#update i did in fact buy another ticket for this weekend while posting this. typed that last tag then realized i have free will

[sofiarostova]

NATASHA, PIERRE, AND THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 at Streetcar Crowsnest

[quicksilversquared]

How to Fake a Marriage (Chapter 3)

Adrien Agreste is excited to go to London to get a degree in Physics- but he’s less excited about the ridiculous list of rules his father keeps giving him, especially since it’s clear that his father doesn’t trust his judgement at all. So what better way to rebel than to fake a wedding with one of his friends as soon as he gets to London? 

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(AO3) (FF.net)

Nino let out a groan as he stumbled to the kitchen table. He hated Mondays, mostly because he hadn't yet broken his habit of staying up far too late on the weekends and so his sleeping schedule got thrown off. He was basically sleepwalking as he slumped into his chair and opened his laptop to peruse his Facebook feed while Alya toasted bread for their breakfast.

"What's new?" Alya called over her shoulder as she poured herself a cup of coffee. "Anything interesting?"

Nino scanned the page with sleepy eyes, brain not quite comprehending the words in front of him yet. He needed his coffee first. "Uh. Ivan and Mylène posted new photos, Alex challenged Kim to a race, Nathaniel shared a drawing, Adrien changed his status to 'Married to Marinette Dupain-Cheng', Rose joined a scrapbooking club, Marinette-"

Alya choked and spat out her coffee all over the counter. "WHAT?"

Nino blinked up, puzzled at the scene in front of him. Coffee was dripping from the kitchen counter and had drenched the toast Alya had already made. "Huh?"

"What was that last one?" Alya demanded.

Nino consulted his computer, puzzled. "Rose joined a scrapbooking club?"

"No, before that!"

Nino looked again. "'Adrien changed his status to 'Married to Marinette Dupain-Cheng'- WHAT?" Nino exclaimed, suddenly awake as he jolted in his seat and stared at his computer screen in shock. "He did what?"

"He must just be kidding," Alya said as she hurried over to Nino's side. "What does Mari's profile say?"

Nino clicked on a few links as he maneuvered to Marinette's page and then he squinted at it. "Her status says...Married to Adrien Agreste. She changed her photo, too. Look."

Alya gaped as she plopped down in the seat next to Nino. Marinette's Facebook page had changed drastically from the previous day. Her cover photo, previously of the London skyline, had changed to a photo with her, Adrien, and three other girls and three guys. Marinette was wearing a blue wedding dress and Adrien wore a tux, and the others were just as dressed up. Marinette had a bouquet of white flowers in one hand. Her profile picture was a close-up of her and Adrien in their wedding attire.

That was definitely not photoshopped.

Adrien's page looked almost exactly the same as Marinette's. He used slightly different photos, though, and his profile photo was of him dipping Marinette into what was possibly the most romantic kiss they had ever seen.

"Bro," Nino said in absolute disbelief as Alya clicked through Adrien's posted photos. There were photos that had clearly been taken throughout the wedding, including one that had him and Marinette signing something and looking very cuddly as they did so.

"I can't believe it," Alya said, pausing on the photo. She looked like she was about to murder someone. "They actually got married. They signed a wedding license. What were they thinking? And why couldn't they even wait long enough to invite us and Marinette's parents?"

"Babe-"

"I DID NOT BUST MY BUTT TRYING TO SET THEM UP FOR YEARS ON END JUST FOR THEM TO ELOPE AND NOT INVITE ME TO THEIR WEDDING!"

  Gabriel didn't check in on his son until two o'clock on Monday. He pulled up Adrien's Facebook page, expecting to see a couple new pictures of the apartment, maybe a status update on how the move went.

He was not expecting to see Adrien dressed in a tuxedo, standing next to a girl in a wedding dress and with the rest of a wedding party around them.

Gabriel gaped at the pictures as his brain shut down and refused to work. After a second, he scrolled down frantically, looking for some sort of explanation that would tell him that Adrien had gotten caught up in some elaborate ruse of some sort.

Instead, Adrien's most recent post read, "Just ran into her yesterday and we decided we had to get married! 3"

Gabriel's jaw dropped and he stared, mind stalling out. No. No way. There was absolutely no way.

"Are you okay, sir?" Nathalie asked as she entered the room with a pile of papers. She frowned when she saw Gabriel's mouth hanging open as he stared blankly at his computer screen. "Sir?"

"He got married," Gabriel said in disbelief after a long pause. "He got married to someone he hadn't even known for twenty-four hours."

That got Nathalie's attention and she hurried over to join Gabriel, dropping the forms on her desk as she did. "Who did?"

"Adrien did!" Gabriel gestured to the computer, tone starting to turn just a bit hysterical. "Look, he posted the photos! He didn't even said anything to me first, or I would have put a stop to it!"

"Tha...that was probably why he didn't say anything, sir," Nathalie managed. She was absolutely stunned as well. She had known Adrien for years and he had never seemed the impulsive type. His escapes, from everything from going to public school to slipping away from his bodyguard to go to a movie, were planned out in advance. He had a plan for everything, and he almost always considered the possible long-term consequences for his actions.

Getting married the day after moving to another country to a girl that he had only just met was decidedly out of character, to say the least.

"I need to get over there now," Gabriel decided, slapping the desk and bringing her attention back to him. "Nathalie, find plane tickets for both of us. We're going to go over there, figure out what's going on, and bring Adrien back. Oh, I knew this was a bad idea..."

Nathalie watched as Gabriel clutched at his hair, launching himself out of his desk chair and pacing back and forth across the room. As he started spinning in panicked circles, Nathalie turned her attention to Adrien's Facebook page. She couldn't spot any obvious signs of Photoshop having been used on the photos, and there were enough pictures that Nathalie strongly doubted that they were fake. The same photos were on the girl's page, and a dive a little deeper into her archives showed that the account wasn't at all new and that it was the same girl in both the wedding photos and in the earlier photos.

Nathalie bit her lip as her stomach filled with nerves. She had been hoping to find some sort of evidence that the photos were faked, but the evidence was piling up that Adrien had, in fact, gotten married after being in London for not even a day. The photos showed absolutely no evidence of photoshopping (and after years of working as Gabriel's personal assistant, Nathalie knew full well what to look for), the girl's account wasn't a fake either.

This was bad. This was very bad. Even ignoring how out of character this seemed for Adrien- was there some sort of blackmail involved? Coercion?- this was bad. The wedding would have all sorts of consequences that Nathalie was positive that Adrien wouldn't be able to handle. The cost to put it all together so quickly must have been absolutely staggering. The dresses and tuxes by themselves must have cost a pretty penny, considering that they were obviously designer, and what were the chances that Adrien had thought to rent the pieces instead of buying them? And on top of that they would have had to rush order the minister, the flowers the cake, the photographer, and reserve the clearly private garden.

Last minute rush orders for things like that did not come cheap. Nathalie knew that well after arranging for far too many last-minute changes for Gabriel photoshoots. And she doubted that Adrien's new wife had paid for any of it. Adrien had probably just volunteered to cover everything, bleeding heart that he was, and the little gold-digger had probably just happily accepted it.

Nathalie groaned as she returned to Adrien's page and saw a brand new post on the top. This one had a video and a caption of "Some wonderful people took a video of our special day so we could share it with everyone who wasn't there! Apologies for not inviting friends and family back in Paris, but we just couldn't wait! 3".

Nathalie was tempted to strangle Adrien the next time she saw him. Of all the irresponsible things...

She could already foresee the headaches sorting out this whole mess would cause.

  The Dupain-Chengs had not been expecting their daughter to call them up Sunday morning with the news that she was getting married to her collège crush. She had explained that it was fake right off the bat, of course, but still. Unexpected.

And also very, very amusing.

Marinette had sent them updates via text all day Sunday as their little 'fake wedding at the courthouse' turned into 'impromptu ceremony in a garden complete with wedding dress'. Her parents had become more and more amused as things got more and more complicated.

"Ooh, they got some really nice photos," Sabine said gleefully as she opened the folder of photos Marinette had uploaded to her Facebook Monday morning. "Ooh, look at her dress! I can't believe her boss let her borrow that. It's gorgeous."

"She should ask if she can borrow it in the future when she and the boy get married for real," Tom said with a grin, leaning over Sabine's shoulder to get a better look at the photos. "It looks good on her. Are you texting her? Tell her I send my compliments to whoever did her hair."

"It does look really nice," Sabine agreed, sending the message. "And her makeup as well! Of course Marinette did say that her boss called in some of the company's hair and makeup people."

"Mmm." Tom grinned at the series of photos of Adrien and Marinette's dip kiss. "Aww, so cute!"

"I'm downloading all of these," Sabine claimed with a grin. "All of them. And my phone background is going to be this picture, right here. They look so into that kiss."

"I'm posting my congratulations," Tom said, grin spreading even further across his face as he reached for the computer. "Be the proud dad that doesn't question his daughter's decisions at all. It'll confuse everyone."

Sabine giggled as she gave up the computer so Tom could type comments for each of the photos. He started with the cover photo and Marinette's profile photo before putting little proud comments on every photo in the wedding album. With another mischievous grin, Tom headed over to Adrien's profile and posted a few "I can't wait to meet my son-in-law!" comments on his page as well for good measure.

"So how long do you give them before they get married for real?" Sabine asked as they closed the computer and washed their hands before heading back into the bakery. "Two years? Three?"

"You really think it'll take that long?"

  Marinette and Adrien were having a very amusing day.

Texts, emails, and phone calls had been pouring from friends and family alike all day, ever since they posted the photos and changed their Facebook status. They gleefully ignored them, letting the confusion increase in favor of pretending they were too busy "honeymooning" to respond.

Of course, they were actually both working for Madam Rosalie- Marinette as an intern, and Adrien in the office filing paperwork as thanks for all of the help Madam Rosalie had supplied- but no one needed to know that.

"Oh, I got a comment from your dad!" Adrien said with a grin when they checked their Facebooks over lunch. "He said, 'I can't wait to meet my son-in-law! Lovely photos!' Nice man. I'm glad I have him as a fake father-in-law."

Marinette giggled. "Ooh, I wonder what Alya and Nino made of that."

Adrien grinned. "Oh, I bet their faces would be precious." He let out a snort at another comment and continued scrolling down. "I'm actually kind of concerned how many people I know actually think I would up and get married to a random person I supposedly met not even a day prior. I mean, I can kind of understand some of our friends from collège and lycée believing us since they know that we knew each other, but I'm getting congratulations from my photographer and a bunch of the models I work with, too...and from the Gorilla? Seriously? I thought he would know me better than that. I thought that he would recognize you for sure."

Marinette peered over his shoulder at his phone. "Any word from your father yet?"

Adrien shook his head. "Nope. I'm guessing that he's been too busy to check my Facebook yet. I'm sure I'll know the minute he sees it."

"What have you been doing for Madam Rosalie?" Marinette asked, changing the subject. "I haven't seen you all morning!"

"Oh, I've been neglecting you, my princess!" Adrien exclaimed grandly with a wide grin, grasping Marinette's hand and planting a kiss on her knuckles with a deep bow. "What kind of man does that to his brand-new fake wife?"

Marinette snickered.

"I've been putting my business degree to work and doing some paperwork for her," Adrien said with a little wince, releasing her hand and straightening back up again. "It's not my favorite thing ever, but it's not particularly difficult either. I'm just glad that she's letting me do something for in return for all the help she gave us yesterday. I'm sure she lost a bit of time getting that all set up for us."

"That was insane," Marinette agreed with a groan. "Everything really looked fantastic, though. I'm glad she helped out, even if it did take up several more hours of my weekend than I had planned for it to."

"I'm really sorry about dragging you into all of this," Adrien apologized immediately with a grimace. "I didn't expect for it to take so long either-"

"Really, it's fine," Marinette said hurriedly, before Adrien could get too far into his apologies. She had learned long ago that he had a tendency to overthink and get too worried about offending or inconveniencing others, and it was best to make sure that he didn't get too caught up in his (often unnecessary) concern. "I had fun, I really did. I would've just watched cooking show reruns all afternoon if I hadn't run into you."

"And quite literally as well," Adrien said, grinning and pressing his lips to Marinette's hand again. She groaned at the joke and pushed his face away with a finger on his nose. "Shall we get back to work?"

"I suppose."

  Shortly after two, Adrien's phone lit up again. He glanced at it briefly before going back to his work sorting through the pile of forms on Marinette's desk, certain that it was probably just Nino or Alya again. And then it lit up again.

And again.

And again.

"Ah, I think Father maybe has noticed my Facebook post," Adrien said mildly as the texts continued to pile up, along with several missed calls. "And Nathalie has as well, it seems."

"Oh, great," Marinette said, appearing in the doorway. She set a fresh stack of papers down at the end of the desk. "Did the trick work?"

"It did. I'm almost a little offended that he honestly thinks that I would be stupid enough to marry someone I just met," Adrien said, watching his phone as the string of texts kept piling up. "And Nathalie believes me as well! Do none of my father's staff actually know me well enough to know that I would never do that? And never mind that, don't any of them remember you? I could understand my dad not recognizing you, but Nathalie and the Gorilla both met all of my friends loads of times."

Marinette giggled. "Are you still getting texts from Nino and Alya as well?"

"I don't even know. Father is burying everything in his freak-out texts and I had stopped checking earlier. If I looked at my messages every time I got a new one, I wouldn't get anything done." Adrien grinned as he set the phone aside and pulled Marinette down into his lap for a hug. "How long should we let him simmer before we let him know we were kidding?"

Marinette bit her lip, thinking for a long second. "A day? I feel like any longer and he would freak out enough that the tabloids would catch on."

Adrien snickered. Marinette gave him a look.

"We don't need the tabloids trying to report on our nonexistent marriage," Marinette scolded him, though her lips were twitching in amusement. "They would never leave us alone again and I'd like to be able to complete my internship in peace, thank you very much."

"Ah, fair enough." Adrien checked his phone again before tucking it away out of sight. Really, this was the best reaction he could have hoped for. He had been a bit worried that his father would see right through him and render the whole effort useless, but it seemed that his concerns had been completely unfounded. "So, do you think my father will be able to get a plane over today, or is it late enough in the day that he won't be able to get a flight until tomorrow?"

  "What on earth could he have been thinking?" Gabriel exclaimed for the millionth time the next morning, more frustrated and impatient now that he was stuck on a plane and couldn't pace and shout without attracting attention from the other passengers. Gabriel Agreste didn't do attracting judging stares from strangers. He gestured to the photos filling Adrien's Facebook page yet again, as though Nathalie hadn't seen them a dozen times before. "He only knew her for a few hours! Oh, I knew I shouldn't have let him go off on his own..."

Nathalie, who had recognized Marinette Dupain-Cheng quite easily after the initial shock had finally worn off (several hours after initially seeing the post, but she wasn't about to admit that), didn't bother to correct Gabriel. She had analyzed the photos and Adrien's post again once her head was clearer (and then she headed back over to Marinette's Facebook page to check it against Adrien's again) and come to the conclusion that it was simply an elaborately staged prank. Adrien's wording was a little too perfect at suggesting he hadn't known Marinette for long when in reality they had known each other for years, and Marinette's page said nothing about only knowing Adrien for a few hours. Still, Nathalie wasn't going to alert Gabriel to her suspicions. She might be wrong, after all.

(Besides, Gabriel had gone a little overboard in his list of Do's and Do Not's for his son and watching his cool demeanor melt to pieces was amusing. As long as this was a prank, Nathalie heartily approved.)

(And, well, even if it wasn't…Miss Dupain-Cheng seemed to be quite a nice young lady, and she and Adrien had known each other for a while. It would be weird for them to skip over dating to go straight to marriage, but it wouldn't be the disaster Nathalie had initially assumed it would be.)

"I should have checked his page earlier in the day yesterday," Gabriel groaned, falling back in his seat with a thud. Thankfully the other passengers in first class had long since decided to ignore them. "Then we could have actually gotten a flight yesterday instead of having to wait."

Nathalie didn't respond. She personally didn't think the twenty hour delay would really make that much of a difference- after all, if Adrien was in fact married, there was nothing they could do about it now; if not, they had wasted money on airline tickets for nothing but it wasn't as though Gabriel's budget couldn't handle the cost. Adrien hadn't responded to the texts she had sent before they boarded the plane, giving him a heads-up that she and his father were coming.

Of course, Adrien could have responded while they were stuck in the plane. Nathalie wouldn't know for sure until the plane landed and she could turn her phone back on. Not having service was making her twitchy.

"Or we could have driven to London instead," Gabriel said, shifting anxiously in his seat and tapping his fingers restlessly against the armrest. "It would have been, what? Five hours, six hours?"

"Slightly over six with good traffic," Nathalie said without looking up. "And no offense, sir, but you get impatient enough on a one-hour plane ride even when Adrien isn't doing stupid things. You hate car rides longer than half an hour."

Gabriel grumbled under his breath and slumped in his seat. He corrected his posture a moment later and pulled out a notebook, stress doodling on a blank page. He didn't say much for the rest of the flight, though he did mutter under his breath quite a bit. As soon as they landed and had stopped at the gate, Gabriel was up and headed for the door, leaving Nathalie to snag their bags from the overhead bins before hurrying after him.

Gabriel powerwalked through the airport, sending people scattering to get out of his way. He summoned a cab with a couple sharp words (because Gabriel Agreste did not take public transportation, no matter how much cabs cost), and soon they were zipping off towards the neighborhood Adrien's apartment was in. Nathalie turned on her phone as soon as she was settled in her seat and frantically flipped through the messages that had piled up. All of them were work-related, most from having to reschedule the few meetings that Gabriel absolutely had to attend and that had been abruptly canceled and a few other messages from the inters that she had selected to attend other meetings and take notes for Gabriel to review later. With a sign, Nathalie finished scanning through them and stuck her phone back in her pocket. The meetings could wait; after all, she didn't know for sure how soon they would be able to head back to Paris.

Nathalie pulled her phone back out as it let out another chime, the custom one she had set up just for messages from Adrien. She raised her eyebrows at the dual texts from Adrien- 'Just made new Facebook post' and 'At Madam Rosalie's fashion business'- before setting the phone aside and navigating to Adrien's page on her tablet. He had posted another photo, set in the same park as before, and with the same wedding party as before. This time, there were more people in the photo, including quite a few in streetwear, and a woman Nathalie recognized as Madam Rosalie. The caption read: 'Thanks to everyone who helped us pull off the impromptu wedding! In case you haven't already guessed, it was completely fake. I'm slightly concerned by how many people thought we weren't kidding though! :D'.

Nathalie was torn between letting out a huff of exasperation and a relieved sigh at the confirmation that Adrien had not lost all of his common sense after all. She suspected that the timing of the prank reveal probably wasn't coincidental; after all, the best way to stop Gabriel from going on a rampage through London looking for his son was to come clean. She suspected that Adrien probably had anticipated this exact reaction from his father and had pulled the prank with the intention of provoking him, but she wasn't about to admit that to Gabriel.

"Adrien has posted something new on Facebook, sir," Nathalie said, holding out her tablet a bit gingerly. Mr. Agreste probably wouldn't break it in frustration. Probably. Hopefully. "You might want to read it."

"More photos with his new wife?" Still, Gabriel took the tablet without complaint, though there was a deep scowl on his face. "He should know better, she's probably some gold-digging floozy- oh."

Nathalie allowed her lips to twitch upwards before resuming her professionally blank expression.

"Ha-ha, very funny." Gabriel sounded completely unamused. "Very mature."

"They did a really good job setting it up," Nathalie said. It was impressive, really, even if it did look like most of the crew involved were involved in fashion and were probably used to staging things for photoshoots and runway shows. They were probably used to setting things up and making them look convincing on short notice.

"I suppose." Gabriel still didn't sound impressed and the scowl was still in place, though it was somewhat diminished. "I still fail to see why it was necessary."

Nathalie really didn't think it was that difficult to figure out. "Adrien probably decided to rebel against all of the rules you set for him. Technically, you didn't forbid him from getting married. Or from pretending to get married." She glanced back down at her phone and leaned forward to tap the cab driver's shoulder. "Change of destination to Rosalie Fashions. Adrien sent me a text," she explained to Gabriel.

"Right." Gabriel handed her tablet back over to her and settled back into his seat, displeased expression still firmly in place. "Let's go talk to my son."

  It was shortly after noon on Tuesday when Nino picked Alya up from work for a quick picnic in the park. As expected, Alya immediately dove back into their discussion about Adrien and Marinette, picking up right where they had left off that morning.

"I wish we could have gone over to Tom and Sabine's bakery," Alya grumbled as Nino spread out their blanket on the grass. "Did you see Tom's comments on Marinette's page? He was totally fine with Marinette getting married in a foreign country with absolutely no warning!"

"I'm guessing that either Marinette called him beforehand or he already had words with her but wanted to put up a positive front in public view," Nino said reassuringly, hoping to get Alya to calm down. The surprise marriage was all Alya had talked about ever since they had seen the post, and Tom Dupain's comments had only served to add fuel to the fire. Alya was absolutely speechless that Marinette's parents didn't seem to have any problem with it, as was Nino. It was just weird. "Or he didn't want to create bad blood with them. Maybe they'll have another ceremony in Paris so we can actually go in person and see them instead of watching a video."

The video, which had dispelled all doubts about the legitimacy of the photos. It had been a lovely ceremony, no doubt, which made Nino wonder how on earth they had pulled that off on such short notice. Adrien didn't know anyone there besides Marinette and Marinette had only been there for a short while, so they couldn't have possibly made that many connections already. Maybe they had gone to a wedding planner. Nino wouldn't put it past Adrien; his best friend was a romantic at heart and would no doubt want the best for his bride, even if he had to pay a ton to get things done on such short notice.

Also, Nino wasn't completely convinced that Adrien was used to being concerned about money. Since Adrien came from such a rich family, he never seemed to flinch at the cost of anything. Hopefully Marinette could help him get better at managing his money before Adrien accidentally spent himself into a hole.

"And he posted on Adrien's page, too! Calling him his son-in-law! Did you see that?" Alya was on a roll. "And a bunch of models from Gabriel were commenting and congratulating him! For eloping! Some of them thought that he had only known Marinette for a day and they still thought it was super cool!"

"Models are cray-cray." Nino had thought that was weird, too, but maybe eloping with people they just met was normal behavior in the model world. He wouldn't know. He had only accompanied Adrien to a couple photoshoots before, and they had been ages ago. He hadn't really talked to many on the models there besides Adrien either.

"And I still can't get a response out of either of them!" Alya finished indignantly. "What are they doing?"

"Do you really want to know?" Nino asked dryly. If Marinette and Adrien had just gotten married, they could very well have decided to have an express staycation honeymoon before Adrien's orientation for classes started on Wednesday. He would rather not think about it. After all, it was their best friends that they were talking about. He didn't want to know what they were or weren't getting up to.

"I want to know what's going on! How on earth could they go for years and years knowing each other and not dating and then they just happen to bump into each other in London and decide to get married right off the bat? It's absolutely crazy!"

Nino's phone beeped with an alert and he pulled it out as Alya continued to grumble. A new Facebook post had shown up on his feed, so he clicked on it as Alya snarled about the injustices of the shotgun wedding. Another photo of Marinette and Adrien's wedding came up, filled with the whole wedding party and a handful of other people, including...Marinette's boss?

Confused, Nino scrolled down to see the caption.

"'Thanks to everyone who helped us pull off the impromptu wedding! In case you haven't already guessed, it was completely fake. I'm slightly concerned by how many people thought we weren't kidding though!' Smiley face. What the hell, Adrien?" Nino exclaimed, cutting across whatever Alya was saying. "What made him think that that was a good idea?"

Alya froze mid-sentence, her hands paused mid-gesture. "What?"

"It was a fake! Adrien just made a post about it." Nino passed his phone over to her. "That jerk! That's a crazy prank."

"Ooh! I can't believe them!" Alya was still steaming, even as Nino chuckled over the prank. It was really clever, now that he thought about it, and wow had they ever executed it well. He had absolutely zero idea how Adrien had managed to pull that off within 24 hours of getting to London. There were just so many details, from the dress and tux and flowers to the cleric and the flower gardens, all without alerting the press. Alya had figured out the previous night that the wedding party was made up of assorted people that Marinette worked with (a fact that irritated Alya to no end, since she should have been the Maid of Honor), so they probably had been easy to get a hold of, but the cleric? The garden? The designer dresses?

Absolutely insane. Nino wasn't believing anything Adrien ever said ever again. Or anything Marinette said either, the jerk.

"And I can't believe I fell for it!" Alya stormed. "Ugh, those jerks!"

"They were probably primarily trying to prank Adrien's father," Nino pointed out. Now that he knew that the wedding wasn't real, it hadn't taken him long at all to put the pieces together. Adrien had been grumbling about his father's crazy restrictions for forever, so of course he would probably take the opportunity to pretend that he had smashed those restrictions into pieces the second he was gone. It was completely hilarious.

….well, okay, he was still a little concerned about how much Adrien had spent on the fake wedding, but other than that it was completely hilarious.

That helped diffuse some of Alya's anger. A grin lit up her face. "Oh, man. What I would give to have been in the room when Gabriel saw that first post. He must have flipped, oh my god."

Nino snickered at the mental picture.

"I can't actually believe that they pranked Adrien's father," Alya snorted. "Oh, that's hilarious. But they're still not completely forgiven," she added. "They pranked us, too. They could have at least given us a heads up like they clearly did for Marinette's parents!"

Nino shrugged, still cackling away. As far as he was concerned, the whole thing was completely hilarious. There was no harm, no foul-

"Oh, shoot," Alya said suddenly, interrupting his thoughts as she suddenly lunged across the blanket for her phone, eyes wide and a slightly panicked expression on her face. "Oh shoot oh shoot oh shoot oh no-"

"What's wrong?" Nino asked, completely baffled as Alya brought up her text messenger on her phone and frantically started scrolling through the messages she had sent. "I'm sure if you said anything rude, Marinette and Adrien will understand it was just said in the heat of the moment."

"No, no- I mean, yeah, I said a couple rude things, but that's not what I'm worried about." Alya tapped Adrien's contact and scrolled up the wall of texts she had sent. "I, uh, might have sent a text to Adrien earlier on basically saying that I had tried to set the two of them up for years, so I was very offended that they didn't even invite me or let me know what was going on. And, uh, if they didn't actually get married, then Marinette probably didn't confess at all and, uh, I just outed her to Adrien by accident."

[cracklook1-blog]

Decluttr vs Amazon: Where to Sell Your Stuff

Psst, do you want to hear a secret? (I’m assuming you answered yes, because who says no to that?) Alright, this is a little hard for me to say, but… I have too much stuff. I know it’s hardly the salacious secret that keeps tabloids in business, but it’s still something I feel uncomfortable saying out loud.

It’s probably that throughout my formative years, advertisers bombarded me with the message that more stuff makes people happy: more toys, more clothes, more expensive gadgets to entertain myself. Basically, Western culture sells you this myth that buying things will bring you happiness. If you run out of space in your closet, you can always pack your seasonal items in boxes in the attic. Out of room in your DVD stand? You can always buy another. If you run out of room in your house, you can always pay a company a monthly fee to store the skis you’ve used twice and the furniture you inherited from Grandma that doesn’t suit your style right now, but maybe one day.

Unsplash

Ending the Cycle

Over the past three years, I have begun to reject this notion. I think it’s probably that I now work from home, which means I’m surrounded by my stuff all day long, so I feel a little suffocated by it. It’s also probably that I’m no longer in the city center, so I don’t waste my lunch break buying fast fashion. I don’t think I’m the only person who feels like that.

Whether you’ve been inspired by Marie Kondo’s Netflix special “Tidying Up,” you’re getting a jump start on spring cleaning, or you’re just fed up with never being able to find the item you actually want in your overflowing dresser, there is no better time to start decluttering. And no better time to start making money from it.

Yes, that’s right. It’s time to trade in your unwanted items for cold, hard cash. Money that could be used to pay something off your mortgage, let you take a weekend break or be put towards your children’s college funds.

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Benefits of Decluttering

Making extra cash

Decluttering can also be a real money maker, which is probably what led you to this post in the first place. Your trash is someone else’s treasure, and they might be willing to pay big bucks for it. While you probably can’t afford to retire selling unwanted items that are currently hidden away under your bed, you could make enough money to take a couple of days off work and treat yourself.

Saving the environment

When we buy new, manufacturers have to use more natural resources to create our products. If we hoard perfectly usable items that we just don’t need any more (or worse, drop them off the dump), it means that someone else will go out and buy it new. This is unsustainable.

Improving mental health

According to Psychology Today, decluttering can boost your confidence, self-efficacy, energy levels, and creativity, while reducing anxiety and stress. This is because you’re forced into a productive mode and the endorphins you get from that will encourage you to continue marking items off your to-do list. It also means that you can find what you need more easily, which means rushing everywhere because you couldn’t find something that you needed (i.e., car keys).

So, let’s not beat around the bush anymore. You have items you want to get rid of, and you want to know the best way to do it.

Decluttr

Decluttr is an easy, fast, and free way to sell your items online. All you have to do is enter the name of the tech product (i.e., iPhone 7) or the barcode of media items (i.e., CDs or books), answer a couple of questions, and they’ll give you an instant price. (They even have a free mobile app to streamline the process by allowing you to scan the barcodes with your phone’s camera.)

If you like the price, then they’ll send you a free shipping label, and you just drop the box of items off at your nearest UPS store. The day after Decluttr receives your items, they’ll make the payment. It couldn’t be simpler.

What does Decluttr take?

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Cell Phones

CDs

DVDs

Blu-rays

Video Games

Books

Smartphones

Tablets and Kindles

Wearable Tech

Consoles

Apple Products (i.e., iPods, iPads, and Macbooks)

LEGO (bought loose by weight)

Pros

Simple: Nothing could be easier than typing or scanning in your item, accepting an offer, and posting it off. You don’t have to write a description or take photos. You don’t have to worry about buyers changing their minds. And you don’t have to worry about sorting out shipping labels.

Fast: If you need to get rid of your stuff quickly, perhaps ahead of a move, Decluttr is the ideal choice. You can sell and post everything in just one day. You’ll probably even get paid in less than a week.

Free: Most online marketplaces will charge you a fee to list your items and an additional fee when your item sells. You’ll also have to pay for shipping unless you charge the buyer for it. This can add up, especially if your products aren’t selling for that much.

Best price for electronics: Decluttr claims proudly to give the best prices for electronics and, based on a small study I did of items in and around my home office, they did. In fact, on my 32GB iPhone 5, Decluttr offered more than double its nearest competitor.

Cons

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Less money for media items: Decluttr is buying your products to sell onto other customers or to recycle its components. This means that to make a profit, they buy your unwanted items at less than they are worth. While some users report offers of $5 per media item, you’re more likely to make $0.50-1. So, you might make more money selling them directly on an online marketplace, even with the fees. Also, if there’s any kind of damage the items, Decluttr won’t pay you, and they won’t send the items back.

Less product variety: Decluttr has a set list of stuff it will and won’t buy, so if you want to sell off some old clothes or a stuffed toy, you’ll have to find somewhere else.

Doesn’t buy older tech: Another problem is that Decluttr considers some tech or media too out of date to be worth anything. A quick search for the original iPhone yielded no results, but I sold mine last year on an online marketplace for $35. (It might have been the nostalgia factor, rather than anyone wanting to use it as a phone.)

Amazon Trade-In Program

The Amazon Trade-In Program is a simple way for you to trade in your unwanted items. All you have to do is look up the item that you want to trade in, click the trade in button, and you’ll get an immediate price.

You then ship the items to Amazon using their pre-paid shipping label and get paid soon after your items arrive. They also have a free iOS and Android app that you can use to scan your items in.

What does Amazon Trade-In take?

Books

Cell Phones

Video Games

Tablets and Kindles

Bluetooth Speakers

Amazon Echo

Streaming Media Players

Video game console

Video game accessory

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Pros

Free: There are no fees or hidden charges to the Trade-In Program. Amazon will even issue you a free tracked shipping label for your items. All you have to do is find a box. (Pro Tip: Supermarkets will give you free boxes if you ask nicely.)

Simple: As with Decluttr, you’ll never have to deal with difficult buyers asking questions that they could easily Google, like “Does this console work in Britain?” or “Does Region 2 play in Australia?” You also don’t have to mess around with creating a listing or actively trying to sell the item.

No cost for returned items: If your item is damaged or can’t be accepted for any reason, then Amazon will return it free of charge. This is great news for those of you worried about losing the item and not getting paid for it.

Instant payment: Some customers will be eligible for instant payment when submitting certain items, but, obviously, if the Trade-In is canceled or the items are not accepted, then Amazon will charge your account for the amount they placed on your gift card.

Cons

Items must be in good condition: Unlike other sites that will take broken or damaged items to recycle for spares, Amazon requires the products to be in the same condition that they are listed as in the Trade-In Store.

Paid in Amazon gift cards rather than cash: If you’re saving money to buy a big ticket Amazon item (i.e., a Kindle Fire), you use Amazon a lot for shopping, or it’s your go-to for gift shopping, then this could work out well for you. After all, there’s no chance that you’ll spend the money on something else. However, if you’re looking to spend the extra money on a holiday or save for a down payment on a house, then you’ll be miffed that you can only spend it on the site.

Fewer types of items accepted: Amazon doesn’t accept as many types of items as some other sites, so you can’t sell DVDs or CDs to them anymore, but they do advise checking back regularly, as they are constantly updating the catalog. However, as with Decluttr, they are unlikely to accept non-media related items.

Which One Should You Choose?

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This is the really important question that has been on your lips since you clicked onto this article comparing Decluttr vs Amazon, but in all honesty, it depends on what you have to sell, what you want the money for, and what price you want to sell it for.

For example, if you have a lot of DVDs and CDs to sell or you want to be paid in cash, you’ll need to choose Decluttr. However, if you’re looking to spend the money on an Amazon product, then choose the Amazon Trade-In Program if they offer a better price. It really is dependent on your circumstances.

However, it never hurts to mix and match. List your item through both apps to see who is offering you the best price for it and then choose the highest bidder.

If Amazon is offering only slightly more on a book, then weigh up whether you should get the lower price in cash just to increase the amount of money in your pocket. However, if Amazon does happen to offer you a higher price for your tech items, you can always show that to Decluttr and ask them to match it because they do advertise the best price for tech items. It’s a win-win-win situation.

Getting Rid of Stuff That Hasn’t Sold

There is a chance that you might not be able to sell all your unwanted items via either Decluttr or Amazon. It could be that your product falls outside the categories that they buy or is not in the condition that they require. But don’t throw it away just yet, there are still plenty of ways to make money from your goods.

Depending on the item, you might be able to sell them directly to customers via an online marketplace or to local shops for store credit or even to a pawnbroker.

Pawn Shop 

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These type of shops can have a bad reputation, but they can allow you to get rid of electronics, jewelry, antiques, or any number of things depending on what they specialize in. This means that you can get rid of a lot of diverse items in one go.

Pros

Easy

Can buy back items if you change your mind

Quick

Cons

Lower money than you could get elsewhere

eBay

This is most people’s go-to site for selling stuff online. Here you can sell anything from old CDs and DVDs to a brand new car and everything in between. You’ll have to do a bit of work to create a listing, including taking good photos, making a note of any damage, and working out how much it will cost to ship, but this can often result in getting more cash than for a basic listing.

Pros

Sell almost anything

Free listings are available

Can make more money selling this way

Cons

Fees

Dealing with problem buyers

Can take ages for your item to sell

Shipping can be tricky to arrange

Yard Sale

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I think everyone knows how a yard sale works. You put out a table, set out your items to sell, and spend a Saturday on your front lawn. It’s often best to do this as a neighborhood effort to get more people interested and get more potential customers milling about

Pros

Free

Sell almost anything

Payment in cash and upfront

Cons

Hagglers

Need to get publicity

Facebook Marketplace

This is sort of like eBay, but there are no fees. You take a picture, write a description, name your price, and wait for buyers to come to you.

Pros

Free

Sell almost anything

Cons

Problems getting payment (Top tip: stick with PayPal or a similar service)

Shipping can be tricky

Can take ages to sell

What if You Can’t Sell Your Items There Either?

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If you’ve tried all of the methods above and you still can’t shift your goods, then you might not be able to get any money for them, but that doesn’t mean that you have to ditch them. Why not try donating the items to charity for a tax write off? This is a fantastic opportunity for you to clear out, do good, and get some tax relief for it.

If you have old, but still good condition, clothing, electronic, or homeware items, seek out your local shelter for domestic abuse victims, homeless people, or refugees. They can make the world of difference for someone starting a new life.

If you have bedding or towels that have seen better days, you can donate them to the local animal shelter for the rescue animals to use as bedding. It also great to donate any toys, clothes, or treats that your pet doesn’t like.

Or you can always drop any unwanted items off at your local Goodwill, where they’ be sold for charity.

What if your items aren’t decent enough to donate?

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If the item is too worn or damaged to be usable by the average person, you can always drop it off at your local recycling center. Many places will recycle electrical goods for free, but some will even take damaged clothing and the like to strip down into fabric that can be reused.

Now that you’ve done all the hard work to get rid of your unwanted items, try to save the money to pay off bills (i.e., student loan or mortgages) or towards experiences (i.e. holiday or days out), rather than putting it back into stuff that might not have long-term benefits for you.

In the long run, it’s better to buy slightly more expensive and better quality items, rather than having to replace your leggings every other month, and timeless items that won’t get thrown out next season. It’s better for the planet and your wallet.

Now, I’d like to hear from you about your experiences with Decluttr or the Amazon Trade-In Program or how you’ve made money selling your unwanted items on. Let me know all that in more in the comments below.

Source: http://www.thebudgetdiet.com/decluttr-vs-amazon-where-to-sell-your-stuff

[thewanderingmacy]

Prague

We’re almost caught up as I was in Prague under a week ago, from the 18-25.

Prague was really pretty. it met all my high expectations in terms of architecture and visual appeal. 

The first day I visited the medieval Jewish Quarter. It was surprisingly busy (like packed, wait in a lineup for 30 minutes busy) but I think it’s because I came at a time when a lot of tour groups were arriving. I saw the old synagogue and then walked a bit further (not much though because, as per usual, the jews were confined to a small space) to a memorial for the Czech victims of the holocaust, an old (massive!) Jewish Cemetery and 3 more synagogues/museum type spaces. I didn’t expect it to take so long but I was exploring the Jewish territory for about 3 hours before I headed to the city square for a tour. I actually had to rush, too (good for me for getting my Jew on). I was actually looking for a souvenir for my Jewish grandmother but I didn’t recognize any of the things. It was confusing me because I couldn’t tell if something was a Czech souvenir being sold in a synagogue or it was a Jewish icon. (Don’t worry, Huna- I’ll find something!). I arrived in the town square which was very pretty and lively and felt very Renaissance-y with a lot of pastel colours and decorative fronts, with a large Medieval cathedral in the background and the famous Prague clock providing the only dark buildings. I joined the walking tour for about 30 minutes (20 of that was the company just organizing us into two groups to start). My tour guide had a mullet and made us touch the cobblestone ground to “feel the beating heart of Europe”. That, combined with the fact that it was like 7 degrees in the middle of April, was too much for me and I left. I also really wanted to explore the town square, as their Easter market went on for a week so all the stalls with cute gifts and food were open. I got myself some apple cider. They also had a hot apple wine and for a second I thought i accidentally got that but I was in the clear. I chugged that down and then got a sausage for lunch. I took about 8 million photos before heading to the old town hall where the history of the town hall was laid out. I bought a ticket for a tour an hour from then and explored the tower, with the famous clock. I walked up the top and satisfyingly read all the cards explaining the detailed history of the town hall. I gotta say, I have a weird obligation to fully understand the place I’m in/the history I’m in, even though, most of the time, I don’t really want to read the plaques and what not, or see the statues, or sometimes even the cathedrals (I must have seen at least 50 by now), but I do it to satisfy my future self, knowing that I properly grasped the place, if that makes sense. Whenever I see a hill, I don’t want to climb it no matter what’s on top but I always suffer just to check it off my list of sights, and I always feel guilty when I don’t go through with something. Speaking of not going through, I never did the tour of the clock tower that I had a ticket for. It came with the ticket to visit the tower and was at a weird time, as I still had exploring to do. But I did walk up (elevator down, though) and get a great panoramic view of the town square. After that, I explored the surrounding area, did a wee bit of shopping (I found a shirt that I’d been looking for in Ireland so I figured I had to buy it), before heading back to the hostel.

I spoke a bit about the girls in my dorm room. There was a nice, normal British girl above me whom I spoke to for a bit. She was taking a week off from her job, as it was Easter so she had a long weekend and just extended it. I think the following night I met the two other girls I mentioned, the one from New York and the party girl who was English, but raised in NYC so she sounded American. She’d just completed her degree in Switzerland too and was headed to Miami in July for a job in hospitality. The (full on) NYC girl was nice and very friendly but she spoke strangely. She kind of sounded like a dumb person trying to sound smart all the time. She’d make comments on Jews, and Israel, saying you can’t claim something you left behind but I was I don’t think the Jews left voluntarily? I don’t know, she was kind of innocent and simple and overly open, as in she told her all about her family. She was nice and offered me a place to stay if I’m ever in New York, and I could tell she was like a decently aware person in terms of liberal views but she just tried really hard or something. It’s hard to describe her but overall, she was friendly and had a good core, though seemed a bit misinformed whenever she spoke. The British-NYC-party girl seemed decent enough (I don’t really care about the partying thing so much as a character defining trait, while it does admittedly make relate to her less) but then she started talking about how she hates fat people and I was like Ok? so you’re a bad person, I can see that now. The most normal girl, the 100% british girl said she hated fat people too and me and the NYC girl were silent as they gushed over how much they hated fat people. Like first of all, that’s super offensive and inconsiderate because it literally has nothing to do with you and second of all, you were “blessed” (for lack of a better word) with being thin so you have ZERO idea what someone who wasn’t is going through. The reason I say that last part is because the party girl actually said “I don’t have an appetite, I don’t even like to eat most of the time”. Like bitch, that isn’t something to brag about. It is super mentally and physically unhealthy to treat eating as a trivial. Also, that fact that you say that to strangers is an obvious power move (as we were talking about our favourite foods, a conversation I was actually happy to participate in) to assert yourself as above us who are subject the horrors (read: gaining weight) of eating. Anyway, she just pissed me off and, at the time I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t sure what to say, but I thought about it a lot and determined that she’s a fucked up, privileged and just downright unintelligent asshole.

Alright, now back to Prague. one day I went to the Castle quarters where I explored the old cathedral and the government buildings, and the old palace. I bought a ticket for a tour there, which I actually went on, and got a decent understanding of the space as it had purposes beyond housing royalty such as the government being situated there as well. I also saw a cute area of it called The Golden Lane which was made up to look like an old medieval street with artifacts and rooms decorated as they would have been. I’m not sure if the buildings were actually authentic as well, though, and I had to rush to catch my tour. Another day, I explored the Charles Bridge and around the west side of the bridge were a lot of cute art shops were, as well as parks and a stunning 17th century garden with more great pano views. Another day, I went to the Troja Palace and the Prague Botanical Gardens, as well as a memorial on a MASSIVE hill that almost killed me. The palace was empty except for the fresco ceilings and walls but man were they gorgeous. I also got in for $0.20, I don’t know why the ticket guy charged me the price of a child under 5 but I’ll accept it. I took so many photos of the interiors and of the gardens, I keep posting them on instagram because they really took the cake in terms of bare interior design. I also climbed a massive hill to the botanical gardens, as well as a greenhouse though I don’t know why I did that- I thought it’d be more adult oriented but it was just filled with small children and butterflies. The memorial that I hiked to was so steep, I remember wanting to sit down on the paved road. And, by that point, I’d seen enough good views so I was just tired. Oh, also on this day (damn I was busy that day), I went to a mall and had some amazing Chinese food- fried chicken and rice with a sweet sauce, and saw the movie The Lost City of Z. I can’t tell how I feel about it though because, as I was watching it, I kept thinking the pacing is strange and the character isn’t very dimensional and then at the end it said “based on a true story” so I have to reevaluated everything I processed with that new context.

A different day, I’d planned on going to a market and visiting the New Town (for reference, the old town was surrounding and including the town square and the New Town, though still a couple hundred years old at least, was south of there) but I woke up and, after trying to update my phone, it stopped turning on. It was a Saturday too, of course, so nothing but an apple store in a mall was open, so that’s all I did that day, really, besides visiting an antique fair where everything was expensive. But! at the fair, there was a booth for fashion from the 1850′s-1920′s with a flyer for a museum space by the castle that showcases clothing items from those periods. The employee at the booth spoke at me in Czech for a few minutes and I just nodded because, at that point, it was too awkward to tell her I didn’t understand. I did end up going to the fashion museum and had a good time. The employee there spent about 30 minutes with me, going over the pieces which I enjoyed.

On the last day, I visited a massive park west of the river, where the library and monastery were. Again, it was a hike but this time it actually had some sicker that usual views. I had to wait for some hoes taking photos at one stop and, after waiting for literally 5 full minutes, I just snuck in beside them and took them because they were being rude and inconsiderate, so I was too. I visited the sites at the top of the hill, including the very pretty libraries for mother. I’d been trying to get to a nice library for a well. There was one in Oxford but it was only accessible by tour so I didn’t go, I tried to go to one in Dublin but the doors were locked when I got there, and at another place in Prague, the library was closed for renovation, so I was glad to see at least one beautiful library.

I mostly (pretty much only) eat in now. I treat myself maybe once every week to a meal out. I got a chicken schnitzel and some potatoes in Prague which were delicious and cheap ($5!). I had a lot of PB and J sandwiches and testing out some pasta dishes. I tried an Alfredo sauce which was nasty (I also got the wrong milk- some Slovenian bs and some gross, tart cheese which looked like feta but was clearly not), as well as some butter and mozzarella but the butter is weird, and, later on, I tried tomato sauce that was gross. I was struggling to say the least. I’ve gotten a bit more used to my options here- hot dogs and, today, mac and cheese. Snack wise, I’ve been going to town on Nutella and pretzels. 

Well, I think that’s it for now.

Macy