#I hadn’t finished by first one but I wanted to redo a bunch of stuff now I have a better idea of what’s going on | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

illfoandillfie · 6 years ago

Text

Thief

Pairing: Roger Taylor x Female Reader

Summery: Roger wants his shirt back

Warnings: Smut (but nothing especially kinky)

Words: 2327

A/N: Most of this was written between midnight an 2am on my birthday when it was sad lonely bitch hours so it’s self indulgent as heck. Just some soft fluff with a little soft smut at the end.

(the shirt in question, i love it so much)

Taglist: @idontbelievethiss

Roger’s walk-in wardrobe was your guilty pleasure. You loved exploring it. Could happily spend hours running your fingers over all the different fabrics in there. Most of the clothing that was hung up or folded neatly in the draws was stuff he used regularly – every day shirts, jeans, a section for stuff he’d take on tour – but towards the back of the wardrobe was a collection of his older stuff, split between a row of hangers and a number of boxes. That was the stuff you really loved rummaging through. He’d been collecting it for years. Most of it was stuff he kept for sentimental reasons, he’d worn it at such and such show or so and so and given it to him. Some of it was stuff he’d had for so long it felt wrong to get rid of it. A lot of it was still in good condition too, just out of style. A relic from his youth, bold and bright and totally him. That was the stuff you loved best and whenever the opportunity arose to go digging for treasure you took it.

You took the treasure too, sometimes. One time, while Rog was away on tour, you’d been having a particularly rough day and hadn’t been able to contact him. Desperate to be wrapped up in his arms, you’d taken a large glass of wine and started going through his clothes. You’d found an old beaten up hoodie which you couldn’t believe he’d held on to. It must have held some significance for him because it was faded and frayed and nothing particularly special next to everything else in there. But it was warm and soft and still smelt faintly of Roger even though it must have been years since he’d worn it. You’d slipped it on over your head, breathing deeply, trying to control your emotions but had ended up crying yourself to sleep right there on the floor of the wardrobe. Since then you’d pulled it out whenever Rog was away for an extended amount of time. It was comforting and reminded you of one of his hugs and you loved it.

Another time you’d been throwing together a last minute costume for a party Freddie was hosting. Roger pulled you into the cupboard exclaiming he had something perfect to finish off your costume if he could only find it. In the second box he opened was a pair of rainbow suspenders which he handed to you with a giant grin on his face. They were just what you needed, though you did make fun of Rog a little for owning them in the first place. At the party a few people had commented on them, asking you if they were the same ones Rog had owned, and when you said yes, they told you stories, reminiscing about a time before you knew him. Freddie managed to find a few photos of Rog wearing the suspenders and told you how they’d called him Rainbow. It led to you being shown a bunch of photos of Rog as a young man and you’d laughed in disbelief at how long his hair was while he insisted it had been very fashionable. You loved hearing those stories from the people who knew him best and when you’d finally got home you put the suspenders back in the box carefully, feeling a little closer to the man you loved.

Sometimes you felt a little like a magpie, stealing things from him. Big things like an old fur coat you’d worn around the house constantly one winter, or a gorgeous velvet jacket which you couldn’t stop running your hands over when you’d first found it. Small things like a pair of aviator sunglasses, one of what seemed to be a hundred different pairs of sunnies, which made you feel like a rockstar even though they were prescriptions and turned your vision wavy. Or the necklace you hadn’t taken off since its discovery, a simple silver band which, you knew from photos, Roger had worn tight like a choker, but you preferred a little looser. For Christmas last year Rog had surprised you with a delicate circle charm to add to it, the back engraved with both your initials.

Your interest in his old clothes was something that bemused Roger. On more than one occasion he’d found you on your knees digging through a box and had rolled his eyes at you. But whenever he saw you wearing one of your stolen items his eyes lit up and he’d give you a soft smile that made your knees weak. Sometimes he’d remark that he’d completely forgotten he still had said item and then proceed to tell you why he’d kept it. Sometimes you’d convince him to try whatever it was on himself. If it still fit enough that he could put it on he’d pretend he was on a catwalk as he strutted away from you before turning around and posing, and if it didn’t, he’d pull it on as best he could and ask you how he looked. Either way you’d both end up on the floor laughing, sometimes with Roger half stuck in a too small pair of jeans or jacket.

Your most recent acquisition from your magpie habit was one of his newer shirts. It was blue with an orange check pattern and Roger hadn’t noticed you’d stolen it yet. Not that you’d stolen this in the same way you’d stolen everything else. This one was a complete accident. You’d gotten out of bed early one morning and felt around in the dark for the shirt Roger had so kindly discarded for you the night before. You’d slipped on the first shirt you found and made your way to the bathroom, not worrying about pants since the shirt fell down over your thighs. That should have been a clue that it wasn’t yours but it was much too early for your brain to be working. You didn’t notice it was Roger’s shirt until you were washing your hands and caught your reflection. Any trace of sleepiness left you as you examined your reflection, admiring the way the shirt fell around you. You spent a few minutes undoing and redoing buttons, comparing how much cleavage was shown off each way and wondering what it’d look like if you were wearing your favourite bra underneath. It felt so soft and light against your skin and it was warm even as you stood on cold tiles. You could understand why Rog wore it so often. When you got back to your room you pulled it off again, catching a whiff of Roger’s aftershave as you brought it over your head, before snuggling back into Roger’s arms, hoping to squeeze in round two before either of you had to be up for real. Since then you’d worn it whenever the chance arose, mostly just around the house when Roger was out. You knew he really liked the shirt and wore it fairly frequently so it wasn’t really one you could steal but you couldn’t help yourself, it just felt so nice to wear.

This morning you’d woken to find Rog already gone. The band were deep in Live Aid rehearsals and today was their last before the big day so you weren’t expecting him home till much later. You got up and straight away switched your own shirt for his, your new favourite, rubbing your hand up and down the sleeve a couple of times just to feel the fabric. You you’d wear it until you had a shower and then you’d put your own clothes on. You headed to the kitchen to make coffee and find something to eat. You were examining the contents of the fridge when a voice in the hallway made you jump. “Hey, hon, you up?” “In the kitchen!” You called out over your shoulder, “How come you’re back so early?” “We did a couple of run throughs which went well enough that we decided to take the rest of the day off. Don’t wanna overwork ourselves,” his voice trailed off towards the end as he caught sight of you bent over as you looked in the fridge, “is that my shirt?” You looked down, the shirt having slipped your mind in favour of food. “Oh, yeah it is. Wanted something comfy and this was the first thing I found,” you shrugged, turning and shutting the fridge behind you. “How was a shirt that was hanging in my wardrobe the first thing you found? I was gonna wear that tomorrow.” “Busted,” You’re a little thief,” his tone was playful but it still sent a shiver down your spine. “Am not,” you pouted “Fur coat. Necklace. Hoodie,” he started counting on his fingers, “should I keep going?” “No, you’ve made your point, but I prefer the term pilferer.” You rocked back on your heels, “Can’t you wear something else tomorrow? This shirt is ridiculously comfy,” “I could, but I don’t want to.” “Well, I s’pose you can have it back. Gonna have to catch me first though,” And with that you took off, running out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Roger’s legs were longer than yours and he took the stairs three at a time, catching up to you fast. You squealed as he caught you around the waist, pulling you into him as he entered the bedroom backwards. “Gotcha. Now can I have my shirt back?” he said softly, his breath tickling your ear. “Only if you take it.” Roger turned you around to face him. He began to unbutton the shirt slowly, your skin breaking out in goose bumps whenever his fingers brushed against it. “As incredibly attractive as you look in it,” he said, his warm breath ghosting over your face as his finger continued their descent, “I really have to insist.” His touch was torturously light and slow, and his lips so close to yours, but you were frozen, completely unable to close the distance between you. All you could do was look into his eyes, occasionally shifting your focus to his lips, and try to remember how to breath properly.

When he’d finally gotten all of the buttons undone, he traced his finger up your stomach, through the valley of your breasts, and up your neck until he was able to press his fingers to the underside of your chin and tilt your head up. He pressed his lips to yours, softly, and you melted into him. You opened your mouth willingly, inviting him to deepen the kiss. As he did so, he pushed his shirt off your shoulders and down your arms till it was a puddle on the floor. He kept kissing you, sighing into your mouth as he walked you backwards towards the bed, only breaking the kiss to push you onto it. You scooted back to be more comfortable and he followed until he was hovering over you. His fingers brushed over the necklace lightly, the cool metal contrasted against your warm skin. You looped your arm around his neck, pulling him back to your lips, as his hand ran down your side, coming to rest on your waist.

Every brush of his fingers, every swipe of his tongue had your stomach tightening with anticipation and need, until you couldn’t bear it any longer. “Rog, please.” you breathed out against his lips. He pressed a kiss to the corner of your mouth, then to your jaw, then to your neck. He crawled down your body, leaving a trail over your chest and stomach, your skin burning with desire in his wake. When he reached your hips, he slowly peeled your underpants down your legs, pressing his lips to the inside of your thigh, making you whine. When he’d finally freed you of your underwear, he began removing his own clothes, much faster than he had yours. Without his hands on you, your skin felt bare and cold. You sighed as he crawled back over you, his touch restoring peace to your world, his lips finding their rightful place against yours. He slipped a finger into your wet core, followed by a second making your back arch into him. “Ready love?” He asked softly withdrawing his fingers from you. “Rog, y’know when I said please earlier? Yeah, I’ve been ready since then. Hurry up and fuck me already.” “Christ, I love you Y/N,” You could feel his body shaking with laughter as he grabbed your hand and laced his fingers through yours. “I’ll love you a whole lot more when you let me cum,” “Whatever my little thief wants,” he replied, lining himself up and pushing into you. You would have rolled your eyes at him but you were distracted by how full you felt, squeezing his hand as he began slowly rocking his hips against you. He kept a steady rhythm, drawing soft ‘oh’s and gasps from you with every thrust. His voice was low and raspy as he told you how good you felt around him, how irresistible you looked wearing nothing but his old necklace, how much he loved you. You felt your orgasm approaching and could tell Roger was close from the way he was panting against you. You chanted Roger’s name like a prayer as you clenched around him, pulling him into his own release.

Roger rolled onto his side, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you close. You pushed some hair, damp with sweat, out of his face and traced your finger down his nose. “What’re you doing?” “Admiring you,” you pushed the end of his nose like it was a button, “boop.” He stuck out his tongue, making you giggle. “I do love you Rog,” “I know.” You hummed happily, content to stay like this forever. “I’m going to have to buy you your own shirt, aren’t I?” “Only if you want to keep yours.”

#roger taylor smut #roger taylor x reader #roger taylor imagine #kinda wanna cry since i cant raid roger's wardrobe and steal his clothes tbh #kinda just wanna cry #im feeling soft and sappy today so have fun with this #my fics

422 notes · View notes

thedepthsremember · 6 years ago

Text

Maxwell x MC (Riley)

Fill for a prompt from @nazari-oh! This was an idea I’d had vaguely floating around for a bit, so thanks for kicking me into actually writing it. [AO3]

---

Maxwell returns from Ramsford late in the afternoon. Normally Riley would have gone along, since neither were exactly happy about being apart for the longest amount of time (two whole days!) since, well, they’d met, but they had just gotten excited and bought a bunch of paint to redo a few rooms in themed colors, and when it came down to it, they decided at least one of them had to be there to personally execute their vision.

Anyway, he was back now, and was currently wandering the halls in a desperate search for his wife (his wife! Still a wild concept), who wasn’t in any of the places he’d expected her to be.

He was just about to give up on surprising her and pull out his phone to call her when he turned down a new corridor and found a door open to a room they didn’t normally use. When they’d returned after the wedding and run around deciding what rooms would be for guests or kittens or wall-to-wall pillows, Riley had fallen in love with this room on first sight, quietly requesting it remain unused for now. It was a medium-sized sitting room, its biggest feature the floor to ceiling windows that let in plenty of light. He’d been crazy curious, but she’d promised to explain once she’d figured it out herself.

He pokes his head in to find his wife seated in front of an easel.

“Hey! There you are--”

There’s an unholy shriek and the next thing he knows, whatever she’d been holding is flying towards him with great speed. Fumbling, he eventually manages to catch it, but not without getting his hands and shirt splattered in… green paint. He’s holding a paintbrush.

He looks up at Riley, bewildered. She has her hands clasped to her mouth and is staring at him, eyes comically wide.

Luckily, Maxwell Beaumont has had much stranger things thrown his way with even less preamble. “So,” he begins, attempting to wipe the paint off. “Last you told me, you were repainting the ball pit room?” It’s just smearing all over his arms. He gives up. “Now I’m no artist, but I am at least 87% sure that means the paint belongs on the wall, not on me.”

She crosses the room to him, looking sheepish. “I am so sorry…”

“...Or on your face,” he laughs, using the back of his hand to scrub at the multicolored smears she’d left across her jaw.

She shakes her head, trying not to smile. “Aw, geez… Don’t bother. It’s oil paint, it’s not going anywhere.”

“Well--” he gestures to his splattered shirt “--at least I’m not alone.”

She eyes him up and down, then finally laughs, hands starting back towards her face before he catches them.

“Alright, what’s going on? You’re painting again?”

Hesitating, she throws a glance back towards the easel, biting her lip. “Yyyeah.”

“That’s great!” She smiles, ducking her head, and it finally registers that she’s being… shy. It’s adorable, but he can’t remember the last time he saw this mood. “We’ve been texting all day, I can’t believe you kept it a secret!”

She makes a move as if going back to her face again, but he’s still holding her hands, so she starts fiddling with his fingers instead. “I’ve been wanting to try again for a while, but I didn’t want to make a big thing about it, in case… it didn’t work.” She’s started blending colors from her hand to his in some very pretty combinations. Huh. Maybe that color would work in the kitten room…

Focus, Maxwell! “Hey, I’ve seen some of your old stuff, you were good! Why would you worry about that?”

“Ohhh no.” She glares at him. “You found my Instagram, didn’t you?”

He grins. “Yes, I did. You really like boats, huh?”

She rolls her eyes, but he can see a hint of a smile. “Ugh, stalker.”

He shrugs, unperturbed. “Hey, I wasn’t going to bring you here without doing some kind of googling! Patented Maxwell Beaumont background check: As much as people try to pretend, social media always shows your real self to those who know how to look.”

For some reason, she looks pleased. “So… let me get this straight, the night we met, you went home and spent the rest of the evening cyberstalking me?”

He opens and shuts his mouth several times. “Whoa, okay, I mean…”

Her grin spreads mischievously. “You liiiiked me.”

“You -- Wait. You’re trying to distract me!”

“What? No!” She gets on her tiptoes to lean in close, and if he wasn’t sure before, he is now. “Let’s just talk more about how pretty you thought I was.”

“Okay, that’s not fair, you know that’s like my third favorite thing to do.” He does plant a kiss on her lips before putting a finger over them, delicately pushing her face back. “Come on Riles, talk to me.”

Her shoulders slump. “Alright…” She walks over to pull something out of one of the bags sitting around the easel and returns waving a bar of soap. “It’s gritty! Works wonders.” She takes his hand, pulling him towards the door. “Let’s go get cleaned up, and we can talk.”

With one last glance towards the painting he still can’t quite see, he follows her out of the room.

----

A few minutes later, they’re in his favorite bathroom, their outer clothes given to the staff along with Riley’s best tips for how to get oil paint out of fabric.

Riley dips a finger in the green paint still smeared across his forearms and pokes a couple blobs onto the hippo’s head. “And now he’s Bob Ross!”

“Who knew he was hiding such talents this whole time?”

She smiles and begins unwrapping the soap bar. “Come here.”

She runs it under the sink and begins rubbing it along his arms. It’s scratchy. “This is going to be very exfoliating,” he comments.

Her mouth quirks up, but she otherwise stays focused on her task. “So I was down in the ball pit room, painting one of the walls, and I guess I just missed it, you know? I mean, painting a wall isn’t much like canvas, but it’s the first thing I’ve really done in years, and… Anyway, I finished up that one wall and ran out to the store. Spent way too much on all-new supplies.” She shudders a bit.

A thoughtful silence falls between them as she scrubs between his fingers. Then she smiles coyly up at him. “You know what the first thing I wanted to paint was?”

He grins, intrigued. “What?”

“You.”

He blinks. “Wha?”

“I am going to have to build up to that though.” She falls into a ramble as she overcompensates for the admission. “I know if first thing back, I try for my masterpiece, I’m gonna hate everything and stop. So I was actually painting the view from the windows. All those trees. The lake.”

He’s still staring at her. “You wanted to paint… me?”

“Yeah, for a long time now.” She takes a deep breath, and her words become more careful. “There was actually this day… It was during the engagement tour.” She looks away, falling back into the memory. “It was just any day, really. Somewhere between Italy and France. We were getting breakfast on the train with Drake and Hana, so I was sitting next to you, and I looked over at you…” her cheeks heat, but she presses on. “The light caught just right--” shining through his eye, long lashes, profile lit up as his lips parted in a smile-- “and I just…” she presses a hand to her heart, which is reliving the longing it felt then. She breathes deep, and his familiar scent calms her down. “I wanted to paint again. And I hadn’t been able to in years, but I needed … I needed somebody else to see how beautiful you are to me.” She looks up at him, finally.

Her entire speech he’s been standing there, unmoving, and now that she looks up she can see that his eyes are shining.

Her instinctual reaction is panic. “Oh no, don’t cry, I’m sorry--”

He hugs her. Immediately her arms wrap around him in turn, and though she can feel her face smush into the paint she’d put onto the hippo, she just doesn’t care.

“Riley, you’re… amazing.” He whispers. “I can’t believe…”

“Hey.” She pulls him tightly to her. “You’re worth it. You’re always worth it.”

They stand there for a long minute, breathing together. She hears his heartbeat, steady and strong and fast.

“Maxwell,” she finally whispers.

“Riley.”

“We’re getting paint all over each other again.”

He laughs.

#trr #the royal romance #maxwell beaumont #Maxwell x mc #mc x maxwell #riley brooks #v writes things

64 notes · View notes

sumergosuigeneris · 6 years ago

Text

January 5, 2019, Part II

I do not think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is special. I haven’t paid *that* much attention to her, but from what I’ve seen - she reminds me of myself and sooooooo many of the people I associate with in life. As in, she is what *I* consider a *normal* person. As in, if they think she’s weird in congress, it’s because they are out of touch with soooooo many Americans.

Today was interesting. Apparently, because a few of us wanted starbucks (I instigated) we were late to the start of our shooting session. It could be argued that if we had gotten up earlier, we’d have been okay, but whatever. I take responsibility.

My first few rounds were absolutely terrible and ridiculous. My one arrow that I was complaining about last week? I couldn’t shoot it after the first round. Got an extra arrow from a teammate - he gave me his worst, which ended up being about as bad as the one it replaced lol.

I was so embarrassed by how I was shooting. But I was shooting with older guys. Guys who’ve been shooting for decades. And they were patient and stuff, especially when I explained that I didn’t know anything about how the tournament would work. But, if you’ve never been to an archery tournament, the space is squished. Basically, everyone gets 1 foot. So also, the targets are right next to each other. And I? I kept shooting into my neighbor’s target. He was good about it. Until the moment when my arrow in his target fucked up his shot. He was ticked, and I was HORRIFIED. Devastated. I got really upset and started crying a bit. To the extent that I cry, of course. It was mostly tears dripping. But I think if I hadn’t maintained some control, I would have cried for real. The idea that my terrible shots would screw up someone else’s score/performance. Luckily, the judge decided he could do a redo. Then he was less upset, and so was I.

The guys I was shooting with told me the problem was arrows. I told them I thought it was me, but they said there was no way I could shoot well when most of my arrows didn’t match, and the fletching was terrible on most of them. So I concentrated on fixing my form, and doing the best I could. It helped a lot. But, really only my two matching size arrows, that both happened to have 3 vanes, were consistent. I was still embarrassed, but.

Anyway, my shooting was so bad for the first few ends, and then after that debacle, that a judge had to stand near me for most of the rest of our match, in case it happened again. And my focus was primarily on not hitting that guy’s target.

But everyone was really going over my arrows and were upset that I was there with terrible equipment. And the one judge really felt for me. He was mad at our coach and/or president. He told me they never should have let me come with terrible equipment. That it was also a safety issue.

Coincidentally, the last end.....my most terrible arrow, after going crazy, hit a piece of metal and bounced back, almost hitting another archer. I almost hurt someone.

When I told the president, he acted like it was my fault for picking bad arrows. I explained that’s all there was. He asked why I didn’t pick medium arrows. I said a) I was told it didn’t matter if my arrow lengths matched, but also b) I didn’t know it didn’t make a difference if I used a medium over a short arrow. He acted like the other archery club I go to should have taught me all that stuff. And that they were supposed to go over tournament stuff with me.

Literally, of the 8 of us from the team, 7 of us are here for the first time. I double-checked and NO ONE got any more information than I got.

He wanted to blame me, and to blame my club that I go to from time to time for not doing what was our team’s responsibility.

I have to say, I’m proud of how I handled myself. After learning that the guy could redo his shot later, I picked myself up emotionally, and tried to have a sense of humor about it. And I was able to refocus and improve my performance. And I never got angry. I think that’s a win for me.

So the judge, he told me he had bought a bunch of arrows and he was going to give me a few. Me, not the team, he emphasized. I had to go back after our lunch, when everyone else went on a fun tour of some of Iowa. It took forever. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do any shooting with him, as it was getting late for the last round to finish. Luckily, he was tired and just told me where he left me TEN arrows! Wow! I thought maybe he’d give me five.

Pres looked at them later, and said they were probably around $160 in arrows. I was so touched. Judge’s name was Ron.

Also, the guys I shot with? Larry and David lol. And the guy who’s target I fucked up? I believe his name was Don.

Really nice guys.

I also saw someone who made the 2020 olympic team!

Here’s hoping I shoot better tomorrow, because I won’t have bad arrows as an excuse.

I met the team after at a bowling place. Then we went to dinner. Apparently, I wasn’t supposed to drink. Btw, yes, I ditched Dry January, but I needed it. We went to a burger joint that is popular. The burger was eh, but the milkshake was yeah!

The prez, as I’ve mentioned before, gets on my nerves. He micromanages, and/or tries to dominate at least me. And he’s passive aggressive. And he feels like he needs to know more than everyone else about everything. He will seek until he finds a topic he knows more about. When he’s not doing those things, I like him. But when he goes to far or too long with me, I do get frustrated. Tonight, I acted like I didn’t know he was old enough to drink. That was my way of passive aggressively letting him know I think he’s an immature child lol. But also, I feel like we have a few things in common, if you know what I mean, which may be why he grates on me.

Proud of how I handled the day in general. Tomorrow will be an early day of shooting, a looong as drive home, and exhaustion!

#me

2 notes · View notes

quicksilversquared · 7 years ago

Text

How to Fake a Marriage Ch. 14

(AO3) (FF.net)

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

The day before Christmas Eve, Adrien finally got enough of a break to be able to hang out with his friends- well, with Alya and Nino, at least. Marinette was still helping her parents weather the last of the holiday rush.

"Photoshoots all done, then?" Nino asked as they settled into a booth at a cafe. "Are you actually going to be free for the rest of your break?"

Adrien's nose wrinkled. "No such luck," he admitted. "The worst of it's done, since the rush photoshoots for the tight deadlines had to be all packed together and they figured that they might as well get most of the fittings done at the same time, but my father still wants some late winter-spring shoots done and there was no point in doing a rush job for them, so they'll be after the holidays are over."

"Dude."

"It'll only be a couple days, really," Adrien said quickly. "Because they will try to get as much done as possible, but for shoots with a completely different theme, it would be hard to get the make-up completely off everyone and redo it from scratch. It just takes forever, and it's easier to just have people in another day. That way, Father doesn't have to always have major set-changers on standby for the entire shoot and he doesn't have to pay the photographer for the time where he's just waiting around during make-up changes and set switches. He only does that when he needs shoots all done really fast."

"Like when you only come back home for a couple weeks," Alya filled in.

"Or when Hawkmoth was active, he just wanted to get things over with so a last-minute akuma attack wouldn't keep things from getting to press," Adrien added. He frowned over that for a second. "...actually, I think that was something Nathalie insisted on. She got tired of having to reschedule shoots in a really cramped time frame- y'know, because models are busy, and so are the good photographers and staff, so she couldn't just say 'Hey, show up tomorrow at two-fifteen' and expect people to actually be able to make it."

"I think a lot of people ended up shifting how they did things while Hawkmoth was active," Alya pointed out. "I've heard a lot of stories when I was poking around. And speaking of supervillains and superheroes- did you hear? Ladybug and Chat Noir were spotted last night!"

"Here in Paris?" Adrien asked, playing dumb. He had checked the Ladyblog this morning, of course, and had seen Alya's excited post and the links to some of the videos and pictures that people had taken of him and his superhero partner. But he had supposedly been busy in his father's presence the night before and he had had photoshoots that morning, which in theory meant that he shouldn't have a clue. It also meant that he had an alibi. "Really? That's great!"

"Yes! Here in the city! You guys were right, they did come back for the holidays. I need to see if I can flag them down before they take off again and see if they have any hints for my research." She looked determined, and Adrien suddenly guessed that she would probably be out trawling the city until she found and waved down the two superheroes.

Hopefully Ladybug would be able to go out that night so Alya wouldn't be trying to go out on Christmas itself. He could definitely sneak out- he would be expected home for a late dinner with his father, but then didn't have anything scheduled for after that. He could have a few minutes to sit down and interrogate Plagg more properly about some past users and where (and when) they had been active. His kwami hadn't been as forthcoming as he had expected during his first somewhat absentminded questioning, which was something Adrien had to figure out before he headed out to (hopefully) catch Alya.

Nino looked somewhat exasperated at the change in topic, which made Adrien guess that he probably was worried about Alya skipping out on their planned holiday activities to try to find the superhero duo. It was a problem the two of them had had when Hawkmoth was active and Alya sometimes was late to (or altogether missed) dates with Nino because of akuma attacks that she wanted to cover, and Nino had been thrilled when Hawkmoth had finally been taken down because it meant that Alya wouldn't be missing as many dates as before (and, of course, because she wouldn't be putting herself in danger on a daily basis. That was also a bonus).

Somehow Adrien suspected that Alya hadn't told her boyfriend about the potential six-month trip around the world to research past Miraculous holders yet. He wouldn't try to stop her, not at all- Nino wouldn't stand in Alya's way, and he was nothing if not a supportive boyfriend- but he would probably look a bit more apprehensive about the topic. Everyone in their group knew that if Alya was determined to do something- which, in this case, she definitely was- she would get to do it.

"I wonder if they'll still be doing their old patrol routes," Alya continued, apparently oblivious to the slightly wary expressions on both boys' faces. "I could find them super-easily then, but based on the photos I could track down from last night- I can't believe that Ladybug and Chat Noir were out for over an hour and I didn't catch it-they were just all over the place, but then they did spend a bunch of time at the Eiffel Tower. So maybe I could just, like, hang out there-"

"Babe, don't you think that Ladybug and Chat Noir might spend most of their time hanging out with their family on Christmas?" Nino pointed out. "I know they've shown up on Christmas in the past, but that was when Hawkmoth was still active and there was an akuma that they had to fight."

Alya pondered over that for several moments before letting out a long sigh as her shoulders slumped. "Okay, okay. If I don't find them tonight, then I'll wait until after Christmas is over to go out again. I just really want to catch them before they go back to wherever they've been again."

Adrien really hoped that Ladybug was planning on going out that night, because he didn't know how long she was going to stick around in Paris. Considering that she had a job that she, like Marinette, would have to return to, she might be heading back right away after Christmas, or maybe she would be sticking around until New Years, like Marinette was. If she headed back right away, Alya might not have the chance to talk to his partner.

...darn it, they definitely needed to get better at communicating.

"So, do you think that Marinette will get free soon?" Alya asked, glancing at her watch and then at Adrien. "I know the bakery is closed Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but she's mostly been helping with baking and decorating. They finish up with that part of the work by early afternoon, right?"

Adrien checked his phone, but he didn't have any new messages from Marinette. "She might be helping with clean-up once the baking and decorating gets finished. And if there's a lot of customers, she might be helping her mother at the front counter. When I went past earlier, there was a line out the door."

"And didn't Marinette say something about an order for the mayor's holiday party? They might still be doing the work for that after they finish up with the normal baking for the day," Nino pointed out. "It would be hard to keep all of that separate during a normal day's operations. You've seen the inside of the bakery kitchen during the day before, right? The place is chaos. Organized chaos, but chaos."

"They probably have a couple orders," Alya admitted. "And yeah, I can see where they would want to get stuff from the daily work cleaned up first. Pretty much every flat space in that kitchen is spoken for during the day." She made a face, presumably at the thought of her best friend having to do so much work during what was supposed to be her vacation. "At least their workload will go back to normal after the holidays, right?"

"Not if they have New Years' parties to cater for," Nino pointed out. "Adrien, did Marinette say anything about that?"

Adrien could only shrug. He didn't know any better than they did what Marinette might be doing, right now or in several days. For all he knew, she could be buried under a mountain of pastries right now.

"But why can't we know more about past holders?" Marinette asked Tikki in confusion as she worked to decorate the veritable mountain of cookies and other pastries she was practically buried under. It was growing steadily smaller as she worked, but she still had a couple hours of work left to do before she finished up all of the orders for the holidays. "Should Chat Noir and I not be helping Alya?"

"It's not that I don't want you knowing about past holders, Marinette," Tikki assured her, even as she eyed the tempting pile of cookies in front of her. "But in the past, the Miraculous generally worked secretly, out of the public eye- and for good reason. We didn't want potential supervillains to find out about the powers we have at our disposal. Obviously staying completely secret isn't possible anymore. I'm just trying to determine how much I can tell you to pass on without giving too much away. I think I can give you locations and general times, but then it's up to Alya to research the rest. Then I'm not risking exposing more knowledge than the world already knows."

Marinette frowned, setting her icing piping tip aside for the moment. "But how is telling me just location and time any different than telling me who the users were?"

"Because sometimes the users were really good at blending in, and the only evidence that Alya would have would be your word. If she can find the users when she knows when and where to look, then that's one thing. I'm kind of curious myself to see what people noticed and remembered, or how much might link them with the Miraculous in hindsight. But too much guidance can sometimes be a bad thing." Tikki landed on Marinette's hand and blinked up at her. "I know you want to help Alya as much as possible, Marinette. But sometimes it's better if Miraculous users stay secret, or at least as unconfirmed users."

Marinette was still a little puzzled, but she shrugged and acquiesced. If Tikki said that she had reasons for not being specific about users, then she shouldn't push. Maybe she didn't understand fully, but she didn't know the situations that Tikki was thinking of. Maybe there were powers that the Ladybug and Chat Noir Miraculous had that past users had had but she didn't, and Tikki wanted those powers to stay secret. Maybe there would be some users that fought in a war and the Miraculous didn't want to seem like they were taking sides.

Maybe past holders fought some sort of Great Evil that Tikki didn't want Alya finding out about and spreading around, in case it caused some sort of panic in the general population.

Several hours later, Ladybug jumped off of her balcony and headed for the center of the city, list of time periods and locations clutched in her hand. Tikki had finally decided to scratch a couple off the list because of unrevealed reasons, but most of the past holders had stayed on. They were all Ladybug holders, because she and Tikki had decided that unless Alya discovered that there were other Miraculous out there, they weren't going to say anything else.

Tikki was guessing (and Marinette agreed) that Alya would probably figure it out, if not right away then eventually. The fact that Hawkmoth existed and was obviously another Miraculous user was a pretty good hint that she and Chat Noir weren't the only users out there, and apparently some of the historical Ladybug and Chat Noir duos had worked with other Miraculous users. Still, they weren't going to give Alya too much right away.

"I think Alya will feel a larger sense of accomplishment if she figures that out by herself anyway," Tikki had concluded when they discussed it earlier. "If you give her too much, there's not much for her to figure out. No big discoveries, you know. After all, most past users worked from the shadows."

"Will you tell me more about the users after I give Alya the list?" Marinette had asked hopefully. Now that Alya had brought the subject up and Marinette had had time to think about it, she was intensely curious. Were there any historical figures that she had heard of before that were Ladybugs or other Miraculous users? Had they changed history in big ways? She was curious, darn it.

Tikki had giggled and promised to fill Marinette in on more details as Alya figured out past users. Still, there were things that even Marinette wouldn't be able know unless a... situation arose.

Marinette hadn't asked, and Tikki hadn't elaborated.

It didn't take long for her to find Chat Noir once she got close to the Eiffel Tower. Her partner had apparently been waiting for her, since he popped out of the shadows he had been lurking in the second she got close. He bounded up to meet her and, without any greeting, announced, "The Ladyblogger is headed for the Eiffel Tower, I just spotted her three minutes ago."

Ladybug could have guessed that. Alya had texted her several hours earlier, informing her that until further notice, she wouldn't be available evenings except on Christmas. "Because I need to talk to Ladybug and Chat Noir before they go back to wherever they've been," Alya had texted. "So guess who's staking out at the Eiffel Tower until they show up?"

At least it was nice of Alya to make herself very easy to find.

"What did your kwami tell you to tell her?" Ladybug asked as they set off for the Eiffel Tower at a more sedate pace. She was curious about whether or not Chat Noir's kwami, who she had heard was a bit less cautious than Tikki, would have had the same concerns as her kwami. "Mine just gave me general time periods and locations."

Chat Noir looked surprised. "Really? Mine, too! He said that he didn't want to make it too easy for Alya, and then he snickered for a while. I told him to stop being a snarky ass, but he refused to give me any more. But I thought that you said that your kwami was more cooperative!"

It didn't take a genius to figure out that Chat Noir's kwami had probably had the same concerns as Tikki, but had decided to just give the same more information in a more flippant manner. "She is. She has some reservations about certain holders being found out, though, and she said that there really isn't much information out there about past holders- or at least there shouldn't be- so if I give Alya too much information, then there won't be anything for her to discover. Besides, Tikki said it was a good test to see how good Miraculous users were at blending in."

Chat Noir frowned. "Is she okay with giving Alya any information at all, then? Because if Alya finds something, she'll publish it. There's no take-backs then."

"She pulled a couple dates for users that she didn't want Alya digging around. The rest she said would be fine."

"We should double-check our lists against each other, then," Chat Noir decided, opening a pocket and digging out a sheet of paper. "I mean, I bet that was what Plagg was thinking, too, but he has a reputation as a uncooperative ass to keep."

Ladybug couldn't help the splutter of laughter that left her. "Chat Noir! That's no way to talk about your kwami!"

He laughed too, loud and deep. "Plagg deserves it, though! He's a little cheese-eating monster. He could have just told me that some users had to be kept secret and, y'know, the other stuff that your kwami told you, and he would have gotten out of a solid hour of interrogation. But noooo, he just had to make it difficult for both of us. You have no idea. I never told you about how he was trying to make things weird for my friend and I, did I?" One look at the puzzled look on her face told him that no, he hadn't ever said anything. "Right. We had to kiss each other once for this, ah, thing, and anyway, there were photos. And Plagg just had to go and blow them up and print a bunch out and hide them all over my apartment. They were under pillows, in the kitchen cabinets, in the freezer- it's been months, and I'm not even sure that I've found everything!"

Ladybug's shoulders shook as she tried to hold in her laughter and then she positively exploded cackling. She ended up sitting on the rooftop, snickering away as Chat Noir shook his head in exasperated acceptance next to her.

Of course Ladybug would find Plagg's antics funny. If the two of them ever met...

Well, if they ever met, they would either be best buddies or drive each other insane. She probably wouldn't find the kwami's stubborn attitude so charming if she was the one trying to reason with Plagg.

Ladybug took several minutes to calm down, and Chat Noir took the time to carefully tug the list she was clutching in her hand free and compare it to the one Plagg had given to him. All of the dates and places were the same, which made Chat Noir wonder if his kwami and Ladybug's perhaps had some way to communicate wordlessly when they were apart, or if whatever users they had excluded were somehow so very obvious for some unspoken reason.

"It looks like our Miraculous have always been active at the same time," he commented over the sound of a still-snickering Ladybug. "And it looks like my kwami excluded the same users that yours did. I wonder what made them so different?"

"From what I could tell, it sounded like we would only be told that on a need-to-know basis," Ladybug finally said, pushing herself to her feet even as a stray giggle escaped her. "Maybe it would be dangerous to know somehow, or maybe it would make us unnecessarily worried about an evil that's not even active right now."

Chat Noir grinned and extended a hand to help pull her all the way up. "Well, you know what they say about cats and curiosity..."

"That they need their inquisitive little noses squirted with water?" Ladybug asked teasingly, poking his nose lightly with a wide grin. He automatically wrinkled his nose and nipped at her finger. "Should we go find that Ladyblogger now?"

It really didn't take long. Even with the crowds out enjoying the holiday cheer, Alya was easy enough to pick out. Instead of admiring the holiday decorations, she was scanning the rooflines of the buildings around her. The superhero duo barely paused before bounding right through her line of sight and then heading for a quieter road. They knew full well that Alya would have spotted them, and then they could have their discussion in a little more privacy.

Sure enough, it only took a minute for Alya to come charging around the end of the block. She slipped a little on the ice but regained her balance almost immediately. True to character, she didn't let it slow her down at all.

"Did you know that I was looking for you guys?" Alya demanded as she skidded to a stop in front of them. They nodded, and she looked flabbergasted. "How?"

"Well, you posted something about wanting to do research on past Miraculous holders on the Ladyblog," Ladybug pointed out right away. "And we figured that we might be one of the first places you looked for information. So we did some poking around, and we came up with locations and general dates of activity. We just compared notes, and it looks like our Miraculous were always active at about the same time."

"But not always in exactly the same place," Chat Noir added, and Ladybug shot him a startled look. She hadn't really done more than glance at the sheet he carried so she hadn't noticed any differences, but if Chat Noir said that there were, then she trusted him.

Alya's eyes positively lit up and she reached for the sheets that Chat Noir was holding out to her. "Really? Oh, wow, this is- this is more than I hoped for! I wasn't even positive that you guys would know about past users, or if you did that you'd be willing to share since, y'know, you once claimed that you were 2000 years old." She gave Ladybug a look. "Which I believed for, like, two years, but then I got smarter."

"How did you figure that out, buy the way?" Chat Noir asked curiously. "We thought we were pretty convincing."

Alya gave them such a clear I-can't-believe-you're-this-dumb look so clear that even strangers couldn't have misinterpreted it. "Uh, you obviously got older. And you got older at a normal rate. I compared photos of you when you first started to ones that I had just taken then, and by comparing your heights to the grown-ups around you- you know, the mayor and the police officers- I could tell that you had gotten taller. Someone who had been alive since Ancient Egypt wouldn't be growing now."

"Betrayed by the meter stick," Chat Noir said with a exaggerated sigh. "Bugger. That probably means that everyone in Paris noticed too."

"Probably," Alya admitted. "...and I don't know how much it helps, but I did hide that video with the, y'know, the history book. Anyone who remembers it would probably be able to remember that the video was from your first year of crime fighting, but hopefully they wouldn't remember which history book it was or from what year in school it was from. And I looked for plagiarized versions of it too," she added hastily. "Just to make sure that it wasn't floating around. But that wasn't one of my best recordings of a fight ever, so no one really bothered ripping it off." She shrugged. "I just figured, if you guys ever have to face a supervillain that's, uh, more competent than Hawkmoth was, that maybe I shouldn't just leave a trail of crumbs online that would help them find you guys."

"Good thought," Chat Noir praised after a moment's pause, when Ladybug didn't seem like she was going to reply. He guessed that she was just as startled as he was- Alya, removing something from the Ladyblog? This wasn't something small like a troll's comment in the forum section, it was actual fight footage. She was all about reporting integrity and getting the truth out, and for her to think of how an old video could affect the superheroes in the long run was, well, new.

New and a very good sign. That meant that she might be more likely to edit out anything she discovered about past heroes that could be dangerous for the public to know.

"This is a really long list," Alya said a moment later, surprise evident in her voice. "Like...wow. Okay. Okay, I definitely have a lot of work to do."

"There might be quite a few of them that don't have anything recorded about them," Ladybug warned her. "Most Miraculous holders weren't as visible as Chat Noir and I are. Some might not have used their powers in obvious ways. Some weren't active for very long at all. So don't be surprised if there's nothing there to find."

"If there's something to find, I'll find it," Alya promised, the gleam of a challenge evident in her eyes. "Thank you guys so much, I would have had so much material to dig through otherwise. And I still have a bunch to dig through, but not, like, as much. And I can spend more time where I need to, so that's great." She gave the papers another gleeful look and then carefully tucked the papers away in her purse, latching it shut and double-checking that it was properly closed. Then she glanced up. "...I don't suppose you'd give me any clues about where you guys have been the past few months?"

The only reply she got was a dual snort.

By the next day, Alya was still running high on the excitement of having the superheroes giving her such good leads. She was practically vibrating still when Marinette arrived at the apartment Alya and Nino shared, and it took her nearly a minute to realize that her best friend had shown up. It looked like she hadn't gotten any sleep at all- which, Marinette soon learned, was not far off.

"Ladybug and Chat Noir gave her a list of when past holders had been active and she decided that she had to start research right away," Nino said, a hint of fond exasperation in his tone. "So she got maybe two hours of sleep last night, and she only got that much because she was so tired that she couldn't read the words on the page anymore. That, and the holders she decided to research first were British and so, y'know, all of the sources were in English, and it's harder to translate while tired and- why am I telling you that, you know that already. Because you've been living in London. Obviously."

Marinette smothered a laugh. It sounded like Alya wasn't the only one to not get a whole lot of sleep.

"That's great that they did that for her!" Marinette exclaimed, pretending that it was news to her. She mentally ran through the list that she had given Alya and wondered which of the British holders Alya had investigated first. There were a couple that she remembered, and there easily could have been a few more. "Did she find anything?"

Unsurprisingly, Nino shook his head. "Nothing concrete. I think she said that there were a few possible leads in the last thing she read, but she was so exhausted that she just decided to recheck them later, when she could actually understand what they were saying." He glanced over at his girlfriend, who was talking to a somewhat concerned-looking Adrien over by their kitchen. "...I think she might need a lot more sleep before she tackles it again, though."

"Weren't there any French users she could have started with?" Marinette asked, knowing full well that yes, there had been. There weren't many- holders tended to pop up when needed, not just willy-nilly- but there had been a couple other pairs that had been active in surrounding countries as well that could have easily gone through France at some point.

"Not super recently. Alya wanted to start with more recent users, since it would in theory be easier to find information on them." Nino glanced over at Alya again. "So far, not much luck. But maybe she's looking for the wrong signs. Like, with our Ladybug and Chat Noir- it's impossible to miss that they're superheroes, right? You can't just say that they're, say, normal people who are just super good at what they do. But I kind of wonder if most of the past users that just passed as just that- normal people who just happened to be super-good at doing something."

Marinette tried not to react to that too much. Nino had hit it right on the head, which maybe shouldn't have been as surprising as it was. Nino could be startlingly perceptive at times, probably because he tended to be able to get some distance from situations with his laid-back personality. Of course he would be able to pick out the reasoning behind why Miraculous users like Ladybug and Chat Noir had been active before but (aside from the Egyptian exhibit) never heard of. It was one of the (many) reasons why Alya and Nino worked well together- Alya had a tendency to charge into things, while Nino held back and got a better idea of what was going on first. He tended to join in wholeheartedly once he had gotten a better idea of what was going on, of course, but that pause had helped them on more than a few occasions.

And, it appeared, it would probably serve as a great help to Alya's research.

"So, have you guys run into any of your other friends yet?" Nino asked as Adrien joined them in the living room. "I mean, you haven't seen them since you pulled that wedding prank."

"I ran into Rose, actually," Marinette volunteered. The two of them had talked with each other for a while, actually- though perhaps saying that they talked with each other was a bit of an exaggeration. Rose had talked at Marinette for a while, cooing over the wedding prank and how cute Adrien and Marinette had been together. She had wanted to know if the two of them were dating, then why they weren't dating, then had tried grilling Marinette over whether or not she still like-liked Adrien before rattling off a whole list of reasons why Marinette and Adrien should be dating. Marinette wasn't exactly going to volunteer all of that, though.

Adrien grinned. "Let me guess, she just wanted to talk about how the wedding looked and she didn't even care that it was all a prank."

Marinette couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, pretty much."

"Rose is the best. You saw the comment she left on the initial post, right?" Adrien shook his head, smiling slightly to himself. "She totally believed us."

"Heh heh, yeah." Marinette's smile turned slightly strained. Had she seen Rose's comment? She definitely had, and she definitely remembered it. Rose had gushed about 'all of the signs!', and she had definitely referenced Marinette having liked Adrien when they were younger.

(Thankfully Adrien was apparently still somewhat socially clueless when it came to girls, because he had somehow completely missed that.)

"Well, you guys were very convincing," Nino commented as Alya came up to join them. "I mean, there was no other reasonable explanation for you doing a wedding that elaborate."

"Are you guys talking about the fake wedding again?" Alya asked as she finally set her laptop aside and joined them. "Nino had to keep me from flying over there and killing you guys for that stunt."

"So you've told us before," Marinette said somewhat dryly. "By text, and in messages on our phones, and when you visited before break. But I think you secretly found it funny."

Nino snickered. Alya tried to look disapproving, but even she couldn't help but smile and shake her head at the memory of the prank.

"But that's old news," Adrien said, thankfully cutting off further discussion of their fake wedding. "So...you guys said you had some holiday movies for us to binge-watch?"

"Yeah, if Alya can step away from her research for a bit," Nino joked. Behind him, Alya stuck her tongue out and rolled her eyes before going over to shut her computer down as Nino stepped over to his own computer, hooked up to the TV so they could all watch. "So I've pulled up a few that I think we'll all enjoy, and then a cat-themed one for Adrien. I figured you might want to do something fun over your break, since you couldn't come to dinner with Alya and I's families."

"I wanted to, but I can't exactly skip out on my dad," Adrien said, sounding a bit regretful. Marinette glanced over at him in confusion- that was the first time she had heard about Nino and Alya's offer, and she had to wonder what Adrien had said to make Nino decide to invite Adrien over for Christmas dinner. "It really did sound great, but..."

"No worries, man," Nino assured him with a shrug. "I get it. Family dinner is family dinner. And I wouldn't want to upset your father, either."

"It's tradition," Adrien said with a sigh. "It's not that fun most years, but at least he hasn't invited business partners this year." He paused. "...actually, on second thought, that might make it more enjoyable. Then he wouldn't be able to grill me about how things are going in London."

Alya looked surprised. "He hasn't already done that?"

"I've been busy, he's been busy," Adrien explained simply. "...and I've been avoiding him a bit, just so he can't try to persuade me to drop things there and come back, but I can't exactly do that forever. And if I missed Christmas dinner, then he would be eating it alone and that's just...kind of sad."

"What about Nathalie and the Gorilla? Couldn't they eat with you guys?" Nino wanted to know.

Adrien shook his head. "Most of the household staff have Christmas off these days, so they both have gone back to join their families. Gorilla's sister has a family just outside of Paris that he joins, and Nathalie has some friends from school that invited her for dinner. I heard her saying that she was going to bring some side dishes, and then a day later she was complaining about everything burning. She apparently did a test run and it hadn't gone so well."

Marinette couldn't help but laugh. "So what is she doing instead?"

"She probably bought something from a store, just like she's done every other year that she's joined them."

They all laughed.

"She seems so put-together normally, so it's hilarious to think that she can't cook," Alya chuckled as they settled in on the couch in front of the TV. "How does she manage normally?"

"She normally eats at the mansion," Adrien admitted. "She might as well, she spends all of her time there anyway."

"All right all of you, pipe down now," Nino announced as the TV screen lit up and music started playing. "Let's have some Christmas fun!"

Adrien straightened his collar in the mirror and considered the tie sitting on the bathroom counter in front of him. He wanted to put his best foot forward, of course, but he didn't want to look too formal, even if it was Christmas dinner with his father.

Tie on...or no tie on?

"Do you have any holiday ties?" Nino asked, his voice coming over the speakerphone a bit scratchy. Adrien had called him for a second opinion since Plagg was useless, but he was fast finding that Nino wasn't particularly helpful when it came to fashion. He was much better at hosting holiday movie-watching parties, even if he had forgotten about the prepared refreshments until halfway through their movie-watching spree. "Maybe that would be the perfect middle ground."

Adrien snorted. "Holiday ties bring down the formality. Father considers them garish. I don't think I even own any."

Nino huffed. "Okay, fine. Don't listen to me, then. How-"

"Who're you talking to?" Alya's voice came through, a bit faint. "We need to leave for dinner with our families soon."

Nino's voice faded as he pulled back the phone to talk to his girlfriend. "Adrien. He wants to know if he should wear a tie to dinner with his dad."

There was a sudden shuffling, and then Alya's voice came clearly over the phone. "Are you going out to a restaurant?"

"No."

"Is it usually a formal meal?"

"Pretty formal, yeah." There were years when they hadn't even had the dinner- they had bypassed the tradition for three years following Adrien's mother's disappearance- but all of the other years, they had had a rather formal dinner.

"And what are you wearing right now?"

Adrien clamped down the snarky response that question immediately brought to mind. "Uh. Black slacks, green long-sleeved button-up. Black dress shoes."

"Maybe have a suitcoat but no tie," Alya suggested. "How does that look?"

"I don't know yet, I can't make suitcoats appear out of thin air," Adrien said dryly, picking up his phone as he headed back into his room to dig in his closet for one of his suitcoats. "But it should look good. Thanks, Alya. I don't know why I didn't think of that."

"No problem," Alya responded cheerfully. She paused for a moment, then added, "But I don't know why you didn't just call Marinette. Like, I love Nino and all, but even I know that my boy isn't the best person to come to for fashion questions."

There was a muted "HEY!" from the other end of the line. Alya ignored it.

"Or even better, you could have asked her to come over and dress you," Alya continued. "That way you could be sure to get it right."

"I can dress myself, thanks," Adrien said, letting his voice go dryer yet. His friends were just as bad as the tabloid reporters when it came to hinting that he and Marinette were more involved than just friends. Worse, even, because Adrien couldn't avoid them. "Been doing it since I was a kid."

Alya just snickered.

Ten minutes later, the suitcoat was properly buttoned up and Adrien headed down to the dining room. It really was ridiculous to dress up like this for a family meal- a meal with just his father, actually- but it was tradition. A tradition that had become more and more frustrating as he learned about how his friends and classmates spent their Christmas dinners. Most did dress up a bit more than usual, of course, just to get into the festive spirit, but none reached the level of formality that the Agrestes did even if they had rarely-seen family members over.

If Adrien wasn't still worried about his father changing his mind about helping him with tuition, Adrien would have been very, very tempted to dress up at Santa and stroll into dinner that way, just to lighten things up a bit. His father wouldn't be at all amused, though.

Gabriel Agreste was already seated at the table when Adrien arrived. The cook was setting out dishes on the table. While there was definitely enough for both Gabriel and Adrien, there wasn't a huge abundance. The cook knew from experience that while the Agrestes would eat leftovers once or twice, they didn't want to have leftovers every meal for a week. The cook would make just enough for two people to have two meals and that meant that, well...

The dishes weren't exactly heaping and they weren't really screaming Christmas feast. It looked tasty, of course- their cook was absolutely fabulous- but not that festive.

"Adrien," Gabriel greeted him. "Just on time. Sit, sit."

Adrien sat.

They both fell silent as they dished up their food. Adrien made sure to not pile his plate too much, since experience told him that it would just lead to stomachache and feeling ill, no matter how delicious the food was. Once he had what he wanted, Adrien dug in. It was tasty, but it was a bit awkward to eat in silence. He had gotten used to eating with Marinette, joking and swapping stories about their days. It could take them forever to eat with all of the talking they did, but it was fun. Comfortable. Relaxing.

Dinner with his father was none of those things.

"How are your studies going?" Gabriel asked after a few minutes of silent chewing. "Have you decided to continue for all three years, or will you be returning home at the end of the year?"

Adrien raised an incredulous eyebrow. Surely his father wasn't serious? "I'll be continuing, just as planned."

Gabriel took a small sip of wine. Adrien noticed, with no small amount of exasperation, that he had not gotten wine like his father; instead, he had water in his second glass. "Surely your business degree will be more helpful in the long run. There's more opportunities, and business has more potential for financial success."

"But I enjoy physics more," Adrien pointed out, doing his best not to snap back. "And doing something that I'm interested in and enjoy is more important to me than making a boatload of money. Money doesn't buy happiness."

"But money does prevent financial instability, which causes unhappiness," Gabriel retorted.

Adrien couldn't hold back the snort. While it was true, that was also a ridiculous argument. "You're acting as though positions in physics barely pay anything. That's hardly true."

Gabriel only shrugged, which made Adrien guess that he perhaps hadn't actually bothered to look up how much physicists normally made on average. He shouldn't have been surprised, really, since his father apparently was still under the impression that he would drop the Physics program, but it was still frustrating, to say the least.

A few more minutes passed in silence. Adrien tried not to fidget as he continued eating. The silence was growing increasingly uncomfortable, but his father didn't seem terribly concerned. Gabriel was probably used to uncomfortable silences, since he caused so many of them on a regular basis.

"I heard that you've gotten plenty of attention from the British tabloids," Mr. Agreste commented after another minute. "It seems like there's something new every other week."

"They're very persistent," Adrien agreed. It was frustrating to no end; it seemed that every time he and Marinette were seen out together was fuel for the fire, and then he had to give another interview saying that no, he and Marinette weren't dating, and yes, the constant questions about it were very annoying. The only upside was that in recent weeks, the hounding seemed to be dipping, just a bit. After all, there was only so many times that tabloids could try to use their supposed relationship as a headline (and subsequently have it refuted, again) before it stopped selling. "But I think they'll drop it after another month or so. They're trying to sell it as some big scoop and I think it's really falling flat."

"Very well." Gabriel reached across the table and served himself up more ham. "But this is why I've banned dating while you're abroad. The tabloids would sink their teeth into that, and if you were actually dating someone, there would be endless fodder for them."

Adrien hmmmmed in way of response, still dubious of his father's explanation. He was just a model, son to the founder of Gabriel or no, and most people didn't know him and didn't care about him enough to read articles about him and his boring, normal relationship week after week. Most of the tabloids had been more focused on the supposed "scandal" of a fashion designer's son "dating" an aspiring fashion designer, and if Adrien dated just an average woman off the street, there wouldn't be that so-called scandalous aspect to it. They might do an article or two about it, but then they would leave him alone. Of course, if he dated someone from London now they might eke out a few more articles claiming that Adrien had cheated on Marinette or spinning sob stories about Marinette being "tossed aside" for a new love, even despite all of their earlier interviews, but Adrien really doubted that news coverage was what had driven his father to banning dating.

"Nathalie reported that you said your apartment was working out well," Gabriel commented after another few minutes of eating. He didn't look particularly pleased, even though 'the apartment was working well' meant that Adrien could actually be a functioning adult. It was probably because Adrien might be able to live on his own once he got back to Paris. "I am... pleasantly surprised."

Yeah, you really sound like it's a pleasant surprise, all right, Adrien thought a bit sarcastically. He managed to swallow that particular thought back. "Yeah, it's going pretty well. Marinette helped teach me everything that I hadn't already known about living on my own. It's been really nice to have her nearby if I have any questions."

Gabriel's expression twitched; to anyone who didn't know him as well as Adrien did, it would have looked like a neutral expression. But Adrien knew that his father wasn't pleased. If Gabriel had his way, he would probably move Adrien to a different building away from Marinette so that Adrien might be more likely to move back to Paris. Thankfully, the apartment lease was in Adrien's name and while his father (well, Nathalie) was still paying the rent, only Adrien could re-sign or break the lease.

"And taking the bus to school?"

Adrien worked to school his expression. Surely his father wasn't going to try to revisit the possibility of trying to get a chauffeur? That would be absolutely ridiculous. "I enjoy it. I've had some very nice conversations with other regulars on the bus."

"It's not as convenient as having a chauffeur, especially if it or you are running behind schedule," Gabriel commented. "Are you sure-"

"It makes me more responsible if I have to keep an eye on the time," Adrien said firmly before his father could make his mind up to order Nathalie to look into private drivers in London again. "And I rarely take the bus late in the day, and if I do, Marinette is with me."

Gabriel snorted at that. "Yes, because that's definitely much safer, having a tiny girl that comes up to your shoulder with you."

Adrien frowned at his dismissive tone. "Marinette isn't that short. And she's fierce. Someone tried to steal her purse a few weeks ago, and they ended up unconscious on the sidewalk and missing a few teeth to boot. Marinette wasn't even ruffled."

Even Gabriel couldn't hide all of his amusement at that. His lips twitched, and he promptly sipped from his glass of wine to try to hide his smile. "Really."

"Yeah. I had turned around for a minute, and then next thing I know Marinette was kicking this guy, yanking her purse back from him, and then very thoroughly beating him up. Apparently she took some self-defense classes when she was in university." Adrien grinned at the memory. He had barely taken a step forward towards Marinette, ready to help, when the man fell to the sidewalk unconscious. Marinette had dusted off her shirt, scowled down at the unconscious form, and then turned to stalk off. She hadn't gotten far, though, before a policewoman trotted over, wanting to know what was going on. Adrien and Marinette had had to answer a few questions before they left, and the would-be thief was hauled away to the police station.

It had been quite the exciting evening out.

"And I've heard that you've been exploring the area with Marinette," Gabriel said after another few minutes. "How is that impacting your studies? I'm sure it's a bit of a distraction."

Adrien couldn't keep from frowning at that. If his father was seriously concerned about distractions from school, then he was hypocrisy central. "It's no different than having time taken up by photoshoots or other activities during the school year. I have all the time in the world to study during the week, and if I'm going to need more time to study for finals or something, then we don't do anything that weekend. It's good to have a break every once in a while, and if I'm gonna be over there, then it makes sense to explore."

"Wandering around the city for entire days at a time is hardly the same thing as an occasional photoshoot."

Adrien had to do his best to keep a lid on his temper, but his father really wasn't making it easy. "I am fully capable of managing my own time wisely. I got great marks last semester, all solid As. The professors used my work as examples several times throughout the semester." He had been rather proud of that, actually, and he had texted Marinette in glee every time it happened. She had made cookies to celebrate every time.

(Marinette was the actual best, and no one could deny that.)

"Just don't get too carried away," Gabriel warned, and Adrien only just refrained from rolling his eyes. If anyone was guilty of getting too carried away, it was his father. Adrien had had to get ask Nathalie to back off on the activities and photoshoots when he was in lycée so he could stay on top of his assignments, and he had had to do the same thing during his first degree when there were too many photoshoots right before finals. His father had questioned it both times, probably because he hadn't been pleased about having to reschedule photoshoots.

The rest of the dinner passed in a combination of awkward silences, the sound of forks and spoons scraping across plates, and the occasional attempt at conversation. Following dessert, they quickly exchanged a few presents before each retiring to their own rooms. Adrien slumped against his door and sighed as soon as it closed behind him.

"Long dinner?" Plagg asked from over on Adrien's desk. The kwami was flat on his back among the remains of a giant wheel of Brie and he didn't make any attempt to move. "You were gone for forever."

"Father was being ridiculous. He wants me to come back to Paris, so he complained about everything from me taking the bus to me daring to spend some time on weekends exploring." Adrien let out a frustrated huff. "...and I got a set of fancy pens as a Christmas gift. Yay."

"...didn't you get him a tie?"

Adrien pushed himself off the door and headed over to the desk to join Plagg. There was no reason to have to yell their conversation across the room, after all. "Yeah, but I didn't know what else to get him."

"Maybe he didn't know what else to get you," Plagg suggested.

"Maybe," Adrien agreed. "But he got me that scarf before, and that was the best gift he's given me in a while. I'd love another scarf, or maybe a coat or something. Anything but more pens." He huffed, tossing the package of pens onto his desk. "...I'm never gonna need to buy a pen in my life. I'm gonna have to start donating them soon."

There was a pause, and then Plagg spoke up. "Wanna go out and crash one of your friends' Christmas dinners?"

"Not as Chat Noir," Adrien objected immediately, frowning. "I don't want to have to interact with people as a superhero tonight."

"So just be Chat Noir to get out of your room and to their house, then." Plagg pushed himself off of the desk and lazily floated over to Adrien. "I'm sure they'd be happy to have you."

Still, Adrien hesitated. "But it would be rude to just show up. It's late, for one. And I don't think anyone really wants to answer their door when they're spending time with their family."

"So text someone and ask first, then," Plagg suggested, just as Adrien's phone dinged. "Maybe whoever just texted you."

"It might just be an email," Adrien pointed out, but he pulled his phone out anyway to check. As it turned out, Plagg was right. He did have a text. "Oh. Marinette wants to know how dinner with my dad went."

"Tell her it was awful. She'll probably invite you over and then you can join then and I can look for cheese bread while you play Mega Strike with them," Plagg suggested. He floated over to perch on Adrien's shoulder and watch as Adrien typed out a response. "I don't think you even need to ask if you can come over. I think your wife will just invite you on her own."

"She probably would," Adrien agreed, sending the text- an then he froze and turned his head to scowl at Plagg. "And she is not my wife. How many times do we need to go over this?"

Plagg just snickered.

Ten minutes later, Adrien found himself drowning in an oversized holiday sweater on the Dupain-Cheng's living room couch. as Tom offered his a plate of cookies. Marinette had invited him right over, just as both Plagg and Adrien had guessed she might, and her family was just as welcoming. Marinette even had a couple presents for Adrien that she had been planning to give to him when their group of friends got together the next day.

"You might as well open them now," Marinette had told him when Adrien protested. "There's no point in waiting if you're here and I have them- and no, I don't care that you don't have anything for me with you, Adrien! Just open the darn present already!"

Laughing, Adrien had opened his presents. Marinette had made a quilt for him and knit a lovely warm hat. He exclaimed over both, feeling warm and loved as he pulled the hat on and wrapped himself up in the quilt.

(Ten minutes later, he had to set both aside as he was feeling a little too warm. Marinette, who had warned him about such an outcome, snickered at him when he admitted defeat. He had pretended to complain about her being mean to him, but Marinette had only laughed at him more. Adrien couldn't do anything but smile at her amusement.)

As the night came to an end, Adrien headed home with full arms, a light heart, and a spring in his step, whistling Christmas carols all the way. It was a pity that he couldn't spend the entire break with Marinette and his other friends, but the time he did spend with them was great. He still had the next day's get-together to look forward to, where he and his friends would exchange gifts properly and he could give Marinette the present he had ordered just for her, and probably several other get-togethers before Nino and Alya had to go back to work and he and Marinette had to head back to London.

Maybe his holiday wasn't what other people would consider perfect, but for Adrien, it was enough.

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #How to Fake a Marriage #Adrien Agreste #Marinette Dupain-Cheng

91 notes · View notes

poly-hamilsquad-readers · 7 years ago

Text

HamilSquad x Reader • A Night In

Prompt: a night in! Followed by of cuddles and love. Fluffiest of Fluff. Time: Modern Warnings: none Requested by: @mettatonlover858 Notes: (( I might be a little slow, we are redoing our entire downstairs and gosh it's hard haha. But I promise I'll post a lot more soon, keep requesting! Also, sorry if it's a little short. I wasn't really given a plot, so this was just on a whim of brainstorming, hope it's still okay! Enjoy! )) You had been so stressed out lately, you hadn't seen the boys all together in over a week. It was killing you, all you wanted to do was cuddle together. You grabbed the keys and unlocked the door, using your foot to shut the front door behind you. "(Y/n)!" You heard someone, you assumed it was John since you couldn't see who it was over the two big boxes you where carrying. "Hello." You beamed and tilted your head, you felt one of the boxes lifted off of the first one. You smiled as Laurens grinning face appeared from behind the box. "Glad to see you're home, I have a surprise for you!" John said a laugh could be heard in his voice. "A surprise?" You echoed furrowing your eyebrows together. "Yes, now come here." He grinned and took the second box, setting them both on the table by the door. He turned to you and motioned for you to come closer, you came closer and hugged him happily. He chuckled and nuzzled his head into the crook of your neck, he kissed your neck slowly and lightly nipped making you laugh softly and he let go grinning at you. "Now, turn around." Laurens said and placed his hands on your shoulders, forcing you to turn around and he wrapped his hands over your eyes making you basically go blind. "Now, start walking." He said and ushered you forward slightly, you sighed but decided to trust him, just hoping it wasn't a prank. He led you forward and took a right turn towards the living room, you nearly tripped over your own feet. He nearly fell onto you laughing how you almost tripped only not face planting because he caught you. Which led him to nearly drop you since he was laughing so hard. "You're so mean" you whined playfully and nuzzled against him. "Sorry, but we are almost there, come on. Get back up and let me cover your eyes." He said still stifling laughter. "Fine, fine." You grumbled, standing back up, he covered your eyes again and lead you up the stairs slowly. You held the rail, your fingers grazing it as he led you up towards your guys' bedroom. "Ta dah!" He yelled removing his hands, inside your guys' bedroom, was decorated. Like some Pinterest dream room stuff. Fairy lights that twinkled like little stairs where strung all across the ceiling. "Oh my." You whispered clasping your hand over your mouth as you gazed around noticing more and more that they had done. They made a giant fort out of your guys bed and stuff, a projector, a movie screen that was hung up, three boxes of pizza, a giant bowl of popcorn, a giant selection of drinks including all of your favorites, and so much more. "It's gorgeous!" You gasped and john leaned his head on your shoulder, gazing around at the room as well. "We're glad you enjoy it!" Lafayette said appearing from the giant fort made of pillows, blankets, and much more to hold it together. Hercules and Alexander emerged after him, all of them looking around before looking at you and Laurens. "It's perfect." You said throwing your hands up, running towards the three pulling john after you, pulling them all into a group hug. Kissed and snuggles where passed around like snacks, you nuzzled closer to them all before you all took off towards the fort. It was precious, the inside was big enough for you all, though many of you where on top of someone else. You where currently on top of Lafayette as he sat comfortably against the headboard which was the back of the fort. Hercules was holding john and Alexander was between you all, sitting in the middle happily surrounded by the ones he loves. "Which movie?" Herc asked as he held the remote and search across Netflix and stuff like that. "All of our favorites?" You suggested nuzzling against Laf as he lightly played with your hair. "Sounds good" Alex agreed quickly and happily. "I agree" Lafayette grinned kissing your shoulder softly and playfully. "Pizza please!" John piped up as everyone began to eat the food and drink the drinks. *** After nearly 4 movies, you all where almost knocked out, Alex and you being the only ones awake. During the movies, you all switched around a bunch, Alexander was now holding john as you where in the middle, Herc holding Lafayette as they both slept. "This was the best night." You whispered looking over at Alex as he held Laurens. "We wanted to do this, for you, we've all been so busy. And we love you, and we love each other. So we thought we might as well have the best date night we could." Alexander muttered in response, his hair splayed out across his shoulders and back instead of his normal ponytail. "Can I do your hair?" You suddenly asked, he tilted his head as he looked over at you. "I guess." He chuckled and slowly shifted around till his back was facing you, careful to not wake up John. You began to run your fingers through it, careful to not tug it. Soon you took a few hair bands and began braid and twist it, you did the best you could to braid it around too the back from the sides and put it together with a little twist. "Perfect." You said, you yawned and leaned onto his back. He slowly turned till he was facing the screen again, his favorite movie still playing, he pulled you halfway on to him as well as john. He held you both close as he muttered softly too you. "Rest, once I finish this movie I'll sleep as well." He promised and kissed your cheek softly, you smiled and nodded nuzzling against him. You closed your eyes, listening to the sounds all around you. Alexander's steady heartbeat, John's peaceful breathing, Hercules' gentle breathing, Lafayette's light snoring, and the movies background noise which you barely noticed. You focused on your boys as you began to lull into sleep, holding onto Alex as he swayed slightly nearly rocking you and Laurens. Soon enough, sleep began to consume you. Once you where asleep, you felt like that was possibly the best you had slept in years.....

294 notes · View notes

samtheflamingomain · 7 years ago

Text

to care is human

Warning: gruesome descriptions of suicide methods.

So last night I tried to kill myself. Sometimes I wake up knowing it'll be that kind of day, sometimes it creeps up on me. This time was different.

I usually drink a shitload, eat a bunch of sleeping pills and then put a bag over my head and a belt around my neck. It's almost worked a few times, but I usually wake up with a hole in the bag and a terrible headache.

I can't really do that anymore; I can tell it's causing actual brain damage, and I also don't have more than a few sleeping pills at any given time because my psychiatrist instructed the pharmacy to give me my meds weekly.

I was alright until around 4 when I realized I'd be drinking and that it would make a solid week in a row of drinking. Add in the fact that I just put $1200 of cat surgery on my credit card, and by the time I was gulping down an entire bottle of wine in an hour, I couldn't stop thinking about all the things that stress me out. I have no money. I hate working. I have no parents. I can’t stop drinking. I have to start working more hours.

I didn't wait long enough after the wine before going to the bar. It was another few beers before it hit me HARD. It takes A LOT for me to feel drunk; I've gotten used to drinking 10 beers to feel tipsy, so I was surprised to be genuinely drunk. Wanting that to continue, I kept at ‘er.

This is a pretty odd story, and I don't remember everything that happened but here's a self-indulgently-long description of it anyway:

I go to the bar after the wine and have about 8 beers (they have a non-standard "mini-pitcher" you can buy, maybe the equivalent of like 3.5 beers?) and I'm talking to another regular who's been trying to get rid of her last kitten for a while. I've always loved this kitten and have considered taking him in for a while now.

So Fran says, "Hey, wanna come over and see him?" and drunk me was like "Fuck yeah, kitties!"

We take a cab to her place, I ogle some felines, then had to walk home. I'm guessing I left her place at around midnight. Why am I guessing? Wellll...

My phone was dead, as I discovered trying to figure out how to get home from her place. I had no idea where I was.

I live at the edge of a very large neighbourhood with a lot of winding, twisting roads. I walked for hours in the freezing cold, crying, stumbling over drunk. I remember laying in grass at some point(s?) and also concrete.

And I remember far too vividly crawling from the sidewalk out to the road and laying down.

I laid there for what felt like hours, screaming at approaching vehicles, "FUCKING KILL ME!" as I bawled my eyes out. None did. Obviously.

I remember distinctly being stood up by a paramedic and escorted into an ambulance. The first thing I said was, "Great, another $40 I can't afford."

I was barely able to give the paramedics answers. I don't remember getting out or how I ended up sleeping on a hospital bed in the mental illness waiting area.

I was woken up at 4 in the morning by a crisis worker. She said "sounds like you had a bad night?" No fuckin shit.

Well, I'm not new to this rodeo. I don't remember much of what was said, but she discharged me as soon as we were done. I have a horrible, infected scrape on my hand that is putting me out of commission at work for at least a week. I can hardly move my hand or lift anything. They tell me to go to a walk-in-clinic.

Buses don't start till 7 on weekends, so I went for my phone to call an Uber. And that’s when I discovered a shitty Android-shaped hole in my pocket.

That's right, for those of you keeping score at home, that's two, count 'em, TWO phones I've lost in the last 4 months! How will he lose the next one??? Vote NOW!!

Anyway, I call a cab from the hospital, get home at around 5, message my coworkers that I can't come in to work, then pass out till 10, the exact time I was supposed to start work. I fire up the ole' Book of Faces and find that the shift has been covered.

I go buy a new phone and (attempt) to go to a clinic for my hand. Literally every clinic in this city is closed because of the stupid long weekend. I was exhausted so I didn't bother going back to the hospital for a scrape.

Then something weird happened. I realized that people actually care. Let me explain.

I fucked up the schedule at work this week by having to take my cat to the vet on Tuesday. I felt HORRIBLE about missing another shift, especially two in one week, and especially because this time it was my own damn fault.

It gets worse. When I was told that the shift had been covered, I wasn't told that it was being covered by Rob, who closed last night (a 4-12 shift). Running on 3 hours of sleep, he came in at 10 and is still there now. He'll be there till 12 again.

So now I feel even more horrible. Dude is working 22 hours in 2 days because of me*.

*Not quite - I'll get to that in a bit.

Without a phone to call my best friend, I felt very lonely when I got home from the hospital. I was still able to talk to my other friend from the States, though, and this is an important difference.

When I try to kill myself and tell Connor after the fact, he rarely reacts. (If I'm on the phone threatening to do it he's much more involved and often talks me down). But with Danny instead, who was extremely worried, I finally felt like someone actually cared after the fact.

Everyone will care before because death is scary. Few people care after because living is boring.

Danny wasn't the only one. I didn't realize it at the time because I was still a little out of it but when I told my coworker I wouldn't be able to come in, I told her why. I didn't mean to.

She was so understanding about it, told me not to worry, that I could come in for free food if I wanted.

Then, as I began posting on Facebook about my lovely evening, another coworker messaged me - Rob, the one who is a working machine and could probably work 24/7 if necessary. He said he was on a break at Tim Horton's and I should join him.

Kind of worried at this point; I've bailed on 2 shifts in one week, he's got seniority and I singlehandedly* forced him to work a close-to-open-to-close. *Not really. Again, in a minute. Be patient.

To my surprise we just talked, about what happened, about work, about life. At the end of his break he says to come hang out at work.

The concept of "hanging out" coming together with the concept of "work" had never really made much sense to me because I hate working. But I realized that I hate working, not the work itself, not the place and not the people.

So I go to work and... hang out. I try helping when I can but quickly realize my hand is going to be a problem, probably for a very long time. I can't lift much with it and I have a very limited range of motion; it wasn't just due to the scrape, it was also because I'd used it to break a fall. It's not the worst thing, but it does affect nearly every aspect of making pizzas.

Anyway, I shoot the shit with Alycia and Rob and Lily and nobody's mad at me and the store's a mess but it doesn't matter. *And that's when I'm told that 4 people are out of town, and the other morning person wouldn't message back or pick up the phone all day.* It wasn't completely my fault, so I felt a little better.

Then a few things happened.

First, Anthony showed up for his shift at 4. I really like Anthony: he's a hard worker, nice, funny and a little awkward in the same way that I am. Unfortunately, he only works one night a week, and I've only worked with him twice. He talks with Rob as they count the till and I assume Rob's telling him the reason the dough still hasn't been finished at 4pm (me).

Well, he didn't. I take my glove and bandage off my hand to redo it and he goes "Damn, what happened?" I say, "From last night."

"What happened last night?"

I kind of stare at him for a minute. "Didn't Rob tell you?"

"No, what?"

"I tried to kill myself."

His face falls. I can tell he's starting to wear his awkward face. Many people react differently to this news based on relationship level and experience. When I told Danny, one of my closest friends, he was worried and upset. When I told Anthony, a work acquaintance I barely knew, he had a few moments of awkward "No, hey, that's no good, don't do that" before he suddenly opened his arms for a hug.

I'm a bad hugger. I usually just stand there as the other person does all the hugging. This is because my parents would only ever hug me when they were done yelling at me and had forced me to apologize for something I hadn’t done wrong.

I hugged him back, and I almost started crying. It was the first real hug I'd gotten probably in my entire life. By 'real' I mean for the hugger. He did the socially obligatory thing of pretending suicide isn't as serious as it is before he couldn't keep the charade up. That part of the reaction wasn't real. The hug was real.

Anyway. As Anthony arrives, Alycia leaves. As she's waiting by the door for her ride, she says lots of stuff people say to the suicidal, and also indicates that her boyfriend and herself have had their share of mental illness.

Then she tells me that her second cousin commited suicide. She says he did it because he thought no one would care. "It was sixteen years ago and the family has never been the same. People care. We would all care."

I'd heard it a thousand times before but never really believed it, either because it was being said by someone who probably wouldn't care after a week, or because it's said by someone who is socially obliged to at least pretend to care, so I assume they are just pretending.

But between Danny, a close friend but whom I've never met in person, and my coworkers, who, until now, I wouldn't have called friends at all, I feel like I've "realized" that people really do care.

Something I've never really felt before. Thanks, parents.

Anyway, long story, I know, but a happy-ish ending? Who knows. Still pretty fucking depressed but not suicidal. I don’t know if this will prevent me from trying again, but it might, and that’s better than nothing.

Stay Greater.

#suicide tw #mental illness #hospital #friends #sam

2 notes · View notes

simnovels-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Rags to Riches - Chapter 2

I made sure I sneaked out of the fire station before the sun came up so no one would notice I had been there. Before any of the town's residents set foot outside, I was already safely back in the forest. I spent the day gathering seeds, flowers and I encountered a few more birds! One of them was quite unique, and it turned out it was indeed a very rare species. The pet store owner gave me nearly a thousand simoleons for it! Combined with some of the other animals I caught and the seeds and flowers I gathered, I managed to make more than enough money to buy the piece of land. I had never imagined I would have been able to do that within two days! For the first time since graduating high school, I felt like I had truly accomplished something. If only my parents could see me now. Zorah Diamond, owner of the land at 52 Bristlecone Way in Hidden Springs! It was right in the forest as well, so it was perfect for me.

Unfortunately, buying the land took nearly all of my money and I wasn't able to build myself a little house yet. I had managed to put down some walls and a floor in the evening before I returned to the fire station, but I'd have to spend at least another day scavenging until I could turn it into an actual home. I needed to build a house where I could feel safe and secure. I mean, the woods were very dark at night. It was a perfect place for burglars, since the trees prevented any neighbors from being able to see what was going on at the house next door. Before I'd put anything of value on my property, I had to make sure it had a door that could be locked.

And so I left the fire station the next day to get back to work. It was already the third day since I arrived here, and because I had been in contact with fishermen, pet store owners, flower shops and now also a real estate agent, people started to notice my presence. I could see my various neighbors glance at me curiously as they passed by. I didn't really care much about any of them though. Making money was my main concern and it took up all of my time. Scavenging was a fulltime job and it required a lot of physical labor as well. That third day was my lucky day though! Apparently, around the festival grounds in the forest, wild flowers grew all over the place. I hadn't noticed it two days ago when I had caught the red bird near this place, but I found a lot of flowers that were considered pretty rare in the next town over. The guy at the flower shop paid me a huge amount of money for flowers like Cosmos, Sweet Williams and Indian Blankets. These flowers happened to grow plenty at the festival grounds and it was very close to my land as well.

The flowers turned out to be my personal goldmine. I managed to make more than 5.500 simoleons that day, more than enough to finish building myself a decent home. From the money I managed to include a bathroom, a separate bedroom and a kitchen with a fridge and stove and even a dining table.

That night I slept in my own bed in my own house for the first time. I felt safe, my doors and windows locked, my walls protecting me from any dangers out there in the dark forest. I didn't have to sneak around in the fire station anymore, keeping the lights off not to draw any attention. This was MY house. I could do whatever I wanted in here. I had built it with money I earned from hard work that I did by myself. It truly felt amazing that I had accomplished all of this within such a small amount of time. I started to really like Hidden Springs, with all its rare flowers and animals. Nature had helped me get to where I was right now and I was incredibly thankful for it. If it was even possible, I had come to love nature and all of its living creatures even more than I already did.

After eating nothing but cereal at the fire station for a couple of days, it felt good to make myself an actual healthy meal with fresh ingredients. The thing was, I never learned how to cook! I was too scared to even touch my brand new second hand stove. What if I accidentally set my house on fire?! So I decided to stick to making myself a salad. This was ok for me, I always loved salad it was my favorite meal. Maybe I would learn how to cook some day, but for now this was more than enough for me.

Though I had my own house now and it basically had all the necessities to keep me alive for a very long time, I missed having stuff to do. I had no living room or tv, not even a bookcase to store some books in. There were also bills to pay, like the land tax and electricity bill for the lights and kitchen appliances. I realized that even though I had my own house now, that didn't mean I could just stop working. A house cost money and there was still plenty of new stuff to buy and rooms to expand as well. So that morning after I had made myself a whole bunch of salad that would get me through the next few days, I headed out and went back to my scavenging business. The festival park had grown a few new flowers I could pick and sell and I found plenty of seeds and minerals too. By the end of the day, I had collected stuff worth another thousand simoleons. I was starting to get really good at this! A daily income of more than a thousand simoleons was not bad at all. Better than some actual jobs I heard of. The only downside was, scavenging took up my whole day. It was super exhausting to run all over town, wandering through abandoned areas and thick woods to find stuff at places no one else had bothered to look. By the time I got home, I was hungry, dirty and exhausted. I had no social life at all. I decided I needed an alternative income that would take a little less time. From the thousand simoleons I bought a second hand computer and an easel to paint on. I loved drawing, but I never painted in my life before. I had no clue if the life of an artist was for me, but the least I could do was try.

And so I started painting. I wasn't very good at it. My first painting only sold for two simoleons to a kid on the streets who probably thought it looked like something he could draw as well. But I would eventually get better, and painting was way more relaxing than scavenging. This didn't mean that I had given up on scavenging completely though. I still loved nature and wandering outside made me feel free somehow. But instead of scavenging from the early morning until the late evening, I decided to cut my day in half and only gather stuff until lunch. After that, I would practice my painting until dinner and then I'd even have some time left over to relax on the computer in the evening.

With this new schedule, I gradually earned myself a decent income. It wasn't more than a thousand simoleons a day anymore, but it was good enough to improve my home a little bit. I was able to redo my walls and floors so that it didn't look like a shack anymore and I expanded my bedroom a bit so that I could buy myself a bigger bed. My life was more relaxing now, but I still missed something very important in life: social interaction. I had a computer so I could occasionally chat with strangers not to feel completely isolated from society, but it wasn't enough for me. Back home I never had friends either, but at least my parents were always there to keep me company. It might have been negative company most of the time, but now that I was always completely alone, I realized how important any kind of social interaction really was. Until right now, I had never appreciated my parents company. I found a valuable lesson in this. Humans never seem to realize the things they already have and are always focused on what they don't have. Losing literally everything helped me to find true value in things that for others might seem minor and therefore are underappreciated by them. A roof above my head, a meal with fresh ingredients, a warm shower and a comfy bed... And here I was, feeling super lonely while during my old life all I ever wanted was to get away from the only two people that still bothered to talk and interact me on a regular basis. I wish I could call them, to tell them how I was doing. Just a few weeks ago, I could've never imagined wanting something like that. It's funny how your perspective on life can change so drastically when going through a hard time. I decided I should probably leave behind anything that connected me to my old life and this included my parents. Instead, I left my house and walked towards the town centre. It was time to mingle with my neighbors.

#Rags to Riches #The Sims 3 #Sims 3 Legacy #Sims story #The Sims #Sims 3 challenge #ts3 #ts3 legacy #ts3 story #ts3 challenge #ts3 Rags to Riches #simblr #ts3 simblr #ts3rtr

7 notes · View notes

pixiealtaira · 7 years ago

Text

Things to be Happy About

Pairing: None really, it is a friendship fic...Kurt, Elliot and Dani

Author’s note: So..last year I decided to do a journal prompt challenge. Or, rather, I thought about it. I wrote down all the prompts in a notebook...and it sat and sat and sat. The ridiculous thing of course being it was a 30 days of lists, about as easy a journal challenge as you get...but I was not feeling it at all. So June of last year come around with the stupid notebook still sitting there mocking me and with me at an impass on the long fic that is still in progress, but not at the same point which is good....and I thought, I need something else to write on but I want to still be playing with the character’s I’m am writing so that stall Harry Potter fic isn’t an option...wait a minute! And thus this series of fics was born. The titles will be kinda...bah, However, each title is the journal prompt. So maybe someone out there might want to write the prompt for their own 30 days (plus one) of Lists.

Kurt slid the door to the loft open as he finally reached home after his long day. He was really tempted to shoot whoever was in charge of scheduling for year three at NYADA and he half suspected that Rachel quit simply because she’d heard all about what her next year would have had in store for her. First semester was the work-study project, the screen and play writing class, one of the playwrights in depth classes, and the “from script to concept’ class. The latter three could be taken as on-line courses if one’s work project was out of the city as long as one also attended a summer workshop in each the next year to get the ‘physical’ parts completed, but if one’s work study was near-by each class took time on campus. The second semester was what was lovingly called the practical semester. Of course, Kurt was also half certain somehow Rachel would have convinced everyone that SHE didn’t need to take stage craft (which at NYADA consisted of everything not included in the other classes, pretty much), or makeup arts, or costume design, or sound and lighting and that her spot in Funny Girl should negate a work-study project. Nor did she need to read or write anything, it was all about the acting…or rather the singing. Somehow she would have just ended up with the voice workshops and dance class. She somehow managed it her freshman year, after all. Anyways…Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays Kurt spent from 9 to noon working with make-up and costuming and from 1 to 4pm working stagecraft and with the sound and lighting, about half and half. He understood it, really. He agreed, too. Simply knowing what all went into a production was fine and dandy, if one even got that far. He didn’t think Rachel ever did, nor did Blaine. They saw “sing” “act” “dance” as all they needed to even contemplate. However getting down and dirty with the rest of it was a whole other ballgame. Doing the behind the scenes work made him respect the whole process even more. He could already tell it made a difference in the few auditions he’d managed after starting this semester. Tuesday and Thursdays were spent at dance class and the music workshops. He had Madame Tibideaux’s voice workshop in the round from 9 to 11 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, followed by dance from 1 to 3 and the whole aptly named ‘How to be a proper part of the Chorus” workshop from 3:30 to 5pm. And Monday through Friday his had his voice and speech practicum from 8am to 8:55. He seriously wasn’t sure which days were longer.

From school he headed to one of his jobs. He’d worked at Vogue.com, which was a part time paid job now. He enjoyed it, even though he wasn’t Isabelle’s personal assistant anymore. He worked with wardrobe right now, until he had more time to be the type of assistant Isabelle needed. He rather loved it. A lot was done in the evening and night, after those working the more normal hours had made the decisions and then gone home. It also tended to be a bunch of work at once time but then light hours day to day. Only once had he ever had to choose between work and class, and a once in a long while work emergency had not been a problem. Besides, it was like doing make-overs all the time. It was a good job for now. He also had the diner job. He’d nearly given it up, but after Rachel had quit and Santana had quit and he’d given the owner time to calm down while showing up for work on time and doing all he was expected without pushing for more, it had ended up a much more pleasant experience. On top of those, he’d picked up a few mechanic jobs over the past few months since Blaine had left. He’d been looking desperately to pick up something extra that he could do when he needed just that little bit more cash for rent or bills or to eat.

It was a Wednesday. Stage craft had involved creating the backdrops. It involved hammers, bruises…caused by himself and others, a first coat of paint which needed much better ventilation than was to be had, and a headache. Lighting and sound had involved creating thunder and lightning in many different forms. Costume design was working with sewing machines, all 20 going at once, to finish a commission the costume design teacher had taken on and not followed through well with and thus was overdue on. Make-up design was ‘gore’ this week. Work had been from 4:30 to 11:30 at the diner and he had to be at Vogue by 6am to get the last minute items set for a photoshoot the next day. He’d had an hour of sleep the night before, covering his shift at the diner till 11:30pm and then opening for a sick co-worker starting at 5am, plus getting the last minute work done for his costuming class (steampunk Westside Story…he’d been in charge of two Jets costumes) and redoing a series of props for stage craft that he’d missed half the assignment instructions on. The night before that hadn’t been much better. Kurt was dragging. It was nearly half past midnight when Kurt got home. He wasn’t even certain if he ought to eat and shower, or just fall into bed for his four hours of sleep.

His apartment wasn’t empty. Dani and Elliot were there, kicked back on his couch watching TV and chatting.

“Oh Please don’t tell me I missed a rehearsal that I scheduled?” Kurt asked.

“You’re home!” Elliot exclaimed.

Dani rushed over to Kurt, removed his bag and sat him right in the middle of the couch. Before he could even say anything a bowl of curry over rice was handed to him. It was warm and smelled so good.

“Nope.” Dani said. “It’s just we noticed your schedule on the wall at the rehearsal Sunday night and decided you needed some TLC.”

“We’ll be over Friday night for a movie night and some good old fashioned chilling. I’m bringing the fruit and other snacks.” Elliot added. “I let Dani pick the movie and games.”

“Now eat up so your bath doesn’t get cold. I added just the right oils for relaxation and sleep aid. There is yogurt, granola and fruit for your breakfast. I will know if you didn’t eat.”

With that Dani and Elliot both kissed his forehead and headed out the door, closing it tight behind them.

As he finished his dinner and washed his bowl and fork, realizing all his other dishes he hadn’t been able to do were done and shopping was done and things were cleaned, he pondered his life’s turns.

Even though school was full and wild and work was busy, Kurt was pretty happy. He actually was enjoying his classes and learning tons. Even if he never made it to Broadway, what he was learning now was providing the information he would need to help start community theater groups when he was older. He loved costuming, he liked props, and he had fun working sets and managing a stage. It didn’t make him want to give up his dreams of starring in a show like Rachel had yelled over the phone that it would, but it gave him a greater appreciation for the whole theater experience. He had fun in dance (oddly enough Ms. July was decent now that Blaine and Rachel weren’t there and hadn’t that been a disturbing few days of contemplation) and he learned a lot in his vocal courses, enjoying those as well. School was worth it.

His band was still together and they still performed, in fact they had a small following that would hound them for the next show date and would always show up. They never played to a room smaller than 50 now. All three and the band were fine with this, because they were all just in it for fun and enjoyment. They played with genre and costumes and did theme nights and it was fun. They’d even done weddings and birthday parties.

He had a lovely flat, which he had an extra room which he could rent out when he choose to but which working like he did he could cover on his own if he needed to. He controlled his own food. He didn’t have to worry about if Rachel was being a vegetarian that day or not, or about someone trying to fatten him up to relieve their own self-doubt. He could sing when he wanted and dance when he wanted and watch his own TV.

He had friends and wasn’t that an eye-opener, having real friends. He’d forever be grateful that Elliot got back from his retreat when he did. Elliot missed the whole break-up and the next several weeks while they still had to share the loft until the end of school…during which Kurt went to school and went to class and took his tests and sang when he was supposed to and did his assignments and went to work so rent could be paid and picked up the loft and Blaine went out and partied it up, coming home drunk and skipped classes and blew off June (for whom he was already skipping classes to start off with) or lay on the couch bemoaning life and moaning about how everything and everyone hated him, eating junk food and take out and not doing anything except moan and then yell and throw things. Elliot missed the spectacular melt down when Blaine was informed he flunked out. He missed the movers coming in the next day and Kurt having to stay home from work after watching Blaine trying to pack stuff that wasn’t his for fifteen minutes.

Elliot was home, though, by the end of that move-out week. He had popped over to discuss keeping the band going when the first of the angry texts came from Sam, and then from Brittany and Santana and Mercedes. The texts accusing Kurt of making Blaine flunk out, of making teachers give him bad grades. The ones accusing him of throwing Blaine out the moment they broke-up (which he didn’t) and stealing Blaine’s money by taking rent when he wasn’t even living in the apartment anymore (Blaine hadn’t even paid rent for the last two months) and taking all Blaine’s stuff. Elliot was there the day Kurt came home from his first psychologist visit (with the same guy that encouraged Rachel to see having an understudy as a plot against her and who told Blaine that it was healthy for him to be the alpha gay and Kurt to always be less than him, two confident people cannot work as a relationship, one must always be subservient and lying to each other only gave a relationship spice) and Elliot was there to point out that Kurt thought the guy was insane when Rachel and Blaine were seeing him, why would he think what the guy said to him to be less insane now? Elliot called Dani, who gave Kurt the name of several other individuals, all of whom were more comfortable to talk to and within which he found a psychologist who really did help.

Dani was home by the time he was ready to even consider starting to date, and before that Dani and Elliot dragged him out to other places and encouraged him to make friends at work and school. Chase was the one who suggested speed dating and got him a spot, Dani was the one he complained to about the guy who said he wasn’t over his boyfriend and also the one to suggest maybe it wasn’t Blaine they were talking about. Ellie, who he worked with at wardrobe, sat with him as he called the Apples he knew were still around, apologizing to them and asking for Adam’s contact information. Elliot held his hand while he called Adam and apologized. Elliot and Dani both insisted on meeting Adam, and they all talked as Kurt and Adam become friends again.

Kurt was able to rejoin the Apples and work with them. He reconnected to friends he’d started to make there. He connected again with friends he’d made in his stage combat and mime classes, and joined other clubs again.

Dani and Elliot and all the Apples around at the time were waiting at the coffee house kitty corner to the spot where everyone was supposed to meet up in 6 months’ time, and stayed until Kurt gave up. They took him out clubbing and reminded him why he was in New York. Dani called Chase who called Isabelle, who invaded the loft the next night with a party on the go, just to cheer him up. Elliot called Adam, who flew in over the weekend and they teamed up to drag Kurt sightseeing, to all those places Kurt had not taken the time to see since he was living there and not a tourist.

Kurt came back to New York after running to answer Rachel’s call, instead of staying in Lima. Instead of having the bad advice of that first psychologist and the old-flame speed dating guy in his head shouting and mixing with Rachel’s wish and desire to see them back together, Kurt had other voices. Ones who showed him what he’d suspected all along and told him that yes, choosing each day to love someone and trust someone was a good way to deal after they continually hurt you…however, that didn’t make it the only answer ever. The next day you can choose something else and it is not a failure. He was able to watch Blaine and David together and cry in the bathroom at the loss of a relationship he’d invested so much in, but he was also able to say NO. No to Rachel, No to the relationship and No to trying to fix something that had been so broken for so long. Furthermore, he realized he didn’t even have to start dating just yet. There was nothing that said he had to have a boyfriend at all times to be enjoying life.

His bath was still warm and even the towels were heated. Kurt laughed. He knew Dani liked to toss them in the microwave to heat. He relaxed and reached for the body wash Dani had set out. It was a favorite sleepy time mix that she’d found worked to combat insomnia.

He’d come home to New York. He did his work-study at the same home where he’d done Peter Pan. He helped them put on the musical Annie and the play Barefoot in the Park. He also picked up some extra hours helping a small children’s theater group just down the street from his loft put together a production of Alice In Wonderland after one of the aides at the old performers home found out he had done costumes when he was in high school. It wasn’t working with Broadway babies, heck some of the kids couldn’t sing what they were supposed to and not many could dance at all, but it was fun and so fulfilling to help provide the chance for the kids to be able to get up on a stage and perform to the best ability they could. He was able to take the classes he needed to take at the school and sing with the Apples again and perform with his band. He auditioned. He even managed to end up at two call-backs. Sure, he hadn’t made it onto the stage yet, but a call-back wasn’t anything to be laughed at. He’d played chorus parts in both NYADA musicals since the break-up. He’d scored near the top on all showcase performances he’d done. He was holding his own and he was doing well.

And with him not back in Lima, his dad and Carole had had to come to New York. His dad had had to take a vacation. Carole had had to take a vacation. His dad was able to meet Elliot and Dani and watch the band play on Elvis night. Carole was able to go to work with him at Vogue, and meet Isabelle and watch a photoshoot he’d worked wardrobe on. They went and watched a show. They talked about Finn without despair, able to laugh about what he’d have thought. It was good.

Kurt got out of the tub. He dried off, drained the water, and headed to his bed. He found the comfiest flannel PJs he owned on his bed, his blankets turned down, and Bruce in place. Somehow, he thought he might just have the best life ever.

#glee fanfic #Kurt Hummel #elliot gilbert #Dani

8 notes · View notes

maythedreadwolftakeyou · 8 years ago

Photo

I finished!!! game time was like something like 138 hours but I spent a good dozen or so hours pausing the game to check my phone or wandering off to make dinner.

I this said last night in a sleepy 4am haze, but I really enjoyed the ending. It was fun to play. The only time I died was when I accidentally fell into a chasm bc I didn’t realize a goddamn fiend was gonna come barreling out of the hall and ruin my “melee everything” scheme and I scooted myself right off a dang platform and respawned directly in its mouth. Whoops. When the Archon called up the Architect I was very Oh god not another one but then I didn’t have to actually try to kill it ever just avoid it, so that was fine. I LOVED how everyone came out to help at the end. It always seems unbelievable to me that your pals are content to hang back for the boss fight (ME2 I thought did well with having everyone else away on different tasks, and the ME3 citadel mission where everyone goes together is one of my favorite parts of the trilogy). And getting to run around with Kandros (who i love but duty calls and we can never be together) and Reyes (im still Very Sad i had to break up with him) and the Salarians!! and then your team coming in at the end :333 ah. It was a very feel-good, exciting culmination, and I think it fit the tone of the rest of the story well. Part of me was half-expecting disaster like you have to sacrifice Scott or a bunch of citizens or something, and while I eat that sort of tragedy up, I’m glad there wasn’t any for this game.

Incidentally, all of my screenshots of Scott somehow turned out like this, and so I’ve decided this is a chronic problem his whole life and he has 0 good photos ever even when the rest of the fam comes out lookin great:

ah, Scott. someday i’ll play as him with this Ryder as his sister and it’s gonna have to be a wild ride.

Romance: I romanced Vetra!! I love her a lot as a character but I just kept wishing for more content. And I know I always crave more romancey content but I did feel like her romance arc had a lot less than what I knew people were getting from Jaal’s, especially because it takes you over halfway into the game before you get anything from it. Four flirt opportunities where she doesn’t really flirt back, my Ryder was dying and convinced her crush would never be reciprocated (hence the brief fling with Reyes). But I did LOVE the scenes you do finally get with her, the climbing date was soooo sweet, and I could not stop laughing when she tries to make you dinner. I’m never telling my beautiful girlfriend she doesn’t know how to cook steak. NEVER. she did it perfectly, i love cow. But I just wish there was a scene where YOU could do something for HER. Lexi even tells you that you should show her she’s appreciated and doesn’t have to take care of everyone all the time to be worthy of being liked but then you... never get a chance in game to really do that. Sigh. I definitely have a lot of inner-headcanoning going on for thier relationship. Though Vetra wants to eventually settle down and have a home and i’m... not so sure that’s in the cards for this Ryder. I may tweak the characterization of my Vetra-romance-ryder in some ways and redo this Ryder with Reyes for real next time. I think next up is gonna be a Jaal playthough though.

But, OVERWHELMINGLY, the relationship I was absolutely most fascinated by the whole game and spent way more time thinking about than romance, was the relationship between Ryder and SAM. I went into endgame thinking that the game really hadn’t gotten into that aspect nearly as much as I wanted, AND THEN!!! SAM GETS DISCONNECTED! And it’s revealed they took over WAY more control of the Pathfinder’s physiology than anyone had even guessed!! it’s not just “SAM can take access of enough systems to stop and then restart your heart” it was “SAM is so intertwined with you that they are integrated into these systems already and their absence makes it almost impossible for the Pathfinder to cope without.” I LOVED IT. I was so ready to address that, like, did Ryder know? Did SAM do it by choice or was it just an effect of Alec’s modifications?

And then... nothing. You’re linked back up with SAM. No one questions it. You don’t get to talk to Scott about how SAM is different for you than him now. Or at least, not that I’ve found??? to be fair I can’t seem to find Scott post-endgame yet (where is he hiding???? i’ve been all over Meridian after leaving/going back), and I still need to go check out the colonies and see what people there have to say. But it really seems like everyone sort of was like “whew, glad that’s sorted out, SAM’s back and htis could never possibly be an issue again so we will all forget about it and never bring it up again.” There was one colonist before (Fawkes) who was one of the only non-main characters to ask a really detailed question about SAM/what the future of AI is gonna look like in Heleus and I was so psyched for that convo. There’s a couple dialogue responses you can take, I went with:

becuase I really like the idea that Ryder starts to think of themselves as not just Ryder, but a Ryder-And-SAM partnership. There’s a lot of sacrifice in that. You’re admitting that your body is not just You anymore, but a team where both sides are valued.

I’ve spent a lot of the game thinking about Ryder’s internal dialogues with SAM, and the dynamic it would add to their relationship. You don’t have a voice that lives inside your head (and gives you its 100% undivided attention while you’re in the field) and not end up talking to it all the time. SAM asks you questions back on the Tempest when you talk to them and I bet they would when out and about as well, just privately. There’s a line in one of the Vaults where Ryder starts talking to herself and then catches it--

--because she gets more and more accustomed to not being the only one in her head. SAM is always there. More than that, they always have your back, and are ready to feed you whatever you need to get the mission done. They’re not just a voice, they’re a tool; and they’re not just a tool, they’re a support system. Maybe Ryder knows just how intertwined SAM is becoming with theer body, and isn’t just aware, but welcomes it. The Ryders are a fucked up family who aren’t good at talking to each other, but SAM means you never have to be alone again. Someone is always there for you, protecting and watching out for you.

So in the final mission, when SAM is ripped away from Ryder--it’s not just a physical effect. It’s like losing a part of your soul and a best friend and a, in some ways, a parent--because SAM learned through Alec Ryder before anyone else--and in other ways, a child--because Ryder is responsible for teaching SAM what it means to be a person and how to navigate the world. And I wish you could convey that emotional distress (even if less complex) in the game, and that Ryder was as worried for SAM’s well being as they are for Scott’s when they race to stop the Archon. Becuase in a lot of ways, I think my Ryder would have grown closer to same than she ever did with her brother.

Anyway, I wish the game hadaddressed these things more, but I also accept that like--this is a trope that I just am REALLY into and have been for ages. It’s not gonna be what everyone wants as the main focus, and it just wasn’t the big story they were trying to tell. At the beginning of the game the descriptions of SAM hyped me up so hard because they reminded me very strongly of my favorite short story, Silently And Very Fast by Catherynne Valente (which, if you haven’t read it, it’s really amazing and you can read the first part here (the other 3 parts are linked at the bottom of each chapter), or I can send a pdf of it if you want, it’s really good people read it please and then tell me about your Emotions). The story veered off not long into the plot of the game (I, along with many others, suspected for a while that SAM would turn out to be like the mother’s consciousness integrated into the AI or something) but I stayed pretty invested in it as a major part of my Ryder’s experience in Heleus.

And like, I guess this would be something I’ll probably end up doing fic about now since the game didn’t give me as much as I wanted (and I only meant to write a short paragraph about it here and now i have like 9 whoops), so I’ll probably keep thinking about it with the rest of my Ryders. There’s so much potential there. Jade Ryder really grew attached to SAM, but there’s also potential for resentment there--SAM is always watching, Ryder essentially gives up any aspect of privacy in their life, even if SAM is polite enough not to comment on it.

wow this got away from me. anyway. that’s the game!!!!! i’m running around making sure i’ve talked to everyone still. I need to go check up on the colonies and stuff, but I did pretty much everything else before the last mission, so there’s not much to play. Just some assignments that don’t have navpoints. and then start thinking about my next Ryder!!! I played Jade Ryder as pretty logical and professional, with a tendency to open up more with people as she grew to know them better, though she struggled to be open/heartfelt when talking to Angara when her natural conversation style with them flopped hard at first. I think my next Ryder who I still need to name is gonna be way more casual/joke-y (tho i think Ryder is HILARIOUS no matter what, it’s so fun to have such a lighthearted protag) and probably more reckless and prone to following their whims. Gonna have to re-battle the CC though which I’m not so much looking forward to.

oh also re: the second picture: i FUCKING LOVE that you beat the architect on Elaaden so hard it shoots itself into orbit and slowly decays and you can just sit there and watch it slowly fizzle in the cold vacuum of space

#jade ryder #mass effect: andromeda #SAM #mass effect: andromeda spoilers #this got long SORRY #im just having Many Thoughts #ramblings #long post

7 notes · View notes

cosmosogler · 8 years ago

Text

really, REALLY late start today. sorry. i was trapped in tv tropes purgatory.

i really hurt my eyes with all the reading i did... and lost track of time.

anyway i got up early, at 9:05, and showered and drove out to the behavioral health center. i got a little turned around and was one minute late for my appointment. and i also hit the curb when i was trying to park because i’m good at driving when i’m stressed.

i managed to NOT damage the car this time at least! baby steps. curbs are the worst. i have never hit anything that wasn’t part of the ground. well, except for the recycling bin that dad decided to leave directly behind the car on the driveway that you couldn’t see from the rearview mirror. the car is normally in the garage so i couldn’t have seen the bin before i got in the car either.

ok i got sidetracked. i need to stay focused because i want to go to sleep because my head hurts. staying focused with a headache is really easy!!!

i hate that my stupid face scrunches up when i have a headache. it makes everything worse. because i always have a headache. mostly from grinding my teeth forever every day always.

ok so i got to the hospital and went in for the paperwork and interview. i got a quick medical check up and then filled out my paperwork. the nurse asked if i wanted something to drink and rattled off a bunch of available choices and i asked for water and she left and never came back. so i was thirsty for about an hour.

the doctor, charlie, came in well after i had figured out all the paperwork. i was expecting to be interrupted because i was taking forever. but she was nice and asked questions and didn’t seem judgmental when i stumbled over my answers and gave caveats to all my problems. but then i mentioned that i couldn’t start until next week because i am going up to flagstaff to sort out school stuff and would miss two days of therapy this week. she immediately put down the survey and told me i could only start within three days of finishing the paperwork. so i would have to fill out everything again in a week if i wanted to start next week. i kinda sighed. but she promised she would keep my file so i didn’t have to redo EVERYTHING. and they are open on weekends so i can make an appointment for next monday and start right away on tuesday.

so i drove home. i sang badly along with my ipod. my voice was just not with it today. i don’t have as much range as the singer i was listening to even on a good day though. so i just had to hope that the car wasn’t judging me.

i got home and got caught up on some web sites and tumblr blogs and i started reading some homestuck analysis because i still think about it sometimes. i follow the fan comic “double death of the author” and it is very good and one of the writers wrote very detailed rants on why the ending was disappointing. it feels nice to see some of my thoughts in someone else’s words.

then i went to chipotle for lunch with dad and the neighbor and his daughter. the daughter is roommates with my sister at their apartment since they both go to the same university. recently she has been making some very bad and also dangerous decisions relating to alcohol so my sister has distanced herself from the neighbor’s kid. dad thinks she should just “forgive and forget” and “talk it out” but my sister is adamant that the daughter is not welcome in her life while she is making these decisions. she has forgiven her before and she always interprets it as permission to keep doing it, so my sister put her foot down after a really bad night.

i agree with my sister. i didn’t say that to anyone except her though.

the chipotle was good. i actually ate the whole burrito. the whole burrito! i didn’t put as many things in it as i usually would though.

after that i sank into my tv tropes/wikipedia fugue for several hours. there is just so much information. and i need to read literally all of it. i can barely even stop when i want to, if i manage to catch the time. i was like this when i read long novels too. reading while walking, reading at night in the car, reading under streetlights while we walked from the car to the store, waiting for my family to fall asleep late at night and then creeping into the bathroom and reading behind the door for hours and hours. i mean, i didn’t want to sleep, because horrifying nightmares. and i didn’t care about school, because the bullying was at its worst those years. the only genuinely interesting thing that didn’t also hurt me was reading. and it did hurt me... i don’t have as much “imagination” stamina as i used to and my eyes are getting weak. and i got back problems that i don’t tell my family about. it literally always hurts. i can’t make it stop.

i got yelled at for reading too long several times. when the last harry potter book came out my dad caught me reading upside down with my feet up against the wall at 3 am and nearly shook the walls when he punched the door. i didn’t even like harry potter as much as my sister did. mom caught me reading in the bathroom when i couldn’t wait long enough for her to go to bed to continue the story.

i just... have to look at all the information in front of me. it’s in instinct i can’t fight, and when i think about it, i don’t really want to fight it that much. it’s bad in some situations, but it’s mostly useful. and good when i need to make an informed decision.

even in discord channels, if other people had a conversation while i was away, even if i have no interest in the topic, and i know i won’t find it interesting, i will read it.

i’ve gotten just a little better about that, mostly because i don’t usually have the energy to interact with people.

anyway i remembered (i just also remembered right now so i will have to do that first thing in the morning) that i need to schedule my shuttle up to flagstaff for wednesday. so i went to ask dad what a good time for him to drop me off is. he said he was on the phone so i waited quietly and petted the dogs. eve is limping more than she was a few days ago.

after a few minutes dad spiked the phone into the desk and it hit the wall and fell behind the desk. i was startled, but i asked dad “what would be a good time for” and he interrupted me to snarl “i don’t care.” so i left the room.

he called me back into the room later by yelling at me. i asked what a good time would be for him since i needed to take the shuttle on wednesday, which is his physical therapy day. i have set aside wednesdays as “dad has full access to the car” days for the past several months so he could go to physical therapy for his elbow. he told me he hasn’t gone to that basically since i started scheduling my week around it. after yelling at me for not knowing about it and accommodating him when i first started leaving the house again.

COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so i gotta schedule the shuttle tomorrow morning. it’s 12:40 right now i can’t do it before i want to sleep if i’m gonna keep writing.

then i had the Iconic Exchange with asher about reach arounds. and then it was an hour later and mom got home and made a quiche. it was ok... it didn’t taste bad or anything, but i didn’t like the way that it filled up my mouth every single bite. i talked to mom about why she was angry at dad. they do not communicate effectively or understand each other very well. despite mom thinking she understands dad perfectly. they have very different priorities, and different priorities than the other thinks they have. then i took the dogs outside and then i took wiley on a walk. but only a short one because i had been chewed on by mosquitoes in the few minutes i took them out back and i was still tired and sore from the long drive yesterday.

then i kept reading tv tropes and then it was like 11. but i finally finished the tabs. all of them except two which i am not going to look at right now. even though they are interesting.

i went downstairs and had some strawberries and came back up and watched some youtube. i found a new poet that is really cool. i put one of his works in my queue so that will post in like two days. i have a two-day queue buffer most of the time.

then i panicked when it was 12 and started writing!!!

oh, mom talked to me about eve while i was eating. i mentioned that the sooner i left for florida at the end of the summer, the more likely it would be that eve would still be alive when i left. so i wouldn’t be there for her. mom made a face and asked if i really thought they wouldn’t take care of her. that’s not really what i was getting at, but i said that’s not what i thought and mentioned that she’s walking badly. mom said that my uncle mike was going to wait until she stopped using the leg and then amputate it. she should have up to another year in her if she recovers from the surgery well and the cancer hadn’t become malignant over the last few years. it will be easier for her to adjust to having three legs if she no longer uses the bad one anyway.

i don’t want her to die... but when i leave for florida i won’t be coming back, not really. they employ graduate students year-round. mom asked if i wanted eve to die and i said no but i felt guilty. it’s complicated... like, what if it was me. would i rather die around loved ones or live longer and see them leave. and how does my depression factor into my answer to that question in a way that it wouldn’t for eve? i can’t make the decision for her, but i also can’t communicate the situation to her in any way or get her feedback. all she can see is that i’m sad for some reason.

i watched her run around in the backyard with doge and wiley. diogi has resorted to little bunny-hops with her back legs to get moving while she scrambles much faster with her front legs. it looks funny but i’m glad she can still go more or less where she wants. eve has started running that way too though. supporting her back leg with her good one when she runs. diogi just kicks her back legs at the same time because it’s easier to coordinate.

i dunno. i always feel wistful and sad when i watch the dogs. like this might be the last time i see them do this or that. how do they feel about it? they have to know. diogi’s doing “pack protection” behaviors that pack animals do when one of their members is sick or otherwise infirm.

ehhhh i made myself sad. they’re not even dead yet. i am always happy to see them but also sad to know that i might not see them again. i can’t get that thought out of my head and just enjoy the time i got.

grief is weird. the past few days i’ve been feeling nothing and getting really confused when an emotion pops up because what even are emotions, but put an old dog in front of me and i feel REALLY BAD and it shoves me back into being alive IMMEDIATELY.

and then i’m gonna adopt a senior cat when i get to florida. a+ plan, can’t see how that will go wrong. there are no holes in this plan.

ok it’s 1 i gotta sleep. therapist appointment at 11:30 tomorrow. i will get up around 10 as usual though so it won’t be a rush. i was hoping i could push back my wake-up time to 9 but since it is already after 1 i don’t see that happening. i have just been too tired the last few days.

i know i had dreams last night but i don’t remember what they were about. just that they were there. as they always are. i can recall dreaming at least 6 nights a week, usually 7, even if i can’t remember anything besides vague impressions. and i don’t remember them less than half the time. it’s clogging up all my memory and emotion and energy space. for 20 years.

#oh look i talk about animal death again #grief is weird

2 notes · View notes