#//Adrian might be talented but he is a mental mess | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mikauzoran · 4 years ago

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Marichat/Adrienette: The Rejects Club: Chapter Twenty-Five

The Rejects Club: Chapter Twenty-Five: Look

“You’ve hit snooze twice already,” Plagg reports judgmentally, scooping the phone up and moving it over to the desk so that Adrien has no choice but to get out of bed to turn the alarm off.

“But I’m so tired,” Adrien groans, hoping his kwami will miraculously have a dramatic personality shift and take pity on him.

No such luck.

Plagg snorts. “Whose fault is that?”

“Mine?” Adrien guesses with a sigh, kicking off the covers and going to stop the alarm.

Plagg openly guffaws at this. “You are a mess of insecurities, unmet needs, and hormones. You could be considered legally insane and, therefore, are responsible for nothing. I was talking about that girlfriend of yours. She’s got you so wound up that—”

“—Plagg?” Adrien calls in such a hesitant, small voice that Plagg stops his ribbing to look at his charge and listen.

“Kid?”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Adrien softly informs.

The mournful look in his peridot eyes says it all: She’s not his girlfriend, but he wants her to be. He’s afraid she might never be. He’s afraid of her accepting Chat but not Adrien. He’s afraid of ruining everything. He’s scared of letting himself hope only to be crushed again. He’s terrified that if this falls through he’s never going to find someone else…he’s never going to be able to love again, even if he does find someone else.

Plagg inhales slowly and takes just as long to breathe out. “So what are you going to do about it? You had a plan, didn’t you?” He nods over to where Émilie’s leather jacket and Adrien’s clothes are lying out for the day, golden bell on a leather choker sitting on top.

Adrien closes his eyes, takes several deep breaths, and nods. “This is stupid and reckless, and Marinette is probably the only one who won’t figure out my secret identity. Ladybug is going to kill me.”

Nathalie takes one look at him and sighs deeply. “Worse than I had anticipated.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he pouts.

“Well, no one recognized you when you dressed up as Chat Noir for that music video a few years ago, so maybe…” she mutters without answering his question.

“Do I look weird?” he begins to worry and considers chickening out.

“You look like Chat Noir,” Nathalie corrects, fiddling with her glasses.

He purses his lips. “…If it’s that bad, tell me to go change.”

She shakes her head and relents. “It’s not bad. It’s…I believe the correct classification is ‘sexy’. You project a ‘bad boy’ image.” He can hear the finger quotes in her voice despite her not physically using them. “You look good, Adrien; you just don’t look much like…‘you’.”

“Me me, or Adrien Agreste, face of Gabriel?” he wonders.

She turns away without responding. “You’re going to be late. If your father asks, I did not see you before you left. I have no knowledge of this.” She makes her way to the ground floor office. “Have a nice day, and good luck with Miss Dupain-Cheng.”

Adrien sighs and calls after her. “Thank you, Nathalie!”

Victor takes one look at him and shakes his head as he opens the back door of the car.

Adrien smiles innocently, opening the front passenger side door for himself and sliding in with a snicker of, “Shotgun!”

Vitya rolls his eyes, shuts the door, and goes around to get in the driver’s seat. He releases the parking break and then pauses, turning to look at Adrien again.

“Problem?” Adrien asks in Russian.

Victor sighs heavily. “Adrianushka, it is not my place, and I hate to say it, but—this—is obvious.”

Adrien blinks, thinking for a second that he has not heard right or mistranslated a word somewhere. “…‘This’?”

Vitya rolls his eyes once more and indicates Adrien’s outfit with a wave.

Adrien’s eyes widen. “Geez. Does everybody know?”

Victor grunts.

Adrien hangs his head. “I thought I was being careful. I thought I was being stealthy.”

Victor purses his lips, giving his charge a look of sympathy. “Adrianka, I’ve been your guard for how long now? I drive you for how many years, and you think I don’t notice you sneaking off during every single akuma attack and then slinking back with some hairbrained excuse that doesn’t hold water? You think I’m dumb enough to believe you?”

Adrien wilts.

Victor came to them a year or two after Nathalie. This man has known him since he was little, stood guard by his door for years, never been too far out of sight. Of course Vitya knows.

“Sorry,” Adrien mumbles. “No. Of course you figured it out.” He looks up with a pained expression on his face. “Do you think anyone else knows?”

Victor shrugs. “Natalka, obviously. She hasn’t said anything, but…”

“Yeah,” Adrien confirms. “Nathalie knows…. Do you think my father has any idea?”

Vitya lets out a boisterous roar of laughter. “Ha! Your father! Adriashenka, if your father knew, he would take your-your—what is it? Ring? He’d take your ring and lock you up for your own safety. Your father hasn’t an inkling.”

Adrien nods, looking miserable.

“There are times when I want to take your ring and lock you up myself, and I’m sure that Natalka feels the same way. She was a wreck on Thursday. Adrian Gavrillovich Agreste, if you’re not more careful in the future, you’re going to drive that woman to drink. Child, the whole house would be a—” It’s a word Adrien doesn’t know, but Victor’s tone makes it sound something like ‘dumpster fire’. “—if we lost you. Don’t you know this?”

Adrien curls even further up into himself and answers in a barely-there voice, “Sorry, Vitya.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Victor coaxes, giving Adrien’s arm an encouraging nudge. “Just don’t get yourself killed. Simple as that.”

This makes Adrien laugh, half genuine humor, half ruefulness. He gives Victor a watery smile. “It’s not so simple when it’s your job to keep Paris’s savior safe so that she can do her job.”

Victor gives a dismissive wave. “What are you—” An idiomatic expression that Adrien is not familiar with. From the tone, he fills in “chopped liver?” “—As if she saves Paris all by herself,” Victor scoffs. “Figure something out next time, Adrianka. Keep her safe without jumping in front of the car yourself. Your first instinct is always to act as a human shield. Kindly, cut it the—” Adrien knows that word, and it is a testament to how upset the ordeal has made Victor that he is using such strong language in front of Adrien. “—out, will you? Okay? Okay. We should be driving now. I’m making you late.”

They pull out of the drive and onto the street, making a few turns before ending up on the Quai Branly, taking the scenic route along the Seine on the Left Bank.

“So,” Vitya pipes up some minutes later. “Why are you being obvious today? I thought the superhero thing was a secret. Why are you trying to out yourself to all of Paris?”

“I’m only trying to out myself to one person in particular,” Adrien explains sheepishly, “…even though all of Paris might figure it out as a result. I’m being super reckless.”

“I’ll say,” Victor snorts. “And who is this special person you’re taking such a risk for?”

Adrien feels his cheeks heating up, but he doesn’t bother trying to hide it. Vitya would never make fun of him, so there’s no need to be embarrassed. “There’s…this girl.” Adrien bites his lip, casting Victor a sidelong glance. “Can I do this in French?”

Victor grunts. “English would be better for me, if you have to, but try it in Russian. If you don’t know the words, I’ll help you.”

Adrien nods, taking a deep breath. “There’s this girl.”

“Not Ladybug?” Vitya hums.

“Not Ladybug, but she might as well be for how-how—how do I say she’s so much better than I am?” Adrien fishes.

“She’s not,” Vitya snorts, “but the expression is ‘she is out of my league’.”

“Vitya, she is so out of my league. She’s gorgeous and talented and passionate and kind to people who don’t even deserve it, and she listens to me when I talk, and she doesn’t make me feel like an idiot, even though I most definitely am an idiot. She’s so… She’s amazing, Vitya. She’s so amazing, and I’m…” He shakes his head, knowing that he’s not doing Marinette justice.

“And you’re not amazing?” Victor shoots him a quick, disbelieving look before focusing back on the street as he makes the turn, crossing over to the Right Bank and heading east.

“I’m rich, and I’m pretty,” Adrien remarks dryly. “I’m not amazing.”

Vitya shakes his head. “The boy is blind. Never mind, Adrianka. Tell me about the girl.”

“I’ve been spending time with her as Chat Noir,” he continues.

Victor nods knowingly. “This is the girl who is Princess. I saw in the papers.”

“And we’re kind of thinking…maybe we like each other.” Adrien bites his lip before switching to English, making sure to enunciate. “Vitya, it’s complicated. She just got her heart broken by some jerk, and I’m trying to get over my feelings for Ladybug. Neither of us is ready to date yet, so I can’t let myself fall in love with her, but I do have a huge crush on her, and she’s taking the next month or two to decide if she wants to date me.”

Victor nods along, following Adrien’s predicament.

Adrien switches back to Russian. “She likes Chat Noir, but she’s unsure about Adrien. I want her to choose all of me, so I’m trying to show her pieces of Chat in Adrien and pieces of Adrien in Chat.”

“So you’re exposing your identity to the whole school,” Victor snickers. “Good plan. Agreste men really do do some pretty stupid things for the women they love. I think I owe Natalka five euros.”

Adrien wonders what exactly Gabriel has done to merit this comment alongside Adrien because Adrien knows exactly how stupid this is.

“Maybe people will just think I’m dressed up as Chat Noir. Maybe they won’t immediately think that I am Chat Noir,” Adrien suggests, mentally crossing his fingers.

Victor considers for a moment and then shrugs. “You did get away from that music video—” Adrien is going to have to make a study of idiomatic expressions. He’s guessing this one means something like “scot-free”. “—Maybe you’ll be so lucky this time.”

Victor sneaks another quick glance at Adrien. “Who exactly are you doing this for?”

Adrien sighs, reaching up to run a hand through his hair before he remembers the disgusting amount of gel currently in it. He drops his arm by his side and mumbles, “You know my classmate Marinette Dupain-Cheng?”

Victor’s eyes go wide. He makes an exclamation that Adrien decides to translate as “Get out!” “Little Masha from the bakery?”

Adrien blinks. “Masha?”

“It’s the diminutive of ‘Marie’,” Victor explains. “She brings me coffee and a croissant when I’m sitting out front of the school in the mornings. She’s usually running late, but if she sees me waiting out front, she never fails to bring out a cup of coffee and a croissant.”

“See how amazing she is?” Adrien sighs. “That’s the kind of stuff that she does. All the time!”

“She’s a good girl,” Vitya agrees. “And you’re going to—” Adrien remembers only that it’s a cooking term, but he can’t match the verb to its French counterpart. “—her brain when she sees you dressed like Chat Noir.”

Adrien blinks. “You think? Do you think she’ll be able to tell that I really am Chat Noir?”

Victor purses his lips. “You mean once someone reboots her? No. The girl is clueless.”

It’s true, but…

Adrien sighs.

Nino takes one look at him, and—after the DJ has secured his eyeballs back into their sockets—rolls said eyes at Adrien. “Mec. My Dude. What. Are. You. Doing?!”

“Chat Noir cosplay?” Adrien smiles sheepishly.

Nino groans. “Mec, I know you’re just discovering an awesome girl with a thing for a certain superhero, but dressing like that superhero to get her to notice you… You’re gonna break her.”

“Nino, I don’t expect you to understand, but the situation is desperate, otherwise, I wouldn’t be doing something drastic like this,” Adrien sighs, reaching up for another aborted attempt to card a hand through his hair until he remembers the mess of gel. “I wish I could explain myself, but…” He gives his best friend a doe-eyed look of regret.

Nino takes off his hat to swipe at his brow with the back of his hand. He shakes his head and groans again. “You don’t have to explain yourself, Mec. I get it. Girls make guys do ridiculous things. I’m in love myself; I know this firsthand.”

A slow blush creeps over Adrien’s face at the comment. He doesn’t respond, even though his mind is chanting, “I’m not in love. I’m not in love. I canNOT be in love.”

On second thought, some verbal denial is deemed necessary. “Nino, I’m not in love with Marinette. This is just a little crush.”

Nino really looks at Adrien, smiles affectionately, and then shakes his head. “Oooh, Mec. Last week you told me you had never thought about her romantically in your life.”

“That was true!” Adrien rushes to defend himself. “I hadn’t until you brought it up—and while we’re on the topic, why didn’t you bring this up three years ago before Chat Noir got his paws on her?”

Nino shrugs. “Ask Alya. This wasn’t my idea, remember?—And then you were telling me your feelings for Marinette weren’t like that.”

“I was in denial,” Adrien rebuts. “I hadn’t realized that how I was feeling had shifted.”

“Now you admit you have a crush, but you’re digging your heels in concerning the intensity of your feelings,” Nino continues with a weary sigh, exhausted by the constant drama.

“Nino, I’m not in love,” Adrien stubbornly insists. “I can’t be.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t risk giving my heart away to be trampled on again,” Adrien stresses, making Nino wonder who’s been trampling on Adrien’s heart. Certainly not Ladybug. “I can’t let myself fall in love until I’m sure I’m not just courting misery and heartache here.”

Nino helpfully does not mention that Adrien is already experiencing misery and heartache over Marinette. “As your friend, I need you to stay the hell away from this girl. She likes someone else—not just anyone, but a superhero and a personal friend of yours—and she’s already had you seriously messed up the past week. If you pursue this, it’s only gonna get worse. This is a bad idea, Mec. She’s practically taken, and you’re only going to get yourself hurt—maybe physically, if you step on Chat Noir’s toes a time too many. He seems fond of you, but he also seems like the jealous type, and I can tell you from personally seeing them together yesterday that he is off the deep end in love with her. This isn’t going to be pretty, Adrien.”

Adrien shakes his head. “Nino, I don’t expect you to understand, but—”

“—Mec, I do understand,” Nino cuts him off gently, clapping a hand on Adrien’s shoulder. “That’s why, against my better judgment, I’m giving up and letting you do” He waves obliquely to Adrien’s outfit. “this. I’m going to shut up and support you. If you want to take on Chat Noir, I’ll be at your side. We can go get ice cream together or something after he wipes the floor with you.”

Adrien frowns. “Thank you? I appreciate your vote of confidence in me?”

“I’m being realistic,” Nino sighs, wishing he could go back and change things for Adrien. “I’m not trying to be harsh with you, Mec, but it would be cruel to encourage you and get your hopes up. The reality is that she loves him but cries ninety percent of the time she sees you. We’re fighting a losing battle, mon pote, and I’m prepared to fail and have to clean you up off of the floor afterwards. I’ll stand by you, Adrien, but I’m not going to lie to you to make you feel better in the short term.”

Adrien’s frown melts partially into confusion. “I’m not sure if you suck or if you’re the best.”

“I am Schrödinger’s turtle: simultaneously sucking and being the best,” Nino snorts, throwing an arm around Adrien’s shoulders. “Come on. We walk, Cat-Boy-Wannabe.”

“Why a turtle?”

“Reasons,” Nino snickers.

“…You suck,” Adrien decides.

“Only for you.” Nino winks, guiding Adrien through the quad towards the locker rooms.

Adrien rolls his eyes. “What if Chat Noir asked? I know you’re a total fanboy, Nino. Don’t pretend we’re exclusive.”

“I think Marinette is—” The innuendo concerning Marinette taking care of Chat Noir dies in Nino’s throat. He attempts to clear it.

Adrien tries really, really, really hard not to remember Marinette kneeling in front of him last night, pillowing her arms on his knees and looking up at him so sweetly, running her hands down his thighs and calling him by name.

He takes a deep breath and sighs at the futility of his situation.

“Sorry,” Nino mumbles for entirely the wrong reason. “We’ll get her to see you.” And yet somehow manages to pick the right words of comfort. “She’ll see how awesome Adrien Agreste can be, and, at the very least, you two can repair your relationship and be close friends. You’ve wanted that for a while, right?”

Adrien nods despite himself. Two weeks ago, the prospect of being honest-to-goodness friends with Marinette would have had him giddy. Now, if that’s all he gets… His stomach turns sour.

“Please let her see me…. Please let her like what she sees.”

As they pass through the quad, Adrien notes that he gets more stares and head-turns than usual. He keeps his easy model smile in place, but his voice is anxious when he whispers to Nino, “You don’t think anyone’s going to confuse me for the real Chat Noir, do you? I didn’t think of that.”

Nino shakes his head. “Nah. I mean the resemblance is striking—you had me seeing double for a minute there when you stepped out of the car—but you’re obviously not him.”

“How so?” Adrien feels slightly annoyed despite the fact that the security of his identity is astronomically important.

“Well,” Nino drops his arm from Adrien’s shoulders and takes a step back to better evaluate. “You two have the same body type, and the other physical features are similar, if not exact, but your hair is definitely not Chat Noir hair. His is naturally wild, and you can tell he rolls out of bed that way. Your hair looks like you had to coerce it to do that, and it still didn’t do exactly what you asked of it.”

Adrien sighs, giving up and conceding the point. “You have no idea how much gel I had to use to get it to do this. I would need literal magic to replicate Chat’s hair.”

“No shame in that, Mec. We can’t all have hair that fabulous,” Nino chuckles.

“What else about me is obviously not Chat Noir?” Adrien prompts.

“Well…” Nino bites his lip. “Sorry, but you’re too short.”

“Short?” Adrien is pretty sure he is exactly the right height to be Chat Noir.

“Yeah, I mean…Chat is about six foot. I’m six-one, and he’s just a hint shorter than me. You…” Nino grimaces. “Let’s just say it’s a good thing you got in on the model thing on the ground floor because you just don’t have the height for it.”

Adrien blinks stupidly, feeling insulted. He’s not THAT short.

“What are you? Like, five-eight?”

“Five-ten,” (in shoes) Adrien spits, drawing himself up a little straighter.

Nino shrugs helplessly. “It’s not your fault you dodged all the tall genes in your family. Maybe you’ll still have a growth spurt. I mean, Gabe is what? Six-four? And Nathalie is at least six feet, right? Both your parents are tall, so there’s still hope.”

Adrien stares for a moment and then breaks into a titter.

“What?” Nino gives him a funny look.

Adrien shakes his head. “Yeah. My mom is pretty tall, isn’t she?”

“And it’s not like she wears heels, really. You’d think with genes like that you’d be set.” Nino shrugs in a “What are ya gonna do?” manner.

“Unfortunately, my biological mother was only five-nine, so I don’t think my mom’s six-foot status is going to do much to help,” Adrien laughs heartily, more amused than he probably should be.

Nino smacks himself in the forehead. “Dude. Sorry. I don’t know where my head was at. I, like, know—”

“—Don’t apologize,” Adrien quickly cuts him off. “I’m actually really happy. I think of her as my mom, and if other people do too, I can probably get away with saying the ‘m’ word. It’s been a long time since I could talk about mothers in the present tense.”

Sensing Nino’s unease, Adrien grins and throws his arm around Nino’s shoulders. “So. What else makes me definitely not Chat Noir?” he inquires as they resume their walk to the locker room.

“—but they couldn’t hide the existence of a twin brother for seventeen years, could they? That’s just stupid,” Marinette groans, trying not to tear her hair out. She’s got it up in a cute chignon that she wants Chat to see, so it has to stay cute at least until she gets to the locker room where he’s probably lying in wait, lurking in the shadows…or, more likely, just plain going about his business with her completely oblivious to his existence.

Ugh.

“It does sound a little bit like the plot of an anime,” Alya confesses, nose buried in her phone. “I think we would know if Adrien and your Mystery Boy Chat were switching in and out.”

“Then again,” Marinette hums, fiddling with the black and white lace bracelet around her right wrist. “Stranger things have happened. I am living in the middle of a magical girl anime, after all.”

“Yeah, and you’re a reoccurring background character. How does that feel?” Alya hums, nearly walking into the doorframe.

For once, Marinette has to be the one to pull Alya out of the way before she runs into something. The irony is not lost on Marinette. “Alya, what are you even reading? You haven’t looked at me once this morning, you’re so absorbed in your screen.”

Alya blinks and looks up, rubs her eyes, and stares. “Wooow. Really looking to knock the boxers off someone, aren’t we?”

“Al-ya!” Marinette squeaks, swatting halfheartedly at her best friend.

Marinette is wearing an off-the-shoulder black top exposing plenty of collarbone paired with black and white patterned palazzo pants that look like a maxi skirt and billow as she walks. Adorning her neck and wrist and accenting her updo are the black and white choker, bracelet, and hair clip that she made last night out of Chat’s gift.

“I just wanted to look cute. Chat sent me some lace scraps leftover from some of his father’s old designs for our one-week anniversary last night, so…” Marinette shrugs again, and Alya stops walking.

“Let’s pause and unpack that sentence,” Alya proposes. “I would like to focus on what you mean by lace leftover from Chat’s father’s designs and the one-week anniversary aspects in particular.”

Marinette waves Alya away. “His father’s company is apparently a fashion house. He’s a fashion designer. Chat models for his father’s brand.”

Alya’s eyes narrow. “I hate to keep bringing it up, but…are we sure that Adrien and Chat are two unique individuals?”

“Not you too,” Marinette groans, half crumpling to the ground before straightening up to point a no-nonsense finger in Alya’s face. “No. Banish the thought from your mind. They’ve been screwing with me about this since-since…Friday? Anyway, I don’t need you helping them with their scheme to drive me insane.”

“Adrien and Chat are teaming up to drive you insane,” Alya repeats flatly, obviously doubting Marinette’s sanity already.

“Yes! This is where the twins theory comes from. I think Adrien’s the younger twin, despite seeming more mature and refined.”

“Uh-huh.” Alya starts to go back to her phone. “One-week anniversary?” she reminds. “Do people do that?”

“Chat and I do,” Marinette retorts as if Alya is the strange one.

“Girl, he’s already got you on the hook and wriggling. I’m gonna need his phone number and email. I’m totally serious.”

Marinette snatches Alya’s phone. “What are you even—” She freezes at what she sees.

“Webcomic,” Alya explains, making a grab for her phone.

Marinette dodges rather agilely, scrolling down and down, mesmerized by the drawings, the dialogue.

“The artist, APlaggOnBothYourHouses, is doing a Princess Noir comic, and it’s really good.”

Chat and Princess are sitting on a roof having the picnic Chat Noir prepared for Ladybug before Glaciator, watching the Eiffel Tower light show. Chat’s arm is around her, their faces a mere handspan apart, and Princess is obviously totally into him. Chat is likewise drunk on Princess’s existence.

“His art is amazing, and the story is actually pretty interesting too. Plagg postulates that Princess doesn’t know Chat Noir’s identity, and one of the main plot points is Chat Noir as a civilian trying to get Princess as a civilian to notice him and love both sides of him. They just keep completely missing one another, though.”

In the comic, Princess is asking Chat to take her stargazing sometime, and Chat is talking about going to his family’s chateau in the country in August during the break, since she’ll have figured out his identity by then.

Marinette claps a hand over her mouth. She is going to kill Plagg, because it can only be Plagg. …On second thought, she is going to have Tikki kill Plagg. Tikki will have a better idea of how to go about it and has probably been waiting several millennia for a valid excuse to do so.

“What…is Princess’s true identity in the comic?” Marinette tries not to sound too invested in the answer.

Alya shrugs, ceasing her efforts at phone retrieval. “She’s just a regular girl like any one of us. She doesn’t think she’s special or anything, but Chat Noir sees the greatness in her and adores her for it. Her name is Adrienne. Her parents own a restaurant up in Montmartre that she sometimes helps out at.”

Marinette forces herself to draw air into her lungs. “And…who is Chat?”

Alya shrugs again. “Some made-up teen actor named Marin Mineau. It’s just a fan work, Marinette. It’s not like Plagg knows their real identities. It’s all speculation and imagination.”

Marinette hands the phone back, not wanting to see any more. It’s better if she doesn’t know. It’s better if she doesn’t think about it. “Could you send me the link?” she finds herself asking. It’s part morbid curiosity, part the need to tell Chat about this.

Plagg has to be responsible. Who else would switch Adrien and Marinette around into Adrienne and Marin? Who else would even create a Princess Noir comic anyway? Chat, Adrien, Tikki, and Marinette herself are the only other possible suspects, and she has a feeling that it’s not any of them.

“Are you finally taking an interest in Paris’s latest power couple?” Alya titters mischievously, sending the link.

“Alya, I love you, but I’m too wrapped up in my own love life right now to bother with anyone else’s.”

Alya opens the locker room door, catches sight of Adrien leaning up against Marinette’s locker, watermelon pink rose in hand, and relents. “You have a point. I believe your love life requires your full and undivided attention as we speak.”

Marinette frowns as Alya starts to walk away. “What?”

“Good luck!” Alya calls, heading for her own locker.

Marinette shakes her head, too tired to deal with this nonsense. With a sigh, she points herself in the right direction.

Adrien comes into focus, and Marinette halts as her brain attempts to process. She’s not sure what she’s seeing. That’s Chat Noir, but he’s not wearing his suit or his mask or his cat ears. His hair isn’t quite right. His eyes aren’t quite right. He looks like Adrien, but he looks like Chat, but he looks like Adrien, but…

He moves, and it makes it so much worse. It’s not Adrien’s usual gait but Chat’s. He slinks like Chat towards her, coming to a stop entirely too close, only two feet away.

“Good Morning, Princess,” he purrs, all Chat as he scoops up her hand and presses a kiss to the inside of her wrist, lips brushing against the lace there.

He offers her the rose. It’s the same pink color as the dried rose in the vase on her shelf in her loft was back when it was fresh…the rose he gave her—Chat gave her—during the Papa Garou incident.

“It reminded me of you,” he coos, refusing to let Adrien be embarrassed by any of this. He’s Chat right now, even without the mask, and he has no qualms about being a total flirt. “More specifically, your lips.”

He taps them ever so lightly with his index finger and winks. The wink is very Adrien, but the tone is very Chat.

Marinette’s brain shuts down for a fourth time, and all that comes out of her mouth is a strangled noise of confusion.

“Say, are you tired?” he prompts.

Marinette arches an eyebrow in bewilderment, pathetically trying to keep up.

“I just wondered. I know you have a lot of stamina, but since you’re been running through my mind all night… I mean, that has to tire you out, right?”

Marinette is tempted to smack herself in the face. She’s tempted to smack HIM in the face, whoever he is. (Her brain can’t quite decide right now, and she’s pretty sure she’s seeing things.)

“By the way,” his voice softens. “The accessories you made with that lace turned out exquisitely. I knew you’d be able to make something beautiful with them. You’re so talented, Princess.”

Marinette melts a little bit at the genuine admiration in his voice. The rest has felt like a ruse precisely calculated to mimic the fake, flirty side of Chat that turned her off for so long. It seemed orchestrated to annoy her, but this…

She nervously fingers the lace choker around her neck, blushing under his adoring gaze. She opens her mouth to thank him, but then he goes and ruins everything.

“Your hair looks gorgeous in a chignon like that,” he whispers, as if it’s their own private joke.

It is Chat and Marinette’s private joke, and her brain has finally decided that this is definitely just Adrien Agreste screwing with her.

“You should wear it like that more often,” he adds in a voice so low, she’s the only one who can hear it.

He reaches out and takes the chin-length bang that is always out of place, pressing a reverent kiss to it.

That is it.

Marinette emits a high-pitched noise akin to a boiling teapot, causing Adrien to jerk back in concern.

“Princess? I’m sorry. I—”

“—I’m going to kick you in the shin,” Marinette announces coolly.

Adrien only has enough time to blink in confusion and get out half a “Wha—?” before she makes good on her threat.

Adrien yelps as her foot makes contact with his shin. “What the hell?!” he squawks.

“You don’t get to say ‘what the hell’!” Marinette snaps. “I get to say ‘what the hell’! What the hell, Adrien Agreste?!” She punctuates the question with a one-handed shove to his chest.

“Princess,” he attempts to placate, but she’s having none of it.

“Don’t call me that!” she squeaks. “There’s only one person allowed to call me that, and you’re NOT him, Adrien Agreste, so just cut it the hell out! I’m so sick of you two!” She shoves him again, and he takes it. “I’m sick of this game!”

“It’s not a game!” Adrien snaps back, the frustration finally coming to a head. He steps forward. “Maybe I’m sick of you. Maybe I’m fed up with the way you smile and laugh with him and burst into tears with me. Maybe I’m jealous.” He steps forward again, forcing her either to retreat or come chest to chest with him.

Marinette does not back down. She leans into him, hands going to her hips as she presses forward, the length of her body flush against his. It’s a tug of war she does not intend to lose. She will push him over before she allows herself to lose ground.

“Oh, you’re jealous?” she hisses. “What? Do you want me to scratch behind your ear and call you pet names too?”

She reaches up and does just that, and she feels his body soften, some of the tension evaporating at her touch.

“Hmm? How’s that, Minou?” She says it gently, but there are obviously barbs in her words. “Does that sooth your bruised ego?”

There’s a sharp intake of breath as she trails a hand down his neck.

“Hmm?” she prompts. “Is that better, Minou? Is this what you want?”

“I want you to see me,” he mutters, feeling all kinds of confused. His brain is scrambled.

“Why? You’ve never seen me,” she retorts with another shove. “Where do you get off being jealous anyhow?” She’s snapping again. “Two weeks ago you had zero interest in me. Now, now that your friend or your brother or your cousin or whoever likes me, now I’m suddenly worth paying attention to? You’re not really interested in me, Adrien. You’re just throwing a childish fit, so kindly cut it the hell out.” She punctuates her words with a fourth shove.

He doesn’t budge. He presses harder, almost managing to knock her back. Despite his height and weight advantage, Marinette is strong, and she stands firm.

He grits his teeth. “Listen here, Beautiful. I—”

“—Okay, okay. Enough!” Nino shouts, physically picking Marinette up and moving her so that he can come between them.

Adrien nearly falls over, and Marinette gives an undignified squawk.

“Al, put your damn phone down and stop filming. The rest of you, stop gawking. There’s nothing to see here,” Nino instructs, bristling at the rubberneckers.

He turns back to Adrien and Marinette and glares. “Breathe. The both of you.”

Marinette opens her mouth to protest, but Nino cuts her off with a look and a warning finger in her face. “Don’t get akumatized.”

Marinette audibly begins to breathe deeply.

Nino turns to Adrien with a sympathetic look. “You too, Mec.”

Adrien gazes back miserably like a chastened puppy.

“It’s okay, Mec,” Nino coaxes. “She doesn’t hate you. We’ll fix this, so just breathe and don’t get akumatized. That’s your job right now.”

Adrien nods and forces himself to keep inhaling and exhaling in a steady rhythm. He doesn’t dare look at Marinette.

“Okay,” Nino interrupts the breathing exercise a minute later, resting one hand on Marinette’s arm and the other on Adrien’s. “I think the lady gets an apology first. Adrien, please apologize to Marinette for this stunt.”

Adrien crumples, voice low, soft, and thoroughly beaten. “I’m sorry, Marinette. This was stupid. I should have known you wouldn’t react positively. I was just kidding myself thinking this would end well.”

Nino nods, satisfied. “Marinette, Adrien is sorry that he upset you. What do you say?”

She looks dumbly at one of her oldest friends. This feels like a test she hasn’t studied for. “…I…What do you want me to say? I’m still mad. He’s being childish and objectifying me. I’m not some prize for him to fight Chat over. I deserve more consideration than that, and he wasn’t remotely interested in me before a week ago. I’m…I’m still mad.”

Nino takes a long inhale, trying to be patient. “Pot.” He pokes her on the cheek. “Kettle.” He indicates Adrien. “Marinette, look at him.”

Adrien tries to melt through the floor. He wants to escape because he can feel her eyes on him, and they burn.

Nino lowers his voice even further so that only the three of them can hear. “Marinette, give him a break. He doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. He wants your attention. He wants you not to hate him. He spent the first thirteen years of his life locked up in a mansion with very little contact with people his own age. He’s dealing with a steep learning curve, and I’d say he’s doing pretty good. Can you imagine how hard it would be to act normal when you have very little conception of what normal is? You have a hard enough time in life with a supportive family and friends who love you. You’ve got to admit that Adrien’s playing with the deck stacked against him. Show a little mercy, will ya? He’s just trying to get you to like him, yeah?”

“I do like him,” Marinette grumbles, cheeks red as she looks away from Adrien’s cowering form. “I like him when he’s my friend Adrien, not when he’s badly imitating my friend Chat.”

Nino internally counts to three. “Okay. That’s fair. I’m in no way saying you don’t have any reason to be upset. I realize that it’s been a very emotional week, but I think right now that you’re not being fair to Adrien.”

Marinette cocks an eyebrow but waits patiently for Nino to continue.

“Let’s do a thought experiment,” Nino proposes as if talking to a room full of rowdy elementary school students. “Marinette, last week, Monday morning, if I had asked you, ‘Marinette, what do you think of Chat Noir romantically?’ what would you have said?”

Marinette’s face goes pale, and she steps back, away from Nino and closer to the lockers, crossing her arms. “I-I don’t know,” she answers cagily.

“I call bull,” Nino scoffs. “You know what you would have said. You would have told me, ‘Not in a thousand years’ and that there was someone else. And now, one week later, I hear from Alya that you two are already planning your wedding. If you can change your mind in one week, why can’t Adrien?”

“…Oh,” Marinette barely manages to meep out. All color has completely drained out of her cheeks, and she’s looking a little unsteady.

“Yes,” Nino laughs without mirth. “‘Oh’. Now, do you really think your friend Adrien would ever objectify you? Turn you into a trophy to fight some other guy over? Do you really think he’s just being childish right now?”

“No,” Marinette whispers down at her feet. “But if he isn’t…then I don’t know what to think at the moment.”

“Well then, it sounds like you have some thinking to do, don’t you?” Nino announces, voice going gentle. He doesn’t want to push her too hard and doom Paris because of it, so he’s backing off a little but not letting her completely off the hook yet.

She nods obediently, eyes wide and horrified at the discovery of her own hypocrisy. Helpfully, her mind calls up all the times she ever hurt Chat as Ladybug, adding on to the guilt pile.

“Now,” Nino coaxes. “You’re allowed to be sore about it in private, but Adrien just told you he was sorry for upsetting you. What do you say, Marinette?”

“Stop,” Adrien insists, firmly but kindly, as he steps between Nino and Marinette, shielding her. “Thanks, Nino, but she’s fine. You’re just upsetting her. She doesn’t have to apologize to me. She hasn’t done anything wrong. I mean, I’m the one who started it.”

“God, I’m such a witch,” Marinette mumbles, only half cognizant of what’s going on around her.

Adrien turns and takes her by the shoulders. “Princess, you are not. You are one of the most spectacular human beings I’ve ever met.”

She shakes her head sadly. “How can you say that when I’ve been nothing but awful to you for going on a week now? Why can’t you just be mad at me?”

“I am mad,” Adrien confesses. “I’m just more smitten than mad most of the time.”

Marinette lets out an enormous groan, bringing her head down to rest on his shoulder. “You two have got to be related; you sound just like him.”

She peeks up tentatively. “I need to sit you down and confess my sins against you at length sometime. You won’t find me nearly so wonderful after that.”

His hands slide down her arms to hold her hands loosely, careful not to damage the rose still gripped in her palm.

“Try me,” he dares her, words feather light in her ear.

She shakes her head. “Too much of a scaredy-cat right now. Maybe later today. Maybe tomorrow…. Maybe never.”

Marinette steps back, slowly pulling away from him. “I’m really sorry, Adrien. Thank you for the rose.”

He catches her hand and brings it to his lips. “I’ve already forgiven you, Marinette. Try to forgive yourself.”

She sighs loudly and pulls her hand away again. “How are you so good?” Tears begin to sting her eyes as she reaches out and rings the bell on his choker. “Stop being so good, Minou.”

His brain momentarily goes offline as he thinks that he’ll be just as bad as she wants him to be if she’ll only do that again.

“You’re such a lightweight, Agreste,” he mentally chides.

“You’re so good,” she repeats, the tears beginning to fall.

He reaches out in alarm to wipe at the tears, but she smiles and waves his hands away gently.

“And I can’t be around you right now, but that doesn’t mean I hate you, okay? Excuse me.”

She bolts across the locker room and yanks her locker open with a strange desperation.

The recording of the day starts up, and the tension abruptly leaves Marinette’s body. The tears dry up, and she smiles lovingly at the sound of Chat’s voice.

The scene makes Adrien feel weak at the knees because she’s making that face for him, because of him.

“Hey, Beautiful!” the Chat in the recording greets, and she perks up. “Good Morning.”

Chat does help. Chat does make a difference…and, maybe, if Adrien keeps working on it, maybe Adrien can too.

“It’s actually two in the morning right now, and guess what I’m doing?” the Chat recording continues.

“Not sleeping,” Marinette scoffs, grabbing her English text out of her locker.

“Right. Not sleeping,” Chat sighs.

Marinette giggles, and Alya comes over to join her. “Even though you said you were exhausted last night?”

“I know I was complaining about how exhausted I was, but now that I’m home, I’m wide awake.”

“Why?” Marinette inquires during the brief pause.

“…I’m actually kind of nervous about seeing you tomorrow,” Chat’s disembodied voice confesses, causing Marinette to pause and frown.

“You’re either going to know it’s me right away and probably hit me…or you’re not, and that’s going to suck…. But you’re all here for the music, not to stand around and listen to me talk. This one is super annoying. If you’ve seen me, you can hit me. If not, think of having this song stuck in your head all day as your punishment.”

Marinette winces.

“I’m just kidding, Marinette,” Chat laughs, and Adrien can definitely tell that he did this at two AM. “I love you.”

There is a collective gasp in the locker room, and many students begin to cheer. Rose is actually jumping up and down while Kim begrudgingly hands Alix ten euros, obviously having lost a bet concerning Marinette and Chat’s love life.

“This is Elle Me Dit by Mika,” Chat announces, and then the music starts.

Amid the general commotion, Nino turns to Adrien and gives him a funny look.

Adrien barely notices. He’s too busy watching Marinette.

“Mec?”

“Hmm?” He doesn’t take his eyes off of her.

“Your voices are really similar,” Nino remarks, giving Adrien a thoughtful stare.

Adrien isn’t paying attention. “Whose?”

“Your voice and Chat’s voice,” Nino expounds upon his comment.

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t hear my voice outside of my own skull often.” Adrien shrugs, throat beginning to tighten as Marinette slowly scans the room, obviously looking for him. “Is it bad that I sound like Chat?”

Nino shakes his head, letting go of the peculiar thought. “No. It’s just…an odd coincidence.”

Adrien hums thoughtfully starting to fidget as Marinette’s eyes come closer and closer to finding his own. “Would you still think it was odd if I told you we’re related?”

Nino blinks. “Oh. Like how Noël is supposedly starting to sound like me when he picks up the phone.”

Only Nino is not aware of Adrien having any relatives. In fact, Adrien has specifically told him before that his parents were both only children, so that rules out the possibility of cousins. This bothers Nino.

Marinette’s eyes finally come to rest upon Adrien, and they pause there for a second.

He gives her his best smile, hoping she notices how she makes him light up from within.

Marinette smiles fondly and gives a soft laugh before resuming her scan.

Adrien’s heart plummets.

It doesn’t look like it’s happening today.

He sighs, crestfallen.

Nino abandons his conspiracy theories to raise an eyebrow in concern at Adrien. “Everything okay, Dude?”

Adrien shakes his head. “This is Ladybug all over again. I’m going to wind up in the friend zone my entire life, and this is just me struggling futilely before giving up, resigning myself to my fate.”

Nino takes Adrien by the shoulders and forces Adrien to face him. “Mec…drama much? Don’t think that way. She…” Nino doesn’t know where he’s going with this, doesn’t know what to say to make it better for Adrien without outright lying. “…Wanna skip class and go get ice cream right now?”

Adrien laughs hollowly. “I’m actually partial to pastries over ice cream. I would live on Tom and Sabine’s pain au chocolat, given the opportunity.”

“Let’s go,” Nino prompts, slapping Adrien on the back. “Come on. Right now. It’s literally next door; we’ll be back before anyone misses us.”

Adrien shakes his head slowly. “Maybe some other time. I kind of just want to stand here and feel miserable watching her.”

Nino sighs, giving Adrien’s arm two condoling pats.

Marinette finishes her scan, looking about as disappointed as Adrien feels. She blows out a sigh as she pulls out her phone.

Adrien’s pocket vibrates, and his heart soars.

“Secret girlfriend?” Nino grumbles.

“Secret girlfriend,” Adrien giggles, suddenly feeling like he can walk on air.

“I love you too, Minou,” says Marinette’s first text. The others follow shortly: “I’m so sorry I’m disappointing you.” “Hang in there.” “I’ll find you soon.”

Adrien hurriedly types back, “You could never disappoint me, Princess. I’ll be waiting as long as it takes.”

He looks up to see her smile, seemingly reassured by his response.

“Are you texting Marinette?” Nino wonders, looking back and forth between the two.

“Didn’t we have this fight yesterday?” Adrien pouts.

Nino puts his hands up in surrender and lets it drop.

Adrien looks back down at his flip phone and adds, “Your hair looks gorgeous in a chignon like that.”

Marinette chuckles, touching her hair self-consciously. “Thank you!” she replies.

She glances up and looks around, giving the search another try.

Their gazes lock for a second once more, and Adrien takes the opportunity to smile and wave, betting he looks utterly ridiculous. He can’t bring himself to care.

She gives him a funny look, but she smiles and sends a petite wave right back at him.

“I am doomed,” Adrien sighs happily.

“I’ll say,” Nino groans, inwardly beginning to plot. He’s going to do his best to make things right for Adrien, even if he has to stoop to some Alya-level scheming to accomplish it.

Somehow, Nino doubts he is actually capable of accomplishing Alya-level anything.

He might need the real Alya’s help with this.

#Marichat #Adrienette #Adrinette #Miraculous Ladybug #Miraculous Ladybug Fanfiction #Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Chat Noir #Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Adrien Agreste #Adrien Agreste #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Chat Noir #Nino Lahiffe #Plagg #Le Gorille #Mikau's Writings #The Rejects Club

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dnowit41 · 6 years ago

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The Dirk Nowitzki stories: An oral history of the Mavericks legend

-James Herbert

Before a Dallas Mavericks practice in January, Dirk Nowitzki lined up for a race with Dennis Smith Jr. The 40-year-old started at half court, the 21-year-old at the baseline.

3 … 2 … 1 … Smith took off. Nowitzki did not.

"He was like, 'Nah, not ready. Not ready. Let's get to practice,'" Mavericks forward Ryan Broekhoff said.

Smith does not buy the idea that Nowitzki wasn't warmed up.

"It took him too long to start," Smith said. "I accelerated quicker than he did. Once he seen that, he looked back. He was like, 'Oh, he's behind me.' He just gave it up. Smart."

The genesis of the race, according to Smith, who is now with the New York Knicks: "He was in the locker room selling woof tickets basically, saying everybody say he moves slow, and this, that and the third. He bet $10,000 in a foot race that nobody will beat him if he starts at halfcourt and they start from full court. So I came in there and I heard. I got wind of it and I took the bet immediately, and of course I won the bet two times. And he ain't pay my money yet. So this summer, I'ma probably go shake him down in Dallas."

Before any summer shakedown, the Mavericks will celebrate Nowitzki's career at their final home game of the season Tuesday. Nowitzki has not officially announced that he intends to retire, but during the stretch run, owner Mark Cuban told CBS Sports, "It's really just starting to hit me that he only has a few weeks left." Dallas will finish things off Wednesday in San Antonio.

Over the course of Nowitzki's 21st season, more than 30 people who have been around him -- current and former teammates, opponents, Mavericks staff -- participated in interviews for this oral history to capture how the superstar from Würzburg made his mark in Dallas and beyond.

"Why do people want my autograph?"

Mavericks general manager Donnie Nelson scouted Nowitzki and coached him at the 1998 Nike Hoop Summit. Nelson saw a "long, tall, skinny German drink of water," and took a liking to his shooting ability and competitiveness. Nowitzki had skipped a playoff game with the DJK Würzburg X-Rays, the second-division team in his hometown, in order to be in San Antonio. It paid off.

"The Hoop Summit, I guess you can call it his American Idol coming out party, where in front of pretty much every GM at the time he erupted and scored 30-plus points," Nelson said. "And did so in spectacular fashion."

Dallas acquired the No. 9 pick in the 1998 draft to select him even though Paul Pierce-- also ranked in the Mavs' top three -- was unexpectedly available. An apprehensive, perhaps even reluctant Nowitzki came to Dallas several months later, at the conclusion of the NBA's lockout. He and third-year guard Steve Nash, acquired in a trade from Phoenix, sported bleached blond hair at their introductory press conference. "I thought a couple members of the Beach Boys got lost," Nelson said.

Greg Buckner, Mavericks wing, 1999-2002; 2006-07: People were booing him in Reunion Arena. People were upset with Nellie for drafting him and making the trade for Tractor Traylor.

Donnie Nelson, Mavericks assistant coach and director of scouting, 1997-2002; general manager, 2002-present: We were like eight years in the Bataan Death March, the Maverick walk in the desert, where we hadn't made the playoffs.

Greg Buckner: It was a weird year. It was a lockout year. The season then didn't start until January. You get one week of practice. Then you have three games in three nights, for a kid. It was hard even for vets at that time. And the language barrier. High expectations on the kid. And he definitely struggled with that. He definitely didn't have the confidence.

Al Whitley, Mavericks equipment manager, 2005-06; special assistant to owner, 2018-19, childhood friend of Nash: Early on, Dirk would always be like, "Why do people want my autograph or want to high-five me or take a picture with me?" He didn't really understand it, but he always made time for those people. And he just had a connection with them.

Marc Gasol, Raptors center: There was nobody ahead of him. He was kind of the pioneer for many, many things. And kudos for him for being ready for that, and to Dallas to have that open mindset of allowing him to change things and to believe in something different that nobody at that point believed in. I think it makes franchises feel safer. It gives an example. To me, the bravest part is, like, Dallas. It was never done before, and they did it. They saw Dirk work every day and the way he interacted with his teammates and, obviously, it worked. But it takes bravery because there's uncertainty in all that that it might not work and we might look like fools.

Donnie Nelson: Brave is one word. Scary is another.

Greg Buckner: And he struggled early. He didn't come out like Luka [Doncic], like gangbusters in the beginning. He came in and he struggled. And they knew it couldn't be tough love with him, it had to be nurturing to make sure he was successful. Because he was struggling mentally going through it, and didn't know if he belonged or not.

Donnie Nelson: For us and my dad [coach Don Nelson], we had literally thrown our reputations, history, everything we've done in the league in the hands of two young guys that were completely unproven. A lot of times, those guys have kind of a high casualty count. Especially guys from Europe. So it was exhilarating, fun and frightening, all at the same time.

Greg Buckner: People don't remember when Dirk first got here, he was a 3-man. He was a small forward. He was not a 4-man or a center. He was a small forward. And the things that he was doing in practice, with the perimeter skills and his size, I had never seen anything like that. So I said this kid is going to be a Hall of Famer. I said, "I don't know what the hell, how good Larry Bird was, or what Larry Bird was, but there's no way he could have been as good as this kid is going to be." And they were like, "Yeah, you're crazy, whatever."

Nick Van Exel, Mavericks guard, 2001-03: I just knew he was a rookie. I didn't know who he was. Didn't know anything about him. And I don't even think he had a good game, but just the things that he was doing on the court, I was impressed. And me and Antonio McDyess, even Chauncey Billups, we was like, damn, that dude's going to be good. This is what we're saying in the locker room. So I'll never forget, after the game, I'm walking out and I'm in front of him. I hear somebody coming behind me and I turned around and it was him, so I actually waited. I probably was about 20 feet in front of him and I waited for him. I said, "Man, you're going to be a good player, man. You just keep balling. You're going to figure this shit out, and you're going to be a good player. We just had that little brief moment, and then when I got traded to Dallas, that's the first thing he brought up to me. He was like, "You remember when you told me?" I said, 'Hell yeah, I remember that shit 'cause I knew you were gonna be special."

"A little bit more 'I'm going to cut your head off'"

Nowitzki was fortunate to start his career playing for Don Nelson, a forward-thinking coach who didn't try to turn him into a traditional big man. It helped, too, to have Nash and Michael Finley at his side. Nowitzki's talent and work ethic were undeniable, and the soft touch on his jumper stood out to anyone who was paying attention. He needed time, though, to develop into the Mavericks' undisputed franchise player, and there is some debate about how clear it was that he would.

Mark Cuban, Mavericks owner, 2000-present: I didn't know how good he would be. Had no idea.

Greg Buckner: After his rookie year, they'd take us all, us young guys, and we do summer league. We do summer league that year in Utah and L.A., I think it was back then, and he f---ing put on a show. I mean, he put on a show. He even turned me into a scorer, and I couldn't score to save my life. He just put on a show. He was clearly the best young player out there. It wasn't even close. And then after you see that success in those two, three weeks that we had in summer league, that next year, it was just too easy for him. He just became confident.

Adrian Griffin, Mavericks wing, 2001-2003; 2005-2006: His second year, I was with the Celtics and we were playing Dallas and I had never heard of Dirk Nowitzki before. So, I switched on him, BANG! Just drilled a 3. And I was like, that's probably just a glitch, probably just a mistake, he probably got lucky on that. Came right back down, I got right back on him again in transition, BANG! Rick Pitino is now giving me an earful. He was cussing me out, calling me every name. "You gotta get up and play him!" That's the first time that I was introduced to Dirk Nowitzki, and then I became a fan from afar.

Donnie Nelson: Dirk just needed time to physically, mentally mature, and I think that's where a guy like Michael Finley and Steve, Holger certainly, my dad and the Dallas community really made him feel welcome in the early days.

Adrian Griffin: I was there to witness almost a total transformation of his mental approach, mental game. The first stint when I was there, we had Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash, Michael Finley, and I can recall at the end of the game, when we needed a basket or a certain play, they all three would defer to each other like you go ahead and take it, or you take it. My second stint, Dirk was like give me the effing ball. That was the difference.

Greg Buckner: I mean, obviously Dirk never wanted the attention. He's never going to be the guy that is going to say, "Yeah, it was about me," or whatever. But Dirk always knew he was going to be the franchise guy. And Dirk always knew after that second year, it was Dirk's show. It was not Nash's show, it was not Finley's show, it was not Van Exel's show. It was Dirk's show. Dirk was the franchise from his third year on. And let's not get that messed up. And we all knew that. We all knew who the man was.

Calvin Booth, Mavericks center, 2000-2001; 2004-2005: It was a legitimate Big 3. I think all three of those guys were equally important to us winning. Dirk and Finley were usually going to be the leading scorers, Steve obviously did what he did to help everybody else out and make shots. I think by the time I got there, I got there midseason, I think by that time he's starting to get his footing and he's having more big games. He ended up making third team All-NBA that year.

Mark Cuban: He had Nash and Fin working with him continuously. Encouraging him. Plus we started winning and he knew he was the best player on the team. If you heard all the shit he would talk, you would know he was OK with growing into the role of the best player and a leader.

Al Whitley: When Steve left, as hard as that was for both of them and for all of us, it actually did help Dirk's career and kind of pushed him into that kind of leadership role that he wasn't necessarily comfortable with before Steve left.

Nick Van Exel: Once he got along in his career, he started to see how good he was and how good he could become and he started to take his approach to another level. And one thing about him is he's so cool off the court, but on the court he got kind of a fire inside of him to where he was a little bit different. He was a little bit nastier. He was a little bit more I'm going to cut your head off.

Adrian Griffin: He was always cool and calm, especially my second time with him. That's the confidence that you have. It's almost like the Jordans and the Kobe Bryants. You just have this aura that we can't lose or we're never out of a game. We're down 20 in the fourth, so what? We got Dirk Nowitzki. That's how you always felt. You always had a chance. He'd come in and bang three 3s in a row, and now you're back in it and then everyone's juices are going. He could just have that impact. He's a game-changer. In a couple possessions, you put the ball in his hands and he'd just work magic.

"I used to call him the black German"

In the 2006 playoffs, weeks before the Mavericks lost to the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals, Nowitzki revealed that, in order to relieve pressure at the free throw line, he liked to sing to himself under his breath. His song of choice at the time was David Hasselhoff's "Looking for Freedom," which was a No. 1 hit in Germany when Nowitzki was 10 years old. There is more, however, to Nowitzki's musical stylings than the work of former Baywatch stars.

Nowitzki's coach and mentor, Holger Geschwindner, wanted him to see basketball as a dance. In one of 2014 documentary The Perfect Shot's more memorable scenes, Geschwindner's former teammate Ernest Butler plays saxophone during a training session as a bunch of German players try move and dribble a ball to the rhythm. Butler and his saxophone are in the foreground, with a basketball hoop on the gym wall behind him -- a perfect shot, indeed.

Geschwindner bought Nowitzki a sax of his own for Christmas and, after Terry Porter's elbow cost him a front tooth in the 2001 playoffs, Nowitzki lamented that he couldn't play it like he wanted to in the summer. Just before the Outback portion of his head-clearing trip to Australia after the top-seeded Mavs lost to the eighth-seeded Warriors in the first round in 2007, the reigning MVP and Geschwindner hit the Sydney Opera House for Beethoven's Fourth and Seventh symphonies.

Anyone who knows Nowitzki, though, is aware that, for more than two decades, he has fancied himself a rapper.

Greg Buckner: Gary Trent took him under his wing and played hip-hop music for him. I mean, Dirk is the biggest hip-hop junkie in the world at this time. He's quoting all hip-hop songs and stuff like that.

Nick Van Exel: He was just real goofy. Real goofy. Singing songs. Trying to sing the rap songs. I used to call him the black German.

Justin Anderson, Mavericks wing, 2015-2017: You can tell he hung out with a lot of black guys when he first came into the league, and I asked him about it because, like, all his slang, he's on point with it. Like, "Nahmsaying?" He says all types of things. Gary Trent was his vet, so he was like, "Man, I had all the OGs with me." Those are all usually the funny things.

Greg Buckner: Nash is obviously from Canada and has a different-type background. Michael Finley is from Chicago. Gary Trent is from the Midwest. I'm from the South in Kentucky. We had Cedric Ceballos from L.A. He's just a sponge, soaking all this stuff in, and it created, as we say, a monster, boy, because he could hit you with all kinds of things from all walks of life. It really rounded him out to be a great jokester in all different realms of life.

Seth Curry, Mavericks guard, 2016-18: The guy's from Germany. He doesn't really have an accent as much anymore, but he's in touch with the culture. He knows the music, knows the movies, knows that sense of humor. It's always funnier when it comes from Dirk.

Adrian Griffin, Mavericks wing, 2001-2003; 2005-2006: What people probably don't know is that Dirk and Steve used to bring their guitars in sometimes. They would play, try to teach each other how to play the guitar. I don't know how it ended. Maybe they could be Van Halen by now if they stuck with it. They were in the early years.

Greg Buckner: We all hung out together. We all went to Cedric Ceballos' house and hung out played cards and played dominos. Dirk then was playing the guitar. The funny thing about it, they would bring those guitars on the road and work at it.

Al Whitley: The instruments, the guitar, the saxophone, stuff like that, his mentor, Holger, has always encouraged him to learn different things outside of basketball. To advance your career and be the best you can possibly be, you have to expand your mind in certain things outside of the game of basketball. And musically, Holger is a big advocate of learning instruments helps you do that. I think that's how that all originated.

Adrian Griffin: He was learning. You wouldn't book him for a gig just yet back then, but they say 10,000 hours.

Nick Van Exel: It's probably our first road trip we go on, and I see my phone is lit up. You know, the blinking light. I'm like damn, who in the hell? I'm thinking maybe it's the front desk or something leaving a message. So I check it, and next thing you know, it's Dirk on there singing a damn song, playing a guitar. But I guess that was his way of welcoming me, breaking me in and whatever.

Al Whitley: He just sings and jokes around all the time. Sometimes even he'll rap in German just to keep the mood light for the guys. Half the songs he sings, if it's not hip-hop, a lot of our players, especially our younger players, have no idea who it is. It could be a classic rock band, the Rolling Stones, who Dirk loves, and these guys have no idea.

Ian Mahinmi, Mavericks center, 2010-2012: You see him sing and rap. And this is before important games.

Chandler Parsons, Mavericks forward, 2014-16: Tennis, he's unbelievable. His serve is a pro-level serve. Obviously he doesn't have the agility anymore and the foot speed, but his serve is next level. Singing, dancing, anything of that level, no shot. No good there. He's a Hall of Fame basketball player, not a dancer or a singer.

Dennis Smith Jr., Mavericks guard, 2017-19: It's horrible. The confidence level is high, but the tone is trash.

Nick Van Exel: I was just like, you know, I'm glad you chose basketball because that other path probably wouldn't have worked out for you.

Mark Cuban: Mick Jagger is lucky Dirk took up basketball.

"Man, how is he getting past people?"

The Mavs call it "the flamingo." You probably just call it the Dirk. It's the one-legged fadeaway jump shot that is to Nowitzki what the skyhook is to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. "That's a shot that terrified a lot of opponents because you didn't know when it was coming and you knew you couldn't block it anyway," Warriors star Kevin Durant said.

Nowitzki vexed opposing coaches because normal rules didn't apply to him. He was a master at making contested midrange shots, precisely the kind of looks that defenses were designed to allow. A simple pick-and-pop inspired nightmares.

DeAndre Jordan, Mavericks center, 2018-19: He's a monster, man. He could drive and get to the basket easily. You couldn't really block his shot because he fades away, he shoots with a high arc and he gets that knee up there. And for me, I was a young player, playing against him, so I wanted to really guard him hard or try to block his shot or do something that took him out of his game. But more times than not, it did not work.

Marc Gasol: He's a right-handed guy, high release, high arc, so you gotta be really close to contest that. Then if you take away the right hand -- which, he rarely drove right hand, but you still gotta honor the drive -- you cut him off, he's going to back to a little spin move, one-leg fadeaway. You're not getting to that shot. Everything was a counter to a deadly weapon, which was his jump shot.

Antawn Jamison, Mavericks forward, 2003-2004: I felt like the best defense was I had to make him work on the defensive end and try to score against him.

Mike Procopio, Mavericks director of player development, 2013-present: You watch these guys with these Instagram workouts in the summer that are bogus, like dribbling seven balls and jumping over shopping carts to get to a shot. Some guy's got a 40-foot pole that he's gotta shoot over like he's in the MTV Rock N' Jock game. Like, that's not him. He just does all these simple shots. He just knows his kill spots on the floor and he knows where he has to get to, and he gets to 'em.

Yogi Ferrell, Mavericks guard, 2016-2018: I've never seen him do a between-the-legs or a behind-the-back dribble ever. Probably not even a crossover.

Jae Crowder, Mavericks forward, 2012-2014: Really, how are you going to guard the pick-and-roll with him popping? If you hedge, he's big enough and tall enough to get the shot off. If you switch it, he sees right over the top of the smaller defender. When he's got it going, it's tough to stop him. It's tough to put the fire out. Obviously.

Vince Carter, Mavericks wing, 2011-2014: You look at him, he's the slowest guy out there, but yet you can't stay in front of him. He knew who he was and how to be effective, man. I tell you, in his day, he was a force to be reckoned with as far as, like, you sit him, you post him up at that free throw line, and he's just a smart player. He knew how to make defenses pay. You just look at it, like, man, how is he getting past people? But you have to respect the great shooter that he is. He knew how to get buckets. Obviously, 31,000 points speaks for itself.

Elton Brand, Mavericks center, 2012-13: I remember one game against Carlos Boozer, I know Boozer wants to go left. I'm screaming at Dirk, at Dirty, "Send him right, send him right!" Boozer goes left and scores. And then scores again. And I'm frustrated. I'm just like, "Goddamn, Dirty! Send him right!" And then Dirk hits two dagger 3s to win the game. I go back and apologize: "Look, you never have to play defense again, man."

Mike Procopio: He's not just like a hired assassin, hired gun who's going to get you 35. He's smart, he can pass. Back in his day -- before electricity -- he could actually get off the floor and get by guys. You watch him, I don't think he wants you to know this, but the reason why he invented the fadeaway is because Bill Russell kept on blocking his shot at The Garden. He needed his shot to go over him.

Ian Mahinmi: You can see KD now, Porzingis, all these 6-11, 7-footers, 7-foot-1 players, they all watched Dirk. They all watched Dirk shooting 3s and putting it on the floor and having this high release. This is Dirk. Ain't nobody who was doing it like that before him. From time to time when we have talks, especially with the younger generation, and we brought up the name Dirk and they're so quick to be like, "Uhhh." Like, no, man. Nah. Dirk is like that. You just haven't seen it. Do your research. Look some tape up. The man is great.

"The holy grail of his career"

In Nelson's view, Nowitzki's game had reached "a whole different stratosphere" by the time he returned to "the scene of the crime." That would be the 2011 NBA Finals, again meeting the Heat. Surrounded by veterans who knew they might never get back to the Finals, Nowitzki upstaged LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Then-Mavericks guard Jason Terry said it was hard to describe how he owed Nowitzki for the championship ring, but called it "phenomenal" to reach the pinnacle alongside him. Fans feel the same way.

"The people of this city view Dirk and their relationship with Dirk as a precious relationship," Dallas coach Rick Carlisle said. "It's been based upon all the right things. It's been based upon a singular vision to provide the ultimate moment, which came to fruition in the form of a championship in 2011."

Carlisle made sure to cite Nowitzki's "amazing sense of loyalty and giving" and mention the "untold of millions of dollars" Nowitzki sacrificed in free agency, which allowed the Mavs to sign Tyson Chandler. Without the addition of Chandler, there would have been no title, no parade and no incredible photos of Nowitzki wearing Ian Mahinmi's glasses at Miami nightclub LIV, where Cuban spent a reported $110,000 in four hours.

Donnie Nelson: Dirk felt (in 2006) not only did he let down people in the locker room, let down people in Dallas, but also around the globe. I mean, he was carrying a baton that has never been carried before.

Al Whitley: Disappointment and devastation. We did sit in the locker room for many, many hours till the wee hours of the morning. And I know it still hurts him. But if you look back, in order to reach the top of the mountain, you gotta go through peaks and valleys. And at the time, it felt like we got punched as hard as you can get punched, but in the end, I think it was meant to be along the journey to get to where we got to in 2011. The sun came up the next day -- we watched it -- and it is what it is.

Rick Carlisle, Mavericks coach, 2008-present: The only thing he's ever cared about is winning. In the 11 years that I've known him, that's the only thing. He was a 29-year-old guy about to become 30 when I got the job here, and the championship had eluded them in 2006. It was very painful.

Donnie Nelson: It's like somebody ripped your heart out.

Rick Carlisle: That was his only goal. And it wasn't just a goal that he had for himself. It was a goal that he had for the city of Dallas. And a lot of that had to do with his feelings about the fans here and of course his feelings about Mark Cuban. That was the only focus.

Donnie Nelson: You hear things like, "You'll never be able to win a championship with someone with a European mentality, they don't understand our game, there's no defense, people won't follow that kind of a leader." Blah blah blah, this and that. You hear everything. And when you fail, those things, whether they're real or not, become true in people's minds. And so when we're sitting there, about to stick a flag into Mount Everest in our first Finals run, and that cup is literally ripped from our arms, then you hear all of the naysayers.

Jason Terry, Mavericks guard, 2004-2012: Dirk and I had a very special relationship. You gotta understand, when I was traded to Dallas and then Steve Nash departed Dallas, Steve Nash was Dirk's best friend. He was the teammate that he had played with that they had that sort of relationship and chemistry. When I was brought in to replace Nash, people thought that relationship would kind of happen, it would be automatic. But we had to let that relationship grow organically, and we had to go through it -- trials and tribulations, adversity, losing in the playoffs, that sort of thing -- for our relationship to develop and for it to evolve. Besides Stockton and Malone, I say we had the best two-man game ever in NBA history.

Rick Carlisle: The amount of emotion that overcame him at the end of Game 6 on June 12, 2011 was amazing. He had to leave the court, he went back to the locker room just to try to collect himself. There were tears in his eyes. You look into the stands, if you looked up into the stands and saw Holger Geschwindner, there were tears in his eyes as well. These guys had basically captured the holy grail of his career, and it was an amazing moment that will never be duplicated.

Al Whitley: All the hard work and the blood, sweat and tears that he put into doing that, to see that come to life was one of the greatest moments of my life.

Donnie Nelson: It literally took me probably about two weeks of waking up, "Honey, that wasn't a dream, right? We've got the trophy, right?" It's like, "Yeah, remember you had the parade?"

Ian Mahinmi: Those glasses are not prescribed glasses. They're fake glasses. They're just a fashion statement, whatever. And then after we won, he was like, "Man, come on, man, let me see what I can do with this." And I remember he snatched them from me and he put them on. Little stuff like that, me as a young kid, this made me feel so special. That's just Dirk right there. He's that type of guy, man. He made fun of me wearing those glasses so many times. Almost every single day. And then here we go, Finals, we win and he's wearing it. It don't get no better than that.

Al Whitley: I was two seats down from him. It was hilarious. I don't even think he could see through them. The drinks were flowing so much at that point. But I actually thought he pulled the look off pretty good.

"We go at it in QuizUp"

"He trolls you," Dallas rookie Jalen Brunson said. "But also, like, he takes jokes, too."

Players new to the Mavericks do not always know about Nowitzki's trash talk, and then they inevitably find themselves on the receiving end of it during a scrimmage. Cuban's favorite Dirkisms are "Happy Birthday," "What a circus" and the immortal "He's a burger."

No one is more in tune with Nowitzki in this regard than Mike Procopio, the Mavs' head of player development. Procopio is a man who is willing to spend an hour and a half editing a video for the sole purpose of trolling the face of the franchise.

"Instead of The Perfect Shot, it was called 'The Perfect Limp,'" Procopio said. "And it was about all his follies on the court, falling down or getting shaken up on a pick-and-roll. I just sent it out on the group chat with all the players and stuff. And he's cool with it. He's laughing."

The day after our interview, Procopio followed up via text message. "I was going to stop but this old f--- just made fun of me again," he wrote. He had four more things to say about Nowitzki:

He's so old that his calcium deposits have calcium deposits.

He sometimes says I can't wait to retire. I tell him statistically he retired in 2014.

National Geographic is doing a ranking, who's the least mobile: The Titanic, Stonehenge or him. He came in fourth.

I tell his legs every day what the late, great Jim Valvano said: Survive and advance.

Wesley Matthews, Dallas Mavericks wing, 2015-2019: Obviously he's getting older, but he's still as good of a shit-talker as ever.

Zaza Pachulia, Mavericks center, 2015-16: I've been following him on social media. First of all, it took him a while to get on social media because he's so slow in everything. I saw a couple of tweets of his, clowning his teammates, and you could tell the guy has humor. But I didn't know that he had that much humor till I became his teammate. The guy is nonstop. Nonstop, and I mean that.

Greg Buckner: "What up, Work?" He says that to everybody. When he says that to you, you know you've been around Dirk, you know you've been one of his teammates and you've had a great time with him and you've been on his coattails, riding the ride, enjoying the show and watching him do his thing. It was really big when we first got in. Burger is almost disrespectful. When somebody calls you a burger, that's not a good thing. It's not like a good In-N-Out Burger. It's a bad thing. Burger is about him joking with you, telling you that you ain't shit.

Jae Crowder: If he calls you a burger, it feels like you're not on his level.

Dennis Smith Jr.: Somebody playing trash or if somebody's trash, he'll call 'em a burger.

Elton Brand: He'll call you a burger. I'm trying to defend him in practice and he'll be like, "Too little! E.B.'s too little!" Because, you know, he's 7-foot and I'm 6-7 3/4. He just talks trash. It's just love, though.

Greg Buckner: He was a burger on defense.

Mike Procopio: When he gets subbed out, he will look at my outfit and destroy what I'm wearing and I'll politely tell him that his defensive plus-minus reads like the Dow did in the stock market crash of 1929.

Ian Mahinmi: Let's say like during the game I would miss a bad shot. So it was for sure the next day at practice or shootaround, he'd look at me and he'd do the exact same shot. But he'd overexaggerate.

Mike Procopio: [Dirk and Doncic] are two clowns. They clown on each other. Dirk clowns on his weight and just sort of him butchering the English language. He'll just go at Dirk about how old he is. It's cool 'cause those guys are different because of obviously the age and what they've grown up with, but they're the same in the sense that they're competitive as hell. I mean, competitive as hell. But they're funny as hell. They're good to be around. Teammates love them. It's awesome to watch those guys. You could go 0-82 and you'd still have fun going to work every day because of those two guys.

Ian Mahinmi: Dirk will crack a joke at the most random time and he'll relax the atmosphere. When your leader is capable of taking a joke and making fun of yourself and laughing out loud, it's kind of like OK, this guy is human, this guy is actually just like me.

Mike Procopio: Right now, it's our endless games of QuizUp on our apps. 'Cause we talk trash to each other all night. We'll play all night. We'll go at it about Mavericks history, NBA All-Star Game history and 90s music. And every time somebody wins, we screenshot the scoreboard and we say something pretty outlandish about the other person. After a game, after he chips off the iceberg that sank the Titanic and soaks his feet in it, and all his battered-out joints, and when he's out of it, he's on the bus, I know that I'll get a text on my phone that he challenged me in some game. We were like 78-79, we were like neck-and-neck for a while and then I went on a cold streak. Because we're playing Dallas Mavericks history. The f---ing guy, half the answers are about him anyway. How the f--- do I know how many offensive rebounds he had in his career? I thought Eric Montross was the leader.

Nick Van Exel: He's still trying to play, and I played with him in 2003, 2002, and I'm sitting behind the bench talking shit to him. So we were playing the last game in Dallas. He was at the free throw line. I said, "Dirk, man, you might as well come on sit back here with me, man. Let this shit go." He looked at me and starts laughing.

Mike Procopio: Our current score on QuizUp is 106-80 as of now. I hung in there for a while but, like Dirty's joints and legs, I'm on a tremendous downward spiral.

"You'd think he was the 15th guy"

If you really want to know what an NBA player is like, try to find out how he treats team staff. Whitley, who was Dallas' longtime equipment manager before his promotion this season, said that Nowitzki has "the biggest heart of any person of his stature that I've ever been around." He added that Nowitzki has "no diva in him" -- he never even asked for new socks, shirts and shoes.

Ask teammates about Nowitzki, and many of them will tell you it has been an honor to play with him. Mavericks center Dwight Powell is one of them, and he said he has been inspired by Nowitzki quietly finding ways to help the community and change lives in Dallas. Ex-Mavs guard Darren Collison will never forget watching Nowitzki slowly walk through a crowded airport, signing autograph after autograph, brushing nobody off. According to Whitley, countless players have told him over the years that they "never thought he was like this" because of his intensity on the court.

One of the peculiarities about playing until you're 40 is that you end up sharing the court with people who grew up cheering for you. "I've got his jersey," Joe Ingles said. "Only one I've got." When Ingles and Nowitzki got in a scuffle, the Utah Jazz forward "felt bad 'cause I really like him."

Justin Anderson: The team that I would always choose on 2K, the poster that was on my wall, the jersey that I begged mom to buy was Dirk's. Coming to the league, being drafted by the Mavericks was obviously a surreal moment to me. I remember when I first got to see him in the locker room, just being able to kick it with him.

Chandler Parsons: We would always have a group that we would go to get dinner on the road. I remember the girl I was dating at the time I played in Dallas was German, so we'd always go to his house and we'd play tennis or we'd just hang out. Just little things like that that I would never think I'd get the chance to do with one of the greats. And it's just crazy how the world works. It started off with idolizing this guy and now I would consider him a close friend. It's crazy that basketball brought me to someone I looked up to as a role model my whole life.

Ryan Broekhoff, Mavericks forward, 2018-present: When I started basketball, I was like, "I want to be like Dirk." You'd go into the backyard or play against friends and throw up the one-legged fadeaways. It didn't go in too much, but you'd yell, "Dirk!"

Doug McDermott, Mavericks wing, 2018-2018: When I was in college, I kind of started shooting those fadeaways because of him. I watched him in the Finals that year against LeBron. I posted a lot in college, so I added it to my game and it ended up being really huge for me.

Ryan Broekhoff: It's come up in a couple of interviews. Whether he's paid much attention to it or not is a different story. I haven't gone up to him and just gone, "I was a big fan," all this sort of stuff. When I first came in, I was like, "Oh, wow, there's Dirk walking in." Now it's, "Hey, Dirk, how you doing? How's your day?" I know him as a person and he's such a down-to-earth, funny, warm character that it made it easy for me to not just see him as an idol growing up but a teammate and, now, friend.

Doug McDermott: I didn't want to be a fanboy around him. He doesn't know how big of a fan I am.

Elton Brand: It was refreshing because you hear a lot of stories about other superstars, and you go to the Mavericks and the initial team dinner is at his house. His wife is setting up the food. It's like a normal, just everyday teammate. You wouldn't think he was the Hall of Famer, you'd think he was the 15th guy just trying to hang on at times, with his demeanor.

Dennis Smith Jr.: He's willing to allow you into that aspect of life, letting you know how he is. He even told me that I need to go by his house and start babysitting his kids. He told me that my rookie year.

Al Whitley: He's a superstar player that's always thinking about the staff and enjoys hanging out with them outside of basketball. Some of his closest friends are the Mavs staff. I mean, we've grown up with him.

Rick Carlisle: He's not high-maintenance. He's not needy. He's a giver, not a taker. And you gotta be real careful because all those qualities point to a guy that's easy to take for granted. My level of respect for him is so high, and my understanding for how special he is both as a person and as a player is so high that I refuse to take that guy for granted.

Adrian Griffin: Dirk Nowitzki was very content about being Dirk Nowitzki. He didn't feel he had to live up to any persona. He didn't feel he had to be a prima donna or be out in the media and put on a certain image. He was cool with being Dirk, and that's what made him so special. He'd come into practice with jeans on an a T-shirt. On the court, he was a killer. Off the court, he was a gentle giant. I don't know if you'll ever find a Dirk Nowitzki ever again.

"Dude, you're 38, are you going to be able to walk tomorrow?"

When Avery Johnson coached the Mavericks, he had to resort to punishments. "It would be like, 'Hey, tomorrow's off; if anybody comes in, they're getting fined," ex-Mavs center Calvin Booth said. Johnson said it to the whole team, but the message was for Nowitzki, who did not seem to respect the concept of an off-day.

This is not to say that his extreme commitment to his routine is a problem. "No one sets a better example than Dirk Nowitzki," Nelson said, speaking reverentially about the way his game evolved under the tutelage of Geschwindner. The two of them wanted to add to what they called his "toolbox" every summer, and Nelson still sounds mystified by the way Nowitzki improved as a rebounder early in his career.

"Dirk is like a son to all of us, but particularly Holger who, really, in a lot of respects, birthed him from a basketball perspective," Nelson said. "He was working with him back in the day when he literally was this kid that was just a little colt on the court, trying to figure out life. He's been his agent, he's been his mentor, he's been his motivation, he's been, really, everything from soup to nuts. And Holger's skill set and his ingenuity perfectly matched up, I think, with Dirk. It was one of these really cool time-and-place happenstances where these two planets came together."

Nowitzki put the Mavericks on his shoulders, but loud, vocal leadership was never his thing. "He showed me the ropes, he showed me without telling me," former Dallas wing Justin Anderson said. Anderson is one of many ex-Mavs who said they made a point of doing shooting drills with him and watching what he was doing. When Nowitzki went to the cold tub, Anderson followed him to the cold tub. When Anderson noticed Nowitzki was eating before treatment, he decided to eat before treatment.

"He taught me so much about the game, whether it's taking care of your body, how much water he drinks," Anderson said."I mean, he drinks an insane amount of water. Every time I saw him he had a big glass bottle of Mountain Valley water with him."

Elton Brand: I saw Holger, his coach, come in from Germany, and I'd get shots up at night and they were there all day and night, working on his form, doing his, like, squatting all the way down to the ground and shooting high-arcing shots.

Ian Mahinmi: I asked Holger to work me out just so I could see it. I worked out a few times with him and his stuff is hard. You get to a point where you master that shit, no wonder why you're a Hall of Famer.

Elton Brand: It was fascinating, watching him do like squats and not even shoot the ball. And bear crawls.

DeAndre Jordan: Some of it is very unorthodox, but, shit, I mean, if it works for you, it works for you. Obviously it has been proven to work over 21 seasons. We all could take a page out of his book.

Seth Curry: It's about routine. It's about what you do every day. If you do something every single day, you can master it, you can figure out what works for you. Even today, you see guys like KD and Steph take some of those things they've seen Dirk do with Holger and apply it to their workouts, like getting extra low, shooting it super high arc. He definitely changed the game in the way people practiced shooting.

Donnie Nelson: We would give Dirk and Holger things that they needed to work on over the course of the summer, and when the season was over, it was almost like they went right back to Würzburg and got in that gym. And by the time training camp came around, not only did he have it, but he had it mastered.

Jason Terry: To watch Dirk work, to watch him prepare the way he did, it made me a better professional and a better player. There was many nights where I would be on one end of the court, he would be on the other and he would be working on his craft. And I would just peek down to the other end and just watch him work and what he was doing and with the efficiency that he was doing it with. That routine alone, I implemented and it gave me the longevity that I've had to this day, to be able to play 19 years. Had I not been Dirk Nowitzki's teammate and been able to witness that greatness every single day and sit by him in the locker room during my time in Dallas, I don't think I would have played as long.

Donnie Nelson: In all the years that I've been here, we haven't had a single guy that's outworked him. We get rookies that say, "Oh yeah I'll be here every day that Dirk's here, I'll work harder," and this and that. Yeah, that lasts about a week.

Harrison Barnes, Mavericks forward, 2016-2019: He'd always brag. He'd be like, "I heard you were a hard worker." I'm like, "Yeah, likewise. Hey, if you want to get in the gym, let me know." And he was coming back and he's in the gym for like an hour and a half, two hours after practice. I'm like, "Dude, you're 38, are you going to be able to walk tomorrow?"

Ian Mahinmi: You get on the tip of your finger when you do your pushups -- Dirk is the first guy that I actually saw doing that type of pushup. So one day I was looking at him, and he was like, "Man, what are you looking at me for? Get down with me and let's do a series." I started that 'cause of him.

Chandler Parsons: I'm looking at my free-throw percentage this year, I'm shooting 90 percent. I used the breathing technique that he taught me. I've always breathed out on my free throw. Before he shoots, he breathes in and kind of holds his breath at the line, which I thought was different. Most guys exhale and he said that kind of puts motion through your whole body. It's a little thing like that that I've picked up on that I'm still using today that I would have never learned if I didn't play with him.

Mike Procopio: He just never goes away from what works for him. And I talked to Don Kalkstein, our sports psychologist, and he says, "Pro, he's been doing it for 20 years. The same thing." The same workout with Holger. The jokes are the same. Everything is the same. It's like a Twilight Zone episode, where everybody else is dead but he's still coming in, doing the same thing, like he's talking to mannequins every day. I literally think if you set up 40 mannequins of our staff and he walks by, he'll just say the same thing without even noticing.

"Cut out of a different cloth"

"It's tough to see him like this," Dallas guard J.J. Barea said last month. Nowitzki had just shot 2-for-13 in a blowout loss to the Brooklyn Nets, missing his first nine shots and all seven of his 3-point attempts. The fans at Barclays Center screamed for Dirk and booed other Mavericks when they didn't pass him the ball. Barea knows how much Nowitzki loves to compete. Everyone around him knows that, 21 years in, losses and bad games still get to him.

You don't need to be a longtime teammate to know that this season has been challenging for Nowitzki. He has spoken publicly about the setback that kept him out until mid-December after spending last offseason recovering from ankle surgery. Over the last few years, he has been honest about the frustration that has come with his body no longer being able to keep up with his mind, just like he was honest about his Finals heartbreak.

Nowitzki never pretended to be invincible. He owned his failings, deflected praise and answered questions. According to Cuban, players can learn a lesson from this: "Being humble, open and vulnerable are signs of strength."

Al Whitley: He put in so much work this past summer and was actually feeling really good. The setback was tough to watch. I don't think many people, if any other than himself, could get through that and continue to play on and keep fighting every day at his age and at his stature. It would have been easy to just hang it up and say, "I gave it a go and it just didn't work out." But instead he was the first one at the gym getting treatment, rehabbing, trying to figure it out and get it right 'cause he wanted to come back and play so bad.

Mike Procopio: He's got a lot on his mind. He's hurting. I think if you invested in ice this past couple years, it went up about 300 points in the stock market because we've monopolized it. But the guy's going through some tough times sometimes, so joking around and making the guy smile and laugh is pretty cool.

Greg Buckner: He's Mr. Maverick. The Dallas Mavericks' legacy is all because of Dirk. And a little bit of Mark Cuban, don't get me wrong. But Dirk is the legacy. And he knows this is his baby. You never want to give up your baby. He feels like the Mavericks is his baby, and I think that's why he's grinding and grinding can play as long as he has.

Donnie Nelson: Dirk a number of times could have gone a different direction and said, "Hey listen, let me go finish up with Golden State." Look, he's gotten calls from all the big boys. I mean, anyone that's been in the Finals run -- L.A., Miami, he gets calls from all of those guys. Recruiting calls from some of the best players that have ever played the game: "Hey, come on and join us. We're assured that we'll get to the Finals. We got a shot to get you another ring." Dirk has turned down all of those sirens to stick it out here in Dallas. That's, beyond words, appreciated.

Rick Carlisle: Dirk's a great friend. This is my 11th year. We arrived here in 2008 when my daughter was going into preschool. She's now in eighth grade and my present contract runs through the end of high school for her. I'm well aware that the reason my daughter is going to likely be in the same school for 14 straight years, with pre-K, kindergarten and then grades 1 through 12, is because of Dirk's greatness and all these very unique qualities. He now has a young family with three kids, and he's learning what that's all about. But he and I have been through a lot, and if you look at what's happened with the team since the championship, there's been a lot of upheaval. There's been significant change virtually every year. But he's kept a consistent approach, a positive mindset, a positive bent on the whole thing. And it's made my job lightyears easier than what it could have been.

Donnie Nelson: This is almost like a time warp because you really can't believe this is potentially coming to an end. You can't imagine your life without that person. And it's not like he's leaving forever or anything like that, but you've been so used to having him be the rudder of the franchise for so long, you don't really know how to react to it.

Mike Procopio: I love him. he's a good dude. I'll never admit that to his face. I'll Frank Underwood this thing and just lie and put a spin on it if anyone ever says it, but I love the dude. He's a good guy. He's one of the best. I'm glad I got a chance to spend six years with the guy.

Rick Carlisle: I've been in teams with superstars for decades. I can categorically say that Dirk is cut out of a different cloth. I can also say with the utmost confidence that we will never, ever see a guy in the NBA game quite like him, in terms of his humility, loyalty and all-out level of greatness. The interesting thing about Dirk is the humility and loyalty make it easy to marginalize certain parts of his game and certain huge contributions that he's made to the game. And at the end of the day, that's what makes him the most special.

Donnie Nelson: If San Antonio is the last hoorah, will be his last game, that ironically is where everything started. We're going to be playing right next door to that little gym to where the Hoop Summit was played, that little 5000-person gym. So Dirk's period is going to end literally about 50 yards from where his American Idol moment happened. Ironically, Holger and I, we're going to have a date at the same place that we did however many years ago. If that is in fact the last game, it's ironic serendipity. It's almost like a song.

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drblackgaard · 8 years ago

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Characters to Whom I Relate

(tagged by @echoofmidnight over a year ago to do this, finally doing it, now with 100% less ending prepositions in the title)

In which Devon probably definitely massively overshares about his problems

unlike the original I’ll actually add a brief(?) explanation and not just their name and photo. one might also notice some overlap between this list and character’s I’ve cosplayed, for obvious reasons.

im tagging @messed-up-polkadots @moss-effect @duchashka @writingpikachu @tanosoka

Ryugazaki Rei (Free! Iwatobi Swim Club)

This will probably be the only long one? When I was first tagged in this post, Rei was probably the first character that came to my mind. I love all my Free boys so dearly, but Rei is my least favourite out of the Iwatobi boys, which makes it interesting that he tops this list so definitively. (This list contains lots of characters considered the “smart one” (roughly 10/13 on the list, arguably). That is not the primary reason that I picked any of them, just for reference.) When I first watched Season 1 of Free!, I was at the very beginning of my first year away from home (2nd year of post-secondary). Like Victoria and I literally started watching the show while my family was dropping me off in Vancouver. My social situation/mental health situation was really not great in high school, especially not as a combination. I felt like Rei’s struggles of s1 captured my experience bizarrely well. Not the learning to swim, but Rei was faced with this social situation where he awkwardly entered into a pre-formed social circle where he was the only one without this shared history. As time goes on, he increasingly realizes that he’s the outsider, not just in skill, but in years and years of shared experiences, and as everyone talks about their issues concerning Rin, Rei’s increasingly confronted with the fact that he doesn’t belong in this circle of friends like any of the others do. He’s an outsider looking in, always 4 steps behind what’s going on, and no one’s ever bothered to fill him in on the things that have happened. When the finale rolls around, and Rin has the chance to swim the relay with Rei’s team; the team that he’s trained with and built up all this work for, Rei makes the huge sacrifice play and sits this incredible moment out, isolating himself so that his friends can hang out with their other friend and he can watch from the sideline. This whole situation was very much like my social situation in late high school, but more depressing in general, more acquaintancey than in Free, but the finale really got to me, and I could immediately think of so many times that I’d bit the bullet and had to sit out on participating or make sacrifices that really hurt to help people spend their time with their Rin’s instead of with me, because I know that they’d much rather do that than be around me. Rei’s story was really emotional for me in s1, and I probably resented it to a degree for that, but it was nothing if not relatable. Also, Rei’s real gay. Ok, now for shorter things(?)

Nanase Haruka (Free! Iwatobi Swim Club)

There’s definitely something to be said that Haru is half of my all-time main OTP and Makoto is my #1 fictional husband and the whole thing where your ships say a lot about what you relate to/are looking for in relationships and what a big part Free! was of me coming to terms with being gay and all of this is extremely highly interconnected. The main point I want to make on this one, though, is Haru’s relationship with his talent. The very first episode opens with a monologue about how Haru wishes that people would stop putting him on a pedestal. He’s the only sports anime protagonist I’ve seen who despises competing in the sport the show’s about. [continuous grumbling about the s2 finale and haru’s arc’s ending but hey tokyo makoharu is enough for me to be happy with]. Haru is exceedingly talented at swimming, yes, but he doesn’t want to do it for a living; doesn’t want it to be about the numbers and the competition. Obviously this was much more a thing in s2. Haru’s very talented in so many other areas: all forms of art, cooking, he’s consistently in the first class of his grade throughout middle and high school. It’s clear to me in s2 that he just wants people to remember that he actually has other talents, so many other career options besides professional swimming, which is why he gets so upset when even Makoto of all people broaches swimming first as what he should be looking at for the future. I am very smart, plainly put. I hate embellishing my gifts but the point is that I’ve always been put on a pedestal for being years beyond my age in academic and emotional intelligence. After a point, you really wish that people would remember that you have any other skills or talents whatsoever. I knew that I didn’t want to build my identity on my brains, and tried to push so hard to get people to recognize more parts of who I am, but it’s still usually overshadowed by my brain. Being a Christian in a close Christian community social-wise, I’m very frequently in situations of mutual encouragement, compliments, and such, and every time that someone identifies my smarts as my peak characteristic, I die just a little bit inside. Once at a youth leader’s retreat with some of the closest friends I had (very relatively speaking), we were given someone else’s name and had to pick a single word to describe that person. I was expecting something intellectual as always, and received the word “loyalty” as a singular concept I represented to her, and I think it might still be the most lasting compliment that’s stuck in my head, now 6-ish years later. That one was also really long, but it dovetails nicely into the next one. Oh, and Haru’s also very gay, and in love with Tachibana Makoto. Very relatable.

Eugene Meltsner (Adventures in Odyssey)

Obviously I really like Adventure in Odyssey. It’s my #1 fandom, Victoria and I run a relatively popular fan podcast for it, and we just listen to it a whole lot. When people ask who my favourite AIO character is, which happens frequently, they usually assume Eugene, because he’s smart and I’m smart [which is annoying to me, re: above]. They are actually correct about the character, but wrong about the reason. The reasons Eugene’s my fave are actually mostly unrelated to why he’s included here, but the above point does connect well to Haru’s spiel. Likewise, that spiel connects well with Eugene’s insecurity regarding his mind. I said above that I try hard not to build my identity on my intellect, but obviously there are times that that effort has failed me. Coming to UBC was a big part of that. In my teeny hometown, I stood out greatly in high school. I graduated with about a 97% average, 2nd highest in my grad class, bilingual diploma, and almost double the minimum credits I needed because of all my extra-curriculars. I was fluent in 2 languages and excelled at 2 instruments. My last math teacher said I was tied for the smartest student he’d ever taught. First year of college was at home, did alright, then I came to UBC. For reference, the university has about 8 times more undergrads than the population of my hometown. I quickly realized that I was not the smart one anymore, just another one of the crowd. I made friends with people whose intelligence casually dwarfed my own by orders of magnitude. I didn’t have an existential crisis or anything, since I’d already tried to proactively guard myself against that kind of false life foundation, but insecurities are always there to creep in. I often think of Eugene in Truth, Trivia, & ‘Trina. One of Eugene’s arcs in that episode (which was obviously in many others as well), was getting over his compulsive need to prove his worth through his intelligence, of understanding he had value without needing to info dump on everyone all the time. For Eugene, it obviously had deep rooting in his relationship with Leonard and the ways that was left unresolved for Eugene after his parents’ disappearance, but that’s another dissertation for another podcast episode. The point is, while I recognized this fact in theory, I’ve always had a lot of trouble internalizing it. I know my worth comes from who I am in God, not on my own talents, but that doesn’t stop me from compulsively seeking validation through my brains or my humour or literally anything else I can possibly do to receive affirmation from others. Also Eugene loves neologisms and beautiful, convoluted sentences and I can really get behind that.

Evan Hansen (Dear Evan Hansen)

I finally watched this musical for the first time less than a week ago and yeah, I feel like I’ve probably covered most of the reasons that connect me to Evan Hansen. high school: I was extremely alone, very depressed, frequently suicidal, and, more often than not, constructing elaborate fictional scenarios in my head wherein I had deep, intimate friendships with the people around me. I didn’t take it as far as Evan, and also was gay for Connor in this analogy. They can’t all be perfectly relatable.

Adrian Hlaváček (Always Raining Here)

This is where the list becomes a lot more loose lists of character trains. Adrian is: A Hot Mess™, really real gay, had that one crush that messed him up for so long bc you always fall for the straight ones and hope against hope it will impossibly work out and it obviously doesn’t and then you end up like the picture below, loves to sing, all about that Musical Theatre Life, seems like the innocent and pure one but then it turns out Oh you actually have a lot of emotional baggage that’s messing up your relationships in all sorts of unexpected ways, smart, lives in Vancouver, etc.

Wirt (Over the Garden Wall)

Wirt is: Anxiety+, poetry and concert band, the biggest nerd??, long walks through the forest, the older brother who will do whatever it takes to help his lil sibling, really stubborn, maybe never, maybe he’ll never give this up.

Amy Santiago (Brooklyn Nine-Nine)

Amy is: lover of reading, lover of Jake Peralta, cares so much about organization and protocol and actually enjoys filing and alphabetizing things, has a serious problem about putting people in leadership roles on pedestals where you just really want to be validated and mentored and spend time with them and maybe you just need to take a chill pill somethings and diversify your investment in people, super passionate about justice and doing the right thing

Jemma Simmons (Agents of SHIELD)

Jemma is: a biologist, really deeply truly fascinated by all sorts of sciency things and doesn’t really get when maybe that cadaver is a little morbid to others because LOOK it’s so cool! look at how that alien parasite burrowed into the brain like that why are you all turning green? what do you mean this isn’t a conversation for the dinner table?, would die for Peggy Carter also, mom friend, steadfast friend and a lot tougher than you realize until backed up against a wall, just such a huge nerd it’s incredible

Jake English (Homestuck)

Jake is: a dork, says the most outlandishly old-fashioned euphemisms completely unironically that no one else has said for 73 years, frequently has no emotional awareness as to his surroundings, just utterly oblivious at all times, very not straight, indiscriminate taste in most media

Ryan Haywood (Achievement Hunter)

Ryan is: (not actually a character but whatever), the “smart one” of the group but he actually basically never knows what he’s talking about and is usually just saying words vaguely related to the topic he knows and no one else realizes it, very doting friend, not here for any of your “wow look at that man and woman who are friends clearly they must be doing a romance there is literally no other option” nonsense, terrible diet, so much more of a nerd that he lets on 99% of the time, switches from really dark to really genuinely caring to really over-the-top at the drop of a hat, the theatre guy

Ben Wyatt (Parks and Recreation)

Ben is: Depressed+, really into so many different things, gets annoyed at people who act like mainstream fandom is anything other than mainstream culture at this point, it’s not a niche nerd thing anymore, sorry big bang theory, enormous romantic softie, puts a lot of thought into everything he does, likes terrible math puns, will correct your incorrect details about his fandoms. he wasn’t going to say anything, but actually it’ll bug him if he doesn’t. he’s not pretentious or a prick about it, he just cares a lot about a lot of things.

Marius Pontmercy (Les Misérables)

Marius is: literally me in our grade 12 production of Les Mis, and Lena you brought this curse upon me that I’m continually more and more like Marius how did you trap me like this? it’s awful. Marius is actually the Worst™ and here I am; my soul eternally bound to this fate. Marius is just the biggest mess in all of fiction, continually, every day of his life, and every post I read about his awful shenanigans in the book is too accurate to my life and I hate it. Ex: everything on this post

Carlos the Scientist (Welcome to Night Vale)

Carlos is the other one on this list I’ve cosplayed. To quote my sister when I told her I was doing it, “You ARE the gay handsome scientist man”. Carlos is quite literally me. A flamboyant brown scientist with impeccable hair who wears his lab coat far more than is professionally necessary and just really loves science a lot.

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gayaspheck · 7 years ago

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Needed - a Phan ‘journal’

So, this is my first phanfiction in a while... it’s based on my life and I’ll be (hopefully) updating this daily!

Friday, 27th October, 2017

Trigger warning: depression

It happened at recess. Dan had been joking around with Chris, PJ, and Phil, calling PJ 'daddy'. PJ smirked at him while Phil buried himself in a book, blushing. Dan didn't understand why Phil was blushing, but he wasn't able to ponder it long because of a comment that Chris made.

It was common knowledge that if the group were to ever split apart, it would split into Chris and PJ and Dan and Phil. It was also no surprise to any of the four when, straight after the semester break, Chris had started jokingly calling PJ 'daddy'.

Chris explained it, saying that they had gotten together over the holidays and he was just being a little fucker. That was understandable, considering that this was Chris, but it made Dan feel a sense of loneliness.

It had been almost a year since the 14 year old had dated anyone, and it was a little weird for him. He had always been able to go out with two or three people every year since about year 5, for a few months at a time, genuinely feeling something. So when he entered year 9 and suddenly couldn't get a boyfriend or girlfriend, he was a little... lonely.

Sure, he had great friends, and the person closest to him was Phil, but he just wanted someone to love, someone that he could hug and kiss and vent his feelings to.

That was probably what started all of this mess.

"Dan, do you wanna get wet?" PJ asked Dan from up on the table. Dan had been annoying the crap out of the rest of the group, leaning against a pole with his legs covering the entirety of a seat.

"Sure, daddy." He told PJ with a smirk, watching as he rolled his eyes.

"Well it would've happened anyway because you're not moving your giraffe legs." He retorted, leaning over so that his arms were over Dans lower legs and squirting water from his water bottle onto his hands, probably to wash them.

"Thanks daddy, it's hot today and your water is nice and cool." He laughed, pulling his legs closer to his chest and wiping the water off.

"Oh shut up Dan, don't call PJ 'daddy' just because no one loves you." Chris shot at him. Dan was shocked, to say the least. Chris had never said anything that mean before, and so casually.

Dan glanced over at Phil, seeing that he was still hiding in his book. He sighed, letting his legs slide back down the seat and leaning his back against the pole.

He had been feeling pretty good recently, and all because of that one comment, he wanted to cry.

"Sure, Chris." He mumbled so that only he himself could hear. It was true though, no one loved him. That much was obvious. He was too clingy and desperate, never wanting to let go of the relationship after his partner broke it off.

He grabbed his phone, pulling up his music and shoving the headphones in his ears. He didn't want to listen to any of their conversation, he didn't want to move, he didn't want to do anything.

He could tell that someone was trying to catch his eye, but he didn't care. He just opened Tumblr, deciding that wasting his data was the best option right now. Stupid school blocking literally everything.

He lay his head on the table, turning his music up a little and getting lost in Tumblr for the rest of recess. The comment from Chris kept replaying in his mind, always louder than the music though, making his mood lower and lower.

The bell went seemingly far too late, and Dan didn't want to move. He was fine moping at their bench, and class meant that he would have to participate and talk to other humans. The only human he wanted to talk to right now was Phil, or maybe Louise, but he couldn't for at least one session.

He was in the same elective class as Louise, but they had Dance after recess, which Louise loved. Dan hated it however, not finding the enjoyment people got from dancing. He just couldn't do it, his legs and feet and hips not doing what his brain wanted, causing him to get way too irritable and way too upset. So he just sat in the corner for the whole lesson, reading and videoing Louise (and Cat occasionally) because they were so talented.

Their next class was Drama, which Dan actually enjoyed. He was upset though, and all he wanted was a hug from Phil. He needed to feel wanted, he needed to know that what Chris said surely couldn't be true.

They had just started learning a scripted performance, and it was tough for Dan to focus. The only upside was that once he did manage to focus, his focus wasn't breaking. He got lost in the script, acting it out over and over with Louise, Cat, and another girl he didn't know too well, her name might have been Dolly.

And suddenly it was lunch, meaning that he'd have to sit with Chris again. He couldn't do that. He couldn't put up with Chris' shit again.

He power walked to their table, sighing softly when he saw that Phil was already there. He didn't want to hurt Phil's feelings, but he knew that Chris wouldn't be moving away from the table, and he didn't want to force Phil to.

"I'm just gonna sit around the back today." He murmured as he walked past Phil, sending him a small smile before heading around the back of a building. Almost like clockwork, Chris and PJ showed up, loud and obnoxious as ever.

Dan sighed, cranking his music up as loud as it could go and glaring at his remaining food. He wasn't hungry, he didn't want to eat. Maybe his weight was part of why no one wanted him. Despite only being a tiny 45kgs, he could easily see a stomach on himself.

He watched as Chris, PJ and Phil went on the road behind the building and hid his face in his hand, scrolling through a book on his phone with the other.

"You okay?" Dan heard Phil ask over his music. He nodded, not looking up in case they saw the tears brimming in his eyes. Why couldn't he get lost in his book and music like he usually could?

Chris said plenty of mean things constantly, yet that was the one breaking Dan.

The last two sessions of the day went by pretty quickly, seeing as they were only debating like they did every Friday. Dan only participated because everyone had to say at least one thing, but at least it was a thing he agreed with.

After school, Adrian had a football game and Dans stepmum was still at work, meaning he was home alone. He bluetoothed his phone to the TV and started blaring his music at a level that surely couldn't be good for his hearing. Dan shut his eyes, laying on the couch with his phone on charge and access to anything he wanted, with his favourite songs deafening him. It was like his own personal heaven.

He got a text from Phil, making him smile. He'd briefly dated Phil the past year, so he should be over him by now. It had been over a year, and the relationship had only lasted a couple weeks.

They talked for a bit, Dan bragging about having the house to himself for hours straight and Phil saying that he wished he was there with Dan. Dan wished that too.

He got hungry at around 9pm, so he decided to be a productive human and cook himself some potato gems. Nothing could possibly go wrong when you're deafening yourself to your favourite music and talking to your favourite person whilst trying to cook.

Dan was surprised when that was the case, remembering about his potato gems in the oven at the perfect time. This was another thing he bragged about to Phil, and his smile grew when Phil praised him on his perfect timing.

Dans stepmum came home too early in Dans eyes, causing him to turn off his music and switch to Netflix. Not long after, his dad and Adrian got home, making Dan have to stop using the TV altogether. He went pretty much straight to his room, not wanting to interact with any of them.

He lay awake in his room for hours, trying not to let his depression overcome him, only failing a little bit. A few tears slipped from his eyes which he wiped away hastily, turning his light off. He knew he shouldn't have stayed up so late, especially since he had to play football the next day, but sleep was too hard to even contemplate with the state of mind he was in. It did come eventually, but only because Tumblr had nothing to offer him that wasn't making his mental health spiral downwards.

#uh so #this is a thing now #this is a thing I need to stick to #Phan #dan Howell #Daniel Howell #Phil Lester #Philip lester #kickthestickz #dan and Phil #fantastic foursome #idk #angst #Needed

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survivorandalucia · 7 years ago

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“Wokest Bitch of the West”- Petra

I'm fucking quitting why did you have to cast these fucking people

OMG I made it and it's started and I'm soooo ready

RHONE ! Bless.

i love men that means im not a lesbian

Ohhh bitch i am here! I was legit just having a mental brake down and now im here. Ohh boy!!! Im so excited to be here and now im seeing Amanda again! But me geting jenna out and willa ohh boy! Im gonna have to talk to willa and hopefully jenna isn't so harsh this time around! Ah im so excited i just hope im not a pre-juror boot because im going to be so emotional this game and hopefully play a villainous card!

toby marlow is sexy as fuck what the mhell

I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS!!!! So far, not much has happened which can be good or bad. I'm a bit nervous to be playing with returnees being on the other tribe because they might be better at immunity challenges than us. I'm a bit nervous about Pine Boy being in this game because I heard that he's really good. So far I like Toph (Azores buddy <3), Sultana, Jacob, and Nick. Nick came to me right away and said he liked me and wanted an alliance with me. I was like sure!!! Who would I be to decline an alliance? An idiot, that's what I would be. I'm wondering how we're going to do idol hunting on this season and I hope we find out soon. I want to redeem myself from my Azores mess. That reminds me, Toph being here can be really bad for both of our games. If anyone know what Azores is, they know that I gave Toph my idol. They know that we were close, which can be really bad for our games. If people look at Azores and assume that we're still close (which we are), we're fucked in the long run. I love writing confessionals, I missed that in Azores. Sure, we had Ponderosa confessionals, but I wanted to talk more game shit in there. Another thing that I'm worried about: If Toph read my in-game confessionals during Azores, he knows that I'm reluctant to play by his side again. Or, if he has a brain, he can infer it from that. Hopefully, this wont all blow up in my face. I can't wait for the shit show to start after the immunity challenge.

I really am gonna have to fight the hosts

Not letting me idol search and putting me on this tribe. There is only ONE girl on my tribe. And rhone and the boys. I hate men fuck you all. Also Jake being on my tribe when he has the personality of a dead foot yikes. I hate this tribe i hate this game. Get me my shit i wanna leave now.

Except jordan pines and daniel they cool.

Heyo! The name’s Johnny, from Survivor: India, the guy who went through only two tie votes in his seasons, and I guess I’m ready to swing at the sandbags again. I’m glad to be back and hopefully I don’t fall in the pits that I fell in last time. I’m not settling for premerge this time ‘round. So this tribe is definitely a lot bigger & badder than I expected. Lots of personalities, lots of players, and a shit ton of self-professed “bitches”, “villains”, and whatnot. I just want to survive a while in here so I’m ready to slap on the under-the-radar happy tribe mascot sticker. But of course, the twist is revealed. I tried for the advantage but as always, my luck runs dry and I’m beaten to it. Figured Jordan Pines had it and right I was - dude won immunity. Lucky fella. Oh well, better him than ~some~ people, because at least he probably won’t want me gone first. I’ve also had some decent chats with Issy & Daniel, a bit o’ back-and-forth with Chris, and barely anything with Jake, Isaiah, and LA. And Adrian & Rhone, as far as I know, is a no-show so far. I do know Adrian though, so hopefully that gives me some brownie points! Now we’re gonna go on a tribe call and if there’s anything I know about myself, I’m both awkward and quiet on large calls so… hopefully I leave a decent impression.

So the tribe call just ended with the understanding that a second one would start, and guess what didn’t happen? It does feel a smidgen shady so hopefully there isn’t some chat without me already made because THAT would suck. After the call, though, Jake comes to me all desperate asking “We’re good right? I won’t vote you.” Dang, this guy moves quick. He asks me what I want to do and when I say wait it out for a little bit, he says “Good plan, low key wanna help the tribe.” Mate, simmer down, no need to jump on the gameplay horse so quick. I feel like he has some bad connection with someone, but I’m just not quite sure who that’d be. I know nothing about Tumblr connections, sadly. I trust Jordan right now - not too much, of course, I’ve heard how good he is at this stuff - but I’ll give him a little info and hope he reciprocates. I just wanna live until I reach a point where I can go full India mode and explode onto the scene. We’ll have to see if I can suffer through this tribe, first… I’ll just suffer well.

GUESS WHO WON IMMUNITY PEEPS ANYWAYS so since im at least surviving 1 tribal i have time to build relationships with these people, i've been talking to amanda and she's cool, and atm im on call with jacob/toph/peyton and im waiting for someone to add me to an alliance because im so talented

Everything seems pretty tame but since there is a tribal coming up, that scares me. I like Madison, Taylor, Sultana, Toph, Jacob, and Nick as of now. I'm going to watch the videos right now to see where people's heads are at right now. If I can do that, I'll be able to get a better read on everyone. Hopefully, that will help me with figuring out who to vote out. I'll pray for the best while reading Animal Farm.

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CONFESSIONAL: This is my first time in tumblr survivor history that I will be present at the premiere of the season. Pretty fucking excited. I'm like a survivor noob when it comes to the premiere. I've always been gone during it so this is my first premiere ever! I am hoping my 2nd and 1st place finishes don't put a early target on my back. I just need to make sure the tribe views me as an asset as opposed to a threat CONFESS: i think my status will help me. it says something about depression i think people will like that and that should be a convo starter

so me being the little bean that i am decided to have everyone join the call and now im an alliance called the "core fore" i mean like its me Payton, madison, and Jacob! okay that was just some basic ass info. here's my thoughts on everyone else! Amanda sledge: the only person i will trust in this game. she played an idol on me in Azores and if that isn't trust i don't know what else is. Payton: he seems ok, i mean he kinda seems Plainer then Rasin Bran but i mean her has a goat farm and litty. Madison: she seems woke and i would like to work with her given her immunity win and letting everything happen with this alliance already taylor: i mean he seems ok. But like he just got on call so ill keep you posted on him. Sultana: a woke ass queen! i really wanna work with her she seems super funny and chill and like a queen of everything she dose like harassing her mom for food! i would love to work with her will she wants too as well! the others: they have said nothing so like ima try and get one of them out now or payton. dfjbndofb Ok so currently i'm in about 2 alliances! Amanda, nick and myself are in one alliance. meanwhile i'm in an alliance with Jacob, Payton, and Madison together so like i have no idea if this is good or not because i don't wanna be caught so i feel like i need to tell Amanda so she dose not get mad and i can work with her! I really have no clue on what is going to happen. I don't want to trust anyone yet because tomorrow we will see were the lines will be drawn. I am like 50% that someone inactive will be voted off. but not if i have anything to say about that! I want payton out because i feel like he is dry and kinda basic. after all i will try and be the villain of the season oops! i honestly really like Petra though and think shes very chill and interesting. lets hope she feels the same way. i'm hoping i can just stay calm for now and then go and cry about it latter. i honestly am very hungry right now though like i ugh. Ok that is besides the point. But i feel like i need to bring my paranoid level up to like a ten because i can't trust none of these bitches or i'm gonna be scared as hell. my ears are open to everything and i have a google docs open and im ready to kill some people.

So at the beginning of the game, me and Amanda talked alot and decided to team up. Then Amanda was good friends with Toph. So then we formed a three person alliance. While we were on call, me Amanda, Toph and Suitana formed an alliance. The twist was announced that both tribes will be going to tribal. I really hope I am not first out but I got a solid 4 person alliance called the Wig Snatchers with them.

I feel like I'm the least extra person here and some of them I think don't like that I'm not super extra

ok idk who 2 vot cuz im just a woke ass bitch and like i havent come across anyone that im rly annoyed with xcept payt TBH hes just awkward and like totally denies my humor via not laughing and everyones talking about this person called jenna they had tea drama with or smth so im like O _ O

I love being on tribe calls because late at night is when alliances are made! I'm currently in an alliance with Petra, Nick, and Toph (Seamus too). We don't have the majority yet, but I like Jacob and Madison. I hope they will vote Jenna with us. I heard nothing but bad things about her from Toph and she seemed cool, but I think right now it's our best option to get her out since she has no wifi at the moment.

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Hey everyone, first confessional. I have not played in one of these games in a very long time so I feel very rusty. Anyway, this double tribal twist could really mess up my game but I can't worry about that at the moment. My plan is watch my tribemates videos and try to find common ground. I know Poteet is really embarrassed about going out premerge, and I went premerge too so we can talk about that. I need to take it one step at a time.

I have gained the trust of a good amount of the tribe, and they all are just kinda doing what I say, so i feel like i have some power suddenly. Not saying I'm on the path the a villain but we'll see what happens.

i want to die

Joy, oh joy. I wake up this morning (if 11:30 AM is considered morning) with Jake being the only message to me and I think, THAT can't be a good sign. So he reiterates him wanting to work with me, yadda yadda, badda bing, and says that he values we have history. I'm pretty sure our history is just like one or two Skype minis so unless I'm forgetting something, ripperoni. He also tells me he's "heard a few names floating around" but when I asked him who it was, no response. Go figure. Luckily, Chris Stoner messages me and tells me that as of now Jake is the vote (I'm assuming from the mind of Jordan Pines) so at least I have some solace there. I don't think I'll be going at the end of the day, but there's still the very real fear that my head's on the chopping block, and I don't want to be lynched tonight, nosiree.

So while my video confessional is uploading, it seems like I got Taylor's vote to get Jenna out! I'm really excited to not be the first boot, honestly. I'm sad though because she never got to send me pictures of her kittens. Maybe if I keep her she'll show me! Anyways, how's your day? My mom broke our snapchat streak and it's quite disappointing... like I came out of your vagina and you're going to treat me like this?? Oop my video confessional uploaded here it is in all its (not) glory!

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So Jake said that Rhone had suggested Issy (due to their beef from another game, pretty sure it was a wiki game I viewed lmao) or Chris to go home. I found this a little bit fishy but then again I've found most of what Jake's been doing to be fishy. However Jake seems to think it'll be Issy going which is convenient. I also hopped on a call with Jordan Pines and we traded a bit of info - I'm not going to give him EVERYTHING persay (I've been told many stories about him so best to tread lightly) but luckily he gave me some. Jake had randomly made an alliance chat with Jordan and Rhone last night without informing either of them and both distrusted it. Jordan wants to keep some sorta secret information sharing pact between the two of us and I'm game, but I need to make sure he trusts me so I still have to actually give him credible tales. I've just gotta stay on his good side for now and be the nice, honest fella on the tribe. That'll keep me afloat until the swap (which seems like it'll be an auxillary situation. How fun). I do like Isaiah and Adrian a bit and I wouldn't mind working with those two, it'd be nice to get something rolling along with em. We'll have to see, though, because I'm not sure how social Adrian's been so far. As of now, our first boot should be Jake. Let's just hope we can stay strong and not lose to those meddlesome newbies.

I'm not going to lie... I'm a bit nervous. A tribal shouldn't be going this smoothly unless there's something going on in the background. Dear god, let this work out. I will write more after tribal is over, I'm just too nervous right now.

#breakhershoulder

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