#{/i still have like... 4-6 things due tomorrow which is the deadline for all of it this week i hate it here}

[blindedguilt-archived]

//Of course this doesn't mean I'm leaving this account (Not in a million years) or am going to give up the others (Also not in a million years!!), but I've been wanting to make a comeback to my alts alongside this one and am like "...Well diving into all of them at once is a RECIPIE for disaster, so why don't I take it one step at a time and just do one on the side since my muse for all of them are pretty high right now? ...But who." //So that said, if there's a certain character anyone would like back OR is interested in interacting with that they haven't before feel free to vote and I'll be sure to roll around on them the next week or so! If you don't know who they are but would like context, here's a short description of the two canon muses, OC's would take a bit more but ofc I'll always be happy to explain in detail about them if wanted! ^^

Jonathan (Shin Megami Tensei IV): A polite prentice samurai of 18 years of age from the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado. Born into a family of Luxurors (Nobility) due to his father's work for the monastery, Jonathan possesses a strong sense of justice and surprisingly lacks the sense of scorn most Luxurors have towards their lower-class counterparts. While he's easily flustered and has a tendency to want to stick to the rules no matter what, Jonathan is a formidable asset to have in battle and isn't exempt from turning to violence when those he regards as fellows are threatened - or even if his ideals are challenged.

Urick (Drakengard 2): 27 years old. Known as "The Masked Man", Urick lives on the run from the Knights of the Seal and the guilt of his past mistakes. Though he appears a laid-back jokester at first glance, Urick remains deeply scarred by his past, and possesses a pact with a Reaper which grants him immortality - after dying a countless number of deaths, however, the only thing he truly desires is to be laid to rest.

[strawb3rryw00]

Late Night ♡ woo wonjae x female reader

warnings -> swearing

synopsis -> y/n works hard in her studio day and night and begins to worry her boyfriend who works right next door.

fluff and some suggestive shit.

also there’s a little bit of jay park x reader in here too

~♡~

4:25 am.

You let out a long sigh, slamming your computer shut after listening to your track. You had recently joined AOMG as their youngest member. You were a prodigy, having only been rapping for a year when Jay saw you performing at a small show just two years ago. No one in the company had a doubt in your skill, all of them praising you highly on the single you released after joining.

But you were a perfectionist. And you were determined to prove to everyone that your talent was undeniable. You were labeled as the hidden ace of AOMG by a magazine company after a special performance at one of Simon D’s concerts.

Your lyrical abilities and flow were unmatched by most artists in the game. You had a unique musical and physical style which caused you to have a large fan base, doubling in size when AOMG confirmed your relationship with Woo Wonjae, another artist under the label.

You were featured on his album, his fans becoming yours after hearing your talent paired with his.

But that only made you put more pressure on yourself.

You’ve locked yourself in your studio for days on end. Wanting to get your first full length album utterly perfect for your fans, the company, and yourself. You’ve gone days without sleeping or eating, earning the worry of your label mates.

Just three hours ago Jay was in your space lecturing you. He made sure to take care of every artist under him, checking up on them despite his busy schedule. While having two companies and multiple rappers and vocalists under his labels, you were the one he was always most worried about.

“Y/N man,” He spoke to you casually in english. “I love your drive and effort, but you need to go home sometime tonight.”

You frowned, pausing your song you had played. “But Jay,” You rolled up your sleeves and exposed your tattooed arms. “I’m just trying-“

“I know what you’re trying to do.” Jay cut you off, his tone a little harsh. He hated talking to you like that, but it’s what you needed. “Your friends? They snitch on you. Especially your little boy next door,” He referred to Wonjae, who was probably working away in his studio as well.

Since your boyfriend was also an artist, he understood your mindset and left you alone due to your request. Of course you guys still talked and spent time together, yet it was minimal during this time.

“I should not have to hear that you’re in here day and night. I gave you the full fucking luxury studio as a gift, thinking you’d take care of yourself. But youre basically living here. The shower is for occasional late nights y/n,” Jay furrowed his eyebrows at you, standing up and sighing. “I’ll force you to move to a smaller one, don’t think I wont.”

Jay opened his arms for you to stand up and hug him, which you did. He held you tightly, resting his head on yours and sighing again. “You stress me out. I better hear that you’ve gone home by tomorrow afternoon.” He says sternly, pulling away and looking at you.

“And you better fucking eat babe,” He always spoke to you in a friendly manner but it was never flirty. He genuinely cared for you and the other artists. And it was normal for you both to use babe in a casual manner. Despite his lecturing and the wide age gap, you both were very good friends.

“I will,” You smiled at him, pulling your phone out to find something to order.

He exits your studio and you sigh, sitting down on the couch you added. Your studio felt more like home than your apartment. You decorated it as such, even adding a cat tower for when you have your feline roomie with you, which is usually always because you don’t like leaving the ginger cat alone all the time.

After he left you went back to working diligently. You had finished three songs in the five months you’ve been working on the album. You didn’t have an actual deadline but you knew your fans were waiting. You had several features you wanted on this album as well. Hoody has been waiting for you to finish your part of this song so she can add her magical vocals to it. But you hadn’t quite found what you were missing from it.

Your phone lit up, a message from Jay on it. ‘I have your location ma’am’ The message read, earning a laugh from you.

‘lol’ you respond, setting your phone back down. You look at your lock screen and smile. It’s a picture of you and Woo that a fan took of you both performing on stage together. It was the first time you performed with him after it being confirmed you both were dating. In the picture you’re rapping to the crowd, squatted down a little and Wonjae is looking at you with the happiest look plastered on his face.

At the thought of your lover you decide it’s time to take a break. You get up and stretch, hearing your back pop, slipping back on your slides. You tend to stay in your socks while working, it’s more comfortable to you.

You walk out the studio and next door, smiling as you read your boyfriends name on the door. You walk in without knocking, knowing he never minds.

He’s in the booth, rapping his verse to Kunst, who looks at you with tired eyes. You stand behind his chair, resting your hands on his shoulders and giving them a slight squeeze while listening to your boyfriend.

You could listen to him rap all day. His deep voice was so beautiful in your ears. “Are you about to leave?” Kunst asks you. “Jay told us to make sure you leave.”

You shake your head. “Not yet.” You say, earning a sigh from the taller male.

Wonjae exits the booth, his eyes lighting up when he sees you. “Ahh finally taking a break mm?” His arms wrap around your shoulders and pull you close. You inhale his scent, closing your eyes in comfort. He doesn’t let you go, and holds you while talking to his friend.

“Imma head out, you did good.” Kunst gets his things together and pats you on the head before wishing you both farewell and leaving.

Wonjae kisses the top of your head and yawns. “Let’s eat baby,” He says softly. You nod and slide your hands under his shirt and run your fingers along his back, his favorite thing.

“I missed you,” You say into his chest, still with your eyes closed. He chuckles, his hand resting on the back of your neck while his fingers play with the few pieces of hair that fall from your bun.

“I missed you too, you been busy huh?” He pulls away slightly to look down at you. You meet his eyes and give him a tired smile which he returns.

“Yea you could say that.” He laughs at your answer which is music to your ears.

Now having been in his arms you don’t want to return to your studio for the day. You really did miss him but work is very important to you.

Wonjae sits down in the chair his friend was occupying previously and pulls you into his lap. Your legs hang over one arm while your back rests against the other. You lean into him, his arms sliding around you once more and pulling you closer. You tuck your head into his neck and relax to the sound of his deep breaths.

“It’s almost 6 am,” Wonjae hums, his fingers tracing the outlines of the tattoos on your exposed arm. “I’m tired.” He sighs. You know he’s hinting that you guys should leave, especially after Jay having said something.

“Me too,” You admit, placing a gentle kiss on his jaw and yawning. “Let’s go.” You add, reluctantly leaving his lap.

He stares at you a little shocked. “You’re finally listening huh? I’m impressed.” He stands up as well, laughing when you hit his arm.

“Go get your things jagi,” He waves you off.

After getting your things and your kitty, you lock up your studio and meet by his while he locks up as well. He smiles at you, sliding his bag on his shoulders and wrapping his arm around your shoulders while you both make your way to the parking garage.

“Let’s go get some early food and then go to my place yea?” Wonjae offers, guiding you to his car. “Ron can come with us and play with my babies,” He refers to your cat that you named after the ginger wizard.

You nod, getting in the passenger seat in his car and setting Ron on your lap. You inhale the comforting smell of his car, not having been in his car nor outside for a week now.

Wonjae drives down the empty road to a restaurant near his apartment that’s open early on weekdays. His hand rests just above your knee, his index finger reaching out to pet the cat on your lap. “No work talk today.” He says, looking at you as he parks. “You’re taking a break.” You smile, loving how he already knows how you are.

After you fill your stomachs, you’re on the way to his home. Even more tired now that you’ve ate. Once parked, he grabs his bag as well as yours and leads you into the building and up to his apartment. Unlocking the door, he rests his hand on your back to usher you in where you set Ron down while slipping your feet out of your shoes.

Ron immediately mingles with Wonjae’s three cats who make their way over to the two of you, the four of them following you to Wonjae’s room.

“Do you want to shower with me?” Wonjae asks softly, cupping your cheek into his hand and rubbing the pad of his thumb along the bone. You lean into his touch, kissing his palm. “Yes please.”

“Okay, I’ll go start it.” He rushes to the bathroom and you hear the water being started. You undress yourself, throwing the clothes in the basket he has in the corner of his room. Once you’re completely stripped you push open the bathroom door where you see Wonjae beginning to take off his clothes as well.

After sliding off his shirt he looks at you and smirks. “Mmm,” He hums, pulling you closer to him by your hips. “I missed looking at this.” He leans down and places a kiss on your neck, licking a stripe to your ear and flicking your lobe with the tip of his tongue. It sends a shiver down your spine, your eyes closing in bliss.

He knows your body like the back of his hand, he cherishes every piece of you. He looks at you, smiling. “I’ll fuck you later,” He kisses your lips, lingering for a moment before pulling away.

He finishes undressing and you both get into the shower. He hugs you under the warm water much like he did while you were in his studio but this time it’s much more intimate due to the skin to skin contact. Your breasts press against him, head tucked into his neck. The warm water cascades down your body, causing you to grow tired.

After you both wash up, you find yourself clad in his hoodie and sweats that are just a little big. Wonjae waits for you on the bed, the four cats finding their way to join him. He lays on his back, scrolling through his phone.

You crawl into the bed, snuggling into his side with your head resting on his shoulder. He immediately puts his phone down and rolls over on his side to wrap his arms around you too pull you closer. You feel him breathing in your scent, his legs pushing to get in between yours.

“Jay isn’t letting you back into the studio until tomorrow and I’m forcing you to lay with me all day .” Wonjae mumbles.

You laugh a little, feeling grateful to have such caring people in your life. “Your album can wait for a day. I’ve missed you.” He adds, pulling you even closer to him.

You both fall silent, your eyes closing. You’ve never felt more content and comfortable than how you do now. You feel one of the cats snuggle into your back and purr against you.

“Wonjae,” You began, earning a hum from the half asleep man. “I love you,”

His hand slides under your shirt and gently scratches your back. “I love you.” He says, resting his hand on the small of your back.

You find yourself slowly falling asleep. You know you’re going to be asleep for the whole day and you’re honestly looking forward to it. Especially with Wonjae and the cats.

He’s right, your album can wait.

~♡~

lol i had to write another for wonjae. it’s so hard for me to find fics for him so i jus been writing my own.

[unnuevosoltransformalarealidad]

It’s Ok

Summary: Chris has been gone on a work trip related for a while. Reader has a complicated week, when she finds out that Chris is coming back, she is not able to welcoming him the way she wants.

Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader

Warnings: Sickness, vomiting, fainted, fever, body issues (not to profound)

Word Count: 2,768

This was written for the Week 5 Weekly Challenge of @optimistic-dinosaur-nacho ​ @donutloverxo ​ @captain-a-rogerss ​

A/N: This was kind of proof-read so if there’s any mistake, please let me know, English is not my mother tongue, and I’m still learning. Enjoy the reading!

Monday

You had to get ready, but you were still in bed. It was one of those days you wanted to stay in bed and do nothing. You weren’t feeling ok; you assumed that it was because you missed him, your dearest boyfriend. Today marked the second week since he left for work. It was supposedly to take just a couple of day, but it didn’t go as planned because he hasn’t come back yet.

You felt alone, empty. Chris wasn’t there with you, neither Dodger; Chris insisted on took him in with his sister, so you didn’t have to worry about him. You took a deep breath and decided to get up and get ready for the day.

Once on the kitchen, you were having just a tea, not coffee today, you weren’t in the best mood and the caffeine didn’t help you. You were lost in thought about all you had to do for the day when your buzzing phone brought you back to reality.

Good morning doll. Counting the days to be back with you.

I wish you a beautiful day

Love you

Chris

Suddenly a smile appeared on your face, and felt love, just pure love. Chris knew how sad and difficult is for you to be alone for so long. You decided to text a quick response and then get ready for work.

 Hello beautiful boy. I can't wait to have you with me.

Have a beautiful week.

Love you more

Y/N

 The day at work started pretty good for your liking, but it ended up bad and it was just Monday. Someone did something wrong on important papers and your boss had to deal it with you. Being part of a group of assistants was difficult, you have to deal with the bad mood and yelling from the bosses and people who believed had a superior position than yours. You were really stressed, you needed a break to keep going but it was the beginning of the week and you still had the rest of the week ahead. You finished working around 4:30 pm and had to get ready for your classes. You’re on your third year of college with a major in Art History, your current job it doesn’t have any connection with what you’re studying but it helps the survival.

You have a few delayed papers, a few with close deadlines but still you have to prepare two final exams. The stress was starting to kick in.

Tuesday

 The same emptiness you felt yesterday today was there. You had barely slept; you stayed awake doing some papers and making flashcards to study. Last night after coming back from school, you started to cry, you were overwhelmed, and you needed Chris by your side. You had texted him but you put it aside afterwards because you didn’t want any distractions. You were starving; you didn’t have dinner yesterday, so you got up and went to have breakfast. You took the computer with you so you could update more papers. You had to checked the phone, probably some of the teachers had emailed you because you were late and the grades were coming down. You had a few texts from Chris, of course.

 Hi love! I’m sorry I didn’t answer back, I was busy.

How did your day go? I really miss you

Chris

 Babe, is everything alright? 

Pls answer me

Chris

I hope you rest well. I can’t wait to see you

Sweet Dreams, good night, I love you

Chris

You felt really bad because he wanted to talk to you, but you needed to update some of your essays. Your work was taking you more time than you had expected and because of that you were getting behind in the classes. You finished breakfast, got ready and went to work.

At lunch break, you decided to text Chris back and tell him what was going on. 

Hi honey! How are you? Sorry I didn’t answer I was catching up with homework

I hope your day it's better than mine :(

I really miss you. Can’t wait to see you

Love you

Y/N

So far the day was stressful, but manageable. You had tons of work, and probably you had to stay extra hours to finish some papers that had to be delivered the following day. After the break you started to work on those papers when you got a phone call.

-Hello –I say not seeing who was calling

-Hi love –Chris said –How are you?

-Lost in work, you? –I say

-Missing you –he says

-I miss you too –I say –Look honey, I really appreciate you calling, but I have to finish this, and I’m already late with it –I mention with a sad tone

-It’s okay doll. I wanted to check on you actually –he says –but I’ll call you later

-I’m good, don’t worry –I say

-Ok. I love you –He says upset

-Love you too. Bye –I say and hang up

If you thought that your day was going to get better after that call, you were wrong. A really strong headache hit you and made you feel dizzy, probably it was because the late night working. You decided to take an aspirin, ignore the pain and keep working.

You had to stay almost four hours after work, your headache never left and you had missed the classes of the day. You wanted to get home and get into bed and wake up on the weekend. You decided to send Chris a quick text because he had promised you to call.

Hi love! I know you wanted to talk, but I’m leaving work right now and I have to finish an essay for tomorrow and I’ll probably ignore my phone.

I’m really really sorry

Talk to you tomorrow. I promise

Love you

Y/N

 Once you got home, you took off your clothes, put some pjs and started the essays which were due date tomorrow and you haven’t started yet. It was going to be a long night with lots of coffee.

The pounding headache you had earlier got really worse, your eyes were watering making it really difficult to read and your body was really sore. It was the fifth cup of coffee when you got a text from your mom

Hello Y/N! I hope you remember our dinner tomorrow

It’s been a while since the last meeting.

I really miss you

Mom

As soon as you saw who texted you, you rolled your eyes. You’ve totally forgot the dinner with your mom, you were doing too many things but remember it wasn’t, but you couldn’t cancel it. It was the only time you were able to see her during the week.

 Hi mom! I’ll be there, don’t worry

I miss you too

Y/N

When you send it the message, you realized it that was almost 6 AM and you haven’t finished your essay yet. You stop doing it and went to take a shower and then start the new day.

Wednesday

After your late night work and your shower, you still felt tired and sore. You prepared your breakfast and went to finish your essay. Luckily you were able to finish it just in time to go to work. You send a quick text to your mom and Chris and started your day.

Your day at the office went pretty well. Some stressful moments, but besides that, everything was normal. You were feeling really bad, being all night awake wasn’t your best decision but it was worthy, your essay was perfect, as your teacher said, and you were proud. You needed to go home and crash your bed; unfortunately you had dinner with your mom. You felt feverish but you didn’t pay much attention, probably was the lack of sleeping.

Hello my love! How’s your dinner with your ma going?

The producers told me that probably I’ll be back home by the weekend. I can’t wait

I love you

Chris

Your face lighted up immediately. It was the middle of the week, and Chris was coming back home. Nothing could ruin your day.

Dinner with your mom went terrible. She’d complaint about everything you have been doing since you moved on your own. Everything got worse when she started to criticize your body and your diet; and when she compared you to your sister you snapped. You had to kick her out of your house before something bad happened. Chris promised you to call, but you weren’t in the mood, not after what happened with your mom, so you turned off your phone, drank a beer and then you went to sleep. You deserved it.

 Thursday

Your alarm started to sound pretty loud, you got up and had to run to your bathroom, it wasn’t the cleverest idea to drink a beer before bed. Once you emptied your stomach, you laid on the cold floor. Today you had to stay in, so you emailed your boss calling in a sick day. You went back to bed and you fell asleep immediately. You woke up a few hours later feeling a little bit better from your stomach. You went to the kitchen; you prepared something light to eat and went back to bed. It was the perfect opportunity to finish all your essays you hadn’t hand in yet.

Some hours later, you were emptying your stomach on the bathroom again; you probably had caught a bug during the week. You should tell Chris about it, he shouldn’t get sick. 

You remembered that you’d turned it off the night before, probably you had several messages and missed calls, but you didn’t care. You didn’t want to deal with anything. Indeed, you had several phone calls from your mom and a bunch of texts saying she was sorry and she never meant to tell you such things. Before calling her you texted to Chris quickly to give him an update on your day and your health as well

Hi love! That’s great news! Sorry I didn’t answer back sooner, I was busy…

I don’t think you should come directly from the airport, I think I caught a bug, cause I haven’t been feeling well for a few days.

I hope your day is going good.

I miss you

Y/N

And then you called your mom. She picked up after the first ring

-Y/N! Darling, are you ok? –she asks almost screaming

-Yeah, I forgot to turn on my phone –I say avoiding my health

-I’m sorry about last night, I shouldn’t have told you such horrible things –she says

-But still, you did it –I say –Look, I know you don’t like the way I’m living, but it’s MY life –I say

-I know sweetie, but I still feel bad about how everything ended –she told me.

“She was really excusing herself” you thought but your stomach had other plans

-I’m sorry mom ��you say –I’ve got to go. We’ll talk later –I say and hung up

You run to your bathroom, lucky for you, you made it. You really needed Chris next to you. You heard your phone ringing, probably it was him calling you, but you didn’t have the energy to get up, you were really dizzy and you started to see black dots, and then everything went black. This wasn’t good.

You didn’t know how long you were passed out, but when you woke up, you felt terrible. You checked your temperature, the thermometer marked 100.4°; with all your energy you got up, and went back to bed to rest, you didn’t have enough energy to take anything or even cook something.

 Friday

You don’t know when exactly you woke up, you emailed to your job calling in sick again. You didn’t realize what time it was or how long you were asleep. The only thought in your mind was that you needed to clean the house, Chris was coming tomorrow and everything was a mess, even though you warned him about being sick you knew he was going to come either way. You had to take your temp again; you were shivering, probably because it went up. Certainly it did, it was 102.2°; you knew it was bad, so you dragged yourself from bed and decided to run a bath, which was going to help.

After your bath, you went to the kitchen and prepared just a tea, and grabbed two crackers, you didn’t want to push your stomach, you were still weak; and you went back to bed.

You had a few emails from school, from work and some texts from your mom and Chris. When you were about to texted Chris back he called you.

-Hello my love –he says with his calming voice

-Hi –you answer

-How are you feeling?

-Really bad –you say pouting

-I’m sorry doll. Do you want me to call someone to take care of you?

-Don’t worry hun, I’m better now. With some rest I’ll recover –you assure him

-I’m calling you because I’m about to head to the airport so, I’ll probably don’t answer my phone until tomorrow –you heard him smiling

-It’s ok love; I can’t wait to see you again –you say smiling as well

-Me too love. Me too. I’ve got to go –he says upset

-Safe travel, I love you –you say

-Love you too. Bye –he says and hung up

You were crying already, you didn’t know why, probably was the fever. You finished your tea; you put some cozy clothes and went to the kitchen to start cleaning everything.

You finished cleaning pretty late so you took another tea and some crackers for dinner. You weren’t in the mood for food and neither your stomach. Once you finished your tea, you went to your room to clean it, when a wave of nausea hit you and you had to run to the bathroom again. You lay on the cold floor; it was a beautiful sensation against your heated skin. With all your strength you grabbed the thermometer and took your temp again, because you were pretty hot. You were running a temp of 103.1°. You needed help, you tried to get up from the floor so you could go to grab your phone, but you fainted before getting up. 

Saturday

Chris arrived at dawn; he found the house clean although you told him you were sick. He noticed there was no dinner leftover, “have you been eating?” he thought to himself, he was worried

-I’m home baby –he calls but there’s no response

-Y/N? –he calls you a little louder

He thought that you might be sleeping, but his heart broke when he find you. He lifted you from the floor and put you in bed. He went to the kitchen, grabbing a bowl and pouring some cold water, grabbed a washcloth, a glass of juice and some ibuprofen and came back to the room.

When you woke up, you realized that you were on the bed, “did you make it to the bed?” you thought when you saw that Chris entering your room.

-Hey! You are awake –he says and you could barely smile

-When did you arrive? –you question

-Not long ago, I was worried –he admits -I found you on the floor –he sits next to you on the bed pulling the tray on the nightstand

-Oh –you say and you look your hands

-What is it love? -he asks caressing your cheek

-I think I fainted in the bathroom –you admit

Chris didn’t say anything; he went to the bathroom and picked up the thermometer. He came from the bathroom with a worried face

-Open –he commands

You did what he had told you and waited. He never stopped caressing your cheek. You were falling asleep when he woke you up

-Don’t fall asleep sweetie, I know you’re tired, but please, hang on –he sounded worried - Did you eat something? –he asked you but you just shake your head and the thermometer beeped

-104° .How high was the last time you checked it? -he asks you

-103.1° –you says

-We have to break this before it gets worse. How many times did you faint? –he was really worried

-Two times, I think. I don’t really know actually –you say disappointed

-When was the last time that you eat something solid? –he asks concerned

-On Wednesday, with my mom –I say –Probably that’s why I fainted the first time –I explained

-Don’t worry, doll. I’ll take care of you –he says caressing your face.

~Tag List (If you want to be part, let me know)

@iguessweallcrazyithinktho​

[friendfromdsmp]

Being Productive In Lockdown

What with Coronavirus keeping everyone in lockdown, I’ve noticed that people have been feeling guilty about not being as productive without the incentive or push to meet deadlines. Here’s how I (a bad choice to speak on this tbh I’m terrible with both procrastination and executive dysfunction) would advise you stay productive during lockdown:

1. Make a list of what you need to get done THAT DAY. Not tomorrow, not over the week, THAT SAME DAY. Break it down into as small a step as you need to, if everything seems to big - even include getting anything you need to perform the task could be included. Nobody can tell you how much to write as one step. Also, make sure you can mark off each task as it’s completed - you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment that will make it easier to continue and you can visually see how much there is left and how well you’ve done so far

2. Get started on the list IMMEDIATELY. If you leave it to later, you won’t start at all (or at least I probably wouldn’t lol). Your motivation is probably high from making that list and giving yourself the illusion of productivity, right? Use it! 

3. Grab your phone and some headphones. Don’t look at anything else, go straight to your music and put it on, then pocket that phone immediately before you get distracted. If music isn’t the best idea for you for a particular activity, take the headphones anyway - people are less likely to distract you if they think you can’t hear them and they won’t derail your motivation

4. Tick off every task as you do it. That’s your cheat sheet for organisation and tiny amounts of motivation through achievement, so make sure you use it! Even if it’s as small as ‘get geography book’ or ‘load the dishwasher’, you’ve still done good! You earned that tick!

5. Praise yourself for each task completed, no matter how big or small. So you’ve only completed your first task and it was only ‘put away cups’? Well, that’s still you being productive! Tell yourself that you did a good job, tell yourself that you’ve done good and that you’re proud of yourself. You might feel a bit silly or that your lying, but it also allows you to practice building yourself up! Eventually you’ll know it’s the truth and you’ll feel so good about yourself, just like you should!

6. Make a game or competition of it when motivation is low. Compete with a friend or family member to finish your tasks first, or challenge yourself to finish before a certain time. ‘I bet I can finish this sentence before Ed Sheeran finishes this song’ or ‘I know I can finish this question within five minutes - let’s set a timer and race it’ are great. The idea is to appeal to your competitive side to get you motivated again, as well as (get this!) using anxiety to your advantage - you know how you manage to rush out a whole essay the night before it’s due but you wouldn’t know where to start if it wasn’t so close to the deadline? Giving yourself some kind of solid deadline can help you tap into this ability, but since it’s completely inconsequential whether you meet that deadline or not, you can continue afterwards without concerns. No real pressure!

7. Take breaks whenever needed. You know how we have that list of everything you wanted to get done today? Well consider it a side quest as opposed to the main objective. Contrary to what you may think, you don’t have to get it all done. You want to be productive and you have been productive, even if you haven’t done it all. Go ahead and half-ass the whole thing, it’s still something! You never said you’d do it all, you made a commitment to do what you could and sometimes you can’t do much - which is perfectly okay! As long as you did your current best, you’ve done good and should be proud of yourself! The plan wasn’t to stress or burn yourself out, so take all the time you need to relax, gain your physical/mental strength back and remember that a few things ticked off is still better than nothing and it means less work tomorrow!

8. Don’t deny yourself food, water or sleep to be productive. Don’t stay up late to get that very last task complete or skip lunch because you’re on a roll. If you still have that motivation, great! But don’t forget to take care of yourself - you are and always will be right at the top of that to-do list and are more important than any other task. Remember I said earlier to consider the list a bunch of side quests? Well you’re the main game. People don’t get games for the side quests, they get the game for the main objective. Why are you any different?

9. Once you’re done, whether it be through finishing the list or just feeling like that’s enough for one day, reward yourself. You’ve done amazing today, even if you didn’t complete your list. You were super productive, don’t let yourself forget it! Go on, watch your favorite show or YouTube series or movie, go eat that special snack you’ve been saving, have a long bath or shower, take a nap, go take a walk, play with your pet, play a game, enjoy your favourite dinner, whatever will make you happy! Didn’t accomplish everything you hoped to accomplish? Treat yourself anyway! You were still productive, give your brain a little positive reinforcement for being so good! Let yourself be happy and proud of yourself rather than focusing on the ‘it’d be better if I had done this...’ BS. You earned happiness, not negativity!

[7deadlycinderellas]

Cabin Fever

(in which I write a quarantine fic that I actually manage to set in the canon universe)

AO3 link

 Day 1

The journey was only supposed to last three weeks.

There were business deals that needed their word in Dragonstone. Far too many of them for Gendry’s liking, but the deadline on them coincided with a wedding for one of Davos’s sons, so the trip could at least kill two birds with one stone.

And so, him and Arya had packed, checked with the twins (who, at ten years old, were actually ecstatic that they trusted them to be left home alone, ignoring of course that the whole staff had been tasked with keeping them busy and safe, and that the actual business of Storm’s End was being handled by the Castellan), booked passage on a merchant’s ship, and set off for Dragonstone.

The voyage there had been smooth, as had the work once they got there. Both of them were ecstatic to see Davos and Marya again, and the deals went smoothly, and it seemed like no time at all before they were on the ship back.

As befitting a lord and lady, their cabin was nicer than pretty much any of the others onboard. There was a bed wider than a bunk, a nightstand big enough for a basin and candle, a desk with two chairs, and even a window that could be opened.

Arya was lounged out on the bed, and Gendry at the desk the morning the knock came on the door.

Arya glanced up when Gendry got up to answer. They were set to reach Weeping Town later today, but they’ve made great time, maybe they’ve got there already.

“Milord,” she hears from the door. She’s even more confused to see the sailor standing as far back as he could.

“Is there a problem?”

“We’ve reached port early... but it appears several of the men below deck have come down with purple-spotted fever-”

Arya sees Gendry wince. She doesn’t have to ask- neither of them had had purple spotted fever as a child, but he’d told her the story of the year it had spread like wildfire through the orphanage, leaving scars upon the afflicted and rendering about half of them blind or deaf.

“What’s there to be done?” he asks the sailor.

“Standard procedure is to quarantine the ship for two weeks,” Arya feels her breath leave her chest, “No one comes in or out until we find out if anyone else is sick.”

After a moment, Gendry nods.

“Food will be brought in the morning. Please wait until the person who brings it has left to retrieve it. Rain buckets for bathing will also be brought- please empty them as well as your chamber pots out the window. I will come again when the ship has been cleared.”

Gendry closes the door behind him, and glances over his shoulder to where his wife is laying on the bed. She groans.

“Two more weeks…”

Gendry sighs.

“I do have a bunch of proposals I need to write out. And I need to send a letter to the woman running the orphanage we started up in Weeping Town.”

Arya nods.

“I have a ton of letters to keep up with too. I guess we should be able to spend these two weeks working.”

She nods again, and reaches into her bag and pulls out a stack of papers she’d brought with them.

After he finishes the first paragraph of the letter he plans to send back to Storm’s End, Gendry feels Arya’s eyes watching him.

“What?”

“Aren’t you hot? You can take off your jerkin in here, it’s just us.”

As it was spring now, the Stormlands could get quite hot, even through the frequent rains. He supposes she’s right, so he unties and shrugs off his leather jerkin, leaving him in just his linen undershirt.

Sometime later, when he’s finishing up the letter and looking it over, he hears a noise and tilts his head.

Arya has the top tie of her breeches unlaced, he can just see a tiny flash of peachy skin, covered in soft hair, and her fingers disappearing underneath the fabric.

He raises an eyebrow.

Arya sits up a bit on one elbow, but her fingers do not still.

“It occurs to me,” she starts, “That there is no castle staff here. We’re not supposed to be anywhere in five minutes. We have no responsibilities that must be completed today. Our daughters are not going to unexpectedly barge in. We have, in fact, been ordered not to leave our bedroom for two whole weeks.”

Gendry breathes in, then out, and places his quill on the desk. He stands with deliberation.

Slowly, he says, “Take off your pants.”

That first day, she rides him no less than a half dozen times. When his cock demands rest, she rides his fingers instead. And once their muscles have begun to slacken, he lays lazily on one side and licks her cunt raw.

Gasping, and dripping in sweat, he barely manages to roll over and kiss Arya on the head.

“Now that we’ve exhausted ourselves,” he starts, “ I really should work on those proposals tomorrow.”

He wakes up the next morning with his cock in her mouth

 Day 2:

Arya’s bent over one of the rain buckets they’d been brought that morning.

“Are you seriously doing laundry?”

Arya smirks at him.

“If I don’t, these sheets will smell worse than we ever could, and I’m not looking the gift horse of this nice, big, latching window in the mouth.”

She wrings it out best she can, and throws it over the open window, using the edge to hold it in place.  Might as well take advantage of the brief lack of rain.

“And you laughed at me for packing soap.”

 Day 3

“What proposal are you working on now anyway?”

Gendry raises his gaze from the paper to the bed where Arya’s finishing the soup that had been brought for supper.

“I’m sending out notice to several tradesmen in the area, to see if they’re willing to take in apprentices from the orphanage. They wouldn’t be required to house or feed them, since they would go back there at night, so I’m hoping that I can convince them not to charge for the training.”

Arya is thoughtful.

“We would have to vet them pretty harshly, and make sure the women at the orphanage know how to question the children when they return. Don’t want anyone just using them for free labor, or worse.”

They both nod, thinking of the horrific story they’d been told of the ship builder who’d taken Daron in as an apprentice after his parents died.

Gendry nods.

“I know. But it makes me so mad to see these big masses of children with no futures.”

Arya agrees.

“Sansa’s been trying some things up north, seeing if there are any farm families willing to take in orphans. She fears much the same as we do. There are too many orphans, but there are too many things that need doing to.”

It does seem, that there are an endless number of things that need doing when your livelihood is looking after an entire land's people.

 Day 4

“Arya are you...using that paper just to draw cocks?”

Arya makes a face.

“No- I was making a list of all the places back in Storm’s End where we’d fucked, but I think I actually ran out.”

He reaches over the desk and grabs her paper.

“Library, stables, cave, godswood…”

He keeps going. And going. Lot of fun memories in this list.

“I actually think you got them all.”

Her cocks are actually pretty good too, all thick and veiny with huge balls.

“Can you draw me some tits too?”

Arya huffs when she takes the paper back.

When she’s working on it, his mind is piqued, wondering what she’s coming up with.

But when she slides it back across the table with a smirk, he is pleased. She’s no artist, but the crude drawing of herself (he assumes, and he won’t imagine anyone else), nude, tits heaving and knees spread wide with her fingers buried inside herself is perfectly adequate.

“Hmm,” he says, unlacing himself, and taking his cock in hand. He doesn’t usually get roused so quickly, but something about this quarantine is making him feel young and carefree.  “Might need some alone time with this.”

“Oh come,” Arya groans, trying to reach over and grab it.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t,” he says, jumping up and out of her reach. He’s already pretty damn hard, and the picture is actually strangely arousing. His cock is at full mast now, and he tugs on it with fierce determination, moaning obnoxiously.

Eventually, she manages to yank the paper away, but it’s too late, Gendry’s stretched himself out on the bed, tugging rapidly at his cock, letting every nasty fantasy run through his head in her rough stick figures, and well before she can celebrate, he comes across his belly.

She gets her revenge later that night, retrieving the sculpted cock she’d obtained in a port in Essos during her years at sea. It was made of some sort of glass, solid and heavy, and shaped by a hand that obviously knew what it was going to end up being used for. Extremely easy to keep clean she’d said too. She’d shown it to him plenty before, often even letting him use it on her himself, though she insisted that it paled compared to the real thing.

“Why’d you even bring that?” he asks over his supper as she peels off her breeches, kneels over the cock and buries it deep in herself, bouncing up and down on it and moaning, deliberately meeting his eye.

“I thought you might be busy when we were in Dragonstone and I would get lonely.”

And he somehow manages to finish his supper in due time, despite the sounds of her pleasure and the squelch of it sliding in and out of herself echoing through the cabin.

 Day 5

“Seven hells, what day is it?”

“I have no idea,”

 Day 6

“How do you think Lyra and Lysa are coping without us?”

Arya sighs and sets down her letter.

“It probably sounds strange, but I don’t think they’ll even miss us at all. They’ve both gotten so independent lately.”

Neither of them have to say that they’d both missed the twins every single day since they’d been gone.

After a long silence, Gendry admits.

“Lyra told me before we left she wants to be a knight.”

Arya chuckles. She’s so pleased that her daughter is growing up where it might even be a possibility.

“In two years, if she hasn’t changed her mind, we can write to Brienne, see if her or Podrick could use a squire.”

They know it’s only a slim possibility that their child will still be on the same dream in two years time.

Gendry sighs.

“I suppose that would give us the answer for which one to name as heir.”

Arya frowns.

“It would, but it doesn’t mean Lysa would be ready for it. I don’t know why she’s so convinced that we would automatically pick Lyra. She hasn’t had a tantrum in years, and Maester Elric says they’re both good students.”

Gendry shrugs, and scoots back over to the bed so he can kiss her head.

“I don’t know. You’re still convinced you’re not beautiful, even though no one’s called you horseface in years.”

That makes her smile.

 Day 7

Gendry comes all over his hand almost as soon as he gets his breeches undone.

Arya wrinkles her nose.

“Seriously?”

“Hey I told you not to tease me so much.”

She had too, been teasing him all morning. Pouring water over her linen shirt and leaving it half buttoned up. Idly mentioning that she hadn’t bothered putting on smallclothes. Leaning over the desk so her tits were right in his face.

She sighs. Then gets a glint in her eye.

“How many times do you think you can get me off before you can go again.”

The glint is now mirrored in Gendry’s eye.

“Is that a challenge?”

She comes underneath his fingers, one.

Then under his tongue, two.

His tongue on her nub, stuffed with three fingers, three.

Three fingers, he curls and presses them up while sucking her nub. Four

She’s twisted onto her stomach now, and he gets four fingers in. Five

She’s stuffed full and grinding back against his hand, panting and swearing. He’s using both hands now, one in her cunt, one on her nub. Six, then seven.

She’s sweating and bleary eyed now, so Gendry pushes her back onto her back, and soothes her swollen, quivering flesh with his tongue. Eight, slowly, gently.

He only idly notices when his cock actually is hard again. This whole challenge thing is too much fun.

“Eight,” he announces, proudly.

Breathing heavily, Arya looks over her knees to his erection, big and purple and bouncing proudly.

“Well, come here and get on it.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“You want to keep going? Don’t you want to take a rest.”

Arya huffs, sits up and pushes him on his back, straddling him.

“Never.”

She can’t walk right for the rest of the day, but even as she reclines with a cloth soaked in cold rainwater on her groin, insists that it was completely worth it.

 Day 8

Arya is stymied.

“I don’t know how to respond to this letter Sansa sent me.”

Gendry looks up,

“What’s her trouble?”

“She’s thinking of getting married again and wants to know how she can find a husband who’s actually only interested in men.”

Gendry’s rendered speechless.

“She...wants a husband who doesn’t want her?”

Arya smiles grimly.

“That’s about it. She was hurt so badly by Ramsey, she doesn’t know if she’ll ever want to be with a man physically again. But the other northerners are pressuring her to marry and because there must always be a Stark in Winterfell…”

Gendry frowns in thought.

“I would say ask Daron and Tim for advice, but I don’t know if either of them can read.”

Arya sighs again, and picks up her quill.

 Day 9

“Is it raining again?”

“Did it ever stop?”

 Day 10

“Bella’s doing well, she says.”

Gendry raises his gaze. A year or two ago, with King Bran’s assistance, Gendry had been reaching out to and meeting his few remaining half siblings. Mya and Bella had both come to Storm’s End for a time, though both had chosen to move on now, they had both learned to read and write enough to keep in touch.

“Did she say how she’s liking Mistwood?”

Arya nods.

“Says it’s much nicer than where she was in the Riverlands, and the woman who’s training her is teaching her a ton. She especially likes that no one there knows what she used to do for a living.”

That had been the day Arya felt most like a proper lady. The day she had managed to subtly ask if Bella really in fact liked her line of work, or if she’d rather be spending her life doing something else. Her words still rung in her head.

‘It’s easy work to like when you’re young and want the acknowledgement that you’re pretty, but it really grinds on once you start to get older.’

And the old midwife in Mistwood had been happy enough to have a student.

Gendry grunts.

“Good, so she can stay there being all judgemental.”

“You’re still mad that she said we sounded boring?”

“All because we said we’d never invite a third person into our bed!”

“You’re too sensitive...beside, she wouldn’t understand that we’d still have to go about our lives and look that third person in the eye and talk to them afterwards, that would be weird…”

 Night 10/Day 11

Gendry wakes after dozing off by his wife whispering in his ear. Opening his eyes, he sees that she’s lit the candle on the bedside, and is standing beside him in her shift.

She moves to the desk, and pulls out the chair, before kneeling upon it. She leans forward onto the desk and lifts her shift over her hips, baring her arse and cunt to him. She looks back over her shoulder.

“Quick,” she whispers, “Before my husband gets back.”

Gendry stands, and slips into character as he sheds his sleep pants.

He runs his fingers over her cunt, which is dripping wet already (what on earth had she been up to before he woke?). He bends forward and mutters in her ear,

“What would your husband think if he saw you down here wiggling your arse for a bastard like me?”

He takes himself in hand and plunges into her roughly from behind.

Arya leans forward and presses her cheek against the wood of her desk as her breathing becomes rougher.

“He can’t make me feel like you do.”

Gendry grips her hips tightly and keeps thrusting faster and harder, making her moan.

“Bad little girl,” he says, “Leaving your lord husband to come and fuck a lowborn bastard. Someone should punish you for that.”

He can’t see Arya’s face, but he can practically see her eyes begin to twinkle.

“I have been bad. Maybe you should give me a spanking.”

He runs his hand along her smooth skin, considering, before raising it.

His hand lands across her bum with a ‘crack’.

“I’m not sure that quite got the message across.”

He slaps her bum twice more, each time earning a grunt and a rush of wetness around his cock.

He leans forward to whisper to her again.

“Let go then, come for me like he could never make you.”

He spanks her once, twice, three more times. Then he puts his hands on both her shoulders and pushes her to the desk so he can get better leverage. He fucks her like she’s a bit of metal on his anvil- hard and deep, but with skill and finesse. Arya’s moans rise almost to a scream and he feels her fluttering around his cock, not only once but twice, and he’s just about to-

She reaches back and grabs one wrist.

“I can’t have a bastard,” she cries out, still in character, “Come here, I’ll suck you off.”

She slides off the desk to the floor and kneels at his feet, looking up at him through her lashes in a way Arya never once has, before taking him in her hot little mouth. She sucks him with her sweet lips, moaning as she tastes herself on his cock. Gendry’s hands find the back of her head, winding his fingers in her hair, and thrusting against her face, moaning loudly, letting her know just how close he is.

When he comes with a yell, she swallows him down, his seed spilling out over her lips, which she licks. She stands, and kisses him, letting him taste the both of them together.

Later that night, back in bed, Gendry mutters.

“We’re going to have to come up with some better scenarios, I’m starting to feel bad for these made up men you’re cheating on.”

Arya snorts.

“Well we don’t have enough room in here to play wildlings.”

“I still don’t know why you had me run me ragged for that.”

Arya props herself up on one elbow to glare at him.

“If you think a wildling would just let you pick her up and have your way with her, you’ve got another thing coming.”

She’s pensive for a moment.

“We should come with something new though.”

“We could be knight and squire again.”

“That was a good one...I want to be the knight this time though.”

“Alright.”

“Also, keep thinking. We don’t have rope, so we can’t do pirate captives.”

“You fell asleep last time we did that.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“It’s not my fault that you make me so comfortable when you tie me up. Besides, who said I was going to be the captive?”

She’s having him on. Seeing him tied up still sort of makes her want to cry, all these years later, instead of making her hot. She suspects admitting that was actually what made Bella call them boring. She segues back into her point.

“I want to be able to spank you next time.”

Gendry laughs.

“You can just ask, I’ll let you do it, we don’t have to come up with a story.”

Arya opens one eye, looking at him. She remembers once having confided in him that it wasn’t even the whole “idea of being punished” that got her off, it was just that she thought being slapped on the bum felt good.

“You don’t mind?”

“Arya, I trust you. I let you put my balls in your mouth, You can slap my arse all you want.”

Which is how Gendry ends up on his hands and knees the next morning, his breeches pulled halfway down his thighs and Arya’s hand leaving red marks on his arse, again and again.

“Would you like another?”

Gendry nods, before Arya’s hand lands again.

His cock is hard and leaking, begging for a single touch.

Arya was right though, he thought, it did feel pretty good.

 Day 12

The sun shines on day 12, and Gendry wakes up with a tickle.

“Shh,” Arya tells him, “Don’t move.”

Gendry blinks, realizing he’s on his stomach and she’s running something along his arse cheeks.

“Is that that ink you got from that Essosian trader last year?”

Arya nods in assent. The man had espoused the plant based ink as being much cheaper and easier to obtain, but when she attempted to write on paper with it, it became clumpy and thick very quickly.

Then she remembered seeing men in Braavos with dark marks, words and pictures, drawn onto their skin, and it hit her what the ink was likely mostly used for.

“What are you drawing?”

She snickers, having drawn two smiling faces on each side of his arse. The sheet had slipped down past it overnight, and with the sun shining through, it made far too perfect a canvas to resist.

“Nothing really.”

Several more minutes pass with her idly doodling when he asks.

“Does it dry fast?”

“Pretty much as soon as it’s spread.”

Another moment.

“Can I try?”

She blows on his skin and rubs at it to make sure it’s all set, before handing him the bottle and rolling onto her side of the bed.

“I want to do your front though, so you can see.”

On her back, she watches as Gendry’s deft hand with the brush turns her nipples into the centers of sunbursts, and trees, vines and flowers emerge from the nest between her legs.

“You’re pretty good at this you know.”

Gendry smiles bashfully.

“Well, you have to be able to draw if you want to get someone’s design exactly as they want it, it was a skill I sort of had to develop and then never really thought about.”

She’s quiet for a long time.

“Ever think of doing it properly, on paper or a canvas?”

He snorts.

“I don’t know. There’s so much else I have to do, and I doubt the other lords who still look at me like I’m pretending would be at all impressed by some nice pictures I drew.”

Arya frowns.

“It would hardly be the most eccentric hobby I’ve heard of a highborn having...and besides, if it makes you happy, it’s worth it.”

Gendry chuckles as he recaps the bottle of ink. He scoots up, takes Arya’s face in his hands and kisses her warmly.

“Maybe you’re right,” he murmurs against her lips, “But I still think you’re my favorite canvas.”

She murmurs softly back her agreement.

“Hey, this stuff washes off in water right?”

“Yes”

“...so if we get too sweaty, we’ll just smear it all on the sheets.”

“Hmm,” Arya mutters when he kisses her jaw, “I need to wash them again anyway.”

 Day 13

Arya’s studying him from her spot on the pillow. It’s raining outside again, and the cool air filters through the cracked window into the cabin.

“Something on your mind?”

Arya flops onto her back and stares at the pattern of beams on the ceiling, for the millionth time these past two weeks.

“I want another baby,” she blurts out.

Gendry rolls on his side to look at her.

“I thought we decided to leave that up to the gods?”

Arya laughs.

“It seems we are, I ran out of the ingredients for moon tea three days ago,”

Something in Gendry’s mind clicks and he nods in recognition.

He leans in and kisses her chin.

“I’d happily raise a whole village of babes with you, but what makes you think this now?”

Arya frowns, almost to a pout.

“I just keep thinking of the twins back home, completely fine without us. They're our daughters, we love them, but they’re past the point where they depend completely on us. And I guess...I miss when they were tiny and needed me.”

“They’ll always need us,” Gendry assures her, hands on her shoulders. “But maybe this timing is a blessing. We’ve had more time together these past two weeks than I think we managed in the last six moons.”

Arya murmurs in agreement.

Gendry grins, mischievously.

“And we’ve got a whole ‘nother day left”.

His expression drags a smile back onto Arya’s face, and she reaches to pull her shift over her head.

Later, he presses his lips to the back of her neck, wrapping his arms around her middle and snuggling up against her back.

“I’m not tired, if you’re not.”

Arya laughs, shifting her leg and letting him slide into her again.

“If I had known talking about babes would get you going this much, I’d have thrown away my moon tea weeks ago.”

 Day 14

“Everything’s all packed up?”

“Yup.”

They sit together on the edge of the bed.

“Any time now.”

It feels like forever before the sailor comes and knocks to tell them the ship has been cleared and they are not free to leave.

It feels like forever, but it’s barely past breakfast.

They’re off board as fast as their feet can carry them. Arya steps off to find one of the sailors about sending their bags ahead to Storm’s End.

Gendry stops to thank the captain while Arya fidgets in the background.

The captain eyes her.

“She your wife? I’m surprised you two are even in the same room after these two weeks, the men below deck have been at each other’s throats since day one. “

Gendry smiles.

“No, I think we got on fine.”

They step out on solid land, and Arya takes his arm as they walk towards where they can borrow a pair of horses to return.

“I love you to death,” she whispers against his arm, “But I cannot wait to talk to people who aren’t you.”

He smiles, and throws an arm around her.

“Soon we’ll be home, our daughters will run to us,” he muses.

"We'll have fresh food for supper, be able to use the privy without anyone watching, have someone else to do our laundry," Arya sing-songs in response.

“Our castellan will share with us everything that has no doubt caught on fire since we left. There will be a pile of ravens as thick as my hand to dig through, people will come to us with problems every hour of every day, we’ll be expected to actually get dressed properly every morning…”

He feels her still.

“Do you think the captain will let us back onboard?”

[ladyreapermc]

Fic: This isn’t a rom-com 15/17

Author’s notes: I’ve been vague about Lilah’s heritage so far with the exception her her being latina, but it made sense to me she would speak her native language with her mom and since I didn’t want to butcher another language by trying to writing in Spanish, she’s speaking  Portuguese here. I put the translation next to it in brackets. 

Summary: Keanu and Lilah meet at the set of John Wick. Rom-com shenanigans ensues

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6  Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14

Wordcount: 2980

Warnings: just a F-bomb and an anxiety attack.

Lilah should not be missing Keanu this badly. It had only been gone a few of days since he left, but every time she caught sight of the finger-shaped bruises on her hips or the bite mark in her shoulder, Lilah felt like there was a gaping hole in her chest that made her just feel empty and everything else dull.

Lilah wanted to laugh at the irony. For someone who hated rom coms, she sure as hell was going through all the motions. She was this close to watching rainfall from her bedroom window with a sad song playing in the back. Which was sort of pathetic, so she really needed to find something to distract herself.

Good thing she still had the crushing doubt of what she would do to about NYFA and Oxford to keep her occupied. Arthur was being very understanding about her lack of response, but every time Lilah met Dr. Williams, it was the first question out of the older woman’s mouth.

“Do you know how many other candidates would kill for this opportunity?”

“Yes, I’m aware, Dr. Williams,” Lilah sighed, squeezing the bridge of her nose. This was giving her a headache. “But it’s a huge decision and I can’t just make it without thinking it through.”

She could see Dr. Williams wanted to argue some more and she braced herself for the conflict, but it never came. The other woman let out a sigh too and took off her glasses. For the first time in Lilah’s time in grad-school, the woman before her looked almost approachable.

“Lilah, I have been doing this for a while and I haven’t met many students like you. You’re brilliant and I don’t say that lightly. You work hard, you’re good at improvising, you hardly ever complain or say no, something I take advantage more times than I should, and you’re a great researcher. It would be a shame to let that go to waste.” She paused, wiping her glasses before putting them back on. “However, I also know that those same traits will make you succeed at any other career path you chose.”

“They called you, did they?” Lilah asked, twisting her hands together, heart in her throat. “From NYFA.”

“You did include my letter of recommendation in your application,” Dr. Williams said. “I told them exactly what just I told you, but you have to make a choice, dear.”

“I know,” Lilah sighed. “Tomorrow. I promise.”

“Good.” Dr. Williams said with a short nod. “I also expect the new chapter of your dissertation by the same deadline.”

All the way home, Lilah was a jumble of messy thoughts and conflicting feelings, because she had no idea what to do next. She just gave herself an ultimatum to make a decision when she told Dr. Williams she would give them an answer tomorrow. But the truth was that Lilah was no close to an answer now than she was four days ago when Lilah argued with Keanu.

Ever since this whole mess started Lilah became very aware of how ill-equipped she was to make her own choices. She had been doing a reevaluation of her life decisions and how she made them, and it was slowly becoming very clear the weight her parents’ wishes and expectations had on every step she took. Especially her dad.

She remembered being 13 and considering to join the theater club because it could help her make friends, but her dad insisted she joined the debate club instead because it would improve her English and would look much better on her college application. The same happened when she wanted to practice martial arts, but he thought the track team would be better. And that continued all the way to choosing her major for college and deciding on grad-school.

They were rarely obvious commands, it was more like nudges here and there that made Lilah doubt her own choices and start on a spiral of insecurity that was only abated once she did what he wanted, and he praised her for it. How mess up was that? How manipulative was that? Was he even aware that he did that?  

How many times did she settle for something she wasn’t all that into it just to please him? Lilah didn’t even know. And how many times she hid part of herself or her interests, so he wouldn’t be disappointed? Like he was when she decided to go to New York for grad school. That had been quite an epic fight and it left Lilah crushed and crying for days until he relented and allowed her to go. And she knew he only did it because her mother talked to him.

That was crazy! Lilah was 21 at the time. She didn’t need his authorization. She was a damn adult, but apparently, she still acted like a child searching for his approval. Right now Lilah felt like she was in a turning point and one wrong step could mean she would wreck her future beyond recognition and that prospect terrified her.

With a heavy sigh, Lilah closed her laptop and moved to her bed. She wasn’t going to get any work done right now. Not until she finally made her decision and that needed to happen right now.

“Hey, can I talk to you for a sec?” Jean asked, leaning against the doorframe and startling Lilah.

“Sure. What’s up?” Ok, maybe it could wait a few more moments.

Jean stepped into the room and walked up to Lilah, handing her a check before taking a seat on the bed. Lilah glanced at it with a frown of confusion and gasped, looking back up at Jean.

“Wh…?” she trailed off, too shocked to even form words.

“That should cover tuition for the first year, right?” Jean asked, eyebrow arched.

“I can’t accept this, Jean,” Lilah said, trying to give the check back, but her friend just crossed her arms over her chest in refusal. “I know how much you hate the trust fund your parents made for you. I’m not gonna be the reason you go to them.”

“That ship sailed a long time ago, Lih,” Jean admitted with a sigh. “I’ve been using that money to keep Novelsy afloat for the last four months. And anyway, that’s not where it came that from. That’s from the sale.”

“Sale? You sold Novelsy?” Lilah exclaimed with wide eyes, jumping from her seat. “But Jean that was-”

“My dream?” the other woman completed with a little sad smile. “See I thought so too, but I began to realize the only dream part of it pissing off my parents and Novelsy deserve better than that. Who knows? Maybe these new people can do a better job than I did.”

“Don’t say that. You did a fantastic job!” Lilah said, coming to sit next to her and wrapping her arms around Jean’s shoulders, pulling the other woman into a hug. “You could’ve talked to me, you know?”

“You had your own thing happening with film school and Keanu.” Jean shrugged and Lilah pulled away to glare at her.

“No matter what’s going on in my life, I’ll always be there for yours, ok? Always. You’re my person, remember?” Lilah said, her tone leaving no room for argument and Jean smiled and nodded. “So now what? What are you gonna do?”

“Honestly? I have no idea,” Jean replied, her expression turning into a grin. “It’s kind of exciting not knowing.”

“You and I have very different concepts of exciting,” she commented with a chuckle, resting her head on Jean’s shoulder. “But you’re really ok? About the sale?”

“I mean, I’m sad and all, but yeah. It was for the best. They promised to keep all the same staff and structure and that’s the only reason I agreed.”

“That’s good, but I still can’t take this money, Jean.”

“Yes, you can. I did some math of all you the time have helped with Novelsy throughout the years without charging a cent. That’s about what I’d owe you.”

“That can’t be right,” Lilah snorted in disbelief and Jean flashed a sly smirk.

“Ok, maybe I added a healthy bonus too, but still…” Jean took Lilah’s hand in hers, entwining their fingers together. “You’re my person too and you deserve to have a chance to do this. Let me do this for you, please?”

Lilah felt her eyes stinging with unshed tears, her heart beating wildly in her heart as she hugged Jean. she was out of words to tell her friend how much this meant to her.

“I… you… thank you,” she choked, fully crying know and watching as Jean’s eyes welled up too. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Lih.” Her expression opened up into a wide grin. “You’re going to film school.”

“I’m going to film school,” Lilah agreed, her voice a little high-pitched, her own lips drawing into a smile. “I'M GOING TO FUCKING FILM SCHOOL!”

They squealed together, jumping and hugging and laughing and it felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders. Lilah had made her choice.

A moment later, Isaac came into the room, with a confused look on his face but since Lilah was still chanting that she was going to film school, he quickly caught on and joined the celebration. Lilah was breathless from laughing so hard, her cheeks hurting, and she might her twisted her ankle with all the jumping around, but she was so happy that she didn’t care. That was why she missed her mom’s first two calls. She only caught the third.

“Hi mom!” she greeted, signaling Isaac to turn down the music.

“Honey, you need to come home,” her mother said, her voice low and broken and Lilah felt all the cheerfulness draining from inside her. “Jamie was in an accident. He’s in the hospital…”

She couldn’t hear anything else due to the blood rushing through her ears; it felt like her ribcage was compressing her lungs and her heart trying to bust out of her chest. Her knees gave out and if it wasn’t Isaac’s quick reflexes, Lilah would be on the floor. Her phone wasn’t so lucky and she barely registered Jean talking to her mother, finding out what happened.

It had been so long since Lilah had an anxiety attack, so it took her a while to recognize it now. She sat on the floor, head between her knees as she tried to control her breathing and concentrate on something else, anything else. Her nails dug on Isaac’s arms as she tried to count her breaths and listen to what he was saying.

Lilah knew how anxiety attacks worked. She knew it was just her body freaking out because it thought there was danger around the corner. Lilah just needed to wait them out. It might feel like she was dying, but in the end, she would be ok.

It took Lilah about 15 minutes to regain control again and be able to refocus on her friends. Both Isaac and Jean were on the floor with her. She was practically on Isaac’s lap as he was holding her against his chest while Jean sat by her side. Lilah’s face was wet with tears and she had left five crescent-shaped wounds on Isaac’s arm.

“How are you, hon?” Jean asked.

“I need to go home.” It was all Lilah managed, struggling out of Isaac’s hold to get up. There was too much to do and no time to waste. “Can one of you check flights for me? I need to call Dr. Williams and my TA to cover my classes.”

“I’ll start packing your suitcase,” Isaac offered. “You should call Keanu. He’s coming back tonight, right?”

“Shit!” Lilah froze, turning to look at them. She completely forgot about Keanu. About everything else really. “I’ll call him from the cab.”

If someone asked Lilah how she managed to get everything ready and herself to Miami, she wouldn’t be able to tell you. It was all just a big blur to her. All she knew was that a little over five hours after she got her mother’s call, Lilah was stepping through the doors of Jackson Memorial Hospital where she knew Jamie would have been taken. It was the hospital he did his residency and where her father worked and taught.

Lilah knew this place like the back of her hand. Most of the nursing staff knew her so they didn’t even blink when she walked in and didn’t even paused by the reception area, just headed straight for the waiting room outside the surgical center, where she found her mom, Alba, sitting next to Jamie’s mom, Susan, comforting the other woman.

They looked up when Lilah walked in, her mother’s expression turning into one of relief as she let go of Susan long enough to meet her halfway from a hug.

“Que bom que você aqui. (I’m so glad you’re here),” she whispered, her voice wavered a little and Lilah just held her tight, breathing in the familiar scent of lilies from her mom’s skin.

“What happened?” Lilah asked as she let go of her mom to hug Susan, before taking a seat, holding her mom’s hand tight.

“They say he ran a red light,” her mom explained, and Susan let out a loud sob. “A pick-up truck hit his car, driver’s side.” Lilah felt the familiar tightness in her chest and forced out a long, shaky breath. This was not the time for another panic attack. Everyone here needed her. “Your father is with him.”

That much Lilah figured the second he didn’t see him. Technically no family member should be allowed anywhere near the OR, but her father was one of the top surgeons of this hospital and it was very hard to say no to him.

“Foi muito ruim? (How bad was it?)” she whispered to her mom, mindful of Susan. Alba took a deep breath, her hand tightening over Lilah’s.

“(Ruim) Bad.”

Once again, Lilah forced her lungs to keep working, her breath to remain steady as she tried to settle a little better on the uncomfortable couch of the waiting room. The hours dragged by without news. The only sounds in the room were hospital announcements and Susan’s sniffles.

Lilah got tired of the couch and started pacing, trying to work out some of the nervous energy running through her. Every once in a while she would check her phone, update Jean and Isaac. There had been no word from Keanu, but Lilah couldn’t bring herself to worry about that right now.

The OR doors were pushed open and her father stepped out, expression drawn into a deep frown of concern, the lines in his face deeper than Lilah remember from when she visited during the summer.

“They finished repairing his lung and had to remove his spleen. He should be out in another hour or so and head straight for observation,” he announced, his eyes landing on Lilah and his expression softening a little. “Hi, baby.”

“Hi dad,” she breathed out, against the crook of his neck as Frank wrapped her into a tight hug.

“My boy’s gonna be fine then?” Susan asked, her voice raspy from crying.

“He’s not out of the woods yet, but Jamie’s strong and Owen’s the best trauma surgeon I know,” he said with an encouraging smile, but Lilah noticed it didn’t quite reach his eyes. She had never seen her father scared before. “I’m going back in.”

With a final kiss to Lilah’s forehead, Frank turned around and headed back into the OR, leaving them behind. She could Susan on her phone, probably updating her husband while Alba’s fingers worked through her rosary and she prayed under her breath.

Lilah sighed and headed to the reception where she knew there was a coffee machine. She had been up for God knows how many hours and the adrenaline was starting to fade, exhaustion sipping so deep it almost seemed to reach her bones.

Lilah blamed her fatigue for not noticing him right away even though she must have walked right by him on her way to the coffee machine. He stood at the reception desk, carry on by his side talking to one of the nurses. It wasn’t until she heard her own name that Lilah turned to look, recognizing him.

“Keanu?” She called and he turned her way, his brow furrowed with worry.

“Lil,” he walked up to her, stopping just a step away, almost as if unsure if he could come closer, touch her.

“What you doing here?” Lilah asked her astonishment making it hard for her to process his presence.

“I heard about your brother, and I just…” Keanu sighed, rubbing his face. “I don’t know. I wanted to be here for you.”

Lilah felt the knot in her chest rising to her throat as her eyes stung. She closed the distance between them, letting Keanu wrap her into a hug, feeling him kiss the top of her head. She fisted the back of his blazer, fighting against the need to break down. It wasn’t time yet. No matter how safe she felt on his arms.

They stayed there, wrapped around each other until one of the orderlies asked them to move since they were blocking the way. They broke away, but Keanu took her hand, entwining their fingers together and Lilah led the way back to the waiting room. She paused just outside the door in hesitation, before she glanced over at Keanu.

 “This wasn’t how I pictured you meeting my family,” she said with a humorless chuckle. Keanu gave her a soft, reassuring smile and squeezed her hand.

“I know, but it’s going to be fine.”

Lilah nodded and pushed the door open. She really hoped Keanu was right.

x(tbc)x

Go to part 16

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[renpark-blog2]

Staying Sane in the Quarantine

A One-off blog post by Ren

As we may all be painfully aware of, different parts of our country have been under varying levels of quarantine due to the unfortunate and current pandemic that is ravaging the rest of the Globe. And strangely, as the quarantine progressed, there has been a topic that’s been popping up more and more, and it seems that more people are talking about it than ever before, whereas people used to play it off as something minor that wouldn’t affect our day to day life to being part of our daily struggle just to survive, maybe since they finally get to experience for themselves, they finally managed to gain enough empathy to understand people going through it.

  I am of course talking about our mental health, which despite what anyone tells you, is just, if not more important than Physical health according to professional health experts. It seems that since the quarantine was initiated and our freedoms became limited, as well as other… more special problems… mental health deterioration has become somewhat of a secondary epidemic tied closely with the current pandemic we’re feeling right now.

Our mental health plays a big part of our life, you could even say how good your mental health is dictates how good your day will be today or even tomorrow, it’s an essential part of life that’s almost impossible to control, yet somehow it controls you in almost every way imaginable. At first, it may seem a bit fun to be forced to stay at home, you can do whatever you want,  you can do things whenever you please, since you’re not going anywhere anyways, but there’s just so much you can do when you’re stuck at home, it gets to a point where everything becomes overly repetitive and you start feeling like you’re wasting your life away instead of being productive with your life and getting somewhere, it becomes quite overloading and over time you just run out of energy and motivation to do anything. It can be quite a vicious cycle, one that’s hard to deal with, and much harder to end.

I’ve been going through something similar this lockdown, especially with everything going on both personally, and publicly. The world is such a stressful place to be in right now, especially with all the ongoing events and the responses to them. Everything feels like it’s out of control and it makes me feel even worse that there’s nothing I can do about it.

I am aware that a lot of us are going through the same thing, I want to help in any possible way that I could. So here are some ways I have used to cope with and improve my deteriorating mental health, I hope that this manages to help you, but if it doesn’t, please don’t hesitate to contact a mental health care professional.

1.) Temporarily disconnecting from the world

I know that it may seem irresponsible to suggest this, but an effective coping mechanism is to disconnect yourself from the outside world for a while. Trying to stay away from the news, away from social media, away from anything that keeps on bringing back the negative emotions that you want to get rid of. Staying informed is important, but being too informed makes you start questioning things that you would not want to question, it can get quite dangerous.

I’m fully aware that some of us are fighting for something, and we think that if we rest even for a little bit we are going to lose this battle. But do not fear such thing, remember that you are just as important as the thing that you’re fighting for, give yourself a break for a short while, fighting for something can become extremely and dangerously emotionally taxing in the long run. Remember that this is not just your fight but our fight, take some time to recover, let other people handle the situation first, remember that you’re not alone in this. Don’t forget that a soldier well rested is more effective than an exhausted one.

 2.) Giving yourself time to breathe

Society expects us to be constantly on the move 24/7, we’re not allowed to rest, we merely exist in order to be productive. Don’t forget that you’re human too, and you need to take breaks every once and again, you aren’t some kind of super soldier that does not have the concept of being burnt out or being tired. Some standards of modern society are impossible to achieve, and you just have to accept it, although you should never stop doing your best in anything, but you still need to remember to allow yourself to breathe every now and again, don’t kill yourself from working and tiring yourself out.

Remember that you don’t exist just to keep on working, let yourself rest, let yourself breathe, always being productive will make you less productive. Overexerting can strain you both physically and mentally, it can take a heavy toll on you, and may even affect your overall productivity. So please, remember to breathe, remember to let some fresh air get into your lungs before you keep going in this tunnel of never-ending smoke.

 3.) Letting yourself do things that you want to do once in awhile

A lot of people will say otherwise, but it’s good to let yourself have fun once in a while, sometimes ignoring your responsibilities for awhile can actually be good for you. We are not machines, we have the need for recreation, which is just as important as our need for shelter and food, but recreation should also be taken in moderation, too much recreation would cause you to abandon your responsibilities, which would be even more devastating. Remember to let yourself have fun but have just the correct amount of fun to not go crazy, especially in these trying times.

If you think that there is no time for fun and that you have to keep working on a constant basis, please remember that this could contribute greatly to you burning out. Having fun is important if you want to keep on working too, too much of something will become bad in the long run, and the same goes for work, enjoyment and recreation is here to counteract that, so don’t be afraid of letting yourself do what you want every once in a awhile. But like everything good with life, remember to do everything in moderation, as I cannot stress enough, too much of something will just make you worse off that where you started.

 4.) Managing your time and your workload

This one should be the easiest to explain but one of the hardest to do. It’s important to manage your time and your workload, as to make sure that you don’t get overwhelmed and regain a semblance of control in your life. It’s extremely difficult to do because there’s not one answer on how you should be managing your time, because people have different ways of being able to cope with different levels of workload. But there is one thing that I have realized myself that helps with easing the workload, and that is not being too hard on yourself.

Being strict on yourself only makes you feel worse, especially when you don’t reach your deadlines, which happens more often that we would like to admit. It gives a feeling of the loss of control, of not being good enough, it’s a feeling that we all know and quite abhor. Give yourself a deadline, but be more flexible with yourself, treat yourself with the same amount of strictness as that of a parent who wants their child to grow up well, and not like as if you are your own supervisor.

 5.) Taking a break from everything for awhile

Every once in a while, you get the feeling where even recreation isn’t enough to fulfill you anymore. That is a sign that you need to take a break from almost everything, the time you have to do so will depend on how you feel. Sometimes it’s not so bad to let yourself go, you don’t have to be busy all the time, sometimes the best thing to do is nothing at all. Think of it in the way of letting your wounds heal over time.

There’s nothing wrong with doing nothing, so do not be ashamed of doing something if it’s for the sake of getting better. Catch up on your sleep, play games, do whatever doesn’t cause you any type of emotional stress. Let yourself go, remove that baggage even if it’s just for a short time, you can come back stronger, you can come back better.

 6.) Taking back control of your life

This is something that is much easier said than done. But you should start taking steps to take back control of your life, taking matters into your own hands and giving yourself a feeling of being able to do things, that you are able to get over your problems. Of course, there is not one way of doing this, there are different problems for different people, but you should take time to learn about your problems, and eventually you will learn to deal with them, and take back control. Make sure not to deal with large problems first, make sure to start small, as small problems can eventually get big, especially when left unchecked.

 7.) Helping and getting help

This one is especially important, and something a lot of people tend to take for granted. Getting help from people, professional or not, is important for preventing your mental health from degrading. Just the fact that there is more than one person dealing with the problem makes it easier to handle and to solve. As two brains is better than one, as they say. But not all problems need to be solved, just the idea that someone is willing to listen to you and share your pain should be enough to lift at least a little bit of weight off of your shoulders. Make sure that you seek help when you can, this will help you much more than you think it will.

The other way is also important. Helping others can give you a sense of being needed by someone, it will give you a small pocket of relief and help you realize your worth. Even if you aren’t able to help yourself, never forget to lend a helping hand to those who need it, and make sure to do it only if you’re able to, as you would not want to risk making the situation worse than it already is.

Those are some ways I learned to cope and to improve my mental health ever so slightly. I hope that this was able to help in any way. I know that this would not be of help to everyone, but even if it helps someone who desperately needs it, even if it’s just one person, then this long wall of text would have served its purpose. 😊

If you still feel terrible, remember to go to a professional, they would probably know a lot more than I would. Or even a friend if you cannot afford to do so. Just remember that you shouldn’t do things alone, let yourself be helped, even if it’s a little bit.

[limitededitionsanderssidesblog]

Speech Impediment - Chapter 3

Ships: Romantic Logicality, pining prinxiety, platonic dlamp 

Summary: Halloween is just a few days away and the deadline for his project is nearing. Deceit wants nothing more than to work on his story, but things get in the way when the others invite him to a Halloween costume party. There’s only one problem... Deceit’s never been invited to a party. In other news Dexter discovers he hated almost every single type of alcohol in existence except one.

AO3 - Here

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6

Dexter sat comfortably at his desk as he worked the hours of his Wednesday afternoon away on his creative writing project. His snake, Dee Dee, made herself comfortable wrapped around his shoulders, content with watching her owner work on his computer.

After two all-nighters and much help from his new friends, Dexter was able to come up with a story idea. It was under the prompt ‘it was all just a dream’ to write a mystery, horror, suspense short story. It took place with a woman named Abigail who woke up in a small, coffin like, box; a voice speaking to her through a speaker directing her to escape with only a few tools before all the air was sucked out. When she made it out she was in another box and so on.

He was at the part when Abigail was about to drown as water filled the room from the bottom when the door opened, and in bounded Patton with his normal energetic behavior. Not long ago, last week, Dexter learned that Patton had ADHD, so the way he acted was no longer surprising to him and now expected.

“Hey, hey Dexter! Dee Dee!” The bubbly artist greeted with all the cheer of a thousand saints.

Dexter turned around in his chair and said hello before turning back to his story, determined to finish this chapter today so he could edit it tomorrow. One chapter to finish, another to start, and two chapters to edit before the due date in five days.

Patton, noticing his work ethic, strode over to peer over the smaller, younger, man’s shoulder to read his writing so far. But before he could get past the first sentence, Dexter covered the screen with his arms, crying “Please read it, it’s finished!”

“Sorry, there kiddo,” Patton said slightly dejected, “I was just curious.”

A pang of guilt seeped into the writer’s confused heart, regretting the tone he used with his first friend-adoptive-dad-person-thing.

“I’m not sorry, Patton. I just love it when people read my work before I proof read it myself.”

“That’s okay, but can I read it after you’re done?” Pat asked before gasping and hopping up and down in an excited dance, “Maybe I can be you’re editor!”

“...But you adore horror.”

“Oh yeah... maybe Virgil can be your editor? He’s getting his bachelors in poetry so he know English stuffs.”

Dexter thought about it for a second. He’s never been around Virgil with just the two of them, but he was able to pick up on the emo’s love for creepy and dark things. But his horror novels might trigger his anxiety, and Dexter didn’t want to give him a reason to hate him.

“I won’t think about it.”

“Yay!” Patton cheered and pulled Dexter into a hug, being careful not to squish Dee Dee. Dexter awkwardly stood there for a moment, still not used to receiving physical contact out of kindness let alone how to react to it. Eventually he settled for a pat on the head. Patton seemed pleased with the gesture and let go.

By the time dinner rolled around, Dexter had finished his chapter, saved it, then turned off his computer. About thirty minutes ago Patton had ordered pizza from Big Julius and invited the rest of the gang over. Logan had arrived first, but the two allowed him to work in peace as Logan read his textbook, and Patton played an assortment of games in his lap. When a call from the bottom floor came, Patton was notified that their pizzas had arrived, so he and his boyfriend left to retrieve it, coming back with both Roman and Virgil in tow, who had arrived around the same time as the pizza guy.

By the time they walked in with food and drinks-- cola for Virgil and Patton, wine for Logan, and beer for Roman --he had already put away his computer and set Dee Dee back in her terrarium; the poor little noodle got scared around too many people. Dexter had never had alcohol before, but he decided to give it a try to see if he’d like it. He knew he wouldn’t be pressured as there were two who didn’t drink, and that made him feel more at ease.

“Let’s get this party started bitches!”

“Roman language!”

“Don’t bother Pat, the idiot’s already in his own little world.”

Whelp, seemed like the others were already tipped off, if not from alcohol then from sugar.

“Mom! Virgil’s being mean!”

“For the one hundredth and fifty third time, don’t call me mom.”

Dexter sat on his bed with a small smile as he watched them interact with each other. Most times he was content just watching them talk and not saying anything himself, like now. When they all filled in, heading for their now usual spots-- Virgil and Roman on Patton’s bed, Logan and Patton on the beanbag, and him on his bed --Roman finally acknowledged him, handing him a bottle of beer.

“Here, it’s my favorite brand, and I went for something soft. But if you don’t like it I’ve brought an assortment of different types of liquor for you to try.”

“And I had to by it all.” Patton sighed, being the only one who was twenty-one in the group. Logan would be twenty-one in November, which was just around the corner so...

SHIT! Dexter would have to get him something! But he’s never bought someone a birthday present before. He only ever wrote poems or drew pictures for his parents that would make them even more afraid of their son. What the dang diddly heck could he get him?

Before he cold panic anymore, Dexter pushed all his dread down to feign composure. Taking the bottle in his hand and taking a brave swig, but nearly spat it out as soon as the liquid touched his tongue.

“It’s so sweet.” Dexter had never tasted anything so bitter in his life, it was worse than dried plums, his most hated food.

“Sorry, I didn’t think you’d like the sweet stuff, But this one taste like apples.” Roman said and took the bottle away, giving him a new one. Dexter tried it.

“It’s so smooth against the throat.” It was like he was drinking acid.

“Maybe you’re not a beer person, let’s try something else.”

And so they went through a list of different types of alcohol; some wine, nope; champagne, burn it; whiskey, pure toxic waste; vodka, how is this from a potato? Now it all came down to the last drink, Dexter already felt light headed and dizzy, but he was willing to try one last time. If he didn’t like it then he’d just join the ranks with Patton and Virgil and have soda.

“I don’t really drink this stuff, so I bought just a small bottle in case you didn’t want it.” Roman said setting a small bottle of ale into his palm. With a breath in and a gulp, Dexter took a chance and had a small sip. It was pleasant. It was sweet, but not overly so; it was sooth down the throat with a nice burning feeling; the aftertaste was bitter, but he oddly enjoyed it.

“This is horrible.”

“Really?” Logan asked, a light glass of peach wine in his palm.

“Nope, would never drink this again.” He confirmed and took another sip.

“Well good, Jackal and Lied, finally you like something.” Roman sighed, glancing at all the rejected drinks off to the side.

“Roman be nice, Dexter doesn’t have to like the alcohol you do.” Patton lectured him gently, mouth full of pizza. 

Now that his choice of drink was settle, they settled into light banter and talking, a detective crime show on in the background. Dexter spent a while just drinking water, trying to re-hydrate from all those drinks.

He noted off to the side that Roman was eating the vegan pizza and Virgil was eating the meat lover’s pizza. He chuckled at the irony that two people so different could like each other. Roman was really loud and obvious about his affection for the precious emo that needs to be protected, but Virgil was much quieter. Over the past couple weeks since that day in the coffee shop Dexter had spotted multiple signs that Virgil was crushing on the regal boy just as much as the prince was on him. That only made Dexter wonder if Virgil thought that he was being a flirt, or if he took him seriously and chose to ignore his advances on purpose. Whatever the case was, he just wished they would stop being dumb and get together, their needless pining was beginning to drive him insane, and he had only known them for a little less than three months; Dexter can only imagine how Logan and Patton feel.

Eventually the conversation shifted away from whatever it previously was, Dexter accidentally spaced off and missed everything, and turned to the upcoming holiday.

“So a theater buddy of mine invited me to his costume party this Saturday and said I could bring some friends. How ‘bout it?” Roman inquired of them, looking extremely hopeful in Virgil’s direction.

“I’d love too! Logan wouldn’t that be fun? We could go as a matching pair!” Patton hastily agreed, loving the sound of a Halloween party.

“I don’t object.” Lo replied with a loving smile, nuzzling his forehead against Patton’s, earning a giggle from the latter. “How about you Virge?”

“I dunno, large crowds aren’t really my thing.” He said uncomfortably, playing with the zippers on his jacket’s sleeves. Roman immediately lost his smile, moving in his spot on the bed to better face him.

“You won’t have to talk to anyone, we’ll all be there and if you want to leave I’ll take you home.” He compromised eagerly.

Virgil still looked unsure, but was unable to resist the magnetic pull of Roman’s puppy dog eyes.

“Ugh, fine.” He caved, “But only for a bit.” Roman readily agreed, giving Virge a large hug that he didn’t try to escape from. Virgil may have thought he was slick, but Dexter noticed his grin and blush. Goodness, he wished he had a camera, his ship was finally leaving the harbor.

“What about you Dexter?” Logan spoke up again, turning all eyes in the room to him.

“Yes I’ll go, I’ve been to tons of parties before.”

“Ah, come on kiddo, it’ll be fun! And just like Virgil, you won’t have to push yourself.” Patton told him, trying to persuade him.

Dexter took a second to ponder. He’s never been invited to a party before, not even for birthdays, so he didn’t know what to do. His friends would be there to help, but he still felt like he’d mess up somehow. He had a project due in five days, but it was nearly done, and perhaps he could work at the party as well. He still had to think of a present for Logan in eight days, but he could ask Patton for ideas and stop by the shops next week. He could make it work, but Dexter couldn’t help but feel like he was about to agree to torturing himself. He’ll see how it goes.

“No.”

.

.

I orginally was going to end it with chapter two, but i just loved it too much to let it go so soon. Plus you peeps seemed it like it too. Tell me what’cha think. See Ya!

Taglist:

@noneed4thistbh @romanasanders @fuckingemoace @bunny222 @sea-blue-child @astraastro @helloitstimetofight @blue-wolfbane @applecannibal 

[quicksilversquared]

How To Fake A Marriage Ch. 30

(let’s see if I can get this up before the internet goes again)

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(AO3) (FF.net)

Adrien was concerned.

As winter turned to spring, Marinette had been contacted by more bands (as well as the occasional individual singer) as different rock and alt metal groups discovered that Jagged Stone's album art designer was a talented fashion designer as well. It was good for Marinette, of course- she was going to have one really impressive resume after this- but spring runway was also coming up, and it resulted in one very stressed Marinette as she worked to stay on top of the requests while still keeping up with her work at Madam Rosalie's.

And because Adrien had been wrapped up in his own concerns about finishing the projects, papers, and tests he had for his classes plus getting his applications in and interviewing for summer internships, he had taken far too long to catch on to just how much work Marinette was taking on . It hadn't helped that she had moved her sewing setup back to her apartment after Ben came over for dinner back in February. Since he had been working hard on papers and she hadn't wanted to distract him, she had just kept it over there and spent her evenings after dinner and before bed working in her apartment, unless she was working on album art or doing concept sketches.

He had thought that she maybe was pushing herself so hard because she had a long wait list formed and she didn't want any of the bands dropping her because they had to wait too long for their turn to come up, but that wasn't it.

There weren't any bands that had been wait listed. Marinette had accepted them all (well, all of the ones that agreed to her pricing), and so she had an insanely long list of in-progress commissions that nearly all had deadlines coming up in the coming weeks.

"Bug, you don't have a full time job and a couple commissions on the side," Adrien said in utter disbelief late Sunday evening- or, rather, Sunday night, when Marinette should have already been getting ready for bed, considering how early she was going to have to wake up the next morning to get ready for the Fashion Week runway- as he looked at Marinette's spreadsheet of commissions and the progress and due dates for each one. "This is two full-time jobs plus some, what with the spring runway this week. And you still have spring photoshoots at work after that. How on earth did you even find the time to make the heat pack for Plagg?"

"It got out of hand," Marinette admitted. She looked utterly stressed as she looked at the list of commissions on her computer screen. "I just... they're famous people, you know? Or on their way to getting famous. They're visible. And the styles are something I haven't had the chance to do at Madam Rosalie's place, really, and they have so many fun ideas... I just didn't want to turn anyone down and miss out on that exposure."

"And Plagg?"

Marinette finally smiled, just for a moment. It wasn't even a quarter as bright as her usual smiles. "I did his bag right before bed one night, when I was too tired to do a good enough job on the commissions. It was just a matter of sewing a few straight seams and pinning the fabric right so that the rice wouldn't get under the needle." A pause. "Also, his whining was annoying."

"Most of these people would have been willing to wait a bit for their commissions, I think," Adrien said, trying not to laugh at that last comment. His eyes scanned down the list. It was very organized, he had to admit, with notes on sizes and measurements and themes and links to other sheets with more information. Thankfully there were quite a few that were close to being done, but they also had due dates that were coming up really soon. "How often are you getting contacted? With real requests, I mean. Not individual weirdos that have no idea what it would cost."

Marinette worried her lip as she thought about it. "Every couple weeks, maybe? It's just that there was a whole slew of them after Jagged Stone's album release that I had to put off working on until after Christmas, and there was that article about the outfits I designed for those other groups that got me more attention again, and I'm still working on finishing up everything for those ones. If I just had a break in the requests I would be able to catch up and then be working on commissions at a decent pace and be able to actually enjoy them again, but that's just not happening!"

"Buginette." Adrien rested his hands on Marinette's shoulders and tugged her into a hug. Part of him wanted to get frustrated with her- she should have known better than to take on so much work- but getting frustrated wouldn't help anything. Or anyone. Besides, there were better ways of expressing the same sentiment without being an arse about it, and the last thing Marinette needed right now was any sort of fight. "Love, that's when you tell new people that you're busy. Or if someone you're working with is requesting more pieces, you tell them it's going to have to wait. You put them down on your lovely spreadsheet as on the waiting list, and then contact them once you've caught up and had a little break. You'll do your best work for them then."

Marinette was still not entirely convinced, Adrien could tell. She was scanning her spreadsheet with a worried look on her face.

"You're right," she admitted after several more seconds of silence. She let out a huffy breath. "I just- we always heard in school about how it's hard to break into the fashion industry and that even to get hired by a company can be hard because designers are a dime a dozen, it seems, and I didn't want my chance to slip past me."

Adrien could understand that fear, honestly. He had seen the pile of applications on his father's desk before- and those were the ones that had already made it past several rounds of eliminations. There were a lot of strong candidates, and even people who graduated in the top of their class in university weren't guaranteed to get a position.

Still, Adrien didn't think that Marinette had to worry about that- and no, he wasn't just being biased. Marinette was crazy talented, and she had an impressive resume to back her up, even as young as she was.

Stepping to the side and crouching so that he was looking Marinette in the eye, Adrien put his hands on her shoulders so he could get her full attention. "Bug. Listen to me. You've already broken into the fashion industry. You'll have three years of interning at Rosalie on your resume, plus all of the stuff for Jagged, plus all of this stuff that you have right now. If people are asking after you to the point that you're getting overworked, you are solid in the fashion industry." He gave her shoulders a little shake for emphasis before sliding one hand up to cup her cheek. "But if you overwork yourself like this, you know the quality is going to suffer. It's better to put people on a wait list and work at your own speed than it is to churn out things that aren't original and aren't you and end up falling out of favor because of that. If people want a Marinette Original, they can wait. That's how the fashion industry works."

"I guess." Still, Marinette looked overwhelmed as she looked from Adrien to her spreadsheet. "And I can start putting people on a wait list now, but what about the commissions I already have lined up? I don't know any of the people on here well enough to ask if I could push their due dates back. And it's just so much work, I don't know how I'll get them all done by the deadlines."

Adrien had to think about it for several moments. It didn't take long before a plan started forming in his head.

"How about this- instead of having to cut off by our normal time, I can finish with my homework then or during the day and then come over and help you however I can?" Adrien suggested. "You said you had rivets to put in on some things, right? If you just mark with, like, chalk where you want them pounded in, I could do that. And I can sort out finished pieces into which commissions they belong to, and get shipping labels printed, and stuff like that. I can't sew, obviously, but if you think of anything I can do to help..."

Marinette looked slightly distressed at that. "But Adrien! You have your own stuff to do, with your papers and your midterms and-"

"My papers are largely done, they just need some editing. I'm going to have Ben look at them tomorrow for grammar and spelling and word choice, so I won't have to do that, and then I'll have a few days to go back and make sure that I have everything just the way I want it." Adrien rubbed Marinette's back, working at the tense muscles in her shoulders. "And one of my tests was yesterday, and then I only have two more for midterms. Most of my classes don't really do midterms at this point. They have tests when they want to have tests. I can handle it."

"That would help," Marinette admitted. She sent a slightly rueful look at the pile of finished clothes on her couch. "There's stuff from four or five commissions there and I know they're there- I check off each outfit once I finish it- but I just don't have the time to sort it out."

"Do you have a sheet with descriptions of which outfits are meant to be in each order?"

Marinette pointed to a folder sitting on the low table next to the couch. "Yeah, in there. There should be copies of the designs attached to each one, too."

Adrien headed over to pick up the folder. It was thick, and when he opened it he found a packet for each of Marinette's commissions. There were a dozen of them, all with multiple pieces. That surprised Adrien a bit, considering that none of them had ever worked with Marinette before and she didn't exactly have a site or anything online with photos of her past work. A couple had cover art commissions as well, and from what he could tell, only one of them had that part of their order completely finished- though once again, there were a quite a few that were nearly done, only needing a round of requested revisions.

It was a lot.

Adrien sorted through the pile as the sewing machine whirred furiously in the background. Marinette was right when she had said that there was stuff from several different commissions all mixed together- only instead of four or five commissions, there were eight. Tikki found sticky notes for him to stick to each pile of outfits, and Adrien wrote down the customer's name, what pieces were in each order, and checked off each piece that he had found and put in the pile. What was still needed was written on a different colored sticky note and put on top of the pile.

Slowly but surely, the couch was becoming much more organized.

"This one says that it just needs one more piece before it's complete," Adrien reported after everything was sorted out into neat stacks, flipping through one packet of commission information to double-check. "It looks like a fairly basic tank top, except with some screen printing."

Marinette perked up and the sewing machine's whirring slowed to a stop. "Really?"

"It looks like it, yeah." Adrien handed over the packet. "I've found the two skirts and one completed top. It just needs this one shirt and then it'll be ready to go."

"I think I was waiting to do the screen printing all at once, since I have a bunch to do among all of my commissions and it's more efficient to do it all in one go," Marinette said, scanning the page. "But yeah, I should maybe do that this weekend and I can get a bunch of stuff checked off. Is it supposed to be sunny then?"

Adrien blinked, puzzled- what did the weather have to do with anything?- but checked his phone anyway. Maybe she just needed the sun for the shirts to dry or something. "Yeah, it'll be sunny, for once. At least that's what they think right now. Why?"

"I gotta set the screens in the sun," Marinette explained, which... yeah, honestly, that really didn't explain anything at all. Adrien was still very much confused. "I should have most of the materials for screen printing, but I just have to make the screens themselves. And- oh, if I'm gonna make all of the screens at once, I'll actually need to make more frames. Shoot, and I don't have the time to pick up more materials, and the copy shop is never open when I'm off and it's always packed during lunch and-"

"If you tell me what you need, I can pick up the stuff for the frames and the other materials, and whatever you need from the copy shop, I can run all of those errands," Adrien told her immediately, before she could get too far into one of her panic spirals. "I can go whenever, I just need a list and where to buy stuff. And for the screen printing- do you sew your own shirts for that?"

Marinette shook her head, looking marginally less frantic. "No, I just ordered some pre-sewn ones that I'll print on. Even if it only takes an hour to sew a shirt like that, I have so many orders for them that it would just take forever." Marinette pointed at an unopened box wedged in the corner of the room with a pile of papers sitting on top. A closer look told Adrien that it was the name of each commission, the color and size of the base shirt, and what design was meant to be printed on it. Once again, Marinette had absolutely impeccable organization. "I should check and make sure they're all there, probably, and get them sorted out with their commission sheets, but I don't have the time."

"I can check on that, too," Adrien piped up. He slipped up behind her and hugged her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "Are you feeling better about everything now?"

"Better," Marinette agreed. She twisted around to kiss him. "Not perfect, because there's still a lot to do and I feel really stupid for letting it get to this point... but I think I might focus on the little stuff this week, all of the easy commissions and finishing up the orders that just have one piece left and finishing the pieces I have mostly completed and then doing album cover revisions. Once I have all of that done, then I think I'll have a better view of what I really have left to do." She glanced over at her laptop and the spreadsheet on it and let out a sigh. "I might end up having to email some of my customers and asking to push back the completion date a little bit. I've been scrambling so much lately that I just keep hopping from one piece to another because I see the due date and just freak out, and start working on one of their pieces, then see the due date for another and switch again."

"That sounds like a plan," Adrien agreed. He straightened up and glanced around the room. There were four in-progress pieces on the mannequins, and what looked like a couple others sitting around on the floor and on Marinette's kitchen counter. Just by standing here he was starting to feel overwhelmed. "Then you can finish orders and get those pieces cleared out of here so you aren't being buried under an avalanche of clothes. It won't feel quite so overwhelming then."

Marinette nodded in agreement, biting her lip as she glanced back at her computer. "Yeah. And I suppose I can bring my tablet along to Fashion Week and work on the cover art stuff between runways, too. I've got some requested changes to finish up and then a couple complete ones to design. Or maybe it's just one complete one left to design, I don't remember." She reached over, scrolling through her list of commissions. Red, yellow and green boxes told her what was finished, what was in-progress, and what was still woefully untouched. There were way too many yellow and red-coded boxes for Adrien's liking, and he was sure that she felt the same. "I still have to go in every day and go to other presentations and runways for inspiration, but there's enough downtime between stuff that I can probably get some work done. And I could bring my sketchbook and work on some of the preliminary sketches that I still have to do once the covers are finished up. And then I could take a day or two off to catch up, too, maybe, after Fashion Week is over. Or maybe not. It depends on what we have to do at work."

Adrien nodded. He couldn't say that he entirely liked the plan- Marinette was going to be working herself to the bone with barely a moment to catch her breath, and that wasn't healthy- but if she overworked herself now, then hopefully she would get enough done that she wouldn't be keeping herself awake stressing over the unfinished commissions with their ever-looming due dates. And with his tests and paper due dates more spread out this semester than ever before and Ben's help in keeping him on top of his coursework, he should be able to help Marinette without falling behind in his own studies.

Besides, even if he hadn't admitted it to himself fully, Adrien was far ahead of schedule on the essays. His early push meant that his 'rough drafts' were more like fully completed papers at this point, and he probably wasn't going to need to do much editing between when he got the graded draft back and when the final copy was due.

Hopefully, at least. Barring some complete disaster.

"Are you almost done with that piece?" Adrien asked as Marinette turned back to the jacket she was working on. "Because I can understand wanting to finish it, but it's late and you have to get up early for Fashion Week. And you actually have to be awake for that."

"I want to get one more seam done, and then it'll be at a good stopping point," Marinette decided after a pause. "And then I'll be over- unless you want me to sleep over here so I don't wake you up when I get up?"

Adrien shook his head. If Marinette slept over in her apartment, then there would be no way of knowing if she had actually slept. He would rather deal with being woken up briefly when Marinette's alarm went off early in the morning than have her make the last-minute decision to stay up even later to finish a piece and not know. "I'd rather sleep next to you like normal. How long do you think you'll be?"

"Five minutes, tops."

"Sounds good." As he turned to leave, Adrien paused. "Oh, and one thing... Marinette?"

Marinette looked over at him, eyes wide. "Yeah?"

"Everything will work out, I promise. We're Ladybug and Chat Noir, after all." He grinned at her, and was pleased to see her smile back. It was a little muted, but it was a start. "Together, we can do anything."

  For the first time in nearly two weeks, Marinette found that she could actually focus entirely on what she was doing at work. She didn't find her mind floating back to the piles of unfinished commissions sitting in her apartment, or fretting over everything she had to do.

Even if she hadn't made nearly as much progress as she wanted to over the weekend- well, she had had ridiculous expectations in the first place. She had done a good bit of work, and now that Adrien had caught on to her problem, he was solidly on her side. He had managed to get the messy pile of commissions sorted out and organized so that she had a better idea of what she had left to do, and together they had come up with a plan for her going forward.

Well, maybe she had come up with most of the plan, but Adrien's presence and willingness to help had settled the jittery nerves in her stomach and cleared her mind so that she could actually focus. The mountain of commissions to finish didn't seem so insurmountable now that she had Chat Noir at her side and a plan in her mind.

And that focus was needed as Marinette helped models change clothes quickly and got them back out onto the runway. The work was fast-paced and needed all of her attention to make sure the right collars were popped and everything was tucked in in the right places and no wrinkles were visible. Once the last model went through and headed out to the runway, a sigh ran through the changing area and there was a distinct drop in tension. Seconds later, though, everyone pulled themselves back together to start steering models back to their area so they could get changed back into their street clothes and all of the outfits could be packed up and sent back to the office.

Once the last of the things from Madam Rosalie's show were packed up, Marinette snagged her bag and followed her coworkers out of backstage and towards the first of the shows that she had wanted to see. As she walked, she pulled out the wrap that Adrien had made for her- best boyfriend ever, honestly- and dug in hungrily.

"Oh, I'm jealous," Sarah said, eying the wrap. "I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and that's it. I can't cook all that well."

"When did you find the time to put that together, even?" Emily wanted to know, partway through her own turkey sandwich. "I thought you said that you were super-busy with commissions to do, too."

Marinette swallowed her bite and then grinned. "Yeah, I've been swamped," she agreed. "So Adrien has been doing most of the cooking, and he made this for me. He's an absolute godsend."

"D'you think I could bribe him to pack a lunch for me for the rest of the week?" Sarah joked. "I kid, I kid," she added before Marinette had time to think about it. "I should have time to make a proper meal to pack tonight. But that really does look good."

They worked their way through the crowd and into the largest of the runway areas. Once they got into their seats, Marinette wasted no time in polishing off her wrap and pulling out her commissions sketchbook. She wanted to get at least three of her designs cleaned up today, preferably more. Then she could submit all of her sketches to that particular client for approval, and then they would get back to her in probably two to three days, and then she would have to carve out the time to go to the fabric shop and get the materials that she needed, and then-

Her thoughts had started to race again as she tried to feel out a timeline for the commission. Only a sharp jabbing at her side pulled Marinette out of her thoughts, and she looked down to see one of Tikki's eyes peering out of her bag, clearly frowning at her. Marinette let out a breath and tried to calm her racing thoughts.

She was going to try to clean up several sketches today and get them ready to submit for approval. Once she got home, she was going to send the sketches off for approval and finish up the jacket she had been working on and then turn her attention to the mostly-finished pieces. Only once she had her mannequins cleared would she start anything new. If Adrien had any time free, she would have him start to put together the frames for the screen printing.

All she had to do was keep a level head and not start panicking.

As the day wore on, the side of Marinette's hand slowly darkened with smudged graphite. She cleaned up rough sketches while waiting for shows to start, scribbled out ideas to use at Madam Rosalie's during runways, and even got a few new commissions sketches very roughly sketched out. Her hand was starting to ache from being clenched around her pencil for so long by the time she left the Fashion Week grounds and headed home.

"You look productive," Adrien said with a laugh after they pulled apart from their welcome-home kiss and he spotted her grey-smudged hand. "How's your hand doing?"

Marinette wriggled her fingers, trying to loosen them up. "It hurts, but I should still be able to sew with no problem. I might use my quilting gloves, though, just so my hands don't cramp up."

She didn't miss Adrien's concerned glance at her hands, nor the way he immediately reached out to gently massage them. She stepped closer, letting him continue to work at her hands until they were back to feeling relatively normal.

How Marinette had somehow gotten the Absolute Best Boyfriend In The World she didn't know, but she wasn't complaining.

"Let's have dinner first before you do any sewing again," Adrien suggested, steering Marinette towards the table. "I made soup and sandwiches. How was your day?"

Dinner went by all too fast, and then Adrien took care of the dishes while Marinette headed over to her apartment to get pictures of all of her cleaned-up sketches taken and sent before she sat down to finish up the jacket. It would need some snaps and other bling on it later, but she was practically finished with the sewing.

"Is that pile done and ready to sort?"

Marinette glanced up from where she was sewing the pockets in the jacket. Adrien was pointing to a more-or-less neatly stacked pile of jackets and pants and tops on the kitchen counter. She had to think for a moment- why were those pieces over there?- before it clicked.

"Those all need hardware," Marinette explained. "Studs and rivets and snaps and eyelets. It's easiest to do them all at once, I've found, instead of getting all of my tools out and doing one piece at a time." She had marked them all with a marker (dark for the few light pieces, white for the dark ones) with where the studs were meant to go, so she wouldn't have to refer back to the drawings for each one. Like with the screen printing shirts, each one had the commission name on it and the kind of studs (number and size) written on a slip of paper and pinned to the piece.

Technically, it had been Tikki that had been the one to come up with the idea of labeling the pieces like that and it had also been Tikki who wrote up each slip of paper so Marinette didn't have to take the time to do it herself, but Marinette couldn't deny that it was a fantastic idea.

"Aha." Adrien regarded the pile as Marinette turned back to her jacket. "So is that stuff I could potentially do?"

Marinette bit her lip and thought about it. Part of her wanted to say no, because she would have to take the time to teach Adrien how to put things in correctly so that they wouldn't mess up the pieces, but the more reasonable side said yes, please. Adrien was smart and could pick things up quickly, and once he learned how to do the hardware, that would probably be several hours of work off of her shoulders in return for what in all honesty would probably just be a ten-minute demo.

"I'll teach you tomorrow how to do some of the studs," Marinette promised. Those had the fewest tools involved and were the easiest of the hardware pieces to put in. "But for tonight... do you think you could put together some screen printing frames? The wood and the tools are in the hall closet, and there should be an instruction packet there, too."

Adrien nodded and bounded towards the closet. Minutes later, the first frame was halfway assembled on the kitchen floor. Half an hour after that, and several completed frames were lined up next to the fridge as Adrien worked on making several smaller and one larger frame from the remaining wood. Marinette had finished what she could on the jacket and added it to the pile in the kitchen before starting work on a pair of pants.

"Okay, I think it's bedtime," Adrien announced two hours later. Marinette looked over to see him stretching, his t-shirt rising up to expose a thin line of stomach. "Unless you had something else you wanted to get done tonight?"

Marinette blinked and glanced over at the time on her phone. It was definitely later than she had thought. Clearly she had kind of zoned out while sewing. "Oh! Yeah, that's probably a good idea. But, uh..."

She wanted to keep going, in all honesty. She could feel like she was making progress, and she couldn't do that if she went to bed. But Tikki was staring at her from across the room, clearly disapproving of Marinette's desire to just ignore reasonable bedtimes in favor of working.

(Plagg was also there, only he was napping, happily curled up on the heat pad Marinette had made for him. She never got disapproving looks from him.)

"I just wish I had made more visible progress," Marinette admitted. "These pants are almost done, since I had them already started before, and I got the jacket ready for studding but it was already mostly there. And I still have so much to do."

"One day at a time, Bug," Adrien reminded her. He waited until she switched off her sewing machine and then pulled her up off of her chair. "And if you want, I can pick up whatever other materials you need for the screen printing stuff tomorrow. That'll be another thing checked off your list."

Marinette lit up at the reminder. "Yeah! I just need- wait a moment, I need to check something." She hurried to her computer and pulled up the spreadsheet that she had made for all of her screen-printed shirt orders. "I should need six more of the average-sized frames, and the inks, and-" She scrambled for a blank piece of paper and started scribbling down a list, trying to remember what she had and hadn't already bought. Since she had gotten the materials for the first set of commissions, it was just a matter of remembering which ones she hadn't bought stuff for.

Well. It was probably better to overestimate rather than underestimate. Presumably she would get enough orders going forward that she would use everything up long before she had to go back to Paris and if not... well, she had coworkers who could probably use the supplies.

"I think that's all the information you'll need for the fabric ink," Marinette said after several minutes of scribbling. "Any questions, just text me. And I think I should have enough fabric to put on all of the frames, even with six more. And I'll need the pattern transparencies to do the printing at all." She let out a small huff as she eyed the boxes of shirts to be inked. Adrien had sorted them out and thankfully they were all present and in both the correct colors and sizes (though there had been a few terrifying minutes when they thought that she was over a dozen shirts short, before she realized that there was a second box of shirts stashed in the hall closet), but it was yet another pile reminding her of how incredibly far behind she had gotten. When Marinette had initially set the due dates up she had thought that she was being ridiculously generous with the timeline and that the far-out due dates would give her plenty of wriggle room, but now those deadlines were almost here and all she had to show for her work were a million half-finished projects around the room.

"Do you have a flash drive or something with all of the transparency files on it?" Adrien asked, pulling her attention back from her mental berating. "I can run that errand tomorrow, too. I only have two classes to go to and an hour and a half meeting with Ben, so I'll have plenty of time."

Adrien was definitely the Best Boyfriend Ever.

The week continued in a blur of work. Tuesday evening, Adrien finished building the frames and then he and Marinette worked together to get the fabric properly stretched and attached. He had gotten everything that Marinette had asked for during the day, which meant that the screen printing stuff would be all ready to go later in the week. In the evening, Adrien cut lengths of chain for accents on some of the pieces and pressed in studs on a couple of the pieces sitting in the kitchen, which meant that Marinette could sew the liners in and count those pieces as done.

(The best part? Since she had already sewn the liners, putting them in didn't take long at all and Marinette got to feel super-productive as she finished off three jackets in one night. And, making the day even better, they got the news that Alya had gotten past the second round of cuts and her entry had gone on to the proper judges to see.)

During the day, Marinette worked on finishing up requested revisions on album covers in between runway shows, sending them off as she finished and waiting for a confirmation email in return that would allow her to either check the piece off for good or send her back to do a couple more tweaks. Even with all of the stress that she had been under when designing the pieces, Marinette had to admit that she was proud of them. The artwork had turned out wonderfully, and she had managed to push herself with some of the design elements, too. They showed a range of techniques and varied from minimalistic to intricately detailed.

Thursday evening found Marinette still furiously sewing and Adrien pressing in yet more studs in a very decorated jacket. He spent the entire evening working on the piece and Marinette noticed him making a face and shaking out his fingers every so often, especially as it got later.

She felt bad about asking him for his help, she really did- so many studs in a short period of time really made the fingers sore-but he had saved her a solid twenty hours of work so far (two jackets OR two tops OR eight to ten pairs of pants and skirts- her mind started, and Marinette shushed it), and he could ask her for something else to do if he so desired, or even go back to doing his own work.

Speaking of which...

"Are you sure you don't have studying to be doing?" Marinette asked, letting her sewing machine slow to a stop before swinging around to look at Adrien. She wouldn't put it past him to focus too much on her stuff just to be kind, even if he had work of his own. "You've been spending all of your evenings over here. I thought you had papers to write."

"Wrote 'em during the day," Adrien said cheerfully. "And did my studying during the day, too."

"And that's enough?"

"For right now, yes. I don't think I could do it forever, though." He worried his lip, just a bit. She didn't miss it, even though he was clearly trying to hide it so he wouldn't worry her. "And I'll have to take at least one evening to study next week, since I'll have an exam and two papers to finish. And then I have two exams the week before break, and one after."

Marinette nodded. She would probably be done with everything that Adrien could help with by that point anyway. "Take off whatever time you need, really. You've been a huge help." She gestured at the neat piles of clothes stacked and labeled on the couch and at the printing screens, piled neatly on the kitchen counter. "I couldn't have gotten this far without you. I would still be scrambling and panicking myself into a knot." She smiled up at him as he came over to wrap her up in a hug. "I've been able to focus so much better since we came up with the plan to get everything finished."

Adrien just grinned and buried his face in her neck.

"I've managed to get all of my designs finalized and approved," Marinette continued. "And I got revisions done for several album covers and those have been submitted, so I'm waiting to hear back from the last of those. And the one cover that I hadn't gotten a first draft of yet- it's maybe a third of the way done. I'll have to work on that and get it done- well, not this weekend, since I have to finish up a bunch of orders first, but next week at least, so I can get it submitted for critique."

Marinette also sincerely hoped that none of the other people who had had her do revisions needed any more changes. Being able to check all of them off would be a huge relief.

"So how are the studs different than the other hardware you mentioned?" Adrien asked after another minute. He released her from the hug and straightened back up, stretching and twisting to get the aches out of his back. "You said they were easier?"

"Yeah, the others need more than just the one poking tool," Marinette explained. "And they have two pieces that lock together from opposite sides of the fabric. It usually takes a couple tries to get it right." It wasn't that the studs were hard, exactly, just different. There were more steps and more tools, but not that many more. She was sure that Adrien wouldn't have any problems.

"I'm sure I'll pick it up," Adrien assured her. "I might be slower than you at it, but..."

Marinette pulled him back down for a kiss. "That's fine. As long as it gets done, the time doesn't matter. I wouldn't be able to do this without you."

She wasn't even exaggerating. Adrien had been focused on whatever task she gave to him to do, working hard to finish the job. Between the errands he had run, the organizing he had done, his work on the frames, and all of the hardware...

Yeah, it was a lot. It added up quickly.

"Well, then I should get back to work," Adrien told her. "I'm almost done with the jacket, and then it'll be ready for you again."

"No rush," Marinette assured him. She turned back to her machine and started sewing again. The machine hummed, needle a silver blur as it worked its way up the seam, one stitch at a time. "I certainly have enough to do in the meantime."

[mahal]

haven’t written a personal post since like 2014 but

i just realized - like really, truly realized - that it’s okay to take your sweet time with things. like yes deadlines are important to some extent but it’s really, genuinely fucking with your mental health you have the ability to do something about it; especially if its school related

**TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of suicidal thoughts and bad eating habits**

my high school was a self-directed learning school which was supposed to mean you could go at your own pace but there were target dates and they’d put conditional zeroes in if you didnt meet them (they’d take em out after but ohmygod do you know how that looked on report cards or progress reports). and obviously there was the pressure to finish by the end of the year or graduate in four years so the whole “going at your own pace” thing was bullshit. and i’d always been a “good” student so obviously i felt like i needed to meet those dates and the minute i started slipping i started losing my mind. 

fast forward to uni deadlines are fucking real and there are so many things to do and even if you actually work like you want to, you can never stay on top of anything (at least thats how i feel). my eating habits got bad to the point where id forget to eat until i was nauseous enough to be retching in the mornings but nothing would come up. im still having trouble reminding myself to have at least two meals a day and not to have my first meal at like 4pm. theres this ridiculous notion that you have to graduate in 4 years which is in fact possible but (at least with my program) if you want to do that you pretty much have to be working all the time; i genuinely have no social life and its killing me. throughout both high school and uni the ideas of dropping out or killing myself have always sat in the back of my mind as a viable back up plan which is not okay. honestly my mental health

if you ask me what changed i would know what to tell you but im taking 6 courses this semester (which ive tried to do twice before and always ended up dropping one because i couldnt) and i realized that ill never be able do this again because im barely doing it now and that’s fucking okay. so im doing the following:

i have an essay due in 2h and ive decided im submitting it tomorrow or even the day after; i emailed my prof saying my mental health is shit rn and im going to bed early tonight

im splitting my next year so im extending my program by a year (2 if i end up doing an internship) because fuck graduating in 4 years just because everyone expects me to. im not doing it if it means i can never join extracurriculars or see a therapist or hang out with my friends

im gonna find time in the next couple weeks to go talk to my school’s mental health resource office and maybe finally talk to a therapist/counselor

eventually im gonna be telling my parents about the therapy thing because i think its something i knew i needed for a long time now but could never fully admit it

TLDR: there’s so much pressure to do things “on time” for academics but if your mental health is deteriorating it’s not worth it. the idea that you have to complete university/college in four years and launch straight into a job is bullshit. i know one guy who took 7 years to graduate from my program and hes legitimately happy now with a great job. there is no shame in taking your time and looking after yourself

[xviistudy]

Things to remember in Senior High

Well, it’s summer now and 11th grade is over. Next year I’ll be graduating High School, then I’ll be off to college. That being said, here’s everything I have learned from my first year in Senior High in a nutshell: 

#1: Don’t take sleep for granted 

When you hear your older sister/brother or your friends from the 11th and 12th grade telling you to sleep while you can, we actually mean it. The first quarter of the year is alright. There’s not much to do but when y’all really start to work, sleep is literally non-existent. Approximately, in a week, a student who strives for academic excellence will get at least 15-20 hours of sleep (since our school days range from Monday to Thursday and Friday is a free day, psyche it isn’t bc you still have to go back to school to finish whatever PTs and projects you have’t finished yet HAHAHAHHA). When the exams hit, it is what you literally call hell week since in the three days of the exam, I had approximately only had 8-10 hours of sleep. Imagine that? In three days. That’s why when we tell you to sleep, YOU SLEEP. It’s not fun being a coffee zombie all day, everyday. 

#2: Don’t take your mental health lightly 

I cannot tell you guys how many mental breakdowns I have had in this year. There was so much going on and it was so much. I went as far as telling myself that it was okay for me to faint/collapse, as long as I pass my exams. I would breakdown randomly in class for some apparent reason, I don’t remember it anymore. I would get so anxious and tired whenever I would think about all I had to do for that specific week and then proceed to have that breakdown. Please, my darlings, when it all gets too much, don’t push yourself if you can’t do it anymore. It will take a toll on your mental, physical and emotional health so much. You will regret it when the year is done, trust me. During the year, I repressed all my feelings bc I had to get all my work done in order to get a good grade. Now that it’s summer, I am an depressed, emotionally unstable and anxious mess bc all those repressed feelings are finally coming out. 

#3: Don’t forget to eat and stay hydrated

Coffee can only do so much. Don’t drink that like water just so that you can stay awake to do your homework. During the school year, I lost so much weight and that is not good. The weight I lost was due to stress and lack of food intake. The lack of food intake was caused by being too busy to even eat my lunch and we obviously couldn’t eat in class. So please, bring at least sandwiches and a huge waterjub so that you can eat and drink the water you need.

#4: Don’t put off your homework

This is a mistake I made frequently which caused me to stay up late since the deadline was already the next day. When the homework is given to you, do it on the day because the next day you will be given new assignments. This sounds standard but we still tend to do this because we rely on the fact that the deadline is still next week or next month. Don’t do that because the month will go by and the next thing you know, the deadline is already tomorrow. If you don’t understand, please ask for help from your classmates. That will help you finish faster rather than spending hours going over material that you don’t understand at all. On the other hand, if you’ve spent just 10-30 minutes reading and rereading the material, take a break and go back later. There’s a huge chance that your brain is too tired and you need to rest before it can function. After that rest, maybe to your surprise, you might understand the material. 

#5: Listen to your teacher

This is standard but you know when you get those days when you’re just out of it and you don’t listen nor copy the notes? Yeah, those days. No matter how out of it you are, you need to listen or else you will regret it. I suggest you listen rather than taking down notes because if you’re busy taking down notes, you might miss half of the lesson even if you did write it down because you might not even remember why you wrote it down or short cuts. If you can do both, then that would be great! If you’re the type to take down notes because you can understand it more, then go ahead! You do you, boo. If you’re being out of it is caused by your mental or emotional state, then please go to your guidance center. No matter how hard you try to listen nothing will happen because you’re not okay. 

#6: Surround yourself with people who make you happy

No joke, this is a big factor since when you’re surrounded with people who make you happy, then you will be somewhat happy if not completely happy. When you’re happy, you have the motivation to do your work because being happy gives you more energy. They will also make going to school easier since you’re looking forward to seeing these people. These people will also act as your support group. They will push you to do your best and push you to grab the opportunities that you’re to scared to do on your own. I swear, if you find the right people, no matter how stressful Senior High is, you will have the time of your life. 

#7: Get rid of the toxic people in your life

This is also a huge factor. If you still have toxic people in your life, get rid of them. All they’ll do is stress you out even more when there’s actually nothing to be stressed about. I started the year with a toxic person and it was hell. I felt like I was trapped and suffocated. I did not want to go to school and I did not feel wanted in school at all. All I was to this person was a personal slave. So when I decided to leave, this person got even more mad and gave my friends and I a harder time. You don’t need these kinds of people in your life at this point because you already have too much to worry about, you don’t need to add another one.This is why while it’s still early, get rid of them. To identify a toxic friend or relationship, click here. Click here to know how to deal with manipulative people. Click here to know the 10 differences between a toxic friend and a good friend. 

#8: Enjoy your time while it lasts

Enjoy all this while it lasts. You may not know it now but you will miss everything about whatever you have experienced in all your years in school. Next year, I will be graduating and I regret not spending enough time appreciating everything that I had when I was in the years prior. Appreciate your teachers, your friends,  your classmates, the lunch ladies/ janitors, the security guards you see and greet every morning and just anyone you see in your High School everyday because you will never find anyone like them in your new school for college. Appreciate how your school looks - the trees, the pathway, the parking lot, the classrooms, the canteen, the chapel - because you will miss the familiarity, how at home you felt in it, when you reach college. 

That’s all I have to say for what I’ve learned this year. I hope you guys enjoyed the read and took my advice into consideration! To all the graduates this year, congratulations! I am proud. Good luck on your next chapter in life. To the people who are still far off, enjoy it while it lasts. Graduation will be here quicker than you know it. To my batch, one more year and we will be off. I hate to admit it but I’ll miss you all. Curious and curiouser, it feels as if yesterday was the start of 7th grade. 

[iloveyoupittsburghpirates-blog]

It’s Time To Move Forward, Pittsburgh Pirates

My Dearest Pittsburgh Pirates, 

Sorry for the delay on this letter. I was out of town for the long weekend and didn’t have the chance to get it to you. This week was more of the same. While it’s hard to be too upset anymore, because it’s over and you are already looking forward to next year, you still performed below expectations. Facing two playoff caliber teams is never easy especially on the road so I wasn’t terribly surprised when you lost two out of three to both the Cardinals and Braves. Your offense has still been terribly lacking with only eleven runs scored in those six games. You opened it up a bit yesterday beating the Reds 5-1 though you didn’t even pull ahead until late in the game and that was only because of the two people who currently have the best OPS on your team: Gregory Polanco and Adam Frazier. Yes, Adam Frazier. That’s due in part to his 4 for 4 day with three RBI’s, a homer, and he finished a triple short of the cycle. You want a stat I bet you never thought you would see at the beginning of the season? Adam Frazier currently has as many homers as Josh Bell with eight a piece. While that’s a positive sign for the re-emergence of Frazier, it also goes to show you how disappointing of a season Bell has put together. This is where we learn who is a viable option for next season and what needs to be addressed. If you happen to win some games in the process, I wouldn’t be mad about it.

You made a couple of surprise moves this weekend before the waiver trade deadline expired. Adeiny Hechavarria, who you recently acquired, was dealt to the Yankees. That’s not terribly surprising given that you are out of the hunt and you want to give Kevin Newman the opportunity to start every day. The more surprising move was dealing David Freese to the Dodgers and most likely ending his tenure with you. I was under the assumption that you would pick up Freese’s six million dollar option this offseason after how disappointing Colin Moran has played. There’s still a small chance the Dodgers could not pick up the option, he could become a free agent, and you could resign him but that seems very unlikely. With Freese gone, you are in a position now where Colin Moran is your only third baseman. Start him the rest of the season. I’m fine with that to see if he somehow explodes. He CAN’T be your only option there for next season. He has a 0.5 WAR in 371 at bats. That’s not remotely good enough to start. Ke’Bryan Hayes had dominant week in Double-A and could be your everyday starting third baseman in a year or two but you have a window now where you can’t afford to waste a year. Signing someone like a Mike Moustakas, Jed Lowrie, or Asdrubal Cabrera is a short term investment that you need to make this offseason. With how bad Bell has been at first, you can’t afford to go into next season with two corner infield spots that could be total duds in the lineup. You have money so go spend it.  

Trevor Williams is on a historic pace right now. He pitched another 6 2/3 scoreless innings yesterday giving him a 0.74 ERA since the All Star break. The record for lowest ERA after the All Star break was set by Jake Arrieta in 2015 with a 0.75 ERA. You remember that season? He dominated you in the Wildcard game and you haven’t had a winning season since? I thought that might jog your memory. Williams has been unstoppable mixing different pitches at different speeds and placing them perfectly. He now holds a 3.16 ERA for the season and has solidified himself as a starter in this rotation next year. There has been a lot of criticism about your ability to develop pitchers with Gerrit Cole leaving and becoming a Cy Young candidate and even Tyler Glasnow looked great again this weekend going seven strong innings. Those criticisms are extremely valid but you also have to give credit when it’s due. Williams (3.16 ERA, 1.18 WHIP) and Taillon (3.45 ERA, 1.20 WHIP) have put together terrific seasons and if you are going to solely blame the Pirates for not developing the others, which again is valid, then you also need to credit them when pitchers do well. I’m not saying there isn’t a potentially huge issue with your pitcher development. We will have a better idea of the severity once Mitch Keller is ready to be promoted. I just think these are two instances that have seemed to work out very well and it needs to be recognized.

Since you have basically been eliminated from the playoff picture, Kevin Newman has been playing almost everyday at shortstop. It hasn’t gone very well. Newman made a devastating error that helped lose you the game on Saturday. He’s also shown no signs of life at the plate batting .121 with a .346 OPS. It’s only been 33 at bats so it’s hard to truly judge him on that small of a sample size. The problem is he had terrible splits in the minors versus righties with only a .705 OPS. When he faces a lefty, it’s .866 which is good but that makes him a platoon player, not a starter. Newman can be the backup SS next year and get some starts against lefties. You can also sub him in for Frazier late in games if he ends up being your starting 2B next year, which seems likely. You can’t go into next season planning for him to be your everyday shortstop. You just can’t. Even though you traded Hechavarria, you could still bring him back as a free agent. That should be your worst case scenario if you can’t find a better bat on the free agent market. Newman can be your backup middle infielder next year and I’m fine with that. But nothing more.  

This week is much easier than the last two because you are playing two last place teams. You finish out the series with Cincinnati at PNC Park today and tomorrow. You have a day off Thursday before the Miami Marlins come to town. It’s the last month of the season and you are out of the playoff picture. Time to play the young guys to see what they have but it’s also smart to limit the starting pitchers. Guys like Musgrove, Taillon, and Williams have already exceeded their innings pitched total from years past. The last thing you want is one of these guys getting hurt for a totally unnecessary reason. Nick Kingham started for Nova on Sunday who had to deal with a family matter. Kingham should basically be used as a sixth starter for this month in order to limit the others.  Overall, your rosters have expanded so there’s no reason for anyone to get overplayed at this point. The only thing that matters now is for the younger guys to get some development time and to keep everyone healthy. Go have fun and try to get better as a team. Then this offseason I hope you will open your checkbook to get better as a team. Have a good week and talk to you next weekend!

                                                                        Looking Ahead To The Future,

                                                                                           Brad

P.S. stands for playing still which I’m referring to a couple former Buccos. Cutch’s mediocre season in San Francisco was cut short when he was traded to the New York Yankees this week where another prominent former Pirate, Neil Walker, now resides. I happened to be in Oakland yesterday to watch the A’s play the Yankees so I got to see them in person. Walker struck out in a big situation and Cutch had one hit, stole a base, and scored in the loss. It was funny to see them on the field together again playing for a contender. Just thought I’d mention it…

[idiopathicsmile]

any advice on how to get work done for college when the anxiety/depression/adhd cocktail is being absolutely horrid?

hi! um. oh man. i have to tell you, i mostly got through college by picking classes that i knew would be interesting-yet-relatively-light-on-the-courseload (what’s up, creative writing seminars) and by putting each paper off until midnight the night before it was due, using that sudden panic as focus-fuel, and then working on it all night, often finishing within an hour of the due date.

i would not recommend this.

ngl, i’m posting this in the hopes that this is one of those cases where other people comment with better advice than what i got, but here’s what i got:

1. take a deep breath. whatever situation you are in, with regards to stress and deadlines--even if you knowingly put off stuff way too long and it’s objectively your fault--remind yourself that there is absolutely nothing to be gained in this moment by beating yourself up. 

“but i procrastinated and now i only have eight hours to write an eight-page paper in spanish, a language i do not speak! i deserve to feel bad about this, i--”

nope. nope nope nope. this is kind of just how college goes, at least part of the time, for most people. hell, even neurotypicals, i have to imagine. (i’m gonna go ahead and bet that, if this post gets more than 3 comments, one will be “oh god, Smile, how dare you give me undergrad flashbacks like that”)

and because i’m gonna go ahead and give up any pretense at directing this at anybody but my younger untreated/unmedicated self: hey guess what, despite what your brain tells you, hating yourself is never virtuous. no matter how badly you’ve screwed up, there’s nothing ethical or just about sitting there deliberately thinking the meanest thoughts you possibly can about yourself, in order to punish yourself.

put aside whether you “deserve” to feel good or bad. that’s not your job anyway; you’re not Athena, and this moment is not about what type of judgment you need to lay upon yourself. 

it’s about finishing your work. 

(and if you try to get to the work-mindset, and then you hit a patch of self-hatred and slip back into that swamp for a second, don’t punish yourself for that either. this is also not useful to the task, which is to finish the work.)

(later, when the work is done and handed in, and you have some time to breathe again and reflect on how gross it feels to pull another near-all-nighter, that is the time to--not tear yourself apart, but calmly reflect on how you could maybe prevent or at least decrease these adventures. calm reflection will be easier when your brain isn’t screaming DANGER anyway.)

2. have you had any water recently? fill up a cup or a mug and drink some water.

3. pick whatever’s the most urgent. set everything else aside for a moment; give yourself permission to not even feel bad about that stuff. 

set a timer for fifteen minutes. tell yourself, “all i need to do is work on this assignment for fifteen minutes, and then if i need to, i’ll let myself take a five-minute break.” if the timer goes off and you’re in the zone, keep going until you feel your attention slipping, then reset your timer for that five-minute break. get up, pace around, stretch, make a cup of tea. when the timer goes off, set another 15 minutes of task-time and so on. 

(i stole the timer trick recently from a youtube channel about adhd stuff; it was not a strategy i had as a student, but it’s useful in adulthood. so much of the time with a panic spiral, the most important thing is just bypassing the fear-based avoidance and tricking your brain into getting started.

4. if this is about studying, and not about assignments, that the most efficient way to internalize information is to reinterpret it in your own words, as if explaining to someone unfamiliar with the concept, and then to write that out, by hand. also, when studying tonight for a test that’s tomorrow, please disregard item 5 about staying up all night. sleeping before a test is as important as studying before it. study efficiently as possible, and then allow yourself a decent chunk of sleep. never pull an all-nighter to study for a test happening the next morning. you will hate your own consciousness.

5. there comes a point, when you are working on a big paper due the next day, where you realize, ‘ah, okay, i will not really be sleeping tonight. tomorrow is going to be a tired day.’ don’t shame yourself for that, either. accept it. make your peace. you are not scum if you don’t manage any meaningful sleep tonight. tomorrow is a new day, and probably you’ll be able to find time in there for a nap.

also at this point, i think it’s okay to at some point allow yourself like a fifteen-minute break (between periods of being productive) to just blast a loud, upbeat song that is kind of tangentially related to what you’re working on* (headphones if you have a roommate or if it’s after quiet hours) and dance around your room like an idiot. sanity is a strange beast, managed in strange ways.

*ex. for a gender and the arts class, once i wrote a paper discussing the portrayal of Fantine being pushed by class and gender inequality towards a life of prostitution in the novel Les Mis, and comparing it in tone to the musical Les Mis, exploring how the music and staging did or didn’t seem to match Victor Hugo’s intent. (in the height of the most recent surge of Les Mis fandom, you could find better meta on the fucking sidewalk. but i got an A- i think.) anyway, my themesong that night was ‘the fallen’ by franz ferdinand. (which is ironic, because it’s much more of a bahorel song.)

if what you really need is some emotional hand-holding, you could instead opt to listen to the gentlest song you can find, while curled up in a ball. pick something personally relevant that will be soothing to you. if you’re blanking, there’s always the iron and wine cover of ‘such great heights.’ (you’ll still want to set that timer, because this can slide back into procrastination if you’re sad or tired enough.)

6. remember that the amount of work you have ebbs and flows. however bad it is right now, this too shall pass. 

7. more on the ‘general maintenance’ end, and not the ‘oh god everything is on fire’ end of stress--my life has gotten much easier since i started programming into my phone calendar everything i need to do and when i need to do it, AND setting alarms to remind myself like an hour beforehand.

8. one more reminder: don’t beat yourself up for those moments when it all feels like too much. there’s a reason why most post-graduation adults still have college stress dreams. 

[tea-and-toblerones]

Unison Chapter 4- We'll Blast the Stereo and We'll Drive to Madagascar

Are you ready for a date- Teddy Style? 

As always comments, feedback, whatever is encouraged. Every like, every reblog, every comment makes my day!

The first part of the week had flew by mostly due to work and the fact that everyday seemed to be a new catastrophe that left me there long after I was due to leave. Slowly I had fallen back into my old routine. Waking up, going for a run, shower and off to work. When I had climbed out of the shower Tuesday to a text that read ‘Have a good day at work x’ I giggled. Actually giggled.  I would like to say it made my day, which it did. Until I got to work and had to sit through a long meeting complaining about how deadlines were being missed and too much time was being wasted on frivolous things. Someone’s muttered comment about this being the biggest frivolous thing, (Most likely Louis) that had ended up extending the rant for at least another fifteen minutes.

Then came Thursday. When I had called about getting more contacts I was told that I was due for my exam and I should just  come in. I hated the eye doctor. The puffs of air. The ‘one or two’ ‘two or three’ when they all ending up looking the same. I had messaged Ed that morning asking if today really had to exist.

“Why? What’s wrong with today?’

“I hate going to the doctor.”

His response was almost immediate “Are you okay? Are you sick?”

“I’m fine, it’s an eye appointment. I just hate going to them.”

I was sitting in the waiting room, half watching house hunters that was playing on the tv. My fingers tapping against the arm of the chair. I almost didn’t hear my notification go off, I was so wrapped up with worry.

“They’re a pain, sure, but to want to skip the whole day. That’s bit extreme, innit. Why do you hate them that much?”

“It’s a long story that I really don’t want to type out.”

I heard my name called and slid my phone back in my pocket and went back into the exam room. After the standard routine, the doctor put her clipboard down. “Now let’s get a good look at that left eye. Have you noticed any loss of vision, blind spots, things look slightly skewed or wavy?” I shifted a bit as she was listing off problems. She must have noticed because she looked up from what she was doing. “Adelia?” It almost sounded like she caught a naughty child reaching into the cookie jar.

“Yeah…I’ve noticed that I have problems seeing stuff that’s in front of me. Kinda like I can’t focus on it. It’s like it can tell something’s there but it can’t tell what…” I drift off, staring down at my hands. I had just gotten into the habit of closing it whenever I needed to focus on something.

“Let’s see what’s going on in there, shall we?” After alot of hmms and ahhhs, I was told to stop wearing my contacts and to come back in a month to see if it had improved but it had looked like there could be new scar tissue forming.  I trudge out of the office slipping on my sunglasses. I knew that I was most likely going to get bad news which is half the reason I kept shoving it off. I had told myself that I just needed a new prescription, nothing more. I still held a shred of hope that it wouldn’t get any worse.

Since I had the rest of the day off I went home after picking up my new glasses,.I felt slightly guilty, though I only left two hours early. After a couple hours had passed I had remembered that I had been chatting with Ed before I went in. I still wasn’t used to having steady conversations with somebody. Most of them were either work related or quick ask a question, get a response, end of story types of conversations. Nothing with substance. “Why don’t you tell me about it over dinner? Like tomorrow night?” I instantly perk up. It’s confirmed, there’s a date. I knew I shouldn’t have been surprised but there was a little part of me that was worried he would be put off by my brashness. Once it had clicked in that this poor boy had sat in suspense for hours waiting on my reply, I didn’t let the fact I really couldn’t really see my screen stop me. “If kove to! What tike shuilf I meet upu?” I had hoped that my fingers would just know where each key was. The fact that my phone was ringing told me they had betrayed me. Guess I haven’t texted enough for the keyboard to be committed to muscle memory. I guess I’m a terrible millennial. “Cough twice if you’re being held hostage and you need me to come and save you.” He asked jokingly “Is that what it takes for you to come running over?” Keeping my voice light and teasing “That’s mean, innit?” His reply was heavily ladened with mock pain “Besides, you don’t want to be the girl who cried sheep.” “I think- I think you mean wolf Ed. It’s the boy who cried wolf.” “Is it?” There was a brief pause, “I thought he went around going 'the sheep, the sheep.’” The high pitched way he said the sheep and the fact I could practically hear his arm waving around caused a laugh to bubble up. “Hmm…Anyway, don’t do that unless you want a very upset Teddy on your hands. Just ask me to meet up.” “Well we wouldn’t want that.” I pause “I gotta ask-” He already knew what I was asking before it left my mouth. “It’s a nickname from when I was younger. People that are close to me call me that still.” I had the image of a small red headed boy with fuzzy looking hair that went everywhere. It brought a smile to my face. “It’s fitting. You’re pretty cuddly.” After it came out of my mouth I cringe. That’s what every guy wants to hear. You’re cute and cuddly. “Not always.”  There was something about the way he said that that made me think there was something more to it than what he was letting on. Before I could ask or put more thought into he had started talking again. “But onto more important matters. I’m guessing that message was saying you saying yes?” “It was. What time should I be at your suite?” “Let’s say 7? Does that give you enough time to get ready after work?” “Plenty. I can’t wait to see what you’ve got up your sleeve.” “I honestly don’t know how I’m gonna top the Simpsons date. That’s usually like what, a third or fourth date? We’re going backwards.” He had a point. We had already spent the night together, but who says we have to follow some strict dating flowchart? “That’s what makes it fun, innit?” Mimicking his often used phrase. “Though we did have a meal first, so I’d say that’s cliché.” “In our pajamas. At 2 in the morning.” “Yknow what we should do then? The most cliché date ever. Dinner and a movie.” He was silent for a moment as he thought it over “How 'bout dinner and let me plan what comes after?” “Oh?” I reply slyly “What do you have in mind?” “Oh aren’t you dirty. You’ll just have to wait and see, love.” His voice dropping to a sultry growl when he said love that caused me to shiver. “Mmm, either way, I can’t wait to see what you have planned.” “See you tomorrow.” I could hear the smile in his voice “See you tomorrow Ed.”

******************************************************* Ed’s POV

I was in the middle of lunch when I hear my phone ring. I almost didn’t answer it, whoever it was could wait until I was finished eating. Yet I found my hand reaching for the small device. When I saw Adi’s name on the screen I hit the accept button. It was the middle of the day so it must be important for her to call while she was at work.

“Adi, are you okay?” A variety of scenarios were running through my head. She got hurt, she got fired, somebody died.

“Hey, Ed.” I could hear regret tainting her voice and my heart both sank and somehow leapt in my throat. “I might have to push our date back a bit. They just dropped alot  of work on me because apparently Nobody knows how to enter shit into a computer. And this all needs to be in today. I’m hoping to be out of here by 6 but I thought I’d give you a heads up in case I’m running behind.” I could hear some furious clacking in the background.

At least she’s not cancelling on me. “I’ll be here waiting for you whenever you get done. Just keep me filled in okay. And hey, don’t be too hard on yourself. Or that keyboard.” I hear her huff but the clacking didn’t lighten up. “Oh and if you’re thinking about skipping lunch, don’t. Angry Teddy, y'know?”

The clacking stops and I hear a drawer being pulled open and what sounded like a wrapper crinkling, “There, are you happy?” Her mouth full, apparently to make a point that she was eating something. The typing had started up again, but was significantly less agitated than before.

“There had better be more than that granola bar.” She had mentioned she kept some in her desk when she needed a pick me up during the day. Since she had produced something on such short notice that had to be it.

There’s a long silence before, “How’d you know it was a granola bar? Are you here now?” Her voice creeping up.  I could picture the bar sticking out her mouth so her hands were free to continue typing, her head turning, frantically looking for me lurking in a corner.

“No, you told me you kept some in your desk, remember?”

“Oh, oh that’s right. I did didn’t I?” A breath of relief fell out of her mouth. That was a bit odd…though I guess I would be weirded out too.

“You know what they say, work hard, play hard.” I hear her snort and mutter something about all she got was a hard time. “But you go, work and get that done so we can have fun tonight.”

“Okay, well I’m going to go tackle this.”

“Okay, see you tonight”

I close my phone, setting it on the table before returning to my lunch. Being in the music business I was used to plans shifting. Nothing was ever set in stone. People come around asking things like hey, so and so is having a gig, want to swing by? Or there’s a wicked party happening at this house, wanna hit it up? She was annoyed, that much was blatantly clear. Even in her texts I could tell her mood hadn’t improved much. It made me wonder just how much work they had shoved on to her. By the way it was looking she would be out before 7 so everything would still be on time. I had started getting ready and at 6:45 she had messaged saying she just left and was just going home to change and be right over.  

The place I had picked was nice, with a laid back feel to it. I wasn’t a fan of overly fancy places. Last time I had dined at one they looked at me like I had rolled in filth and sat down at the table when I asked for a bottle of ketchup. Ever since then I’ve avoided them as much as I could. Plus the food was amazing, the best I’ve found in the city.

There was a knock on my door a little after 7. I pulled door open, my eyes falling on Adi, who’s face quickly broke into a smile. She had chosen a sleeveless dress with a white lacy top, with a deep reddish purple collar. The skirt was the same reddish purple shade, knee length, the type that flairs out when spinning. A small silver purse was across her body. I also noticed her glasses were different. The frames were a bigger, yet the edges were actually thinner. They still black but less rectangular and looked more like an upside down trapezoid. They suited her quite well.

After I found my voice I stutter out “Wow, you look amazing.”

“I wasn’t sure what we were doing so I thought I’d play it safe. You look pretty good yourself.”

I look down at what I was wearing, a navy blue button up and jeans. I grab my key and card before closing the door behind me. Her mood had drastically improved since the last time I had talked to her. She was practically skipping down the hallway.

“I hope you like pasta, the place we’re going has an amazing penne alla vodka.”

She let out a pretty unlady like snort “Who doesn’t like pasta?”

“People who choose not to eat carbs.”

“You don’t want those types in your life anyway. They’re usually bitches. Probably wouldn’t be so cranky if they’d eat some damn bread.” She shook her head in disbelief.

“Then you’re going to love this place.”

“Good cos I’m starving.”

**********************************************

As we walked through the restaurant I turned my focus on her. She was looking around the room with a sort of child like wonderment. The top half of walls were covered in thousands of old vintage photos that were placed close together while the bottom was covered in wood planks. There were party lights strung along the walls between the photos adding a light party vibe. The tables were covered in a red and white checked pattern, surrounded by either dark wood chairs with either red or green cushions or red booths. I nudge her arm and point up to the ceiling that was covered in posters. Since I had came through a couple times I had a good rapport with most of the staff. They had led us to a separate room, so we could dine in peace. There was more of an intimate feel, the lights were dimmed and the ceiling was covered in a wine rack, with vines and bundles of grapes woven through to mimic a vineyard. She slid into the booth and  I debated on whether I should sit beside her or not. Eventually deciding to just sit across from her.

“Ed this place is wonderful!” Her eyes sparkling as she looked at the pictures on the wall. That smile playing across her face again.

“I wish it was warm enough to sit outside. It’s decorated like a plaza in Italy. Busts, fountain, you’ve got this,” I point the the ceiling, “I don’t know what it’s called, spanning over head. Light music playing.”

“It sounds delightful, but I love right where we are. Now, down to business.” She flipped her menu open scanning through the dishes. I put my hand on the menu  lowering it down. Her eyes flicked up. They were a light green shade today, with specks of moss and a bit of bark around the edges.

“I should probably add that dishes are served family style.”

“So we’ll be sharing.” She flipped the menu closed. “I’ll let you pick.”

“Are you sure? I’m okay with eating whatever-” She waved her hand, brushing me off.

“I saw the way your eyes lit up when you were talking about the vodka penne. There is no way I’m denying you that. And I want to see if it’s as good as you say.”

This woman…the last girl I was with was picky about everything she ate. Not to mention she went through every food fad you could think of. It made going out to dinner a real hassle. Not that we really did alot anyway, with me being away all the time.

By that time that time the waiter had arrived, the same one I usually had, a fellow by the name of Phillip.

“Ed! It’s so great to see you again. Oh, you brought a lady this time. Fine choice I must say and a good decision bringing her here too.” Sending a wink her way causing her skin to gain a slight pink glow and laugh to fall from her lips. “Now, is it going to be the usual or are we going with something different? Shall I suggest the spaghetti and meatballs? Have yourself a real 'Lady and the Tramp’ moment.” His eyebrows wiggling.

“Well Phillip, I talked the penne alla vodka up and now Adi wants to try it.”

He glanced over to her, which she nodded in agreement. “It’s true. If you could have seen his face…well I’m guessing you have, considering…how could I say no to that?”

“If there’s anything you’d like to sample, just let me know. One of the best things about being seated at the chef’s table is you get to try a bit of everything.”

She looked surprised for a second, her eyes darting around the room before she responded “I like pasta.” Which caused me to snort because she was usually so full of words. She seemed to realise this wasn’t a complete thought so she added “So whatever you recommend us try will be alright with me.”

“See, at least one of you is adventurous.” He shot my direction, with a teasing smile, “Now, drinks?”

I ponder for a moment, nowhere near an expert on wine pairings. “Whatever pairs best with our food.” I turn to Adi “Do you have a preference?”

“Not usually, but I’m feeling red tonight.” There was a small smile on her lips. Like an inside joke I wasn’t in on.

Phillip nodded, scooping up our menus. “I’ll be right back with your wine.”

As soon as he was out of earshot Adi whip around to me “This is the chef’s table?” she hissed.

“Yep, the kitchen is right through that door. Why did you think there was only one table here?”

She shrugged. “Didn’t put much thought in it really. Make sense I 'spose.”

Sometimes by the way she talks and reacts to things, it’s almost like she forgets who I am. That I’m not just a dorky English boy here for Uni or a holiday. Well, I guess I was technically here on holiday. Poor choice. It did bring up one concern for me. How would she handle being linked to someone so well known. Would she melt under the scrutiny? Would it all go to her head and I create a horrible monster? Would she turn out to be just like Al? Cold, greedy and only out for herself? Dropping people as soon as they weren’t any use to her? As I watched her laughing and joking with Phillip, I shoved that thought out of my mind. No she’s too sweet to ever be that cold.

Once Phillip left after dropping of our bottle of wine I decided to turn the subject to something that had been eating at me for the past 36 hours.

“So, why do you hate the eye doctor so much?”

She was taking a sip of her wine, savoring the flavor before she swallowed. “Okay, wow, that’s great wine.” She set the glass down, “Because I don’t want to hear I have to have another surgery on my eye.”

“Another surgery? So you’ve already had one?”

I saw her shift slightly, “Yeah…to fix the damage from when this happened.” She pointed to her scar. “There’s a chance that more scar tissue can develop that would cause them to have to go back in and fix it again.”

“Can you see out it?”

She nodded. “Yeah, but it’s, oh how did the doctor put it….” She thought for a moment before shaking her head. “I can’t really focus on things. It’s like how when you wake up in the morning and everything’s out of focus.”

That explained why she shot pool with one eye closed. It threw her off if she tried it with them both open.  "So, do you have to have surgery?“

“No, not yet but I have to go back in a month to check it again. She thinks there might be some starting. We’re going to see if my new glasses help.”

“No more contacts?”

“No more contacts.” She seemed slightly upset about that.

“Well, not that you asked but, I like you with your glasses Especially those new ones.”

“Oh?” She reached up and adjusted them. “I’ll have to keep that in mind then.”

When Phillip brought out our meal Adi’s mouth dropped open. One of the things they pride themselves in is making sure you don’t go home hungry. The dish took up the majority of the table, roughly the size of a large pizza and it was filled way past the top in a glorious mountain of pasta.

“That’s alot of pasta.” She stuttered out. She doesn’t know about Teddy Two Meals. She’s going to learn tonight.

Phillip laughed “You said you liked pasta. And your date, really, really likes pasta. Trust me, you’ll be grateful when I bring out some others to try.”

“Ed, there’s no way we can eat all this! And more? No way. Nun uh.”

I grab a fork and begin digging in. “You underestimate my power, love.”

Her eyebrow flew up with a slight smile. “All that power but you don’t have the high ground so…” She winked before sticking her fork in her mouth, her eyes falling closed and moaning. “Oh my god, this is amazing.”

So, she reacts that way to pasta, I wonder how she’ll react to my…no, Ed, don’t go there. I shove the thought out of my head and decide to vocalise “You know Star Wars?” instead.

“Mhmm, me and Nate used to watch them all the time when we were little.”

“I’ve got a lego Death Star that I put together while I was on tour. Ended up getting dropped while being moved but I got another one and it’s at my house back home…” Okay, well she probably thinks you’re nothing but a giant man child now.

“You have any now?” She was spearing a couple noodles onto her fork. Phillip had brought us separate plates but both of us seemed perfectly content eating it straight from the bowl.

“What, any legos? No, why?”

She shrugged “Thought it was something we could do on down days. You seem to enjoy building them by the way your face lit up.”

“I’m definitely going to pick some up now.” Is she even real? There’s no way I find someone like this after how low I’ve sunk. That’s just not how the world works.

I soon found out I had no reason to worry about being childish. She had flipped one of the noodles around in her mouth and was now blowing it like a whistle while crossing her eyes, causing me to spit some of my wine back in my glass. She grinned as she chewed, seeming pretty proud of herself. Part of me wondered if the wine had something to do with it. She was definitely alot more giggly than she was earlier. When Phillip brought a smaller plate of spaghetti and meatballs she turned to him and blurted out,

“Those meatballs are huge! You’re killing me Phillip. You’re killing me with pasta but if that’s how I go, that’s how I go.” She stuck her fork into it, cutting off a piece. A part of me wanted to say I had plenty of practice with big balls since I washed mine everyday but it seemed a little too crude to say at the table in a restaurant

. Despite what Phillip had said, the first time I came here I sampled everything so I knew what to expect. She was right, the meatballs were huge, the size of tangerines. I decided to pay her back for the recorder noodle by doing the same thing with the spaghetti. It backfired, slapping against my face, splattering sauce all over me and my glasses causing her to burst out laughing. Another perk of being at the chef’s table. We could be as loud as we wanted and not disturb another diner.

When the chef came out, Adi leaned forward and whispered “You think he’s gonna yell at us cos we’re being obnoxious?” Turns out he was pleased with all the laughter. According to him good food should bring about lots of laughter and joy. He wasn’t wrong. We chatted a bit with him, before he left and came back with our final dish, a giant slice of cheesecake topped with cherries. He was beaming with all the praise she was giving him about the food and said we deserved it. When he set the slice on our table she groaned saying how there was no way she could eat cheesecake on top of all the pasta.

“Ah come on, there’s a second stomach for dessert.”  I sang as sank my fork into the thick, creamy filling. I held my fork out for her to take a bite. She stared at it for a moment before leaning forward and taking it into her mouth. She muttered fuck it, grabbed her fork and dug in with me.

Once everything was finished and plates cleared away (Adi muttering in disbelief that we ate every bit of it) we chatted for a little bit before we went to the second part of the date. Her hand found mine on the ride, her head resting on my shoulder. I was starting to worry that maybe it was too much food and I had put her into a food coma when I saw her eyes were closed, with a smile on her face. When the taxi stopped in front of Uni’s she perked up, looking slightly puzzled.

“We’re not recreating our meeting our we? I don’t think I could handle that hangover two weeks in a row. Also, I don’t think the food will taste as good coming back up.”

“No, I saw that they had karaoke so I thought we could enjoy a show. That way we can still talk if we want to.”

She patted my arm in an apologetic way. “Karaoke Night is Saturday. Friday’s are performances.”

“Still good, innit? They aren’t all metalcore are they?” I didn’t think I could handle another round of blaring metal music.

“No, they have a pretty big variety come through here. It’s usually acoustic stuff.”

We head in and Adi leads me upstairs to the staging area. I glance at the pool table where we were playing a week ago, a smile coming across my face at the memory. There wasn’t as many people here tonight, so we were able to get a table with a good view of the stage. I went to get drinks as she settled in, asking for a whisky and coke. As I was waiting on the drinks the guy who was performing tonight came on stage. Lightly teased light brown hair, slight beard. Plain grey sweater with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, pair of jeans and what looked like vans, holding a guitar. He certainly didn’t look like he played metal. He gave off more of a folk music vibe. I sat down beside Adi, placing her drink in her hands. She thanked me, taking a sip.

After he finished tuning he began singing. His voice was on the deeper side, with a definite folk sound. He sounded pretty good, I could tell he was used to playing in front of people because his stage presence was solid. He’d play an original song, then a cover to keep everyone involved and interested. He also took requests that were shouted out and his banter was light and fun. Mostly poking fun at himself.  

“So come on, get higher, loosen my lips Faith and desire and the swing of your hips Just pull me down hard And drown me in love.”

I look over to see Adi with her eyes closed mouthing the words along with him, swaying in her seat. Her fingers idly playing with the stir stick in her drink. Once he finishes the song I lean over to her “Do you know him?” Of course she could have just known the song but the way her face brightened when he started talking told me better.

“Mhmm, that’s Levi. He’s one of the regulars, he plays here at least once a month. He was a part of our group. We kinda fell apart when this place caught fire. Chances are this is his first time performing since they’ve reopened.”

“Why don’t you invite him to have a couple drinks with us once he’s done?”  My question seemed to surprise her.

“You sure? We are on a date after all.” She took a swig of her drink, draining the last bit of it.

“Yeah, why not? We had the romantic part.” She snorted, probably remembering the sauce splattered all over my glasses. “Okay, we had the dinner part.”

She shrugged “Okay, yeah, it’ll be great to catch up.”

It wasn’t too much longer he was wrapping up his set. Adi had hopped out of her chair and weaved her way to the  edge of the stage where he was putting his guitar away. She tapped him on the shoulder and when he turned around I could see the surprise on his face from where I was sitting. He had pulled her into a hug and I hadn’t realised how tall he was until then. Granted, Adi was short, I had at least five inches if not more on her but this guy. This guy towered over her. When they had reached the table I had stood up.

“Levi, this is-” Adi had started, but he had cut her off.

Dammit I was curious at how she was going to introduce me.

“Oh, I know exactly who this is.” He didn’t look star struck or even remotely surprised. No, I couldn’t quite put my finger on that expression. His voice was pleasant enough. My face however must have looked worried because he clapped a hand on my shoulder. “No worries, everyone’s a family here. You’re safe. What happens at Uni, stay’s at Uni. Unless you take them home with you.”

He held his hand out, which I took, my hand dwarfed in his. I was also surprised by how rough it was. “Nice to meet you Levi.”

He nodded, pointing at the bar. “I’ll buy the next round. What are you guys having?”

When he left to get the drinks I looked over to Adi “Did you tell him who you were here with when you asked?” I asked casually

“No, I just asked if he wanted to join me and the guy I was with for drinks. Why?”

Well, that’s vague. “Because he didn’t seem surprised at all to see me. It surprised me as all.”

“Don’t know what to tell you. Maybe he doesn’t get starstruck easy. Besides, I thought you like that?”

“I do.”

She reached over and grabbed my hand. “He wasn’t lying when he said no one would say you were here.” Before I could answer he had came back with our drinks. He pulled a chair up from the neighboring table and settled in across from Adi. I decided to strike up a conversation “So Levi, what do you do for a living, or do you sing full time?”

“I’m a contractor, but singing professionally is a dream of mine. But you don’t want to hear about my boring life. Your life is where it’s at. What’s it like touring and being on the road?”

“Lonely.” I had said, without really thinking much about it. Both of them looked at me, Levi confused, Adi with sympathy. Deciding that I was not about to bring the mood down, I quickly add “But it’s never a dull moment. Seeing all these different places. It’s surreal. It really makes you appreciate the little things though. Like beds and a homecooked meal. God, I haven’t had a proper fry up in ages.” I added as an afterthought.

“What’s a fry up?” Adi chimed in. “Oh, um, it’s breakfast.”

“It’s different in Britain?” Levi had asked, mildly curious

“Yeah, kinda, it’s similar, but there are some differences. You don’t really find it here in the States.”  I shrugged it off, taking a drink of my beer. I didn’t want to spend the night discussing the difference between English and American foods.

Levi’s attention had turned to Adi “So, what have you been up to? Surely you’ve gotten that promotion by now. You were working your ass off to get brought up the last time you were here.”

“Ah…no…not yet…I’m still chugging away, yknow doing all the stuff they’re too lazy to do themselves.”

He shook his head. “They’re idiots then. No one deserves it more than you.”

“Yeah, well try telling that to Greg.” She muttered bitterly. “I almost didn’t get to make our date because of him.”

His eyes widened at that, and for a brief moment there was a look of shock that rushed across his face. There it was, the reaction I had been waiting for, even though he tried his best to conceal it. “Wait, if you’re on a date, why am I here? I’m intruding.”

He made to get up but I stopped him, “Nah mate, stay.”

“You sure?” He was half hovering over his seat.

“Yeah, stay. Everything’s funner with friends, innit?”

He sank back down, taking another swig of his beer. I wasn’t sure why I wanted him to know that she was here with me. He hadn’t been acting like he was interested in her. They really did seem like nothing more than old friends. It was just something about the way he said I know exactly who this is. There was almost a distrust or anger behind it. Then it clicked. He’s saw the articles the gossip sites have wrote about me. How I was quickly burning out, spiralling out of control with alcohol and drug abuse. How I cheated on my ex. How my holiday was a ruse and I was really in rehab. He must have believe all of it. Even if most of it was lies, people just love a scandal. He thinks I’m bad news…maybe he’s right…

We had spent a majority of the night with me telling them about crazy celebrity stories and what he had to look forward to when he made it big. I had promised to send a copy of his demo off to some bigwigs in the industry.

“-I ended up waking up in Jennifer Aniston’s sun room. Not even shitting you. I didn’t even know where I was. I just knew it was bright as fuck and my head was throbbing. It took me a minute to remember what had happened the night before. She probably had no clue I passed out there. I just got up, grabbed my shit and left.”

They were both laughing hysterically, Adi’s cheeks were flushed from laughing so much, mixed with the amount of alcohol we’d consumed. I could feel the warming effects myself. Levi pushed his chair back and stood up.

“Well as much fun as it’s been kids, I’m gonna call it a night and head home.”

He gave Adi a quick hug and me another handshake before heading out the door. I look over at Adi and I could tell she was getting tired as well.  

“You want to head out too?”

She nodded, stifling a yawn behind her hand, the other one coming up under her glasses rubbing her eye. She such a cute sleepy girl. I settled the tab and we headed out the door. The cool air waking me up a bit.

“I only live a block away from here if you wanna walk there.”

“A block away, huh? Alright, lets go.” As we were walking I remember her saying something about the bar catching fire. Which explained why some of the bricks were blackened. I just assumed it was some jackasses playing around with booze and lighters, seeing how could make the biggest fireball “Hey, didn’t you say they had to rebuild this cos it burned down?’

"Yep. Took out most of the block.”

“So…you were living here when it happened.”

“Yep…..” She paused, “I was actually supposed to be there that night. I fell asleep and got woken up by all the commotion. The firetrucks, people running through the halls banging on doors telling everyone to get up.”

“Jesus, that sounds awful.”

“Yeah…yeah it was awful…” She had a far away look in her eyes but snapped out of it pretty quickly. “But luckily no one got hurt. So there’s the silver lining I guess.” She pulled a door open and we began climbing stairs. Flight after flight after flight. “Sorry, I live at the top…If  I would have thought about it I would have just used the elevator.” Her voice echoing through the empty stairwell.

We finally reached the top and she led me to her door. She lingered outside it for a moment. “I had a great time, though I’m pretty sure I could have a great time with you anywhere.”

“Oh? Well, we might have to test that.” Grinning at her.

“What you got?

"Off the top of my head? Traffic jam.”

“Oh, you mean an impromptu sing along? Blast the stereo and just jam? Oh, god, the horror.” I laughed, then realised I was being kinda loud so I bit down on my bottom lip. “You’re fucking sexy as hell when you do that.” she uttered it almost like a confession.

My mouth was on hers before she could react. She wasn’t thrown for long, her arms coming around my waist, pulling me tighter to her. I gently backed her into the door, pressing her against it. My hands running down her body, brushing over her hips. She responded by sliding her tongue into my mouth. Her hands had slid down and was now gripping my ass, tongue still expertly exploring my mouth. I slid my hand under her skirt, dragging my fingers along her bare thigh. She didn’t pull away, if anything, it seemed to spur her along. I glided over to her panties, rubbing her over the fabric, which caused her to moan lightly. I moved the fabric aside, running a finger along her slit, which was beginning to become slick. When I slipped my finger inside she moaned louder into my mouth. When I added my middle finger she groaned loudly. Her hold on me tightened and I continued to slide my fingers in and out of her curling them inward slightly as I did so. Then, without warning, she broke away.

“No, not like this Ed.” Her voice was soft

“Wot? Do you not like it?” I asked confusingly. She seemed to be enjoying it a moment ago.

“ I do, just, not while we’re drunk. I want you but not like this. I don’t want sloppy drunken sex. I want…” She trailed off, her eyes falling to the floor.

The drunken haze  seemed to lift and I realised the indecency of the situation. The skirt of her dress as bunched up to her stomach, her panties shoved aside.  I was finger fucking her in her hallway for anyone to see. She was right, I wanted her but not like this. She’s not an one night stand, someone that I’d  fuck and never see again. I pull my fingers out and adjust her skirt for her.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Adi, I’m so sorry. I’m a fucking ass.”

She unlocked her door, pushing it open.  "You gave me plenty of time to say no and stopped when I did.“ She jerked her head toward the door,  "Now, come on, let’s get some coffee in you.”

[christsoupas]

Week 10 - Activate the collection

Project 1

This week I spent my time frantically trying to finish a visual edit for Shaun Wilson to view by Wednesday - as per Darrin Verhagen’s instructions in my presentation. It seems that I will have fallen 6-7 days over that deadline as I will have a full visual edit by Tues/Wednesday day/night 100% for sure (i wouldve had something to send to Shaun by tonight/tomorrow but i have to halt progress very briefly/temporarily as ive neglected all other classes/assignments/tasks this last week and have to now complete/submit some work in next 24-48hrs). The reasons for my inability to hit that deadline center mainly on the sheer magnitude of workload of the many facets of a project such as the one I’ve undertaken and how to pull something like this together due to lack of experience (the fight scene alone, although far from finished has thus far been very time intensive in itself), then the render times, and then my decision to shift my initial  approach of finishing a visual edit before doing sound design and music as I felt a visual edit without sound could perhaps make the work seem lack luster in places where I was envisaging sound or music  to “carry the shot” – which then becomes a slippery slope in terms of becoming completely immersed into that role and keeping the balance between the many differing roles and tasks that are required, and then grappling with committing things that will inevitably be changed as the visual edit, which although is “complete” in terms of delivering the plot, isn’t final. Making these beginning forays into the sound was largely fruitful as I’ve now begun to collate a library of sounds and foley for the project and begun writing new music and incorporating existing original music. Although I have put a bit of work into the sound/music the main intention here is to bring the visual edit to life as it were - I consider this area of sound design/composition to be 20% complete and am aiming to have a full audiovisual edit in around 7-8 days. On one hand I am disappointed in myself for not hitting last Wednesdays deadline but on the other hand its exhilarating in comparison beginning to pull the project largely together now and will help to springboard me ultimately in that the product speaks for itself – quite literally, in terms of dialogue etc. and then feeding off the energy of an edit vs random sequences and still having to sell the idea verbally/where too much imagination is required by the viewer to buy/envisage the idea, but most importantly put myself in a more progressed position to achieve more progressed advice that i am in dire need of (for eg. like technical help surrounding Gradings/advanced editing techniques etc) in that a lot of what needed to be done was obvious/achievable and only lacking due to there being so many hours in a day.

I spent 2 days or so effectively doing a crash course into the universe of titles and therefore graphic design. I discovered the graphic artist genius who is Saul Bass, who created the opening title sequences and film posters for around 50 classic films such as Vertigo (1958) Psycho (1960), Spartacus (1960), The War of the Roses (1989) Goodfellas (1990) and Cape Fear (1991). There are so many techniques and examples to explore here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Bass

After going down a rabbit hole exploring and studying a series of famous films and their titles (making note of all details including layout of fine print etc.) I then dived into Vegas tutorials surrounding lower thirds, title animation etc and also went exploring online for fonts (another universe in itself) and then experimented with designs and discovered a whole series of design and technical problems associated with executing titles over film after trial and error and many drafts. There is also the aspect now of additional rendering times. Although I have achieved some good results thus far I believe I will need to continue to develop ideas over the duration of time I have left and then finalize titles as the last task to be completed. I am also now considering using after effects to do titles as I can then place them in 3D space – which would finally compromise one of my underlying intentions of staying within the 2D realm and exhausting possibilities in the 2D video editing/production realm. I am having problems with effects on titles to achieve “weathering and/ or bleed”, affecting the brightness etc of the footage that it’s placed over. I think the solution to this may be rendering out titles to transparencies – something I know nothing about as yet, but it may not, and I could encounter the same problems.

I also explored and developed ideas in terms of split screens/compositing two or more shots within the one frame. There are many different ways to achieve these ends with varying results. This is another aspect where I am finding that after effects or premiere might be more effective but have nonetheless begun to achieve some good results in Vegas and at the risk of progress being halted due to my lack of knowledge of these apps I have proceeded in Vegas/2D alone.

In terms of solely the visual aspect, my workflow has evolved as I’ve discovered that due to processing limitations one needs to commit to sequences and treat each Vegas session as a “comp” is used in After Effects – which is very different to audio as you can hold off on committing to ideas without your system completely choking – but then it can become tedious and confusing tracing sequences back to their source when edits need to be made.

Additionally, another area I’ve been dealing with is Colorings Grading etc. I’ve been doing a lot of work and experimentation with this and have discovered that it is something that is so fundamental yet I know so little about. I have encountered a lot of problems with the process of running plugins on master channel vs. on the channel vs. on the clip itself – this becomes massively problematic once edits to colorings and exposure etc. are made and then tracing sequences back to their source etc. I then discovered all of the wealth of information made available to us in the week 9 modules on Canvas which I haven’t had the chance to fully explore yet but am looking forward to bunkering down for the next 24 hours and doing a crash course in all of this great material and with the intention of before my feedback session with Shaun as it will put me in a position to be asking more educated questions.

Another thing to note here is my monitors. One is a 40” Sony TV and the other an old plasma with different resolutions and completely different looks. Suffice to say it’s all very unorthodox and is probably compounding my problems here in terms of colours and saturations etc.

My approach to the visual work has also changed, due to trying to speed up the process of delivering a visual edit, in terms of how deeply work has gone into outright reimagining/reworking footage and into selecting great photography and footage to carry the idea in the meantime which has produced interesting result after all. However its evident that some scenes are looking much more developed than others… but some of these shots work.. and are starting to grow on me.. and especially in terms of how they all juxtapose.

Ultimately, there is still a lot of work to be done before the visual aspect is fully complete and I am feeling hugely overwhelmed with workload and not sleeping much but  I’m still very confident and pleased with results so far.

Project 2 with Bobo:

Although I have made some way into this new score this week I haven’t had time to work on this project as much as I wanted to but once I have sent this visual edit to Shaun of my other project I will then develop this edit much further the aim was to have something by Wednesday morning.

This week’s theory covering Malcolm Gladwell’s “10 Rules of Success” was extremely beneficial and very practical/usable advice. I particularly like the fact that he contradicts/balances some points with others. Namely his anecdote regarding the creator of IKEA going against the grain and building his business behind the Iron Curtain in Rule #1 and then Rule #4 whereby he counters this with “constantly revising ones conclusions” this perfectly the encompasses the idea of remaining humble enough to self-examine whilst being headstrong enough to believe in and see through your idea in the face of doubts of others. So too beneficial and practically usable were the “21st Century Skills” that lecturers Darrin and Shaun explored. It’s very helpful to have these concepts outlined, distilled, expanded upon and explored. They are basically failsafes to ensure success.

[caniacwrites]

NHL Playoff Previews - East Play-in Matchup 1/4: TOR vs CBJ

Hello everyone, and welcome to the first installment of my NHL playoff previews! Today, I’m looking at the first qualifying round matchup in the Eastern Conference, the Toronto Maple Leafs vs Columbus Blue Jackets. I’ll first give an overview of how I see the series shaping up, talk about win conditions for each team, and then reveal my pick at the end.

During the regular season, the Leafs and Jackets split their two games (both in October) with the third scheduled for March 21st and cancelled due to the virus. Toronto triumphed 4-1 in Columbus in the Jackets’ season opener, while Columbus took the game at Scotiabank in Toronto 4-3 in overtime.

So, I’ll start by saying that one thing anyone who knows hockey knows is that the sport is almost impossible to predict. You only have to look at last year’s playoffs if for some reason you don’t believe me. Once again this year, there are a lot of matchups that I feel are going to be very close and difficult to predict, but I’m going to try anyway. And for me, this is one of them.

Toronto is a team that looks really good on paper. Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews have been racking up the points, John Tavares has been producing well as usual, and William Nylander had a breakout season for them this year. They have a good balance of skilled young players like Marner/Matthews, Zack Hyman, and Andreas Johnsson and established players/veterans like Tavares, Jason Spezza, and Morgan Reilly. Buuuuuuuut they’ve also had their fair share of issues this season. I’m not going to get into the whole Babcock thing, that ship has sailed and I’m pretty sure everybody knows what went down anyway.

I am, however, going to talk about goaltending. For the Return to Play plan, the NHL is going to allow teams to carry as many goalies as they like, which means that the Leafs setup will likely include all three of the goalies they’ve used this season: Frederik Andersen, Michael Hutchinson, and Jack Campbell. Of these, Andersen and Campbell will be their main duo. Andersen has a 29-13-7 record in 52 starts and a 2.85 GAA, both of which are pretty good. Unfortunately, consistency has been a problem for the Leafs’ goaltending all year. There have been plenty of games where Andersen stood on his head and gave the Leafs every chance to win. The problem? They still lost a lot of those games. There have also been games where Andersen was the only reason the Leafs did manage to win. And of course, there have been games where Andersen really didn’t need to be all that good and the Leafs won anyway. (Campbell was acquired at the deadline, and though he’s posted a 2.63 GAA in 6 games with the Leafs, they only won 3 of those 6 games; it’s really too small of a sample size to talk about here, though.) If the Leafs are going to win this series, they need Freddy Andersen and Jack Campbell to be at their best, and you can just never tell if or when that’s going to happen.

Let’s move on to Columbus now. The Blue Jackets are an interesting case, because despite leading the league with 420 man-games lost to injury - a staggeringly high number - they were still in the thick of the wild card playoff race in the gruelingly competitve Metropolitan division at the suspension of the season. It’s especially impressive when you realize that those injuries have been to some of their most important players. As of the abrupt end to the season, Cam Atkinson, Alex Wennberg, Seth Jones, Josh Anderson, and Alex Texier were all out of Columbus’ lineup. Thanks to the long delay between the season’s end and the Return to Play playoffs, the Jackets have had time to let these players recover.  Of those five, only Josh Anderson is likely not to be ready for the start of the series against Toronto.  Columbus gets things done by committee, and adding back those key guys is going to be huge for them. 

Additionally, Columbus has been getting great goaltending all season long from both Joonas Korpisalo and Elvis Merzlikins. Korpisalo has a 2.60 GAA and .911 SV% in 35 starts, while the rookie Merzlikins has a staggering 2.35 GAA and a .923 SV% (and of course, most will probably remember when he posted 5 shutouts in 8 starts back in late Jan/early Feb). If they can stay healthy, it’s a pretty safe bet that they’ll at least give the Jackets a chance to win every night.

And last but certainly not least, I want to compare one more aspect of these two teams: the defense. Columbus has a clear edge when it comes to their blue line. Seth Jones and Zach Werenski lead the group that also includes Ryan Murray and David Savard, with a few young players rounding out the rest of the top 6. Compare that to the Maple Leafs, who can really only boast Morgan Reilly, Jake Muzzin, and Tyson Barrie (and even then, Barrie hasn’t been half the player Toronto thought they were getting in that trade) along with some less experienced guys in Nikita Zaitsev, Rasmus Sandin, and Travis Dermott. It’s unclear if Martin Marincin or Timothy Liljegren will see any action in the series. Now don’t get me wrong, Toronto has a good group. But guys like Jones and Werenski put Columbus a cut above.

So what does all that mean for my overall prediction? To recap, Toronto has a star-powered forward core and fairly good defense, with at times great but inconsistent goaltending. Columbus, meanwhile, lacks true star power up front and instead grinds their way to wins through committee, but possess an excellent group of defensemen and solid goaltending. Both teams won and lost one game against each other in the regular season.

Final Prediction: Columbus, 3-2

I know, I'm going to get flak for this, and I know I kind of bashed Toronto a bit here. Sorry. And I should say that I think this series could just as easily be won by the Leafs 3-2. But I think that the Blue Jackets’ tenacity, the infusion of important players they’ll have back healthy, and their solid foundation from the net out is going to let them triumph in this one.

Besides, don’t you think it’ll be hanging around in the back of Toronto’s mind that if they win, yet another first round matchup against the Boston Bruins awaits them? I have to admit, I kind of want Toronto to win, just so that I can watch their fans lose their minds when they get knocked out by the Bruins for the 4th time in their last 5 playoff appearances.

See you tomorrow for my preview of the New York Islanders vs the Florida Panthers!

CaniacWrites