cuddlecity | EVENT: SWIPER, NO SWIPING!

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EVENT: SWIPER, NO SWIPING!

As the blustery winds and steady snows of January give way to the cool breezes of February, the city begins to notice strange trends amongst its volunteer citizenry: an uptick of online searches for things like flower shops and cheap romantic meals, a surprising increase in chocolate purchases (though, perhaps more surprising, no increases in consumption), and a report from the local pharmacies regarding a sudden shortage in contraceptives, of all things! Consider the administration officially flummoxed — that is, until the city's favorite and only volunteer coordinators begin to investigate further.

You see, Valentine's Day isn't quite the thing in Cadelle. Here, St Valentine never led couples in matrimony under Roman rule, and so, no time-honored capitalist dream could be established. However, the date of February the 14th is still a special one in the city — it's the day that many honor as St Trifon's Day, or "Winemaker's Day". It's a day of celebrating the first pour of the prior year's winemaking, with the first bottle of each vintage reserved for drinking with one's special someone... preferably privately, where post-drink merriment may commence uninterrupted. (Scandalous.)

Not wanting to leave out any of their volunteers from the city's special day, the volunteer coordinators have arranged a collection of meeting locations, each perfect for getting to know a potential special somebody in advance of the big day. To help people get acquainted, they've partnered with that reclusive (and anonymous) mogul behind okCuddle to add a limited time special feature for the season — that's right, a matchmaker!

Simply press the bright red button on your app's home screen to be enrolled in a Match Meeting. There are five unique locations, each offering a different experience to appeal to those who might find true love or common ground in its midst, and each location will host a different couple each day to ensure everyone has an opportunity to meet their one-and-only... or maybe just their one-night-only. (We won't judge.)

▸ Any opportunity to incite a little romantic feeling would be remiss if it didn't include the time-honored date experience: a candlelit steakhouse dinner at the city's best dining experience, DeWolfe's. Whether you're hungering for a porterhouse medium rare or a more demure airline chicken breast, the wait staff here will be more than happy to attend to any needs you may have, and delighted to disappear shortly after, providing plenty of privacy for quiet conversation and those ever-important lingering glances. Feel free to extend your night with a walk through DeWolfe's famed gardens out back, or perhaps a nightcap... the only question left, then, is their place or yours?

▸ Let The Good Times Roll offers those who enjoy athleticism and coordination an evening of nostalgic fun under twinkling lights — courtesy, of course, of the disco ball hung prominently in the center of the risk, a perfect match for the classic jams that are piped out from the speakers on each wall. Strap on a pair of rental skates, and when the lights get low, be sure to hold your honey's hand tight for that all-important couple's skate. When you're done zooming around the linoleum, be sure to try a bite of the rink's famous pizza and popsicles meal, the perfect treat for summer campers and kids at heart alike! Groovy!

▸ The Vinery, while not necessarily a classic first-date location, offers a bit of non-traditional romance with its gorgeous hill country views and a seemingly endless assortment of local blends to sample. Visitors paired up for a Match Meeting here will have the opportunity to enjoy a rarely experienced grape-stomping session, during which they'll become bonafide vinters (winemakers, for the uninitiated) and the proud recipients of a complimentary bottle of the Vinery's own St Trifon's Day special blend — the perfect reason to ask for a second date, no? (And if you don't want to wait, there's always the cover of a gazebo or the fields nearby...)

▸ Animal aficionados, fear not: the expansive nature reserve at Nahtazu offers an opportunity to get up-close and personal with your favorite wild beasts — no, not the ones in your pants — and one of the reserve's most knowledgeable guides to show you the way. Of course, since it's an hour away aboard the local trains, the city has arranged a private compartment for two, where Match Meeting attendees will enjoy a catered lunch, the perfect way to fuel for a long day of hiking, climbing, and maybe even a few jungle swings. On the way back, feel free to enjoy the plush seats for a little post-adventure cuddling... or more, we won't tell!

▸ At The Worm Hole, nerds and geeks and casual gamers alike will find plenty to shoot and score on over pints of everything from sweet ciders to dark ales. There's no shortage of games here, so if your idea of a great night out involves beating your date at Super Smush Brothers — and no, that's not a typo — you'll definitely enjoy your time here. To help set the mood, a special booth has been set aside for Match Meetings in the far corner of the room: get cozy, play some Pong, and maybe make things interesting. Strip Marco Kart, anyone?

Of course, those that opted not to sign up for the city's version of eHarmony won't be left out of all the fun! In preparation for the big day, Flora and Cornelius have put together what they're affectionally calling the single mingle: a weeklong invitation to enjoy the best in everything but romantic films and features at the local theatre. Feel free to come alone or bring a pal or two, and enjoy complimentary admission and select snacks each night — just don't let them catch you getting frisky! That's what the drive in is for!

Surprise! It's a Valentine's event that's almost not about Valentine's Day! For those of you that participated in our survey, you should have received a private message from our moderator journal with information regarding your character's match assignment by now. If you did not receive one, please let us know!

Because this event runs a little differently than many of our other events, we've opted to tweak our process a little as well. For your character's date, please locate your appropriate date and location in our BLIND DATE THREAD HERE. If it's still empty, your character has beaten their date to the punch (and maybe the free food, too). If there's already a reply, greet your date! (Pretty simple, right?) For all other threads, including pre/post date experiences, feel free to post traditional open top levels as usual!

For example: Flora may have a blind date with Cornelius on Monday at DeWolfe's, so she'll comment to the Monday thread's DeWolfe comment with her starter. This will make it easy for Cornelius to find her thread and reply. However, Flora may also be lingering outside beforehand looking nervous, or shopping in the mall the day before and looking for help in finding an outfit — these prompts can be posted as traditional open top-levels!

If you have any further questions specific to this event, we encourage you to ask away on our QUESTIONS COMMENT here in this post. If you have general questions, or prefer a more private venue, our GENERAL INBOX (and SCREENED INBOX) is always available for you. In addition, if you've got an idea for a future event, feel free to drop us a line at our EVENTS SUGGESTION POST.

Peace out, cuddle scouts!

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[Izzy grins, mission accomplished, and without having to scar Kimberly for life in some way.]

Good choice. [Always better to buy these things handled as little as possible, as far as she was concerned.]

You're welcome. I haven't been in here before, I'm going to look around a little longer, I think. [She'd noticed a hallway that seemed particularly promising, and glances back that way.]

Is it weird to say, 'Let me know how it goes?' [Her grin might be teasing, but she's Invested now.]

"We've got a good forest. It's good for hiking and camping out and it's far enough away from the city that you can see all the stars."

"That sounds nice. Usually too cold to do that in Colorado." Waverly tells him. "The snow can be real pretty though."

"Absolutely. Take some time to settle in and once you have, I will be more than happy to meet you for coffee or tea."

Diana flashes her a quick smile. "You can tell me how the new job is going, yes?"

[German chocolate? Too soon, Diana.]

Whichever one's your favorite.

[As much as he likes the chance to talk about Diana, you lost him, Tony. He doesn't know why that's relevant.]

What difference does that make?

The swiss are the true masters of the art, I think. They've taken the best of the German and French techniques and blended them seamlessly.

( Diana has thought an awful lot about this answer over the years and she's just glad she can discuss something so frivolous as chocolate with Steve again. )

With a smile, Caitlin nods. "Absolutely, and you can tell me how the process for finding an excuse to have a gala is going," she teases playfully.

She's been here for a while now, even before running into Diana and making a new friend out of the experience. "I should probably get going, but I will text you. Definitely," she promises with a smile.

Let's start with that one then.

[He has so many things to experience still, it seems, and he'd rather experience them with Diana than with anyone else. Seeing the world through her eyes is a way to find out more about her, which is all he ever wanted.]

"Do you think so because you want to be redeemed, yourself?"

It feels like a fair question, and he doesn't say it unkindly, just curious. When she was talking about herself, it was all about her accomplishments, while his side turned quickly for the more personal, the stuff that hurts, still, right now. If he's going to share, he'd like her to share, too.

"I'm trying to make up for it. It's why I'm here at all, really," he adds, looking down at his plate. It wasn't about the casual sex and the dating. It was all about making amends, for himself and the people he'd hurt, the people he'd left in his wake. People like Debbie and Joe, who deserved better than to be associated with someone like him, who just kept on bringing them grief. He had to make it worth it, for them.

"It's just a work in progress."

( There's a swiss chocolate ice cream and Diana goes up and gets two of the tiny sample cups, lifting her miniscule spoon in a toast toward Steve. )

To fine chocolate?

For a moment, Lydia doesn't answer, but her chin lifts in a non-commital half-nod. It's not fair for her not to answer that question when he's been so open with less savory information about himself than he probably would've liked on a first date. "Probably, yes," she agrees after a moment, pressing her lips together. "I wasn't good enough or fast enough...and I was weak, and because of me, my best friend was killed. So yeah," she says quietly, calmly, because if he's going to be honest and open then so is she. "I'd like to think that I won't have to suffer the guilt of that for the rest of my life, especially because I know she wouldn't want me to."

It's why she's volunteering giving the self-defense class as the women's center. Allison would've done that and now that Lydia knows how, she's doing it. Beyond that, on a bigger scope, it's why she's here. Her wish is for Beacon Hills to be a safe place again. Maybe it never had been, but no one told her that she needed to change her wish, so Lydia is inclined to think that they're willing to grant it if she's here long enough doing what she needs to do long enough.

...it's also why she's signed herself up for this match thing, even though if you ask Lydia, she doesn't need any help getting laid. Maybe this way, because she's participating in a community thing on top of connecting with another person and, if she's especially lucky, also getting laid instead of just going off and doing it on her own, she'll get brownie points, so to speak.

"Me too," she says with a small smile that falls short of her eyes when Baby looks down. "That's why I'm here, too, I mean. So at least you're in good company with the works in progress, huh?"

To fine chocolate. And beautiful women. [Because, well. Present company and all.]

Baby lets the surprise of Lydia's revelation sink down through his head, down his spine, through every cell in his body as he takes it in. It's not what he expected, nor something he's entirely sure he believes - guilt can do quite a number on people, and Baby has no idea if this is Lydia punishing herself, or if she actually is responsible. But he knows the feeling - not that he regrets the worst thing he's done, but the people that were affected by it, indirectly. That he regrets.

He never wanted Darling to get hurt, or Buddy. Or Doc. It was all about Bats, and how he had been the one threatening Debbie, and Joe. How it was Bats, or Baby. Everything else... everyone else that got caught in the whirlwind of Baby's choice, he regretted. He'd never meant for it to go down that way.

"I'm not sure how much of that is true, and how much of it is you, blaming yourself. But I've come to realize, being here, that you might not ever forgive yourself, but you might come to accept what happened. I think that's what I'm trying to do, now. Because I know I'll never fully forgive myself for what I've done."

"It's probably a healthy mixture of both," Lydia confesses, wetting her lips and looking down again, shrugging a little. Allison wouldn't have been out there at all if Lydia hadn't managed to get herself kidnapped by the nogitsune. She wouldn't have been out there fighting to begin with if she weren't trying to save Lydia. But Lydia doesn't blame herself for that as much as she blames herself for not being able to communicate more clearly to Allison why she needed to stay away. She would've died to save her best friend...but Allison beat her to the punch.

"You're probably right, though. If I can leave her with acceptance, I'll take it." A soft sigh escapes her. "Well this got dark real fast, didn't it? Sorry about that. That definitely wasn't my intention," Lydia apologizes with sincerity.

From the way things are going, Lydia would have to guess that this is not going well. It's probably the worst attempt at a date she's ever been on, if the aim is specifically to either go home with him or take him home with her. If she wants to look at it in the way she'd tried to talk Spencer into looking at it — as an opportunity to get to know someone new and maybe make a friend — maybe she's making decent progress.

She's about to ask if he wants to just get out of here when their food arrives. Lydia takes that as a sign to change the subject and see if there's any salvaging this thing. "What else do you like, besides music, I mean?"

"Snow is pretty to watch and great for closing school. Though our school rarely closes. We had a power outage in the entire town and they still opened our school."

"How did you guys even do anything?" Waverly asked. "Candles?"

Honestly, Baby is more than happy to switch topics. It's too personal, too fast, asking for him to think back on too many things he hasn't yet dealt with entirely. So when Lydia switches to something else, Baby jumps on it, shedding the previous topic, sitting more comfortably as he eats some pizza.

"Driving. Which might be obvious, I guess, but I really do love it, it's not just a job."

Baby looks up from his plate; talking's never been his forte - words don't come to him easily, which is why he often relies on other people's words to make himself understood. But since arriving in Cadelle, he's been making an effort, trying his best to talk more. It was easier with some than with others, of course, but he was getting there. Coming out of his shell. Because people, here, didn't want to use him.

At least, he had to hope.

"I like... movement," he says, slowly, like he's reluctant to say it, because it doesn't make sense to many people. "Music, driving, dancing, the seasons."

He looks down, something sheepish about his expression.

As she chews another bite, Lydia shakes her head with a facial shrug pulling down the corners of her mouth. When she swallows, she responds, "not necessarily obvious. If you felt like you had to do it, you could've just been doing it for survival and not because you liked it, but that's cool. At least maybe that made it a little easier," she suggests hopefully. Maybe he didn't like his old life, but if he likes driving and that was a huge part of it, at least maybe not everything was awful. It's what makes her life better, loving the people in her pack; loving her mom. The pack and her mother make it so that not everything is awful. Maybe driving does that — did that — for Baby.

She smiles a little as she lifts her pizza, but pauses before taking a bite. Lydia's eyebrows lift slightly. "I like that," she says, because she does. She likes the way he positioned that: movement. "You don't like things to stagnate, I can get behind that. I'm the same way. It's not just movement, it's also change. That's important, otherwise things can get boring or, worse, lonely."

That's another little share about herself, but she doesn't come out and say so in so many words. It's nice to be surrounded by the pack, but right after Allison died, Lydia thinks that maybe she did too good a job acting like she was "just fine" because she felt like she was alone in a crowded room most of the time when she'd been with them. No one had seemed to notice that she had fallen completely apart right in front of them. And that feeling hung on her heavily for what felt like forever, never getting better or worse, just stagnating, and she knew the feeling of loneliness settling in because things didn't change.

...but then the Dread Doctors came, bringing horrible change, but change all the same, and it had helped Lydia to move forward. Not in the way she would've chosen, but she reconnected with the rest of the pack in a way they probably hadn't noticed she'd needed to. So she gets that, too, in her own way.

"I love the change of the seasons the most, especially winter into spring. It kind of, like...breathes new life into everything. It always feels like you get to start over. ...I'm not sure why I feel that way, but it's nice. You know? Plus, driving...I do that to clear my head sometimes. Just drive until I nearly run out of gas..." She used to do that with Allison, too, music blaring, dancing and singing along in their seats. Lydia's claimed that back as her own after Allison's death, because it had been before she'd met the other girl, but she does sometimes miss having her best friend there to partake in the fun with her. "We should road trip sometime. Just for fun. Not really go anywhere in particular, just...drive all day, stay the night somewhere, then turn around and come back. I used to do that with Allison," she says with a fond smile.

"Sunlight mostly. Most of our classrooms had a wall of windows. At least it was a sunny day, right?"

"Yeah, change is a part of it. I think for a long time, I was stuck in the same patterns, a rhythm that got comfortable," as wrong as that rhythm was. It was leading to something, to Baby being free of his debt and the criminal life he'd been forced to lead. He remembers, when it all first started, he'd wanted it. For a short amount of time, he'd been so angry that crime felt like the right thing to do.

It hadn't lasted, of course. "I was still moving, but it was like I was going around in circles. It's better now. It feels more worthwhile."

Now, he drives because he loves it. Because he loves the feel of a car around him, loves the control and the power and the ease, loves kicking an engine up a gear and feel it roar. He loves the speed and how he can do incredible things with it. For plenty of people, it might be shallow, but to Baby, it's like a metaphor to his life. Everything had been going by so fast, for years, he'd barely been able to hold it together. But now, he's the one in control. And for someone who hasn't had control over his own life for years, it's important.

"Do you want to talk about Allison?"

"That's good." Waverly agrees. "At least it wasn't during winter or something."

A hum of understanding passes Lydia's lips as she chews another bite. She knows that feeling; that of going in circles. It doesn't feel like forward motion, so it doesn't necessarily feel like motion at all. Lydia's been there, too. What she doesn't expect is for him to turn the conversation so abruptly and the question feels like a sucker punch to the gut.

Lydia realizes suddenly that...nobody has ever asked her that question. Not her mother, not her friends...not even Allison's father. Nobody has ever asked Lydia if she wants to talk about it. So, she might look a little bit confused and taken aback as all of that registers and she swallows her mouthful of food only to pause for what feels like forever.

Wetting her lips, she clears her throat. She'd shared a little bit with Spencer, but he hadn't asked. She'd just shared.

"Nobody's ever asked me that before," she confesses, her lips pursing together in thought. "...she died to save my life. She died because I couldn't defend myself. Or maybe because I wasn't convincing enough warning her to stay away; I don't know. I don't know if I'm ever going to forgive myself for that, but I'd really like to. Someday. You know?"

This is literally the most depressing date of all time. Lydia's pretty sure they're breaking records right now, but maybe she'll at least get a friend out of it.

It's not the most flirty date ever, for sure, but at least, the conversation is interesting. It's not empty, 'where are you from's' and 'what do your parents do'. It's a real conversation, and Baby is invested, now, feels like there are stakes and that this is important. Not only for him, but also for Lydia, because it's obvious she has a lot she wants to let out.

"I don't know the story, and I'm not going to assume I do. But Allison, she made her own choices, right?"

What he's trying to say is that it's not on Lydia, if she made the decision to go, even having been warned. It's just... some people's ways. Heroes.

A wry smile crosses Lydia's lips, even though it falls away from her eyes as they flicker to the tabletop, and she nods, a soft huff of amusement escaping her. "Oh God, you couldn't tell Allison anything," she says with a sad sort of fondness, her eyes shifting up to meet Baby's a moment later. "She was probably the most stubborn and headstrong person I knew. But if I'd been better, I could've been fighting beside her instead of needing saved," she says, shrugging.

It's too late now. Would've, could've, should've never got anyone anywhere and Lydia knows that much. That doesn't make it any less frustrating a pill to have to swallow, though, after the fact.

"I get what you're saying, though, and I appreciate that sentiment. It's one I've been trying to sell to myself ever since it happened. I take a lot of responsibility for it, though, because I didn't just know she died, I—"

Lydia stops abruptly, frowning slightly and clearing her throat. It felt good to tell Spencer what she really was. This date is not ending in sex, she can kind of already tell, so she might as well see if it also feels good to be that honest and open with Baby. He's listening, after all, isn't he? She can see that he's engaged in the conversation.

"I literally felt it. I knew she was going to die. You know how I said I have tinnitus? It's voices in my head. I'm a banshee; I predict death. The voices are a low buzz all the time, but when someone's going to die, they get louder and I can hear what they're actually saying. So I knew and I couldn't stop it. There was nothing I could do because I couldn't fight back then. It's just a lot to carry, sometimes," she says. Then, she wrinkles her nose. "And now that I've probably sufficiently freaked you out..." she adds loftily, looking apologetic as her voice trails off.

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EVENT: SWIPER, NO SWIPING!

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