#ask me to elaborate/give more detail on any of this and i will gleefully answer bc like reggie i too am insane <3 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

secret-diary-of-an-fa · 3 years ago

Text

God of War (PS4) Review: Kratos’ Postal Grief Beard Versus Norse Mythology

Once upon a time, a man was born by the name of Cory Barlog and thus a coin was flipped. Would he become a videogame developer or would he take up guarding the Mines of Moria by pulling wizards into a precipice? Those really are the only two options with a name like Barlog. Anyway, apparently the Mines of Moria were a bit of a commute, so the world gained a talented Auteur developer with a unique vision for a game series about going postal in ancient Greece. Fast-foward a number of years specifically calculated to make you feel old and ancient Greece is a distant memory. Norse mythology is where all the cool kids hang out nowadays, and that’s where we’re going in today’s review.

As you might have guessed, I’ve just finished playing God of War (PS4), which is fun to say because it rhymes. It’s a very good game that should be a very bad game. When considering modern media artefacts, I’m often prompted to ask the question ‘what went so wrong?’, but this may be the first time I’ve had to ask the question ‘what went so right?’.

Let me explain: God of War 4 (I don’t care that they don’t put the number on the box art, that’s what it fucking is) makes a single, monumentally stupid creative decision that should ruin the entire enterprise, but doesn’t. And that creative decision was- wait for it- a stab at maturity.

The last time we saw Kratos- the world’s angriest mythical being- he was finishing his battle with the Greek gods in God of War 3. There was a moment in that game which, to me, typified what was so great about the series. If I recall the sequence of events correctly, you kill your way through an ocean of expendable goons and critters who are just trying to defend their home on Mount Olympus, dripping with blood and screaming furiously, then wander into the bedroom of one of ancient Greece’s sauciest goddesses and play a sex minigame that you win by fucking her so well that her handmaids orgasm too. Then you toddle outside again and, head cleared, solve an incredibly complex and cerebral puzzle involving non-Euclidean geometry and perspective manipulation that takes bloody ages. That, in a nutshell, was the core identity of the original God of War: a gleefully unrestrained and immature approach to sex and violence coupled with a grouchy willingness to make unsuspecting players feel like fucking idiots for no reason whatsoever. It was awesome. In contrast, God of War 4 picks up many, many years later with Kratos hiding out in Midgard of the Norse mythos and, for once, he hasn’t got a nark on and he’s not trying to stick his cock in someone with cartoonishly huge knockers. He’s just sad because his missus has passed away, leaving him and their young, impressionable son alone in a big, scary world full of trolls and ginger psychopaths. ‘Sad’ isn’t a completely new emotion for Kratos, but, up until this point, he was usually sad in a way that resulted in five hundred people getting their spines broken in a very colourful manner. Now he just wants to cremate the remains of the woman he loved and carry her ashes to the tallest peak in the nine realms so he can scatter her in accordance with her final wishes. And that’s what he does, with son- Atreus- in tow. It’s a twenty-plus hour game in which the objective is very simply to honour someone’s preferred funeral rites- nothing more, nothing less. It’s very modest by Kratos usual standards. Remember that his stated goal in the previous game was to punch freakin’ Zeus so hard that his face would go all concave and then repeatedly stamp on his corpse.

We never actually find out much about what Kratos was up to between games or how he met his wife. However, he’s a bit thiccer than in previous instalments and seems to have lost the use of the ‘jump’ button outside of context-sensitive environments. On that evidence, I choose to believe he’s been running a small but successful family restaurant called ‘Kratos’ Potatoes’ and enjoying it all a bit much. And why not? He beat up Zeus- if he just wants to create and sample homely yet exotic Greco-Norse fusion cuisine while growing a ridiculous straggly dad-beard, I say let him crack on. Actually, is it a ‘dad beard’ or is it a ‘grief beard’? I think they send them to videogame characters in the post whenever a loved one dies so they can signal to the world how sad they are through the medium of angsty facial hair. But where was? Oh yeah: cracking on with it.

Y’see this is where the plot comes in: the Norse gods won’t let Kratos crack on. They’re determined to make him bow before Odin- especially Baldur, who is way too invested in having a fight with Kratos for reasons that won’t become apparent until very late in the game. They just keep turning up and trying to break Kratos and his increasingly like-him-but-not-as-good-at-it son Atreus. This time around, our heroes commit heinous acts of violence to defend themselves, not enact revenge, as they travel, inexorably, to the top of a lonely mountain through landscapes of stunning natural beauty and many, many hostile creatures.

Of course, Kratos taking his son on a hiking holiday with added troll-murder and the occasional slap-fight with Norse mythology’s biggest killjoys doesn’t sound as interesting as the original games. After all, those were basically a production of Kill Bill in which the part of Bill was played by a guy with the power to summon lightning bolts and access to a seemingly unstoppable army of monsters and demigods. The ‘fun factor’ even seems to have taken another downgrade, in that Kratos no longer operates with the entertainingly demented passion of the insane: he has been tempered by time and love and managed to turn himself into a paragon of serious self control. So why is God of War 4 so bloody good? Partly, I suspect, the answer lies in the constantly evolving relationship between Kratos and Atreus, which gives the story an unbelievable amount of heart and always manages to feel very organic. Kratos never learned how to be a parent, and we essentially watch him do it in real time, forming a bond with his son that seems impossible at the start of the game and inevitable by the end. Partly, the games greatness lies in the characters you meet along the way, who range from bickering dwarves to talking, decapitated heads who prattle on like laid-back tour-guides. Partly, it’s in the beautiful, epic landscapes that make the journey across the Realms to the highest peak feel epic and significant, even while it is small and personal.

But a videogame is nothing without gameplay, and it is here that God of War 4 really shines. I loved the original God of War trilogy (especially the third instalment), but I rarely felt like I was playing as, y’know, a god of war. Kratos might not be an uncontrollable whirlwind of fury any more, but he feels truly powerful for the first time in the ongoing series. In fights, every punch feels like it could crack stone; every axe-throw like it could rend the sky; every chain-whip like it could legitimately start a forest-fire. Out of combat, Kratos moves around the environment with the stolid grace of a man who knows his movements are inevitable; irresistible; an imposition on the environment that can’t be denied. You climb and complete elaborate, complex traversals knowing that the satisfaction you feel isn’t just the satisfaction of finding the correct route or solving an obstacle, but the satisfaction of a being forcing his way through a landscape that resists him at every turn but cannot stop him. The puzzles- of which there are many- strike the perfect balance between conceptual trickiness and ease of execution to remind you that Kratos is smart as well as determined; that his mind is as indomitable as his body. Then there are the little touches involving heaving huge stone pillars and similar unnecessarily over-the-top efforts. In short, the gameplay is interwoven with who Kratos is- with what he is in way that seems completely unprecedented. Even the RPG elements feel appropriate: they reflect the protagonist’s growing confidence in a skillet he hasn’t used in a long, long time.

Do I miss the uniquely juvenile, over the top identity of the old games? Absolutely: I’m a great fan of gratuitous gore and scantily clad women with big fuck-off swords. Usually, I find the desire for maturity in games to be a silly, pretentious trend that foolishly eschews anything obviously ‘fun’ for no reason other than courting the respect of people whose respect isn’t worth having. But I don’t think that’s what’s going on here- at least, not entirely. The developers of the God of War games are clearly artisans and craftsmen of extreme talent: their attention to detail is superb and their ability to weave a good tale from a simple premise is actually a little daunting for someone who considers himself a bloody good story-teller. It’s worth remembering that the de facto head of the studio, Barlog, became a father himself before commencing work on this game about a father learning to bond with his son. It feels personal and meant because it is. Other games might reach for superficially mature themes like family and redemption for altogether cynical reasons. God of War 4 does it because such thoughts are clearly much on the developer’s mind. I asked already ‘Do I miss the identity of the old games?’ and the answer is still yes. But that question deserves a follow-up: am I willing to embrace the identity of this new, quieter God of War anyway? And yes, yes I am.

But if we could have a few more women with enormous knockers and Kratos going properly batshit just once or twice in the next sequel, that would also be welcome. I mean, let’s try to strike a balance here, people, for pity’s sake.

#Secret Diary of a Fat Admirer #God of War #God of War 4 #god of war sequel #Kratos #Zeus #norse mythology #greek mythology #videogames #game review #games

17 notes · View notes

aroworlds · 4 years ago

Text

Those With More, Part Two

When Mara Hill's magic results in her brother's impossible, wondrous transition, of course Suki wants to know how she did it! What if Sirenne's magic workers can help others find euphoria? What if this magic can heal Suki's hands—or at least lessen her pain? But Mara, distrustful of priests after their failure in protecting Esher, won't share her power.

A senior priest must bear responsibility, but Suki suspects her problems lie deeper than lack of oversight, and her reluctance to discuss her aromanticism with a woman who needs support only proves it. Would she have preserved Mara's faith and Esher's health if she hadn't first avoided revealing herself to her aromantic kin? If she'd faced their expectations that she shoulder their pain and grief as well as her own?

Suki has lived her life by the Sojourner's second precept, but how does she serve when she doesn't have more to give—and never will?

Contains: A disabled, non-partnering allo-aro woman struggling with the expectations of her young, fledgling aromantic community; an autistic, aromantic priest reconsidering their expectations of their community's leader; and an allo-aro woman in need of support as she struggles with her non-partnering, aro-ace brother's illness.

Content Advisory: Please expect many references to or depictions of aro antagonism, allo-aro antagonism, amatonormativity, familial abuse, mental illness, suicidal ideation, death, gender dysphoria, chronic pain, ableism and ageism. This piece contains non-detailed, non-specific reference to a character's past suicide attempts. This section includes characters embracing and touching.

Length: 4, 691 words (part two of two).

Note: This is the last story in my Suki mini-series, but it refers to characters introduced in The Sorcerous Compendium of Postmortem Query and is best read following the stand-alone story What Makes Us Human. You can find links to all on my pinned post or on this Tumblr master post.

Some scars are long years in the fading, if at all.

***

She isn’t surprised when Moll strides, their braid and girdle book swinging with each step, down the path to her garden. Sirenne rarely leaves its rules unsaid, an admirable quality to Suki’s way of thinking, but one needn’t long elaborate to impart the expectation that junior priests arrive promptly when summoned. Moll, despite the lifetime of alienation that leads to questioning rules and a habit of interaction best described as “restrained”, hasn’t dawdled upon hearing her request. A problem, that.

She understands, though, in the way of a woman once a girl who couldn’t have understood at all.

Obedience to conformity isn’t something she feels in the heart; Suki responds to being haltered with sharp words and loud arguments. Amadi, knowing this, kept her with em for a year before taking her to Sirenne, a year of learning to accept reasonable restrictions before facing the greater challenge of an acolyte’s service. That bitter, aching, defiant Suki would have scorned Moll’s flushed face and hurried pace, not seeing that she reacted to the same set of weighty, dehumanising beliefs and demands.

Submission and rebellion are just two sides of the same coin.

She doesn’t approve, but she understands.

“Don’t you even think about it,” she says, gleefully irascible, as Moll opens their mouth. “No clucking allowed. Sit down. The food’s safe, but it’s been half an hour. The tea’s probably cold.”

Moll nods and settles themself on Mara’s recently-vacated bench, the tea tray resting between them and Suki’s chair. As always, they move slowly, carefully, cautiously—like a wolfhound sniffing a newborn kitten or a man allowing a butterfly to alight on his finger. Like a tall, broad, boulder-shaped priest attempting to avoid threatening or scaring, however inadvertently, those around them. Like a puppy lying on its back, belly bared and paws tucked under its chin, its defencelessness a performance made before all would-be predators.

I won’t hurt you, so don’t hurt me.

They look more like a fig tree towering over the world’s seedlings than a puppy, but while a fig possesses an ancient, confident majesty in its quest to subsume another life in its great roots, Moll is … Moll. Shy, awkward, hesitant, uncertain. Rarely does she see them widen their arms or roll their hips, as if forever working to make their immense body appear smaller, softer, lighter. Just as a fig, for all its grandeur, lies vulnerable to any woman wielding an axe, Moll lies vulnerable to the wounds wrought by tongue, expression and gesture.

She wants to, simultaneously, swathe that nervous puppy in a warm blanket while taking a sharp blade to that fig’s trunk and daring Moll to defend themself.

Some scars are long years in the fading, if at all.

“Do you … mind, if I heat the tea?”

“Clucking,” she says, fighting to bite back her impatience. She doesn’t want to be the kind of old woman who moans about the young’s blathering, but sometimes they make her silence difficult! “If I objected, couldn’t you cool it down? Or tell me to pour a cup and let time have its way? I’d tell me, personally, to stick my head where the sun never shines. Try, if you want.”

Moll’s deep-set brown eyes put her in mind of shadowed pools—their fathomless serenity now disturbed by a crotchety priest’s thrown rock. Wordlessly, they pour a small amount of tea into a saucer before resting one hand on the teapot’s handle. The other guides a finger to the saucer, dampens a fingertip and traces, with careful delicacy, evaporating glyphs atop the tan glaze.

Many magicians speak loudly or write in great looping script, their magic become another performance of wordplay and artistry—as if, Suki always thinks, they find adoration for their art more useful than magic itself. Moll works in gestures and murmurs, collected and subtle. Everything must be reduced, depressed and lessened for safety, and she sighs, for even she recognises that they’re no casual magician. Why shouldn’t the world outside a small, backcountry monastery welcome or accommodate such ability?

Why shouldn’t Freehome welcome Suki’s free, unrestrained, honest self?

Such pondering, when she knows the answers to both questions, provides only one thing: delay.

“How old were you,” she asks, “when you learnt the word for your aromanticism?”

A slight frown, more the suggestion of expression than the actuality, shifts Moll’s brow. “I know exactly,” they say in their slow, deep voice, “because I learnt five weeks and two days after my acceptance as acolyte.” They purse their lips, studying the movement of their finger across the teapot. When a breath of steam issues from the spout, they pull back their hand. “I knew what I was since childhood, but knowing that I am loveless isn’t the same as a more … academic term. Loveless … people have other ideas about what that means.”

She always knew whom and what she was, clinging to a truth so obvious part of Suki still finds it absurd that Mama Lewis persisted in her stubborn obliviousness. Knowing, though, isn’t recognition, isn’t identification and permission; knowing isn’t the certain categorisation of the self as a different, acknowledged, communicable manner of ordinary.

Knowing isn’t pride.

“When do you think I found the word?”

Moll shakes their head, pouring now-steaming tea into a clay mug, the glaze chipped about the rim from years of use, the handle too small to fit all of Moll’s fingers. Their expression shows not the slightest hint of curiosity towards her questions. “I wouldn’t begin to guess, sir.”

Given Moll’s newness to the red, they can easily rough-reckon the numbers, so she answers as they did. “One and a half years before you, and leave off the ‘sir’! What are we, Astreuch?” Suki draws a shaking breath, her voice undeservedly sharp, but how can she fight both her acid tongue and the awful surge of hurt? How can she fight both her acid tongue and a nebulous tension that only fuels and strengthens her aching joints? “I was accepted, in a ‘some people don’t like relationships’ way. My mentor, Amadi, was like us. But the word? I didn’t know words until a cluster of young priests brought books from Khaloun. I found it, unexpectedly, while reading. So I made it my life’s work to have, here, our library.” She pauses, rueful. “Or the rest of my life’s work, since…”

Moll has given only patient, considered answers. Moll hasn’t asked questions coated in that dread mingling of need, hope and dismissal. Moll has done nothing to deserve her mood beyond asking one question, in the vegetable garden, that they had and have every right to voice.

Anticipatory fear and aching memory, poisonously entwined, have ever raised her hackles.

Suki counts backwards from ten, breathing long and slow, before realising that the Stormcoast’s culture of tiptoeing around advancing age—one daren’t observe that another approaches a state of “elderly” or “ancient”—has left Moll dwelling in a stone-faced, finger-entwining, staring-at-the-ferns silence.

“Which relative told you off as a child for calling another relative ‘old’?” she asks, grinning. “You think I don’t know I’m over the bloody hill and rolling down the other side? Yes, it’s the rest of my life’s work, because most of my life happened beforehand! Why pretend otherwise?”

“Many.” Moll rolls their shoulders back, softening. “How old were you?”

“Seventy-nine.” Suki silently applauds them for avoiding the tired “may I ask how old were you” approach and leaves the rest of the reckoning to Moll, carefully shifting her hands. Too often, these days, she earns nothing for her restful efforts but more time yearning for the work around which she has anchored her life. “Sometimes I feel like I was alive when the Sojourner supposedly lead hir band of survivors from the Change-ravaged North. Sometimes the world feels impossibly different, from then to now. Mostly, I feel the same as I always was, and the world's less different than people think, but people treat me like a ... a relic. Fancy attempting to educate me about theories I promoted because the old can’t understand the new!” She sighs. “Pour me a cup of plain tea, please, and put a pill on the saucer. The rats are gnawing today. Bloody rats.”

If her pain becomes unbearable, she’ll ask Thanh for hir set of nerve-blocking spells. She won’t be able to move or feel much of her body, but since she’s already remaining still, the real difference lies in consideration for Thanh. Ze’s had enough on hir metaphorical plate over the last week without Suki’s adding to hir work—and she hates to call on hir when she unnecessarily provoked at least half the throb in her hands, knees and ankles. Thanh has never made her feel as though she shouldn’t, but she does nonetheless.

She’s learnt the hard way how much her mood, and her guilt over wishing for relief, stokes and banks her pain.

Moll sets down their mug and pours another. “Can I do anything for you?”

Suki laughs. “I don’t suppose there’s the slightest chance you’ve figured out Thanh’s nerve blockers?”

They shake their head with speed enough that she guesses this a source of some frustration. “I don’t know how! There’s so much grafting onto nerve points, and in trying to describe it all and then shell … I make too many mistakes in the spell compression. It isn’t something in which you want mistakes.” They stop, breathing out long and slow. “I’m sorry, s—I’m sorry.”

Suki considers asking why, since she can’t expect a former quartermaster to reveal mastery of an art for which Thanh spent years studying at Eastern universities, but isn’t all this another distraction? “Don’t be. Thank you. Can you put the tray, just the cup and saucer, on my lap?”

Moll shifts the teapot and plate of corn muffins onto the bench before, as carefully as if handling fragile porcelain, arranging the rest of the tray on Suki’s lap. “Do you want to eat?”

“No.” Once, she could clasp a cup without provoking or worsening the pulling, throbbing pain in her wrist and fingers. So simple a thing to hold a cup, to drink, to return it to her tray! The tea’s heat doesn’t ease her pain, but the warm, tingling sensation distracts her somewhat, so she cradles the cup in both hands before raising them to her face. Now, at least, she needn’t waste her time in hope. As much as she yearns for Mara’s unlooked-for shape of witchcraft, there’s no reason to think her magic anything but sorcery, distant and unattainable. So be it.

She has blessings to count: a home, acolytes to help her wash and dress, purpose.

The bitter pill sticks to her tongue before she swallows it down.

“I can imagine,” Moll says, settling themself back onto the bench, “but in that way of theory. I can’t know, in the heart, the longest rhythms of time unknowing or half-knowing, given all denied us because we lack comprehension’s authority and…” They trail off, taking up their mug and, likely unconsciously, mirroring the position of her hands. “Place. That sense of place in time, in space, in community, in family, that … existential assuredness. Place. I know separation, distance, but I won’t pretend that I know that deeper shape.”

That Moll thinks their service should encompass only the safety of the vegetable garden is both tragedy and metaphor, but their still face suggests they don’t realise the contradictory echo of old words behind the new.

Mara wanted her kindred’s acknowledgement of her pain, someone to help her shoulder the weight of her agony in the validation and sympathy offered only by one who understands. Was Suki wrong to think, for so long, that she can’t risk seeking comfort? Does Moll’s rare consideration, offered unprompted no less, betoken safety enough for her to try?

“Do you have place, now?”

Moll cocks their head to the side, tapping one finger against the mug’s brown handle.

Suki waits.

“I don’t know that I will ever have that … neat, puzzle-piece sense of fitting into any time or space shared with others. Just autism alone, just aromanticism alone, just genderlessness alone … possibly. But they can’t stand alone, even if others want them to.” Moll exhales, hissing their breath over their lips in the loud, habitual easing of a priest performing and, through performance, encouraging the behaviour. “Sometimes … I want, so much, the ease of that fit, the confidence of an unquestioned place. And always … not, never, at that price.”

It shames her that, for all she has long held Moll at arm’s length, they are so willing to share.

“Burn the whole damn puzzle,” Suki says through a terrible, crooked grin.

Moll nods, a slight frown creasing their lips.

Do they realise? The shock of their first conversation in the vegetable garden, followed by an induction into the events surrounding the Hill siblings, may have seen them miss or put aside the obvious, for all that they touched upon it in their question of her. Moll owns too much perception to remain in acceptance of the thick paint covering the wallpaper beneath, and priests must do just that: question.

No thought or word can be worth anything if crumpling under curious, inquisitive challenge, so the question remains: have they the courage to ask?

“Do you know,” she says in a would-be conversational voice, “that the best thing about being a priest is that you can, amongst other priests, speak your mind? The trick lies in only having something worth speaking. Try it.”

With the speed and presence of a glacier, Moll turns their head to look Suki in the eyes. Their brow sits low and heavy, their controlled voice too tense for indifference: “What is this, then?”

Suki shakes her head. “No, try again.”

Moll’s lips shift, as if they mean to mouth a word before deciding otherwise. “Do you want honesty?”

“Your own mind will tear you apart if you say anything less, so why should I expect otherwise?”

A slight crease of Moll’s brow may suggest amusement—or consternation. Both, perhaps. “You’re discussing,” they say with painful slowness, “aro—” They hold up a hand, stopping her from remarking on their woeful statement of the obvious, and Suki, despite her anxiety-fuelled throbbing, works to hide a smile. “When you’ve had five years to start a conversation, why now?”

Their breath hisses over lips and teeth, one hand sketching lines on the meat of their robe-covered thigh.

Suki nods her encouragement.

“I did think that if this were well-known, I’d have heard. Someone would have said so in explaining to me? I also thought that your answer to my question … undermined your sense of the importance that we guide our own, especially now.”

“Do you feel that with Esher Hill?” Suki asks, wondering if they’ll dare put damning thought to voice. “Importance?”

"Yes." Moll shifts the girdle book and the bunched-up length of brown belt fastening said book to their waist. Their robe spills over thighs and knees, leaving ankles and shoulders bared; unlike Suki, they don’t appear the least bit cold. “He doesn’t trust me, but I think seeing himself reflected in that tangle of sharedness does more to help him survive than anything else. It matters.” They draw a breath, their voice firming and harshening: “So why do you talk sharedness now?”

Good! Only pain and the fear that Moll will take a somewhat-deserved offence keeps her from clapping. If she spends her remaining months or years helping Moll craft a more intentional relationship to obedience, even the Sojourner must reckon this time well served.

Easier to think about that than her own fear of an unvoiced answer.

Easier to frame this as a lesson or a guiding, her conversation possessed of another’s purpose.

Easier to think of anything but guilt and the damning thoughts an old woman must dare speak.

“Why do you?” Moll sips from their mug, their body angled towards her, their soft tone less a question than a prompting. “Isn’t that it?”

Only then does Suki realise that she embodies her own lingering, encloaking silence.

Her eyes rest, fleeing Moll, on the fern-encrusted garden wall and its uneven rows of red and yellow orchids. Her plants, fronds and leaves stirred into bobbing by the evening breeze, appear peaceful and fearless, but even allowing for flora’s unknowable sentience, that can’t be true. What stops a priest from consigning her flowers to the compost heap? A swarm of thrip from devouring the vegetable garden? Ferns, too, live their lives at the whims of the weather, the season, the denizens of the land upon which they take root. Plants grow, flourish, sicken, die. Peaceful?

What is peace but illusion: the hope of a perfect shelter from nature’s whims, ways and hurts?

“It goes the same way,” she says, now staring at her lawn and its mushrooms, those glistening fruits of the fungus conquering the soil beneath. “You learn something you didn’t know existed: the word. Once you find it fits, you feel the betrayal, the ache of once not knowing something fundamental, the deep cuts left by ignorance. You want sympathy, reassurance and validation to heal, and where are they when most don’t understand?”

Deep creases form across Moll’s brow as they thread their fingers together. “Yes. Esher needs it from me.” They hesitate, lips parted. “He needs it. So does Mara.”

“You can say it,” Suki murmurs, wondering the cost of standing, stepping onto the lawn and pulling the closest mushroom … with her back, conveniently, facing the priest beside her. Perhaps she and Moll aren’t so dissimilar if she wants to turn her hurt to fighting fungi. Perhaps this only crosses a mind looking to find a replacement for her knitting. “Please.”

“And I needed it from you.”

They may be referring to that first vegetable garden conversation. They may be referring to the years that passed between Moll’s learning the word “aromantic” as a descriptor and discovering that another priest is also aromantic. Both are truth.

“Nobody but Amadi had anything close.” Suki yawns in the first touch of medicine’s giddiness. Pity, as always, that she feels the effect in her head long before her joints. “Given nameless, remaining nameless with eir last breath.”

Only the stirring of hair and robe by breeze and breath mars Moll’s quiet stillness.

“Those with more,” she says bitterly, “serve to guide those with less. How doesn’t aromanticism apply? But we know the other side of its truth: a priest must have more to serve. More knowledge, more support, more sense of place, more safety, more community. A priest offers sympathy, provides reassurance, validates feeling, illuminates direction. A priest does what the world so often can’t in telling the different that we aren’t wrong to exist as we are.”

Mama Lewis wanted Suki to be safe, happy, loved. Mama Lewis never valued the daughter she had over the image of the daughter she thought herself entitled to have.

The part of Suki still yearning for the promise of her mother’s love can’t surrender one tainted, maggot-ridden idea: that a concept bearing an academic-sounding, official name must have made a difference.

Or will she still exist in this same circumstance, a trailblazer struggling with the full and challenging consequences of being this path’s guide?

“You think that I’ve known our word for years. You think that age means my hurt no longer throbs and I will carry your pain. You think I have more.” She presses her lips together, fearing the tears threatening to burst their dam. No, Suki takes pride in being the human equivalent of a splinter under a fingernail! She doesn’t weep. She rebels. “I have more knowledge only! You’ve … thirty, forty, fifty years of knowing ahead. You won’t find the word when you’re at death’s doorstep. You won’t bear the pain of a word unknown for eight decades. Your guide came delayed, but your guide still came!”

Suki learnt her words from books, not other priests. Moll had Gennifer, who’d learnt of aromanticism from her and affirmed in person the name of their identity and human worth. Moll, now, has Suki, even if five years later than right or deserved. Mara and Esher Hill have the wonder of identified validation provided by other aromantics, but Suki lived in a time when even the best affirmation went unnamed.

She tried openness for a year. She tried talking, despite such guiding never being her strongest art, to those guests who showed signs of aromanticism. She tried to find and connect with her own.

Easier, so much easier, to withdraw, to leave nurturing the younger aromantic starting their novitiate to other priests, to trust that Moll’s future will achieve what hers can’t.

Easier, so much easier, to avoid the young’s self-involved cruelty in relegating her only to their mentorship: the provider of their needed validation and support, the priest with more.

Easier, so much easier, to avoid speaking of her named identity with her aromantic kin … until a man almost died in part because of how he took a priest’s careless words, a situation that may not have existed if everyone knew “aromantic” described her and understood its context. Her failure, her cowardice, her unwillingness to build aromanticism more obviously into all her priests’ knowledge and service. Her inability to survive the bruises dealt her by others in pain. Her rebellion offering no direction or answer.

“You want me to strengthen you, shore you, shelter you. I can’t. I can’t when even thinking of sharing your agony reminds me of mine. I can’t when listening to you…” She sucks in a harsh, shaking breath, her throat tightening like a python’s jaws around a struggling rat. “I don’t have more. I’ll never have more. But acknowledging that isn’t enough!”

No lie slipped from her lips when she spoke to Moll in the vegetable garden, carefully dealing in careless and shallow words: how can a priest best guide someone when that guiding means taking further injury to damaged flesh? How can she serve their guests and her belief when she fights to keep back her screams, when pain and defensiveness sharpen her words to cruelty?

How much did the ostensible Sojourner struggle in leading hir collection of rent and ruined survivors along such a frightening, untrodden road?

She wishes herself able enough to march into the kitchen, grab a stack of the cracked plates she kept aside for such purposes and find a private courtyard where she can hurl them at a particularly offensive wall.

“I’m sorry,” she rasps, “because you needed. Because what happened to Esher wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t retreated. I didn’t question. I didn’t try to find an answer. I used the precept as a shield; I failed it. I’m sorry, I—”

She doesn’t realise she’s weeping until Moll slides towards her, closes their warm hand about her bony shoulders and pulls her into their chest, her tears soaking their red linen robe. They don’t speak. They don’t do anything but sit, awkwardly leaned over the arm of her chair, and hold her like a fresh-hatched chick in a pair of sheltering hands.

Guiding priests don’t, by custom, embrace their guests.

A lifetime’s grief spills from her eyes, stinging creased, dry cheeks. Not until the evening’s chill increases to something unignorable does Suki find again her composure. She sniffs, draws a shaking breath and speaks in her ever-readily barbed tongue: “Ten years ago, before your novitiate, I’d have asked if you were interested in bedding. Or even just sleeping, because you’re better than a dog and a hot brick for keeping an old woman toasty.”

Moll sits upright, only a strained shift of shoulder suggesting any stiffness or discomfort. Their wet eyes glisten even in the dim light, an odd contrast to their twisted lips and crumpled chin—and then a noise between a hoarse laugh and a snort explodes above the breeze’s whisper. “Don’t distract!”

They sound like Suki does when objecting to the young's woeful blathering.

She straightens, wiping her face on a corner of her shawl before smiling in pride. “Yes. I…”

“Thank you for trusting me enough to share.” They’re priestly words, taken right from the instruction manual, but Moll’s following sentences aren’t: “You said my guide came delayed, but she came, she showed herself when needed, she served. She’s here. I don’t know … how people reacted, what was asked, all of what you feel, how you bear the weight. I want to know. Your guide came delayed, so delayed … but they’re here. Even at the last.”

Emotion cracks and shreds her voice: “I’d rather not cry again, thank you very much.”

Moll doesn’t dilute their blank stare with speech or gesture.

“What path, then?” she croaks—tired, giddy, shivering, relieved.

Part of her, the wary woman once a distrustful girl, feels it ludicrous that Moll, so junior a priest, can answer something she can’t. The girl does them no justice: Moll hasn’t asked her to carry their pain. They’ve shared only at her prompting. They’ve treated her with a friend’s warmth and courtesy. If she holds no faith in their sacred service, is there anything left of Suki but damaged bones in an aching body? Isn’t this the same old difficulty: a woman fighting herself to trust another person, simultaneously needing and fearing?

Moll rests a hand on the arm of her chair, fingers half curled in invitation.

Suki nods and rests her stiff hand in their soft one.

“Someday,” they say slowly, “as how it seems incredulous to question one eschewing gender, we will be history. My school, years ago, taught that: the tears and blood spent to make a world where I can shrug at gender. Not just as a past to avoid repeating, but as … respect for the pain that birthed the now.”

They motion with their other hand, fingers curled inwards—the mug and teapot sitting, long abandoned, on the bench.

Suki yawns, presses her trembling lips together and waits.

“We need books of names and definitions, and we need books of stories. Our futures and hopes written on the page. Stories of the past that we’re hoping become … incredulous. We need the stories of those who wept. We can’t forget.” They turn to glance at Suki before speaking in a voice marred by quivering: “May I write down your story? So I can understand—so we can understand, all those who come after?”

They won’t offer power. They can’t violently remake a world so wrought against her. They don’t provide resolution to the ache felt by a woman struggling with the community who need her to help them bear and understand theirs. They haven't a solution.

They offer direction, one balancing their hopes for the future with the harms of the present. A direction that doesn’t make her feel like a relic to be cast aside but a paving stone at the road’s beginning, one small part of ensuring the steady, continuing passing of feet and wheels.

Moll’s suggestion is why she believes in the concept of the Sojourner, even though she can’t make herself ascribe to certainty in god.

“I don’t mean to be impudent—”

“Never cluck when you’re doing a bitchy old woman a kindness.” Suki draws a shaking breath of her own. “I’d … like that. Very much. Thank you.”

At first, she thinks Moll’s expression—a slight curve of lips, only a smile by comparison—speaks more of relief than happiness. No. Don’t they also straddle a complex and confused struggle to build their place? Don’t they also feel the sacred power in their service? Aren’t they also in need of friendship?

“May I ask—” Moll stops themself, raising a palm. “Why did you talk to me, at the beginning, as though guiding a priest? Why didn’t you talk about this straight out?”

Suki grins at both the correction and the question. “I’m the Guide. What else do you think I’m going to do?”

5 notes · View notes

mrs-berry · 6 years ago

Text

A Favour Only You Can Do

Part 8 of Avril Amour (Adrinette April 2019)

By mrs_berry

@adrinetteapril

Click here to read on AO3!

"A-Adrien!" Marinette called out, before Adrien made his way out of the classroom.

Adrien spun around, stunned to hear his friend calling for him.

"What's up, Marinette?" He smiled at her as she approached him. She gestured for him to step aside from the door so others could leave.

"I'm sorry to ask you this, b-but could you do me a favour?" Marinette shyly put he fingers in front of her mouth in attempt to keep herself from chewing her lips off.

"Of course, what do you need?"

Marinette watched as the students left, waiting until they were alone.

"You can say 'no' but I was h-hoping you could help me... with an article of clothing I'm making for a really good friend," she explained, moving her hands to tug on her pigtails nervously.

"I'm not very creative so I'm not sure I'll be much help, but I can try. What do you need me to do?" He tilted his head, curious.

"I need you to... try a shirt on," she hesitated. She knew he did modeling for a living and didn't want him to feel like she was using him like that. "Y-you seem to be the same size and body-type as my friend. Otherwise, I-I wouldn't bother you with this, since it's not right for me to ask you to, essentially, model it for me for free..." Marinette was looking at his feet by this point. It was easier than looking into his gentle green eyes. "I can p-probably pay you, but it wouldn't be much..."

Adrien chuckled at her thoughtfulness. She was so cute and sweet. "I'd be happy to help you with this, Marinette! And there's no need to pay me. I'm your friend, right?" He sounded a little unsure as he asked that last part.

Marinette's head whipped up. "YES!" She slapped her hands on her mouth at her outburst. Then clearing her throat and lowering her hands, she tried to speak a little more normally this time, "I mean, um, of course you're my friend! A-and thank you."

He shook his head with a wry smile, "Any time. I love helping and it makes me happy to think I'll be helpful to you. You're always the one helping others."

Marinette suppressed a squeal. "T-thanks, you're so sweet." Marinette felt her face flush; she hadn't meant to say it with such love in her voice. Gosh, hopefully he wouldn't notice her tone.

He didn't, of course. He just smiled in response.

"A-anyway, are you free to come over today... after school?" she fidgeted with her purse strap as she asked.

"I am, actually! You have perfect timing. I have a lot of extracurriculars but I have a few hours free after school is out today," he replied looking rather pleased at the good timing.

She had a hold back an, "I know," as she didn't want him to find out she had his schedule basically memorized at this point. If he found out, he would probably end his friendship with her and never talk to her again, then she would be heartbroken and live a short and lonely life, passing away cruelly at the tender age of 15—

"You okay, Marinette? You look stressed all of a sudden." Adrien stared at her, his lovely smile replaced with an expression of complete concern.

"Sorry! Fine! I am. Fine, that is. I just, err, remembered that I forgot to water my plants this morning. Yeah." Marinette cringed at her response, but mentally cheered at her decent white lie.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Maybe you can water them now that we're on lunch?"

"Yes! Ha, ha. Good. Good idea. I'll, um, go do that right now." She sprinted past him to the door, then spinning on her heel before she left, she flashed him a smile. "Thanks again!" And then she was gone, leaving a slightly mystified Adrien.

"She is something, eh Plagg?"

"Yeah, she's your weird lover," Plagg muttered under his breath.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After school, Marinette and Adrien walked to her home. Adrien had already let Gorilla and Nathalie know that he didn't need picking up after school. He had told them he was going to Marinette's to work on a project. Which wasn't a lie, it just wasn't a school project like they had probably assumed it to be.

They chatted as they made their way to her bedroom, Marinette still a bundle of nerves, but more relaxed than she was earlier.

Once they entered her room, Marinette went over to her desk and picked up the t-shirt she had been working on.

She chuckled a little as she looked at it. Turning around, she held it out for Adrien.

"Here. This is the shirt I would like you to try on," she said, fondness warming her heart as she thought of who she was giving it to.

Adrien noticed the soft look on her face and wondered who could it be for that she would make that face? Perhaps Luka? For some unknown reason, Adrien felt a twinge of pain at that thought.

"Thanks. Where should I change?"

"Right here is fine," Marinette answered. She watched his eyes widen and she immediately flushed when she didn't elaborate quickly enough. "I-I'll wait on the balcony. Knock to let me know when you're ready."

Marinette made her escape before he had a chance to reply.

Adrien glanced down at the black t-shirt in his hands. Lifting it up, he found it had "THE CAT'S MEOW" written on the front, causing him to burst into laughter.

As his laughter subsided, he flipped it around to see "PAWSOME" written across the back, with a silver paw print underneath. He found himself laughing again.

"Whoever this is for has a great sense of humour," he said to himself between his chuckles. "I'm kind of jealous..."

Shaking his head to rid of that weird thought, he changed into the silky soft t-shirt. The material felt fantastic on his skin and fit him to a T.

He knocked to let Marinette know he was done changing. She climbed back into her room and stood in front of him.

Her eyes took on an extreme focus, as if all she could see now was the shirt. She walked up to him, then circled him like a hawk. He loved seeing her determined expression. It reminded him of Ladybug for some reason.

She reached out to check the fit—to see if it was too loose or snug. However, she froze when she realized who she was touching.

Eyes flickering to his, she checked to see his reaction. He had one of his loving smiles that he showed only to Marinette.

Squeaking, she said, "Sorry!" and removed her hands from the shirt. "I-I should have asked first, I'm used to the fabric being on a mannequin, not a person... Is it okay to t-touch the shirt and test the material while you're wearing it?"

"Yeah. That's what I'm here for, right? To make sure it fits properly?"

Marinette nodded in relief and resumed her work.

"Your friend has a great sense of humour," Adrien decided to comment as he stood completely still for her.

She hummed, not fully paying attention as she quipped, "Depends on your definition of 'great'..." Marinette hesitated as she realized she had responded without really thinking. "S-sorry, that was rude!"

"Pfft, it's okay, I know puns aren't for everyone," Adrien laughed; her response had reminded him of Ladybug.

Wait a second, this was the second time in the past 20 minutes that he had this thought. That was strange.

Marinette gave a nervous giggle in response to his infectious laughter.

"Whoever this gift is for, it's amazing. Are you going to tell them you made it yourself?" Adrien asked, somewhat hopeful that she might make mention of who it was for.

"Yeah. I want him to be impressed with my skills for creating something so purrfect for him," she rolled her eyes at her own pun and then laughed when she noticed Adrien chuckling.

They fell back into silence for a few more moments as Marinette looked over some final details, until Marinette took a step back from him.

"There, finished. Thank you so much for your help, Adrien," she beamed at him as excitement took over. Later tonight she would be able to gift this present, thanks to the help of her kind crush. "I'll go on the balcony again so you can change back."

After he changed back, Marinette and him chatted for a short while, while they waited for his ride back home.

Thanking him again, Marinette smiled fondly as he departed; a smile which he returned before he disappeared from her sight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ladybug paced as she waited for her partner to show up. She was a little bit restless, excited to see his face at her gift.

When Chat Noir finally arrived, Ladybug composed herself to appear nonchalant.

"Hey there, kitty. You're a little bit late for pawtrol," Ladybug cringed. Why did she keep making puns lately? Her partner must be rubbing off on her more than she realized. It probably didn't help that she made him a punny t-shirt.

Chat Noir laughed gleefully at her. "Sorry, M'Lady, I was pruning myself. Maintaining these good looks requires ample time for grooming." He flexed and winked for good measure.

Ladybug sighed in annoyance. "Right," she said dismissively. "Anyway, as promised, I made you something for winning last week's poorly made bet."

Chat Noir smiled, looking like a kid on Christmas morning. "Oooh, lemme see!"

"Calm down, kitty. There's no catnip in here," she said with amusement as she handed him a box. "And sadly you won't be able to sit in this box either."

"Haw, haw," Chat said, his lips twitching into a grin, despite trying to feign nonchalance at her jokes. His joy was winning out.

Despite his eagerness, Chat slowly opened the box and pulled out a soft fabric. A familiar soft fabric.

Chat gasped as he held up the fabric.

It was a t-shirt. But not just any old t-shirt, it was the exact one that he had been modeling earlier.

Flabbergasted, he blinked a few times to make sure he was seeing properly.

Slowly, mechanically, his head turned to Ladybug.

She had a look of apprehension plastered to her face; probably wondering why he wasn't laughing.

"Did..." Chat cleared his hoarse throat. "Did you make this?" He sounded full of awe and disbelief.

Deciding his reaction wasn't necessarily a bad thing, Ladybug beamed at him. Ladybug's beam reminded him of Marinette...

"Yes! Aren't you impressed? It's purrfect for you, kitty!"

Oh shit.

32 notes · View notes

quicksilversquared · 6 years ago

Text

How to Fake a Marriage: Chapter 47

Their last week in London flew by in a flash, full of packing and cleaning and slightly teary good-byes. They had shared the news of their engagement with Marinette's team (and, of course, Madam Rosalie had already known) and with Paul and Ben, and they had even had a bit of an engagement party rolled into the good-bye party that Marinette's team had thrown at the end of the week. It had been great to share their news with people who had been absolutely thrilled for them, no questions asked.

Adrien and Marinette both hoped that they would get similar reactions once they were back home.

"Let's stop by your parents' place first," Adrien suggested as their train drew closer to Paris. The sky was getting darker, which meant that the bakery would be closing soon and they could talk to both Tom and Sabine at the same time. "They're more likely to be understanding."

"They won't understand why we didn't tell them," Marinette sighed. "And all I can tell them is that I thought they would be really likely to tell Alya."

"They would probably think that you would tell Alya right away," Adrien agreed. "So it's not like you're coming completely out of left field."

Marinette could only shrug.

No one was there to meet them at the train station, which they had planned. If they had told anyone exact details, the Gorilla might have come with Gabriel and they would have to explain why they returned to Paris on the same day. They would get completely interrogated by Alya and Nino if they called their friends, and Marinette had thought that her parents would probably still be in the middle of cleaning up the bakery when their train pulled in.

So they hopped on a bus instead.

"I'm so glad we brought some stuff back for the wedding," Adrien grunted as he lifted his suitcase onto the bus. It felt like he had stuffed it full of rocks. "And that we shipped the rest, except for the stuff that you left with Abbey and Sarah. I wouldn't want to be dealing with carrying more than what we have now."

"It's good that our apartments were furnished," Marinette added. "I wouldn't want to have to haul pots and pans and silverware and-"

Adrien groaned again as they paid their fare and headed for the seats. "Oh, that would suck."

"What's going to suck is telling your dad," Marinette said. "I'm not looking forward to that."

"Me either." Adrien let out a long sigh and slumped into the seat next to Marinette. Even with the heads-up that he had given Nathalie at the start of the week- she was currently the only person in Paris to know about their engagement- there was only so much preemptive damage control that she could be expected to do. "Nathalie said she did something that might help, but she couldn't elaborate. She just said to give her a heads-up before we go to the mansion so that she could prepare."

"Mysterious." Marinette let herself lean against Adrien's side, lightly enough that it wouldn't be immediately obvious to the other people on the bus. Not that it mattered anymore, not really. By the time anything went to print, they already would have broken the news to their families. "Are you staying in your old room until we can find an apartment, or do you think you'll be staying in my old room?"

"I'd like to stay in your room, if your parents are okay with that." They had briefly discussed it once or twice while they were in London, but they had been so focused on trying to find jobs in Paris and looking at possible apartments that they hadn't really fully finalized their immediate plans. "They might not be. I'd understand if they don't want to deal with having another adult in the house, even if we don't plan on being there for long."

"They adore you, you know that."

Adrien gave her a small smile. "Adoring having me as a guest and adoring having me stay there in your room for an indeterminate amount of time are two different things, especially considering that we're dropping a surprise engagement on them." He slid his hand into Marinette's, turning it so he could see the ring glittering on her finger. He had heard stories online where the glitter and sheen of an engagement ring wore off and people regretted buying the ring they did over another one, but that hadn't happened yet at all. Marinette clearly adored her ring, and they had already seen that the finest silks could be brushed past the ring and not snag at all. It wasn't too plain, and yet would be able to fit well with any outfit Marinette chose to wear.

And it was a sign that she had agreed to marry him. The possessive cat in Adrien purred.

The bus rumbled forward, and soon enough the familiar storefronts of their neighborhood came into sight. Adrien felt the smile on his face grow- they were home- and he could see Marinette grinning, too.

"Well, we're back for good," Adrien said cheerfully, standing and tugging on the bell to get the driver to pull over at their stop. "Are you ready, my Lady?"

"With you at my side? Always."

Tom and Sabine had just finished putting things away in the back kitchen and were coming out to wipe down the front counters when movement on the sidewalk caught their eye. They paused, then scrambled to hide behind the display case closest to the counter.

Because out on the sidewalk, looking very cozy with each other, were Marinette and Adrien.

"I knew they were going to get together soon," Sabine said happily as they watched their daughter relax into Adrien's arms. She rested her head against Adrien's chest and Adrien dropped a kiss on the top of her head. Marinette glanced up at him at that, and they shared a tender smile.

"Ooh, that back rub goes to me," Sabine said gleefully, elbowing her husband. "I told you something was going to happen between the wedding and when they got back, and I was right."

"They still might be in denial," Tom said, sounding hopeful. "We don't know that something happened."

Sabine huffed. "You're just being a sore loser. Just look at them staring into each other's eyes like that, they're- oh! Look, look!" The pair on the sidewalk had started leaning in towards each other. Sabine whipped out her phone as they drew closer, poised to kiss. "Oh, they're so cute. Just think of the green-eyed grandbabies!"

"I think it's a little soon to be talking about that," Tom said, even as he held up his own phone to capture a photo of the two kissing. Despite his earlier protest, he looked eager as he watched Adrien and Marinette draw closer, closer-

Only to give each other a chaste little kiss on the lips.

"Oh come on," Tom and Sabine both groaned, disappointed when Adrien and Marinette stepped apart with no further kissing.

"That wasn't even picture-worthy," Tom grumbled as the duo on the sidewalk linked arms and headed for the side door. "Lame. If I was going to lose the bet anyway, they could have at least broken the news in a more dramatic way."

Sabine elbowed him as they straightened up out of their hiding places and headed for the side door to meet Adrien and Marinette. "Don't say that to their faces. Besides, they might not be fans of PDA. Making out on a public sidewalk could get them in trouble."

"Ugh."

The doorbell rang, and they rushed to answer it.

"Act normal," Tom hissed, hand on the doorknob. "Don't make them suspect that we saw anything."

"I should be saying that to you," Sabine hissed back. "Just act normal. Don't greet them by offering to bake them a wedding cake or anything like that."

"I wouldn't do that!"

"You're home!" Sabine exclaimed, opening the door and beaming at the two of them rather arguing the point with her husband, because he knew perfectly well that she was right. Tom just didn't want to admit it. "Come in, come in. Do you guys want something to eat?"

"That would be great, Mama," Marinette chirped, pressing a kiss to her mother's cheek. "Is there anything we can do to help you guys clean up first?"

"The cleaning can wait." Sabine ushered them in, noticing with interest that Adrien had his luggage still with him. Apparently they hadn't stopped at the Agreste Mansion yet, even though it was closer to the train station, or maybe Adrien was intending to stay in Marinette's room now that they were back in Paris.

If it was the second option, that would mean that Adrien and Marinette were serious in their dating, even though they presumably had only recently gotten together. Even though she had wanted Adrien as a son-in-law for years, she might have to have a talk with Marinette about the wisdom of them having their own separate spaces until they had been together for a bit longer.

"We have a whole variety of things you can choose from," Tom announced as he helped Adrien and Marinette get the last of their things in. "Croissants, tarts, macrons, cookies, muffins, wedd- er, cakes-"

Sabine sighed and leveled a look at him. Clearly she shouldn't have mentioned wedding cakes earlier, because now he had the idea in his head and it was more likely to slip out.

"I'll have a croissant or two," Adrien said, grinning and hugging Sabine and Tom. "It's great to see you guys again."

"We're glad to see you kiss- er, kids- as well," Tom said cheerfully, cringing slightly at his slip-up and hoping no one noticed. He quickly grabbed a plate and two croissants plus a cookie before heading back over to where the group was standing. Sabine had her face buried in her hands while both Adrien and Mariette looked somewhat amused.

...apparently they hadn't missed his mistake after all. Bugger.

"So did your last few weeks in London go well?" Sabine asked as Adrien practically inhaled the first croissant and Tom fetched a muffin for Marinette to eat. "Busy?"

Adrien and Marinette exchanged a look that was a little too full of grins. "Yeah," Adrien finally said after a pause. "Pretty busy. We had to figure out how to get everything home, and then there was the graduation ceremony, and Marinette had projects to finish up for Madam Rosalie plus the commissions she got independently. It was a lot to do."

"And cleaning up the apartment took forever," Marinette added. "After being there for so long, we just had stuff all over, and then we had to clean while we were still living there... it was an actual pain."

"Yes, it is easier when you have a bit of a time overlap between a new place and an old one," Sabine agreed. "Tom's mother always complained about that whenever she moved to a completely different area."

"Which she does often," Tom grumbled. "You would think that she would settle down now, but no."

Sabine tried not to grin. She was pretty certain that Tom's mother simply picked the smallest, cheapest apartment in whatever area she chose to live in just so she would have somewhere to store her things while she jetted off (or motorcycled off) to wherever she wanted to explore next.

Tom was still anxiously jiggling as he watched Adrien and Marinette eat their snacks. Sabine stepped back to watch the two of them, and noticed their entwined hands, hidden by their bodies.

Aha. So that was why Adrien was eating with his left hand instead of the right. She had wondered.

Standing with her hand wrapped in Adrien's, Marinette was getting more and more nervous. Her parents had clearly noticed their little show on the sidewalk, and it was clearly only a matter of time before they brought it up.

And now her mother had clearly caught sight of their hands, and she was nudging her dad and pointing. Marinette purposefully took another bite of her muffin, taking her time to enjoy it just to see how long her parents lasted before they cracked and started interrogating her and Adrien.

It didn't take long.

"So for how long have you been dating, then?" Tom asked as soon as Marinette had polished the last crumbs of her snack. "Curious minds want to know. A couple days, a few weeks, a month...?"

"Over a year," Marinette admitted sheepishly, grinning at her parents' startled expressions. "Nearly two, at this point."

All of them jumped when Tom let out a triumphant shout, apparently having recovered quickly from his surprise. "HAH! So this isn't a recent development, then. It happened way before Alya and Nino's wedding."

Marinette and Adrien exchanged a puzzled look. That...was not the reaction they had been expecting. "...yes?"

"So I won the bet, then!" Tom turned to his wife with a wide grin. "The back rub is mine!"

Sabine spluttered, clearly taken aback. "But- but- no, but they're dating-"

"But it didn't just happen, so it doesn't count. You specifically said that you would win if something happened between the wedding and now. It happened well before, so technically-"

"I hate technicalities," Sabine grumbled.

"Hang on," Marinette said as she slowly caught on. "You're saying you bet on us?"

Her parents didn't look even remotely abashed. "Of course," Tom said cheerfully, beaming at them. "You two were so close at Alya and Nino's wedding, but since you hadn't said anything we assumed that the two of you hadn't figured out your feelings for each other yet. It was just for fun, dear," Tom added when he saw the look on Marinette's face. "And if you still hadn't sorted yourselves out by the time you got back, your mother and I were going to do some hardcore matchmaking."

Suddenly Marinette was feeling much, much less guilty about having hidden their relationship from her parents. Still, she groaned and buried her flaming face in her hands. Adrien, who wasn't doing a whole lot better, patted her shoulder comfortingly and tugged her snugly into his side. Even though they were dating- engaged, his mind reminded him helpfully- it was still strange to have his girlfriend's- er, fiancée's- parents talking about their plans to set the two of them up.

Tom and Sabine would probably get along fantastically with Madam Rosalie, maybe a little too well. Adrien briefly wondered if he and Marinette should maybe rethink their plan to invite Madam Rosalie to their wedding before deciding that no, it wasn't as though she would possibly be able to scheme with Marinette's parents that much. He and Marinette were already together, after all. In theory, they shouldn't be embarrassed by others mentioning how cute they were together. In reality...

Well, it was just a bit embarrassing. But he was sure that they would get used to it eventually.

"And you didn't tell anyone?" Sabine asked, clearly attempting to distract them from the bet that she and Tom had had going on. "Why not?"

"We just wanted to be super-careful about keeping it secret so that Mr. Agreste wouldn't stop helping Adrien with tuition and rent," Marinette explained, trying for a sheepish grin. "Since he tried to ban Adrien from dating and all. And we weren't sure if you guys and Alya and Nino would be able to resist telling someone else, and what if you told someone that didn't understand why we had to keep it a secret and it got out? We just decided it was safer to not tell anyone."

"Well, I can't say I fully understand," Tom said, patting the two of them on the shoulder. "But if you're happy, that's what matters- hold on, is that a ring?!"

Saying that Marinette's parents were shocked was the understatement of the century. They were thrilled, of course, and had practically started planning the croquembouche tower for the wedding already, Marinette could see it in their eyes, but they hadn't been expecting Adrien and Marinette to actually be engaged, even after hearing that the two of them had been dating for two years.

"And this is for real this time?" Tom checked with Adrien as Sabine exclaimed over Marinette's ring. At Adrien's nod, he grinned. "Good boy. Do you have a wedding date set yet?"

"We only just got engaged last weekend," Adrien said with a laugh as he glanced over at Marinette. He couldn't stop the smile that slid across his face as he watched his fiancée. "I need to get settled in at my new job, we don't know where we're going to be living yet- well, we have a few , and Marinette is still looking for a position that would suit her that would be in the city. We figured we should probably get that figured out first before getting into wedding planning." He grimaced. "...and we figured that we should also probably focus on actually surviving telling Alya and my father about the engagement. No point in getting ahead of ourselves."

Tom laughed. "Ah, I'm sure Alya will forgive the two of you eventually. She'll probably be too happy about it to cause too much damage." He didn't say anything about surviving Mr. Agreste, Adrien noticed. That was probably smart. Even he wasn't sure what to expect from his father. "So, are you kids going to tell us about the proposal? And details? When did you ask?"

"We have pictures," Adrien told Tom, pulling out his phone. He had uploaded the pictures that Plagg had taken onto his computer, then emailed them to himself so he could have them on his phone. He noticed that Sabine and Marinette had stopped their conversation and had returned their attention to him. He held up his phone with the best of the proposal photos, and both Tom and Sabine clustered in close to see it. "I proposed last weekend, in the same garden where we got fake-married." He grinned, and both Tom and Sabine awwed. "Right under the trellis, too. Madam Rosalie pulled some strings so that we could get into that part of the garden, since it's a private part and normally it's locked up so it doesn't get messed up."

"It was so gorgeous, Mom," Marinette gushed, grinning widely. "There were all these flowers, and it was lovely outside, and there was no one else in that part of the garden, so we had it all to ourselves."

"It does look gorgeous," Tom agreed as he and Sabine flipped through the photos on Adrien's phone. "Good job with the proposal, son. I mean, it might have been nice to know about it ahead of time, but eh. Not a big deal in the long run. And it's pretty funny, I have to admit." He clapped Adrien on the shoulder. "Welcome to the family, son. Want another cookie? Some cake? We can bake your wedding tower, right?"

"We wouldn't dream of getting it from anyone else," Adrien assured him. Tom grinned widely.

"Great! So do you have preferences on flavor, or style of sugar work, or fillings-"

"Tom!" Sabine interrupted, laughing. "They have plenty of time to decide on stuff like that later. Don't harass the poor boy." She handed Adrien's phone back to him. "Those were very sweet pictures, Adrien. Fantastic job on the proposal."

"Not pictured is how incredibly nervous I was," Adrien joked, accepting his phone back. "I thought I was going to forget French completely or something."

Tom laughed. "Oh, that's common," he told Adrien. "Even if you're 95% certain that you know what the lady is going to say. I was a ball of nerves before I asked Sabine. I kept thinking of all of the worst-case scenarios and absolutely everything that could possibly go wrong- and a couple things that couldn't go wrong, but I was still worried anyway."

"So did you have one of your London friends take the pictures?" Sabine asked. "You must have, or word would have gotten out about your engagement before you even got home."

Marinette nodded, looking happy as her parents hugged her again. "Yeah! We hadn't wanted anyone to know, so that it wouldn't accidentally get out, but it was hard to avoid keeping it a complete secret. Abbey moved into my old apartment last summer so she could forward all of my mail to Adrien's apartment, so she found out. And I found out at the same time that everyone on my team already suspected that we were dating, so we did end up confirming it with them."

"And yet you didn't trust your parents," Tom sniffed, then grinned when Marinette gave him an utterly exasperated look. "I'm joking, cupcake. I'm sure it felt easier to control who knew when they were people you saw every day. And I can't deny that your mother and I might have gotten a bit excitedif we had known, though we would have tried our best to be careful."

"But enough about that." Sabine beamed at them, happy tears in her eyes. "You have to get settled! Will you be staying here while you look for apartments? We'd be happy to have you for as long as you need."

Marinette threw herself at her mom to hug her tightly. "I was hoping you would say that! That would be great."

"I'll help with the bags," Tom volunteered, leading the way towards the stairs. "It's times like now when I wish that we didn't have quite so many floors, but oh well. We're in shape, right, Adrien?"

"If you say so."

Tom laughed.

Once the last of the suitcases and bags were settled in Marinette's room, Tom and Sabine had to head back down to the bakery to finish tidying up for the night.

"And we have to go duck out for a bit, too," Marinette reminded Adrien, who looked like he would much rather curl up on her lounge chair and relax for a bit. "To let your father know that you're home, and pass on the news."

Adrien groaned loudly but followed Marinette back down the stairs.

"Time to face the beast," Adrien jokingly called into the bakery as they headed out the door, only half-kidding. "...you'll call the police if we vanish, right?"

Tom chuckled. "Oh, now you're being dramatic," he said. "Your father has to understand that you're an adult now and don't need his permission to do things."

"Yeah, I know. But try telling him that."

Nathalie greeted them at the door when they arrived at the Agreste Mansion, taking note of their lack of luggage with a single raised eyebrow before leading them into the foyer.

"Your father will be expecting you," she informed Adrien. "It might work better if you go in by yourself first, and then introduce Miss Dupain-Cheng afterwards." She managed a small smile at the two of them. "Congratulations on your engagement, by the way. As unorthodox as it might have been."

The Gorilla, who had just entered from the dining room, blinked and looked a bit startled. His gaze jumped between Nathalie, Adrien, and Marinette, finally settling on the ring on Marinette's finger. His eyebrows shot up, but as usual, he didn't comment.

Feeling nervous, Adrien knocked on his father's office door and stepped inside. His father glanced up from where he seemed to be arranging photos of models into their runway order. He set the photo in his hand down, then half-rose. "Adrien."

"Father," Adrien responded, feeling awkward. His father's distant greeting stood in such stark contrast to the Dupain-Cheng's welcoming hugs. "It's good to see you."

"I'm glad you're home," Gabriel responded, sitting back down in his chair again. "I've had your room freshened up for your arrival, and Nathalie will get a schedule to you for modeling. Do let her know if you need something changed for a job interview or something. And, there was one other thing that I needed to talk to you about."

"Oh?" Adrien managed, stomach churning. Clearly his father was expecting things to go back to practically the same as they had been before he left for London. Having to break the news he had would be hard.

...and clearly his father had either forgotten or not been listening when Adrien told him that he had already gotten a decent entry-level intern position in a lab with a research group. Perhaps he should just remind Nathalie, as she was more likely to actually remember.

Gabriel nodded. "Yes. After some deliberation, I have decided that it would be beneficial for you to get a girlfriend. Nathalie has alerted me to the fact that you're old enough that some might see it as strange that you haven't been on any dates before. Nathalie will provide you with a list of eligible women, I believe. Or perhaps she was waiting to consult with you first, so she can take your taste in women into account."

...Adrien wasn't sure what Nathalie had done (and he wasn't sure that he would ever find out, either), but clearly he needed to thank her.

"Ah, funny you mention that, actually," Adrien started, hoping that his grin wasn't too awkward. He glanced towards the door, where he could see Nathalie peering through the slightly open door. She nodded encouragingly, and Adrien steeled himself and continued. "There's, ah, someone I want to introduce you to."

Gabriel glanced back up (because of course his attention had gone back to his work as soon as he was done issuing instructions to his son). "Huh?"

The door swung a little further open and Marinette darted through to join Adrien. Her hand curled around his tightly. She was clearly as nervous about this as he was, though she was doing a good job of keeping a fairly neutral expression on her face. Gabriel's gaze darted to her and then back to Adrien, clearly puzzled.

"Father, I wanted you to meet my fiancée, Marinette."

Gabriel dropped back into his chair and stared at the two of them, wide-eyed. "Your- I- I'm sorry, what?"

...well, he wasn't yelling, at least. Yet.

"This is my fiancée, Marinette Dupain-Cheng," Adrien repeated, letting go of Marinette's hand so he could wrap his arm around her waist. "You've met her a few times before, remember?"

"Your fiancée," Gabriel repeated, still clearly shocked. "I- what- your-" He shook himself and focused his still-shocked gaze on Adrien. "For real this time?"

"For real," Adrien confirmed. "I get the feeling that we're going to get that question a lot," he added to Marinette. He grinned, though it was a little strained. "I can't imagine why."

Marinette groaned and elbowed him.

"That is...a surprise," Gabriel choked out. "I, ah... are you sure?"

"Yep," Adrien confirmed, though he wasn't sure if his father was asking him if he was sure about the relationship or sure about the engagement not being a prank. Either worked. "I asked last week. We were waiting until we got home to say anything to anyone."

Gabriel gave himself a little shake and then his expression settled back to impassive coldness, just like before. That was an impressive recovery, actually, but Adrien far preferred the Dupain-Cheng's open-armed welcomes and congratulations. "I don't recall ever lifting my ban on dating while you were in London-"

"I am an adult, Father," Adrien reminded him, trying not to grit his teeth. He was so, so glad now that the Dupain-Chengs had been willing to host both him and Marinette, because at least they treated him like an adult rather than a child to order around and that meant that he would actually be happy to go home, instead of dreading it like he would if he had gone back to living with his father. "I don't need yourpermission to have a relationship. I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions. I kept our relationship out of the tabloids and that was all that you cared about, right?"

Gabriel's jaw worked wordlessly for a moment as he tried to find his words. Clearly he hadn't been expecting Adrien to push back. "I- I mean, I suppose that- yes, perhaps- but-"

"And we kept it a complete secret while we were in London," Adrien continued, figuring that it wasn't too much of a stretch. Very few people had learned about their relationship. "So anything they printed was entirely conjecture and based on the behavior of two friends."

"Somehow I doubt that," Gabriel muttered. He cleared his throat and steepled his fingers, directing a glare at Marinette. "So will you be moving to London permanently, then?"

Adrien blinked, taken aback. "I- what? No, we're going to be living in Paris. Why would we be moving to London?"

"Miss Dupain-Cheng has a job in London, does she not? A job that she's been working at for three years now?"

Marinette frowned, clearly feeling as confused as Adrien felt. "No, that was just a temporary internship. I just got it extended for two years longer than it was meant to be originally, since Adrien was going to still be in London."

"Well, why didn't you ever say so?" Mr. Agreste half-exploded at Adrien. "Then it would have been fine for you to date, no need for secrecy at all."

Adrien blinked, taken aback. He could feel Plagg's I-told-you-so quiver in his pocket, but... "I told you that she was just interning at Madam Rosalie's ages ago, though!"

"Yes. Well. I forgot," Gabriel returned stiffly, as though it wasn't entirely his fault that Adrien had had to keep his relationship under wraps for two years, just because he never listened to anything that Adrien ever said. "I cannot be expected to remember what all of your friends are or are not up to."

Clearly, since you can't even remember what your son is up to, Adrien wanted to say, but it was probably best not to aggravate his father further.

"At any rate, it was nice to meet you again, Miss Dupain-Cheng," Gabriel continued, casting a rather disdainful look in her direction. "Congratulations on your engagement. Adrien, I want you to give a full update of your job search to Nathalie at breakfast tomorrow morning, so she can get a better idea of what your schedule will be like-"

Adrien had had enough. "I already have a job lined up, which I already told you about a month ago when I got it. I'll be starting in two days. And I'm not going to be staying here. I'll be staying with Marinette in her room. Her parents have already invited us to stay for as long as we need to find our own apartment."

"That's not appropriate," his father stated immediately. "I must insist-"

"We are engaged," Adrien cut across again. "And also not teenagers or children. And we've been sharing an apartment for over a year. It is perfectly appropriate for us to share Marinette's old room. And speaking of which, I believe it's time for us to head back, since Marinette's parents will be expecting us for dinner. Good night."

With that, Adrien turned and marched out, ushering Marinette ahead of him.

"That didn't go nearly as badly as it could have," Marinette said later. "I mean, he did accept our relationship. Eventually."

"I liked telling your parents better."

Even with their parents clued in to their relationship, there were still two more people who deserved to get the news in person. Adrien texted Nino asking if he could come over and talk to him before Alya got home from the newspaper, and Nino agreed.

"So you said you had news?" Nino asked in lieu of greeting as soon as he opened the door for Adrien. "What is it? Don't tell me you're going to move to London permanently. I'd die of loneliness without my best bro."

"You seem to have made it this far without seeing my gorgeous face every day," Adrien joked as he gave Nino a hug. "But no, I'm not moving to London."

"Models and their egos," Nino sighed as he led Adrien inside. "Okay, so you aren't moving to London. Where are you moving to, then?"

Adrien had to snort at that. "Why do you keep assuming that I'm moving?"

"Because you sounded so serious when you told me that you had news you had to tell me in person and that's exactly what you said before you told me that you were going to be taking off to London for three years," Nino retorted. Then he paused. "...so wait. You aren't moving?"

"I'm moving back to Paris, but everyone already knew that." Adrien looked a little nervous. "This is something else."

"You're making me nervous, dude," Nino said warily, eying him. "Are you sick or something?"

Adrien looked somewhat puzzled. "Uh...no? Do I look sick? Why do you keep assuming the worst?"

"Because you're being strangely mysterious and serious about something!"

Adrien laughed. "It's not bad news, I promise. It's just..." He shook himself and let out a breath. It did not make sense to be this nervous. This was Nino. "Okay. Marinette and I are engaged."

Nino stared at him like a statue for a full thirty seconds, then turned and banged his head hard once against the wall, nearly making Adrien drop his phone in surprise. Then he turned back to Adrien and, in a scarily calm voice said, "I'm sorry. I think I must have misheard you. What was that again?"

Adrien stared at him, startled. "What did you do that for?"

"Because I must have misheard you, because I thought you said that you and Marinette are engaged."

"We are!"

"Dude. Okay, I knew you were a bit socially incompetent, but this goes beyond a little misinformed," Nino groaned after several more seconds of staring yielded nothing besides a sincere-yet-slightly-puzzled-looking Adrien. Nino rubbed his forehead, looking exasperated. "I can't believe I have to tell you this, bro, but most people date before they up and get married."

"I'm engaged, not married," Adrien pointed out helpfully.

"Yeah, well, most people date before they get engaged, too!"

"Uh..."

"But do you do either? No, of course not!" Nino was pacing now, hands running through his hair. "You would think that Marinette would be a little more reasonable, but she said yes? When you hadn't even been dating? How-? I can't even. You guys are ridiculous."

"Actually, we were dating," Adrien said helpfully before Nino could start banging his head against the wall again. As fun as it was to watch his friend work himself up into an exasperated frenzy, he didn't exactly want to have to be the once to explain to Alya why there was a Nino-head-shaped dent in their living room wall, or how Nino had gotten a concussion. "We just figured that it would be a good idea to tell as few people as possible since we didn't want the reporters or my father hearing about it and making a fuss."

Nino fixed him with a look. "And you didn't trust Alya or I not to say anything?"

Adrien had to good grace to look sheepish. He had to admit that now, in retrospect, he and Marinette probably could have found some way to tell their friends and just make it very, very clear that the news was not to be shared. There probably had been no need to keep their dating as closely guarded of a secret as their secret identities but, well, old habits were hard to break. Besides, it was pretty funny. "We were worried that someone might overhear you talking about it in public, or that Alya wouldn't be able to resist telling Rose or Mylène and then they would tell someone else."

"Fair enough, I suppose." Nino still looked fairly exasperated. "Still, we could have been careful, and you could have told us, like, a couple months before you came back. We could've kept a secret that long, at the very least."

Adrien raised a single eyebrow.

"...or maybe not," Nino admitted after a moment of consideration. "Alya probably would have been very loud about you two finally getting together. She will be very loud as soon as she finds out."

"Yeah, Marinette's insisted that I come with her when she talks to Alya to act as a bit of a shield," Adrien admitted. "So, uh, can we stop by later to break the news? Just act surprised."

Nino snorted. "Oh, I knew there was an ulterior motive for you coming and telling me first. If my wife wants to attack you and your fiancée, I'm not gonna stop her, just a heads-up."

"Thanks, bro. Your support means everything to me," Adrien said dryly. Nino laughed.

"Yeah, yeah. Congratulations and all that, I guess, but dude. Seriously. You. Are. Ridiculous."

Alya, as expected, was thrilled to see them again. And Alya, as expected, picked up on their squirmy behavior within minutes.

"So, you two look incredibly serious over there," Alya said suspiciously as she backed up a couple steps, eyeing them up and down. "Why, I can't for the life of me guess. Care to enlighten- is that a ring on your finger?"

"We're engaged," Adrien confirmed with a grin.

And Alya screamed.

Nino, Adrien, and Marinette all flinched away, clapping their hands over their ears. Alya could be incredibly loud when she wanted to be. Alya screamed for a full thirty seconds before she ran out of breath. She took a deep breath, and all of them cringed, preparing for another round of deafening screaming.

Instead, Alya visibly composed herself and then turned a suspicious look on Adrien and Marinette.

"Okay. Right. Ha ha very funny, you two. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. I'm not falling for that again." Alya crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes further. "Whose ring did you borrow this time?"

"It's mine," Marinette said indignantly. "Why is it that no one believes us?"

"Your parents did," Adrien pointed out helpfully. "But then again, we told them about the dating thing first."

"That's true."

"That would have been a better lead-in," Nino pointed out helpfully. "And then we could be ticked at you for not telling us that first, and then you could freak everyone out again with the sudden engagement."

Alya spun on him. "You knew?"

"No no, definitely not!" Nino said hastily, putting his hands up in defense. "Your screaming just blew all of my freak-out out of my head and I was just, y'know, suggesting what they should have done given that they just said there had been a dating thing."

Alya lit up again. "They did." She turned on Adrien and Marinette. "Explain. Now."

"We couldn't risk letting it get out to the press at all," Adrien said quickly, before the threat in Alya's eyes could manifest any further. "Not until I had finished university and Marinette had finished her job. And if you had said anything about it in public and someone overheard, or if any of our other friends heard and didn't realize that we didn't want people knowing, the press could have sunk their claws in quickly."

Alya did not look happy. "I could have kept a secret."

Nino snorted. "Babe-"

She whirled on him. "What?"

Nino held his hands up in defense. "Admit it, you would have at least told Mylène and Ivan, and probably Rose and Juleka as well, and maybe even Alix, just so you could gloat about being right-"

"I would not have!" A pause. "Okay, maybe I would have."

Adrien stifled a snort.

"But you still could have told us sooner!" Alya insisted, wheeling back to face them again. "You could have told us that you were dating at the wedding, and then broke the engagement news later!"

"You would have started squealing in joy and then everyone who was there would've wanted to know why," Marinette said dryly. "And then everyone there would have found out, and then Adrien and I would have been hounded for our last couple months. The press in London was already breathing down Adrien's neck and jumping on us for looking close, they would have had a field day if they heard that we were actually dating."

Nino snorted. "Oh, like they aren't going to have a field day with your surprise engagement? I wish I was in contact with some of your friends back there, just so I could ask them to pick up a copy of all of the magazines and read every. single. last. article. to you guys."

"You wouldn't make it, The articles would melt your brain with their stupidity before you even got halfway through." Adrien grinned. "But you're in luck, in case you did want to melt your brain. Sarah swore that she was going to hunt down every article and news report that they do on us and give it to us as our wedding present."

Nino cheered.

Alya still hadn't forgiven them, clearly. She was still giving them a bit of an evil eye, though it seemed a bit teasing. "Ugh. Models and their flairs for the dramatic, honestly."

Adrien spluttered indignantly. "I- what? Why am I being singled out for this?"

"Because you're the only model we really know and therefore we feel more comfortable with generalizing the whole lot of you?" Nino suggested helpfully. Alya shook her head, eyes narrowed at Marinette.

"No, no, we can't let Marinette off of the hook," she told Nino. "They're both crazy dramatic people. Perfect for each other, really."

"I think there was approval somewhere in there," Adrien told Marinette. "Somewhere, buried deep."

Alya finally laughed at that. "No, I'm really happy for you guys," she admitted. "Crazy happy. It's about time, really. I was just really surprised. And that's pretty funny, really, when you think about it. How did your dad take it?"

"Better than expected, still not as well as he could have," Adrien said cheerfully, exchanging a smile with Marinette. "I don't know if he's any closer to properly accepting it today, though, because I didn't go back over. But never mind that. Do you want to help us write a Facebook post announcing our engagement?"

Alya lit up. "Are you kidding? I'd love to!" She grinned widely at them, grabbing her laptop from the dining room table and shoving it at Adrien. "Go ahead and log in. Oh, I cannot wait to see people's reactions to this."

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #How to Fake a Marriage #woooo wooo

54 notes · View notes

not-so-freshman · 7 years ago

Text

Dare for a Truth [Part 2 of 3]

Becca x MC

With Becca and MC’s (Alison) relationship revealed to their house mates. The gang have a few questions, but Becca isn’t giving them up for free. [ Part 1 ]

While we waited for Kaitlyn to get cleaned up after her dare, Becca and I found ourselves in the kitchen preparing ourselves another drink. She comes over and wraps her arms around my neck, smiling and relaxed. “I can’t believe I fell for that.”

“Kaitlyn fooled us all, don’t worry.” I tried to reassure Becca, her hair still disheveled from her earlier struggle. I tuck a few strands of wild hair behind her ears, revealing more of her beautiful face.

The sound of foot steps draws her attention to the doorway, Becca retreats slightly, withdrawing her arms from my neck, but she seems to catch and remind herself before replacing her arms and pulling me into a short and sweet kiss. Our lips gently peel apart and she whispers to me. “sorry, old habits and all that.”

We reenter the lounge together and I notice that Chris has also finally finished peeling the potato with his teeth, well close enough anyway, they’re was the odd speck of skin left behind. Kaitlyn made her presence known by heavily footing it down the stairs and she wasted no time in getting back to the game.

“So, tell us, HOW did this even happen?”

“I wish we knew!” Becca and I giggled to ourselves but seeing Abbie fold her arms I knew it wasn’t a good enough answer.

“Do you guys have any of the answers?” Abbie asked not that she needed to, her facial expression already telling me everything.

I look to Becca while going back in my mind to the night we bumped into each other, realizing we owe whatever we have now to that night. If barriers never broke then, we wouldn’t be here now playing this silly game with my friends. I wanted to spare them the gory details, not particularly wanting to share it was supposed to be one night.

“Remember last freshman quarter…after the concert where I…where I went for a walk.”

Kaitlyn’s face falls and she shifts uncomfortably, not wanting to remember our fallout any more than I do. Abbie, Chris and Zack nod in sync, urging me to continue. “Well, we ran into each other, and let’s just say… we put our differences aside.” They all had a slight look of confusion, not fully understanding what I was trying to imply, needing me to elaborate further.

Suddenly, Becca bumps her shoulder into mine. “…Then there was spring fling where we put our… differences aside again.” The group roll their eyes, almost repulsed as the penny finally had dropped, but they quickly laugh it off. Chris then rubs at his teeth, the lingering discomfort of scraping his teeth against the skin of potato, reminding him of his question earned. “So that was quite a while ago, is this thing official or?”

“Yep! Decided it was about time seeing as you started setting Alison up with weirdos! NEXT!”

“You know you was technically one of those weirdos!” Zack remarked with a smug face.

Becca swatted away Zack’s quip like a bad smell in the air, wanting to move onto her last victim. Abbie stepped forward in anticipation being the only one not yet dared. I can see Becca tapping her foot, deep in thought trying to think of a good dare, she looks at me mischievously and opens her mouth to speak. I grow scared at the thought of what she has in store for my friend. “I dare you- “

“-to take a selfie with a loaf of bread and upload it to your twitter, no explanation!”

“Alison! That’s too easy!”

“Taking it!” Abbie gleefully skipped into the kitchen to find the bread.

“It counts, it counts!” Zack bouncing, pleased at the easy dare, earning them a question essentially for free. Everyone looked on as Abbie posed with the bread as if it was her best friend and took a picture, but I couldn’t help notice Kaitlyn slinking off upstairs, drained of her usually bubbly self.

“See Alison this is why I was picking the dares.” Becca folded her arms, almost trying to exaggerate her disappointment but it was undone by her playful smile.

“I’m sorry! I was getting worried you was going to make her drink window cleaner or something!”

I watched Abbie fiddle with her phone for a moment, she then turned the screen to face me, proving that she did indeed upload the photo as asked. She then stares into space for a moment, deep in thought. “Erm. I got nothing. What about you guys?”

The trio looked around, only just now realizing Kaitlyn had disappeared, Chris opened his mouth to speak but was swiftly interrupted by an excitable Zack. “IS THIS LOVE?!”

Suddenly, I was frozen in place by Zack’s question, an intense heat began to gather in my ears. I know how I feel and I also know its not the same for her. I fall fast, it took this long to get her to be public. And I certainly knew this wasn’t the moment I wanted to tell her my feelings for the first time. Just as I thought I would suffocate on the tension building inside me, a noise from Abbie’s phone caught everyone’s attention, providing a chance for Becca to escape the room.

“Well I’ve decided this game isn’t fun anymore!” Becca made her escape to the kitchen and Zack followed her, presumably to pester her for some sort of answer to his question. “who was that Abbie.” I wasn’t really curious, I just leapt at any chance to leave this moment in time. She showed me her phone screen, and the photo she took for the dare. Madison had commented on the picture;

“Oooooh new selfie trend!”

I laugh at the ditsy blonde’s comment, Chris and Abbie both seem to sense how uncomfortable I was made by Zack’s question, so they do me a favor and join in on my laughter, they continue to make jokes and small talk with me late into the night.

I’m in my room changing into my pajamas and settling in for the night, just as a pluck at my covers about to retreat to my bed, I hear a knock at the door. It’s not Becca, she normally knocks thrice and comes in. I make my way over, unbalanced and uncoordinated from fighting sleep. I open the door and to my surprise I see Kaitlyn. A look of determination in her eyes. “I have question.”

I managed to nod slowly in response despite going stiff with tension.

“Why her?”

I grew cold and somehow, I tensed up even further, completely gagged by the bombshell left before me. I avoided all eye contact, silence growing more awkward with every passing second I don’t respond. What did she really want to know? Finally bringing myself to look at the daring girl, she no longer looked determined but instead more, distressed.

“Why not me?”

[ Next Part ]

Note: I’m glad i could finally post this to you guys after spending so much time considering and reconsidering the ending. Eventually i decided to go with what i thought was the more riskier ending that i had always originally planned on when starting to write this. (these are basically my head cannons after all)

Their is a Part 3 now.

Thank you for reading as always!

#the freshman #the sophomore #playchoices #choices #becca x mc #mc x becca #becca davenport #chris powell #kaitlyn liao #zack the freshman #abbie the freshman #MyFanFics

113 notes · View notes

alphacentauriiswatchingyou-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Steven Moffat Appreciation Day 2017: DWM Production Notes

With the end of the Moffat-era we are not just losing Steven’s writing talent on the screen, but also in the monthly DWM column in which he answers questions from readers of the magazine, sometimes serious, sometimes less so. Here are some of my favourites:

Is the Doctor's accent innate or part of the TARDIS' translation system? While people and lizards from Earth hear the Doctor speak with a Scottish accent, would beings from other planets hear him speak with a totally different accent?

The Scottish accent is prevalent throughout the universe because it is so sexy. That's one hell of an evolutionary advantage.

How do you think the other Masters would react to Missy if they ever met?

Oh, I've given it thought! Surely there's fan fiction already? There must be - to your work, if not! The impossible one, of course, is the Delgado/Gomez simmer-fest - but oh, imagine! Hooded gazes at dawn! Sneers like sword slashes! Sexy prowls, cat-like circling! In no time flat, a country cottage, three kids and a Volvo.

One summer evening, as they both puff away in the cigar gazebo, watching the children (identical girl triplets, dead white and levitating) rebuilding the lawn mower into a nuclear reactor using Master Plan Q, the question inevitably arises...

THE MASTER: My dear, you've never exactly told me who you are.

MISSY: You're always so busy, trying to drain the world's oceans, or rob banks with dinosaurs -

THE MASTER: I just want the kids to have a future.

MISSY: Then why do you keep trying to blow up the planet?

THE MASTER Must we always take this attitude to my work?

MISSY: Or freeze the polar ice caps.

THE MASTER: That was a simple administrative error.

MISSY: Don't you think there might be a clue in my name?

THE MASTER: Missy?

MISSY: Tiny bit of a clue?

THE MASTER: I have long suspected there was some cunning word play involved. Some abtruse hint as to your true identity, of some fiendish complexity and subtlety that it eludes even my mighty Time Lord brain. Is it short for Mistress, though?

MISSY: Yep.

IN THE GARDEN, THE TRIPLETS OBSERVE THE TWO CIGAR TIPS GLOWING MORE BRIGHTLY FOR A MOMENT IN THE SHADOWS OF THE GARDEN.

THE MASTER: My dear, do you think the triplets ever get lonely?

AND FROM THE HAPPY HOME, THE REST IS SILENCE. EXCEPT FOR THE NIGHTLY SING-A-LONG OF THE ADDAMS FAMILY.

In Kill the Moon Clara is very upset at the prospect of killing a big chicken. Yet in The Time of the Doctor she is seen gleefully roasting a turkey! How can she care so much for one type of poultry and so little for another?

Oh, for God's sake! It's not a turkey inside the moon, is it? It's a giant, pregnant space dragon and some spiders. Have you no grasp of physics?! Has Doctor Who taught you nothing?!

RUSSELL T DAVIES asks: I love your list in DWM 482 of the Doctor's many wives. Did you ever think we'd be having that conversation, 10 years ago? But... what's this? His marriage to Queen Elizabeth the First was unconsummated? But, but, but... in The End of Time Part One, the Tenth Doctor arrives on the Ood-Sphere to greet his old friend Ood Sigma with the words, "Got married. That was a mistake. Good Queen Bess. And let me tell you, her nickname is no longer... ahem." So, what does that mean, boss? What can it possibly mean?? Steven, what does it MEAN??? Thank you.

Oh for God's sake. PAY ATTENTION. You've gone soft up there in Manchester. Practically tofu, I'd say. Probably all that lazing about, never writing any episodes for me, even though I wrote six for you. Yes, SIX. Actually, no, SEVEN. Time Crashcounts too - and it was for charity. But never mind, oh no, I'll just type on and on and neglect my children, that's fine.

Okay, the facts. I said the marriage was unconsummated - and so it was. You saw for yourself in The Day of the Doctor - he ran straight off after the ceremony. Would we have put that on television if it wasn't true? But I never said - not once, not ever - that the relationship was unconsummated!

Yes, Russell! I went there. Even as you gasp and clutch the furniture for support, I am writing in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine about pre-marital shenanigans! I realise you've probably never heard of such unsanctified naughtiness - glancing at your resume, I see you write mainly about fruit and veg for Channel 4 - but it does go on, you know. Well, outside of Manchester.

So there you are. You may sleep again. The Doctor's boast in The End of Time (oh, and thanks for that title, just before I took over) and my statement that his marriage to Elizabeth was unconsummated are in no way contradictory. True fact! Accept my True Face. Back away in shame at your wrongness.

Actually, write me a story, and we'll say no more about it.

I read an article that said there was a TARDIS flooding scene in an episode of the 2012 series that was cancelled due to Karen Gillan being unable to swim. Could you elaborate on that further, please?

We decided not to drown Karen. There was a meeting. We voted.

Do you have any plans in store for the Cyber-Brigadier? Or will he just be left in limbo, protecting Kate wherever she goes?

Oh God, can you imagine. It's the spin-off: "My Dad's A Cyberman!"

KATE: Dad, please don't sit in my office. CYBERBRIG: Just sorting out a few things for you... KATE: Really, we're fine. CYBERBRIG: You've got far too many people. All you need is a Sergeant, maybe an occasional Captain, and a nice family car for you all to drive around in. Keeps the Earth perfectly safe! KATE: It's changed days, Dad. CYBERBRIG: And why don't have a big sign outside - UNIT HQ, with your name on it? Does you good to see your name on a big sign. KATE: Well, we are supposed to be a top secret organisation. CYBERBRIG: Yes, yes - you put 'Top Secret' on the sign. Have I taught you nothing about security?! And for goodness' sake, why do you have all these women about the place? How much tea do you need? KATE: They're scientists. CYBERBRIG: Scientists?! Have we been infiltrated? Evacuate the building, I'll lure them into a nuclear reactor. KATE: They work here. CYBERBRIG: They what?! You only need one scientist, Kate. A funny one, with silly clothes, that's the ticket. Give him a tiny little office and a table, he'll be perfectly happy. KATE: I'm a scientist. Science leads, that's what you taught me. CYBERBRIG: Exactly! Science leads! But only if you let it. Round them all up, put them in booths, waterboard any trouble-makers - KATE: Dad, you're getting excited again! Your moustache has slipped. CYBERBRIG: Oh, no, has it? It's this face, it's a bit slippery - like all aliens. I say, Kate - do you think people know my moustache isn't real? KATE: I think they always did.

Since the earliest days, whenever we viewers follow the Doctor into the TARDIS, he seems to take quite some time getting to the console before the TARDIS takes off. But when we stay outside, the door barely has time to close before dematerialisation occurs. What's your in-universe explanation for this quirk?

Oh, you and me both! I've worried about that for years. And in fact, decades before I got anywhere near Doctor Who, I came up with an answer. It's not in the show - it is not canonical - but I offer it up.

The TARDIS knows the future. Or rather, the TARDIS makes no distinction between past, present and future - for any time machine, time is all one long event stream, hanging there in causality, unmoving and unchanging. In other words the TARDIS already knows when its connection to real time and space will no longer be necessary, in any given part of the event stream. So as the Doctor and friends move towards the console, in the world outside the doors, the TARDIS has already fast-forwarded to the take-off the Doctor is about to perform.

Any good? Got something better? All head canons are equal!

How come the Doctor allowed River Song to go freely with her vortex manipulator but he kept disabling Jack's?

Every time he grabs River's wrist, it all goes very wrong.

[In Heaven Sent] who put the chalk marks around the missing paving slab, and who buried the slab in the ground? Was it whoever created the trap?

Oh, this is... wrong somehow. I figured out, in detail, how the Doctor's first few trips round the castle worked, but I deliberately buried it. I wanted atmosphere and mystery: for us to be trapped in the Doctor's nightmare, never sure what to trust. And I particularly liked (and still like) the idea that everyone would have a different theory about the logic. Peter Capaldi has one version, Rachel Talalay has another, and in a moment you'll have mine. But mystery and discussion is better, I swear.

So. What follows is not canonical. It's just the best I could work with from what the Doctor told me. Frankly, and with all my heart, you're better off not reading what comes next. Never trust answers - they're the opposite of conversation.

Okay...

The first time round the castle, the Doctor is there for many years - because there is no clue leading him to room 12. He's ancient by the time he understands that room 12 is important. It's a very old man who starts punching the wall...

After a few thousand years of this, he realises he's going too slowly. He needs to get the next version of himself into room 12 faster. But how to leave a message in a recycling puzzle box that a man like him would ever trust?

One ancient version of the Doctor doesn't punch the wall. He totters back out of the chamber before the veiled creature can arrive, and scratches the words 'I AM IN 12' in every nook and cranny he can find. He chooses that message because it sounds a little like a cry for help, and that always appeals to him. The next Doctor might even be fooled into thinking it's Clara. Oh, the cruelty of the Doctor to himself!

He knows that some of those hidden messages might just survive, because he knows the castle reset isn't perfect - the dust in the teleport room, the skulls in the water, the way the portrait of Clara he painted (of course it was him, the soppy old fool) has aged. Suspecting that objects moved from rooms, or added to them, sometimes can resist the reset, he pulls a scratched-on flagstone from the kitchen floor and buries it in the garden (later Doctors add the details of the arrows and the spade). It's this message - one of only two that manage to survive - that he always finds. The loop shrinks, the Doctor is younger as he punches the wall, and the Time Lords tremble as the storm grows closer.

The other message that survived? In my head - and I suppose, only there - 'I AM IN 12' is also written on the back of Clara's portrait. The trouble is, the Doctor draws too much strength from her smile ever to turn her face to the wall...

There are many more and I recommend to read them all. You can find a lot of them on reddit or on here. I really hope old chibs keeps this up, but I know it will never be as glorious as the answers of Steven “Master Selfcest Fanfic Writer” Moffat.

#doctor who #Steven moffat #dwm #production notes #moffat appreciation day #the man the legend #mine

122 notes · View notes

spideyxchelle · 7 years ago

Note

Spideychelle. Peter has nightmares about Michelle dying. I love your work

y i k e s FAM, you all looooove angst. me too.

tw: blood, low-key violence

somewhere between “what are you hiding, Peter?” and “I’m Spider-man” five months later….MJ became important to Peter

important enough that Peter feels like he needs her to know his identity, know everything about him. every little secret, every tick, every idiosyncrasy…its pathetic, really. but no one is as singularly amazing as MJ is in Peter’s eyes. she’s smart, strong, fierce, independent and she looked like art.

and somewhere between “I’m Spider-man” and his nightmare Peter falls in love with her. not the high school kind of idealized love, no a real kind of scary love where he saw her for who she really was and wanted her. all of her messy bits. every hair out of place, every beautiful smile and brilliant, wonderful word out of her mouth.

the kind of love that could be really overwhelming for ANY teenager but moreso for a crime fighting one. the kind of person that had enemies. the kind of person that could lose the people they loved because of said enemies.

once Peter OFFICIALLY joined the Avengers…Ned and May were given a security detail. lots of tech that tracked their movements, lowkey agents that kept a respectful distance but, STILL, kept them safe….

Mr. Stark had asked if there was anyone else he wanted to keep a security detail on and he had wanted to say MJ, he really did, but to say MJ would mean he would have to verbalize something he hadn’t come to terms with yet. MJ was important. too important. and that meant a lot. again, overwhelming, okay?

so he hadn’t said anything, hadn’t given her any security and at first it was fine. and then it wasn’t. Peter couldn’t sit still, couldn’t help but follow MJ home from school to make certain she was okay, couldn’t sleep.

that last was the worst part of his near constant worries about Michelle “MJ” Jones

he already didn’t sleep enough, maybe five hours on a good night. but once he neglected to tell Tony to keep MJ safe that dropped to about two good, solid hours of sleep. because nightmares clutched at his heart and made it pound and startled him awake.

every. night.

sometimes she was being captured by his enemies, other times she was being tortured by Loki. the worst nightmares, though, were when she died. when Thanos crushed her skull or the Vulture dropped her from 1000 feet up and she fell and fell and fell until it was over. and sometimes she would get shot and die in his arms. those dreams always shook him the most. because he could feel her skin, hear her fading breath and cradle her when it was all over.

Michelle dead, even in dreams, wasn’t really MJ at all. MJ was everything good about life, she was so alive. she was laughter and lazy Sundays and the erratic beating of his heart when she gleefully told him to keep up as they ran down the streets of Queens together.

MJ wasn’t allowed to be anything other than alive.

the absolute worst nightmare Peter ever has, though, is a dream where they’re close to something. they’re sitting on the roof of his building, their feet hanging over the ledge, and MJ is sitting so close to Peter, leaning in like she’s gonna kiss him. and he’s about to indulge, give into the inevitable chemistry between them and then she’s gone.

the vulture has her in his claws. and he’s reaching for his suit but its no where near. so he’s begging. begging for him to put her down, to spare her. please, he’ll do anything.

and the begging turns into reaching for her, like if could just touch the bottom of her foot that’s hovering above him maybe he could do something to help.

but this time, MJ doesn’t drop, doesn’t fall into the abyss where he can’t save her. no, the sharp claw on Vultures foot glides across her neck and the blood falls down onto Peter’s face. her blood tastes sharp like iron.

and the vulture drops her like a rag doll into Peter’s arms. she’s clawing at neck to save herself (to no avail) and he’s screaming. he’s shaking and rocking her back and forth and always screaming.

so that’s how he wakes - screaming.

Aunt May is away at her boyfriend’s house and so he’s alone and screaming. he kicks his sheets off of his body and he finds he can’t stop yelling. his hands shake like he’s still holding her body.

once he can finally relax, which is a relative term because his whole body feels like he’s been electrocuted, he grabs his phone and calls her. “come on, MJ. come on. answer your phone.”

a groggy voice answers, “this better be good, Parker”

and he can’t help himself, he gasps and sobs into the phone. it had been so real. it had been so immediate. it had been a moment of pure terror. loss.

he can hear the concern in her voice when she starts prodding about what’s wrong, what’s happened?

“you’re alive,” is all he manages to say. and he repeats it like a prayer.

she talks him into a place where tears don’t exist and where his breath is somewhat even. but if he thinks about it he can still feel the weight of her dead body in his arms

she coaxes his dream out of him and doesn’t cry but its a close call

when he does she reassures him she’s alive and she’s okay and he doesn’t care. he needs to see her.

so at 3:42 in the morning he’s swinging through the streets of Queens and crawling through her window. she’s waiting on her bed and he peels out of his suit and slips into her bed (without much thought) and rests his head on her chest. he wants to hear her heart, he wants to feel it beating.

he can tell she’s startled but she doesn’t say anything, she just combs her fingers through his messy hair and hums under her breath.

a half hour later, she gently asks if he’s okay and he shakes his head, burying his head in her chest.

“you know,” she points out, “you’re in your boxers, Parker, and in my bed. i’m not going to say this is your elaborate plan to get in my bed…but I’m not not saying that”

he chokes out a laugh and holds her tighter, “it felt so real”

“it wasn’t” “every night you die in my dreams, every night” “you sentimental puppy”

“i’m so scared, MJ” THAT catches her attention. “scared of what?” she asks. and he tilts his head up to look her in the eyes, “losing you.” and after another beat he adds. “this.” this thing between them. this cosmic, all-consuming thing between them that feels like one kiss away from catastrophe

uncertain he leans up to press his mouth against hers. she doesn’t respond, doesn’t even twitch. he pulls away just enough so he can speak but close enough that they’re not technically kissing. “is this okay?” he whispers, terrified. “nothing about this is okay,” her voice is small. and she kisses him, more insistent, more desperate.

the next morning when he wakes up at noon he’s still wrapped up in MJ and she’s holding him like she’s trying to hold him together.

the nightmares don’t stop, they never really can (he worries too much to ever feel like she’s safe), but his dreams also get sweeter. because he knows how feels in real life when he kisses her. and when she dies, because she always does, and he startles awake…..she’s there. curled around him. and it helps.

it’s not perfect. but she is.

#anon #asks #tw: violence #headcanon #spideychelle

199 notes · View notes

hanzi83 · 7 years ago

Text

It’s been a while

I have not written a blog since the Trump presidency has begun, but if you follow me on social media, you know I have been active on there, periscope, and even Facebook live, spewing my conspiracy theories, ranting irrationally about my depression, while people sit idly by and pretend they actually care about other people’s mental illness, when these industry types who preach about people getting help etc sit back and watch others break down for their own amusement. If these people actually gave a fuck about mental illness, maybe start with the vultures who run your industry who help perpetuate this type of behavior and have rewarded it and in the process dumbed down an entire generation.

I don’t want to get into it in detail because I am unsure if this blog will even post. I tried to write one on New Years because again I am left alone while local people I know have been rewarded from my misery and then pretend they actually give a fuck about me, when they love taking from me and then pretending they care. Then they show up on my social media platforms under false names and start name dropping a bunch of personal things they know about me and I am stuck here useless which works to their advantage, because no one believes anything I say and even if they do, they know they can’t say a word so they play dumb about it.

I think these people want me to do something to myself so they have an excuse to take action against me. I am the victim of gang stalking because I chose to be open about how I don’t think the world is run the way it is, and now because of that, people in my life and other paid trolls have made it a mission to be transparent as fuck with what is going on and they will use my own mental illness against me. They want to talk about how they care about me, but these cowards allow paid trolls to harass me constantly and try to bait me out and put out traps for me to fall into.

No one in the media will ever investigate this, and I am not the only one who is being gang stalked. I am not the only one who is being monitored constantly and seen as red flags. I don’t know what these people have in store for me. Even when I am writing on my lap top, in what is supposed to be my personal journal, I know it is monitored heavily and they even move my cursor around while I am typing to make their presence known and wanting me to go crazy. The genius part about this is, no one will help, because everyone in this has been compromised.

These same people pretend they are nice family people, yet their marriages are only based off convenience because their expendable ass is only needed to have kids and then neglect them so they can watch me on my social media platforms, and if they are not doing that they are probably bombarding every hip hop site to promote their white supremacist talking points in the comment sections. These people to me are not randomly typing stuff on the internet, they are paid to do so.

They have limited me to my very core in hopes that I lose my mind and reach out for their help because they know I am supposed to be valuable to the game, yet they can’t feed me my ego yet so they want me to ask for their help so I owe them something, when they all owe me for making their lives better and my connection to the Stern Show has opened backdoor deals for all of these people to prosper. Whether its meeting celebrities, getting to contribute to movies/television, having elaborate gatherings, and then inviting me to the limited ones, because you can’t have me at your gathering unless you get some profit out of it. There is no other reason why these people give a fuck about me. When it comes to their agendas, they will take care of it first. No one in the media will ever investigate it because even the “good” alternate media is also controlled. Stern can take the appropriate measures to fuck with me. By the way, these are just theories, I don’t have any proof and even if I did, it would not be allowed to be investigated because these people are all controlled and for some reason they have chosen me to fuck with and will continue to fuck with.

It is very scary what is going on. And it seems with Trump in office, even though I feel he doesn’t have the real power, the people who are controlling these situations have an excuse to fuck with people even more. I don’t know if this is on purpose, so it becomes defeated, but someone doesn’t like that I pointed out Stern has connection to Trump, and even though he let it leak that he donated 1000 bucks to Hilary, it was meant, in my opinion, to be a distraction from the fact he donated to Trump, even as far as being shocked that he won and got upset at his staff for voting for him, and I wonder who is controlled staff takes orders from to vote for someone of Trump’s stature.

Now I am being watched and monitored constantly. I did this to myself, hoping that I could die someday but clearly these people don’t want me to leave, because it is a lot more fun to torture me mentally and emasculate for their own amusement because they hate that they are in fake marriages and have to have kids that they don’t want and then completely neglect them because they are in the closet. That’s fine, but when these cowardly types do that it’s for business purposes so they can spew racist propaganda. That’s why when someone of color says something slightly homophobic, they will generalize and say it is a part of their community and culture, while a bunch of right wing type who are in the closet spew racist rhetoric and get away with it because people behind the scenes know they are gay, and yet you can’t make that accusation that there is a lot of racism in that community, because it would be wrong to generalize people like that, but these industry cowards get away with it and smile gleefully while perpetuating and promoting we need more anti Muslim movies that exist

Nothing will ever stop. These people are committed to fully stalking anything I do online and organize paid harassment and these same industry cowards, who don’t make their money entertaining, it’s trolling online for side money, will ridicule people who need safe spaces, while they are the ones who need safe spaces because they would rather harass people online and not admit who they are because they have an image to stay true to. It’s fucking garbage. I fucking hate all these people who have been forced to do this and how they all take pleasure from it.

I despise that these do gooders in the industry will promote the suicide hotline after the fact that someone kills themselves, and pat themselves on the backs for it, when they could just speak out against the people who help cause this and when you point this out, they will act like someone such as myself has not taken accountability for it, while they refuse to take accountability for what they contribute to and how many lies they put out in this world and then play “I am just an entertainer” card and advocating free speech, all while ridiculing people mentally into silence.

I wish I could stay away but I never expected to be alive this long and the fact that I am, I am just filling up time. I don’t care who is getting married or who is having kids. I don’t want to be here for any of it because I don’t fit this mold that is expected of me in the world and instead of granting me my wish of letting me leave this world, they will make me stay and have to cry myself to sleep thinking about how much my own family and friends have done without me. And then I am the asshole because I want to express myself and then when I do, I will pay the price for it because that is what these people do to me. No one actually gives a fuck about me nor have they ever. People need me they said, and then leave it at those vague answers, while I think Stern and his posse organizing harassment online. Even with people seemingly believing me, it won’t do anything. No one wants to speak out about this and they will sit back and watch until something happens to me and then for their fucking fake internet points and likes, they will start showing some support or compassion. It is disgusting how selfish these pieces of shit are.

By the way they probably won’t let this one post. I remember I wrote 5-6 pages worth on New year where I wanted to bitch about people locally having such secrecy and transparency at the time and it was not allowed to post, but for some reason I was allowed to post one sentence about how my post won’t show up. I posted it 30 times and the original one did not post. So they are fucking with my speech and my movements.

People can only interact with me on fake accounts so they can tell me certain truths, name dropping food I have consumed that day to make it seem like they know, but then pretend they are nobody trolls who are just fans of mine. These people are not fans of mine. If they are, they are the worst fucking fans of existence. They will hype me up, while at the same time putting me down for even thinking I am worth more than what they present in the system. They all are now showing off their perks on their various radio shows and still have not even thanked me for contributing to it and helping it out, while they stole my ideas and my likeness.

As I type this right now, they will keep watching me and monitoring it. They will eventually have hold of my personal journal and leak it out and then blame me for writing personal stuff in there because that is what they do. They will find a way to fuck with me more. The sad part is these are people who I known since I was a little kid, and these people are also after me like no other. They won’t admit it, none of them will. They even say shit like “We can’t have you doing that, and ruin our lives” but they are okay with ruining my life and leaving me vulnerable for their own gain. It is sickening. I don’t want to be here and I wish at some point they can take me out of here and it feels like more and more they are planning my demise.

I have decided to see a therapist and even then that will be provided me by the same system that is fucking with me. They want someone to monitor what I will say so they can report it back and if I even tell them this, they will obviously deny it because officially these people can’t admit they are reporting this shit to people, but when gangstalking is involved, and you are on a monitored list, you can oversee anything and have a justified excuse to do it because to most common folk I am a danger to society, even though I am not a violent person, and I don’t have access to any weapons. I hope you people are happy with what you have accomplished in tearing another human being down and then pretending you care about protecting people etc, all this while you make numerous people around the globe feel like they are the most mentally ill people in this world. I would expect this blog to guilt some people, but most of them are soulless individuals and even if it affects them they will find ways to project it on to other people and make them suffer because their feelings are the ones who are fragile and can’t take any criticism because they are in the in crowd and then they show up as regular people in front of my face and act like they want to partner up for a podcast. I don’t have any interest in partnering up with any cowardly person who has harassed me online and posted lies about me online. They put out stuff like “Hanzi threatened Howard” knowing fully that I didn’t threaten anyone, but these buzzwords create a red flag and have people looking into me. That is what these other radio show hosts do as well, because most of these entertainers are working for people in these positions. This is all my opinion. Again I have no facts, and even if I did, none of you will care to believe me because none of you want to break the system, you want it to keep flourishing with white supremacist talking points that is so embedded into the system, that’s why they fight hard for white supremacists freedom of speech, while minorities don’t even have free movement.

#Hanzi 2017 Stern Show Howard Trolls Gang Stalking Illuminati Trump Industry Mental Illness

0 notes

whitelennykravitz-blog · 8 years ago

Text

I think a good metric for the quality of a city is if there is an equally good chance, while drinking a morning coffee, of seeing a tank drive by or seeing a dead cat. Chongqing, China is this city. It was also a city that brought a lot of firsts: On the sports front, the first time playing basketball next to dancing formations of military men and women. On the culinary front, the first time eating a pig’s brain. On the drug front, the first time smoking meth.

I should point out that I flew into Chongqing in a haze of a drug hangover and a bit of wonder at the events that led me to be on that plane in the first place. It all hinged on Rona. I had met Rona in Prague the year before and over the course of 3 days (spread out over two periods when we overlapped in the city… and these aren’t “full” days, as in I didn’t spend 72 hours with her, maybe 35 hours, tops. And a lot of that was on a rickety boat in the Vltava river dancing in what I assume was vomit) we decided that I should come to Chongqing in order to pursue a group show with her. After some emailing to institutions over there, everything was set to go.

I departed Berlin for Chongqing and my timeline with her wasn’t really on my mind, yet, as I was exiting the security checkpoint in Tegel desperately looking for a Club Mate to drink before boarding my flight to China. I was parched and the long lines and xray machine (they just seem dry, don’t they? Cooking everything just a little bit) had left me needing both bubbles and caffeine. I entered an airport market and on opening my coin purse to pay for my drink, noticed that I had mindlessly wandered through the airport with a half gram of cocaine and 3 tabs of acid.

I’d like to say this is the first time I’ve done this, but it is, in fact, the third. The other two times were both on flights taken from Seattle to LA. The first of those LA trips occurred when I casually threw a bag of drugs (mushrooms and MDMA), that a group of friends and I were planning to take over the weekend, into my carry on bag the night before my flight, and then promptly forgot about them. This meant I walked through the airport with a carryon whose first item on opening was a ziplock bag full of drugs, conveniently on top of both my toiletry bag and laptop, both of which I forgot to remove from my bag. How this didn’t end poorly, I’m still unclear on. I think maybe it’s like dazzle camouflage in World War 1: it was let through because it was all just a bit too much.

The second LA trip was to chase a woman who had firmly shown me that there is no upper bound for the intensity I can love someone while still knowing that someday they will probably forget me. This is actually still on ongoing story, but it’s not very funny, or entertaining. This particular woman did create an image in my head, however, that I will probably never forget: we were sharing an apartment in Prague, and we had just woken up in my bed; high ceilings, everything painted white. There is a balcony overlooking a park, and huge snow flakes are drifting down pulling both the room and our lives into total silence. The light is dense and compact. It fills but does not overwhelm; it is a light that is reminding us of the totality of our lives. Some swedish knock-off white linen comforter is covering us, with a motif of blue trees with little blue birds in their branches. Her head is pushed into that spot where my arm meets my shoulder and it makes me feel like I am at once protecting her and also in awe of something very far away. We are looking out the large french doors to the balcony, and in between us and those countable snow flakes, huge like doilies under a grandmother’s teacup that all the neighborhood loves, is this woman’s ass peaking out from the blanket. We seem to both see her ass at the same time. She leans up to look at me with these eyes that have no mercy but can understand too much kindness — these are eyes that lovers are made of — and she says “look, a rabbit.”

Anyway. That is a side bit about a perfect moment in time. The point is when I went to see her, I threw on a hoodie that had a joint in one pocket, and 15 tabs of acid and a gram of cocaine in the other (there’s a pattern isn’t there?)

Once I had made it through Berlin security, though, I was scared about flying into China with drugs. I’ve never been to China, but the propaganda machine in the US is strong, and had given me a mental image of a country that seemed chronically terrifying in their treatment of human life. My solution to this problem was to quickly consume the half gram of cocaine, and to take one tab of acid. I didn’t think anyone would really pick out a tab of acid from a coin purse — they’d probably just assume the little ball of tinfoil was making company with other shinny things — but I thought one tab might help balance out the uncomfortable high that comes along with doing a half gram of cocaine in a very small amount of time.

I’m still not sure, in retrospect, if this was the right decision. I’m certain that the woman sitting next to me felt it was an awful idea. Her experience was sitting down next to someone who was overly concerned with the alignment of air vents, while gleefully rattling on about the different ways it is possible to organize genres of movies on the in-flight entertainment. “THEY’RE ALL FOREIGN FILMS TO SOMEONE, RIGHT??!” as I quickly do a tactile check of the air vents for the 100th time, while banging my knees together to what I believe was a Young Thug track playing on some level of my brain. I can be very cliche.

The flight is long, though, and with too many hours still left everything started to settle into “normal”, and that’s when I thought to myself, “How do I actually know Rona?”. The answer was really, “I don’t.” So as we descended into Chongqing, population 30 million, I was getting ready to share a flat with, and work with, a woman that I didn’t really know, for a month, before spending a second month there on my own, all in a city I didn’t know.

And to be honest, our relationship and time went really well. She’s one of those people that if you get into her space on day 1, day 2000 will be equally accessible. She shows up with no assembly required. No batteries needed. It’s all there. There was a cold war period of about a week, due to some assholeness on my part, but as part of our treaty agreement, I think it’s best that that side story gets left to another time.

But this writing all started with me stating firsts that included military formations, pig brains, and meth. And while I’ll get to each one of these items, I think it’s interesting to point out that in most stories the LARGE piece of it, the summit of the story, is actually quiet uninteresting, but it is the details leading up that cause for pause. Maybe this is one of those things that everyone already notices and I’m late to the game on.

I have a friend Emanuel who claims that while watching Fight Club for the first time that he knew immediately that Brad Pitt and Edward Norton were the same character. I still don’t know if I believe him, but I do know that I am amazingly good at suspending disbelief — to the point where I watch things and don’t worry about any structure between one frame and the next, or if things even make sense in general, I’m just happy that a machine is spinning away shoving images into my eyes at 30 frames per second.

The point of mentioning this is that I think I can sometimes suspend disbelief of my entire life, which I guess is me just saying that I’m good at ignoring running themes and important details of the world around me. Or maybe I don’t see the ones everyone else does.

Anyway. There are bits and pieces about the basketball: Military formations right next to the courts, white gloves that sway and sometimes were even part of elaborate pop music dance numbers involving 200 different soldiers. There was the street baller named Chocolate, who’s favorite NBA player was Jason Williams (a.k.a, White Chocolate). Chocolate wasn’t white, but did have a picture on his phone of him and Williams during an NBA promotional tour of China. People didn’t smile much playing ball there, or set screens. Both things I do a lot of. In fact, I believe in a good hard foul to stop give away baskets, which wasn’t a custom on this court. If you go and foul someone in pickup basketball when there is a precedence set for not touching anyone at all, a precedence you are oblivious to, yet people would assume you would be following, the look on peoples face as you deliver an obvious foul is a bit like you walked up and slapped a strangers baby while it lay in a carriage. Importantly this analogy requires a stranger’s baby, because the look is not anger, but more like, “what the fuck is that about?” Disbelief.

The pigs brain is uninteresting, really. It just tasted like weird tofu, so let’s move on.

When I first got to Chongqing I was introduced to my sidekick and future friend, Joey. He picked his english name from Friends (very strange choice I think based on personality, although Chandler and Ross are hard names to say for Chinese people) and met me the first time wearing a generic Cleveland Cavaliers jersey. I asked if he liked Lebron James, and he replied, “Who?”

China is strange like that because everything looks like it does everywhere else but for some reason you can’t quite participate in the same way. I’m convinced it’s something to do with how the Chinese language is structured, which is so different from a western language. And since language makes our reality, I think their reality is very different. It always felt like I was watching everyone jump into a stream, but when I tried to, I bounced off the surface of the water.

Eventually Joey and I got to partying together, which made me want to find some good vice. The problem was that most of the people talked of hardcore drug users as the people that sucked NO2 balloons and smoked weed at this one bar/club called Echo Bay; people hanging around someone frying pork on open coals, while another person sits with a huge NO2 tank, filling up balloons for that 20 second rush of brain cells dying. Drug culture is so stratified in China that the lower, more sober, layers don’t have any idea about the layer above them. But it is there. You just have to look. This weed/NO2 layer thought they were king, but they were just jesters. There was a layer above and it was a layer dense with meth and ketamine.

When I first met Mustafa he claimed to have quit doing drugs years ago, and encouraged me to “live the party with my own pure excitement.” I told him that seemed like it was working for him (although, and I didn’t say this then, it sounded like the kind of thing someone says when they are trying to convince themselves this is the case) but that I really enjoyed drugs. Just as they are. No need for excuses, just bring on the drugs.

And so it was a few weeks later that he asked me, “want to smoke some ice?” I’d never smoked meth before, but I’d heard that it was a drug that was used by people that were quite well off in the country, and also was a huge export from China. My cultural curiosity got the better of me and we were soon on the back of his knockoff Vespa, weaving through traffic with the bright lights of the Chongqing downtown across the river on one side, and the dark outlines of rundown apartments on the other. I’m a large guy, and Mustafa is sort of average build, but the two of us on that scooter, my knees poking out to the sides like trolling rigs on a fishing boat, wheels going all squirrelly from all the weight, seemed like the only way to drive to a drug dealers apartment in China. A cartoon version would be the emoji for “buying meth in China”.

We weave out of traffic, towards the sidewalk, with Mustafa yelling “hop off before I hit the curb!”, I sorta popped my bum up, and pulled my legs off the scooter, so that I ghosted off the back of the scooter landing in a quick jog as he expertly popped the curb and parked in front of one of the run down apartments. I think to this moment as a cirque du soleil moment; it had equal grace and skill from both parties.

There was a large cage over the entrance to the apartment block, and Mustafa didn’t have the guys phone number, but I noticed a buzzer switch for the gate about 3 meters inside, and using a piece of bamboo I was able to push the button and let us in. Upstairs we werer let into an apartment that I can only describe as part brothel, part gambling ring, and part meth den. But in a classy way. Everyone was in suits and there were bowls of exotic fruit everywhere; I was immediately offered a coconut water on entry. Nothing makes smoking meth classier than some fresh fruit and coconut water. Actually I think it makes about any vice seem alright and somewhat dignified.

Preparing meth is pretty fabulous. Movies always make it look all dingy and gross in some trailer that is permanently caked in dust and oil, while someone heats up some glass apparatus, inhales, and falls listlessly back into a couch that is sun-bleached and covered in cigarette burn holes. This place is all leather and spotless glass tables. It’s like Bauhaus but with everyone looking very excited, talking at very rapid clips about topics of no consequence.

Mustafa flattened out a piece of tinfoil, perfectly flat with no wrinkles, sprinkled on some meth, heat the tin foil, which melted the meth into a nice glass sheen. He then offered me a sort of water pipe. The idea is that you heat the tinfoil, see-sawing the little liquid meth ball that forms, sucking in the smoke that comes off the top. It’s a bit like playing that maze game with a marble where you tilt the board and keep the ball from falling into holes. But you get high. And it’s a high that is neither pleasurable nor displeasing. You’re just high. It’s a bit like getting an average, non-painful handjob. But the process! Really one of the more fun processes out there.

The night floated on from there. We met back up with friends and went to a high-end karaoke bar where I grabbed some tinfoil and straws from the attached restaurant and convinced Mustafa to make a rig in the bathroom of the karaoke bar. Surrounded by all that marble and stainless steel bathroom fixtures, it actually worked well with my first impressions of meth; all that was missing was some fruit bowls and coconut water.

A woman ended up back at my place that night (I’m unclear on what her rational for that was, given that I can’t imagine I looked like a real winning catch), to be left completely unsatisfied as I laid in my bed, sweating profusely while my penis refused to produce an erection. She fell asleep and I slinked out to the bedroom feeling 100% strung-out. I always think this phrase refers to the sensation that one is existing in between actual minutes; time becomes infinitely long, and you can’t move between seconds anymore.

Out in the living room, a woman I knew back from home through mutual friends, happened to text me asking how I was doing. We hadn’t talked in a long time, so I responded honestly, “I’m high on meth and can’t get an erection. Feel bad for this girl that came home with me.” She responded by sending me pictures of herself naked and one of some guys cock about to penetrate her ass. It was unexpected as I’d never seen her naked, but the nice thing about meth is it really lets you roll with the punches.

I told her thank you for the photos, and then curled up on the couch, smacked my lips still tasting all those fruit bowls, and desperately wished to fall asleep.

0 notes