and if you are unable to attend please register as we will be sending it out for those who miss it.

Join Mitch Kider and Michael Kieval for a WBK Webinar, “Cybersecurity for the Mortgage Banking Industry, A Focus on Risks from Remote Work in the Coronavirus Crisis,” on April 23 at 2 pm ET.

NAMMBA is hosting a Town Hall event and virtual conference on Friday, April 24, from 1-4PM ET. The event will include a session with Dave Stevens, Mitch Kider, and me talking about the State of The Industry. The Town Hall will bring together industry stakeholders, policy makers, and CEOs.

Join the West Chapter of MMLA on Thursday, April 23 for a Virtual Luncheon. Discussions will include our new normal, overcoming new obstacles, and finding new best practices hosted by Andy Baker and Andrew Clarkson from the Mortgage Breakdown.

MBA’s inaugural delivery of School of Mortgage Banking (SOMB) Online is scheduled for April 27 – May 31, giving you the opportunity to learn the most important aspects of mortgage lending, get expert insider industry knowledge, gain practical skills and grow in your career.

Join NAMMBA on Tuesday, April 28th at 2:00 EST for a free webinar presented by Freddie Mac.

Altisource is hosting a one-day virtual summit on how Covid-19 is impacting the mortgage industry. The Mortgage Industry Pandemic Summit will take place on May 6, 2020 featuring 28 of the most influential leaders in Originations, Servicing, Vendor Management and Government discussing the operational challenges facing mortgage and real estate companies as a result of the pandemic. There is no cost to attend and registrants can select the all-access option for all sessions or choose individual sessions that interest them the most.

Here is a free webinar: “FACT vs. FICTION: eClosing and RON during and after COVID-19” on Wednesday, April 22 at 1PM EDT, where mortgage technology experts from DocMagic and OpenClose will provide an inside look into the eClosing process along with the technical and regulatory insights you need to better serve your customers today and tomorrow. Register now.

Guideline and Program Changes

Plaza Home Mortgage has made recent adjustments to its Temporary Credit Policy that has been established as a result of the response to COVID-19.

Parkside Lending is waiving its Lender Fee (up to $1095) for COVID-19 Community Heroes! Click here for full details and to obtain a list of the qualifying professions.

Wells Fargo Funding came out with temporary flexibilities for appraisals – FHA and GRH Loans. “We’re aligning our appraisal requirements for FHA and Guaranteed Rural Housing (GRH) Loans with the temporary, COVID-19-related, appraisal flexibilities announced by FHA and USDA Rural Development.”

Loan Stream is still offering Non-QM Mortgages.

With the recent GSE guidance, changes to MI eligibility follow suite. Radian announced the following changes: Investment properties are no longer eligible for MI. Cash-out refinance transactions are no longer eligible for MI. Exterior-only and desktop appraisal flexibilities announced by the GSE’s on March 23, 2020, are not eligible for loan amounts that exceed $765,600.  Loan amounts > than this will still require full appraisals.

National MI has aligned with the underwriting, valuation and servicing guideline changes announced by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. See National MI Announcements: UW & SVC 2020-02 and UW & SVC 2020-03 for details.

Symmetry Lending has issued new Pricing Guides and Credit & Income Guides with an effective date of April 7th. Symmetry will No Longer accept income from Non-Occupant Co-Borrowers for CLTVs Greater than 89.99% or Condominiums for CLTVs greater than 89.99%. However, Symmetry Lending has made NO CHANGES to any of its Program Guidelines for HELOCs up to 89.99% CLTV.

Capital Markets

U.S. Treasuries experienced some curve flattening yesterday, but in a very narrow range as the big news on the day was a plunge in the May contract for WTI crude oil to a negative level ahead of today’s expiration. The MBA released data on total loans in forbearance as percent of servicing portfolio volume covering the period from April 6 – April 12. The total sample size rose to 5.95 percent from 3.74 percent the previous week, with depository servicers accounting for a larger percent of loans than IMB. Mortgages backed by Ginnie Mae showed the largest growth (2.37 percent) from the prior week and the largest overall share in forbearance by investor type (8.26 percent). On the bright side, weekly forbearance requests as a percent of servicing portfolio volume dropped to 1.79 percent from 2.43 percent the previous week.

When it became clear to the Federal Reserve that this coronavirus pandemic was going to have serious economic fallout, it didn’t want a repeat of 2008, instead acting swiftly and decisively. With the intent of adding stability to the economy, it announced a series of measures intended to assist households, businesses and state and local governments with financial support. These measures have been intended to provide further liquidity support to capital markets and help businesses that may be struggling to stay afloat while many parts of the economy remain on lockdown.

The Fed is making small business loans and then repurchasing a large majority of those loans to both stimulate the economy and keep room on commercial banks’ balance sheets for additional lending. The Federal Reserve will also offer support to cash-strapped municipalities by issuing short-term notes with the Treasury department offering credit protection to the Fed for the facility. The Fed also moved to support primary issuance in the investment grade corporate bond market to provide liquidity support to trading in investment grade corporate bonds. Finally, the Fed indicated it would wade into the high yield bond market with purchases of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that have exposure to high yield corporate bonds.

The Federal Reserve has not moved towards liquidity support to the securitization markets, but has expanded the range of securities that will be eligible for financing. There has been great cooperation between the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department with the Treasury Department providing equity that the Fed can then lever to increase the amount of financial support to households and businesses. For now, it is great news that the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve seem to be willing continue to do “whatever it takes” to see the economy through this current rough patch. Hopefully it is a reason to believe the economy will begin to recover quickly later this year.

The 10-year yield closed the day -3 bps to 0.63 percent. For the day, the Desk purchased $10.291 billion MBS of the maximum $10.709 billion, or 96.1 percent, and 34.6 percent of the $27.86 billion tendered. Since the restart of QE on March 16, NY Fed MBS purchases are up to $524.76 billion. With only the Philly Fed out (-82.5, yikes!), and Existing Home Sales ahead, we begin the day with Agency MBS prices roughly unchanged and the 10-year yielding .55 percent.

  Employment

Newfi Wholesale is looking for experienced Account Executives with an established account base in select geographic areas. In this challenging market it’s important to be able to offer multiple programs and solutions for your broker partners. Newfi’s new Pinnacles NonQM program offers bank statement, 1099, asset depletion and 1-year tax return qualification options with all loan decisions made in-house. We also launched four new Jumbo options and offer traditional Agency and Government programs. Our proprietary technology offers a smooth and effortless experience for our clients. Join the growing Newfi Family! Email President Steve Abreu. 

[ericvanwesenbeeck]

2019 on Two Wheels to Nowhere ~

As we approach the day when the calendar turns the final page on 2019, I have plenty of spare holiday time to mull over both the mundane commutes and epic adventures of the past twelve months of riding my two-wheelers. Fortunately, even the mundane commuting to and from work and around town stirs a little excitement in me each time before I depart. I’m not sure exactly what it is but for me there is a distinct element of exhilaration each time I hop on a bike. Funny how such a simple thing (think “it’s as easy as riding a bike!”) can repeatedly provide such a positive visceral feeling. I’m sure you all get what I am talking about here; we all have the same condition, to varying degrees. Somehow, it makes me feel like a kid again even though the DOB on my driver’s license and my aching joints tell me otherwise. For the first three months of the year, in between bushwhacking on my cross-country skis, I managed to get on a bike a few dozen times. These rides were a combination of occasional commuting https://www.strava.com/activities/2027332120, a few spirited RadRoom time trials on Thursday nights, a few stationary bike workouts at home and a few opportunistic spins https://www.strava.com/activities/2058240437 out on the open road when the stars aligned to provide clear tarmac in spite of the snow banks and sub-zero temps. Just enough cycling, combined with some classic XC skiing, to maintain basic fitness during the dead of Winter. Early April brought Chris and me to Grand Cayman for a week visiting family, soaking in the Caribbean Sea, reading on the beach and of course, riding! Thanks to Keith R who lent me a bike bag, allowing me to transport the Batmobile safely to the island. It was so awesome to have my own wheels in Cayman compared to renting in previous years. Grand Cayman is a small, flat island with generally good roads that lends itself beautifully to fast and furious solo riding https://www.strava.com/activities/2272462632. You can imagine how good it felt to put on a simple summer kit and ride through the balmy air followed by a dip in the warm sea after riding the previous 4-5 months wearing full winter gear! April also brought the unofficial start of the BCC Thursday Morning Sunrise rides https://www.strava.com/activities/2299047313. Led by Craig S, these rides became a weekly staple for me in 2019 as I learned to drag my sorry ass out of bed at 4:55a to join a solid group of riders for a pre-work spin. As Summer progressed, ridership grew and we even got in some Friday morning rides, as well! These early mornings also provided me with numerous opportunities to capture some stunning Sunrises and Moonsets! Icing on the cake. https://ericvanwesenbeeck.tumblr.com/post/185114832427/recently-getting-into-the-routine-of-early April closed out with an awesome BCC volunteer group cleaning up the roadsides around Shanty Bay on a snow Sunday; part of our club’s yearly civic duty! The fifth month of the year usually brings a trip to Asheville, North Carolina with a cadre of the usual suspects from around town but this year it was not happening for me, having just returned from a week in the Carribean. Although May started kind of cold and dreary, some awesome riding began as BCC started regular Tuesday night rides and weekends offered opportunities for some long rides onto the Niagara Escarpment https://www.strava.com/activities/2381124819 with good friends and strong riders. Regular evening cruises along the Barrie Waterfront always brings me to randomly meet people or to see interesting scenes of life on the lake. https://www.strava.com/activities/2394518921 The next month started with a bang with our annual Tour de Lake Simcoe https://www.strava.com/activities/2415506469 on June first. Not for lack of effort, I only managed to get one other person out on the road with me. Well, when that person is Joe F, you end up with a rocket ride around the lake that left me sucking Joe’s wheel for an hour before he pulled away seemingly effortlessly for the last 20 kilometres! It turned out to be the smallest Tour group ever but the fastest Lake Simcoe circumnavigation I have ever ridden, with a blistering pace finishing the 200 kilometer rip in well under six hours. As the daylight got longer and the weather finally started to warm up in June, my rides got longer and faster. We had some great BCC rides as younger riders returned from school and the Tuesday night A-rides began to feel like a Runaway Train https://www.strava.com/activities/2443067914. All these fast, longer rides led us perfectly to the Summer Solstice on which the Toronto-Niagara Falls-Toronto Hairshirt Ride https://www.strava.com/activities/2475551164 is always scheduled. This was my third T-N-T Hairshirt Ride and it was hands-down the fastest! For the first half of the ride, I got caught up in the lead group which was more like a pro peleton, or so I imagine, because we completed the first 160 km in four hours!! While I stopped to fill my empty bottles, this group rode on to clock the fastest Hairshirt elapsed time in its 41 year history, smashing the record by riding 320 kilometers in 8h32m! Rolling with these guys for half the ride helped me to finish with a solid PB: elapsed time of 10h34m in spite of a broken rear derailleur with 120 km to go! June ended with my first of many “Rip ‘n’ Dips” https://www.strava.com/activities/2492727403 in 2019, enjoying the refreshing Kempenfelt Bay waters after an excellent escape on my bike. https://ericvanwesenbeeck.tumblr.com/post/186829227637/beautiful-sunset-today-as-i-cooled-off-in-the-bay July was full of fabulous riding, often with the Barrie Cycling Club during the week and then out for adventures on the weekends with some really inspiring, like minded people. One of these weekends was the first annual Hairshirt North double century ride around Simcoe County https://www.strava.com/activities/2532969425, showcasing the beautiful waterfronts we enjoy all around us! Eleven people started out and six people finished the full 320 km route on a pretty much perfect Summer’s day. I was rather stoked to ride with such a strong group on this inaugural ride, which I hope to make an annual event. Mark your calendars for July 12, 2020! Looking back on August immediately brings to mind one very special ride: the Terrific Tarmac Team Time Trial! https://www.strava.com/activities/2610234053 This ride is arguably, the highlight of the season for me. Exhausting but exhilarating. Four very determined and capable riders - Jason M, Steve E, Joe F and I - met up early on Sunday morning with one goal in mind: completing a 100 kilometre route in two and a half hours. This goal would require some serious suffering and some tactical teamwork. Sunny skies and very little wind definitely helped! We didn’t quite reach our goal but we came damn close at 2h33m, leaving us all the more determined to go for it again in 2020. This last month of Summer also provided some wonderful rides with family. Brothers Benjamin and Peter were in town and we got in some nice tours; I also managed some terrific tandem rides with my Mom. At eighty-four, she has trouble riding solo now as her strength and balance diminish however, her desire to be active outdoors is so strong and riding on the back with me she is able to pedal for quite a while! We enjoyed some memorable tours together around Barrie and the Bay on my now classic Motobecane bicycle built for two. https://www.strava.com/activities/2651817254 September and October made for some solid solo riding as several of my fellow riders headed to the south of France to ride in the mountains. I like solo riding a lot, so this was a chance to do my thing and keep fit for the Tour de T1D https://www.strava.com/activities/2750522352 organized by BCC’s very own Richard G and his wife, Darlene. This was a beautiful and challenging 100k route through the hills of Oro-Medonte raising over $47k for the Youth Diabetic Clinic at RVH, a worthy local cause! https://www.facebook.com/tourdet1d/ It was a really fun event with many friends from BCC participating. I plan to be there again on September 27, 2020! November and early December saw some spectacular Saturday morning group runs with a small gang of BCC friends looking to stay active as the cycling season wound down. We enjoyed early morning meet ups at the Spirit Catcher followed by easy runs around Barrie’s Waterfront paths https://www.strava.com/activities/2885344747. Unfortunately, as I headed into December my knees started chirpin’ at me as old injuries were aggravated by the pounding of the longer runs I was doing. So, I backed off and enjoyed the daily walking as I commuted back and forth to my work and let my knees settle down a little. In early December, I prepped and waxed my classic cross country skis but with a very hectic pace at work and at home, I haven’t yet used them! In the meantime, a mild Christmas holiday week has allowed me one last run of Winter riding before the year is out. https://www.strava.com/activities/2963626488 As usual, cycling was a big part of my daily work and leisure again in 2019. These activities inevitably bring me to meet new people on the road - Max R, Tyler D, Craig L, Todd R, Les - and several new BCC members. The cycling community I find myself in also has some very inspiring individuals! Max R and Larry O, whom I have ridden with in the TNT Hairshirt rides, were both inspiring in their completion of the world renowned Paris-Brest-Paris 1200 kilometer epic tour! Avery G inspires me as a young man building a career in cycling that I only dreamed of at his age - as a bicycle mechanic for touring teams and as an incredible rider in his own right, on the trails as well as on the road. Joe F and Todd R who completed their first Hairshirt rides in stellar form. Jenn J who seems to effortlessly pick up a new sport and within a season is competing at a top national level in it! Trevor O who races with the best in North America, especially inspiring in his crit performances. Eric J and Tyler M who inspired me to reconsider my days-of-old penchant for bike-packing with their three day epic road tour https://lostconglomerate.com/pages/joe-ride through Ontario cottage country. Mark L who “vEverested” https://www.strava.com/activities/2074501841 on a 12h43m epic virtual adventure that had him climb over 8900 metres in a single ride! I am also inspired by the new riders this season who stepped out of their comfort zone and into the world of cycling, which can be intimidating at first but opens up so many new experiences and relationships. With retirement now on my radar, I am inspired by recently retired Carol and Tony who are seizing life by the ball bearings and living their cycling dreams. And so, as we breakaway from 2019, I want to thank you all for your shared passion for cycling. Whether it’s commuting, recreation, racing, endurance, adventure, gravel, trails, roads or cruising, we all have this one simple thing in common. I am grateful for covering so many miles uninjured and in good health in 2019. I am grateful for the fun and fitness, competition and companionship that cycling with you all has brought me over these past twelve months. I hope to see each of you at some point in 2020 on two wheels to nowhere. https://ericvanwesenbeeck.tumblr.com/

[sujaykworld]

13 Blogging Mistakes Most Beginner Bloggers Make https://ift.tt/2OIlGBI

13 Blogging Mistakes Most Beginner Bloggers Make

What is a blog?

Simply put, a blog is a tool that can help develop an online presence, attract leads, and engage with an audience. It's often a series of editorial content centered around a central topic that demonstrates industry expertise -- for instance, a catering company might write blog posts like "The 11 Best Appetizers to Serve to a Crowd" or "Stress-Free Dinner Parties: Recipes that are Prepared Ahead of Time".

Blogs can help drive traffic to your website, convert that traffic into leads, establish authority in your industry, and ultimately grow your business. In fact, organizations are 13x more likely to see positive ROI by prioritizing blogging.

Most of a blog's traffic is driven organically -- in other words, consumers will search for something on a search engine and click on your blog if it matches their intended topic. However, there are a lot of organizations competing for your audience's attention, so it's important to avoid common blog mistakes to stand out. 

Create blog posts that serve your larger company goals.

Write like you talk.

Show your personality; don't tell it.

Make your point again and again.

Start with a very specific working title.

Use a specific post type, create an outline, and use headers.

Use data and research to back up the claims you make in your posts.

When drawing from others' ideas, cite them.

Take 30 minutes to edit your post.

At a certain point, just publish it.

Blog consistently with the help of an editorial calendar.

Focus on the long-term benefits of organic traffic.

Add a subscription CTA to your blog and set up an email newsletter.

1. Create blog posts that serve your larger company goals.

Mistake: You think of ideas that only interest you.

As much as you might read and re-read your blog posts after you publish them, you're not the only reader, or the intended reader.

When you start blogging, ideas will come to you at random times -- in the shower, on a run, while on the phone with your mom. While the ideas may come at random moments, the ideas themselves should never be random. Just because it's a good idea in general -- or something that interests you personally -- doesn't mean it's a good idea for your company.

Solution: Align your blog posts with company growth goals.

The reason you're blogging is to solve problems for your audience and, ultimately, to grow your business. So, all of your blog post ideas should help serve those growth goals. They should have natural tie-ins to issues in your industry and address specific questions and concerns your prospects have.

Need help figuring out what those goals are and how to address them? Chat with your manager about the larger company goals, and then schedule a meeting with someone on the sales team to hear what questions they get asked most often. After both meetings, you should know which goals you need to achieve and have some ideas on how to achieve them.

2. Write like you talk.

Mistake: Your writing is too stiff.

Writing a blog post is much different than writing a term paper. But when bloggers first start out, they usually only have experience with the latter. The problem? The style of writing from a term paper is not the style of writing people enjoy reading.

Let's be honest: Most of the people who see your post aren't going to read the whole thing. If you want to keep them interested, you have to compel them to keep reading by writing in a style that's effortless to read.

Solution: Try to write blogs that feel personable.

It's okay to be more conversational in your writing -- in fact, we encourage it. The more approachable your writing is, the more people will enjoy reading it. People want to feel like they're doing business with real people, not robots.

So loosen up your writing. Throw in contractions. Get rid of the jargon. Make a pun or two. That's how real people talk -- and that's what real people like to read.

3. Show your personality; don't tell it.

Mistake: You think people care about you as a writer.

It sounds harsh, but it's the truth: When people first start out blogging, they think that their audience will be inherently interested in their stories and their interests ... but that's not the case. It's no knock against them as a person -- it's just that when you're new, no one is interested in you and your experiences. People care way more about what you can teach them.

Solution: Infuse your personality without eclipsing the topic.

Even though people don't really care that it's you that's writing the post, you can infuse parts of your personality in your writing to make them feel more comfortable with you. How you do that is entirely up to you. Some people like to crack jokes, some like to make pop culture references, and others have a way with vivid descriptions.

4. Make your point again and again.

Mistake: You digress.

Although you are encouraged to let your own personality shine through in your writing, don't abuse the privilege. It's one thing to be yourself in the topic you're covering, but it's another thing to bring up too many personal experiences that bury the point you're trying to make.

Don't digress into these personal anecdotes and analogies too much -- your readers aren't sitting in front of you, which means you can't guarantee that you have their undivided attention. They can (and will) bounce from your article if they lose patience.

Solution: Repeatedly assert your argument.

To prevent your writing from losing its audience, restate your point in every section of the article. The best blog posts commit to an overarching message and then deliver it gradually, expressing it multiple times in small ways from beginning to end.

If you're writing about how much water a potted plant needs, for example, don't spend three paragraphs telling a story of how you came home to a dead fern after returning from a two-week vacation. This story offers real evidence of your point, but what is your point? Certain plants can't go without water for more than 14 days. That's one possible point, and it should be stated upfront.

5. Start with a very specific working title.

Mistake: Your topics are too broad.

When people start blogging, they generally want to write on really big topics like:

"How to Do Social Media Marketing"

"Business Best Practices"

"How to Make Money on the Internet"

Topics like these are far too broad. Because there are so many details and nuances in these topics, it's really hard to do a good job answering them. Plus, more specific topics tend to attract smaller, more targeted audiences, which tend to be higher quality and more likely to convert into leads and customers.

So, to get the most short-term and long-term benefits of blogging, you'll need to get way more specific.

Solution: Begin with a clear, concise idea.

Nailing really specific blog topics is crucial to knocking your first few posts out of the park. Let us help you brainstorm with our Blog Ideas Generator. This tool allows you to enter basic terms you know you want to cover, and then produces five sample blog titles that work for business blogs.

Keep in mind that a working title isn't final -- it's just a concrete angle you can use to keep your writing on track. Once you nail this stage of the ideation process, it's much easier to write your blog posts.

6. Use a specific post type, create an outline, and use headers.

Mistake: Your writing is a brain dump.

Sometimes when I get a great idea I'm excited about, it's really tempting to just sit down and let it flow out of me. But what I get is usually a sub-par blog post.

Why? The stream-of-consciousness style of writing isn't really a good style for blog posts. Most people are going to scan your blog posts, not read them, so it needs to be organized really well for that to happen.

Solution: Structure your blog with a template, outline, and section headers.

The first thing you should do is choose what type of blog post you're going to write. Is it a how-to post? A list-based post? A curated collection post? A SlideShare presentation? For help on this, download our free templates for creating five different types of blog posts. Once you have a template down, it'll be easier to write your outline.

Writing an outline makes a big difference. If you put in the time up front to organize your thoughts and create a logical flow in your post, the rest becomes easy -- you're basically just filling in the blanks.

To write a blog post outline, first come up with a list of the top takeaways you want your readers to get from your post. Then, break up those takeaways into larger section headers. When you put in a section header every few paragraphs, your blog post becomes easier and more enjoyable to read. (And plus, header text with keywords is good for SEO.) When you finally get to writing, all you'll have to do is fill in those sections.

7. Use data and research to back up the claims you make in your posts.

Mistake: You don't use data as evidence.

Let's say I'm writing a blog post about why businesses should consider using Instagram for marketing. When I'm making that argument, which is more convincing?

"It seems like more people are using Instagram nowadays."

"Instagram’s user base is growing far faster than social network usage in general in the U.S. Instagram will grow 15.1% this year, compared to just 3.1% growth for the social network sector as a whole."

The second, of course. Arguments and claims are much more compelling when rooted in data and research. As marketers, we don’t just have to convince people to be on our side about an issue -- we need to convince them to take action. Data-driven content catches people's attention in a way that fluffy arguments do not.

Solution: Use data to support your arguments.

In any good story, you’ll offer a main argument, establish proof, and then end with a takeaway for the audience. You can use data in blog posts to introduce your main argument and show why it's relevant to your readers, or as proof of it throughout the body of the post.

Some great places to find compelling data include:

HubSpot Research

Pew Research Center

MarketingSherpa

HubSpot's State of Inbound report

8. When drawing from others' ideas, cite them.

Mistake: Your content borders on plagiarism.

Plagiarism didn't work in school, and it certainly doesn't work on your company's blog. But for some reason, many beginner bloggers think they can get away with the old copy-and-paste technique.

You can't. Editors and readers can usually tell when something's been copied from somewhere else. Your voice suddenly doesn't sound like you, or maybe there are a few words in there that are incorrectly used. It just sounds ... off.

Plus, if you get caught stealing other people's content, you could get your site penalized by Google -- which could be a big blow to your company blog's organic growth.

Solution: Give credit where credit is due.

Instead, take a few minutes to understand how to cite other people's content in your blog posts. It's not super complicated, but it's an essential thing to learn when you're first starting out.

9. Take 30 minutes to edit your post.

Mistake: You think you're done once the writing's done.

Most people make the mistake of not editing their writing. It sounded so fluid in their head when they were writing that it must be great to read ... right?

Nope -- it still needs editing. And maybe a lot of it.

Solution: You'll never regret time spent proofreading.

Everyone needs to edit their writing -- even the most experienced writers. Most times, our first drafts aren't all that great. So take the time you need to shape up your post. Fix typos, run-on sentences, and accidental its/it's mistakes. Make sure your story flows just as well as it did in your outline.

To help you remember all the little things to check before publishing, check out our checklist for editing and proofreading a blog post.

10. At a certain point, just publish it.

Mistake: You try to make every post perfect.

I hate to break it to you, but your blog post is never going to be perfect. Ever.

There will always be more things you can do to make your posts better. More images. Better phrasing. Wittier jokes. The best writers I know, know when to stop obsessing and just hit "publish."

Solution: Better to publish and update than postpone for perfection.

There's a point at which there are diminishing returns for getting closer to "perfect" -- and you're really never going to reach "perfect" anyway. So while you don't want to publish a post filled with factual inaccuracies and grammatical errors, it's not the end of the world if a typo slips through. It most likely won't affect how many views and leads it brings in.

Plus, if you (or your readers) find the mistake, all of you have to do is update the post. No biggie. So give yourself a break once and a while -- perfect is the enemy of done.

11. Blog consistently with the help of an editorial calendar.

Mistake: You don't blog consistently.

By now, you've probably heard that the more often you blog, the more traffic you'll get to your website -- and the more subscribers and leads you'll generate from your posts. But as important as volume is, it's actually more important that you're blogging consistently when you're just getting started. If you publish five posts in one week and then only one or two in the next few weeks, it'll be hard to form a consistent habit. And inconsistency could really confuse your subscribers.

Instead, it's the companies that make a commitment to regularly publishing quality content to their blogs that tend to reap the biggest rewards in terms of website traffic and leads -- and those results continue to pay out over time.

To help establish consistency, you'll need a more concrete planning strategy.

Solution: Schedule and publish blogs consistently.

Use it to get into the habit of planning your blog post topics ahead of time, publishing consistently, and even scheduling posts in advance if you're finding yourself having a particularly productive week.

Here at HubSpot, we typically use good ol' Google Calendar as our blog editorial calendar, which you can learn how to set up step-by-step here. Or, you can click here to download our free editorial calendar templates for Excel, Google Sheets, and Google Calendar, along with instructions on how to set them up.

12. Focus on the long-term benefits of organic traffic.

Mistake: You concentrate your analytics on immediate traffic.

Both beginner bloggers and advanced bloggers are guilty of this blogging mistake. If you concentrate your analysis on immediate traffic (traffic from email subscribers, RSS feeds, and social shares), then it's going to be hard to prove the enduring value of your blog. After all, the half-life for those sources is very brief -- usually a day or two.

When marketers who are just starting their business blogs see that their blog posts aren't generating any new traffic after a few days, many of them get frustrated. They think their blog is failing, and they end up abandoning it prematurely.

Solution: The ROI of your blog is the aggregation of organic traffic over time.

Instead of focusing on the sudden decay of short-term traffic, focus instead on the cumulative potential of organic traffic. Over time, given enough time, the traffic from day three and beyond of a single blog post will eclipse that big spike on days one and two thanks to being found on search engine results pages through organic search. You just have to give it a while.

To help drive this long-term traffic, make sure you're writing blog posts that have durable relevance on a consistent basis. These posts are called "evergreen" blog posts: They're relevant year after year with little or no upkeep, valuable, and high quality.

Over time, as you write more evergreen content and build search authority, those posts will end up being responsible for a large percentage of your blog traffic. It all starts with a slight shift in perspective from daily traffic to cumulative traffic so you can reframe the way you view your blog and its ROI entirely.

13. Add a subscription CTA to your blog and set up an email newsletter.

Mistake: You aren't growing subscribers.

Once you start blogging, it's easy to forget that blogging isn't just about getting new visitors to your blog. One of the biggest benefits of blogging is that it helps you steadily grow an email list of subscribers you can share your new content with. Each time you publish a new blog post, your subscribers will give you that initial surge of traffic -- which, in turn, will propel those posts' long-term success.

The key to getting significant business results (traffic, leads, and eventually customers) all starts with growing subscribers.

Solution: How to set up a subscription CTA and email newsletter:

First, use your email marketing tool to set up a welcome email for new subscribers, as well as a regular email that pulls in your most recent blog posts. (HubSpot customers: You can use HubSpot's email tool to easily set up these regular email sends, as well as set up a welcome email for new subscribers.)

Next, add subscription CTAs to your blog (and elsewhere, like the footer of your website) to make it easy for people to opt in. These CTAs should be simple, one-field email opt-in forms near the top of your blog, above the fold. As for where to put these CTAs, we typically place our blog CTAs at the bottom of our blog posts or add a slide-in, which you can learn how to do using a free tool called Leadin here.

You can also create a dedicated landing page for subscribers that you can direct people to via other channels such as social media, other pages on your website, PPC, or email. (For a list of more simple ways to attract subscribers, read this blog post; for more advanced ideas, read this one.)

Don't worry if you read through this list and are now thinking to yourself, Well this is awkward ... I've made literally every single one of these mistakes. Remember: I used the word "common" to describe these mistakes for a reason. The more you blog, the better you'll get at it -- and you'll reap the benefits in terms of traffic and leads in the process.

We hope you'll use this list of mistakes as fuel for the fire to step up your blogging game. After all, the benefits of keeping up a healthy business blog will be well worth the time and effort.

https://ift.tt/2OCoW1D

[raisingsupergirl]

The Literal Literary Hermit

I often hear that "the world" says we can't do things. We can't follow our dreams. Or we can't be who we want to be. And on the surface, this sounds pretty profound. But I did something this last week that reminded me that the world is a pretty big freakin' place, and most of the time it's our own mind telling us that we can't do something. And you know what that is? It's an excuse. It's an excuse to avoid hard work, a little bit of planning, and the possibility of failure. But let's rewind. My revelation started in a hole in the ground.

In fact, I'm sitting here, right now, looking out the window of my 200-square-foot hermitage, watching ice chunks flow by in the Mississippi river. I've been here for five days, and other than calls home to my wife and daughters twice each day, I've had two conversations since I've been here. And both of them lasted less than two minutes. So, why am I here? What have I been doing? And what have I learned. Well, to answer those questions, I need to go back just a little bit farther.

First, you need to know that I'm thirty-two years old, I'm a full-time physical therapist, I have a lovely extroverted wife and two "lively" daughters (one and four years old), I'm the owner and editor-in-chief of a fiction magazine (shameless plug alert: GoHavok.com), and I've been writing fiction novels for almost a decade now. I'm also a Christian and a Freemason, and I, unlike my family, am not an extrovert. But the thing to take away from all of this is that I'm a writer. I've written seven novels (four independently and three collaboratively). And yet, I've never published anything over 1,000 words. Why?

Well, the short answer is that I haven't yet written anything that a big publisher has considered "sellable." Sure, I've had some hits from smaller publishers, and I could self-publish like your cousin's friend, but, for me, there's just something in my soul that needs that first book to be read by more than twelve people, and it’s worth the wait... mostly (and to be clear, I know plenty of writers who have done extremely well indie/self-publishing, and I know others who don’t have any desire to sell tens of thousands of copies as long as their family and friends can enjoy what they’ve written. I give both groups due credit and respect. But I’m not them). The problem is, statistically, most authors sell their first book in their early thirties (remember that I'm thirty-two). And I'm starting to realize this is because, by the time someone hits their thirties, they've pretty much settled into who they're going to be. And with each passing year, it gets harder for me to justify "wasting" time on stories that nobody's going to read. So, we finally come to the inciting event of the first act—the point of no return.

I wrote a book in November 2017. I thought it was great. Relatable characters, exciting plot, inspiring message, an out-of-this-world setting. But, apparently, it was a mess. Yes, it received positive feedback on a number of levels, but in the end, it needed a lot of work. And I was heartbroken because this was the novel to make or break me. If it didn't force the stars to align, I just couldn't make myself commit to another 200-hour paperweight. So what did I do? I sat it aside for a year and let it build into a source of anxiety and frustration. Every time I thought about it, it made me mad. Why? Because I knew it had huge potential. I knew I had the talent to make it shine. But I just. Didn’t. Have. The. Time. Until a friend of mine told me about a place called Visions of Peace Hermitages.

$40/night or $200/week. Forty minutes from my house. Seven hermitages (literally dug into the earth) overlooking the Mississippi river. No internet. No TV. No YouFaced TwitterSnapstagram. In short, no distractions. And suddenly, I knew my novel had a chance. Just one more hurdle to overcome—convince my wife to be a single parent for six days while I kicked back and followed my dream. Turns out, she's amazing. Not one single word of protest came out of her mouth. Apparently we'd been together long enough for her to finally understand my passion, even if she didn't understand my stories.

So, for a total of $300 ($200 for the hermitage and $100 for the food) and 40 hours of paid time off from work, I set out on a Sunday and made one last run at the thing that I'd literally dreamed about all of my adult life. I was going to re-tell the novel written on my heart. And here's what happened…

Day 1 (Sunday): Snow-covered highways and single-digit temperatures brought me to my fortress of solitude. I arrived optimistic and more than a little nervous. I spent the first few hours unpacking, organizing, reorganizing, and generally "settling in." I spent some time in prayer and some more time walking the grounds to take pictures and familiarize myself with my surroundings. And then, unable to contain my excitement, I sat down to the first chapter. I wrote and edited for four hours that first day, then made myself a simple dinner, read a little Walden, and turned in at 10:30, determined to get a good night's rest before my first full day. Unfortunately, I tossed and turned all stinking night. For a hole in the ground, that place had more noises than a haunted mansion. I really don't know how it sounded like people were walking around upstairs and playing music next door. There was literally no upstairs or next door. The bed was hard and small, three space heaters on full blast weren't enough to keep me from freezing, and my mind would not stop. And did I mention that there were train tracks 200 yards away from my front door, or that the barges on the Mississippi don't shut down at night? Yeah, not a great start. 

Day 2: I awoke at 6:30am, made a cup of coffee, a PB&J sandwich (team crunchy, hoorah), some strawberries, and a glass of OJ, and then watched the sun rise over the river. Well, I watched the sun rise through a veil of clouds over the river. But despite the overcast conditions, a fresh bed of snow had fallen, painting a breathtaking backdrop for me to write my Great American Novel. And I spent the next eleven-ish hours doing just that. Writing. Again, a small lunch and dinner, short calls home at 12:30pm and 7:30pm as scheduled, but no Walden. I was in it to win it. Another hour of writing before bed, and it was lights out again by 10:30. Then, another bad night of sleep. My skin was dry and itchy due to the space heaters.

Day 3: 6:30 wake-up. Yummy breakfast (PB/honey/banana sandwich, OJ, coffee), another cloudy sunrise, calls home at the same scheduled times, simple lunch and dinner, and another successful day of writing. I was getting in a serious groove, and all my romanticized notions of afternoon jogs and evening musings were now just distractions that I didn't have time for. Before bed, I boiled water on the stove, which seemed to help the dry air, and thus my itchiness. I slept a little better, but still not great.

Day 4 (Wednesday): THERE'S A REASON PEOPLE CALL IT HUMP DAY. 7:00 wake-up due to sleeping poorly the past few nights, cloudy sunrise, banana/OJ/coffee. No lunch (pistachios and strawberries at some point in the day) and a simple dinner. Calls home at 12:30 and 7:30 as always. I barely got through half the chapters I'd planned. Overall, very bogged down and feeling like this was a mistake even though the work I'd done so far was better than I'd hoped for. In bed by 10pm, and lo-and-behold, I slept BETTER! My brain shut off, I stayed warm, and I slept through most of the night. Hallelujah!

Day 5: What a day. A bright, clear sunrise over the mighty Mississippi. A quick banana/OJ/coffee breakfast while I started in on the day's writing. Another snack lunch and quick family call at 12:30 because I was on such a roll, and I made up for my lack of productivity the day before and then some. I called home at the scheduled 7:30 time to celebrate my news with the family and… nobody answered. I called literally six more times over the next ten minutes. Nothing. My wife knew the scheduled time and she didn't care. She didn't care about me. She didn't care that I was gone. She didn't care if I ever came back. And when she FINALLY called me back FIFTEEN minutes later, she said she didn't realize that it had gotten that late. And she didn't even feel bad that she'd made me wait FIFTEEN minutes! She didn't care! So, obviously, being confined away from one's family in a 200-square-foot hermitage does weird things to a person's mind, which resulted in a less than encouraging phone call. But hey, other than that, a great day.

Day 6: Did I mention that being secluded for prolonged periods does weird things to a person? Well, I rewarded my previous productivity by again sleeping in to seven, and another crystal clear sunrise pulled me from a deep, restful slumber. And then I saw my first sign of life for several days—a little ladybug crawling across the ceiling over my bed. "Hallooo, lady bug!" I said as I wiped the sleep from my eyes. "Or are ye a MANbug?" And I proceeded to have a five-minute conversation with the little guy in an Irish accent. I mean, the ladybug didn't have an Irish accent. Just me. And I resolved at that moment to watch Braveheart and Brave when I got home because the accent had so inspired me that morning. I could do it! Just a handful of chapters left. Let's go!

And then at 1:58 pm, I finished my novel. I could write another blog post on the supreme sense of victory that finishing a novel evokes, but let me just briefly say, "YAAAAHOOOOOOO!" and be done with it. I then spent the rest of the afternoon walking down by the river and FINALLY appreciating the quiet magic of that place devoted to God's majesty ("Be still and know that I am God."). Though, I will say that after a week of creating an alternate reality in my head, I found it impossible to turn off the narrative. I constantly found myself creating conversations, describing poetic scenes, and outlining plots based on everything I saw during my walk. Kind of annoying, really ("You never want to cross the Muddy in the shallow places. The undertow will pull you right under. No, find the deepest spot and paddle like your life depends on it, because it does.").

So here I am, on the evening of day six, writing this blog because when I go home tomorrow, there's NO WAY I'm going to be on my computer. I'm going to cuddle with my family until I squeeze their eyeballs out. But before I wrap things up, let me just share a few final thoughts that I jotted down during my stay here.

1) My location truly was amazing. I've never been somewhere simultaneously so secluded and connected. With trains and barges gliding by at regular intervals, I was constantly reminded of the outside world without being distracted by it. I was a silent observer. It was an introvert's dream.

2) The body isn't meant to be sedentary. I wrote for eleven to twelve hours per day for five days straight. That's around sixty hours, most of which was spent either sitting or lying down, usually in five-hour intervals without changing position. Even with brief sessions of stretching, pushups, etc. each day, my body was absolutely wrecked (anybody know a good physical therapist?). In case you didn't notice, my appetite dwindled, as did my waistline, but I also lost muscle mass, my digestive system was an absolute disaster, and when I went for a walk on that last day, I almost passed out from the sheer lack of cardiovascular health. There IS a reason professional writers only write four to five hours per day. Trust me.

3) What I did was NOT sustainable. Aside from my physical health, my mental health suffered as well. In case you didn't notice, I started having conversations with bugs and getting mad at my wife for being fifteen minutes late to a phone call. And in the latter half of the week, all I wanted to do was quit. I enjoyed the story I was living in, but nothing about it was "fun." It was a constant struggle to keep engaged, and at times, the only thing that kept me going was the promise of deer chili and a Bulleit old fashioned, with which I plan to reward myself right after I finish this blog.

4) I did a lot of counting. Maybe it had something to do with my mild OCD or my seclusion, or maybe it was a coping mechanism to keep myself on track, but I broke down everything possible into fractions and percentages. Half way through the braunschweiger on day two? I'd better slow down. Averaging 2,000 words/hour for the first two days? That means I should finish on time if I write ten hours per day for the next three days. I did more measuring and math in those five days than I'm comfortable admitting. 

5) I had everything I needed in those 200 square feet… I think. Like I said, I was only there for a week, but I totally see how those tiny house minimalists make it work. Less to clean. Less to keep track of. More appreciation for what you do have. Then again, I'm not sure I could have fit on that twin bed with my wife and two daughters.

6) I missed a lot of opportunities, but it's okay. As I said, this place is amazing. I could have spent a week just walking the grounds, enjoying the sunrise, and generally observing the VOP Hermitage's "rule" on the plaque that was hanging in the chapel—"Listen well and produce nothing." The problem was, I had come here to produce. And that's what I did. This place can be used for many things, and I plan to come back again.

7) I may not be an extrovert, but man, I miss my family. I really do. There's not a lot more to say about that. I appreciate them. I appreciate their energy. I appreciate the fact that they love me. I appreciate the fact that my wife allowed this whole life-changing retreat happen. And I can't wait to see them.

 8) My book is done. I'll send it off to beta-readers one more time. I'll make some adjustments based on their feedback. And then my agent will send it off to publishers. And I'll wait. I don't know what will happen, and that's okay. I edited 80,000 words and wrote 20,000 more over the last five days, and I also grew a lot through the experience. Even if this book doesn't work out, I'm not sure if I'll give up on the dream. Maybe I will, and maybe I won't. Or maybe that dream will just look different than it did before. I don't know. But as my main character says in the final lines of my novel (and I'm paraphrasing because copyright/first rights laws): "A lot of things make a person. And in some ways, nothing does. We are who we are, yesterday, today, and forever. It's simple, really. Live life and regret nothing."

[aurelliocheek]

Women in Mobile: Bosses of the Industry – Dini Mehta @ Lattice

This article is part of Liftoff’s Women in Mobile: Bosses of the Industry series, featuring in-depth interviews with inspiring women in the mobile industry.

Dini Mehta’s early passion for tech sales paved a path for her to work at several ad tech companies before landing at Lattice, including Drawbridge, Quantcast and Yume. As the CRO of Lattice, a people management platform, Dini’s passion for process, scaling and people development drives her success.

As part of our 2020 “Women in Mobile: Bosses of the Industry” series, Dini shares what it means to “manage your psychology” and the self-care habits she implements to support her mental well-being.

Tell us about your current role.

I’m currently the CRO at Lattice. We are a people management platform in the HR tech space. I’ve been here for a year and a half. I define my role as the single point of accountability on all things revenue, which can mean different things at different points in time during a company’s evolution. I directly manage seven people across various functions in the revenue org.

Walk us through your typical work day.

A typical day is usually a combination of cross functional meetings to ensure there’s alignment across departments, one-on-ones with my management team, and tons of interviewing since we’re scaling quite rapidly. When I joined a year and a half ago we had 40 staff and now we’re 150.

I’m a big believer in promoting from within. We have a lot of talented, high-performing folks moving into management, so I want to ensure I’m enabling and empowering them to become great leaders.

It’s 2020. What has your career path looked like over the past ten years?

Ha, I’ve definitely aged a hundred years in the last decade! Jokes aside, I’ve been grateful to have a lot of great opportunities.

Thinking back, I started 10 years ago on my tech journey at a search engine called Kosmix. That was my first foray into the startup world. I got to learn from a lot of talented people and I gained valuable experience from a business standpoint. Being one of the 2 business contacts at the company, I had the opportunity to work in presales, sales, business development and account management.

That exposure was key for learning, but also in helping me identify what I was most passionate about. In a span of two years I got to explore six roles. Looking back, I was fortunate to have that opportunity to test many roles and learned that I love convincing someone of the value a product can provide.

Since then my path led me to a couple of fast-growing sale orgs, first Quantcast then Drawbridge, a people-based identity management company offering a cross-device ad platform using ML. Again, I worked with great leaders and teammates. I fell in love with the process of building a robust revenue engine and seeing people develop through that process.

A lot of my passions revolve around process, scaling and people development. This is eventually what led me to Lattice a couple years ago. I was passionate about the space and the mission that the company was looking to solve. I wanted to take my learnings from the marketing and advertising spaces, and apply that to a completely new market. In some ways ten years ago feels like yesterday, and in other ways it feels like forty years ago—it’s been a really fun ride.

As a professional woman, what does it take to succeed in today’s world?

My definition of success has changed over the years. Early in my career I found myself continually chasing the next promotion. Over the years though I discovered my “why” and have tried to align my path to achieve it. To me, success is about mastering your craft and doing it in a humble way where you’re putting yourself in new situations and seeing things from a new point of view.

I recommend figuring out what you’re passionate about and then spending time honing your craft and the promotions will come. I learned what I like doing is scaling go-to-market engines from the ground up and developing people.

To be successful, I learned to be patient and find ways to manage my own psychology. I think most high-performing individuals, men and women both, are very hard on themselves. I’ve intentionally worked on getting better at managing my own psychology and coaching my teams to do the same. This is key for longevity of success, especially in a high pressure function like sales.

Managing your psychology means building a community, whether that’s people at work, friends, or family, that can ground you. When I’m having a tough day, it’s important to sync with my emotional support circle and remember to zoom out and think about the bigger picture. I’m also aware that my energy is going to become my team’s energy, so finding new outlets is key. As you move up in an org, you go from having a ton of peers that you can share with, to less—it gets lonelier. So finding your tribe or your community is very important.

Another tip is simply shutting it down at some point, whether that’s being done at 6:00 PM and not taking work home, or shutting down at 4:00 and doing a few more hours of work in the evening — building a schedule that works for you and sticking to it is key.

One other tactical thing I have done is I’ve deleted all my work apps and I started turning off notifications on my phone. I realized how tough it was for me to not check email or Slack every 30 minutes. These small steps have helped me manage my psychology better and strike a better balance between work and everything else.

What would your alternative career be if you weren’t at Lattice?

If I weren’t doing what I was doing today, I would move to Mexico and open up a bar on the beach. My husband does real estate sales in the city, so I don’t think it’s in my future. But, a girl can dream!

What’s the best career decision you ever made and why?

My guiding principle is to push myself to continue learning. Learning typically happens when you’re uncomfortable, so it’s important to embrace that.

Early in a career, figuring out what you are most passionate about is nerve-wracking. It was for me. And sometimes, you will make decisions that, while right for you, don’t always look that way from the outside. When I worked at Quantcast, for example, I was doing really well. I just got promoted into management, was managing a team in a high-performing territory, then left to join Drawbridge where I was one of the first business hires to figure out the whole go-to-market strategy.

Similarly, when I moved from Drawbridge, I was there for five and a half years and built the team up to 50 people across 6 different offices in the US. When I left Drawbridge for Lattice, I joined a much smaller sales team of eight people. From the outside, many people thought it was a bad career call.

Passion for your work is essential. When evaluating a new opportunity, I ask myself, “Am I excited about what I am going to sell? Will I enjoy working with these people on a daily basis? Will I learn and grow?” These are the key questions to ask yourself. Care less about what others have to say and use your passion as your guide.

Can you recall a mistake you made and share what you learned from it?

When you are in sales there’s immense pressure to deliver on a quarterly cadence. It’s easy to focus narrowly on the numbers without seeing much else. If you focus too much on the numbers, you may quickly find yourself micromanaging your team, which is disempowering.

I made this mistake earlier in my management experience. It was a big miss that I learned from. Now I am extremely cognizant of empowering my team, hiring great people, and doing what I can to help them succeed. I’ve learned that by focusing on my people and building scalable process, the revenue will typically follow.

Can you share some self-care habits that help you be the best version of yourself?

Managing my psychology and work-life balance go hand in hand. I tell my team that it’s more important for us to manage our energy versus managing our time. Having a healthy work-life balance helps with building a happier work environment.

Other tips I can share include: turning off mobile notifications, sleeping a full eight hours, eating on time and working out three days a week in the mornings. These are habits I think people should try and prioritize. This is how I bring out my best self.

What is a fun fact about yourself that few people know?

I’m a published author in the Journal of Neurochemistry (nerd alert!). I was a biology major in college. I thought I wanted to be a scientist and did research in a proteomics lab for two years, got published then realized it wasn’t for me. Eventually I found my passion in sales and technology.

What is the number one resource you recommend to women?

What I found most helpful for my personal growth is building my support circle or tribe. I typically try to meet two to three new professional connections every quarter. That’s my personal goal for my own growth. I look for women or revenue leaders who are two to three years ahead of where I am today so I can learn from their journey.

Learning from other women that have walked a path similar to my own is a big one for me. And I’m always happy to pay it forward — ten years ago people took time to share their experiences with me when I was trying to figure out what I wanted in life. I try to do the same.

Connect with Dini on LinkedIn

The post Women in Mobile: Bosses of the Industry – Dini Mehta @ Lattice appeared first on Liftoff.

Women in Mobile: Bosses of the Industry – Dini Mehta @ Lattice published first on https://leolarsonblog.tumblr.com/

[artificialqueens]

Convenient Denial Ch. 1 (Biadore) - Valencia

AN: FINALLY IT ME, THE BIADORE HOLIDAY FIC <3 I’m sorry it’s taken so long, it’s my first time writing fanfic so please let me know how I’m doing - I’d love to get any feedback/constructive criticism :)) The next two chapters are going to be super smutty with a sprinkling of angst/fluff and I think it’ll probably be around 4-5 chapters in total (I might write a pure fluff epilogue as well to finish it off depending on if you guys like it)

Thanks heaps for reading, love Valencia x

Blurb: Roy is convinced the only reason why he misses Danny so much is because they’re such good friends - nothing more, nothing less. Danny is supposedly well over the silly crush he used to have on Roy back in Season 6. As they go on holiday together, feelings surface that neither quite know how to deal with.

Chapter 1

The tensely corded muscles in Roy’s neck and his constant stress headaches are a blaring sign that he needs a holiday. He always a bit on edge lately, but surprisingly he’s been in a good mood the last couple of days –since Adore’s father’s day post. Danny always knows how to make him smile, and the annual father’s day post dedicated to him never fails to do so. Roy can’t quite pinpoint why, but he’s missing Danny more than usual especially after seeing his latest photos online. Not for the first time, he scrolls through Adore’s instagram feed, trying to ignore the way his eyes lingers on the more racy pics. A stupid grin refuses to leave his face as he clicks on Adore’s post to him. He reads the cute caption over twice before letting himself look at their photo. His heart tugs as he sees adorably rumpled Danny. They both look so happy, so content and comfortable in each other’s company. He misses the days during and after Season 6 when it seemed like his entire world was Adore and Courtney. Now all the time they get together is a group dinner every couple of months if they’re lucky. And barely any time with Danny.

Danny’s the one person he misses the most when he’s on the road. He knows exactly when to make him laugh, and when to stay quiet - even though he never actually does, and he’s a pro at reading him right back whenever Roy dishes it out. No one knows Roy Haylock, or Bianca Del Rio as well as Danny does, and that’s why they’re the closest of friends. He just wishes sometimes they could be like normal best friends, be able to walk over to each other’s houses whenever they feel like it and spend lazy Sundays watching trash reality shows, gossiping about their co-workers and painting their nails. He can’t remember the last time they saw each other for more than a couple days.  

Feeling unreasonably sorry for himself, he pushes all thoughts of Danny away. He’s lucky to be given this opportunity to travel the world, he firmly reminds himself, and he’s worked so hard to get to where he is now. But even Roy can tell he’s overworked and stressed, especially judging by the fact that he’s getting all soppy over something as small as missing his friend. He definitely needs a fucking holiday. The thought of a holiday has plagued his mind the last year or so but he’s never let himself commit to going. He dislikes being on a plane a second longer than needed but if he stays at home he knows he’ll end up working again, doing taxes or some other mundane task. Roy decides he has to go relax and unwind, have some drinks and maybe a massage or two - hopefully that’ll work all this tension out of his system.

He trawls the internet, researching destinations and browsing through idyllic beachfront resort photos. For some reason he doesn’t really feel that excited. After some thought he realises he can’t just sit alone in his own company for a week, he’ll be bored out of his mind. But on the other hand, he generally prefers his own company over others. Except for… No.. he can’t take Danny, can he? He mentally checks Adore’s schedule; refusing to admit to himself that it’s kinda stalkerish that he knows her entire upcoming month off by heart. He tells himself that he’s always made an effort to keep tabs on her career only because he’s incredibly proud of her success but it goes deeper than Roy likes to acknowledge - he mainly just likes to know where Danny is, especially when he’s not home. Adore isn’t touring at the moment but she’s fully booked around the States. What if he asks and Danny doesn’t think spending time together is important enough to miss his prior work commitments? Danny’s biggest pet peeve is being called lazy based on his punk drag and throws himself into his work to prove everyone wrong. Roy can’t do it, he’s so nervous even the thought of that conversation makes his stomach lurch. He knows he isn’t going to be able to face the rejection that may follow. With the idea of a holiday dismissed yet again, he pours himself a bitterly strong drink and slowly starts painting his eyes like a racoon for Bianca’s evening show.

The idea of Danny and Roy on vacation together buzzes around in Bianca’s head all night, no matter how hard she tries to concentrate on her comedy gig. Can’t help but get a little lost in the thoughts of having breakfast with Danny every single morning for seven days. Hearing Danny’s sunny laughter when he succeeds in making the younger man laugh and being able to say “See you tomorrow” and actually mean it. Bianca glugs through her drinks like a deprived alcoholic the entire show, trying and failing miserably to get Danny out of her head. Slowly everything starts to get a bit hazy, but that does little to repress the thoughts she’s been attempting to ignore. After a couple more drinks after the show has ended, with yet another stiff drink in hand, he finds himself picking out their seat selection so Danny can sit next to the window.

Roy wakes up the next morning to a pounding headache and a flight confirmation in his email inbox. His stomach slightly twists as he reads over the details.

Holiday resort package for two - Bali - one week.

Paranoia takes over, and he’s wondering how he’s going to break it to Danny - would Danny think it’s weird? Would he assume that Roy is just old and lonely, trying to buy company? Fuck. The older man doesn’t want to hear the hesitant ‘Sorry, I’ve got a lot going on right now’ from his lips, and the guilty ‘oh no, I feel so bad for wasting your tickets’ that will follow. Well. The tickets are already bought so he commands himself to suck it up, grow a pair and let Danny know. It’s his choice what he wants to do.

“I’ve got tickets. A week holiday, from this weekend.” Danny isn’t surprised at the early morning call from Roy or the lack of a greeting. “Oh my god cool! Where to?” “I won them.” He blurts out. Where the fuck did that come from? The white lie just slips out, his subconscious clearly a tad too insecure to tell him the full truth. Danny laughs, “You fucking lucky bitch. I guess once a winner always a winner.” “Guess that’s what happens when you’ve got talent.” Roy retaliates. A characteristic scream laugh from Danny’s end of the line. “Lucky for me I get to enjoy your benefits. So who’s the real winner bitch?” Roy’s laughing into the phone and Danny’s chest elates - he loves making Roy laugh.  He can’t remember the last time someone besides Roy has made him this goofily happy.

“So you wanna come?” “Fuck yeah, I’m down.” It’s only after Roy hangs up he realises with a grin that Danny has agreed to come without even knowing where they were going.

The second his call with Roy ends he’s calling his manager and cancelling the week block. There must be something in his voice, an urgency perhaps, that makes his manager silent for a few seconds on the phone rather than a straight up ‘what the fuck?!’ “You’re sure?” She asks dubiously. Danny’s never asked for time off before. “Yeah man, I really need some time, you know, to take care of myself.” She agrees to postpone whatever she can and Danny is thinking to himself that the stars have finally aligned. He gets Roy all to himself in paradise for a whole week - for free too! They’re going to have time to talk for fucking hours and do every single thing he misses doing with Roy. It’s gonna be fucking epic.

*  * *  * * *  * * * *

Roy tells Danny a later flight time so he knows the messy man won’t be packed. He drags Danny off to the airport with just a carry on each, haphazardly packed last minute. “Do you know what my deepest, darkest fantasy is?” Roy says suggestively, quirking a brow. Danny brain stutters for a split second - god yes, he wants to hear every single one of Roy’s dirty fantasies. “Wha?” He cringes at how he breathless he sounds as soon as the word is out of his mouth but thankfully Roy doesn’t seem to notice. “Travelling with just a tiny ass carry on!” Roy says with a laugh. Danny nods in full agreement, suppressing the tinge of disappointment he feels when he realises the latino man isn’t talking about anything remotely sexual. “Yeah girl, if we’re hauling their asses back on a plane we’re gonna do it without 5 motherfucking suitcases of drag.”

*  * *  * * *  * * * *

“Does our room have a balcony?” Danny asks with puppy dog eyes. Roy chuckles, and Danny nudges him with his shoulder as they’re walking from the resort lobby to the elevators. “I’m serious! I need a balcony for my morning joints.” “It’s not our room pussyfart, we have our own rooms. We’re famous remember? We can afford it.” Roy sarcastically retorts. Their rooms are side by side, almost identical with a king bed and a ridiculous number of pillows on each. Danny cheekily waits until Roy is unpacked before declaring that he prefers Roy’s balcony and that he better get used to him using it. The two look similar - actually Danny’s room seems to have the better view. Roy doesn’t argue though, he knows Danny will be out on his balcony pretty much 24/7 - and he doesn’t mind at all.

“We made it girl!” Danny flops onto the bed like a mermaid, legs tilted together before stretching out into a starfish and rolling around. “And the flight wasn’t even too bad.” Danny had thoroughly enjoyed the seemingly too short flight, mainly because he had spent most of it with Roy’s head nestled between his neck and shoulder. The show they started watching was so good too, even though half his attention was constantly fixed on how close Roy was to him. They spy the massive pool from their balcony and decide to have a dip, overly excited by the fact the pool also has a built in bar. “Wanna get a drink to celebrate?” Roy asks smiling. Danny jumps up without hesitation, “Party.”

They freshen up and make their way downstairs. Roy’s changed into a pair of khaki shorts that are tighter than usual and Danny’s eyes can’t help but trail down his toned back and linger on his round ass. Danny loves the booty, no matter what size or shape, but goddamn - the curve of Roy’s heart shaped ass is mouthwateringly gorgeous. Ugh, such a gorgeous man with such a gorgeous ass. He pushes the thought out of his head as they enter the outdoor balcony seating, he can’t think of Roy like that. He isn’t allowed to, not after the first time around. There had been a period after Season 6 where he let himself indulge in that fantasy. Mistaking every friendly and affectionate gesture as hidden romantic interest only led to the most painful heartbreak of his life – and it was worse because he never had Roy to begin with, so technically he didn’t even have a loss to mourn. But he’s over it now, and as long as he doesn’t let this thoughts stray to what could’ve been, he’ll be just fine.

They sprawl themselves on reclined lounge chairs, enjoying the luxury of ordering their food and drinks poolside. Impatient to swim, Roy wolfs down his noodles in record time and starts to lather on sunscreen. “Wait 30 minutes girl. I got mad cramps swimming after eating pizza once it was not cute.”  Roy secretly loves that Danny fusses over him a lot of the time but he rolls his eyes for dramatic effect. “No need to mother me.” “I’d rather be daddy actually.” Danny pouts his lips and winks suggestively. Roy lies back down to tan as he waits for the food in his stomach to settle and Danny moves himself closer so they can chat over the noise of the busy pool. They start discussing the drama on the tv show they’ve started on the plane, their unending stream of conversation diverging until they’re somehow giggling at each other’s childhood stories.

They’re so wrapped up in each other and it’s only when the sun is setting in glorious streaks of red and purple that they realise how late it’s become. Not wasting any more time, they jump in; Roy swimming long, powerful strokes while Danny splish splashes around like a flying fish. He keeps accidentally splashing Roy in the face, shrieking and pretending to drown when Roy retaliates. They have handstand competitions and bet drinks on who can hold their breath underwater the longest. Danny always wins despite his smoker lungs and Roy playfully accuses him of cheating, jumping on him and pulling him under. “It’s ‘cause I’m a mermaid.” He says with a theatrical hair flip. Roy shakes his head, “More like a siren. Luring trade to their tragic deaths.” Danny blinks up at him with wet eyelashes and a cheeky smile and Roy can’t stop staring at how fucking perfect his face is. He can’t stop his hammering heart either and even though he knows his heart shouldn’t be beating that fast for a friend, especially Danny, his heart gives zero fucks.

They swim until they’re the only two left in the pool and it feels like their entire bodies are pruned. Roy gets out first to get them towels and as the multicoloured poolside lights reflect off the sheen of water on his body, Danny can’t help but gawk at him. Roy’s wearing a thin loose singlet, and seeing it plastered wet on him is almost more erotic than his bare chest. The clingy see through shirt defines the lean muscles of his torso, not leaving much to the imagination yet not revealing everything. God, his thoughts turn dirty so quick it makes his head spin and Danny gets hard as his eyes trail down to where Roy’s tight shorts do nothing to conceal his bulge. He’s trying to think of repulsive and un-sexy things like centipedes and people getting run over by a bus but his efforts get lost in a sea of filthy fantasies where Roy and him share the starring role.

“Let’s go back up, the pool’s closing down. I think the cleaners are getting a bit impatient waiting on us.” Roy’s standing by the edge of the pool, ready to go. Danny shakes his head, wracking his brain for an excuse to stay in a bit longer until he can get his problem under control. His face is an open book and it slowly dawns on Roy why he’s blushing and refusing to get out. “Oh my god are you haard?” Roy teases with a chuckle, his voice involuntarily deepening. “No it’s just- it’s not because of anything- it’s just like- one of those random boners you get you know? When you’re in one position for ages and then you move suddenly-” He’s rambling nervously, looking anywhere but Roy which the older man is thankful for - or else he would’ve noticed Roy heatedly staring at the outline of his hardened cock pressing against his swimming shorts. Roy forces himself to look away. “C’mere, I’ll block you. The cleaners are coming over to tell us to go.” He holds out a towel for him as Danny sheepishly gets out, avoiding all eye contact. Roy thinks to himself that red-faced, embarrassed Danny is probably one of the cutest things he’s ever seen - and accidentally-hard Danny is definitely the sexiest.