#and ill be honest the fact that nothing happened did feel too miraculous to be real so... maybe he was already looking out for me 🥺💖🥺💖

[tuff-and-fluff-archives]

(Q hears you screaming)

“Ruby, mon amie, who do I need to snap out of existence for a while? Oh, don’t worry, it’s nothing permanent, just a little taste of the eternal void to put the appropriate fear into them. Harmless, really.”

HHHH OMG 😳💖💖💖💖💖 I appreciate your willingness to get revenge for me but that seems a bit harsh!... Then again...

#ANON I LOVE THIS SO MUCH TY 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖 #Q's makin me fuckin 👀💖💖💖💖 over here #and ill be honest the fact that nothing happened did feel too miraculous to be real so... maybe he was already looking out for me 🥺💖🥺💖 #jk im not that crazy (mostly) but its a sweet thought 🥺💖🥺💖 #💜: let me bring you down to earth #sweet words for me #anon #ruby answers

[goggles-mcgee]

Okay, So I need to Ask Um, Got any salt on Marinette's Parents? Because as much As I love them in the show, They are almost never around to do anything.

Oh yeah definitely.

The show shows them to be loving supportive parents and I think a lot of us like to latch onto that when writing but when you take a step back, you realize they are almost never around and why? Because of their business. They are neglectful. Now it very well could be they don't mean to be, but the fact of the matter is, they are and as a result of that Marinette is very mature and always feels pressure to do things on her own or to make things perfect. That's a lot to put on a child.

Anyways mini rant over! There are 3 ideas on my Dead Sea Salt List that include Tom and Sabine salt and I shall tell them to you and the ways they are salted!

Idea 3. Marinette, The Rolling Stone:

This one is obvious here as this whole story is about Jagged and Penny adopting Marinette. Tom and Sabine like to think they know their daughter but the truth is they aren't around a lot. They don't even notice that she doesn't hang out with the girls in class anymore and hasn't done so in months for crying out loud! They don't even notice that she hasn't gone out to hang out with her friends either.

But then Marinette's friends come in and start telling them that Marinette is bullying the new girl, they don't even recognize Lila from when she almost got Marinette expelled, and Lila herself creates a sob story and well Tom and Sabine notice then and there just how often Marinette has been at home by herself. They fall for the lies.

And well, this is a blessing in disguise for them, they were getting busier with the bakery and thinking of opening up another location and doing that while juggling a teenager would be so difficult, especially a problem child. They decide to kick Marinette out, but they aren't "malicious" or "cold-hearted" they decide to emancipate her. They purely do it because they think they are protecting their family members by not letting Marinette manipulate them into thinking she's the sweet person they thought she was, and they want to protect their image. They don't want their family members to think ill of them.

Then Jagged Stone pops up wanting to commission Marinette, but Tom and Sabine tell them they grounded Marinette from designing and took away her sewing machine. He's livid and demands the reason why, they tell him and he just looks at them like they lost their heads, even asks if they did, because he knows there's no way Marinette would bully someone. They insist she has and she's changed and she's this horrible little liar and manipulator and that's why they are getting rid of her. It takes a lot for him not to get akumatized then and there but Jagged firmly says he'll adopt Marinette.

They try their best to talk him out of it but he's set. So they let him, they just know hope he knows he can't return her when he finds out they were right.

Life is good for them after they get rid of Marinette, that is until the interview. Nadja gets an exclusive interview with Jagged Stone, Penny Rolling and their new adoptive daughter that they have been raving about on social media. Nadja does nothing to hold back her disgust when she recounts what Marinette and her new parents had told her about Tom and Sabine kicking her out all because of a liar. The interview is an hour special where they debunk each and every single one of Lila's lies. And Tom and Sabine watch and the pits in their stomachs grow the more they watch.

After all that. Paris erupts. Gabriel literally passes out from all the anger and sadness he feels from his Miraculous and has to take sleeping medication and just sleep the day away. Everyone who had ever met Marinette was furious, not only at her school and friends, but at her parents too. Regulars who used to come in stopped. Which is a kind of a big deal in France, you pick a bakery and basically stick to it. Despite their products being good, people are hesitant to go to Tom and Sabine's, because how can they go to a place and expect to be treated well when the owners treated their own daughter so awfully and for what? For lies?

They can't even get a second location anymore, the owner of the place they were going to buy from refused their offer. They wanted someone who treasured baking and family to buy their place and they can see that Tom and Sabine don't treasure those ideals. They still get business, but it's not as good as it had been. Some people come in and buy something small but they always have something to say about Marinette, like how it's a shame she's not there, or how her cupcakes were always decorated the best, or how her smile always made their day. Little jabs that just made Tom and Sabine hurt more.

They tried to get Marinette back but to no luck. They tried to say the adoption wasn't legal because of the lies but that got slammed down pretty fast. They tried to talk with her anyway they could think of till she changed her number and Jagged and Penny threatened to take legal action against them.

Everytime they went out, it felt like they were being judged. Like people didn't even want to look at them.

Gina and Roland basically disowned them

Idea 6. Wish Me Away

Not a lot of salt but Tom and Sabine were getting more and more distant with Marinette the closer the big battle got. She tried to pretend she didn't notice but she did, they seemed to only be around ling enough to give her good mornings, obligatory 'I love you's', even when they had dinner together it felt like when they asked her how her day was they were only doing it because it was what parents did, not because they were genuinely interested. Everyday that got closer to the fight she had wanted to be honest and just tell them that she was being crushed under all the weight of her responsibilities but she knew if she did she would be met with disappointment and fake sympathy.

She knew it wasn't healthy, she knew it wasn't right, but Marinette figured she was better off than most kids so she never complained. Then the battle happened and the wish happened and honestly, her parents didn't notice she didn't come home. They figured she was at a friend's house. The second night it was a Sunday so they just figured she was still at a friend's. The third day it was Monday, a school day and nothing, she never came home for lunch which she always did, they remembered that at least. So they called the school to ask if she had been in that day but the school told them, very politely, that no one by the name Marinette Dupain Cheng ever went to their school.

Of course they freak out and assume this must be the work of an Akuma. But days pass by and they really start to get worried and try to get Nadja to help them but even she looks at them like they're crazy and calmly tells them they don't have a daughter. That's when they finally go up to Marinette's room and see it's just a normal attic. Then Marinette's classmates come by and her teacher and they ask where she is and they nearly weep because somebody else remembers her and they tell them what has been going on. They too think it's an Akuma.

Then Adrien comes by with a woman they've never met and he looks like he'll but they refrain from saying anything, they still keep their business going because they figure if it is an Akuma then Ladybug and Chat Noir will defeat it any day now and Marinette will come back. There are days when they forget that Marinette is missing and doesn't that just say something? But they have to tell Adrien that only a few people remember Marinette and they suspect it's an Akuma. They don't notice how pale the boy gets or the cold face his mother makes at the mention of an Akuma but they give them a couple discounted treats and send them on their way.

Then Ladybug makes an appearance on Nadja's network and says it's to give an announcement. She looks different, older, and her suit is also different but everyone is paying attention. She tells of the battle with Hawkmoth, Gabriel Agreste, that was the first big shock, she tells them that she was betrayed by Chat Noir, but she would not give out his name as he was already living out his punishments, she tells them that Hawkmoth made his wish and the world was paying for it, that Gabriel and Chat were paying for it, they lost someone dear to them, for Gabriel it was Nathalie, for Chat it was the previous Ladybug, Marinette Dupain Cheng...their existences had been erased from the universe but those who had wronged them or failed them would be punished with the memories of them.

Tomnand Sabine froze at that because it made sense, and at the same time didn't. How did they fail Marinette? They just couldn't understand it. Gina didn't remember having a granddaughter but she remembered Tom and Sabine calling and asking about a Marinette, and in a rare moment she had been in Paris during the announcement and had heard what Ladybug had said. She cried for the little girl she didn't know but she was angry at her son and his wife because they clearly remembered her so they were being punished, and she could imagine why. Their bakery was always their top priority, it was their baby, everything else came second. They never wanted a baby, they never said it out loud but she knew, so she could only imagine what this Marinette had to go through and she cried for the girl.

Roland remembered being helped by the heroes but he doesn't remember why but when he watched the announcement he thinks it may be because of the granddaughter he can't remember, he didn't want to see his son or wife, it had been that way for awhile, but he felt his heart wrench for the granddaughter he couldn't remember and would never get to know. Roland was even more disappointed in his son when he got a call asking if he remembered this Marinette, because it meant he had failed his own daughter and their protector. He knew he wasn't the best father but he felt outraged on behalf of the granddaughter he lost.

People found out that Tom and Sabine remembered and so they found out they were being punished, which made people a bit wary of them.

[The "new" Ladybug is literally just Tikki using Trixx's illusions, Tikki is hella petty in this fic, also okay that was more salt that I thought]

Idea 9. Ivy's Sapling:

This one definitely doesn't have a lot of salt towards them but there is some. They do care about Marinette and they see her as a niece more than a daughter. So they aren't really as involved in her life as maybe they should be but she understands that they didn't ask for her. When the problems with Lila start up they want to believe in her and they do at the beginning but they start to question of they could be true because of her background. From what her and Gina said, she was from the bad part of Gotham and so was her mother, they never told them she was Poison Ivy's kid, they just know that Marinette's mother goes by Pamela when she talks with Marinette on the phone.

So they don't fully turn on Marinette but they do start to be wary and more questioning, they don't trust her as much as they did before which does hurt her but they don't fully believe Lila and her classmates, or more like they don't want to believe.

#ml class salt #ml salt #ml salt fic #ivys sapling au #ivy sapling #wish me away au #wish me away #marinette the rolling stone au #Marinette the rolling stone #tom dupain #tom dupain salt #sabine cheng #sabine cheng salt #Marinette's parents salt #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #miraculous ladybug #maribat #mldccrossover #mldccrossover Pamela Isley | Poison Ivy #adrien agreste salt #lila rossi salt #lila rossi gets exposed

[suddencolds]

even the tiniest drabble with kaeya and albedo where one of them has a cold would make me super happy. i don't even care which one is sick, really, but if you want something more specific i feel like albedo being the sick one could be cute? and albedo has a canon liking for dessert/sweet things so maybe kaeya brings him some hot chocolate????

Hi anon!! First, the mention of sweets is so cute?? I live for Kaeya knowing that and specifically bringing Albedo hot chocolate 😭 (Also to the one other anon who asked for Albedo sjfhajfsh), I’ve always wanted to try my hand at writing Kaebedo, so I hope you enjoy! <3

—

Albedo is in a hurry.

“Good morning,” he says, when Kaeya runs into him just outside Jean’s office. “Forgive me. I can’t stay to talk.”

“Good morning to you too,” Kaeya says. “Busier than usual?”

Up close, Albedo looks slightly off—he’s paler than usual, save for a flush high in his cheeks. Closer inspection reveals that he’s shivering, too, if only slightly.

“Much to get done,” Albedo says back. “I have another shipment I need to attend to.” Before Kaeya can find a chance to respond, he’s already turning, heading for the exit.

Kaeya sighs. “Albedo.”

Albedo turns on his heels, sniffing softly. “What?”

“Are you sure you’re feeling alright?” Kaeya asks, as nonchalantly as he can. Albedo looks surprised for a moment, as if he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. Then he nods.

“I am fine, I promise. I think I’ve...” he trails off, his gaze going distant and indistinct, and ducks into his shoulder. “...hiih’TSCHh!... caught a cold, snf.” Albedo clears his throat; Kaeya almost misses the grimace that follows, the discomfort that catches in his eyeline for a split second, there and then gone. “I should be back to normal in three to five days. Until then, I suggest you keep your distance.”

“Should you be working if you’re ill?” Kaeya asks, skeptical. “If you’re just running deliveries, I can help you with that.”

“It’s only a cold. No fever, and no symptoms that would warrant any additional concern…” Albedo rubs his nose, sniffling into a raised fist. His breath catches again, sharply, without a release. He sighs.  “...I’m sorry. I should really go. I would have liked to stay to chat..”

Then he’s slipping out the door to the Knights’ headquarters, and Kaeya—who still has a day of work ahead of him—doesn’t follow. Still, it bothers him as he goes out with the Knights. It’s been a winter colder than most, and it can’t be much better on Dragonspine, which is cold enough already without taking into consideration the variations of the seasons.

Albedo is honest when it comes to things like this. Kaeya knows that if he says it’s really nothing, he will be fine.

But he’s well-enough acquainted with illnesses to know how simple colds can still be fairly miserable. Albedo had seemed well enough, but appearances can be deceptive, and a cold is a cold. The weather in Dragonspine can’t possibly be conducive to his recovery; Kaeya can’t imagine the stress from running errands is helping, either.

—

Days like this aren’t frequent, but they’re tiring. Albedo gets caught in a frenetic back-and-forth between the camp at the base of Dragonspine, his own laboratory campsite up in the mountains, and the Knights of Favonius Headquarters in Mondstadt, transporting materials from outpost to outpost, double-checking the packaging, informing Sucrose and Timaeus about how the more fragile—or perishable—items should be handled.

By the time he’s back at his campsite, the exhaustion is starting to catch up with him. There are torches, set up around the periphery of the campsite, and usually they do a fair job of keeping the campsite area warm. Today—maybe owing to the fact that it’s particularly windy, or maybe only because it’s a colder winter than usual—he finds that it’s not exactly the most comfortable place to work.

Albedo takes a seat on one of the crates. He’s certainly well enough to be here—the cold he’s caught is an annoyance, but he’s certainly worked through worse. His throat hurts when he swallows, and every few minutes he has to pause to sniffle, wipe his nose briefly into the handkerchief Lisa had insisted that he take, crane his head over his shoulder to cough in an effort to avoid contamination of the materials he’s been using in his alchemy.

It’s disruptive, in the most inconvenient of ways, and he’s not getting any better out here, but he has so many new orders to sort through. He has a new shipment of Fontaine’s specialties to investigate. Rest can wait.

It’s not long before he’s raising the handkerchief to his face—he suspects it will stop being useful soon, for how much he’s used it—in ticklish, agonizing anticipation.

“Hiih... hiIH’izZZSch!!”

He winces, sniffling. The sneeze is just wrenching enough to send pain lancing through his throat.

“HiiiH’GZSChh!” Now his nose is running too, which is even worse. Still, he can’t bear to open his eyes; the anticipation is still there, persistent. “Hheh… heEHh… hehh’NGKT’shh! snf, snf...” He thinks the smoke might be getting to him. Perhaps it would do to try to sneeze this cold out—to expel all of the pathogens first, before his cold has the chance to worsen. Judging by how things are looking, it might happen even if he doesn’t do anything to encourage it.

“heh… hehH’iiSSSCh! HEHH’GKTschh!”

“Woah, bless you,” says a familiar voice.

Albedo’s eyes snap open. “Kaeya…?” He winces, still sniffling, and lowers the handkerchief from his face. Something must be wrong, he thinks—it must be urgent, too, if Jean had thought to send Kaeya up here on such a short notice. “Don’t tell me I mixed up the delivery shipments, snf, rest assured, I’ll… h-have it sorted as soon as I… hiih… can... hiih’GZZSchh!”

“Bless you again,” Kaeya says, sounding unbothered. “Relax, nothing’s wrong. Just thought I’d check up on you.”

It’s a puzzling response, to say the least. Albedo frowns. “Did you need something?”

“No, but I brought hot chocolate,” Kaeya says. When Albedo looks up, he sees that Kaeya is holding two mugs, one in each hand—both of which are miraculously still steaming. He holds one out in Albedo’s direction. “Sucrose tells me you have a taste for sweets.”

“I… am indeed fond of them,” Albedo says, taking the drink from him.

Kaeya brightens visibly. “This is an old recipe. You’ll have to tell me if it’s any good.”

Albedo takes a sip. The taste of it is slightly dulled under his worsening congestion, but it’s warm, fragrant and light, just sweet enough to not be overwhelming. “It’s exceptional,” he says earnestly, curling both hands around the mug to relish its warmth. “I would appoint you Captain of Drinks, if I could.”

Kaeya laughs. “You flatter me. I’m glad it was to your taste~ So,” he starts, smiling in that familiar, unreadable way, “is there anything I can help with?”

“Not off the top of my head... hiiH’DSCHhH!” Unprepared, uncovered—Albedo looks away, suspecting that his face must be red. “...Apologies. I’ve done this...”—he gestures vaguely to the workspace in front of him—“...many times before. I assure you, I can handle it. Did Jean send you?”

“Jean? No, I sent myself. I’m off work for today, and you said there was lots to get done, and you’re not feeling well, so...” Kaeya says all of this simply, as if his presence here is really only natural. As if he’s made the trip here—in the freezing cold, unpressured by the Acting Grandmaster, unaccompanied—just to stand here now, smiling, as if none of that is a big deal. He says, “Let me help?”

Albedo gapes at him.

“I would like to help,” Kaeya adds, sensing Albedo’s hesitation. He takes a seat on one of the crates opposite to Albedo—too close, really, to guarantee that he won’t contract this, which Albedo wants to comment on too. “That is, if you’d let me. I have no doubt you’d be able to handle this by yourself, but I can’t imagine it would be much fun. I’m better at alchemy than you might expect.”

“How chivalrous…” Albedo starts. He turns away to cough softly into his shoulder. “Captain Kaeya, you always manage to exceed my expectations.” It’s illogical, he thinks. There should be no reason why Kaeya’s presence would affect his illness in the least. And yet...

Kaeya smirks. “Since you are so intent on working hard, I figured I would lend a hand. So, where should we start?”

...he definitely feels better already.

[part 2]

#ask #sneeze fic #snz fic #snz kink #i never know how formal to write albedo (even with his voicelines as a reference) but this was really fun to write #1st half in ka/eya's perspective 2nd half in al/be/do's... i do know how perspectives work i swear... #my fic

[quicksilversquared]

The Wavering Peahen: Chapter 6

When Nathalie started feeling oddly ill again, both she and Gabriel were worried that the Peacock Miraculous might somehow (impossibly) be to blame again.

So naturally, they pick someone else to be the Peacock for a bit. You know, as a test subject. Except the new Peacock… doesn’t exactly know that.

links in the reblog

Marinette was starting to think that Hawkmoth had officially gone around the bend.

For months after the Miracle Queen attack, Hawkmoth and Mayura had hammered at the superheroes, both of them plus the regular akuma and a sentimonster showing up to the battles. The superheroes had struggled to adapt, sacrificing their free time and fun activities to find and train new allies to help them as needed and doubling up on Miraculous almost as often as not to have access to more powers. They had been managing- sometimes only by the skin of their teeth- but it was taking a lot of effort.

And then, all of a sudden, Mayura vanished, and Pavona took her place next to Hawkmoth.

The change by itself would have been odd enough even if Pavona was an equally good fighter as Mayura. But Pavona was a poor fighter and even worse strategist. Her sentimonsters were easier to fight than Mayura's, and her outfit- while fancy- was a piece of cake to grab onto, either to yank her backward (or sideways) out of an attack or to fling her several blocks away, away from the fight and out of their hair for several minutes while the supervillain picked herself back up and straightened her outfit out.

(The Ladyblog had had an absolute field day with how ridiculous and ill-suited for fighting Pavona's outfit was. Marinette had worried that it would make Pavona reconsider her transformation and choose something more practical, but either the supervillain was unaware of the Ladyblog or was just so generally inept that she wasn't willing to sacrifice fashion for practicality.)

In most cases, Marinette would have assumed that Pavona had stolen the Miraculous from Mayura, and that was the reason for the change. But it was obvious that Pavona wouldn't have been able to overpower Mayura to start with, and Hawkmoth had clearly been anticipating the change. Right now, her assumption was that something had happened to Mayura- maybe she had died in an accident or something, she didn't know- and Pavona was Hawkmoth's only choice for an ally.

To be honest, Marinette was of the opinion that Hawkmoth would have been better off fighting on his own. Pavona only seemed to get in the way, and then she had to be saved before the superheroes could grab for her Miraculous. Pavona hadn't come out on the battlefield again after one particularly idiotic blunder, but considering that Mayura hadn't returned and the Peacock's sentimonsters were still showing up, it was more than likely that Pavona was just sulking in a lair somewhere for a bit before trying battlefield fighting again.

And now, after weeks- no, months- of Hawkmoth going after the superheroes with increased ferocity, the attacks had suddenly stopped. There had been nothing for the past four days.

Not that Marinette was complaining! Being able to attend school without having to dash out was really nice. It was just odd, that was all.

"Oh, Lila's looking like she might be finally getting better! I'm glad, she was looking so ill at the end of last week!"

Marinette blinked, pulling herself out of her thoughts and glancing over at Alya. "Hm?"

Alya nodded towards the front of the classroom, where Lila was straggling across the front of the classroom. "Lila caught a cold or something last week and she was so exhausted. She couldn't rest very well, since she's been pushing herself to get all of this work for her charities done before this deadline and there's been, like, so many emergencies that she's had to deal with all in a row. We've all been trying to help out so she won't get behind, but she's really been struggling. So I'm glad that she's feeling at least a little better now!"

For once, it was easy not to sigh in exasperation. Instead, Marinette frowned, glancing towards Lila as she headed for the back of the classroom.

The charities were a lie, of course. They always had been and always would be. Lila was too selfish and self-centered to even think about spending her time and money helping others. But the lie definitely got Lila a lot of (undeserved) admiration and offers for help. Mysteriously, Lila could never use the help with the charity directly- Marinette hadn't bothered to hear her excuses for that- but she could use the help when it came to things like homework. Normally, Marinette would assume that Lila had just wanted her classmates to offer to do all of her homework because she felt a little under the weather.

This time, though, Marinette had noticed that Lila seemed a bit under the weather, and it hadn't seemed faked. In fact, it had been pretty obvious once she looked a little closer that Lila had applied makeup to hide how bad she was feeling. And that was strange.

Sure, Lila seemed to have made a little bit of a recovery, but Marinette couldn't help but feel a bit curious about the whole situation. Downplaying her troubles wasn't Lila's style at all, and Marinette had to wonder what was going on. Because something had to be going on, unless Lila had gotten a personality transplant overnight.

(Considering that she was still lying about her charity work, Marinette doubted that.)

"I wonder if there's something going around," Adrien commented quietly to Marinette as Alya and Nino broke off into their own little conversation. "Nathalie was sick a couple weeks ago, and I've never seen her so drained. She's been getting better, but she still gets these little relapses sometimes." He glanced towards the back of the classroom, his brow furrowed. "Maybe Lila picked it up at one of the photoshoots or something."

"I hope it doesn't spread, then," Marinette said. She chanced a glance back at Lila, who was clearly half-heartedly engaging in conversation with a few of their classmates. "Being tired and miserable for over a week sounds miserable."

Miserable, and not very safe. Marinette had had to be Ladybug when she had a bit of a cold more than one time, with a stuffed nose and a sore throat, and that had been bad enough. It hadn't affected her fighting that much, she thought, but combine that with how being tired during late night and early-morning fights affected her...

"She probably shouldn't have been coming to school," Adrien added after a moment. "It's a bit odd that most of the time she's so eager to skip, but the one time when she actually has a legitimate excuse to stay home, she doesn't."

Marinette nodded, glancing backwards again. "Yeah, I was thinking the same thing."

  The lack of akumas continued for the rest of the week, and Marinette got to get caught up with- well, everything- for the first time in ages. She worried that Hawkmoth was planning something, of course, but there wasn't really much that she and Chat Noir could do about it besides patrolling every evening in search of trouble.

Well, patrolling and going over what little information they had about the Miraculous powers and potions, comparing notes about what Master Fu had taught them. Thankfully she had gotten copies of pretty much all of Master Fu's translations before he was caught, but she hadn't had the chance to go through all of them and truly figure out the extent of the information at her fingertips. She and Chat Noir had been finding hidden crannies- ones where they wouldn't get spotted and where they couldn't be overheard or snuck up on- and going over the notes, puzzling over cryptic clues and tossing ideas for interpretations back and forth. Maybe it was a nice change of pace from battling akumas (and it was definitely something that they had to do anyway), but it was also difficult and frustrating and slow-going. Things had to be interpreted and then sorted into some semblance of order so that they would be able to find the notes again when they needed them.

So by the time Saturday rolled around, marking a full week without the barest whisper of an akuma, Marinette was more than happy to set her schoolwork and the Miraculous notes aside (the latter locked up in a box that was both secure and hidden), bake a batch of cookies, and package them up with some rejected pastries from the bakery to bring to their class picnic at the park. It sounded like a great opportunity to relax and focus on something else for a change.

Their classmates trickled in, coming in pairs and trios, laden with food. Thankfully it looked like people had brought dishes instead of just treats this time, so they would have a proper meal instead of just sugar, sugar, and more sugar. It was a far cry from their first class picnic, where almost all of them ended up feeling a bit ill from the number of sweets that they had eaten.

Rose, bless her, had even brought salad. She had put in a fair amount of work, clearly, tossing in more veggies and croutons and bringing a container of homemade dressing to make it more interesting.

Everyone milled around, talking and relaxing in the warm sun. Marinette wandered between her classmates, chatting with pretty much everyone before gradually circling back around to hang with Alya, Nino, and Adrien again. Maybe she got to hang out with them most often, just by virtue of where they sat in class, but they were also her best friends. They could talk for forever about nothing in particular, and it was nice to have that.

Ten minutes after the bulk of their class had arrived, Lila finally showed up. And in typical Lila fashion, of course she had to make her entrance loud.

"Oh my god, you guys, you'll never guess what my mom did for me! It was so sweet of her!"

"Oh, what now?" Marinette grumbled as people started to flock towards Lila as though they were being drawn by a magnet. "Can't we go one day without her making up some ridiculous story to tell?"

"I'll go listen in," Adrien volunteered, placing one hand on her shoulder. "Just to see what she's up to. If you want to, uh..."

"I'll go organize things on the picnic table so that I don't have to listen to her," Marinette offered, picking up what he was going to say. It was obvious to anyone with eyes (and critical thinking skills) that listening to Lila blather on made Marinette's blood pressure rocket up. "And then, uh, do some cloud-watching?"

Adrien snorted. "Honestly, that sounds way more appealing than listening to Lila. Anything is, really, but..." He glanced towards the growing group around Lila. "I'd rather not have to hear about what Lila was saying and showing off secondhand, not when everyone believes everything she says."

Before Marinette could agree, Adrien had darted off, lingering on the edges of the group. He blended in pretty naturally, clearly going for a 'just-here-because-Nino-is' look and succeeding fairly well. Before anyone could notice that she wasn't joining the rest of the group, Marinette wandered off to rearrange the table and make it not quite so chaotic. Since Lila seemed to be settling in for a long story-telling session, Marinette took her sweet time in surveying everything that people had brought (Lila, she couldn't help but notice, had opted not to contribute) and figuring out the best way to arrange them. Shapes of containers had to be taken into consideration, of course, and then similar things- the salads, the chips- could be put together.

It made the table much neater and meant that nothing was in danger of falling off anymore.

Lila was still going strong with her stories, so Marinette turned her attention skyward for all of a minute (cloud-watching, it turned out, was not particularly interesting for an extended period of time) and then down to her phone. Finally, finally, Lila stopped talking and everyone broke up into their little friend groups. Marinette headed over to Adrien's side at once, something that was made much easier by the fact that Alya and Nino were still talking to Lila.

"So what's the latest nonsense?"

Adrien startled for a moment, then relaxed once he realized that it was Marinette next to him. "Oh, gosh. I don't know how, but Lila's come up with pictures to go along with her stories. She has selfies with Jagged Stone, Clara Nightingale, Prince Ali, Ladybug..."

"She- what?" For once, Marinette was caught completely off guard. "She has photos? But none of those stories are true!"

"My guess is Photoshop. That, or she wanted to go low-tech, posters and life-sized print-outs." Adrien made a face, glancing around as he did to make sure that they weren't being overheard. "I don't know why she went all-in like that all of a sudden. Like, it didn't seem as though people were believing her any less than they were when she first showed up."

"Maybe she just wanted to head off that possibility before anyone caught on." Which was annoying, really. Marinette had just been about ready to try for another round of pointing out inconsistencies in Lila's stories to Alya, abet a more subtle round, and now that Lila had "evidence" to back up her claims...

Well, that made things a lot more difficult. She would have to abandon subtlety altogether and do something much more direct, like calling up Jagged Stone and having him come in or somehow approaching Lila as Ladybug when Alya was nearby and calling her out for the Photoshop.

She really should have just nipped the entire problem in the bud when Lila first showed up and gone to Alya's apartment to ask about the video of her "best friend" on the same day that it was posted, but it was a little too late to do that now.

"It makes me wonder if she's setting up to do something bigger," Adrien murmured, keeping his voice low. Maybe none of their classmates were lingering close by, but they didn't want to be overheard. "Then she would want to have a solid base. If she validates all of her previous lies, then she can tell a bigger one and not run as big of a risk of people doubting her."

Marinette nodded. Yeah, she was afraid of that, too. She also wouldn't be surprised if Lila decided to make up something about her to get rid of the dissenting voice for once and for all. If she tried, though, Marinette was ready.

There was a lock on her school bag, and another on her locker. Tikki had been told to keep an eye out and to destroy anything that Lila tried to plant. Marinette had even bought a recorder, in case she ever found herself alone with Lila and no witnesses again.

Of course, Lila might very well decide to take the approach of making Marinette look like the bad guy by bringing attention to the fact that she didn't believe any of Lila's stories, and then try to alienate her friends that way. Marinette wouldn't let that happen- she'd just use her connections to discredit Lila if it got that bad- but it wouldn't be particularly pleasant, either.

"Maybe she wants to skip again and the teachers are starting to doubt her," Marinette suggested, keeping her voice just as quiet as Adrien's. "So she's going more indirect this time by showing off her pictures to classmates but not the teacher- except no, it would make more sense than to show the photos off at school. Then she wouldn't have to depend on the teachers overhearing classmates just happening to mention the photos."

"True. Which suggests that whatever she's planning, it's more important that our classmates all believe her." Adrien sighed. "I miss the days before Lila showed up. I didn't feel like I had to keep an ear open to what was going on and what was being talked about all the time."

Marinette nodded. Yeah, things had been a lot more simple before Lila returned. Maybe she still had to deal with Chloe's nonsense, but at least Chloe hadn't been trying to frame her for things, just make her life difficult in typical bully fashion.

"I guess we'll find out what she's up to soon enough," Marinette said with a sigh. She wasn't looking forward to it. "I almost wish I could see the photos without Lila there. I bet there's something off about them that I'd be able to point out, but she's hardly going to hand over her phone and let me pick them apart."

Adrien perked up. "Oh! Lila sent her Ladybug photos to Alya to post on the Ladyblog. Maybe it's not all of the photos, but you could at least look over those ones."

Marinette grinned. That was a start, at least. Of course, she would have to be really careful when bringing up any problems with the photos because otherwise she wouldn't even get her friends to actually look at the issue before they jumped down her throat about how she was being so mean doubting poor Lila, but maybe she could pose any concerns as a question or something.

"Hey, Marinette, come check this out!"

"I'll wait here and if Nino and Alya got anything more out of Lila once they finish chatting with her," Adrien said when Marinette hesitated to respond, not fully willing to give up their discussion so early. He nudged her towards Max. "There'll be plenty of time to try to figure out what Lila's up to later."

Marinette nodded, stepping away from Adrien and heading across the grass towards Max. He was grinning, looking eager about something.

"I would love some feedback on some of my proposed designs for the akuma villains that I'll be rolling out as part of my upcoming game update," Max told Marinette as she drew closer. He pulled a folder out of his bag and opened it, pulling out a sheath of papers. "Both the villain costume design and the powers, really. I want to make them a bit less, ah, one-dimensional, I suppose. Less predictable. I had some ideas, but would definitely be open to any improvements before I code them all in."

Marinette perked up. Oh, that sounded interesting, and something that sounded loads more interesting than discussing Lila and her nonsense. "Sure! How many akumas are you thinking of adding?"

"I thought ten to fifteen in the next release, then maybe do regular releases after that on a more regular basis with five or so akumas per release, just to keep things fresh." Max adjusted his glasses, angling the paper stack so that Marinette could see the top design. "Of course, how long I can do that for depends on Hawkmoth making new akumas and not simply recycling powers over and over, but at the moment I have quite a list of supervillains that I could use."

"That sounds like a lot of work, but very cool," Marinette told him, accepting the top paper. She scanned the design, grinning when she noticed how well Max had done at getting the details right. "This is so cool! Was it hard getting all of the details?"

"Nathaniel assisted with the character modeling," Max told her, shuffling around so he could stand next to her and see the page as well. "Which really helped bring the characters to life."

"It's really fantastic!" Marinette glanced through the next few papers, impressed. It was a real step up from Max's original character designs, which had been detailed enough for people to be able to identify the characters but nowhere near this quality. He had focused less on the design and more on the coding for the actual play. "Have the old characters gotten the same design upgrade?"

"Yes, that was what the last update was. I wanted to make sure that everything was perfect and there wouldn't be any mismatch between the old characters and the new ones." Max shuffled a step closer. "So, what do you think about this character?"

  Ten minutes of character review later, Marinette left Max scribbling down notes in the margins of his character pages and headed back across the park to where her friends were hanging out. Halfway there, she was stopped in her tracks by the sound of Lila's voice, loud and pointed and annoying.

"You missed out on seeing my pictures earlier," Lila said loudly, smugness coming across loud and clear in her voice. "Which is a pity, really. There were some really nice ones that my mom recovered off of my old phone. If you wanted, I could still show you a couple."

Marinette snorted at that. As if. "So you've taken up Photoshop as a hobby, I take it?" she asked, thoroughly unimpressed. "And I think I'll pass on looking at the photos. If I wanted to see something that wasn't real, I'd go watch an action hero movie. That would at least be enjoyable."

"You're just so certain that they're doctored," Lila sniffed, still insufferably smug. "Do you know how jealous that makes you sound? It's not a very attractive look on you at all."

Marinette had to roll her eyes at that. Jealous? Why on earth would she be jealous of Lila? "Puh-leeze. There was a photo of me and Jagged Stone on the cover of Metal Lord not even a year ago, and I've got actual selfies of me and Clara Nightingale on my phone from when she was doing her music video. I don't need Photoshop. Some of us actually have the connections that you pretend to have. If anyone is jealous, it's you."

With that, she turned on her heel and left before Lila could say anything else, continuing her journey towards Alya and Nino and Adrien. Alya was busily tapping away on her phone, clearly in Ladyblog article mode.

She would probably have the photos and whatever article she was writing up done by the evening and posted with the photos, and then Marinette could look at them. With any luck, there would be something obvious wrong with them, and maybe- maybe she could post under an anonymous name and bring up the fact that the photos were clearly faked then?

"Max sure looks serious about something," Adrien commented as Marinette returned, settling down on the grass between him and Alya. "I don't know anyone else who would bring a file folder to a picnic- well, anyone else our age, at least."

"He's gearing up to start work on a new release for his video game," Marinette told him. She was really excited to see it, actually. Hopefully she would actually have the time to play. "Or, well, he's started work, but he wanted to get some input on how to make it better. He has twenty new akumas lined up to create, and they all look fantastic!"

Adrien perked up. "Oh, cool! I saw that the graphics took a huge leap forward with the last release, which was really nice. Before, it was very, ah..." He tipped his head to one side, considering. "Very early-game-y? But now the graphics match the coding, which is nice. I know there was a huge spike in interest once that upgrade came through."

"As there should be!" There had been several akuma-and-superhero-themed games that had come out since she and Chat Noir hit the scene, but in Marinette's (completely unbiased) opinion, Max's was one of the best. "We were talking about the powers that the akumas get and how he's working on making them a little more realistic and less predictable. Thankfully he doesn't have to puzzle it out through trial and error for each akuma. Or, well, at least he really only had to do a bunch of puzzling for the first one, and then each one after that only needs a few small tweaks here and there."

"I can't wait for that to come out. Did Max say when he's expecting to have that ready to roll out?"

Marinette shook her head. She had asked too, but Max had said that there were way too many variables to promise anything yet. "I think he's still early on enough in the process that it's impossible to predict. Everything could go really smoothly..."

"...or the code could tie itself into knots and take weeks to find the issue," Adrien finished. "Ah, I suppose I could be patient."

"I wonder if Max would be interested in giving out some preview pictures before everything is ready to go," Nino chimed in. "I know Alya's mentioned his game on the Ladyblog before, but it never hurts to drum up some more interest. Right, babe?"

He got a vague grunt in response.

"Babe?"

"I think she's a bit focused at the moment," Adrien said with a laugh when Alya didn't respond again. "We'll bug her later. I think Max's game is a pretty cool thing to put on the Ladyblog."

"Though not as cool as Lila!" Nino exclaimed. "I mean, I guess her friendship with Ladybug is old news now, but Ladybug doesn't pose with civilians that often, not unless there's an event or something. And the pictures- Marinette, you missed that! Lila's mom got a specialist to recover a bunch of her photos from off of her old phone that got destroyed, and she was showing everyone. It was cool to get to see the inside of Prince Ali's palace! Like, there weren't a ton of pictures of the inside, just what we could see in the background of her photos with him, but still!"

"Hm," Marinette said, completely noncommittal. "Pity. I had to make sure that none of the food was going to fall off of the picnic table. It kind of looked like Kim might have arranged it last- there was a really precarious pile of stuff. One pan was hanging halfway off of the table and the only reason why it hadn't fallen yet was because something else was piled on top of the portion that was actually on the table."

Adrien laughed. "That sounds like Kim. And yet there was plenty of space on the table, it seems? Nothing is about to fall off now."

"Yeah, it was just that dishes were piled every which way and there were a lot of oddly-shaped gaps between..." Marinette trailed off, squinting across the park. Lila was headed towards Rose and Max and Juleka, but something seemed... off. She didn't seem entirely steady on her feet for a moment, half-stumbling before catching herself and continuing.

Huh. Was Lila still sick? She had seemed mostly fine at school on Friday, and for most of the rest of the week, too. Marinette would have guessed that Lila was just trying to get attention again, except that stumble was...muted. Almost like Lila was trying to hide it.

...maybe she just didn't want to take attention away from her faked photos? The attention from that was sure to be better than any attention that she could get from being sick, even if Lila had clearly enjoyed the attention that she had gotten during her- what? One, two, maybe three weeks of being sick?

That... that was a long time to be sick.

Marinette kept watching Lila as she sat down, almost immediately joining in the conversation. She seemed fine now, but Marinette was positive that she hadn't imagined that stumble.

"-lots of tasty dishes," Nino was saying, though Marinette had largely tuned him out. "A lot of things that I want to try. The pastries you brought look great- and did you see the quiches that Juleka brought? I heard she made them herself!"

He didn't get a response. Marinette was too busy watching Lila.

She had the feeling that something was off, and she didn't want to let her guard down until she figured out what.

Hawkmoth had been quiet lately. Lila had gotten photos that were either photoshopped or had been made in some other way. Maybe it was a stretch to say that the two were related, but there was a niggling feeling in Marinette's gut that there was some sort of connection.

Marinette had long since learned that her gut was usually not a great thing to ignore. If she sensed that something was wrong, she needed to investigate. Just sitting back and waiting for things to resolve themselves or for problems to show up wasn't enough, not anymore.

"You guys? The quiches?"

Marinette startled, pulling her gaze away from Lila and back towards Nino. Right. Investigating was important, but so was not being obvious about it. If Lila caught her staring, or one of her other classmates did, then Lila would no doubt go out of her way to be even more sneaky about whatever it was that she was up to.

That was fine. Marinette could hold a conversation and watch Lila unobtrusively at the same time. So she did. And what she noticed...

Well, Lila was definitely still sick. She had looked positively green as she picked up food from the table (following what might have been either an attempt to make people feel like they had to rush to assure her that she could take all the food she wanted or a stab at getting out of eating that backfired spectacularly- Marinette suspected that it was meant to be the latter) and not entirely steady on her feet as she headed back to the bench that she had been sitting on. She hadn't eaten until one of the other girls commented on it, instead just pushing her food around her plate, and, if Marinette's eyes were serving her correctly, Lila seemed to occasionally be swaying in place. Which... wasn't normal.

If it weren't for the faked photos, Marinette would say that Lila was just ill and wasn't up to- well, wasn't up to being up to something. But clearly she had had enough energy to put in the work to create the photos.

Unless- well, there was a possibility that Lila had been working on those photos gradually, over the course of several weeks, and just finished them recently. Several weeks of Photoshop work logically made more sense than a day or two, unless Hawkmoth was involved. Somehow.

...it wasn't a completely illogical thought, right? She was pretty sure that Lila had worked willingly with Hawkmoth before. She had been Akumatized and looked just like normal, at least for a bit. So it wasn't impossible.

...but then how did the cold fit in? And why on earth would Hawkmoth bother giving someone photoshopping powers?

Across the way, Lila swayed in her seat again. She was looking rather pale now, and Marinette wondered why she hadn't just gone home. It would have been easy enough for Lila to claim that she had just gotten an email requesting an urgent Skype meeting about pollution or something and then she could have left.

"Just like Mom and Nathalie," Adrien murmured, pulling her out of her thoughts. "That's so strange."

"Hmm?" Marinette blinked over at him, puzzled. "Who is?"

"Lila." Adrien tipped his head towards Lila, who was pushing herself to her feet to follow Rose. "I think I might have mentioned it once before. Nathalie was really ill just like Lila. She was all tired and ill and dizzy for the longest time before she started getting better, and then there were sometimes off days where she seemed just as sick as she had been before. Mom was like that too before she vanished. And I've never heard of a cold before that acted like that."

"Me either." Not that there weren't illnesses that behaved that way. They just weren't colds. Not an average, run-of-the-mill cold, anyway. "Nathalie got better though, right? So if Lila caught whatever she had- oh my god!"

Across the park, Lila had stumbled and then simply collapsed, hitting the ground hard enough- and in an awkward enough position- that it was pretty obvious that it was 100% not at all faked.

"LILA!" Rose shrieked, dashing back to her side. "Oh my god, can you hear me? Are you okay? What- what do we do?"

"Rose, take a deep breath," Marinette called, already shoving herself to her feet. She had gotten first aid training several months prior, just in case she ever needed it as Ladybug, and- well, she was pretty positive that she was the only one in the class with the training, which meant that she needed to take charge. No matter how much she disliked Lila- or how suspicious she was that Lila was up to something- she had to do the right thing. "Juleka, help Rose roll Lila onto her back so that she isn't all crumpled up like that. Alya, call for an ambulance."

"On it!"

Marinette dashed over as Rose and Juleka got Lila into a more comfortable position on the ground. Lila's skin was white as a sheet against her hair, so far beyond pale that it was really concerning.

At least she was breathing. Marinette could tell as much as she skidded to a stop by Lila's side.

Rose was practically in tears. "Is she going to be okay?"

"She's breathing, so she should be fine." As long as she kept breathing, at least. Marinette quickly scanned through her memories of what she had learned in her first aid class. Lila had been acting ill before, so they didn't need to worry about environmental threats to them, too. That also pretty much ruled out choking, and the fact that Lila hadn't been coughing or clutching at her throat (or eating) before confirmed that. She had just passed out, so watching after her while they waited for an ambulance to arrive should be pretty easy.

Now, as far as things that they could do went...

"We want to encourage blood flow to the head, since Lila fainted," Marinette told everyone, keeping a close eye on the slow rise and fall of Lila's chest. "If someone could find something to prop Lila's feet up a bit, that should help. And then I'm just going to make sure that her clothes aren't too tight, because tight clothes restrict blood flow."

Several people darted off to grab their backpacks or bags to prop Lila's feet up. Marinette watched them go for a moment, then turned her attention back to Lila.

Right. What she was meant to do if Lila's clothes were tight, Marinette wasn't sure, but if she could figure out how to defeat an akuma with a traffic cone, she was pretty positive that she could puzzle out how to help Lila.

Methodically, Marinette worked over Lila's body, scanning for anything that might be in need of loosening, pausing briefly partway through to help Nino prop up Lila's feet slightly before going back to her scan. Nothing in particular was sticking out, except for maybe Lila's scarf. Even that was pretty loose, though, not something that would be cutting off any blood or air.

Maybe she should still be removing it? That would probably be a good idea.

"Marinette," Tikki hissed suddenly from Marinette's collar. "I'm sensing something really odd near Lila's neck. Can you take off her scarf? I just- I want to check something out."

Marinette nodded as subtly as she could, not wanting to attract any attention from her audience, then carefully removed Lila's scarf. There was something hard hidden in the folds, and a quick glance down at Tikki confirmed that whatever it was that she had sensed was on the scarf itself.

Had- had she been right? Was Lila actually akumatized and Tikki had detected the akumatized object? Maybe she had been akumatized all week, and that was why she had seemed better. Then the sickness had gotten too much and gotten through the boost that the akuma gave.

Which... well, that made Marinette wonder just how sick Lila was if it was able to force its way through the boost that an akumatization usually gave.

Also, speaking of which, she had to get away soon, then, and purify the akuma before it peeled itself out of whatever was in the scarf. But she couldn't just step away from Lila unnoticed, not when she was the only one of her classmates who was trained in first aid. She would have to wait until the professionals arrived- and even then, she would probably have to brief them on what she had seen and done, even if she had seen the same thing as most of her classmates and hadn't really done much in terms of care.

...maybe she would get lucky and the cursed butterfly would stay in the brooch or whatever it was in the scarf until after Lila was turned over into far more capable hands. It was a long shot, but not completely impossible.

Maybe. Hopefully.

"Here comes the ambulance!" Nathaniel called from the corner of the park. He rushed back towards them. "Clear a path, clear a path!"

The next few minutes were a blur as everyone scrambled out of the way of the path and grabbed up stray bags, making way for the paramedics. They surrounded Lila, taking her vitals and moving her onto a stretcher when she didn't respond. There were questions to answer about what they had seen and what they had done and then Lila was being wheeled away towards the ambulance. The class swarmed towards the curb, watching the ambulance pull away anxiously, but Marinette held back. With everyone else's attention off of her, she glanced down at the scarf in her hands. No corrupted butterflies had fluttered free yet, so Marinette carefully unfolded the scarf to see what was inside.

The folds fell away, tumbling to the side, and the pin inside was exposed. It glinted brightly in the sun, and Marinette gasped.

Because that was no akumatized brooch. That was the Peacock Miraculous.

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #The Wavering Peahen

[bumbershots]

A CERTAIN ROMANCE

CHAPTER THREE: WHO ARE YOU?

Author’s note: Hello! Once more I would like to thank you all for the love this story’s been getting, it truly blows my mind. I am also looking for a beta reader so if anyone out there is interested let me know! (: Let’s pick up right where we left off...

Story masterlist ** Word count: 2.3K **

Two souls don't find each other by simple accident, Harry thought after taking a seat for the first time that night, his feet were probably going to be swollen tomorrow, they were killing him already. But he wasn't keen on turning down a dance from the girl collapsing in the settee right next to him. A slow Amy Winehouse song was their cue to rest.

"Do you want a beer?" Her voice sounded a bit hoarse, probably from all the giggling and singing she did while dancing the night away.

"Yes please."

He watched her trot to the small bar on the other side of the flat, focused on how the multiple bracelets bounced in her left wrist as she instructed her brother which beer to give her. As she came back to take her previous seat, he felt a small wave of anxiety for wanting nothing more than to start a conversation with her, as she handed him the beer. Usually it was the other way around, but in most of the cases, people wanted to know his persona.

He knew the silence was becoming awkward, but he was still debating whether to ask about her upbringing or what she did for work, whatever the case was, he didn't want to make a fool out of himself, he almost never seemed to be that lucky.

"You're not used to people being calm around you, are you?" Alma’s frown os curiosity is a mirror to the one on the musician's face.

"Yes and no?" Harry's coy tone makes her smile warmly and shake her head in denial, "so, I'm Hampstead station guy?" Her eyes widen, a shy smile appears on her full lips before she takes another large sip of her drink.

"It's unlikely to find the same person thrice in the tube! I told my friend Laura, it felt like a glitch in the matrix." She answers and he lets out an amused laugh.

"For the record, I wasn't following you, at all..."

"I know, you just had to take the same line I did and it was a happy coincidence," she interrupts him, the new song gathers a few more dancers and Harry wonders if she will ask him to dance again, "although it would've made a great anecdote for my YouTube channel; story time, a famous musician follows me around the city possibly plotting my painful death." She joked as she gingerly flashed her hands before the two of them, as if presenting the latest play from the West End.

It was Harry's eyes turn to be wide and smack his hand into his forehead.

"You have a YouTube channel?" His interest was genuine and Alma made herself more comfortable on the sofa, before proceeding to fill him in about what that was about, just videos about her 'sort of interviewing remarkable people' or so she claimed.

It was something that started as a class project back when she was seventeen, trying to get good grades to win a scholarship and study abroad —none of those things happened. She kept doing it afterwards because it was too much fun, once she interviewed all her friends, she moved onto her family. "Believe me when I tell you, that I have more relatives than I should!" With a smile as big as hers, he sighed before breathing 'lucky' as his heart sped and she continued.

Restaurant owners, chefs, firefighters, barristers, doctors, accountants, waitresses, sexual workers, sex shop employees, bankers, homeless people, hairdressers and apparently every person from her home country had been on the informal interview series. Harry was impressed with the whole concept and her.

"I sort of abandoned it a little when I moved here last year, it was crazy busy the first couple of months and the whole bureaucracy... and I was a little homesick to be honest." For the first time in the night, her voice is thinner, he has to lean in a few inches to hear better, "I miss my parents, my cousins, my aunt, my grandparents. But this is something I've wanted for the longest time you know?" Her eyes bore into his, allowing him to see the vulnerability swimming in them, "I've never felt like an outsider here, never got lost in the tube, took the wrong bus or anything like that. Isn't it weird?" Harry smiled at the sentiment, thoughts of his latest trip to Japan flashing before him.

"No, I think it's marvellous that you feel that way." He cannot be real, is the only thing running through her mind like a restless hamster in its wheel.

Harry and Alma talked about everything they didn’t have in common, despite the brief interruptions to do some shots and drink champagne with the birthday boy. Their families were discussed, their favourite things to do in the summer. Alma even asked him how was work going, as if she didn’t know that he was one of th world’s most successful artists. Harry was thrilled to joke through their drinks and the girl wasn't shy to ask him for a couple more dances. None of them noticed the partying dying around them, it was only after Fernando said his goodbyes to his laughing sister, that they noticed how late/early it actually was.

Before they knew it, golden hues streamed through the window behind them as Freddie walked out of his room and offered them coffee.

"I'm never drinking straight vodka again," Freddie mumbled to himself after finishing his cup of coffee.

"At least it wasn't Vodquila like last time," Alma's words make him groan but agree. "I should go now, need a shower and a healthy breakfast."

After Harry also admitted he needed to be on his way, with all their belongings gathered and after saying goodbye to a very ill Freddie, neither Harry or Alma looked forward to their imminent separation. He had spent hours hearing how busy she is, when not recording content, she was working at Wenzel's and teaching Spanish to her neighbour's daughter on the weekends. Still, he was determined to meet with her again.

As soon as they started moving down the street, Harry noticed the next one was where he had to turn right in order to go home. It wasn't a short walk but the most effective route for sure.

"So, the bus stop is that way," Alma nodded her head to the left, smirking knowingly as she stuffs her hands in her coat pockets.

"Of course," they had come to a rolling stop at the corner. Harry suddenly felt beyond nervous about asking the girl for her phone number. "Thank you, for keeping me company last night." It was amazing he wanted to add, but licked his lips quickly instead.

"You mean keeping you from catching up with all your friends," she corrected him.

Harry shakes his head and smiles, the dimples graciously adorning his cheeks, his racing heart giving him the last push needed to finally ask. "Do you think we could go, like for coffee... sometime?” With that she laughed, immediately memorising the sound of it, her loud cackle is one of the nicest things he has heard in awhile.

"Only if I can buy you something from the selection of pastries." Harry laughed loudly, completely relieved by her answer. She dug around her purse for a moment before taking out a pen and what seemed to be an old receipt, quickly scribbling down her number and handing it to him.

"I'll call you," he beamed, carefully placing the piece of paper in his wallet. He'd be an idiot to lose such a precious fragment of information.

"Looking forward to it," Alma smiled at him for one last time before she started walking to the opposite direction. "See you around Harry." His face was a bit puffy from not having slept properly, but she would be lying to say he didn’t look adorable at the same time.

He waved and watched her walked away, her sweet and tired morning smile seemed to be engraved into the musician's mind as he headed home.

The air was still a bit cold, but the heat was starting to rise and plague London for the rest of the day, the hot summer everyone's been yearning for was finally here, even Harry could feel it in his bones as he continued down his path. He was still highly enamoured by the amazing night he spent sharing a piece of himself with Alma. His feet felt heavy, were even burning a little, but it was nothing as he made his way through his home gate twenty minutes later.

He decided to get some toast and a cuppa for breakfast, his high spirits not faltering even one bit although he could feel the consequences from the all-nighter already with each yawn. After eating he decided to take a shower that got him ready for a well deserved sleep in his comfortable bed.

Waking up around six o'clock startles him at first, Harry is well rested now but a bit grumpy for the weird taste on his tongue, something usual after drinking beer. He scolds himself for not brushing his teeth earlier as he walks in his bathroom. The cool tiles against his bare feet wake him up a bit more. After some needed dental hygiene, Harry gets dressed to go out and pick up his sister for their weekly dinner. Hopefully he can convince her to stay in, that way he can go on and on about the events from the night before.

His feet still hurt, he can even feel a blister underneath his big toe. But it doesn't bother him, it's actually a nice reminder of the incredible things that miraculously happened. Harry knew that since Alma was related to Fernando, someone that was bound to be in his life for the next six months or so, there was a big chance they would've met at some point. But he'd rather think it was fate, some sort of good karma coming round, he stared at her contact on his phone, still charmed by the fact that she gave it to him on the back of a receipt. Ignoring that she only did it that way, because the thought of asking for his mobile to enter it herself, was a very bold move. And Alma wasn’t really that confident, not when his green eyes were boring into hers anyway.

"When are you gonna call her then?" Gemma's voice snaps him out of his daydream for the third time during their quiet dinner in her flat. "What is it? You've got that look."

"What look?" He asks before his sister frowns and pinches her bottom lip with her thumb and index finger. It's his nervous quirk, he sighs, "I don't know, I'm just so nervous." Without a valid reason, he knows the girl is so lovely, maybe that's why.

"You're afraid of fucking it up," she knows, Harry nods. "Well, you could tell her that, perhaps on a text—

"—I want to call her, texting her will make me feel a wanker." Gemma smiles at her little brother, he looked uncharacteristically unsure of himself but nonetheless excited. It was endearing how the first thing he told her after crossing her home's threshold was 'my life is officially a chick flick!' Before proceeding to explain with detail about the whole situation.

"What about a text that reads: hello, this is Harry please save my number so when I find the guts to call you, you don't think it's a telemarketing scam," Gemma might be joking and mocking him all at once, but has a point. A text so she also has his number, makes the situation more even, she can call him too. "Assuming she gave you a real phone number."

"What?" Harry is mortified.

"I'm kidding, you should've seen your face," his sister wanted to drag a bit more her joke, but the preoccupied look on his face stopped her. Gemma couldn't wait to tell their mum, knowing that she would be just as absorbed. "There's nothing wrong with showing interest right away. If you want this to be honest and genuine, set an example." She finished before taking the last bite of pizza.

Harry knew that to be true, but now he was left wondering if it was the right time for him. Had he really left behind all the ghosts and baggage from his past? Or was he still carrying them in the new tattoos of his knees?

Despite his sister's encouraging words about how nothing could go wrong this early with Alma, he couldn't help but wonder if his still grieving heart was ready.

He takes his time walking back home, not caring if it was a really long one, he was aware of the curious eyes once he reached the Southbank but paid no attention to them. He welcomed the chill breeze, hoping for it to cool his boiling mind. Remembering the last time he walked along the river arms around his former flame, her laughter still ringing in his ears, her tender kisses in his knuckles, her delicious scent flying away with the airstream into London's sunshine.

Missing someone is not wrong, Harry reminds himself.

There's no point going down the rabbit hole of what ifs about their relationship. Harry can admit his mistakes, no matter how hard it comes to him, he can also apologise wholeheartedly. He did all those things already, months ago. Which is why he was able to keep her as a friend, not a close one, more like an acquaintance. And she's happy, he can see that, knows it.

Why does he feel like he's still drowning? He's already been pulled from the vast ocean of hers. Harry groans, struggles to open his gate, his good spirits from this morning nowhere to be found.

He doesn't know if it's the memory of her, the fear of loneliness, coincidence and laziness, or a bad habit? But he doesn't text the girl with warm brown eyes, instead he plays the voicemail that sometimes haunts his nightmares, on repeat, for the rest of the night.

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#harry styles fanfiction #harry styles oc #harry styles series #harry styles #harry styles fan fic #harry styles fluff #harry styles fandom #harry styles fanfic #a certain romance #harry styles ou

[asterekmess]

S3A - E4

Alrighty, here we go. Maybe I’ll get a little less fired up this time.

Be Kind, Read More’s (I’m bad at puns or jokes.)

Thoughts:

So, I get that they’re trying to amp up Scott becoming an Alpha or whatever, but I just really hate the concept of dogs needing to know “who the alpha is.” It’s a really harmful myth that leads to a lot of frustration for owners and a lot of fear for their dogs. I actually recommend anyone with a dog, or thinking of getting a dog to look at this video to understand how huge a myth that whole Dominance thing is. He explains it better than I ever could. That also doesn’t work in the show, since we know that all werewolves have sway over dogs. Derek does it like a fucking pro in S1 (Yeah, he scares the dogs, but it’s entirely controlled. The dog didn’t freak until he wanted it to.)

Woooow, Scott actually working at his job? That’s new!

Deaton, mistletoe is poisonous to anyone. Wtf are you on about “to the dog, and you too.” literally everyone is poisoned by mistletoe.

Is this a reference to a movie or something? IT’s so fucking creepy and gross, him sticking his hand under the dumpster and getting bit. And what’s with the whispering??? JENNIFER did you bite someone? WTF? Also, he literally can’t get any closer, dumbass. He’s on his knees right up against the dumpster.

I hate this woman. This show I think has a lot of issues with actual foreshadowing and making villains appear earlier in the show. Like, they knew Jennifer was going to be the villain. So what was all this extra shit? All the random clips of her grading papers and getting spooked walking down the halls of the school. She’s literally committing murder every single night and is far scarier than even werewolves, even without the extra powers. Showing us this stuff directly contradicts her being the villain. I can’t tell if they thought we as an audience were too smart and we’d figure out she was the villain, so they had to cover their tracks extra hard bc we all know that plot twists should only ever happen when it makes no sense, or if they thought we were too dumb to notice that they didn’t put any effort into her character until she starts being actively creepy.

I hate this. I hate all of it. I’m disgusted and nauseous just fucking watching this, knowing that Derek isn’t fucking choosing to do any of this. He’s literally under a spell that’s making him worry about her, because she wants an Alpha guard dog.

I’m also gonna point out that since the show hadn’t told us that Derek was being controlled yet, they were trying to show Derek being interested in Jennifer and trying to make Jennifer someone Derek would be interested in. In order to do that, they made her jumpy, suspicious, anxious, and over-talkative. And crazy smart. With brown hair. Just saying.

The Crucible? Dude, you started the class on The Heart of Darkness literally last Wednesday. Chapters 1-3 weren’t due till last Friday. Why can’t this show fucking make up its mind?

Aannnnd here we go. Love watching Scott laugh about something that he knows Stiles is absolutely terrified by, seeing as Heather DIED. God, if you want Scott to look funny, can you not make him make jokes about something that’s getting people killed and traumatizing his best friend? Jesus.

I...I feel the need to point out that Stiles jumped exactly the same way Jennifer did like two seconds ago....just saying.

Honestly, I like that this Danny did this, not just to fuck with Stiles (in a non-sexy way) but also to try and subtly point out that he can hear them talking about virgin sacrifices. Maybe keep it down boys?

As much as I hate this shaky camera, slow-mo to fast-mo stuff, it’s still so much better than the CGI/Green Screen. Just, so much.

Boys, stop sticking your tongues out while running, you’re gonna bite them off and that shit doesn’t grow back. Also, I wanna give Isaac props here for managing to keep up with Alphas. Speedy Boi. AND, did you notice the look on his face before he ran after them? TOTALLY different from the look on his face before he attacked Cora in the woods. Not play time, kill time.

Those are...those are also not wolf sounds. At least I know Cora wasn’t a sexist thing? Seriously, wolves sound terrifying enough on their own, no need to add in the lion--wait didn’t I read that they don’t use lions roars most of the time, they use tigers instead? Whatever. NO need for the cat noises. I get it for the actual roaring stuff, but the snarls can be wolfy, can’t they?

How long did they have to stand there waiting for the cops to arrive? THe whole class is just standing around in a crowd? You know, I’d believe it, honestly I don’t think Finstock would think to make them go back to the school. He’s not great at the adulting thing.

How--How did Kyle’s girlfriend know? She’s not on the track team, is she?

I hate this whole “He’s got a point” thing. Stiles admitted that he agreed the Alphas were connected somehow but his reasoning is perfectly sound. Are you seriously telling me that Scott didn’t talk to Deaton about this? We can assume he did, because it’s Scott and he tells Deaton Everything. But that means Deaton DIDN’T tell him what he knew, openly lying to him. And none of that should matter anyway, because Stiles is Scott’s best friend. It is not too much to ask for him to just believe Stiles. In fact, it’s pretty fucking basic friendship stuff.

ALSO I hate that Isaac appears to give zero fucks about Erica. “They killed that kid, they killed the girl that saved me” But no mention of Erica? Or of how they imprisoned erica and boyd for four months? No mention of his own pack members? Seriously?

Hi cora. Hi derek. I really really wish you were going to be a reprieve from the bullshit of the rest of the episode so far, but instead you’re going to break my heart by refusing to give me even the slightest hint at Derek and Cora giving any kind of fucks about each other and finding out that the sibling they thought was dead is not dead. Nothing. We get absolutely Nothing. I don’t even get to see where the FUCK Cora got the exercise clothes from? Did they go shopping? did they go find her bag of clothes that got left in a building somewhere when she was taken? Huh? SOMETHING?

I’m just so...disappointed, and it’s definitely not directed at Derek.

Also, Derek, your alarm sucks ass if it only tells you that someone’s at your place once they’re outside the door.

I’m gonna be honest, Derek does need to work on his ranged combat. He’s all about the up close and personal, our boy needs a quarterstaff or something. Maybe a bat?

Sup duke? I hate your guts.

Sup Harris? I hate your guts too.

I don’t--I don’t even wanna talk about this scene with the twins. I just...what the absolute fuck? Those kids need so much therapy. I just feel ill. Also stop with the making werewolves masochists for some reason! Stop it! It’s boring and dumb!

I literally refuse to believe any of that had plot relevance. I think the twins are just being assholes for the fun of it. That is so convoluted in so many ways.

Other than the really really overdone British villain trope thing, I literally have nothing to say about this scene. Other than, you know, the part where Derek outright refuses to kill his pack even with a fucking PIPE through his CHEST, yet somehow we’re meant to believe that he wanted to kill them on the full moon even when he had no proof that they’d hurt anyone? Love that logic. Yah. Uh huh. Side note: why do I even like this show? Side Side note: It’s cus’ Derek and Stiles and Cora and Isaac and Boyd and Erica and Lydia are all fucking awesome. Honestly, Allison too. And Danny. And Jackson. And Kira when she comes in. Even Malia has potential

Isaac, honey, you have claustrophobia and that’s a legitimate medical concern that Harris would need to make adjustments for.

HI BOYD. I MISSED YOU SO MUCH OH MY GOD. Thanks for stabbing me in the heart with that friend comment. My everything hurts now. I love you. Also, bye, cus’ you don’t come back for the entire rest of the episode. awesome.

Is it even remotely okay for the school to make students handle chemicals and fuck with the janitor’s stuff/do custodial work? Like, detention is detention and the school/Harris has no business using the students for free labor.

Fucking pathetic. I hate this stupid Alpha command thing. I hate this whole plotline and no I’m NOT going to stop complaining about it any time soon. It’s stupid as fuck.

Stiles how do you expect Lydia to know about this shit when no one fucking talks to her except you??? SEE? YOU SEE? THAT is how you use humor in a tense situation!

Lydia, Stiles is human.

Please stop with the sexual tension, it’s pissing me off. Allison fired over a dozen arrows into Erica and Boyd, then help her grandfather kidnap and torture them and sliced Isaac to ribbons. I’m not done being mad at her, and Isaac Damn Well shouldn’t be either.

Okay WHAT? Since when is English the last class of the day? It was their first class an episode ago! What the fuck are you talking about? and WHY are you writing “Great Expectations” on the board!!???? Even if The Crucible was for a different class you’re STILL ON HEART OF DARKNESS.

I just-I get that they’re teenagers, but that’s seriously the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen and even though Allison’s still pretty high on my shit list at the mo, she’s way too smart not to know that this is stupid as fuck. Just because the Alphas are being stupid doesn’t mean you PISS THEM OFF. Nothing you just did HELPED at ALL. You didn’t Hinder them or Weaken them or ANYTHING. You just played a stupid ass prank???

So...Stiles has a free period in the last period of the day? When no one else does? Yet somehow he’s in all their classes AND we SAW him AND LYDIA in Scott and Allison’s English class? ALSO the twins are Miraculously now in the English class as well, even though they weren’t there on the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL??? WHat the FUCK This is a show about HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS and you can’t be fucked to actually get their stupid fucking Schedule right? The same with the full moon. The two things that should always be consistent are the FULL MOONS for the WEREWOLVES and the SCHOOL SCHEDULE for the STUDENTS. You spend hours of episode planning time on making outfits and references to horror movies, but you can’t get A SIMPLE FUCKING TIMELINE right?

I know Stiles hasn’t talked to Deaton all that much so far in the show, but this is a really weirdly long introduction to him asking Deaton for info, when I honestly expected him to just push in and say, “HEY, so how about those human sacrifices, huh? You keeping something from us again?”

I hate them cutting up these scenes so much. Derek’s effectively been pinned to the ground for an entire school day at this point.

Actually, this little speech of Duke’s is where I got a huge headcanon for the show about how truly monstrous Duke and the rest of the Alphas are. He says he didn’t know that killing your own Beta adds their power to yours. But, shouldn’t that be like a really well known thing in this werewolf world of horrific murders and “Rite of passage, into his pack” mentality that the show seems insistent on showing us? Instead, I think that Duke is actually like he says he is. The Demon Wolf. He’s a fucking demon and all werewolves know it, because he and his pack are disgusting and twisted enough to kill their own pack. I firmly believe, beyond all reason because fuck this show, that Alphas have a biological imperative to protect their pack, to keep them safe and happy and provide for them. That the reason no Alphas really knew about what happens when you kill your own Beta is because no one ever would. It’s the most taboo, horrific thing a werewolf can do, harming their own pack. Their own family.

STOP TOUCHING PEOPLE’s FACES. ESPECIALLY DEREK’S.

I love Derek’s line so much. “You’re a fanatic.” Like. Yes. Completely shutting him down. That was so good.

Also, Duke. you literally just said “You’ll get to know me.” and now you’re mad because “Know me? You’ve never seen anything like me.” I wish someone would just pick him up by the scruff and toss him out a window.

What’s with the sudden lightning? and why is the thunder happening at the same time?

I have literally had the fifteen minute rule held over my head so many times. We once got locked outside our orchestra room for fifteen-minutes and one of the secretaries from the front office had to let us in, and then they had to send us a sub teacher because ours was sick but even though she called in, they’d hadn’t bothered to call the sub yet. the fifteen minute rule doesn’t exist, and I wish so fucking badly that it did. PLUS. I thought School was OVER????

Stiles, you should know better. The Celts were accused of human sacrifice by the Romans, who were trying to demonize them and take over their land. (which is pointless, since the Romans participated in tons of human sacrifice, even if they didn’t explicitly call it that. Anybody heard of the fucking Colosseum?) Plus, there isn’t any actual evidence that isn’t from extremely biased Latin texts that indicates the Celts performing human sacrifices as religious rites. You’re right though, cus’ the show does pull a lot from the concept of Celtic Druids. It just does it horrifically badly and completely misconstrues them by using the modern myth of the druids rather than the historical reality of them. I was a classics major, with an obsession on Druidic practices. Fight me about it.

Thank you Stiles, for calling Deaton out. Also, what does Deaton mean ten years? He was the Hale emissary six years ago. Jesus christ, this isn’t hard.

I hate to say it, but that is correct, Deaton. Druids were philosphers and scholars. That’s because Druid was a SOCIAL CLASS not a JOB. They didn’t believe they were “keeping the world in balance’ but they believed the world was MADE UP of balances. The Celts didn’t believe in letting people die for the sake of “maintaining the balance.” Their social structure was based on equality between the sexes and community ownership (a bit like socialism, it’s actually why the Romans hated them so much, they represented the exact opposite of Roman Ideals of hierarchy and private ownership with the male head of family in charge) But I digress. My bad.

Cue the dropbox ad

So what’s with the chanting? There wasn’t chanting when Heather was taken? Or Emily? Is the method of abduction supposed to be different for every group?

Ooooh, Dell school computers. Did they lose their Mac contract?

Oh Look! It’s the consequences of your actions!

They have so much time to react and do something to keep the boys from merging while they’re busy taking their dumb shirts off.

For the record, Druid is not the gaelic word for “wise oak”. It’s generally accepted to mean “oaken knowledge” or, less literally, “the one whose knowledge is great” (since oak was considered to signify greatness). But those are just semantics and I’m not as bothered by it. I’m MORE bothered by the use of the word “Darach” which does NOT mean Dark oak. “ach” is an Irish suffix meaning “Belonging to” and Darach is an NAME, as in like Emily or Janice, it’s a Name not a title. One that means “belonging to the oak” (actually, it’s masculine, so it would mean “Son of oak”). Scottish Gaelic and Irish are still real languages and you mistranslating things and taking words from their already incredibly oppressed and abused culture is really fucking annoying. So, uh. yeah. Listen, this is one of my few areas where I know anything so I had to complain about it. I get that it’s just a show. I really do. But it’s my post, so meh. Also, you bet your ass I have opinions on the concept of a Nemeton as well. But that’s not for now.

I find it kinda hilarious that none of the names on those papers had last names. Tom. Terry. Tim P. almost has a last name.

and now we break my fucking heart. Actually, first I wanna give this show some props for once. The music they use for this season is very drum based, very repetitive, and it really helps with the ritualistic vibe they seem to be going for. The chanting, etc. I worry about what they pulled that stuff from, cus’ if it’s from actual religions that’s fucking dicey, but the atmosphere is good.

NOW we break my fucking heart. Fucking fuck. It hurts, especially knowing that Isaac already had one flashback today. And then they have to go and add anger to my turmoil by having him go to SCOTT. Fuck scott. I fucking hate this.

Bye Harris. No, wait, I have questions. So Harris helped Jennifer somehow. By...what, helping her fake her identity? Was he her reference for getting the job at the school? Or did he help her with the killings, by finding her students/teachers who fit the bill? When he says “They’ll figure you out” is he talking about the cops or the wolves? Does he know about the supernatural? If he does, does that mean that he knew who Kate was when she found him in that bar? Bye Harris.

Last Thoughts: I’ll give this episode props. It had sunlight in it. Uh...I honestly can’t think of anything else I enjoyed. This shit, this shit is why people write fanfiction. These mistakes with the timeline and the schedule and the character’s whose personalities flip back and forth at random? The refusal to acknowledge trauma and deal with it appropriately? I honestly don’t even know how to feel about the show selling this Derek/Jennifer romance to us and then revealing at the end that he was under a literal spell the whole time. That he had sex with her while under the influence of her magic. That these oh so brief moments where we actually get to see Derek smiling and joking and see a hint at his personality and his intelligence and maybe even his past, they’re all forced on him. It’s all a trick. He has sex with her while he’s incapable of giving consent. It’s fucking rape, shown on-screen. And the show portrayed this as romantic, for the sake of their stupid fucking plot twist. We were encouraged to like this relationship because we didn’t know he was being Controlled. Ugh. Bleh. Plus there’s the whole thing where once again Stiles is being ignored and Lydia has no clue what’s going on, and Deaton is hiding things from everyone and Boyd is barely a character. And Allison’s behavior is never dealt with, and Scott is just...Scott. This is why I make changes.

#personal #rape: tw #anti-scott mccall #TeenWolf-Rewatch

[dishwater-blondie]

“I’ve noticed how close you and Nathalie have become.” (Felix Aftermath)

“What the hell?”

Gabriel curled his left hand into a fist, his eyes on the ring he had removed from Emilie’s finger minutes earlier. Before him, seated at her desk, Nathalie glowered with bewilderment and outrage, hands paused stiffly over her keyboard. Her eyes flicked between the ring and his face. Gabriel only nodded at her.

“Felix stole your wedding ring?”

He nodded once more, hardening his jaw and his brow. He put his left hand out of sight, but he could still feel the other band around his finger, its cool metal and its weight. How, he wondered spitefully, had he not noticed the little asshole slip it off his hand?

Nathalie was reaching for her phone. “Should I call Amelie and -”

“Don’t bother,” Gabriel growled, “I’m sure she’s the one who told him to do it. I shouldn’t have trusted them for a moment. It was only for Adrien’s sake that I even chose to shake that damn kid’s hand. So much for that.”

“Well, I’m still glad you did,” remarked Nathalie quietly, “if only for that reason.”

“Whatever.” He glanced out the window behind her, at the light which becoming golder as afternoon traipsed gradually into evening. He blew out a breath between his gritted teeth. “What a waste all of that was. Even three akumas were not enough to get a hold of those miraculous.”

“There’s always Scarlet Moth,” offered Nathalie, and his eyes flicked back to her in surprise.

“You think we should try that again?”

“It’s certainly an option, isn’t it? It could have worked today, with all of Adrien’s classmates upset at once.” She leaned forward over her desk and set her chin atop her folded hands, in thought. “Well, there will be other ways in order to get that many people angry at once that we haven’t tried before. In the future, we’ll make sure they aren’t targeting Adrien - or people who look freakishly like him.”

“You’re right,” he replied, admiring for a moment, the intense contemplation in her eyes, they way they pierced outward with bird-like focus and simultaneously gazed deep within herself. He could see the thoughts swimming across her face. He looked away, back outside, placed his focus on the shadow of a tree waving against the outer wall. “And, also, thank you.”

“Hm? For what?”

“For trying to protect Adrien.” Gabriel’s hands tightened behind him, and the ring pressed uncomfortably into his skin.

“Well, it was only what you asked of me, sir.”

“I didn’t ask you to take on three akumas at once,” he pointed out, and as the breeze calmed outside, the shadow he was watching became still. “Especially not given your condition.”

He could feel that fierce stare of hers on the side of his head. “Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ve felt fine today. Almost normal. Besides,” she added, “I wouldn’t have let them near him under any circumstances. Sick or no.”

Finally, Gabriel turned back to her, and smiled gratefully, prompting her to smile warmly back. “Well, if I have to deal with in-laws we steal my own damn wedding ring on top of the usual bullshit, I’m beyond appreciative that you are there to keep Adrien safe.”

“Of course, Gabriel.”

They held each other’s eyes for a moment, and then it seemed something rather solemn had occurred to her, because her gentle smile faded, her brow came low.

“Speaking of Adrien,” she murmured, “You never did get to telling him about…”

“I know,” he said, taking a glimpse at Emilie’s portrait on the opposite end of the room. He found her painted eyes just a little too difficult to bear looking at for very long. “It...it wasn’t the right time.”

Nathalie tilted her head. “Something upset you, sir. I was watching, you know. You looked, well, shaken.”

“I-” he turned his body from her desk, a rigid movement which caused her to straighten up. “It was nothing. I just realized I wasn’t ready to tell him the truth, and that he wasn’t in the place to hear it.”

“I understand, but like I said, it isn’t going to get any easier.”

“I know. I question - I question whether I can ever tell him.”

“Sir, what happens if he finds out on his own?”

Behind his back, Gabriel twirled the ring around his finger. Emilie’s ring. If her sister or her nephew wanted to get ahold of this one as well, they would have to be exceptionally clever. His wedding band would have never returned to them had they known Emilie was still with them, that as long as she lived, the rings would always be hers. But they didn’t know.

And neither did Adrien.

To all three of them, Emilie was gone. As good as dead. It twisted a blade into Gabriel’s heart to realize it, that he and Nathalie were to only two people who knew that she would one day return to them. As he stared into the space between himself and the glowing window, he remembered with grief, the encouraging look on his son’s face, the hope gleaming in the eyes which reminded him so vividly of Emilie as he told Gabriel that it was okay to leave her behind. He sighed, reached up and dragged a hand down his face.

“We just have to hope he never does,” he muttered.

He heard Nathalie’s chair roll back as she rose to her feet. A moment later, she had walked around her desk and took her place at his side. He took the hand away from his chin to glance at her, at the delicate curve of her brows, angled in concern, at the touch floating towards him to land on his arm, so gently he could barely feel it. “I hope you will reconsider, and tell him the truth at some point,” she said, voice low. “I can imagine how difficult it must be, but I really do believe that being honest with him is far better than trying to conceal all of this, especially if he discovers the truth on his own.”

Gabriel might have taken her words more to heart had he not become suddenly very, very aware of how her face hovered just a few inches from his own.

I’ve noticed how close you and Nathalie have become.

Gabriel, wide-eyed, took a step from her, wincing as her light grip on his arm slipped away. Modest as always, Nathalie remained firmly in place, though she followed him with her gaze, brimming with worry.

How had he not?

“Nathalie,” he began, “Adrien, he -”

“What?” she prompted, when he cut himself off. “Did he say something?”

He gave her a side-glance, waiting a moment to build the courage to turn to her completely. Her patience calmed him. He took a single deep inhalation and announced, clinically, “Adrien believed we are romantically involved.”

Nathalie’s countenance immediately turned stony. Gabriel couldn’t believe the weight she carried in a single syllable: “Oh.”

He nodded vigorously. “Exactly. You can imagine I was displeased that he believed someone could simply replace his mother.”

To his interest, Nathalie flinched. “Is that what he-?”

“No, but it’s only been a year, Nathalie. It’s been a year, and he thinks I could move on. His mother isn’t even gone.”

“He doesn’t know that.”

“But he thinks it. How could he think it? It feels like such little time.” Gabriel, once more, laid his eyes on the golden Emilie. Regarding her at his distance, where he stood an entire room away, he suddenly felt the coolness of the empty space around him, the fact that he could reach out and touch nothing but the air he pushed in and out of his lungs in that steady, lonely rhythm that would never end. “And yet,” he added under his breath, “It feels like lifetimes.”

Nathalie was quiet for a moment, and then, wordlessly, she spun around and hastily returned to her desk. Gabriel listened to the faint squeak of her chair as she sat down, the roll of its wheels across the floor as she pulled herself up to her computer and started working at the keys. When Gabriel had at last looked at her again, he found her cheeks flushed red, her jaw firmly set, her stare so laser-focused on her screen that it looked like she was trying to pick apart piece by piece.

He asked, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she responded, a little too quickly. After a pause, where her typing faltered a moment, “I can understand why that would bother you, sir. I guess we should be more careful. We wouldn’t want Adrien to suspect what’s really going on.”

He couldn’t quite place the tone of her voice, but it made him feel on edge, and his miraculous was suggesting she was anything but unemotional at the moment. “Nathalie, did I - insult you in any way?”

“Why would you have insulted me? Isn’t what you say correct? I’m not Adrien’s mother and we’re not-” She blinked. Hard. “Together. It’s unfortunate that he was so mistaken. He must have noticed the way we act when I’m not feeling well. I thought we had more secretive about that, but then again, he’s noticed my dizzy spells at least. Who knows what else he’s picked up on?” She finished a paragraph and pivoted her chair in his direction. “I’m sorry, sir, that he brought it up.”

Gabriel was a little thrown by her severity. “It isn’t your fault. I probably could have handled it better. I was just...surprised.” He came a little closer to her desk until he stood directly across from her. She was upset, but he didn’t know if it was by learning Adrien had made some rash assumptions or by the way he had spoken himself; either way, he was troubled to feel the miraculous biting into his chest. “For the record, Nathalie, Adrien was wrong, and he knows he was wrong. If by ‘we should be more careful’, you are implying that I stop caring for you as I have been when you’re ill, I will have to refuse.”

She gazed up at him. “Sir, I don’t think that more mindfulness of our behavior is unreasonable.”

“Neither do I, but Nathalie, you have to understand, I deeply appreciate all that you do for me. Everything from protecting Adrien earlier today, to using the peacock miraculous, to all the work you do in between. I wouldn’t feel right to ‘be more careful’ if that suggests I’m not telling you how much all of that means to me,” he told her.

“You-” Her face flushed again, she looked down, sheepish. “You just did.”

“Well, once isn’t enough.” Gabriel was relieved to see her smile at this, to feel the hurt draining out of his miraculous. “And there is one thing Adrien said that rings true. You are a part of this family. For how much you do for us, you couldn’t be anything less.”

She was stunned. “He said that?”

“Of course.” Gabriel offered her a small, sincere smile before backing away from her desk and returning to his own place across the room. Standing beneath his wife’s emerald stare, he reopened the designs he had been working on when he’d noticed the missing ring. Now, Emilie’s glinted in the light reaching at him through the window, and when he looked up from his screen in search of the shadows on the wall, his eyes went instead to Nathalie, who remained seated at her desk, positioned before her computer, her face filled so unexpectedly with wonder. Truly, she must not have known at all how much she belonged there.

I’ve noticed how close you and Nathalie have become.

Perhaps, there was something worth noticing. Perhaps, they had become closer. Perhaps, Gabriel was, all too late, beginning to realize just how important she was to all of his accomplishments. There was no way he would be standing here if she couldn’t stand beside him. He wouldn’t have lasted a day.

A thread of guilt was plucked somewhere deep in his chest, because she was risking her life. Because she was at the brink of losing everything every time she pinned that miraculous to her sweater, and yet she may have been completely unaware of how much he needed her.

He needed her.

Biting his lip, Gabriel dropped his eyes back to the screen. “And Nathalie?”

“Yes?”

“I’ll give some consideration to utilizing Scarlet Moth once more. Catalyst might be making her comeback.” The ring felt unusually tight around his finger. “If you’re up for it.”

He heard the smile in her voice when she answered, “Yes, sir.”

#ml fanfic #gabenath #felix #ml fluff #gabriel agreste #nathalie sancoeur

[jungshookz]

You know what would be great???? Culinary student! Jin and a hopeless y/n who eats ramen out of coffee pots and eats cool whip straight out of the can. Also ily and I hope you know that

→ pairing: kim seokjin x reader

→ genre: what a surprise it’s bratty!y/n, culinarystudent!jin and his fancy pasta, humour, a touch of nsfw because i’m obsessed with jin’s broAd shoulders it’s almost ridiculous

→ wordcount: 3.4k

→ note: i hope i did ur request justice also i love u more :~)))

(gif isn’t mine!) ((also i was going to use a gif of him actually cooking but tumblr refusEd to accept it so i’m sorry)) 

listen

being completely honest

jin thinks you’re really cute

like SUPER cute

like he’s really REALLy frickin attracted to you because you’re just so??? yOU and somehow it works and it gets his gears GRINDING okay

you were the one who moved in right next door and you greeted him with a friendly smile and a ‘here, i baked cookies!’ and of course he accepted the cookie because he’s not a complete monster

but good GOD

that cookie was awful

and to be fair he’s a culinary student so it makes sense that he has high standards but even a fOOL would know that your cookies were god-awful

before you got the chance to distribute your nasty cookies out to the rest of the people on your floor jin was like hEY hEY how about you give me.,.,,. all of your cookies,.,.. because i,.,. really like them.,.,., and.,., i want to eat.,.,. all of them.,., thank u., yes,.

anyways

you’ve known each other for almost eight months?

and nothing has happened because let’s be real

you’re both wussies

and no one’s admitting anything to anyone so you’re kind of in this flirty-friendly space and you’re both FULLY aware that there’s like.,.,. a sprinkle of flirting going on.,,

but you know what

that’s beside the point

he doesn’t even know why he’s thinking about his undeniable crusH on you

because right now all jin can focus on is the fact that you’re eating ramen out of a coffee pot

let him repeat himself

you’re eating ramen

out of a

a COFFEE pot

you’re in the middle of rambling to him about your day and he’s trying to pay attention to what you’re saying but he wants to scream every time to pause to sluRP out of the coffee pot

laundry room gossip is a pretty normal thing for you two

you’re both so busy during the day

you with your classes and jin with his culinary classes

so once or twice a week you’ll both coordinate a time to come down and do your laundry together (you guys usually shove all your clothes in together because u end up saving some $$ too) and you’ll both end up sitting there for a couple hours just talking to each other while waiting for your clothes

jin raises a brow before pressing his lips together

his mother raised him not to be judgemental but COME ON

RAMEN

out of a COFEE POT??????

out of all the things he’s seen you done this has to be the absolute worst

here are a couple of examples as to what monstrosities you’ve exposed him to:

a cold pizza sandwich (two slices of cold pizza with a drizzle of ranch and crunched up cheetos as the filling)

cereal eaten out of the baG ITSELF (u poured the milk in and everything)

chicken pancakes?? aka shredded deep fried chicken and shredded cheese mixed inTO pancake batter and panfried and then topped with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of green onions

one time you made scrambled eggs in a mug and dat shit looked nasty

but this

this doesn’t even make sense

disrespecting what looks like a pretty high-quality coffee pot (he remembers you got it for christmas or something) by using it as a holder for $1 ramen

it’s probably going to stink up the coffee pot and every time you make coffee it’s always going to have that faint aftertaste of chicken broth

a shudder goes down his spine and he winces

you perk up when the drying machine suddenly beeps and stops rumbling “god finaLLy”

jin keeps his eyes glued on the damn coffee pot as you set it down next to your basket and go to retrieve your freshly-dried clothes

you bend down and pop open the dryer and the loud hiss makes jin look over

“jin?” he glances away quickly and looks up at the ceiling as a poor attempt to conceal the fact that he was totally just checking u out just now

“hm, what?” he clears his throat

“aren’t you going to come and get your clothes?”

“oh, right.” jin pushes himself up off the ground and grabs his basket

he props it up on his hip and starts picking out his clothes from the pile

“hey, these are cute.” jin can’t help but smirk as he twirls a burgundy thong around his finger

your cheeks flame up immediately

“cut it out, you perv” you scowl playfully and grab it from him quickly

the little voice in the back of your mind can’t help but wonder if perhaps jin would be interested in seeing you wear the thong

it comes with a matching bralette

hm

“ya-“ jin pokes your arm and you look over at him “was that your dinner?” he points to the coffee pot and you glance over at it “didn’t you have ramen yesterday?”

“…yeah. instant ramen has been my dinner every day for the past week. why?” you hum nonchalantly and continue picking through the pile

you help jin out and toss one of his white t-shirts into his basket

jin can’t help but let his jaw drop

you’ve been eating processed garBAGe for the past weEK

how???????????

“it’s never enough for me tho so i usually eat a bag of chips too. i might have a frozen mac n’ cheese thingy in the freezer so that’s an option too.” you gasp excitedly “ooh i can crumble the chips over the mac n’ chee-“

“oh my god.” all of a sudden jin reaches over and puShes the rest of the clothes into his basket before grabbing your wrist and dragging you towards the door

“hey, we haven’t finished sorting out the-“

“we’ll do it later i just need to get some actual foOD into your system before all the MSG and sodium starts breakING down your internal organs”

as he’s dragging you up the stairs (the elevator is broken again what a surprise) you can’t help but admire how b r o a d his shoulders are

the cotton shirt he’s wearing is kinda thin and u swear u can see his back muscles flexing slightly

you can’t help but wonder what it’d feel like

running your hands all along his back

digging your nails into his shoulders as he,.,,., y’know

wrapping your legs around his tapered waist as he.,,.,.,. y’knOW

s i g h

you purposely pull back a little so jin slows down and gives u more time to ogle him

are you a pervert for doing that

you might be

“let me see what’s in your fridge so i can work my magic”

he’s never actually been in your apartment before

well

he’s never had a reaSon to

(you always wanna invite him in to watch a movie or something but u get shy and shrivel up immediately)

he has a good idea of the layout because his place is exactly the same as yours

he’s not surprised to see that your place is relatively neat and organised besides a couple scattered markers on the coffee table and a throw blanket tossed haphazardly over the couch

there’s a candle burning away in the middle of the coffee table that makes your place smell like warm vanilla

but then

he enters the war zone

the kitchen

oh my god

this is a living nightmare

this is HIS living nightmare

there’s just

he sees all the takeout boxes in the bin and the pizza box sitting on your kitchen island and the- well that must’ve been your breakfast or something because you sprinkled cinnamon toast crunch on a bagel smeared with waY too much cream cheese

“oh hey i forgot about this” a piece of jin’s soul dies and floats up to heaven when you pop the rest of your cinnamon-cream-cheese-bagel monstrosity into your mouth and chew thoughtfully

why does he like you

“ah, i probably should’ve offered you a bite… i’ll make one for you tomorrow if you want!”

whY DOES HE LIKE U

“i’m… good. i think i’m more than good.” he shudders before nudging past you heading to your fridge “lemme see what we’re working with here…”

“you know you really don’t have to make anything for me. i told you i had a frozen mac and cheese…” you’re rambling and jin is most certainly not paying attention to you mainly because he’s shocked becAUSE you have like NOTHING in your fridge

a bottle of three-cheese ranch

a couple oranges, an avocado, and one red apple

a half-eaten sandwich?? it looks like turkey and a shitload of mayo

a takeout box with…,,. three pieces of orange chicken and a piece of broccoli that you’ve taken a bite out of

a baby carton of chocolate milk and a regular sized carton of milk

and a can of cool whip

unless he makes an orange-chicken-turkey-avocado sandwich with ranch on the side accompanied with a glass of chocolate milk with a dollop of whipped cream on top there’s not a lot he can do here

is thiS how you live

“you know what, maybe you should just come over to my place!” jin closes the fridge and clasps his hands together “yeah, let’s do that.”

“what do you mean?? i have plenTy of food in my fridg- okAy” you stumble over your feet when jin grabs your wrist and drags you away from the fridge

when you enter jin’s place he pushes you down on the couch and you nearly bounce off of it “you stay here, and i’ll whip something up for us.”

as he turns to head towards his kitchen he hears a vioLent schrrr

he turns back around and your finger freezes on the nozzle on the whipped cream canister

“wha- where did you even hiDe that” jin furrows his brows and you shrug before squirting some more into your mouth

“you sure you don’t need any help??” you’re already bored and you’ve only been here for less than a minute

“i don’t want you burning down my kitchen, so i’m good.”

“but i’m boRed and i’m hunGRY” you whine and flop back against the couch

jin raises a brow before bending down and grabbing the remote

he turns the tv on and it just so happens to be playing the late-night cartoons

perfect for a petulant child like you

miraculously jin gets 20 minutes of peace and quiet until he hears you whining again about how hunGry again

that’s what happens when you eat nothing but empty calorie foods

your eyes light up with excitement when jin emerges from the kitchen

he has a rag tossed over his shoulder and a grey apron hanging around him that you assume is from his culinary school

his cheeks are kinda pink from the heat of the kitchen which is adorable

he sits down next to you and you turn to fully face him while crossing your legs

he hands you the plate

wow

“….do you go to culinary school or something?” you tease and jin snorts

the pasta’s been plated into a loose nest and there’s a pretty little basil leaf sitting on top

“chicken, bacon, and spinach spaghetti. and since you’re a whipped cream freak we can have assorted berries and whipped cream for dessert.”

“assorted berries.” you mock quietly and jin scowls playfully before handing you a fork

he doesn’t know why but he’s a little bit nervous lol

like he KNOWS he’s good at cooking but for some reason he feels like he’s presenting a dish to gordon ramsay or someone of that calibre

you twirl a bit of pasta around the fork and shove it into your mouth

and you didn’t think it was possible

but you’re pretty sure your mouth is having an orgasm

HOLy shit

fireworks are going OFF

the bacon has retained its crisp

the spinach is wilted but not toO wilted that it’s falling apart

the chicken is so soft and tender

the spaghetti is cooked *ahem* al dente

and the sauce!!!!

it’s so creamy

so flavourful

you swallow your bite and blink down at the plate of pasta

“what’s wrong?”

“this is…. almost too good.” you mutter and poke at a piece of perfectly cooked chicken before stabbing into it and popping it into your mouth

jin’s cheeks warm with pride as he watches you continue to eat

“it’s almost as good as my frozen mac n cheese meals.” you joke and jin resists the urge to smack you with his rag

it doesn’t matter if you’ve eaten 20 pounds of food for dinner because you’ll always aLWAys have room for dessert

especially if dessert involves whipped cream

it’s healthy-ish!! it’s basically dairy and don’t u need dairy for strong bones or something

and strawberries and blueberries are fruit

and fruit is healthy

so if you really think about it assorted berries and whipped cream is the ideal combo if u wanna get in shape

jin doesn’t trust you with the canister of whipped cream (because he’s 100% sure you’re just going to hog all the cream and squirt all of it into your mouth) so he’s squirting some out onto a particularly juicy looking strawberry that he knoWS you want to devour

he turns and offers it to you and your mouth opens automatically as you lean forward to take it into your mouth

“hold on now.” your brows immediately knit together when he pulls away juSt as you’re about to take a bite “admit it. my spaghetti is much better than your stupid mac n cheese meals.” there’s a glint of playfulness in his eyes as he points to his ear and waits for your response

“i dunno. i get the mac n cheese from whole foods so you know it’s good.” you tsk but keep your eyes right on the berry hovering in front of you

“huh. i guess i’ll be enjoying this seasonal japanese strawberry for myself, then.” jin pouts mockingly

“nO i WANT IT“ jin yelps when you’re suddenly clambering over and grabbing his wrist so that you can shoVe the berry right into your mouth

now

a normal person would eat the berry and then return to their seat

unsurprisingly

you are far from a normal person

you keep your hold on his wrist and suck the whipped cream off his thumb after swallowing the strawberry

god have mercy

your eyes flicker up and you see jin staring right at you with parted lips

“…something the matter?”

and within one second

the berries and your trusty canister of whipped cream have both been abandoned in favour for

well

“can’t believe it took you thiS long to make a move” you murmur against jin’s mouth and he responds by nipping at your bottom lip

“says you!” he gawks before proceeding to press kisses down your neck

and you finALLY get to feel his muscles rippLe underneath the soft cotton of his shirt as you slide your hands from his waist to his back

meanwhile jin’s hand has found its home in between your legs and your eyes flutter shut “god, jin…”

“something the matter?” he mocks before pressing a chaste kiss to your mouth “you gonna admit it now?”

“admit wha- oh, jin - admit whaT”

“that my food is better than your frozen TV dinners” you would’ve burst out laughing if it weren’t for the shocks of electricity tingling up your spine

“n-no way-“ your back arches against his chest and your mouth falls open in a silent moan

and suddenly

you let out a pathetic whine when jin’s hand pulls away from in between your legs “fine. i guess we’re done here!” he sits up but keeps your legs wrapped around his waist

god

you are just a vision aren’t you

you’re flopped back against the arm of the couch

your chest is heaving slightly

your cheeks and nice n rosy

“you are the absolute worst.”

“c’mon… say it…”  he hums and slides a finger from your knee cap to your inner thigh

you know for a fact you two aren’t done here because jin’s already hooked a finger into the waistband of your shorts but you’re naturally a veRy impatient person and so-

“fine, you idiot. your food is significantly better than my frozen TV dinners. happy?”

“…i’ll take it.”

((spoiler alert: you are rewarded with not one not two but thREE mind-blowing orgasms for admitting it))

((maybe you should learn to be less stubborn))

“good morning!” jin is startled awake when you plop on top of him with your legs on either side of him “it’s 10 o’clock and i made us some food”

“christ, don’t scare me like that!” jin scolds you playfully and reaches up to pinch the side of your bare thigh

you’re wearing the shirt he had on last night and it’s starting to droop off your shoulder

“good morning indeed.” his voice is thick with sleep and his hand slides up from your thigh to grasp at your waist “whatcha got there?”

“cinnamon toast crunch bagel” you murmur with a mouthful of bagel and swipe at a lil chunk of cream cheese on the corner of your mouth “my wonderful creation that i made fresh for you”

you’re getting crumbs all over jin but he can’t seem to care because the idea of a cinnamon toast crunch bagel makes him want to throW YOU ouT THE WINDOW

he sits up slowly and wraps an arm around your waist before nuzzling into the crook of your neck “you’re lucky i like you otherwise i would throw your wonderful creation righT into the garbage bin right about now.”

you scoff in mock offence and pull away from him before jabbing a sticky finger into his bare (b r o a d) chest

“don’t knock it til you try it!!”

“the day i try one of your inventions is the day i- mmph!” you shut him up and shove the last bite of your bagel into his mouth before clasping your hand over his mouth so he can’t spit it out

jin chews slowly

and swallows

what the hell

that actually..,,. that tasted good

“that was okay, i suppose. kinda sweet. but i can think of something that might taste a little sweeter.” before you know it jin is flipPing you over and you find yourself pinned underneath him

you’re a giggling mess because you’re trying to get the cream cheese and sugar particles off your fingers but jin is being very vEry distracting

“hOLd on a second sir i have breakfast waiting for us in the living room!” jin’s already made his way down your chest and is about to set up shop in between your legs

he looks up at you before offering you a cheeky grin “…i’m in the mood for breakfast in bed, aren’t you?”

help me help you make your wishes come tru (aka send me a request)

masterlist

#requested drabbles #jin #seokjin #kim seokjin #jin fics #jin fic recs #jin smut #jin smut recs #jin fluff #jin fluff recs #jin cute #jin funny #seokjin smut #seokjin smut recs #seokjin fluff #seokjin fluff recs #bts #bts fic recs #bts fics #bts smut #bts smut recs #bts fluff #bts cute #bts funny

[bondsmagii]

What’s the scariest paranormal thing that happened to you (that you’re comfortable sharing)? You’re such a great story teller and in this awful month of August spooky vibes are the most bone-deep.

I have a few, but my usual go-to actually has an ask regarding it waiting in my inbox, so when it spits out of my queue you’ll see it anyway! two for the price of one. anyway, for this one I’ll go for another terrifying experience that I haven’t told as often and it still honest to god creeps me out.

in my third year of university, I lived in campus accommodation. the building was pretty creepy-looking as it was: it was quite literally modelled on the buildings of a nearby prison, and said buildings looked like Khrushchev-era Soviet housing. it was split into a bunch of flats, each housing five people in single rooms, a full bathroom, a half-bathroom, and a living room/kitchen area. my room was at the very end of the hall, and the living room door was on the other end, facing the front door. there were no windows in the central hallway, and shortly after I moved in there was a chair just randomly in the middle of the hallway that nobody could account for; it soon vanished just as inexplicably. (this was not too surprising and certainly not as creepy as the place I lived in my fourth year, where I opened my bedroom door after hearing a strange tapping on it, and saw a single red balloon floating down the hallway. I immediately shut the door.)

anyway. this is where we set our scene. at the time of this encounter I had been living there for maybe three months or so; it was the middle of winter and very dark and cold. our flat was on the fourth floor and filled with ill-fitting windows and therefore the wind simply ripped through it, and as a result we spent all of our time in our rooms with the windows duct-taped up. despite the nasty weather, I was and still remain a) a night owl and b) very restless, so I would frequently go out and walk around campus at night in the howling wind, because hey, if I’m going to get murdered by a supernatural entity, I might as well make sure the atmosphere is worthy. my campus was excellent for such things, and my usual walk took me along the foot of a mountain, along the top of a slope looking down onto a loch, and around a castle before heading home. 

up until recently, this walk had been uneventful. that had gradually begun to change, and frequently on my way back, I would feel as though I were being followed. it started as a minorly uncomfortable feeling which didn’t really bother me, because I’m quite used to the paranormal and it takes a lot to unnerve me, but soon it began to grow into something unnerving enough that I would sometimes skip out on my walk, and other times when I braved it I would end up running the rest of the way home. there was a security door at the bottom of the staircase leading to my flat, and usually once I got inside and slammed it shut, I would feel better. one night, this was not the case. the feeling of being watched had been the worst yet, and I had actually felt in danger as I had run home. I got through the security door and slammed it shut, but this time it wouldn’t lock. I tried for several seconds, but the lock just would not twist. I gave up and sprinted up several flights of stairs to my flat, and miraculously the front door still locked. I slammed it closed and locked it before backing up to the living room door; seconds later, something slammed itself against the front door and snarled. I could feel something out there. there were several seconds of nothing, and then the presence abruptly vanished.

alright. a little creepy. not the worst thing I’ve ever experienced but what the fuck, you know? I skip out on my walks for a while, and about a week or so later I’m in the kitchen making coffee at 3am, because that’s how I roll. as mentioned, the living room/kitchen door is opposite the front door. there is a wall separating the living room from the kitchen, but an open archway rather than a door. I cannot see the living room door from the kitchen, and said door has a small window in the top which looks out onto the front door. there is no direct line of sight from the hallway to the kitchen, yet as I make my coffee, I can feel something watching me. something is very much staring at me, and it is coming from the hallway right outside the living room door.

now, momma didn’t raise a coward but she did raise a fool. I decide to go and look. I go to the archway and put my head out. the living room door is about three feet from me. and in the window I can see a head. it is very much at first glance a fully-formed head, but it’s not attached to anything. it’s floating there, kind of rotating on the air slightly. the face is that of an old man and he doesn’t seem to have much hair. his mouth is open and moving slightly as though he’s trying to talk. as it rotates around, I see that the freakiest part of this already very freaky apparition is the fact that his neck and half of his face isn’t actually whole. instead it flakes away from him in tatters, kind of like torn fabric. it is, by far, the creepiest apparition I have seen. I’m not entirely sure what to do, because usually I would see something like this and assume it was a residual haunting and therefore not sentient, or it was sentient but not malicious. such a thing would ordinarily make me think that the spirit wanted help, but there was the small issue of the absolute malice coming off this guy. I mean, for a solid forty seconds or so I was rooted to the spot, unable to move because I was convinced if I did, the thing would come through the door and fuck me up. gradually the disembodied head faded away, and I grabbed my coffee and quickly went out into the hall. no sooner had I done so did something throw itself against the front door again, with serious force.

something about all the doors in our flat: they’re all heavy-duty fire doors (aside from, ironically, the one leading to the living room/kitchen). they are super heavy and slam closed on their own, and it’s impossible to knock on them loudly because it hurts a lot. if my housemates or I wanted to knock on one another’s door, the only way we could make a noise loud enough to get attention from inside the room and not break our knuckles was to kick our shoed feet against the bottom of the door (which made a rattling thud) or slap our open palm against it. the front door was made out of this same serious knuckle-destroying material, and whatever was out there was going absolutely ham. the bang was defeaning. the door was literally jumping in its frame. it happened three times -- bang, bang, BANG -- and then the door went still. somehow I managed not to spill my coffee. I stood there, staring at the door, and I once again I was aware that something was standing on the other side. I had had quite enough by that point, so I hauled ass to my room -- which was, as you recall, at the very end of the long, dark hallway (complete with one ominously flickering light shining out from the bathroom). I get to my room and shut and lock the door.

for a moment everything is fine, and then as I step towards my desk -- bang, bang, BANG. those same bangs, on my bedroom door. once again it’s shaking in its frame, and then stops. there’s silence. said silence stretches on for some time, and then I hear a door open. my housemate in the room directly across from me calls out into the hallway what we’re all thinking: “what the fuck was that?”

we all open our doors and confer. it turned out my housemates all heard it too, and understandably were too scared to check what it was. I don’t tell them about the disembodied head, but I do tell them about the weird presence outside the door -- a presence which two of my four housemates have also felt. we theorise for a bit and crack a few jokes to calm down, and then we all go back to bed or, in my case, fucking around online. the next morning (I’m still awake, of course) my housemate across the hall gets up and slaps on my door, and when I open it he points out several deep gouges in the door that were definitely not there when I came back from the kitchen that night. they’re deep, too, and once again, these doors were made strong enough that I’m sure their only purpose in life was to break bones. we could not for the life of us work out what had caused it.

the presence remained by the front door for several nights, until I put salt down across the threshold and also across the doorways of all the bedrooms in the house. the presence vanished from the front door then, but was still felt outside the security door -- which was never fixed, because whenever the lock was replaced it broke again pretty much immediately. I never got chased home again, nor did I see the old man in the hallway either... but that was because I stopped going out of my bedroom during the hour between 3 and 4am, and kept strictly to that rule for the rest of the time I lived there.

#honestly creeped out all over again just typing this up #my creepy shit #creeptastic #long post #anon #asks

[sparklyaxolotlstudent]

Karma Chameleon? I dunno... 

First Part:

https://sparklyaxolotlstudent.tumblr.com/post/182697194270/first-miraculous-ladybug-fic-i-write-chameleon

Next part, still in the Chameleon episode. I suck writing action scenes, so I’m going to be lazy and say that the fight scenes and Lila’s akumatization happened pretty much the same way, with the only exception being that I’m going to try to keep this from Marinette’s POV, so she doesn’t know Adrien did confront Lila, and technically her akumatization was his fault I still blame Lila, but still)

Also, I’m sorry to use Marc as my mouthpiece, but he’s a) a school friend of Marinette, b) the only character that wasn’t directly involved in the whole “banish Marinette to the back” and c) we don’t have a good gauge of what his personality could be.  I headcanon him as being similar to Marinette, so while he is still shy and unassuming with his crushes, he is comfortable around friends he trusts, he probably wouldn’t try to defend himself if he were in Marinette’s position, but he also won’t hesitate to cut a bitch if someone mistreats his friends.

SO!

--------

After the akuma attack of the week™, Marinette felt a bit better, especially after learning that Lie-la had been the “victim”. And to be completely honest, if she had learned Lie-la was the victim before, she probably would have left her as a clam… at least for a few days… but Tikki would have gone ballistic… and Lie-la would be playing the victim even harder with their classmates. At least she wouldn’t be lying this time... heh.  

Lie-la had accepted her attempt to befriend Ladybug and stop lying, but Marinette was 99% sure she hadn’t been sincere, and she was pretty sure this wouldn’t be the last time she got akumatized. She also couldn’t help but wonder if Chloe or Lie-la would get a third Akuma form first.

Arriving at the school, of course Lie-la was playing the victim card to all their class. She was 100% sure now of her lying to Ladybug’s face. Marinette was a bit surprised the class hadn’t built a palanquin to transport Lila. At least not yet. She had to admit it was a bit admirable how she managed to convince them to pity and admire her at the same time, despite everyone in there having experienced akumatization first hand already. And being saved by Ladybug. And most of them knowing Jagged Stone AND Clara Nightingale. And a couple of them knowing Prince Ali.

“Of course Ladybug saved my life. She never misses an opportunity to rescue her best friends!” Marinette rolled her eyes so hard it was practically audible. Marc grinned at Marinette’s reaction, and they both chuckled. Marinette felt much better having Marc and Nathaniel at her side, even though Nathaniel was currently doing something else.

“Ladybug saves everyone” Alya said to the group. Lila nodded in agreement, but it was clear she had been annoyed by that comment.

“Didn’t your tinnitus give you vertigo when you went up the Tower Eiffel?” … Was Max trying to catch Lie-la too? Maybe Marinette should give her friends the benefit of doubt.

“Oh no. Ladybug knows me so well she brought me an earplug to stick in my right ear”

“Wasn’t her left ear this morning?” Wondered Marinette out loud. Marc looked at her and just shrugged. Adrien appeared out of nowhere.

“Are you going to tell everyone?”

“uh?”

“That Lila is a liar. Exposing her will only humiliate her and she’ll just be hurt more. Making a bad guy suffer has never turned them into a good guy.”

“But… Ladybug called out Queen Bee on her BS and it actually made her reconsider and turn into an actual hero? I mean, as heroic as Chloe can be, but still a step in the right direction.”

Marinette blinked in surprise, and she realized that Chloe hadn’t done anything with Lila the whole morning, even though she was all touchy feely with ‘Adrikins’ and was stealing her spotlight. Maybe Chloe *was* changing for the better?

“And are you seriously implying that Lila’s feelings are more important than Marinette’s?”

“What” Both Marinette and Adrien had said in unison, surprised.

“Adrien, in case you didn’t notice, Marinette had a miserable morning because your whole class, you included, shunned her to the back. It wouldn’t be so bad if Lila had an actual disability, that’s life, but she doesn’t, so Marinette suffered for NOTHING and now you come here and say …”

Marinette was quick to hug Marc before he reached a meltdown… or attracted another Akuma. She didn’t want for him to go super villain on her behalf.

“Dude, relax. I’m pretty sure Adrien wasn’t trying to say that. Lila is the one in the wrong.”

“Fine!” Marc returned the hug and calmed down. “But you’re still in thin ice Agreste.”

The school bell rang and everyone walked to their classrooms.

Marinette and Adrien arrived at their classroom. She went to her place at the back, and couldn’t help but notice that Alya was avoiding eye contact, as was Nino. She was surprised to find Nathaniel already sitting in her bench.

“Uh… Not that I mind but…”

“I tried to convince Alix that you should sit with us. We three are small, after all, and I doubt Miss Bustier would object to that…”

“… but?”

“Alix and the others are still mad at you for earlier, and want you to apologize, which, to steal a  quote from Chloe, is ‘utterly ridiculous’… and long story short, now they’re kind of mad at me too.”

“I’m sorry”

“You don’t mind me sitting me here, do you?”

Marinette smiled at Nathaniel and took a seat at his side.

“Of course not! Don’t be silly”

Adrien was looking at them, but resigned himself to sit with Lila. What Marc had said had made him think. Was he being a bad friend? Exposing Lila would solve anything? He couldn’t finish thinking when Lila clung to his arm like a leech.

Class finished normally after that, with Miss Bustier agreeing to Nathaniel switching seats. A couple of the others had given them the stink eye, but Marinette couldn’t care less. She had actually had a fun time sitting with Nathaniel, and they almost got in trouble when Nathaniel laughed when Marinette told her about Marc’s outburst, and Marinette also laughed when he told how he called him out in a similar manner. “He said a couple of words I won’t dare to repeat.”

They found Marc out of his classroom and the three of them walked to the entrance of the school, where Alya and Nino were waiting for Marinette.

“Hey girl… can we talk?”

“Yeah?”

Alya and Nino eyed Marc and Nathaniel, clearly intending them to go away. Marinette shook her head ‘no’. “Anything you want to say to me you can say in front of them.”

Alya sighed. Nino reached for his neck, clearly nervous.

“We’re sorry on how we acted today” said Alya finally. “What we did… what I did… that’s not how friends should treat each other. And you are completely right about me not checking my sources, I took Lila’s videos down until I check with Ladybug, but even if she’s telling the truth, it doesn’t mean I was right in posting them. We didn’t do it in front of the class because we didn’t want to put you in an awkward position again in case you don’t want to forgive us, which we totally understand, but we *will* apologize in front of everyone if you want us to.”

“And it was unfair to send you to the back to accommodate Lila, when only I was the one that needed to move. In fact, if you want we can switch tomorrow.”

“Thank you Nino, but no. Nathaniel got in a fight with Alix because of me. I don’t abandon friends just because someone else appears.”

Alya and Nino looked at Marinette awkwardly. Marc and Nathaniel were expectant witnesses. Marinette seemed unsure herself, but a flush of emotions rushed through her. Alya was her first real friend, and Alya had supported Marinette a LOT of times, including that time with the giant baby and their crazy scheme to get a date with Adrien… and time she stole Adrien phone… and that time she deleted Alya’s video and her phone ended up in a trash can too… Alya had forgiven Marinette instantly that time, she wasn’t even mad. Alya and Nino had apologized, after all, and it she really didn’t want to throw away their friendship just like that.

“Of course I forgive you both, don’t be silly. It would take more than that to break our friendship.”

“I promise to be a better friend from now on”

“Yeah, me too dude”

Alya and Marinette hugged each other, while Nino bumped fists with her. Marinette was glad to have her best friend back.

--------

I know people want to see Alya punished, but honestly? I don’t think Marinette is a person that hold grudges(for long anyway) She seems pretty chill wtih Chloe(who made her life a living hell for four years prior the series) and doesn’t seem to hold any ill will to the classmates who never had her back before. Alya was the first to had her back in that sense, and she has screwed up a couple of times too, which is also important to note, she’s not perfect, but she’s far from the demon I have seen some people make of her. And Adrien... most salty fics I have seen for some reason give Adrien a pass on his passivity.. not me! Boy has to suffer so he can change for the better!

#miraculous ladybug #ml salt #ml fic #ml chameleon #marinette dupain-cheng #marinette deserves better #adrien agreste #nathaniel kurtzberg #marc anciel #alya cesaire #nino lahiffe #ml karma chameleon

[thewritewolf]

Rekindle Chapter 22: Sick

Adrien takes care of Marinette while she is sick with a mysterious illness. 

Sorry for the long delay. I promise I’m back into the swing of things! ;-;

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@marichatmay

Enjoy!

Read on Ao3

The door squeaked as Adrien opened it and a spear of light pierced the warm darkness of their bedroom. He winced at the noise, but Marinette remained still save for the rise and fall of her chest as she lay sprawled across the bed. The call had been made, even if he had to do a bad accent to appease his paranoid mind. Her work was now aware that Marinette was sick and couldn’t make it into work today. Someone else would have to do their dirty work for the day.

He froze halfway towards her, realizing that she was mumbling in her sleep. Craning his head towards her, he strained to make out what she was saying. There was something about magic and sorcerers and monsters. Was she having a nightmare?

The bed sunk as Adrien sat on the edge. He put his hand against Marinette’s forehead, growing more concerned as he realized just how warm she was. Despite this, she smiled blearily at the contact, eyes fluttering open.

“Hey, hot stuff.” She mumbled. “You come here a lot?”

He couldn’t help but chuckle as he looked around their shared bedroom. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.” The quick smile died on his lips as he saw the sweat on her brow and how difficult it was for her to keep her eyes open. “How’re you feeling, Bug?”

“Not great. Tired. Hot,” she admitted with a cough. But then the bleary smile was back. “On the bright side, at least I have my boyfriend to nurse me back to health.” She weakly squeezed his hand and he idly ran his thumb over the back of her hand.

“At least there’s that…” He carefully stood up, making sure not to disturb her as he rose from where he had been sitting on the side of the bed. “Are you feeling up for some soup?”

“Yay! Soup!”

He shook his head with a smile and closed the door behind him. In the kitchen, the kwami were arguing on the countertop.

“Are you sure, Stinky Sock? You might have missed them if you saw a dustball that looked like a piece of cheese while you were in there.”

“Hey!” Plagg pointed his paw indignantly at Tikki, glaring. “That happened once and it was an honest mistake!” He crossed his paws over his chest. “If you’re so sure I missed them, then go ahead and check for yourself.”

“Maybe I will!” Tikki huffed and phased through the wall.

“What was all that about?” Adrien asked when he was alone with his kwami.

“Pigtails didn’t stock up on medicine. We’re out, so your girlfriend will have to tough it out this time.” Though Plagg said it matter-of-factly, his tail was flicking back and forth in irritation and he was frowning into space.

Adrien sucked in a breath. Tikki emerged from the wall with a pout, watching Adrien. “It looks like cheese boy over there is right.” She sighed. “Do you think you two could go get some medicine? Maybe some comfort foods too while you’re at it. Marinette doesn’t get sick a lot, but it tends to linger when she does.”

He exchanged a look with Plagg, who rolled his eyes. “Sure,” he said with a nod. “I’ll head out after I’ve made the soup.”

“I’ll keep an eye on Marinette.”

Adrien raised an eyebrow at that. “Are you going to be okay watching her by yourself?”

“I’ve done it before.” At his shocked look, she shrugged. “It’s been a while since she’s had another human on hand to take care of her. I pick up the slack when I can, but I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’re in her life now.”

“Thanks, Tikki,” he smiled at the red kwami, gently petting her head with his finger. “That means a lot to me.”

She giggled. “Don’t worry about it.” She quickly turned serious again as she glanced worriedly toward the bedroom. “Just hurry back, okay? I don’t like the idea of leaving her alone when she’s like this.”

“I’ll be back before you know it.”

The soup didn’t take much longer to finish and within the hour he was transformed and leaping across Paris as the hero Chat Noir.

------------------------------

It had become almost routine for him at this point. Pull out cash from an ATM, then pay for whatever their household needed as Chat Noir. Sure, it had flaws, mostly in how other people reacted to seeing a superhero walking through the aisles of a supermarket or drugstore, but he usually got around that by going to the stores at night.

That option sadly wasn’t available to him today. At least, it wasn’t if he wanted to be quick and get Marinette some medicinal help for her fever. He braced himself to interact with a lot of people and wasn’t disappointed in that regard. Thankfully, most people were content to just take pictures of him shopping. Probably because they were bemused at the weirdly domestic sight of him shopping for ice cream, cold packs, and ibuprofen.

While he was being rung up at the checkout lane, the cashier raised an eyebrow. “Rough morning?”

“You could say that,” Adrien replied with a sigh.

“You know, I’m sure the hospital has plenty of this stuff if you’re that worried about her.” He scowled. “Although, it serves her right, if you ask me.”

Surprised, Adrien asked, “Who’s at the hospital?”

“What, you haven’t heard? It was all over the news this morning.”

Adrien winced. After their date last night, his entire world consisted of their apartment until he left late this morning. What could have possibly happened in that small time frame?

“Nathalie Sancoeur turned herself in at a hospital. Apparently, she got really sick, the docs don’t know what it is, and she’s under police supervision until she is fit enough to stand trial.”

It felt at once like a punch to the gut and as if a heavy load had been lifted off his shoulders. The feeling of betrayal had faded, but that scar was still fresh. But she was the last figure from his childhood still around - the last remnant of his family since Gabriel’s trial was just a formality before he’d get locked away for life. Still, the peacock miraculous was in grasp - assuming the police hadn’t taken it.

His eyes widened with sudden realization and he nearly dropped his bags in shock. It couldn’t be a coincidence that Marinette got sick at the same time, right? Did something happen that got them both sick?

While paying for the groceries, Adrien asked, “Can you tell me which hospital she is at?”

------------------------------

“...And that’s all I know so far.” Adrien glanced between his council of two kwami, who were sharing meaningful looks of their own with each other. “Well? Is my gut right, or is this just a coincidence?”

“Well,” Tikki began hesitantly, “If something had happened to the peacock miraculous, then it could have rippled out and affected Marinette.”

“But why? Wouldn’t it only have affected Nathalie?”

“All the miraculous are connected, Adrien. They form a balance between one another - perhaps not as potent as the balance between me and Plagg, but still.”

He rubbed his eyes. He was struggling not to panic, but it was getting harder the deeper he got into things beyond his knowledge. “Okay… But why didn’t it affect me then?”

“Nooroo and Dusuu’s powers were centered around creating things - whether it be super powers or monsters. That tied them closer to me. And if something did happen to further damage the Peacock miraculous, then that would just fed into Plagg’s powers of destruction.”

“Aren’t you lucky, kid.” Plagg sat on Adrien’s shoulder. “We should probably check in on old Nathalie. If nothing else, we need to fix the Peacock miraculous.”

“Will that make Marinette feel better?” Adrien glanced hopefully between the two.

Tikki gave him a reassuring smile. “Marinette will feel better either way. This is just a backwash of energy making her sick. She’ll be fine in a couple days, especially now that I know what the problem is.”

“Nathalie, on the other hand…” Plagg grimaced. “The faster we rescue Dusuu the better her odds are of recovering.”

Adrien looked longingly toward their bedroom door. Tikki seemed to pick up on this and reassured him, “Don’t worry, I can take care of her for a little while longer. Hurry back, but remember to drop off the Peacock miraculous with Master Fu!”

“Right,” Adrien nodded. “Plagg, claws out!”

------------------------------

It was midafternoon by the time Chat Noir finally stood before Nathalie once again. The warnings that the kwami had giving him about misuse of the miraculous were confirmed as he saw how pale and weak she looked. Despite being only skin and bones, she was still handcuffed to the hospital bed.

Adrien nodded to the pair of police officers. “Gentlemen. Can you give us a moment?”

One of them seemed about to protest, but he was elbowed by the other. “Of course, Chat Noir. We’ll be just outside if you need us.”

Once he heard the door shut behind them, he turned his attention back to Nathalie. She hadn’t spoken since he entered, but her eyes had never left him. Was it anger or regret he saw there? He pulled up a chair and sat down next to her.

“Adrien.” There was no hint of a question or accusation in her voice. Just a statement of fact. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised.

He knew he should ask for the miraculous. It would be the smart thing to do. Even knowing that, he couldn’t help but repeat the question he had asked her during their last confrontation. “Why would you side with him?”

Her lips curled up in distaste. “He promised that he could bring back someone I cared about. It doesn’t matter now. None of this does.”

To his shame, he had no idea who she could be talking about. Despite how much she micromanaged his life, he knew next to nothing about hers. But she was right - it was too late for that now.

“You can at least try to make things right.”

“No, I don’t think I can.” She reached into her pocket, and Adrien tensed up, expecting her to vanish once again. Instead, she pulled out her hand and Adrien reach out with his. She dropped a long sliver of a teal crystal in his palm.

“What… what is this?”

“That,” she said, pointing towards the crystal, “is a fragment of the Peacock miraculous.”

#MarichatMay2019 #Miraculous Ladybug #Adrien Agreste #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Chat Noir #Marichat #ml fanfiction #my writing #Rekindle

[juistheseminarian]

Eccentric, part 2 : now I’m here

I was planning to be done with this by now - both with this article and with the illness. I can’t believe that it’s been almost 15 years and I still get people congratulating me for acknowledging that I have an issue and going it’s-the-first-step-to-recovery, which they’ve learned was an appropriate thing to say since you don’t want to stand there and be embarrassed like I do with my boyfriend’s mom when she starts crying (which she does a lot). I’ve stirred things and realized things and I intended this to sound like a sort of retrospective from a place of unadulterated success. But guess what! 

I ended the last bit on my return from anorexia and lasting relationship with a psychologist I described as abusive, although that may be excessive and may come from the resentment of a long therapy seemingly not having “worked”. I started seeing them around age 12, before the eating disorder really declared, and i was referred to them at the end of an endless session of musical chairs through which I met many, many ‘emergency’ professionals whose schedules couldn’t accommodate another patient. I had to tell the whole story every time as if I were filing a police complaint or justifying an ailment that had long thinned beyond recognition, losing more of its meaning every time; I worried often, and I still do, about making myself sound ill enough to be considered, knowing I was taking their time when they could be curing people with actual issues. 

Having been sent to therapy after the school phobia I developed as a 5 or 6-year-old, and then again as a 12-year-old, and on and off ever since, means I’ve barely lived without framing my every breath as something to be treated and fixed, analyzed and made normal, insufficient, dependant, bending the wrong way. I entered this longest bout of therapy as a child and left it a decade later as a child. I believe for the first few years the psychologist was reliable if a little too set in her ways: there was no talk of medication outside of an apparent agreement to exclude it, which comforted my irrational fear of treatment with just as little medical basis as I previously had. However, her patient-based approach helped me feel like this time around it wouldn’t be an issue if I wasn’t “really” anything, or that’s how I viewed it at first. I don’t mean to dismiss the entirety of what happened there, only, you know, the bits where a refusal to diagnose me lead to a refusal to treat me, which in turn lead to desperation to fit me into the superstitious ramblings of an unstable person who refused to treat herself. Fuck that person. Call it what it is. 

I resented the amount of information she gave me about herself, the description of her previous marriage leading up to ten years of unhappiness she couldn’t get out of, the description of her current partner’s superior attitude, the way her life was a mess and the way I viewed her as honest instead of genuinely intrusive. She’d offer to pay me to iron her clothes, she’d talk to my teenage self about her finances, about her gynecological health, and I listened, and my mother became concerned. By then she had framed my parents as unable to understand me the way she would, she whose child had run away from home and I had to know all about it, apparently. I defended her. 

After the anorexia bit I grew alright for a while. I went to high school, I had a boyfriend, I neglected my own friends in order to make him my first priority at all costs, in short I was playing my role very well. My writing got noticed, as it should be, and I was exempted from english class, as I should be. I was bad at maths, I was good at history, I enjoyed latin class, I had friends I looked cool to because of the whole having had sex thing. Over one year my boyfriend and I had split up and I saw a few boys from my grade, most notably a wreck of a teen who regularly said he could be doing this with any of my friends and prided himself for using me “as an experiment”. When I broke up with him to go have the world’s least satisfactory sex with a friend of his, he called me crying hundreds of times. He had read somewhere that cool people had open relationships so he wanted one: when I took him up on that he said I disgusted him, turned around cause he “couldn’t look at me”, and masturbated in my bed. It was terrific. I was a sheep in shame’s clothing. 

There were the “can we do this without a condom”s and the “I want to see you shove that shower up your vagina to clean out the danger and I’m watching you”s and the “I can’t believe you cheated on me”s (he was kind!) and the “I’m storming out of your birthday party because you and your friends are little bitches”s. I don’t like how this is taking the same turn my life took - revolving around boys and men the second it got the chance, which is something I still haven’t worked out today as I live under the constant scrutiny of my several imaginary sugar daddy-leaning role models, but I’m keeping that topic for next time. This is, of course, she says in a white girl voice, about me. 

During the last year of high school, the boyfriend and I broke up for good because I had fallen in love with a guy we had met at a music festival and had pursued email after email. I felt glorious cracking the shells of emotionally unstable dudes and making them rely on me for subcontracting introspection: now I take “you’re the closest friend I’ve ever had” as a red flag, poisonous edible paper that dissolves in my water tank and kills me. It seems I do know better now, and it seems no woman ever told me that, and I keep being scared of them, and I keep being gay too, that’s my life’s familiar ghost. I’ve never gone far enough to confront the very real fact of loving women: I saw it as a kid when female nudity made me react, when I didn’t feel any sense of belonging with either boys or girls, when I felt like a monster. That desire is different because I don’t let it exist. Funny i’m only mentioning it now. What’s it like to be out to yourself? 

Do you relate to princesses? To female leads? Sometimes I can’t allow myself to replace fictional characters cause how realistic would it be to have the man of the story want to fuck me when my buttcrack isn’t even shaved? Obviously that would never work. Obviously cinderella’s ass is smooth. I never feel polished enough, or good enough an actor, or intelligible enough: expanding like a red giant, I feel like a stomach with needs, and the picture is grotesque - nothing like those Degas ballerinas. Dripping, eating itself, round but not motherly, the hunchback from Ken Russell’s the Devils is too feminine next to me. Suppose i’m fattening from storing all that shame. 

***

These days I resent the other diseased. Everyone hates my uncle cause he’s got it too and he drinks and he takes medication that people view with contempt; he lets himself die but it never seems to work even though he acts like it. Somehow something is still barely holding his limbs attached, miraculously, precariously. And my friend’s mother too, brain locked in a hamster wheel, hanging on to people like smeagol consumed, no longer in touch: filtering words like a beekeeper, only letting the crazy in. She makes me afraid to give birth. Would my children grow with a devolved being, Lovecraft’s blind cave-dweller, who once was human and is now condemned to live? Avoiding it in hallways, fearing it under their bed? 

By the fourth year of the relationship with festival boy my anxiety had become the decisive factor in every single move I made. I could no longer travel, be spontaneous, laugh, orgasm or breathe. The lump in my throat had grown bigger than I was and my face felt numb, I evaporated, I had emergency doctors drive a camera through my nose only for them to confirm I was choking myself this whole time. It really felt strange: like you’d have tried to swallow turkish delight but it piled up in your throat, invisible. The doctor wrote: patient known for anxiety. I thought: great, now when I die for real they’re gonna think i’m crying wolf and also they’re gonna be right. Fortunately enough, I then was relieved from the constant imminence of choking, you’d never guess how. 

I called a therapist my mom had taken me to when i was about 12 and we both liked her a lot - serious and a little intimidating in just the right way, a little soft yet clearly not one to let me bullshit my way out (my mom liked those). I was in the uni hall with some friends when her assistant called me back and scheduled an appointment for me later this same week: it was a huge deal. She remembered me. I suddenly felt safe, suddenly felt myself slip from my own consciousness like the narrator in Janice Galloway’s depression book when she enters a clinic: she’s no longer her own problem, or so she thinks at first, before realizing care never comes in the shape we expected. 

I started treatment almost immediately and was in shock at the realization that I did not need to suffer any more. I wasn’t aware, I didn’t KNOW of the existence of medication that would prevent me from spending hours and hours in inescapable pain, contorting my body between screams and frantic sobs, persuaded I was about to die a solitary death that’d leave me to witness my loved ones moving on in relief. Everything around me felt temporary and fleeting and treacherous. And most of all, each of these occasions were a trial for my failure to live, and I sat accused as my chrysalis life developed before me, never free, never daring, hidden, waiting. Every time, I realized how much I was missing out on. Every time I was too tired to seize the day after recovering and just dozed, scrutinized always, for a respite I knew would be short. My idea of living was a xanax in front of any distracting tv show: suddenly sleep was warm, and I wasn’t dying, and things lifted by the tornado gently fell back into place, and disappeared. 

(river) Oh, I got plenty of help. Therapists and medications and EMDR and - hypnosis and transcendental meditation. Nothing made me feel better (...) I feel everything. There just wasn’t enough positive emotion to balance me out. (payton: so it wasn’t because of me?) (river) no. you were my only relief. (“the politician” (2019) ep.6) 

My trust in festival boy was broken: I felt that if I was ever overcome with the looming fear and froze, he wouldn’t help. I have no idea if it was true: I’m very prone to blaming others for my feeling abandoned, often with no relation to their behaviour. I never could learn his language (i’m sure I can now) and the required travelling to see him became too much, even though we had met through travelling and didn’t feel at home anywhere. This continent of my life was infected and we steeped in sepsis for months and months, resentful, picturing other people when we touched, searching for admiration elsewhere. It’s the worst thing you can do to a bond, demand things from it when it’s dead, as if it was gonna answer. You know it’s been dead for months but when you try and bury it, you can swear you saw it squirm, and then it’s gone, and you took out the doubt. 

In this case I didn’t, Martin did. Martin was an old friend I knew through my first partner, and he came back into my life with an exact timing, like he was taking up an offer I was about to throw at someone else. It was all i wanted, car rides at night, feeling desired, watching him on stage, not being shamed. Comfort and help and reassurance, feeling small next to him, and knowing for certain that he understood: everything he says I take seriously, because there’s no way he doesn’t know, I could never lie, and I don’t want to. Well - I omit a little bit since that’s what it takes for me to grow guilt-free: I’m a fangirl and have never felt the need to stop, I let the obsession continent drift and crash, and perhaps it will become submerged and perhaps it won’t. Point is, I can defend it now, all the pieces I feel,I’m no one’s moodboard. 

I took a step back and realized I had no way of relying on the trope of a positive ending to this,  since there isn’t one. I see no perspective for myself, and I recently understood why antidepressants were considered a risk factor for suicides. It did make me indifferent to things that used to be matters of life and death: school grades, my weight… I care, and I don’t. I gained over 10 kg that sports don’t affect at all: I run all the time, cycle all the time, and it piles up forever, and I don’t recognize myself. I don’t fit in myself anymore. I don’t want to celebrate this thing i haven’t chosen and that I can’t deal with, and when I start thinking about it I end up in a frenzy. I just pretend it’s not there, but I feel so heavy carrying all that me. 

It’s a good time to be lost, if you’re okay with it. I’m not. I’m not free enough to be lost: I’m merely pulling on my leash and choking myself, looking at the shop displays, window shopping for life, shiny presents in a snowy christmas street, the others singing while I watch. I watch, I drift off, they see me lose focus, we’re too tired to get me back. There’s so much to experience and when I look back, so much I’m glad I’ve done before realizing I was doing it, because clearly it would be too late by now. I’m not a recluse by choice: I’m one of the weak ones, the eternal witness, or a loser, depending on how you see it. I like both. I think taking myself as seriously as i do now is both a symptom and a cause of why I’m such a bore: what’s so bad about looking stupid? I do it all the time while trying to not look anything at all. It’s not that deep, if I do say so myself, and as you’d expect, I never do. Ah the clever girl’s burden, say the adults, and together we mock the monster we’ve created and the monster takes it personally. 

So see, that’s where I’m at: no longer can I lazily bask in the excuse of a shitty partner, this time it’s on me, it’s on being sick, it’s on being sick without an excuse. My parents support me. My partner supports me. My friends would support me if i let them anywhere near me. But I take the crazy and I give it an incubator, I show it films with role models of crazy so it can grow and grow and finally make me special, isn’t this what I do? Look at joaquin phoenix and lose weight, I tell it; you’re not very good at the crazy, looking so plump and healthy. At least show your scars: they’re fading, it’s been over a decade, so now what, we’re just gonna look like someone who should get a makeover without the moving story of why they’re neglecting their appearance? What’s funny is, I’m actually a very ambitious person, mediocre is my rock bottom - listen to me when I tell you. There’s no such thing as effortless when effortless is a mountain.

(payton: i’m scared.) (river) don’t be. There’s more honor in defeat than there is in unused potential. (“the politician” (2019), ep.8) 

My therapist recently told me that if I was catholic I’d be in trouble. Duh, right? Jokes aside, she went: then people would see you as a waste because you do nothing with your force. You wouldn’t be allowed to just have that and not live it. I pondered: don’t you think I know that? Is more guilt really the solution? 

I know i want things. I know I love things, and people, and sounds, and places, and smells, and being alive. But do you see the difference between ‘knowing’ you shouldn’t be doing something, and understanding it in your very flesh, by experience, growing from it with the intimate conviction that it’s something you must stay away from? I know those things, and I don’t feel them really. I’m a fast learner, I’m a semi competent person, I can almost seem okay in a group. But I have shackles for lungs and I have concrete for breath. It’s got brutalist charm and warmth almost doesn’t spread. 

So that’s where I am with the dreams I have and the love I feel and the way it won’t come out. I suppose I’m awake but I’m not quite there. Martin feels it first: the pain on his face when I disconnect is breaking my heart. He’s just trying to bring me back. I’m loved. I’m locked away. And once my arms break I’ll dig my way out with my teeth if I need to.

#my writing #mental health #juistheseminarian

[another-tiny-ant]

Why an ant? What’s it all about?

So I heard that Tumblr is the place to come to vent your feelings, and I have been told by various counsellors, etc, that I ought to write things down to help clear my head. I got out a notebook and felt far too embarrassed to put pen to paper, and there was greater risk of someone I know finding it, which would humiliate me even more. So the internet it is- in true millennial form. I don't expect anyone to read this- I actually kind of hope they don’t. But I think I need to start talking, and typing/writing has always come more easily to me. Also this way, I can avoid burdening or upsetting the people I care about. So here goes...

I think mental health problems have always been there for me. I was bullied from the second I started socialising with other kids, and I’ve often wondered why that was. I have a learning disability, dyspraxia, which has affected my coordination, processing, speech (especially when I first started school), as well as other vital life skills, like organisation and planning. I know that, especially because I was undiagnosed, but also because kids are cruel, this marked me out as ‘stupid’ or ‘vulnerable’- an ‘easy target’- or whatever, but I don't think that can have been the only reason. Perhaps I was simply too timid, or kind, or willing to please, and so I got stamped all over (fortunately only ever verbally, though I say “only”...). It sounds pretentious talking about myself like that. But school was simply something to survive for me, not to enjoy, ever, for the whole fourteen miserable years I endured. Despite that, I have always had a love and thirst for knowledge and learning, and that was where I found my solace when things got too much for me- getting my head down in the textbooks (especially because most of my teachers were useless, or even abusive, to varying degrees), finding problems and then finding ways around them. I had to fight my own way through, and find my own coping strategies, because there was never anyone in school either with the time, empathy or will to care. I suppose that’s something to be proud of- I thrashed my own path through that jungle of dashed young hopes and dreams. Though that sounds painfully bleak.

I would be lying if I said I've never had friends, or fun, or love. I certainly have. Though I think my experiences have made it hard for me to trust people- I open up reasonably easily- though only superficially I suppose- but I find it very hard to trust. Friends have taught me to expect people to be unreliable. There are exceptions though. Can you tell, I’m forcing myself to be positive? I have people to see and talk to- I just crave some kind of connection or kinship that I haven’t really found from friends. The one person, however, with whom I do share that kinship, who ‘gets me’, and always not only exceeds, but explodes my expectations, is my boyfriend. Whenever I am down, or vulnerable, or upset, he doesn’t recoil, or ignore me, or push me down more, as I would expect any person to do- he gives me his hand and helps me up. He helps me brush down my clothes, clean myself up. He puts a smile on my face and reminds me that some people at least, are good. Not just good, but pure. Loving, open souls who spread positivity, like light that shines from their bodies and penetrates even the darkest shadows. And he does all of that, without even realising, or making any conscious effort. He is just himself. ‘Just’ implies some kind of put down- but nothing could be more perfect, or glorious. I don’t think he has any clue quite how wonderful he is. In fact, he’ll deny it out of hand. I wish he could see himself as he is reflected in my eyes- perhaps that would make his own battles so much easier to fight.

I have been struggling again recently. Just to state the obvious- anyone who read this I’m sure would see that straight away, just from my tone-of-written-voice. I would at least. But then perhaps, I’m different. I went to my uni GP surgery the other day- when I finally did get them to agree to see me- and tried to speak to one of the GPs there about what’s been going on inside my head. The trouble is, I stammer and struggle to get my words out, or really articulate what I mean, when I get worked up or confronted with those kinds of situations (hence this blog- my mind suddenly becomes less cluttered when I start to write- and less panicked). So the appointment really didn't go well. Added to that, I was very obviously quite under the weather- but the first thing I was told when I arrived was that “we can’t possibly address more than one issue in this appointment”. My mind becomes so much foggier when I’m ill, and my ability to cope becomes virtually non-existent. The only times I’ve ever punched bullies have been when I’ve also been unwell. Anyway, when I started trying to describe how i’d been feeling (and failed dismally to convey quite the aching bleakness I feel in my chest sometimes), the doctor googled a depression questionnaire, and got me to score myself on the questions. Naturally, I paled at the thought of potentially over-exaggerating, as I’m permanently paranoid of undermining the much bigger battles other people experience, so as always, I under-played everything I was feeling, and the results were pretty unrepresentative. Even so, I scored on the depression scale (though that sounds like an utterly arbitrary, bullshit scale to say the least). I suppose that was her way of telling me she was diagnosing me. Five minutes later, I was turfed out of the seat I was in, and clutching a list of phone numbers she’d handed me, as I walked out of the surgery, I felt no closer to mending myself that before I went. If anything, I felt even more cut loose and abandoned, in an institution that wouldn’t care if I lived or died. That’s not to say I’m suicidal, but I do often feel so overwhelmed that i just want to get on a plane and fly far, far away, and never come back. 

In case you hadn’t already guessed, I’ve kind of forgotten where I was trying to go with this. I suppose I’m just pressing keys and spewing words and hoping that I will suddenly feel a weight lifted off my shoulders. Nothing that miraculous has happened, but I do suppose I feel somewhat better for getting things off my chest. I suppose I just find it hard to see the good around me sometimes, and I take for granted what is special around me. I can remember from pretty much when I started talking (and more importantly, people started understanding me- let me tell you, that took a while), I was always called a pessimist. I have to consciously remind myself how lucky I am. I suppose that's why I feel so ashamed to talk about what's inside my mind. But I have my health (physically at least). I have my mind (for the most part). And I have potential. Most importantly though, my family could not be more supportive of me, and openly loving, and I couldn't be luckier to have my extraordinary, sunbeam boyfriend. Christmas is coming up, and not only will i get to escape university, but I will get to go home and spend quality time with the people I love most. I’m not in the slightest bit religious, but I love how everyone makes an effort to put all the crap to one side at Christmas, and just share their love instead. Beyond that, there will be the summer. So there is hope. I just have to keep reminding myself.

I remember now what the whole point of this post was. Haha! What did I say about my planning ability? I wanted to explain my Tumblr name/blog name/whatever-the-fuck-its-called, but basically why I am referring to myself as an ant. The basic reasons- it’s anonymous, first and foremost. But its also non-identifying, non-gender/age/class/creed/etc-specific. The real reason though is that it comes from something my mum has always said to me. So I’ve always been criticised for being a ‘perfectionist’. A counsellor even sent me links to webpages to read all about perfectionism, procrastination, and self-destruction. If I were to write an honest CV, those are probably the ‘skills’ I’d boast about. So when I get worked up about not doing a “good enough” job of something, or putting too much pressure on myself, or I’ve fucked it all up, my mum gently says to me something along these lines: 

“We’re all just tiny ants, scuttling around on the log of the Earth. None of us are more important than the other, but none of us are that important either. That’s not to depress you, but to remind you that existence is short. You’re not around for long. Don’t spend your life stressing about what you’ll achieve. Just do good. Even if it’s just in small ways. Treat people right. Care about the right things. Be kind, always. Make the small changes that you can and live happily. That's what it’s all about in the end. Just do the good that you can.”

That’s not to say that she doesn’t support any ‘big’ ideas that I have. Or that she doesn't tell me “you can achieve anything you set your mind to”, because those are also things she says to me all the time. What she means is take comfort in this perspective- don’t make things matter too much. Save your energy and enjoy your life, because life is short, and you do only get one go at it. And that perspective of being a tiny speck, if even that, in the plane and timescale of existence has always frightened me, but I think I am finally maturing enough to understand what she means. Live your best life, to the best of your abilities, with the best people, and love freely and plentifully. Don’t get yourself wrapped up in what it all means, or what the point of it all is. You’re just an ant- but not “just” an ant. You are a being with a life that you are going to live as best as you can. So this is me, trying to come to terms with the point of it all, but not wrapping myself up in “the point” of it at all. 

I’m Another Tiny Ant. 

🖤🐜🖤

#anothertinyant #lifeonthelog #comingtoterms #mentalhealth #selfcare

[emeto-things]

My Emet Story

I’m going to try to make this the least triggering as possible. The reason I’m sharing this is to tell you guys you aren’t alone, and to maybe give you comfort in the fact I think/act just as “weird” as you do (:

I’m currently 15 years old, and to be totally honest, I can’t remember a day without emetophobia. My earliest memory with emetophobia is when I was probably about 6-7.

I was at the mall with my mom, sister and grandma and we all got coffee and a cookie and the cookies are pretty big, especially for a little 6 year old. But I ate it, and then my stomach hurt a little afterwards. I don’t remember being scared I just remember not feeling good. Then, we got in the car to pick up my brother and cousin from school and I think I was maybe drawing in the car? This was before I realized I had an issue with motion s*ness. So then I started to feel even worse - still not scared though. But randomly, I was listening to my mom and cousin’s conversation and my cousin said the word “g*” and I just remember I started breathing heavily and my heart started pounding and I clenched on to my sister saying “oh my gosh!!! I’m scared i’ll get s*!!!” Thankfully I didn’t, but when I got home I remember laying on the couch crying. That was the first memory I had of being scared of s*ness.

Then it kinda disappeared, I didn’t ever think about being s* other than when I didn’t feel good which is probably like most people.

Then I was about 7 years old, and it had snowed for the first time of the year. I was outside with my siblings and I ate a TON of it which wasn’t smart and apparently you aren’t supposed to eat the first snow? I don’t know if that’s a myth or not but either way I didn’t know it back then and my parents weren’t watching me. I may have even possibly eaten around where my dog had peed (Gross, I know). I literally made a meal off of snow that day. That night, I v*ed and it was my earliest memory of v*ing other than when I was much smaller and had another s*ness which I barely remember. But I wasn’t really scared then either, I just felt horrible.

As you can probably already tell, I’ve had emetophobic tendencies in me forever (the crying, rapid breathing, racing heart, and being scared) isn’t typical reactions people that v* have. But my real phobia didn’t start until 2011 when I was 8.

A normal flu (not v* but respiratory flu) was going around and my brother had caught it. I was sleeping peacefully one night in my bedroom that was dreadfully right next to the bathroom - so basically I heard everything that went on in the bathroom, pretty gross, I know. But the sound of my brother v*ing woke me up that night. I didn’t know what was going on but a strange fear took over me again, same as when my cousin said the triggering g* word. Obviously back then I didn’t know such a phobia existed, and I didn’t know my feelings over v* were abnormal.

I ran into my parents room and woke my mom up to ask her what was going on. She told me that my brother was purposely making himself v* because it made him feel better? I still don’t understand but that’s why. I just remember peering over my moms bed to see the light in the bathroom shining out the door as I was uncontrollably shaking. My parents thought I was overreacting a little bit but again, I thought it was normal.

I stayed up the rest of the night in total fear that it was going to happen to me. And the fact that he was making himself do it didn’t register with my 7 year old brain - I still thought it was a contagious thing even though it wasn’t. Then a few hours went by and my throat began to get sore. I had came down with the flu too.

My mom told me it was nothing to worry about because v*ing wasn’t a part of it and again tried to convince me my brother purposely did it and it wasn’t part of his illness. The whole time of having that flu, I was scared. Thinking any minute that I would v* too. Thankfully, my mom was right and it didn’t happen. After the flu went away I was back to my normal self, not thinking about v* ever.

Then in 2013 when I was 10, it started back. I was in the pool that summer and my mom came outside to tell my dad who was supervising me in the pool, that my brother had just v*ed and I remember jumping out of the pool and screaming and crying. I ended up calming down and then I was mostly okay again for a long period of time.

The fall of 2013 got really tough, I remember every time I’d get in the car I would become worried i’d get car s* which is something I never thought about before. I remember sitting in the middle row of the car just crying and whining that I was nervous of getting s*. My mom convinced me over & over that car s*ness doesn’t happen from just sitting there and watching out the windows but I didn’t believe her.

Towards the end of 2013 around Christmas time, I remember isolating myself in my bedroom telling myself over and over “I won’t be s*, I won’t be s*, I won’t be s*” and I was scared to take a shower because just being in a bathroom caused me to freak out.

I would take a shower every 5 days and being 10 almost 11, my hair would get so oily and I wouldn’t smell very good but I couldn’t bring myself to go in the bathroom longer than to pee.

I would take a shower with the door cracked open and my mom outside and I’d rush so fast to get out of the bathroom because I associated bathrooms with v*. Then my phobia kinda disappeared again.

Being 11 was probably my best age, I don’t remember the thought of v* ever even coming to my mind, I was a very happy 11 year old.

I was in an art class, I had some great friends who I hung out with a lot, I made a fan twitter account for my favorite band and I had a lot of online friends I’d chat with, i started editing videos of my favorite band and posting them to YouTube and overall had an amazing year. That all took a turn for the worst in 2015.

The end of 2014 I got my first period. My mom had never taught me about it, I had only heard a little bit from my sister and mom talking occasionally and from googling things when I’d be upset my friends knew about it and I didn’t.

My period made my anxiety way worse which as I said, I didn’t know ANYTHING about the affects periods have on the body.

And I finally got the hang of them around maybe my 3rd period or so, and I had learned a lot about them by then but my anxiety still worsened a lot around that time of the month.

In April of 2015, I went to my art class like I did every week. I was never in love with the class because my teacher was really mean to me but I stuck with it because I wanted something to do. Until one night I woke up feeling horrible. I remember immediately panicking but I somehow fell asleep during my panic attack only to wake up again only a few hours later and feeling even worse. I’m going to spare the details to avoid triggers, but eventually I ended up v*ing. And you’d think, afterwards I’d be like “wow I’m glad that’s over and now I can move on” but no. I knew that very SECOND that this was going to affect me the rest of my life.

I was so dazed. I couldn’t believe it had happened to me. I could literally feel the phobia taking over my body and that everything I would do would be affected.

The next day, I had a small stomach ache which I would usually ignore, but this time I had a strike of anxiety rush through me which was unusual. I ran to my room and hid away from everyone just crying and freaking out until the pain went away.

I then noticed I was overly focussed on bodily sensations. If my stomach had any feeling at all that wasn’t “normal” I’d freak out. If I had a headache, or my throat was tight I’d get scared. If I felt anything even remotely close to how I did when I v*ed I’d be so anxious I would cry and scream.

The summer of 2015 was really good despite my anxiety, it was very minuscule. My emet was with me everywhere I went but not to the point I couldn’t do anything.

In October of 2015, I had my first panic attack. I didn’t know what it was, but I thought I was going to have to go to the hospital. I also didn’t know anything about panic Attacks so I thought it was a once in a lifetime thing, I didn’t know they were a reoccurring thing. I remember sitting on the couch physically too weak to stand up because of how worn out I was from consistent panic attacks.

In 2016 I developed OCD, meaning I would touch doorknobs a certain number of times or else “I’d be s* that night” and I’d refold clothes until they looked “right” or else I would for some reason v* and it was miserable. I couldn’t even clean my room without getting worn out from repeatedly folding things or straightening my sheets and I would plug and unplug my phone which is really bad for it but my OCD told me to or else I’d be s*.

I also became very paranoid of germs and started limiting the places I went to and anytime I’d go anywhere, I’d be on edge for 3 days because that was how long it took to get s* with the sv* I had so I figured if I made it past 3 days id be fine, but those 3 day I wouldn’t do that much of anything because I was so scared. Certain foods also became an issue, eating eggs would scare me and as soon as I got done eating I’d rush to my computer and google symptoms of fp* and freak out and cry until the magical “6 hours” passed and then I knew I was okay. That was my life every day for a YEAR.

2017, my OCD got miraculously better which has to be a God thing because there’s no human way I did that myself, it’s like God took it away for me and I’m so grateful I don’t struggle without OCD debilitating anhmore!!!

But in 2017 my food issue because horrible. I restricted my diet to basically water, chocolate, granola bars, cereal and ice cream. Junk and more junk which in turn made me feel s*, but then if I ate a real meal with meat I’d be scared. I also started having horrrible sleeping hours due to panicking every night.

Currently in 2018, food is still my biggest struggle and I’m just now gaining back the weight I lost last year and it’s definitely still a struggle but I believe we will all get through this together❤️❤️❤️

** I can definitely relate to the fear of bathrooms. If I felt s* at all, I would avoid them as much as possible because it made it more “real”. I had some OCD tendencies as well. You’re so young and you’ll get over it just like I did!! Good luck <3 **

[theskygivesmelife]

"I am the master of my fate,"

How ironic that a poem about self control uses this very phrase, whilst ignoring the fact that fate, or destiny actually imply that there can never truly be any control, for all is predetermined from the beginning of time.

...

I'd say we don't. Nonexistence is a superior state of existence in my opinion.

...

First things first: you don't love me, so stop saying you do. Even if you genuinely believe you do, you'll understand what I mean.

With that said, for the love of God can you stop messaging me? Not on WhatsApp because I will have *deleted* it, and not on Android messages because I can't respond as I don't have any balance. I use my phone only for music or gaming mainly anyway. Speaking of which, I thought I did make it clear that I don't want to talk to you. When was the last time we did talk? Right, your birthday. I don't remember ever being that drained after talking to you. Honestly, it was a pain—was it for you too? I guess that's what happens as one becomes truly apathetic. Seriously, I don't know who you're still trying to contact, but that person's dead. Well, not literally unfortunately, but if you do want to talk to some tired, disillusioned soul I'm still here I guess. As I mentioned, your little I love yous at the end don't really hold, because, you know, you're really just refering to the wrong person. For the record, I've started to think that not only am I incapable of loving, but am also incapable of being loved.

Anyhow, lets just say that if I were Jekyll then I'm Hyde now. To be honest, I don't even know why I'm responding to you. The "fuck her, why give a damn?" voices have been quite loud for some time. Well, I don't think of you all the time, so "fuck the world" might seem more apt as a generalisation. Back to the point: some time ago I'd have actually cared, but I don't give a shit now about anything.

I'll say it now: I don't think it'll ever be a good enough reason for you. I don't think any reason ever will. You'll probably still try to convince me to maintain contact, even though it's so horribly one sided. Well, I just couldn't care less for the most part. It'd probably be good if you wouldn't waste your time on me though. I mean, let's be real. You're not going to get my number once out if this country. Even if you miraculously did, you'd certainly make some replacement friends in college without the downsides that I have, so it'd be pointless. I know you won't listen anyway, and I said that I don't care either. So why am I even trying? I don't know.

If you'll remember I've tried to shut you out multiple times. It's funny now, ~because I feel absolutely nothing now.~ Quite often in the past I'd feel quite regretful or guilty, but now? Heh, just an emotionless robot just moving along now. Going through the motions you know. Still, if there's one thing I should mention, it's that I never lied to you when I said some sentimental crap like caring about you and such. Whoever I was back then, he genuinely ment it. And now, it seems like my wick is shorter than I imagined. It's going to burn up quick. You know what that means? Garima, it means peace at last. So, let me have my time now. I still dream of that little cottage far away, secluded from society. No-one for company. Okay, a cat and a dog. They'll be nice. A drum kit. Video games maybe? What'll I do? Electrician perhaps? Mechanic? Just so long as it isn't a crappy 9-5 job, and actually pays my bills. No people. No friends—do I really have any? No girlfriend—I don't want one (not asexual, but I'm not as horny as you I guess), and I doubt I'm capable of forming a proper relationship anyway. No family—I never had one to begin with. Can you imagine it? All alone and blissful. Just let me be. Please. One way or another, I'm gone. I'm actually feeling sad now typing this, tears in my eyes and all (I haven't cried in forever) but you shouldn't be. You've got a long, long way to go; you'll do well anyway. I don't know what I really was to you, or what I've done to you. I know that I was a hard person to deal with. I can't really list out all the times I've failed you; I hope you will forgive me for them. Believe me when I say that if there was ever I person I really tried to keep happy as often as I could, it was you.

" *Bye, stay healthy and happy* "

I won't—I can't.

Bye.

PS. Nice songs. I still appreciate music I guess, unless it's a really bad day.

...

[8/18/2018, 12:03 AM] Prathik: It seems not. Oh well, I was hoping I could talk one last time. Silly of me; you're probably either sleeping or studying for tomorrow's — should I say today's? — test.

[8/18/2018, 12:57 AM] Prathik: You know, I've been thinking: what if I wanted to talk to you one day? Would you then be ready to hold conversation? I think you would, but that doesn't strike me as fair. I mean you say that you'll miss me, but that's something you'll just have to take in your stride. On the contrary, if I miss you, then I try contacting you, and in all likelihood you'll just respond. What do you think?

[8/18/2018, 1:44 AM] Prathik: Maybe you're free tonight? I just want to talk; I don't know what I'm even doing now. Ugh I can't even explain it without sounding like some self pitying shithead. Forget it. I'm sorry

[8/18/2018, 12:42 PM] Prathik: Seriously, the very dynamics of our interactions are messed up. Everything is based on my mood and how I'm feeling. Don't want to talk? No problem! I'll go silent. Depressive episode? No problem! I'll go silent. It's like I can literally choose what and when we get to converse. Tired of our conversations? No problem! I'll just stop talking to you. And all you say is that you'll miss me. Sure, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, but bloody hell — why didn't you ever call me out for my behaviour? Gee, we screwed up...so many flaws and nothing was even done about them.

Yes, I'm ranting. I'll say stupid things, and maybe hurtful things too. If I were completely aware of what it is that sounded like that, then I wouldn't be saying them. Not that it's an excuse for saying anything I shouldn't. You probably shouldn't take anything personally, because in all likelihood, I'll probably just be projecting.

[8/18/2018, 12:52 PM] Prathik: Oh shit, I really need psychological help don't I? Do you think that if I got better, I'd finally stop sabotaging all the relationships I have?

[8/19/2018, 12:19 AM] Prathik: Goodbye

[8/19/2018, 2:25 PM] Prathik: Okay, I'll just leave this here. Just one last thing. I honestly am doubting my mental stability: I'd wager that I'm fairly unstable in general and more so at this point. My mood seems to swing like a fucking pendulum, and for whatever reason, I have and possibly might keep spouting unnecessary shit. So please, just *IGNORE EVERYTHING* I say. *EVERYTHING.* Except this one last message. Please. It's all I ask.

[8/19/2018, 2:54 PM] Prathik: I'm also not going to be using WhatsApp anymore — no point now right? — so I guess you'll be spared if having to reply to anything.

...

[8/8/2018, 10:24 PM] Prathik: Bloody hell, always nice to me even though I don't deserve it. Can't just go study like you ought to or talk to anyone else? You've got tons of friends after all. Perhaps one day they'll give you a consolation prize saying "good effort; hard luck" and maybe then you'll see how you're just wasting your time. Whatever. It's not like I can control you or force you to behave in a certain manner. Stupid world. Just leave me be

[8/8/2018, 10:52 PM] Prathik: I don't even know why you don't give in. I mean, what am I to you? Some depressed idiot that makes you feel better about yourself? I don't think that's the narrative you've sold to me, so that's probably not the reason.

It's kinda like you're an ant running against the wind. Not any wind, though, just that which is being blown by some sadistic little kid. It keeps running into it. Over and over it tries and fails. The wind keeps pushing it back, but the ant doesn't see how futile it's attempts are. It doesn't see that despite the fact that it keeps trying, nothing's going to change. It has so many other avenues of exploration, ones that would certainly lead to a great reception from the colony, but oh no. The ant keeps running, hoping that the resistance will decrease. Eventually the boy just blows harder, and the ant flies away and lands on its back. (Good thing it has an exoskeleton.) Only then does it see how pointless its efforts were, and that they were better off invested somewhere else.

...

You know how people throw that fucking annoying platitude around? That things will get better? Doesn't happen. It's no different in its progression from a physical illness, and once you go beyond a certain stage you're only living on fumes at that point. Limited time. But it'll get better they say. Fucking hell, it can also get worse, but who's willing to actually concede that bleak truth?

...

Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I'm just getting worse mentally. I mean, I set the suicide date for when I'm 25. It's only kept dropping. I started considering pushing it to college years, and now I'm genuinely pondering whether I should just drop out of college like when I'm 19 or so and be done with it — at least I won't have to wonder about how you'll come meet me in USA lol. I'm also drawing more blanks in tests. It's not like I don't know, it's just making me more and more anxious. Like the psychology UT we had just some time ago. I left 12 marks because it seemed to easy to be true and I thought I was wrong. I got 17.5 . And meeting people, ugh. Worse than ever. Sure I'm introverted, but at this rate I'm practically going to become a hermit. My ability to function like a sane person is waning, and it's actually quite clear. It's makes me awe struck and horrified at the same time seeing how someone is so capable of self sabotage. Yeah, I don't think I was made for this world. Just one big mistake that hasn't been taken care of yet.

...

Oh, if you haven't listened to it already, you really should listen to Heroes by David Bowie. Please do, if you haven't yet. Just this one song.

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[6/28/2018, 12:13 AM] Prathik: I love you.

[6/28/2018, 12:14 AM] Prathik: ^ I just felt like saying that.

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You don't get it. I don't know for sure that you like talking to me. Yes, you've said so so many times that I've lost track. I'd be lying if I said that it were enough to convince me. It isn't; you can't do anything to change my perception of myself, and sometimes I'll project, being the idiot I am after all. There's never going to be a time when I can the voice that says you're you're just using me for some kicks or something to shut up. That doubt will never go, and every time you say something like that, I'll make sure to interpret it as evidence that even you don't care, that you just let your guard down. You can't ever really make me satisfied or happy, so don't throw away any more of your time actually trying to justify anything. If you know that what you've done is fine, then it's fine.

...

[6/12/2018, 8:51 PM] Prathik: Speaking of which, it's interesting that you brought up the fact that our relationship is dysfunctional. Not that I really addressed it well when you originally meantioned it. It does make me wonder, are the dynamics of the way we interact with each other actually healthy? Perhaps we're just fucking each other in the ass and not even realising it? While it's a possibility that I consider, you should know that I don't think the second one is too probable. All the same, it's bothersome enough to actually consider pondering over. Funny, though, how I've just turned a blind eye to it; best relationship you've had you say. Pretty much the same for me, I suppose that's why I've not considered anything that suggests contrary to that opinion.

You know, we never did our cliched apologies. I'm not sure what exactly to apologise for; however, I don't have any qualms admitting that I did fuck up. I'm not sure it makes any sense to apologise for going silent for a month. Honestly, while I did miss you, I'm not sure of how much I actually regret it. Heck, if I hadn't misunderstood your message and not responded... Moreover, what's the point of saying sorry for something I've done multiple times and might do again anyway? It probably does defeat the purpose of it. I do regret making you angry though. I'm not too proud of getting you pissed off, I honestly am sorry about that. That conversation just didn't go the way I'd have liked it to I guess...

[6/12/2018, 8:53 PM] Prathik: Also, is it just me or have things between us changed? I mean, the one month silence probably did more harm than good. It'd have probably been better had I never done anything, or had not stupidly misinterpreted what you said and stayed silent after all. I don't know, I'm not saying it has anything to do with you anyway. I know who's responsible if something is wrong after all.

[6/12/2018, 10:04 PM] Prathik: Oh, today I mixed NaOH with NH4Br, boiled it and inhaled it. I also had to do some speaking for a group activity in English, and I didn't really fuck it up at all or get shaky knees

Just saying. Anyway, which Tapasya acquaintances are you still in touch with?

[6/12/2018, 10:42 PM] Prathik: Oh look, they just killed off net neutrality in USA. Fucking Ajit Pai. As if he didn't have an incredibly punchable face to begin with.

...

[6/10/2018, 10:05 AM] Prathik: If you say so. Read at your own inconvenience.

Since I'm idiotic enough, I decided to read more of the dude's articles. Lost a ton of brain cells. Also, don't read the comments. Nutty, the lot of them.

[6/10/2018, 11:00 AM] Prathik: "The power of propaganda always surprises me. Only 30 years ago, homosexuality was almost universally condemned, and now it’s accepted in half the world and half the States. Clearly, the natural position worldwide is that homosexuality is a disorder, and should be condemned. The problem is, we lost the youth. Somehow, homosexual advocates were able to brainwash and indoctrinate them into accepting it. If you talk to anyone my age, they believe that homosexuality poses no health risks (homosexuals have a 5 times higher chance of getting HIV) and that they are born as homosexuals (despite no scientific evidence.) IMO this is a result of two things: homosexual propaganda (esp. through the internet) and the collapse of the traditional marriage model. The parents simply haven’t taught their children about Christianity and thus they are easy prey for the homosexual movement.

Honestly, I am very pessimistic and I feel that it’s only going to get worse as time goes on. More and more ‘Christians’ are accepting this behavior day by day and it’s heartbreaking."

Has to be the most ironic things I've ever read. Talks about propaganda and indoctrination, but completely turns a blind eye to how he's become what he is.

[6/10/2018, 6:29 PM] Prathik: And now, I've realised that I could have actually spent my time better by talking to you on the phone as you suggested. Not that I studied one bit as I planned to do.

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[6/9/2018, 1:56 AM] Garima Joshi: Bye now, love you.

[6/9/2018, 1:57 AM] Prathik: Bye. Love you.

...

if I could really recover from the depressed, socially anxious, and suicidal person I am today, believe me I'd let you know immediately. I promise.

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[3/20/2018, 3:01 AM] Garima Joshi: I know you said you were tired. Thanks for sticking around. Always great talking to you.

[3/20/2018, 3:02 AM] Prathik: It's always fun talking to you. So.. yeah. Do we say goodnight or goodmorning at this point?

[3/20/2018, 3:03 AM] Prathik: Yeah. Stay safe in Delhi will you? Bye.

[3/20/2018, 3:04 AM] Garima Joshi: I'll try, I'll try.

Have a good day (today)

Bye, love you.

[3/20/2018, 3:06 AM] Prathik: I thought you said cheesy stuff were grossing you out...

I'm sorry, did I sound a little overprotective?

[3/20/2018, 3:13 AM] Garima Joshi: Okay Patrick I love you v much but I'll find you a wife tomorrow, for now you need those 2 hours 58 minutes of beauty sleep to rope in all those women

[3/20/2018, 3:13 AM] Prathik: Lulz. Fine. Love you too.